Chapter 2

Their sudden face-to-face meeting left sir Jonathan standing agape. Mrs. McTavish stopped her screaming and looked up into his face with terrified wide crystal blue eyes. Time stopped as recognition dawned, and their shared past came back to both. Then the moment of quiet was gone. Katrina's face contorted in horror. New tears spilled down her cheeks. She jerked hard, half breaking free of the young man guiding her into the doctor's office. Together, both she and the boy went tumbling back toward the door.

Sir Jonathan's instincts took over before he was conscious of what he was doing. He dropped his cane and hat to help. Instead of gratitude for the kindness, the boy let go and went out the door in a flash. He called out to get the boy back, but his burden was crying in his arms, loud enough to drown his voice. His hands full just keeping the lady from running too, he gave up and devoted himself to the task.

"Just let me go!" She screamed over and over.

He spoke quietly and calmly in her ear as he got his arms around her fully, pinning her arms across her chest. Getting a vice grip on her struggling form, he tried to break through her frenzy. "Katrina, it's me, Jonathan. Do not be frightened. It is all right," he said over and over to her. Mrs. McTavish could not or would not hear him. She had her head ducked down as she fruitlessly fought his strength. Her tangled hair shrouded her face like a curtain as she wept, dripping a steady flow of tears down on his hands.

Step-by-step, Chatsworth forced her forward into the clinic. He saw an examination table, but did not see any restraints. He turned his gaze over her head to his friend to get some direction.

Daniel had not seen what had happened in the foyer and did not know his dilemma. He was still taking information from the older woman who had been responsible for bringing Katrina here. Chatsworth saw the woman hand the doctor a black medical bag, making explanations as she gestured to its contents. Daniel searched it, pulled out bottles; looked them over. Two, he pulled out, were empty. Daniel's face went sick with anguish as he looked up from the bottles to Katrina.

That anguish was replaced with training. Daniel went to his medicine cabinet, removing a dark bottle of liquid. "Bring her over here," he ordered.

Sir Jonathan pulled Katrina's feet up off the floor and bodily carried her to the sink.

Daniel poured a glass half full of the liquid. He grabbed Katrina by the jaw and forced her mouth open, pouring the liquid down her throat. Some went down, but a lot of it spilled over onto Sir Jonathan's sleeves.

In the background, the older woman, overcome by the frightful scene, left the clinic after the young man, but neither man noticed. They were too busy struggling with their patient.

Katrina reacted to the substance within seconds. She gagged. Daniel guided her, getting her to bend over the deep sink where she vomited repeatedly. When her actions changed to only dry heaves, the doctor looked at the sink's contents and decided that the job was done.

"That should be all of it. Hold on to her just another few minutes," Daniel said. He went back to the cabinet and came away with a fresh bottle of liquid. This time he poured some onto a cloth and held it to her face.

Sir Jonathan instantly knew what it was and held his breath, turning away so as not to be overcome too.

"There, there, Katrina, Don't fight it. Go to sleep now. That's it…go to sleep."

She slowly calmed in Sir Jonathan's arms. He changed his hold on her before she lost her feet, taking her up in his arms. She was a dead weight now, but more manageable.

Daniel gave a sigh of relief and pointed to the door leading back into his residence. He led the way to a guestroom and bid had her lay on the bed.

"Help me undress her." Daniel said.

With a momentary hesitation for shocked sensibilities, he complied.

"She will have to stay here for care until I can calm her down," Daniel said. "I could call a local hospital and have her admitted." He didn't finish the thought. Both men had seen what that care was about and did not have it in them to consign her to it. When she was undressed to her chemise, they covered her up with a throw blanket before handling the rest.

Sir Jonathan was the one to get her shoes off. They were the usual high heeled and buttoned over the ankle variety. They were as muddy and wet as her skirt had been and badly worn. The heel of the left shoe had broken off. Once off, he found a pair of ruined feet inside. Her soles were freshly blistered with worn bleeding sores.

Daniel saw the damage and quickly produced a basin to wash the wounds. After suave was applied, Sir Jonathan helped bandage her feet.

Daniel left the room momentarily after his patient was settled under the covers, coming back with two neck cloths. Taking her hands, he tied the wrists to the bedposts.

"Is that really necessary?" Sir Jonathan said.

"In her present state of mind, yes," Daniel said as he finished with one and moved around the bed to deal with the other. "If she gets loose here and finds her way to my medicine cabinet, she will do a lot more damage than she could with the sedatives. Thankfully, she swallowed them whole, and her landlady caught her as she was doing it. We got to her just fifteen minutes afterward. She should not have any lasting effects from it. The question is what the hell brought her to this; and what is she doing back in London so soon? Katrina told me she would be gone for two weeks when I last saw her."

"Will she need to be watched through the night?" Chatsworth said.

"Yes, Daniel said. He sat down on the far side of the bed from her. "Thank you for helping me. You can go now if–"

"I will stay," he said, cutting his friend off. They were all three friends here. Friends that he had not seen in years, but part of his life, and he could not bring himself to leave Daniel to Katrina's night watch alone.

Sir Jonathan took a moment to go outside and order his coachman to leave him for the night. When he came back into the house, he dropped into a chair at a desk in the guest room. The initial crisis was over. He let his now aching arms dangle at his sides.

Looking across the room, he saw the lady, serene as an angel, in sleep. This was the Katrina McTavish he knew. Not that wild thing he had wrestled with in the clinic. Her face was relaxed, yet stained with dried tears. He had never in his life seen Katrina McTavish cry, not even at the gravesides of her two dead children and husband. All he had seen of her in the last ten years had been those quiet, reserved events.

He wondered why he and his old friends had never gotten together for happier occasions. Are we too busy with our respective lives? I have certainly been busy since taking over the Service.

Sir Jonathan looked back to happier carefree days at university when all one worried about was studying and lively talk of changing the world. He had been the only law student in a group of medical students who met at the McTavish home a few blocks off campus. He had been included in the group of medical students because of his friendship with Daniel, whom he had come to university with.

Robert McTavish, a one day to be third generation doctor, had come to medical school married. It had been an early marriage by family arrangement. Katrina, his wife, was the secret envy of all. She was young, beautiful, intelligent, witty, and devoted to her husband. She had fed the group, studied right along with them to prepare for becoming a doctor's wife. She transcribed their chicken scratch into coherent notes and quizzed them before exams. She had even offered to transcribe Jonathan's research a few times; an offer he had been too snowed under to refuse.

Jonathan had inadvertently repaid that kindness in spades when the others talked him into a lark.

Which will haunt me to my dying day.

When that prank had gone so utterly wrong, he had sworn them all to secrecy with dire consequences if word should ever get out as long as any of them lived. He had later informed them of his ascension within the Secret Service, just to let them know he had greater power to back up that threat.

Sir Jonathan looked down at the lady he had idolized in his youth, just now saved from suicide. Daniel was doing the same thing from his place in another chair he had brought in from the dining room.

"What in the HELL caused this?"