Lace Vengeance

Lace Vengeance Eve Dangerfield To V. For getting me through. Table of Contents Title Page Dedication Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Epilogue About Dangerous Press About Eve Dangerfield Copyright Prologue Teresa Calderoli It’s three in the morning and rain is hitting the windows like it’s trying to break them. The screams shattering the house for the last forty hours have stopped. The silence is worse. Evelyn Blay-Whitehall has been in labor for two days and there’s no sign she’s close to birthing. I hurry up the hall, my arms piled with the last clean towels in the house and climb the wooden staircase. I go as fast as I can and it makes my knees ache, as it always does these days. I turn for the master bedroom, and I bump right into a woman. “Sor—” I start, but when I see who it is, my apology dies on my lips. It’s Corinne Hawthorne, Mr. Whitehall’s assistant. Eh mannaggia, what is she doing creeping around the house past midnight? “I was here to deliver a contract to Mr. Whitehall,” the girl says, as though reading my mind. “Nicholas invited me to spend the night so I wouldn’t have to drive home during the storm.” “Of course, bella,” I say, avoiding her eyes. I’ve seen her and Mr. Whitehall together, their heads bent close, whispering and laughing. The girl shakes out her blonde bob. “I mean it. Nicholas and I had important business to discuss.” “Of course,” I repeat. She blinks and I see her realize she’s justifying herself to a housemaid. Her face relaxes. “Where are those towels going? To the master bedroom?” “The doctor needs them,” I say, sidestepping the girl. “Let me know if you want pajamas or anything else.” I don’t expect her to respond but she reaches out, grabs my shoulder. “One thing,” she says in the voice of those who’ve always had maids and drivers and people like me to assist them. “Has Evelyn had her baby yet?” I don’t want to answer, but it’s the fastest way I can think to get past. “No. Not yet.” “And do you…” she asks delicately. “…think she will?” I look into the girl’s wideset blue eyes. They lend her a deceptive innocence that doesn’t fool me at all. I picture the dark room down the hall, the doctors and midwives huddled around the four-poster bed and dread curdles in my stomach like bad milk. “I don’t know.” I raise the towels like an explanation. “I have to go.” “Sure,” Corinne calls after me. “I hope Evelyn’s okay.” I continue down the hall, my stomach churning. The girl worries me. Her entitlement. That she feels completely at home wandering around her employer’s house, asking questions about his wife. She is a woman without character. A viper who wears Grace Kelly’s face. She wants Nicholas for herself and with Mrs. Whitehall trapped in bed, slowly bleeding… But I will not think of the worst. I won’t let it enter my head. I reach the master bedroom. The room smells of blood and I’m transported back to Foggia, to watching my mother and Zia’s bring children into this world. But never for this long and never this violently. I give the towels to a helpless-looking nurse and as I do, I catch a glimpse of Evelyn’s face. She’s pale as the sheets around her and her lips are almost blue. She moans, a low animal sound and fear that flashes through me like the lightning forking the sky outside. Mr. Whitehall is arguing with the doctor. “Call an ambulance. Get her to the hospital and give her a c-section.” “It’s too late,” the doctor says. “She can’t be moved and the baby’s too far gone. She’ll have to keep going.” I don’t realize I’m performing the sign of the cross until I’ve tapped my right shoulder. It doesn’t matter what I think now, what I will or won’t allow myself to imagine. The doctor’s sweat-spotted brow says it all. Death is coming tonight. The question is will it be the mother, the child, or both? Mrs. Blay-Whitehall knew her baby was in breech, but she’d given birth at home three times, and she didn’t want to be away from her other children. I think of them, Margot, Harris, and Lachlan lying asleep in their beds. Will they see their mother tomorrow? Will they see her ever again? Evelyn screams, but the noise has a desperate, whistling note, like a balloon losing air. The fresh towels are laid down, the nurses circle like crows. “Push,” the doctor bellows as my fingers rise to tap the four points of the cross again. “Push, Evelyn!” Evelyn doesn’t scream, she whimpers. A low, throbbing sound that sets my teeth on edge. She writhes and twists, shining with sweat and the seconds pass in agony. When I think it can’t get any worse, when all the hairs on my neck stand on end, there is a scream. A new scream. High and furious. I rush forward to see the baby lifted in the doctor’s arms. It’s tiny and purple and covered in blood. A little girl. Undersized but with bright eyes and flailing limbs. She gives another healthy wail and I release a breath I didn’t know I was holding. “She’s alive,” Mr. Whitehall sobs. “January’s alive, Evelyn. She’s beautiful!” But Evelyn isn’t looking at her daughter, her gaze is turning inward, her body going still against the bloody towels. The doctor clamps the umbilical cord and thrusts the child at a nurse. “Take it.” She backs away like he’s holding a bomb. “I can’t…Mr. Whitehall?” But Mr. Whitehall is staring blankly at Evelyn, the knowledge of what is about to happen dawning on him for the first time. The baby gives an ear-splitting wail and the