The Winter Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  "Which one, Joe? The rose silk or the plaid sateen?" she said to her hus-band, holding two suit jackets up for his inspection.

  "Neither," he replied, coming up behind her and kissing her neck.

  "Joe, luv. I'm just about to have a bath. I'm sweaty as a navvy. Leave off."

  "I love you all sweaty," he said, fumbling with her nightgown's buttons. "All warm and salty and tasty..."

  "You make me sound like a chipped potato."

  "You're almost as delicious."

  "Almost!"

  "I love you, Fee, I do, but chips are chips." He opened her nightgown and cupped her ripening breasts. "Blimey, lass, just look at them!" he said, ogling her reflection.

  "Will you stop? I've a train to catch."

  "They're twice as big as usual," he said appreciatively.

  "Will you let go of me?"

  Joe didn't reply. Instead, he pushed the gown off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. He kissed her neck again, moving his hands down to her swollen belly. "Let me have you, Fee. I'm hard as a rock for you."

  "I don't have time!"

  "Won't take long, luv, believe you me." He moved one hand down lower, between her legs.

  "Stop, Joe. I can't. I really can't."

  But she didn't want him to stop. She craved his touch. More than ever. It had been like this when she was carrying Katie, too. She had wanted him all the time then. Couldn't get enough of him. His fingers found her and stroked her, making her breathless and wet. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back on his shoulder.

  "Still want me to stop?" he whispered.

  "Don't you dare."

  He led her to their bed and sat her on the edge of it. Then he knelt down and pushed her legs apart. His tongue on her, then in her, made her groan with desire.

  "God, you feel good," she whispered. He always knew just how to touch her, and where. He had always known. Now he was making her impossibly hot, teasing her, bringing her to the verge of pleasure again and again, then pulling away, making her need of him build until it was almost unbearable. "Oh, yes," she moaned, burying her hands in his hair. "Oh, Joe... now, please now... oh--"

  "Mummy!"

  Fiona froze. There was the sound of little feet pounding down the hallway outside her room. Then little fists against the bedroom door.

  "Mummy! Mummy! Mummy! Mummy!"

  Fiona bolted to the armoire and grabbed her dressing gown. She got it on just as the doorknob turned, a split second before Katie burst into the room.

  "Hello, Mummy!" she crowed.

  "Hello, my darling!" Fiona bent to scoop her daughter into her arms. She kissed Katie's cheek, then buried her face in her neck, inhaling her little-girl smell.

  "Play, Mummy!"

  "I can't right now, my love. Mummy has to get ready for a trip."

  Anna, Katie's nurse, appeared in the doorway. "I'm terribly sorry, Mrs. Bristow," she said breathlessly. "The little minx darted out of the nursery while I was drawing her bath."

  "It's all right, Anna. Leave her here for a bit. I want to see her before I go."

  "Yes, ma'am. Good morning, Mr. Bristow."

  "Morning, Anna," Joe said.

  He was sitting in a chair near the bed, holding a pillow in his lap to hide the bulge in his pajama trousers. Poor lad, she thought. She was rather hot and bothered herself.

  Fiona walked over to Joe, still carrying Katie. "Go to Daddy for a bit, duck. Mummy has to..."

  "No!" Katie yelled, clasping her mother in a death grip. "Mummy, play!"

  "Katie, darling, I can't right now."

  "Please, Mummy," Katie said.

  Fiona swallowed hard. Katie's words were like a knife to her heart. She had just returned from a business trip to Edinburgh yesterday and was leaving for Paris this morning. She'd barely seen her little daughter all week.

  "We will play, Katie," she said. "On Saturday. As soon as I'm home. I promise."

  "No! No! No!" Katie howled, kicking her legs. Fiona deftly shifted the wailing toddler so that her flailing feet would not catch her belly.

  "Oi, you!" Joe scolded. "That's enough!"

  "Katie, behave yourself," Fiona said.

  "Play, Mummy!"

  "All right then, look... we'll play dress up. Mummy will have a bath, then put her nice plaid suit on, and you can sit on the bed and put her jewels on. Would you like to play that game?"

  Katie nodded vigorously. Fiona sat her down, handing her bracelets and a rope of pearls to keep her occupied. She was just about to pick her plaid suit up off the floor when a growling, snapping bundle of white fur came hurtling into the room, sending her clothes flying. It was Lipton and Twining, the fox terriers.

  Katie laughed and clapped her hands at the sight of them.

  "Are those mongrels still around?" Joe grumbled. "How'd they get in here?"

  "Anna must not have closed the door all the way," Fiona said. "They've got something. Someone's tie, I think."

  The dogs were playing tug of war with a blue silk necktie. Each had sunk his teeth into an end, and from the sound of their growls, neither had any intention of letting go.

  "Is it yours, luv?" Fiona asked Joe, lunging for the tie.

  "My what?"

  The dogs scooted out of her reach, still snarling and tugging.

  "Come on, Lipton ere's a good dog. The tie, Joe, the one that these filthy beasts are destroying. Is it yours?"

  "I have no idea. Katie, luv, don't eat those," Joe said, jumping out of his chair to pull the pearls out of Katie's mouth.

  There was another knock at the door.

  "Yes?" Fiona called, an edge of desperation in her voice.

  A young woman stuck her head into the room. "Beg pardon, ma'am, but Mr. Foster says to tell you that the carriage has been brought round and if you don't leave smartish you'll miss the eight oh five train and the next one's not till eleven fifteen and that one won't get you to the coast in time to board the ferry for Calais and..."

  "Thank you, Sarah," Fiona said. "Tell Mr. Foster I'll be right along."

  "Yes, ma'am," Sarah said, closing the door.

  Fiona glanced at her clock again. There was no time left to take a bath. Not if she wanted to make the earlier train. She would have to go to France sweaty. What a lovely way to start an important business trip. Skirting around the dogs, who were still whirling about with the tie, she found fresh underclothes and quickly put them on. She kicked her dirty things into a heap, then stepped into her skirt.

  "Joe, luv, Cathy rang yesterday. She said to tell you not to forget supper tonight. She wants to go over the plans for the Brighton site," Fiona said, reaching for her blouse.

  "Good thing you mentioned it. I had forgotten."

  "Look, Mummy! Pretty?" Katie asked, showing Fiona the bracelets she'd put on.

  "Very pretty, my love," Fiona said, pulling her jacket on.

  "Did the newspapers come yet, Fee?"

  "Um... yes."

  "Do you have them?"

  "I do."

  Joe rolled his eyes. "Can I have them?"

  "Um, well, they're in my carpetbag. All packed away with sales reports and Seamie's appalling school report," she said, hoping to change the sub-ject. "It came yesterday. He failed French again and English Literature. Barely passed History."

  Joe stood up. "I won't disturb things. It's only the Times I'm after. There's talk of an apple blight in Normandy. I'm hoping there'll be some-thing in there on it."

  "I'll get it," Fiona said quickly. There was one paper she did not want him to see.

  Joe waved her away. "Don't be silly. I can find it."

  He dug in Fiona's bag and pulled out a pile of newspapers. Fiona held her breath, hoping the Times was on top.

  "The Clarion? What are you doing with this rag, Fee?" he asked, laughing. He looked at the tabloid's front page, jokingly reading off headlines about mayhem, murder, and the music halls. And then he stopped laughing. "�The New Underworld,'" he read aloud. "�Crime Pays Handsomely for East
London Firm.'"

  It was quiet in the room while he read the article. All Fiona could hear was Katie singing as she slipped a rope of pearls over her head. She didn't have to ask Joe what the article said. She knew. She'd read it earlier.

  Robert Devlin, the Clarion's editor, had done a series of stories on a powerful East London crime lord. Calling him a new breed of villain, Dev-lin said that he ran crime like a business. There were no smash-and-grabs, no pickpocketing, no unnecessary violence. The Firm, as he called them, did nothing to attract any unwanted attention. Instead, they ran a series of legitimate operations, pubs and clubs among them, but these were only fronts for far more lucrative concerns--prostitution, gambling, extortion, and opium. In addition, the Firm was widely believed to have been behind a recent spate of shockingly bold robberies.

  "These are not the random and impulsive acts of the petty street thief," Detective Inspector Alvin Donaldson had been quoted as saying, "but the well-planned campaigns of a group of bold, ruthless, and highly organized criminals."

  Freddie Lytton had been quoted, too. He'd recalled how he had con-fronted the gang's leader man-to-man in a Limehouse opium den and had been assaulted, but felt it was a small price to pay for the safety of his con-stituents. The article explained that Lytton had returned to the scene the following morning with the police in tow, but the evidence had been en-tirely cleared away. There was not even one opium pipe left with which to make a case.

  "The enemy is cunning and slippery," Lytton had said, "but we know who he is and how he works and he will be brought to justice. It is only a matter of time."

  Devlin hadn't identified the man by his name--he wasn't stupid--only by a nickname, the Chairman. But he had run a photograph. It was a profile shot. The man's cap was pulled down over his eyes and his face was blurred, but even so Fiona had recognized him. It was Charlie.

  Joe finished reading. He lowered the paper and looked at her. "Is that why you have the Clarion?" he asked. "Because of Sid?"

  Fiona looked away, dreading his next question.

  "Fiona, are you still looking for him?"

  "I am."

  "You've hired someone new. After I asked you not to."

  "I've hired no one."

  Joe looked at her, disbelief on his face. "You've gone after him yourself?"

  She nodded.

  "When? Where?"

  "I just ...I made some inquiries. In Limehouse."

  "Where in Limehouse?"

  "Ko's laundry."

  "Jesus Christ, Fiona! That's a bloody hop den!" Joe thundered.

  Katie, startled by the raised voices, stopped playing and looked from her mother to her father, wide-eyed.

  "Please stop shouting," Fiona said.

  "No, I bloody well won't stop shouting! You know what happened to Michael Bennett. You saw his arm. Do you want to end up the same way? We talked about this, Fiona. You said you would stop!"

  "No, you said I would stop. I never agreed," Fiona retorted. "He's my brother, Joe."

  "I don't give a damn who he is. I won't have you mixing with the likes of Sid Malone!"

  "Charlie! His name is Charlie Finnegan. Not Sid Malone."

  Katie burst into tears.

  "That's just bloody great," Joe said disgustedly.

  "Don't cry, my love," Fiona said, picking her up. "It's all right. Please don't cry."

  Katie wailed piteously. Fiona, trying to shush her, noticed that she had two more teeth. When had that happened? she wondered. How did I miss it?

  There was another knock on the door.

  "What is it?" Joe barked.

  "Beg your pardon, sir, but Mr. James is here to see you. And Mrs. Bris-tow is certain to miss the eight oh five. Will you want the carriage for the eleven fifteen, ma'am?"

  "No, Sarah, I'm coming," Fiona shouted. "I've got to go now, Katie love," she said to her daughter.

  "No, Mummy, no!" Katie pleaded, tightening her hold.

  Fiona looked helplessly at Joe.

  "Come on, Kate the Great," he said, pulling her away. "Let's go and see if Cook's got your porridge ready."

  But Katie wasn't to be placated with porridge. She began to cry harder, reaching her arms out to her mother. Fiona faltered. She was torn in two. She quickly kissed her sobbing daughter, then her husband.

  Joe caught her arm. "Sid Malone is not Charlie Finnegan. Not by a long shot. Charlie is dead. Remember that."

  "Don't say that. Ever!" Fiona shouted, suddenly blindly furious at him. "He's not dead. He's not!"

  She grabbed her jacket and valise and ran out of the bedroom, near tears herself now. Sarah had packed her trunks earlier, and they were al-ready in the carriage. She fiew down the stairs and out the front door. Katie's wails followed her.

  "Hurry, Myles," she shouted at her driver as he closed the carriage door behind her. "I have to make that train!"

  Myles climbed into his seat and cracked his whip. Fiona fell back against her own seat as the carriage rolled forward.

  "Damn it!" she said out loud, as if Joe were with her, as if he could hear her. "Why can't you understand? You don't even try!"

  She was so upset. This fight, and the one they'd had during her party for the girls' school, was the first real discord of their married life. They almost never disagreed, and they certainly never shouted at each other--not un-less they were talking about Charlie.

  Since they had reunited three years ago, Fiona and Joe had been bliss-fully happy. They'd lost each other once. They'd known a sad and second-best life without each other, and both had been careful never to take one second of their new happiness for granted. In all the years she'd known Joe, Fiona had only once ever been truly angry with him--the day he'd left her for someone else. Years ago, when they were both teenagers and engaged to be married, Joe had made a girl named Millie Peterson pregnant. He'd had to marry her. The day he told Fiona what he'd done, he had shattered her. The anger she'd felt then had been mixed with grief and despair for every-thing he'd destroyed--their love, their life together.

  He'd betrayed her then, and a part of her felt like he was betraying her now by forcing her to ignore her heart, to turn her back on her brother. He had never lost family, but she had. She knew the searing pain of burying her own blood. She had buried her father, her mother, her infant sister, and she was determined that she would not do the same for Charlie.

  She sighed heavily, knowing it had to stop--the harsh words, the arguments. This was the second time they'd fought over Charlie. It wasn't good. Not for them, not for Katie. She knew there was only one way to make that happen. She had to stop searching for Charlie--and bloody well find him.

  When she returned from Paris, she would redouble her efforts. She would try Wapping's riverside pubs, Whitechapel's gambling dens. She would go on foot, dressed in shabby clothes. She would be careful, of course she would. She wasn't a fool. She knew as well as anyone how dan-gerous the dark streets of London could be, but like her brother, she also knew how to survive them.

  "It'll be all right," she said, still talking to Joe. "You'll see. I'll find him. I will. Nothing will happen to me. Charlie wouldn't let it."

  But Joe wasn't there to answer. He wasn't there to tell her that she was headstrong and blinded by love, and that her words were at best foolish, at worst dangerous.

  And so Fiona made a bad mistake.

  She believed them.

  Chapter 10

  "Home Rule is defeatist politics, that's what it is! It's capitulation!" bellowed Sir Stuart Walton, a sugar baron with a refinery in Whitechapel, as he ripped a leg off his truffled roast quail.

  A round of "Hear! Hear!"s rose from the assembled company of mer-chants and manufacturers. Freddie held his hands up for silence. He was standing, not sitting. He'd left the table to pace the room. He could never sit still when talking politics.

  "I understand your views completely, Sir Stuart," he said, "but if I may beg your indulgence ...if I may ask you to think not only as a loyal subject, but also as the b
rilliant businessman we all know that you are..."

  There were more cheers at that, the sound of crystal glasses clinking. Sir Stuart flapped a hand. Freddie continued, "Ireland demands much in terms of money and manpower, and unlike India or South Africa, it gives a poor return on the investment. There is no cotton to be had from it. No tea or coffee. No diamonds, gold, or sugar. Home Rule will give the truculent Irish self-government--limited self-government--but still allow Britain to collect taxes. We don't feed the cow, we don't shelter the cow, but we take the cow's milk. It's good business, Sir Stuart, you can't deny it. And today-- at the dawn of a new century--an international century which finds Britain competing like never before against Germany, Russia, France, and the colossus that is America, good business is good government."