Author's Notes: I feel too many emotions right now, about this fic being completed. I've increasingly felt like this is my magnum opus really, for the Sherlock fandom. Because my feelings about finally finishing this fic are so broad and huge and complicated, I'm going to keep this short and sweet:
This fic, I am aware, has contained tropes and themes that aren't extremely popular in fandom. I thank every reader who has kept up with this fic, bookmarked, commented and left kudos. Each and every one of you are gems.
You deserve the best life has to give you, and much more besides, believe me.
Thank you for being with me on this journey. Thank you so much.
(TW: mention of past child loss and dub-con included in this chapter.)
Looking in a still cracked mirror, Irene Adler drew the plum net veil over her eyes. Her lips were a dark shade of crimson, like the fresh blood from a deer. Like the stories lords described after imbibing wine. Her gloves were cotton. The mantelpiece clock had been replaced. A pristine face now, hands moving and the cogs clicking and shifting, producing the tick, tick, tick. It filled the room.
Irene Adler waited while maids folded her possessions into trunks, tucking away each memory into folded garments and wrapped opulence. She stood in the middle of an emptying room as footmen left and returned, hands at once full then empty of trunks and trinkets. Provided carriages down below on the street filled up with the cargo.
"Lady Adler," said the butler, standing in the doorway. His gloved hand rested on the door handle. His eyes fell to the tangled sheets.
"My courtesan and I," she said, without shame but a smile. The smile curled into a smirk, and her brow curved up to a sharp point as she glanced at the bed. One last fuck, she thought. Clearing her throat, taking one last look at the mirror, she walked towards the doors, leaving the words behind.
The butler drew the two doors closed. His key turned in the lock; the sound followed her path down the stairs.
Irene hid behind the curtains of the carriage window, while one of her trunks, heavy with silk dresses and muslin gowns, was pushed underneath her seat. The hard cobbles of London rocked the carriage gently from side to side, and she felt the hard biting metal of the trunk's latches at her ankles. The cobbles gradually turned to mud, and horses' hooves splashed against puddles of rainwater. All the while, Irene Adler remained hidden.
The party stopped as night fell at a halfway house, just on the outskirts of a small town, where the lights of London were simply braziers that lit the entrance to a hay-strewn stone courtyard. The proprietor combed his straggles of grey hair over his bald head, working slowly to feed and water the horses while his boy worked too quickly to feed and water the drivers.
"Perhaps a bed for the night, ma'am?" offered the proprietor's wife to Irene, drawing back the carriage curtains. Irene raised her chin, looking at the hostess through her netted veil. The wife was fat from pies and puddings, sweating at her temple in the chilly night air, and only innocently inquiring.
"No, thank you."
The wife smiled and nodded. "Then I'll leave you be ma'am."
The proprietor finished his work then, and the drivers returned to their posts. The boy chased their convoy down the dirt path, waving goodbye while his mother chased to catch him, her husband already greeting the next party.
Irene's stomach churned, a knot turning tight within her. Pulling the curtain closed, leaning back into carriage's darkness, Irene breathed hard. She tugged her cloak around her, sank into the plush velvet of her seat, and slept through the passing evening.
The changed horses ran fast over the rain wet ground, churning the mud underneath their hooves. The carriage curtains flapped hard in the wind. Irene woke to a sound of thunder overhead, and the call of her driver, urging the horses harder. Losing her balance for a moment, she took a breath and held firm to her seat, the reactions more like instinct when her mind still lost somewhere in the depths of London while rain lashed.
The rain didn't abate on her arrival to the estates. Her husband stood in the shelter of the doorway with his hands folded behind his back. Giving her his hand as she stepped out of the carriageway, her driver held an umbrella above her. The hem of her skirts grew damp as she made her way up the steps, the train of silk flowing out behind her.
Her husband was not an ugly man. He possessed a set brow, and whiskers from his times at sea, but his eyes were uncommonly ancient, as blue and deep as the sea. He seemed older than he was; it was an illusion that suited his profession well, he'd told her. He'd told her on the night they met. The night he seduced her.
His seduction had been a business transaction. Their commonality was society, he'd reasoned. Careful words and the right connections had meant they had both slipped through life unquestioned. She dressed in her finery, he dressed for his station. During this midsummer's ball, they had slipped through the crowds and come together.
By the end of the night, they had agreed to the terms. If he had his oceans, and she had her reputation, they would live a happy, distant life together.
Her husband's voice was clear over the thrum of rain. "You will have one night here, to collect whatever possessions you hold dear."
He was every inch the admiral. No negotiations were to be had.
"I won't need a night," she said, off-handed and blunt. It was cruel. Her husband's brow twitched, threatening surprise.
He cleared his throat. "Irene, I've tolerated your ways for enough time—"
"Non-consummation," she said. Her eyes flicked towards his coat of arms, engraved in stone. "I assume that'll be the official reason, won't it?"
Her husband let her inside with a nod. In silence, supper was served to her on gilded plates by silent servants. Her husband had already eaten, so she ate alone, while his distant voice, its sound floating down the corridor, conversed with that of another.
When her supper was finished, she headed to the drawing room. Coal glowed red in the hearth. Irene sat before it, watching idly while a maid poked life into the low flames. Her husband was sat at his writing desk. His lawyer was present beside him, standing over his shoulder. The man was thin with a pointed nose and eyes dull as the rain.
The quill her husband held twitched with each letter written.
"Irene," he said, at last, pouring salt over the barely dry ink, and looking up from his station. He stood as his lawyer leaned forward. The man gave no emotion as he touched spindly fingers to the paper, twisting it around so the bare signature line was there for all three of them to see.
Irene stood. She picked up the quill, refreshing the ink.
"There," said the lawyer, his nails sharp against the paper.
Her signature glistened in the flame-lit dark. She glanced between the two men and bowed her head. "Goodnight, gentlemen."
That evening, she lay underneath sheets no longer hers, in a stark, emptied room. Up in the attic of the house, somewhere, her life was assembled now in piles.
Her eyes fell on the opposite wall. It was an empty space where a painting used to be; her own portrait. Bored with country life and pleased with the shine he'd brought to her eyes, she'd fucked the artist afterwards. It was an idle lust and disappeared with the next morning's sunrise.
"Enough now," she'd said to him, with a coldly bright tone, when he'd wrapped his arms around her waist and nuzzled the shell of her ear with his lips, his lust not yet done. She'd swung herself out of bed, padding barefoot into her dressing room and sliding a nightgown over her shoulders. She'd shaken out the tangles of her hair, glanced in the mirror, looking herself over, and returned to sit by his side.
"It must've been the fumes of the oils," she'd explained to him, laughing as she stroked the line of his boyish jaw with her fingertips. "Oh dear. Use watercolours next time."
There was no moonlight that passed over her tonight. All she had was herself. And Irene clung to herself as tight as she could until she was warm, and she could fool herself into thinking someone else lay beside her.
The Watsons' grandfather clock rang three times to note the hour, and their poorly-trained footman took his coat without question. Sherlock slipped him a vail before he walked through the entrance hall towards the drawing room.
It was Lestrade's laughter that greeted him, sounding as John shook his hand.
"Well done, Greg, well done. Proud of you," John said, patting Lestrade on the shoulder. Sherlock came to a stop, folding his hands behind his back. His eyes flitted towards the sofa. Pale hands were folded against a silken lap. The girl was a little over twenty-three or thereabouts, with a well-cultivated fragility to her beauty. Unparalleled, others may have described her. With pale skin, she had chocolate brown hair and elegant eyes. Any man could have her on her back in moments, with a soft whisper and promises given with a warm breath.
Beside her sat Mary Watson. Her blue eyes, so naturally kind, were thunderous when they landed on Sherlock. She smiled sweetly, however, at the girl, patting the girl's hand, before she made her leave.
"I've interrupted something. An engagement, I assume," Sherlock said bluntly, turning his head to Lestrade.
"Oh, Holmes. Yes. I'm – making the rounds as it were. Letting everyone know," Lestrade said, at ease with the sudden intrusion. He pulled the lapels of his jacket, unable to hide his grin as his eyes moved to his fiancée. He flinched then, in the manner of having forgotten an intended conversation. "Oh, God, manners. Frances Courtenay, the Earl of Devon's eldest daughter. Stupid enough to accept my proposal."
John approached the hearth, moving coals idly with a poker while Lestrade explained the courtship. His fiancée dutifully ignored the conversation, busying herself with her appearance. According to Lestrade, the courtship was quick, all parties consenting and a guaranteed virtue, the last whispered as if the key to a great conspiracy.
Following the motion of Lestrade's gesture, bidding him to greet her, Sherlock briefly kissed her offered hand. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her blush, the high of her cheek softly pinked.
"How is Mary?" Sherlock inquired, looking at John.
"Unwell I suppose," he answered, watching the coals spit lazy sparks. Sherlock gave a nod.
"Excuse me… sir…"
Sherlock returned his attention to the rosebud. Shyly, she lowered her gaze towards their still joined hands. Sherlock smiled an apologetic smile. She was harmless enough. Well suited as a wife for Lestrade even if, for another man, she'd just be a minor distraction.
"Courtenay?" he asked. His smile grew. "From the Old French, I believe. From what my history tells me."
"It tells me the same, sir," the girl said. Her smile widened, her body relaxing into her posture as she spoke. Her eyes flicked over his form. "Are you a voracious reader?"
"I used to be. I hope to resume the habit."
"Sooner, rather than later, I hope. I do love to discuss literature with others." She blinked up at him. She was almost owlish in her delicacy. It was so incredibly, admirably designed to ensnare. This was a girl trained to catch a husband, with skills for little else. Clearly, her parents had been stupid enough to think that was all a girl needed.
"Good afternoon John, Sherlock." Lestrade held out his hand to his fiancée. "Miss Courtenay?"
She took the arm of her husband-to-be, glancing back over her shoulder with another small smile. A footman closed the door behind them.
"So—" John let out a hard breath. "I assume you'll head for Bath."
Sherlock turned to him. A lopsided smile grew across his mouth. "Derbyshire. Bath is for… Bath is for more social creatures."
"Molly left for there just yesterday."
"I should assume Derbyshire will be good for the health. Perhaps I'll get myself some hounds. Become a gentleman of the wilds," he said, "with a walking stick in one hand and my dogs at my heels. It'll add some years to me."
"I've never known you to be so worried about your health before, Sherlock."
"They're blissfully insular there, among the wilds and the lakes. I'm sure I'd find a lady. A sweet girl like Lestrade's. To—" He paused. "To—"
No. That was a lie too far. He could not even say the word.
"Marry," John spoke the word for him. His eyes flashed with anger. His nostrils flared as he clenched his fist, barely containing his fury. The motion repeated itself twice more. Finally, John spoke.
"I'll give your regards to Mary."
"That's a needless kindness, John."
"My nature."
Sherlock bowed.
In return, he got a single nod from a drawn face.
The scene before her was familiar, yet she felt as if she had never seen it before. Her husband lay in his bed with a stranger sleeping by his side. The girl's work cap and her plain dress lay scattered on the floor.
On the wall above the bed, there was a new painting. Antique oils depicted a green landscape that her husband, no doubt, had never visited. Samuel lounged on the bed underneath the foreign scene. His crystal cut glass was filled with wine. He wore a nightshirt, his knee curled up to his chest and his eyes dimmed by the alcohol.
(The butler had told her on her arrival, that his master had been dining well tonight.)
His eyes widened as they found her.
Then he smiled. He raised his glass to her.
Molly's skirts rustled softly as she made her way around the room, turning her back on her husband. Between finger and thumb, she picked up the maid's dress, the cap. Carefully, she folded them.
"Find your mistress some help," she heard him say to the waking maid. Soon after, the door slammed behind the maid, who held her dress tight to her breast, blushing beet red.
The corner of Molly's mouth lifted with the threat of a smile.
Lord, how angry she had been. The fury in her heart when she had seen that first maid, naked and ashamed, desperate to get away.
Raindrops streaked past the window and marked Molly's cheeks in shadows.
"You're back," he said, without disgust, or, indeed, relief.
A group of maids quietly entered, curtseying quickly to Molly before attending to her. One of them removed her hat and hairpins. Another rid her of her dress. The bodice and sleeves first, the skirt second. Two attended to her hoop skirt then, loosening it from around her waist. Molly stepped out of it, stilling as a third stepped forward to dig their fingers underneath the laces of her stays, a fourth bending down to rid her of her shoes and stockings.
"Stop," Samuel said at once, when his wife was barefoot, in her chemise and half-undone stays. The maids paused. They nodded. On the incline of their employer's head, they filed out of the room.
"I never quite understand women's clothing," her husband said. Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, he set down his wine on the floor and approached her. He roughly tugged at the knot of the base of her stays. Molly winced, hissing, as he struggled to untie it, tugging her forward again. Her hips were flush to his. His cock stirred against her belly, half-hard.
"Every layer," he continued, finally breaking open the knot and pulling at each lace, a grin coming to him in a laugh as he flicked his eyes up towards her, "is designed to be a challenge."
The last lace he conquered with a flick of his wrist. Molly's skin tingled to feel the chilly air of the bedchamber. Samuel's hand curved against her hip, his fingertips pressing slowly into the warm flesh of her backside. She arched away, her feet rocking up onto the balls of her feet.
Sinking back, sliding out of Samuel's grip, she approached the bed. She climbed onto the tangled sheets, lying on top of them.
The cold was more inviting to her than Samuel's warmth.
She felt the dip of the mattress as her husband slid in next to her.
His fingers grazed over her shoulder, pawing at her skin, drawing down the collar of her slip. His lips wetly kissed her skin. His hardening cock pressed against the cleft of her backside, his hand pulling up her hem. His palm curved over her thigh.
For a moment, she considered it.
Numbly, she could do it. She could lie on her back, stand on her hands and knees, and let her husband thrust his cock into her, without thought for her pleasure until he came. Numbly, she could let him have her until she was with child, her belly growing with his babe, again and again, until she gave him what he desired. What all men in all marriages desired. A son, with blonde curls and perhaps, even, his eyes.
She pushed her palm against his shoulder.
Samuel grew still.
Sitting up, Molly stood. She felt her husband watch her as she opened the wardrobe. A silk robe was hanging, dark green in the light of this storm. She plucked it out, throwing it onto her shoulders. She tied it around her waist.
Pushing her hair back from her face, she looked back at her husband. He wore a frown.
"I am your wife in name only," she said, with dangerous calm. "I'll be damned before I let you near me."
September 1786
Four months earlier
The end of the season was imminent. The rain made people less eager to be seen, lest they ruin their garments while the nights, grown cooler, held less intrigue for revellers.
The parties then were more opulent than ever.
Masquerades were led by merriment and debauchery. Ladies held gatherings for female and male acquaintances alike, with only one bed sadly available. It became commonplace to turn your eye away from acquaintances you knew when you witnessed them hurrying into their carriages in the grey morning.
The streets heaved with people until the Sunday, when piety entered their heads and they took to their beds with their spouses. But then the evening came, and Vauxhall came alive.
This night, everyone knew was to be the last night of assemblies, fireworks and wine and fine company.
In the hot crush of the assembly rooms, young ladies wanting to be wives fluttered their fans at their suitors and elder gentlemen sought one last card before they retired. To the people in-between, the husbands and the wives and the spinsters; any fancy, any whim they had, they indulged.
Indulgence was the only thing left when duty was left behind.
The hidden walks of Vauxhall were quiet, for now. A threat of rain had already cancelled the fireworks for tonight, but soon enough the revellers would be spewing from the very guts of the assembly rooms, flooding into their carriages with hiccups and laughter.
Underneath a thick set of branches, Molly Abbot stood, peering up into the dark sky. The clouds of indigo and grey above rumbled, threatening thunder while beyond her, there sounded the quiet rush of the Thames.
Distantly, from the assembly room, Sherlock heard the orchestra play. It was the adagio of one of Mozart's newer pieces, Piano Concerto No.23. Leaning back against the tree, Molly hummed along with its rhythm, closing her eyes to the sights and sounds of the gardens' attractions. The performers, the entertainers, the admirers. He tuned them out himself as he approached her through the shadows.
Somewhere a short distance away, he heard a sweet young lady gasp as her secret lover kissed her.
Molly opened her eyes then. Dropping her gaze, she turned her head. The corners of her mouth lifted.
Sherlock grinned. She'd sensed him, feeling his sigh more than she had heard it. They'd quickly come to that sort of accord, that they might sense one another rather than announce themselves.
Not with words had they agreed to it, but the situation made demands, and she had so readily given herself to them in the aftermath of gifting her heart.
Without a whisper, she held out her bare hand.
His fingers slid into hers, resting there for a just a fraction, before he circled around, approaching her. The trees covered them both in the shadows and whatever words she had in her mind for him, she instead poured them into the kiss he pressed to her lips.
Her lips were cold, but soft and pliable, her tongue sliding against his briefly as she opened herself up for him, allowing him to cage her in, to hold her close. Her hips were flush against his as he slid his left hand around the small of her back, while his right hand roamed, caressing the length of her neck, the planes of her jaw and the high of her cheek. He brushed the line of her cheek with his thumb, swooping his touch down to her bottom lip as he pulled away.
Even in the dark, he saw her devotion. There was a shine in her eyes, inky black here, and he felt it in her heart, humming evenly against his own.
Distantly, the sweet young lady begged her suitor to "do that thing again" in a breathless, scandalous whisper. A rustle of clothes, the sound of a grunt as the suitor dropped to his knees had Sherlock smile.
Molly bit back a giggle, the sound muting into a swallowed sigh as he pressed a kiss to her temple. It was a gesture John often gave to Mary, often thoughtless. Sherlock himself barely gave thought to the gesture as he let his hand drop, caressing the silks on her body, skimming his fingers over the tops of her breasts. Her back arched as he traced the line of her clavicle, running his forefinger slowly up the line of her neck. Slipping his finger against her bottom lip, her tongue darted out, swirling around the tip.
Every gesture between them was a promise while the distant music grew. The suitor urgently brought his sweet lady to the edge, moaning as she moaned.
Sherlock swallowed Molly's sighs, taking her promises, with another unhurried kiss.
"I love you," he murmured into her ear.
He did not think to fear the fact that he meant it.
It seemed that time was accidental for a while.
December slipped into January. Frost still on the ground, January fell quickly towards February.
Derbyshire made him wake to crisp air, and the hounds whined at his feet for scraps, following him on his morning ride, barking at the heels of his horse. They ferreted shot birds for him on a hunt day, digging holes and disappearing into the forest and returning with feathered carcasses, their snouts dashed by scarlet.
The buds on the trees were choked by the endless February frost. He heard vague talk among the staff worries about the year's crops. He assumed the farmers would figure it out and continued to order Wiggins inform the stable he'd need his horse for an afternoon ride around the estate.
Letters were regular if they were to do with the running of the house. Social letters were more irregular. Lestrade wrote to him most often now, joyfully weaving tales of minor details about his upcoming marriage. When John wrote to him, it was complaints of London and its dullness now the season was over for the year. He prayed for summer, lamented the many venereal diseases he had to treat and made little mention of Mary.
Sherlock slept little. Truth be told, he had never been one for sleep. Thoughts, his own, and worries for the wider world, kept him awake.
In the city, sleeplessness such as his was easy to cure. The right connection and one would hardly have to meet with sleep. A celebration of an engagement became a reception, and a reception became an assembly, and an assembly became a masquerade. The evening became morning, morning became afternoon, the afternoon became evening. So went the cycle of the city.
No such cycle for a country gentleman. The cure for sleeplessness now was to walk among early morning mist, with neither hounds nor servants nor gardeners. He walked on the cold grass, and stood by the banks of the lake, watching the sunrise until he could bear it no longer. Then he turned away from it, walking back through the kitchens and the corridors of the servants' quarters before they rose.
Wiggins spoke nothing of it. None of the servants did. (Such was the power of being master of all you survey.)
When it rained in the dawn, he stood by his window and watched the lightning approach, trying to ignore images that flashed with each strike. Her lips, her eyes; her sweetness. Her need. He had always been wanted, that was true, but he had never really been needed. Not by anyone. Not for a very, very long time.
Each image brought with it guilt.
What would've happened, he thought over and over, rolling the question around his mind as he watched the landscape, if he had been honest? If he had told her of his morality, that he was broken, and rotten to the core? That society had made him this way, and she was terrifying to him because she had seen the corruption and found strength enough to refuse it? That so broken was he, that he found it a game to break her?
That, she, from the moment he'd seen her, had been doomed to break him.
She would've run away, and he would've thanked her for it.
The storm subsided by dawn, but still, he remained by his window. Wiggins opened the door, and Sherlock's hounds bounded in, barking for their master and pawing at his brown and gold robe.
"I know," he said, voice like gravel, "I know."
"Breakfast for you sir," Wiggins said, setting down a tray on the bed, then approaching the dogs. "Come, away, away! Leave your master alone a while, away."
The hounds whined, barking once, twice, as Wiggins shut the door on them.
Sherlock spun on his heels, sinking down onto the bed.
"What's on the agenda for today?" he asked, picking up a piece of toast between finger and thumb and taking a bite.
"Lord Lestrade has written to you again sir. I took the liberty of bringing it up with your breakfast."
"Hm," Sherlock replied, raising his eyebrows in response as he took another bite. Butter and honey, and it felt sour on his tongue more than sweet. His stomach rumbled when he disposed of it on the plate.
Wiggins' eyes lingered on the full plate.
"Nothing again, sir?"
"I'll eat later. Fetch some clothes for me, and draw a bath," he added on drawing his fingers through his hair and feeling the grease of slipped by days. Standing, he picked up Lestrade's letter, wandering towards his dressing room. "Let's see what events have been happening in the world."
Wiggins bowed, picking up the tray. "Yessir."
The Irish maid had timed it well. The collapse of Lady Adler's reputation was swift, and yet, three months down the line, still all anyone could talk about.
Irene glanced over London's grey landscape. It was dull. Everywhere she looked, the season's absence rained down in grey.
Behind her, the door opened. Kate, entering, smiled and wandered over to her. Irene smelt it as she got closer, the scent lingering on her clothes. She smelt freshly fucked.
"How do you manage?" she asked, remembering the skittishness of Kate's client. She'd glanced the poor man as he passed her doorway, ushered down the corridor with assuring words by Kate. He had to be eighteen at the least. Kate had moaned and begged for more anyway.
"I think of you," Kate replied, easy as breathing. Irene raised an eyebrow.
"I'm not paying you anymore. You don't have to flatter me." She sat among her own soiled, tangled sheets. The scent of sex grew thicker. "Technically, you're the one paying me."
"The courtesan's courtesan," Kate murmured. Coming to stand in front of Irene, she hung her hands loosely around her neck, ducking to press her lips to her clavicle. "It has a certain ring to it."
Irene felt Kate withdraw before she immediately returned. Her starting point was at the shell of her ear. Her breath traced along the line of Irene's jaw, her kisses soft and sharp all at once. Kate's right hand found its way up Irene's back, sinking into the thick black of her hair.
"I've another client arriving soon," she said, matter-of-fact as she undid the ties of Irene's nightgown, spilling it open and exposing Irene's bare body.
Irene hummed, the slight flex of her back following the light trail Kate's made down towards her groin.
Kate's smile mellowed. A frown appeared in the space between her brows.
For a long moment, a beat of something, they shared a silence.
She pressed a swift kiss to Irene's temple.
"I get it," she said. "I'll leave you be. I need to prepare anyway."
"Of course."
The door closed, and Irene lifted her eyes to the ceiling of her four-poster bed. The arrangement was not yet official. She still had a few more months of gossip to endure before entertaining her guests ended with a transaction.
Sometimes, she wondered if she could salvage her reputation. Pick up any pieces of flotsam and assemble them to achieve another marriage, another husband, and save herself from waking up to money on the side table.
After all, in secret, she still had allies. They wouldn't dare acknowledge her in public, but they wrote notes, hurriedly scribbled on paper and anonymously delivered. Sally Donovan offered more than once her funding for passage abroad, to the Italian Lakes, where a husband and a villa would be easy to find. Gossip was vicious in London, but the Italians, so claimed the joke, had five affairs before breakfast and ten before dinner.
Appease them, so had said her mother, bow to them. And you shall have your place, my dear.
She'd died powdered and puckered, the fourth wife of a lord, who set his sights on Irene not long after, proposing to her an arrangement to live with him, his wife in the country; keeper of a manor and mother of his children.
In one awful, horrible moment, she accepted. Aged fifteen, she used the knife her mother had given her and cut out her tongue to appease the man who was once her father.
She wasted four years of life underneath him, turning her cheek away from his wine-drenched kisses while he thrust up and in, again and again, thoughtlessly and clumsily. Young, and nothing more than a hole. That, she learned, was what it was to appease.
Her sister-in-law cooed at their marriage and professed her brother's love for his wife times over, turning a blind eye to his drink, excusing the insults he flung at his wife as something sadly learned from their father.
Once, Frances found her crying in the family library. Surrounded by leather-bound books, she smiled, dabbed Irene's tears and told her she was the most loyal wife her brother could've hoped for.
When she bled, three months into her pregnancy, her sister-in-law asked her if she had been unfaithful.
"Never," hiccupped Irene, nineteen and with blood still on her thighs.
"You know you do not have to lie," assured Frances, rubbing her lower back, hushing her protests. She squeezed Irene's hands. "We must know what led to this, my dear."
Funny, how faith, built up over years through carefully calculated words on the part of one, can be lost by another when they see the truth behind the mask.
Her next assembly, it was a night where the smell of roses filled her nose, and wine slipped down her throat. Her eyes were hidden behind a mask of white, and across a room, past a crowd, she saw blue eyes glittering behind a mask of black.
Clumsy then, unknown to the rules of hushed affairs, she approached him. He kissed her hand and introduced her to a duchess who was three years her senior. The duchess was pretty, and kind, and introduced Irene to a world that dazzled her, spinning her vision until it seemed like her body was floating until finally, with help from the duchess' mouth and fingers, she reached the crest.
The duchess, uncaring for her story, moulded her, slowly, into a woman of fashion and wit and seduction.
The first man she took into her marital bed was a man of nineteen, just under her fine age of twenty, and they, rocking together, his cock in her cunt, took one another's pleasure with lazy, soft kisses, gasping smiles and caresses of one another's warmth.
"Women too," she eventually told her incredulous husband. "I fucked them all, in our bed."
"Whore," he spat.
"And not yours," she said with a smile.
Her husband took mistresses then, drinking and gambling and fucking until his heart took him not six months later. At the funeral, Frances tucked her hand underneath Irene's mourning veil and cupped her cheek in a sharing of sorrow.
She was more adept at a hushed affair when she met him again. He wore no glittered embroidered mask. His clothes were wholly plain, more suited to the preacher than nobility, but she wanted him. She wanted him so badly.
Irene ran her fingers through her hair, untangling small knots as she sat at her dressing table. Perfumes and make-up were haphazardly arranged in front of her.
Picking up a hairbrush, Irene detangled the larger tangles in her hair. Tucking hairgrips between her teeth, she pulled her hair into a bun at the back of her head. What chunks of her hair fell down her back, she left them.
She rang for a maid then. Silently the maid worked, fixing her mistakes and dressing her in a day dress. It was a robe a l'Anglaise, the bust low but lined by a thin layer of cotton. Irene held her wrist with one hand as she kept the other arm out, her elbow up at a slight angle so the maid could work her way around her. Circling around to the back, the maid fixed her skirt around her waist, pulling the ties tight. Turning her head, Irene watched with disinterest the sun breaking through the clouds. It covered her face and dress in a low golden light. She closed her eyes against its warmth.
"Thank you," she muttered to the maid in quick dismissal. The maid curtsied.
Sherlock Holmes had been the first man she'd wanted. When he looked at her, besting her thrice at cards during an afternoon reception, she didn't give a damn about appeasement, nor the thrill of the game. She just wanted him.
(Quite often, there is a purity to simplicity.)
Irene sat back down in front of her dressing table. Idly, she watched her own reflection. She tilted her head one way, then the other, stroking lines against her neck.
Her expression, blank with the thoughts of memories, changed little.
She sighed, the sigh becoming a growl, and the growl becoming a grunt as she attacked herself; she attacked her hair, tugging at the pins and the bun until it all came tumbling down around her shoulders. She pulled at the hooks of her dress, weeping when they would not give way. She beat at herself, her chest, her heart, clawing at her face.
Panting, she looked at her reflection.
Red marks covered her chin, her cheeks and the tops of her breasts. Her hair was wild around her face. But her dress was pristine. The pins once in her hair lay scattered at her feet.
For the first time in a very long time, Irene Adler knew again what it was to be trapped.
Grey London carried on.
It had been harsh words she had imparted to her husband, but Molly found it hard to feel regret. Moving her things into another bedchamber, she slept soundly alone and forgot her dreams as soon as she awoke.
Samuel kept her words in his heart it seemed, because around her now, he acted less the landed gentry and more the sheep. As if she were not a woman, but a wolf.
With visitors around, he smiled at her and pressed his hand to her shoulder. He kissed the back of her hand and held it as elderly lawyers told lengthy anecdotes about cases they barely remembered.
And as soon as the lawyers and the visitors left, he dropped his hand away and gave her no caresses nor touch.
If he had any courage around her, he found it at the bottom of his wine glass.
In mid-February, the day of Saint Valentine, he gifted her with the token of a new evening gown. The silken hoop skirt was designed to fall over her hips, while the bust was adorned with jewels embroidered into the silver thread. Against candlelight, the silver would look gold. It was a dress to be worn for decoration.
He had important guests, then.
Dutifully, she wore the gown and paired it with jewels around her neck. She wore her hair up, powdered it, and coloured her cheeks with rouge.
When she was ready, she joined her husband at the door. Together, they greeted his guests.
It had been three months now. She would be naïve to hope that the scandal had gone from their minds.
In the early days, none of the visitors made mention of it. They dodged the issue with their anecdotes, but she saw the hunger in their eyes.
Gossip wasn't enough. They wanted details, intimacies not obtained in letters written by a cruel hand playing games.
To entertain herself, while she sat quietly and obediently, listening, she watched them and played her own game. She wondered exactly what questions they would ask if they could.
The young socialites, she decided, would ask where she went (how disappointed they'd be, to discover her world, in those months, had shrunk down to a handful of places in one city) and when she came close to the discovery of the cruel trick.
The old lawyers would want to pick it apart. They would want to know the context of the case, and the circumstances too. Who approached who, how they approached and their behaviours. They'd want little detail in the way of intimacy.
The wives and widows would be the ones who wanted the details. If she were to describe it, the occasions where she lay with her head on Sherlock's chest while he stroked his fingers up and down the path of her spine, kissing her hair and her temple, she knew they would be hooked on every word, eager to memorise it so they could pass it on, in patches, to their friends.
If she were to describe the embraces Irene had gifted unto her, and the kisses they had exchanged during short summer nights, they would flutter their fans and lower their gazes. Whether they might tell their friends? That was something Molly could never quite work out.
Samuel drank among friends at one end of the table. While they gulped, he sipped. His glass was half-full.
Her end of the table drifted by in bouts of small talk and stilted conversations about the supper plates before them. She played hostess and told them how talented their cook was, and how she had picked the menu herself.
That was what it was to be dutiful.
It was dutiful, too, to stand at the end of the meal, and bid the ladies follow her into the parlour room. Her husband lit cigars and drank coffee. His laughter echoed down the hall as his friends told bawdy jokes, now the ladies were out of the room.
The fire roared orange, the only source of light in the parlour. The ladies gathered around, sitting beside one another, exchanging quick looks as Molly stepped aside, allowing room for the footman to set down tea. Some whispered, and the ones who listened giggled, hiding their laughter behind the backs of their hands. Or they fluttered their fans rapidly against the lower half of their face, making their growing smiles inscrutable.
Slowly, she realised why Sherlock and Irene had played their games.
When the heart was at stake, boredom such as this was almost tolerable.
Clearing her throat, she felt the heat of the fire lick her cheeks while she adjusted her skirts and smoothed the material with her palms. As she'd known, the silver glowed gold against the fire. Molly was sure if she looked in a mirror now, she would look at the decoration she was always meant to be.
They made dim sounds in her eardrums, her guests, their dialogue of engagement parties and assemblies and the best performers somewhere else in her mind. If she was asked, she wished she could've said that she was plagued by domestic thoughts and mundane doubt. In fact, there was nothing of the sort. Memories dominated her, and every thought, every feeling, that came with them were so close to her heart, that they eliminated everything else and made her numb.
Instead, she merely stared about the room. She nodded along with the conversations, and made a light joke or two, to maintain appearance.
When the doors opened, and the gentlemen arrived, smiling and laughing as they playfully greeted their ladies, she stood along with her guests, and let her husband kiss her hand and cup her neck so he could kiss her lips. It was a brief, dry kiss, and he bid her sit.
She stood instead, hovering near the fireplace, with her hands folded in front of her, carrying her closed fan. She watched him with a quiet stare while the conversation continued.
It had trickled down to small talk. Gossip about engagements became a discussion of fashion, which became a discussion of culture, and it zeroed in again to compliments bestowed that Molly accepted with a smile or an approved joke.
Samuel's shoulders rolled slightly, relaxing into his position, stood opposite his wife. In his left hand, he carried his crystal-cut wine glass.
It was half-full. Still.
"You're managing your wine this evening, dear husband."
It took him a few moments to catch her words, and their guests a moment longer.
One of the ladies laughed. The sound was more of a scoff than hilarity.
She was urging Molly, silently (in the only way she could) to take it back.
"I always do, my love," Samuel replied, tilting his head and raising his glass as he had on her grand return, while one of her maids slept beside him in their marital bed.
"Of course. Have you noticed, our guests have trailed off in their conversation?"
A faint anger touched the corners of Samuel's mouth. "They're waiting for your point to be made. My dear."
"Perhaps. Or maybe small talk can only entertain for so long. Don't you suppose they wish to be entertained by something else? I don't – I don't want to make assumptions, but you all have—" Molly breathed through her nose, scanning the faces staring at her, like they were hunters and she was prey, and she was ready to let herself be torn apart. "You all have questions to ask, I understand that. For three months, you have all had questions. I won't offend you and ask for the details of your questions, but I promise you, ask them, and there will be honesty. I have no shame about my part. And I will answer, I will speak about it – however much it…"
She took a breath then, ready to finish her speech.
"Molly, wife," said Samuel at once, crisply. "You are tired. I fear the fire has affected you."
His fingers slid into hers, and gently tugged at her, edging her further towards the door. She followed without word nor question, her gaze lowered, watching his footsteps as he turned on his heels, jovially inviting his friends to continue their conversation.
After all, he would join them in a moment.
Samuel did not speak, not immediately. He locked the door behind him and let the sound echo.
Her new chambers were a temporary kind of luxury. Its white and silk and satin and cottons had no sensations of being lived in, but merely slept in by multiple bodies; guests finding shelter for a night after a dinner, or friends making their home for months at a time.
All of it now was blue and black, unlit. She still saw her husband's face in the dark.
"You have no shame?" At her silence, he lifted his head and frowned. "None at all?"
"I went willingly," Molly replied, tilting up her chin defiantly, as Samuel stepped closer. He gulped back his wine as she spoke. Watching him, Molly felt a flush creep up her chest, her words growing hot, thick with anger. "I wanted them, and they allowed me – begged me – to take them. Don't you get it? I felt wanted."
Samuel's lips thinned, and his eyes narrowed. "How is it," he mused, "that you can speak so kindly of your lovers, and so harshly to your lord and husband?"
Molly hardened her eyes and drew her jaw tight. Her nostrils flared with a single sharp intake of breath. "You know why."
He slapped her. Shortly, crisply, with the back of his hand against the high of her cheek. She felt the sting of a coming red mark. Two lovers, she had taken. Multiple maids, he had fucked.
It had taken her speaking three words to show his true nature, at last, to them both.
"What's wrong with you?" he snapped, daring to sound frustrated rather than angered. "You hold onto these – these monsters and yet – yet you carry no shame of your association with them. I – I would never have believed… Never mind. I'll tell the guests you have been taken unwell. A doctor shall be sent for in the morning. In the meantime," he blew out a sigh, turning the key in the lock. He shrugged and flung his hand towards the bed. "Get some sleep. See if that cures your ills."
"Oh, you bastard!" It was a rage not quite directed at him, but the monsters too. She cursed her husband for three months of looks, for quiet misdirection around her part, for three months of being quiet and subservient and obedient; she took all of it and poured it out into disobedience, a single curse.
"You know why!" she yelled again through the locked door. Tears spurted in her eyes. She withdrew, but her rage was not done, not quite yet. She felt she might die with it.
"You – know – why!" she repeated, this time a monstrous roar that tore at her throat. She slammed her palm against the door, clenching her hand into a fist as she hit it again. She gripped the handle, rattling it. It gave nothing, and there was no reply made, no attempt to silence her.
She could cope with being silenced. She had been trained for that by her mother, and Irene. Her mother had taught her how to be silent, and Irene had taught her how to carve it into a weapon.
She had never been taught how to rage. She approached it with clumsy blows, fierce roars and ugly tears.
It did not fade either, but rather, like the shot from a hunting rifle, the sound of it tailed off after her few exclamations. This giant being became silent, transforming into sniffling tears that she let drip down her cheeks as she stood, helpless, in the middle of a stranger's bedchambers.
She hiccupped softly.
Without help, she pulled at the hooks of her bodice, tugged off her sleeves, removed her skirts, her petticoats. Another soft hiccup and she stripped, ripping the silver material and revealing white cotton.
It was cold in the room against her naked skin, and she shivered. She dove underneath her covers and stared up at the ceiling of her four-poster bed. She traced the lines of the silk curtains in the air with her fingers. Her eyes grew wet, and her tears slid over her temples, staining the fabric of her pillows.
That was how she slept; with damp cheeks and cold skin.
And, in the morning, she begged a butler for ink and quill.
She'd been carrying the same smile throughout the evening.
That was the first thing Sherlock noticed of Lady Frances Lestrade, once a daughter of an earl and now the maker of heirs and keeper of a home.
The smile was courteous enough for the friends who wished to bestow their congratulations upon her. She carried it with enough affection for when her husband looked at her. She barely had to change her features as she transferred from one interaction to the next.
Standing in the shadows of the assembly room, Sherlock tapped his finger against his wine glass. He continued to watch the new bride.
As the night carried on, and the guests played drunken games, finding the driest of jokes the funniest they'd heard, or the gossip whispered to them the most scandalous, she continued to glide through the crowd, only ever superficially touched by the shower of well-wishes. She brushed their hands with her fingertips and embraced them only briefly.
When her eyes caught him, she lingered, as a guest was wont to do in the face of their host, and her smile shifted, widening slightly, as she nodded. For the first time, he noticed a sharpness to her elegance.
Sherlock hid the smirk that threatened to touch his lips.
She had been raised very, very well.
Sherlock disappeared into the thick, crushing crowd. They were falling over themselves, practically, to try and speak to the newly-married lord, who was busy playing raucous guessing games, a playing card stuck to his head. He fell apart with laughter as he guessed incorrectly a third time, and gaily took the punishment of more wine.
Hands brushed over his clothes and elbows pushed into his sides, and he ignored them. When he felt delicate fingers grip his bicep tightly, he felt obliged to pause. He turned, taking a step closer to Lady Lestrade. She had that same smile, but it faltered when his eyes swept towards her. It faltered towards something he knew now was far more dangerous: sincerity.
He heard a whisper in his mind. Stop it. Just… stop it.
"Lord Holmes," she greeted, her grip still tight on his elbow.
"Lady Lestrade," he replied in kind, bowing his head. His eyes slid towards Lestrade, who was imbibing another drink of wine as he peeled the playing card from his forehead. He snorted, giggling to himself. Frances' grip tightened. He looked back at her. "Would it be impolite of me to request that you linger with your husband, and not myself?"
The sincerity left her, and that smile returned. Her rosebud cheeks pinked.
"My apologies. The heat affects me, Lord Holmes," she said calmly, referencing her growing blush. She picked up her skirts, turning away, but at once she returned, pulling him back with her fingers splaying out on the lapel of his jacket.
The interaction was small, hidden by the crowd, Lady Frances still and breathing heavily, in her own world while he felt a duchess knock against his back, and a lord pushing into his side, apologising profusely, drunkenly, for his intrusion.
"The gardens," she whispered, red lips moving quickly while her eyes latched onto his. He'd thought them elegant once. Sherlock hid a smile. Just what narrative had she concocted? Forbidden love? A dangerous attraction?
"Underneath the stone archway," she continued. "Meet me there, in five minutes."
She was away in an instant.
Sherlock remained in the crowd, while she returned to her smile and thanks.
"You did not eat at supper."
Those were her first words she used to greet him.
"You summoned me," Sherlock replied, leaning against the stone, letting the light of the torches light his face. He kept his tone flat. Following the line of the torches, gravel crunching underneath his footsteps, he had set out the plan with ease. Approach her, call her what she was (a girl, trained well, but a girl nonetheless), and leave her angry; leave her to flee petulantly into the arms of her husband, with thoughts of infidelity dashed.
Her cheeks flushed again as she noticed his tone.
She bristled. "You had no reason to attend me."
That was good. He stepped further into the light, feeling the cool evening breeze on his cheek.
"None whatsoever."
"Then… may I ask why you did, sir?" She paused before the word 'sir' left her lips. There was no obedience to her voice, but a surge of excitement. Sherlock frowned, turning his head to look at her.
"To tell you, plainly enough for you to understand," he bit out, squaring his shoulders, his fists clenched at his sides, "that you are a girl. Well trained, certainly, but a girl. Whatever you have heard of me, you have heard false. I do not entertain girls who think flirtation as a harmless pastime. If I am to ruin someone – I do it gladly. Wickedly. Nothing about you is wicked, little girl. And nothing about you could delight me. Do we have an understanding?"
Her flush faded, shock crossing into her features. She stepped closer towards him. Her breaths were short and quick, her pupils blown wide.
"I don't wish to delight you, Lord Holmes."
Sherlock frowned, searching her features. She had a look of curiosity in her desperation. Distantly, he heard the crunch of gravel and the revelling. Frances edged closer. She reached out, reached up. As her fingertips brushed the line of his jaw, he woke as if from a trance, and gripped her wrist, wrenching her touch away from him.
Somewhere, he heard a distant hiccup of a laugh.
"You read the bloody letters," he hissed, glaring. "Is that – is that what you want of me?"
Those damn letters. They'd painted Molly the victim, him the tragedy, and Irene the whore.
He tugged on Frances' wrist, pulling her closer. She gasped, her chest hammering with quick breaths. The high of her cheeks pinked. She wanted a tragedy that the poems spoke about; she wanted to take someone and consume them until all their humanity was gone, replaced with nothing but desire.
What an immature, stupid girl.
"I fear, madam, your perception of my conduct has been tarnished by gossip. The truth, I assure you, is far less appealing."
The truth had wounded him to a point where he ate little, and people learned never to comment on the exhaustion in his face or the early hours in which he could be found roaming the grounds of his estates. The truth kept him the person he was,
The girl breathed hard in the face of it. Her lips parted. She leaned up.
"I don't care," she murmured. Her hand cupped his cheek, dropping down to his shirt. She grasped his collar, stroking the lines of his throat with her thumb. Her eyes settled on his mouth. "I just want you."
The footsteps stopped.
"God damn you." Lestrade's tone was heavy. His wife gasped, jumping away from Sherlock.
"He came upon me, he—"
Lestrade held up his hand, silencing her. His eyes were dimmed by alcohol, his posture slacked, but his determination was clear. "Go back to the house, Frances. We will sort this, Lord Holmes and myself – with honour."
Teary-eyed, Frances fled past him, into the house.
The torch flames flickered and extinguished in the face of the wind, leaving both men in darkness. Lestrade sighed, shaking his head.
"Oh, Sherlock."
The duel was set for dawn, on the banks of the lake.
Sherlock stood with his arms crossed over his chest, his right palm tucked supporting his chin.
The sun was beginning to break through the grey clouds, mottling the sky with oranges, reds, yellows. The birdsong was faint, hidden within the trees.
Closer was the murmurings of the two seconds. The Irish Code called for seconds of equal rank, and it was Dimmock, a lord of some land, who conversed quietly with Michael Stamford. Lord Stamford was the blandest of men, with a forgetful smile and a face easily confused for another's.
"The challenger offers an accord," Stamford said, clearing his throat as he came to stand beside Sherlock. He raised an eyebrow, glancing towards Michael. "He will take an apology, requiring you both forget this sorry mess immediately, and will be satisfied."
"I'm sure he would," Sherlock replied, rocking back on his heels a little.
"Is that a yes, Lord Holmes?"
Sherlock remained silent. Michael cleared his throat again.
"Lord Holmes?"
"No."
Contented, Stamford returned to Dimmock. Sherlock glanced over his shoulder. Dimmock relayed the news to Lestrade, who groaned, kicking suddenly at the long grass, rubbing his temples.
"Fine," he heard distantly. "If that's what the bastard wants, fine. Let's get this damn thing done."
Passing vails to the surgeon, who stood beside the referee, Sherlock approached Wiggins, who stood by the barrier, marked by two longswords. Wiggins opened the guns case. Inside, one well-maintained pistol contained a single shot.
Sherlock picked it up, feeling the weight of it. He nodded once.
"Sir," Wiggins replied, bowing shortly and he stepped back.
"On my count," said the referee, as Lestrade checked his own weapon, a pistol not too dissimilar from Sherlock's own, "the two parties shall advance, and you shall shoot when you feel the time is best. You duel to first blood. If you misfire, I will count that as your shot. If you deliberately miss, I will count you as a coward, and the duel shall be held again."
Overhead, a sparrow flapped its wings. Its squawk echoed in the morning.
A chill caught Sherlock as the referee held up a handkerchief, pristine white.
"When I drop this handkerchief, on the count of ten, the advance shall begin, and there will be an honourable exchange of bullets."
Sherlock held up his weapon. He aimed it just above Lestrade's shoulder. At this distance, it would graze him, bring blood, but it would leave him without scars.
Lestrade's eyes closed briefly, his chest moving with a deep, heavy breath, as he raised his gun to meet Sherlock's.
"On my count – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9… 10. Advance."
The handkerchief dropped. Lestrade walked forward, almost at the pace of a stroll through parkland. Sherlock remained fixed to his post.
"Lord Holmes, my apologies for interrupting, but I must remind you to advance," urged the referee.
My apologies, I didn't think anyone else was here, spoke a memory, jolting into his head, a memory of a married woman trapped in shadow as she tried to escape the crush of a party. He hadn't expected to see her there. He certainly hadn't expected his mouth to run dry as he touched her in the most innocent of ways, with a touch of his fingertip against her chin.
He had planned to keep her at arm's length. To stretch out their silence until such a point that he could merely whisper a word of devotion and she would be on her back, won and conquered for his to desire.
Instead, he kissed her, satisfying a curiosity and finding that, yes, her kiss was soft and good and everything he knew he wasn't.
He stumbled on his first step. Lestrade paused, but Sherlock gestured for him to continue as he regained his balance, returning the aim of his pistol to just above Lestrade's shoulder. Lestrade was usually an excellent shot, which would usually be a cause for concern, but he had the blurred eye of someone still affected by overindulgence of alcohol.
"I'd advise one of the gentlemen to shoot," said the surgeon, sounding bored.
A soldier trained to obey, Lestrade squeezed the trigger, a blast of smoke matching sparks. Sherlock stumbled, his finger pulling the trigger. A blast of smoke and the referee called a misfire. Drained of energy, as if he'd been kicked, Sherlock clutched his side and his legs crumpled, giving way underneath him.
It was a series of moments after that. Wiggins scrambled to catch him, Lestrade dropped his pistol, and the surgeon knelt beside Sherlock, already trying to bind the wound. Sherlock whined, waving the idiot away.
"Leave me," he mumbled, raising his voice when the surgeon refused, "Go!"
"Sir," urged Wiggins, "he has to attend to you."
Sherlock glanced down. Blood, his crimson red blood, coming from his stomach, collected across his palm, flecked in smudges and streaks over his fingers.
"Ah."
"Please sir, let me—"
"No, not you," Sherlock snapped, pushing him away. He didn't need a surgeon.
"John," he muttered. He needed London. "Get John."
"Bloody hell, Sherlock, I'm – I'm so sorry—" Lestrade's breaths trembled, "Are you satisfied now?"
"All very well being sorry now, sir," snapped Wiggins, throwing his coat over Sherlock's shoulders. Sherlock laughed bitterly, wincing.
"Satisfied…" he breathed. "It's to you whom that question should be asked, Lestrade. After all, I'm the one who… committed the deed…"
"Christ – fetch him inside, quickly," was what he heard next from Lestrade before everything went black.
The wound was bound haphazardly as if he'd been fighting off the person who'd tried to heal him. The surgeon who met him, a brusque man of about fifty years, explained as much.
"It was madness. He sat at his writing desk, scribbling like some wild man. Said it was more important than a wound – not even his manservant was allowed to touch him," he said as he led John up the stairs. John had paid the coach driver double to push the horses harder, to stop less along the journey, while Mary insisted on accompanying him. As the realisation sank quickly of who it was he would treat, he'd found it hard to refuse her. He'd held tightly onto her hand the entire way.
She followed on behind now, holding her skirts, listening as the surgeon briefed them.
"How deep is the wound?" she asked, as they reached the landing, passing several battles and portraits.
"I cannot say without further examination."
"Then why hasn't that been carried out?" John barked.
The surgeon pushed open the bedchamber door. "You'll see why."
John had settled his eyes on Sherlock and understood immediately. Sherlock, lying on the bed, was restless, barely able to stay still for more than a moment.
"Blood," he muttered. Sweat beaded on his brow, and the curls of his hair were damp, sticking to his skin. Mary pressed a wet, cold cloth to his forehead as John worked with the poorly applied bandages. Peeling them back, he clamped down on the shudder in his spine and blew out a breath. The edges of his breathing trembled.
Clearing his throat, he gathered himself.
He had seen far worse wounds. Far worse.
"Mary, press hard," he instructed.
"Blood—" Sherlock repeated.
"Yes, Sherlock yours," Mary snapped. "For God's sake, be calm."
A lopsided grin appeared on Sherlock's face. His eyelids fluttered as he glanced down at John's hands, already soaked with red. "You stink of it."
Mary pressed a dressing into John's palm. He worked rapidly with it, while Mary tried to soothe Sherlock. His feet and fingers twitched badly, his body entering convulsion. John swallowed thickly.
"Where's Wiggins? His servant?"
"Uh, um, dispatched," said the surgeon, remembering himself. "To deliver a message to Bath."
Mary's eyes narrowed. "Bath? That's—"
Sherlock's hand flew out then, a last vestige of strength that clung hard to John's forearm. His fingerprints, coloured scarlet, smudged over John's skin.
"It's no use," he said plainly. His shirt, torn open to access the wound, was damp from sweat and red from bleeding. His chest rose and fell in rapid succession, one breath barely finished before the next began. "Did it get there? Did it get to…"
He grew rapidly still. His grip loosened.
Her name faded on his lips.
A messenger jumped from his horse. His breath was a heavy cloud against the cool of the early spring evening, his feet landing with a crunch on the gravel drive.
In an upstairs chamber, a silhouette extinguished candlelight.
Rapidly, the messenger ascended the steps.
On his second knock, the door swung open to a manservant.
"Good evening sir," said the messenger breathlessly. He didn't notice the pinked colour of the manservant's eyes or the poorly hidden tears. Instead, he gave a rapid bow. He reached forward his hand.
Between his fingers, he carried a letter that held the seal and handwriting of Molly Hooper.
"I have an urgent message for Sherlock Holmes."