He gave her a drunken leer. “You’re the person who decided my wife was dead?”
“Your wife passed away in the middle of the night after asphyxiating in her sleep from phlegm coughed halfway out of her lungs.” Amelia glared at him. “If someone had been there to slap her back and get her upright, she’d probably have survived.”
He reared back at the thinly veiled accusation.
“Or it could’ve been the pneumonia, really. But who’s to say?” Amelia gave an exaggerated shrug. “Maybe we could blamethe empty coal scuttle or the man who’d drunk away his wages instead of paying a tuppence to refill the scuttle!”
His face went red. “Why, you bitch.” He loomed over the counter, eyes fixed on Amelia.
Ellen surged into action. “No, you’re the problem here, Mr. O’Malley!” Her temper poured forth. She didn’t even check to see if the O’Malley children were still upstairs eating a snack with the Daugherty children. Ellen jumped to Amelia’s side. “You shall not blame the doctor for speaking the truth.Youcaused her death.”
O’Malley swung his head to look at Ellen, murder in his eyes.
“You whittled away at her health, night after night. Her life drained away each time you ignored the midwives’ prescriptions and she suffered the consequences. By the time winter came, she didn’t have enough life to sustain herself, let alone the new babe in her belly.”
“Ah, Mrs. Glenfall.” He sneered at her, looking her up and down. “The high society lady who likes to slum it with us undesirables.”
Ellen bristled.
“See here,” a man put in from the crowd. “She saved my wee one from wasting away four years ago. Taught us about glass bottles and rubber nipples. She does good charity work.”
“I am the reason your Opal is still alive,” she told him. “Tina reached out to me for help—were you even aware your infant was starving?”
He stuck a finger in her face. “You watch yourself, little lady. We aren’t so genteel as Mayfair, and you’ll not go casting aspersions on my character without consequence.”
Ellen drew herself up to her full height and looked at him. “Aspersions on your character? Such as drinking most of the day when you should be sweeping chimneys? Pulling your son out of school even though we all know Tina wanted him to stay another year? And now you slink in here, not even asking how to arrange a burial? Not facing her body? You coward. You are the reason four children are motherless. I’ll shout it from the rooftops, I will.”
His face went from red to purple. “I ain’t ever hit a woman before, but you’re a good one to start with.” He made a fist and swung.
Before Ellen had time to flinch, a hand grabbed his fist, and in one smooth movement, O’Malley’s arm twisted behind him in a vise-like grip. She gasped, and Amelia threw an arm around her shoulders.
“You will not speak to my wife that way,” Mark said in low, unmistakable tones. “You will walk out this door and never bother the dispensary staff again. You will either sober up and become the best father in London, or you will find a safe and loving home for your children.” He pressed O’Malley’s arm tighter, pushing the man up to his tiptoes. He used a voice Ellen had never heard before. It was cold, commanding, and brooked no room for argument.
O’Malley winced, alarm finally cutting through the drunken glaze in his eyes. “Get off me! You have no right.”
Mark leaned in close enough to murmur in his ear. “I think you’ll find no one in this room is sympathetic to you. You killed your wife because you were too selfish to use your hand for pleasure or keep the coal scuttle full. And everyone knows it.”
Ellen shivered at the dangerous edge to Mark’s voice. She hadn’t known he could sound like that. Amelia gripped her tighter in response.
O’Malley glanced around the room, suddenly aware of the silent audience. Roughly ten adults and a handful of children all stood, watching. None of them looked ready to step in on O’Malley’s behalf. A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Let me go,” he growled.
Mark merely took his other hand and gripped O’Malley’s shoulder, pinching a nerve by the way O’Malley jerked. “Do you understand you will never, ever approach these women again? You will not look at them, or I will track you down and throw you in the Thames.”
Rage festered in O’Malley’s eyes, but he knew he was overpowered.
“Now get out.” Mark released O’Malley so quickly he lost his balance and slammed his hip against the counter.
Ellen flinched.
Mark flicked his gaze to hers in concern, then focused his attention back on O’Malley.
The man snarled at Mark. “You motherfecking bastard.”
A woman gasped in the small crowd.
Two men stepped forward, grabbing O’Malley’s arms and manhandling him backward. “You’re drunk, you oaf,” one reproached him. “Your wife might be dead, but you still have children to provide for.”
O’Malley jerked, but the men held fast.