Read Bicycle Built for Two for Free Online Page A

him a look that
told him what she thought of him. Not much. If anything.
    “Yeah,” she said sarcastically. “You might
say so.”
    “May I ask who it is?” That was polite,
wasn’t it? He’d sounded as if he cared, even though he didn’t,
really.
    “You can ask. I don’t choose to answer.”
    “Dash it, you’re a very rude woman, Miss
Finney!”
    “Gee, I’m really sorry. I usually try to be
nice to people who are trying to ruin my life.” The carriage pulled
up in front of the hospital. Before it came to a complete stop,
Kate had opened the door and leapt out.
    Alarmed, Alex lurched to the door after her.
“Miss Finney! Miss Finney! Wait!”
    She didn’t wait. Furious, Alex decided he
didn’t need to lower himself to Kate’s level and charge after her,
but waited until his driver had guided the horses to the curb. Then
he descended from the carriage in a dignified manner and spoke to
Frank, the coachman. “Wait here for a moment, Frank. I’ll be back
as soon as possible.”
    “Sure thing, Mr. English.” Frank touched his
cap in a short salute and set the brake. “I’ll be right here.”
    Tugging at his expensive worsted frock coat
to eliminate any wrinkles, Alex started up the walkway toward the
front doors of the hospital. To his irritation, Kate had already
vanished into the building. He, however, wasn’t through with her
yet, no matter what she thought. He was going to get to the bottom
of the puzzle that was Kate Finney, whether she wanted him to or
not, dash it. Alex hated being thwarted. And to be thwarted by an
unlettered, unsophisticated girl from the slums, at that—well, it
was too much, and he wouldn’t stand for it.
    # # #
    It took Kate only a minute to ascertain that
her mother had been taken to the Charity Ward. She’d expected it
would be so, because that’s where her kind always ended up, if they
ended up in hospitals at all. Generally speaking, they just died
without the diversion of a hospital stay.
    She ran up the staircase, holding her skirts
in her hand, heedless of the gaping hospital orderlies staring at
her flashing ankles. Her mother’s ward was number 3B. Kate jerked
the door open and stood, panting, staring in distress at the rows
upon rows of cots with their pathetic occupants. She had to swallow
a cry of mingled rage and pain before she stepped, with more seemly
aplomb than she’d heretofore exhibited, into the room.
    Her heart raged as she walked down the first
row of cots, searching for her mother’s haggard face. It wasn’t
fair. Nothing was fair. That her mother, a blameless, pure soul,
should have been deceived into marrying her father, a devil
incarnate who could put on a good show when he wanted to, was one
of life’s more bitter ironies. Her mother hadn’t deserved such a
brute as Kate’s father. Kate knew that Ma would have left the
bastard long since, except that he’d threatened to injure the
children in retaliation. So she’d stayed with him, and he’d only
injured her.
    That was before Kate was old enough to take
matters into her own hands. The last straw had been when her father
had come home, reeling drunk, after having spent any money he’d
made doing odd jobs. He’d been mad and mean, and he’d needed
someone to take out his anger on, so he’d headed straight for
Kate’s mother. It had been Kate who’d beaned the beast over the
head with a cast-iron skillet. And it had been Kate who’d dragged
her mother out of the house and to her own small room over the
butcher’s shop.
    Hazel Finney had been terrified, but Kate
had lectured her long and hard about the wisdom of finally, after
far too many years, getting away from her husband. “He’s no good,
Ma. You know that better than anyone.”
    Her mother, already sick
with consumption, not to mention in a general agony of spirit and
soul, had broken down and sobbed. She’d nearly broken Kate’s heart
with her moans of apology, as if it had been her fault she’d married a wretch and
a