by Ciar Cullen
“I will be fine.”
In the darkness, he reached for her hand, found it and squeezed firmly. That cold grasp warmed her tired body. “No, Lillian, that is not what I mean. In Spring Grove, I thought you were hallucinating. You did speak of the city wanting to kill you.”
“Yes, I might have said. In my worst nervous moments, I have succumbed to some odd notions. Would you like to hear the most remarkable?”
“More remarkable than Baltimore trying to kill you?”
“In the last few years, I took to reading novels to ease my nerves. At times I allowed myself to slip into various fantasies. The strongest of these is that I am actually a fictional character myself.”
“Indeed?”
“The niece…the niece of Sherlock Holmes. I suppose because of my name. I know how this must sound to you.”
“It sounds like a lovely fantasy, Lil. Who wouldn’t want to have such an exciting family when you have none at all?”
And in one sentence, he’d said what she never spoke aloud. The Truth of Lillian Holmes. They were all gone. She fretted with her bag, wishing that there were a bottle of solace left there.
He kept her hand and squeezed again. “That is why I am a bit morose tonight. I am leaving the only family member who does not hate me, or at least doesn’t hate me much. But Phillip is better off alone. I’m a bit wild for his liking.”
“Yes, you are a bit wild, murdering and jumping out of windows and rescuing women from madhouses. I sense there is more to it than that, George? In fact, you told me more in a weak moment.”
“Hmn. Nothing several hundred kilometers won’t cure. But you are being a lady detective at the moment, and you will not catch me off guard, Miss Holmes.”
She sniffed out a laugh.
He slid closer to her, and her heart sped at the contact. She briefly wondered if he’d kiss her again before they parted. Had she imagined how wonderful his lips felt, his hand along her hip? How could she crave a monster’s touch?
“I have great sympathy for you, Lil. I have suffered a great deal in my life. My mother betrayed me in the most despicable fashion. My father abandoned my brother and me when we needed him most. I have craved something impossible since then. In many ways, we are similar. But your loss is the worst. Not only your mother, but a child.”
Her blood ran to ice. “What?”
“Why, that is why you were given drugs at sixteen. No doubt you were hospitalized and then closeted at home, away from the judging eyes of society. You had a baby.”
“Do not be ridiculous.” Who would have told him that? Bess never would have betrayed my secret.
“And you never saw her.”
“Who said that?”
“You did. In Spring Grove. I didn’t understand it then, but I do now. I am so sorry. Did the father also leave you alone?”
She pulled her hand from his and clutched at her stomach to stop the churning. “I cannot speak about that.”
“Of course you can. Don’t you see? Those pills, those potions? Have they filled the void in your life? They never worked for me.”
Lillian choked back a sob. “I am fine.”
“Oh, my dear. Your life is so short. Why waste it pretending?” He pulled her into a hug, rubbed at her back, and the world fell out from under her feet. She collapsed in his embrace and sobbed for what seemed like an eternity.
“I am so sorry,” she said at last. “I never cry.”
“That is your problem, then. No wonder you are anxious. When I am gone you must speak with your friend Elisabeth on these matters, and perhaps to that dreadful Dr. Langhan who seems to favor female issues.”
“It was a terrible mistake, and very long ago. I have paid the price. It is time to move on.”
“My guess is that you fell in love. You were young. Someone else made the terrible mistake in not adhering to your wish to keep your child.”
“They meant well.”
I was never in love. There was no handsome boy. Her mood flattened, as it did whenever she dared to remember that horrible night so many years ago. Her limbs grew light, and she wondered why she’d felt anything at all towards George Orleans. Addie and Thomas were not to blame, were they? Why then did she want to scream at them? She wanted to scream at everyone, especially since being free of her medicine. What would take this awful pain away now? Perhaps if would have been best had George had killed her.
“Ah, are we at the Wheeler estate?”
So soon? Now the Leaping Man would leave?
“Estate may be an exaggeration,” he went on. “It seems to be one of these cottages by the sea.”
“Yes, they have had difficulties and were forced to put this cottage up for sale. Fortunately, it is still vacant.”
She said no more, aching. He pulled her forward and hovered so close. His cool breath brushed across her cheek, and the pain of losing him broke through her emotional stupor. He’d opened up so many wounds, and now they would remain open. In desperation Lillian pulled him down into a kiss and lost herself in the taste of him, in the feel of his hands roaming her torso, in his body pressing against her.
He broke the kiss for a second and brushed the back of his hand against her cheek. “This is cruel. I want you badly.”
And I, you. But how can I want a murderer, one who may not be human? How can I resist? He would think me a common whore. “Perhaps you can stay a while? I could make up a story for Bess…”
But she’d heard it in his voice. He would go from her life as mysteriously as he’d come.
The carriage stopped, and she heard the driver get down and pull her small sack from the compartment behind them. “I do not think I would turn you in,” she announced. “I would be a friend rather than an enemy…”
“I have other enemies, and you would come to despise me in any case. Goodbye, Lillian Holmes.”
“Goodbye, George Orleans.”
The door opened, and she stepped from the carriage with the help of the driver. She didn’t look back but walked up the path to see Bess waiting in the doorway, holding a lamp against the darkness. Only when the whip cracked and the wheels turned did she finally spin around, but the carriage was soon rounding the narrow bend of the sandy lane and George was gone forever from her life.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
More difficult times.
Bess put the hairbrush down and rested her hands on Lillian’s shoulders. “You look lovely again, although thin. I’ll make tea and buttered bread and you will eat every crumb.”
“Yes, mother.” Lillian smiled at her friend’s worried image in the vanity mirror and took a deep breath. It was her second morning at the cottage. The night had been more restful than the first, more restful than she’d thought possible. Despite the turmoil of the last weeks, the sounds of crickets and tree frogs and a gentle seaside breeze rustling through the loblolly pines outside her window had lulled her into dreamless sleep. Indeed, she wouldn’t have to lie about recuperating at the Wheeler vacation home; recuperating she was, thanks to the Leaping Man. Of course, he had caused a good deal of her troubles.
“You’re thinking about him again,” Bess warned.
“Nonsense.”
“You knew who I meant.”
“Well, of course I did. Bess, I assure you that I am intrigued by the mystery and immune to every other aspect of the man. Or vampire. Or murderer. In any case, I shall likely not meet him again.” While she kept the disappointment out of her voice, it crept into her chest and squeezed. His quick goodbye had felt so dismissive. Yes, well, that was all to be expected and certainly for the best.
Her friend sat next to her and stared at her in the mirror. “I know that Orleans enclave has turned our lives upside down. Lil, I have to tell you something. Are you truly feeling well?”
“I’m fine.” My hands shake constantly and my veins crave calming, but George assured me this will pass. “Tell me what is on your mind. You are bored and wish to go out?”
Bess folded her arms and
wiggled her foot. “Just because I don’t carry a pistol and crawl around in mud looking for evidence, I am not stupid!”
“You most certainly are not. I have told you that you could be an admirable assistant… I’m sorry. Oh, Bess, you’re my one true friend. I don’t know why I talk that way. I imagine I try to imitate my uncle.” She stopped herself. “My pretend uncle. I hardly know what I’m doing anymore. Tell me what’s on your mind. Are you well? Is the family bearing up under their difficulties?” I am too self-absorbed. I must find a way to be a better friend to her.
“I am a good assistant,” Bess agreed. “But I’ve lied to my entire family, gone calling on some of the strangest people I’ve ever encountered, perhaps even put myself in danger.”
“Please forgive my foolishness.”
“Although I am supposedly an idiot, I believe I have important information for you.” Bess winced and squeezed Lillian’s hand, and without another word Lillian knew the topic. The Truth of Lillian Holmes had surfaced more than once recently. It seemed to be in the air.
“It’s about my heritage,” she guessed. “I hope you have not been listening to that quack again.”
Bess’s cheeks colored. “Kitty slipped when I visited her. She mentioned your mother. I don’t know how, but I am convinced that the quack has some true knowledge about her. Do you remember how eager she was to speak to you about it?”
Lillian swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded. She’d felt that George hid something about her family as well, although he hadn’t discussed it openly. All her secrets boiled beneath a thin surface that was once a thick wall. What had become of the carefully built fortress that guarded her from pain and worry?
Bess touched her hand. “Lil, are you certain that your mother is dead? Have you pressed Addie and Thomas on the topic? Or asked the Jackal? Oh, look at your face. I am sorry I brought it up. I thought if there was a chance to know more—”
The tears came unbidden and unwelcome, burning her throat and chest. “I am no longer certain of anything. Does it matter? The woman wanted nothing to do with me.”
Bess frowned and held Lillian’s gaze. “How do you know that you were not snatched from her arms as your child was snatched from yours? Perhaps she has been looking for you for many years. Perhaps she is afraid you would not want to see her.”
“I suppose I am paying doubly for my own mistake.”
“For the love of God, stop punishing yourself for falling in love! The boy did not stay. That is his failure, not yours! You would have wed him, I know it. Don’t you see, Lil? I know how empty…how lonely…”
There was no boy to wed. He did not flee. God help me.
“Go on. You are right. I fill my days with fantasies and pretend that I do not care about the rest. What would you have me do, Bess? Spend the rest of my life looking for an eight-year-old child who could live anywhere, who could be dead? Where would I begin? How would I begin to find the mother who left me?”
“Begin with the Orleans brothers, Kitty, and Madam Pelosi. They know something, and I believe they will be willing to help. Of course, you’ll have to make sure they don’t try to murder you again, if that is indeed what occurred.”
“No, I don’t think George tried to murder me. And he certainly rescued me from Spring Grove. But he is probably on a train or ship by now.”
“Oh, such longing in your voice, Lil. You certainly need my help in picking out men more than you need my help with hats. Of course, he was most delicious to look at. I think I shall miss him, too, dark and menacing as he seemed. But we will call on Phillip and Kitty when we return home. And perhaps this time we should ask Officer Johnnie Moran to accompany us.”
“No. We do not need Johnnie. I will get my pistol back from Thomas. We will learn what there is to know about my mother.” And perhaps they would learn more about the Leaping Man as well.
“I do not think I’m cut out to be your Watson,” Bess said with a sigh.
“My Watson? Why, whatever made you say that? You instructed me not to call you that!”
“George Orleans used it. If he weren’t the devil, I’d say you were cut from the same cloth.”
“Hardly.”
But Lillian wondered. Where was he, the man who seemed to understand her more than she understood herself? Far away, no doubt. If he’d asked, would she have gone with him?
Why wonder? He is gone.
***
Lillian made a subtle motion to Bess to stay with her as Addie, Thomas, Aileen, and the three boys circled round her, Mr. Abraham Lincoln left to bark on the porch. She’d been gone only a few days, but the past now seemed like a different lifetime.
After tearful hugs and inquiries as to her health, she finally sat alone with Bess and Addie. The mantel clock seemed like a church gong, the parlor had become so quiet. Bess wanted to leave, Lillian knew it, but she needed her friend and now the two had no secrets. Well, one, but Lillian would take the identity of the father of her child to the grave.
“Dr. Schneider came by this morning, desperately concerned for you, Lil,” Addie said. Her tone of disapproval, usually amusing, made Lillian bristle.
“I will speak with him in due course. Please do not concern yourself with that. If he asks again, please tell him to speak with me directly and that I will see him when I have time.”
Addie sat up straight, a flicker of hurt on her face. Lillian pushed down the guilt that threatened to thwart her mission. She hadn’t been the secret-keeper. She hadn’t rewritten the past with silence. She’d just been a girl, a lonely, frightened girl.
“I love you, Addie, and I know you love me. But the time has come for us to speak frankly. I am no longer a child to be protected. No pain could be worse than this void I’ve carried for so long. Tell me the truth about my mother.”
The color left Addie’s face and she cast a quick glance at the doorway where Thomas lurked in shadow. “What do you mean, Lil? Why now?”
“Because I am ready to hear.” Am I? Where is my Leaping Man to give me courage? How dare he open this wound and then leave me alone to close it!
“But we know nothing, Lil. Please, you will suffer another breakdown if you persist in this vein. I must send for Mr. Pemberton.”
“That threat will no longer work on me.” But Lillian shuddered and rubbed at her arms. The Jackal would never hurt her again; she would hire another solicitor and learn if she could free herself from him forever.
Thomas stood forward. “She’s not a child, Addie. She has made the choice. We knew the day would come. It is her right.”
“What do you know of such choices, Thomas?” the governess snapped.
“I know you blame me for our brothers’ death, but they chose to follow me to war. I cannot change that. You cannot change Lillian’s past. But it is her past, not yours. Secrets help no one.”
Thomas limped to Lillian and pulled her by both hands to stand. “Addie and I have loved you from the start. We were in the employ of the elder Mr. Pemberton, me just back from the conflict and Addie in a state over my brothers. Mr. Pemberton told us of a sad case of an orphaned girl who would never need for anything save a family. Because we are brother and sister, we could not raise you as our child, of course. Instead, we did our best. We were never told the name of your mother or father…”
His long hesitation made Lillian’s racing heart skip a beat. “Yes, go on, Thomas.”
“But I had suspicions. At the time we heard of a young woman of society who disappeared mysteriously. I cannot remember her name. That is all I can tell you. I am sorry it isn’t enough.”
“What about the solicitor?” Bess asked. “Could he tell us about his client?”
“The elder Pemberton has been dead for years. The case went to his son, Francis. I doubt anyone knows the truth now.”
“And was it the elder or the younger Pemberton who arranged for my baby to be taken from me? It was not you and Addie, I believe.”
Thomas wrapped his arm around her shoulde
r, but the gesture didn’t warm her. She felt cold and numb.
“No,” Addie whispered. “We gave your baby to the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, along with a generous donation, at the advice of Mr. Francis Pemberton.”
“How proper of you to give a donation as well. I assume the orphanage would have no knowledge of the name of the mother? No, of course not. Most improper.”
“She’s no doubt with a good family now, Lil,” Bess said. Then she shook her head. “Blazes, I do not know that. I won’t contribute to these awful secrets or try to soften them with platitudes.”
“Thank you, Elisabeth. You have proven yourself to be the truest of friends. Let us get you home. That will be all, Addie and Thomas.”
For the first time in her life, Lillian dismissed her guardians from the room. Addie rose, weeping, and left with Thomas holding her.
“It is not their fault, of course. But today I am angry. Tomorrow I shall make amends.”
Bess rested her head on Lillian’s shoulder. “I think I would be angry, too. And I understand why you drank those awful potions and ate those pills and…”
“And?”
“And why you pretended you were related to a man in a book.”
Lillian sat and let out a curse. “I did what I needed to do. Now I can do what I choose to do.”
“You will look for them, won’t you?”
“Yes, I will. I do not know how, but I will. And I believe all my longing to become a great detective will finally serve me well.”
“Then I will be your Miss Watson and help. To be truthful, a life spent longing after silly men and pretty dresses is leaving me a bit weary. If I am to live as an ugly crippled old maid, so be it. Perhaps it is time for me to learn how to shoot a pistol.”
“Nonsense.”
“I am glad to hear you say it.”
“You will learn how to wield a small blade.”
“Are you quite serious? Oh, my, why do I ask?”
***
“Damn it all!” George stared at the tunnel to the ferry to New York, knowing it was the last run of the evening, knowing what he should do, what he must do.
