by Tee Morris
Eliza flinched. “I didn’t know any better. I’ve amassed a lot of practice since then.” She leaned over and picked up the roll of bandages next to the jar of ointment, but Douglas stopped her hand.
“I know things are different now”—he paused—“but I never forgot you. There’s no one quite like you, Eliza.” Now it was his fingertips that brushed her skin, skimming over her face, and there was the ghost of remembered caresses that went with it.
She’d loved him. He was her first love, her first everything. She’d thought she’d lost him, and now Fate had played her a kindly card—he was here again, with her. Everyone at the Ministry thought she was as tough as nails, impulsive, as brave as any man. Yet, she had not always been that way, and a small part of the agent wanted to go back to that place where she had been young, full of hope and possibilities.
When Douglas shifted, slid his arms around her, and pulled her onto his lap, she let him. He smelt warm and intoxicating, the exertion of the rugby bringing out the musk, and she was positive that his skin would taste like salt should she put her tongue to it. Exactly as it had when Eliza had first let him hold her. Douglas’ hands slid over her shoulders and tangled in her hair.
“You haven’t forgotten, have you?” he whispered against her neck, the warmth of it sending shivers along her spine.
Turning, she looked him in the eye, their lips only scant inches apart. It had been a heady few days, and Eliza could feel her heart racing in her chest. It was impossible for her to forget him, the long antipodean summers, lying in the sand dunes, their hands on each other. Civilisation quite forgotten in primal sensation.
“No,” she replied softly, “I have most certainly not forgotten.”
Then Douglas Sheppard smiled and kissed her. His lips and tongue on hers were sweet, like a memory of sunlight. He tasted of sweat, loss, and melancholy. Still, such things could stir passion, and Eliza wrapped her arms around him, feeling his warmth kindle hers. As his hands pulled her tighter, she knew they would end up in bed. She’d wanted him so badly after her exile to London. She’d dreamt of him and of this moment.
Yet, as his fingers slid up her thigh and his teeth began to describe sharp little circles on her neck, a sudden thought nearly stopped her enjoyment of this moment. Wellington had broken the rules. Wellington lived for the rules.
Douglas’ fingers brushed the top of her stocking, sliding under it. The stab of lust brought a gasp to her lips.
Wellington had only ever broken the rules for her. Dammit, these thoughts were getting in the way.
“There are far too many clothes between us,” Eliza growled, tearing off her jacket and fumbling with her blouse. She heard a few buttons clatter against the floor. The cool air felt good against her skin.
“Now that’s the Eliza Braun I remember,” Douglas cooed. “My sweet, little Eliza,” he whispered kissing the tops of her breasts.
Beneath her corset, she could feel her skin warming, her body wanting . . .
Even as her mind screamed over and over again, Wellington broke the rules for me.
Suddenly, when those blue eyes looked into hers, her warmth dropped away, and a chill sadness descended. They should have been hazel.
Eliza slipped off Douglas’ lap, tearing herself away from his hands, and stood up suddenly. “Eliza?” He was a little breathless too.
This is quite ridiculous, she told herself. In her first year in London, she’d dreamt of this very moment. When alone in the privacy of her bedroom, she’d shed tears over this man, all the time hoping he did not hate her. Now, here he was, half-clothed, kissing her the way she yearned to be kissed, and yet it was completely the wrong man.
She began to understand why men thought of her sex as fickle. Yet, as she turned around and looked down at Douglas she understood that she was not that girl who had slid across the bar to stop the proud son of a good family being beaten to an early grave. Too many experiences separated her from that person.
“I’m sorry, Douglas.” Slowly, and with long breaths to calm herself, she began buttoning up her clothing. At least, where buttons remained.
“Sorry?” Those blue eyes were glazed with confusion and desire.
“This isn’t something that I can do. Not now.”
He cleared his throat. “I am sorry too, Eliza. I know our relationship in New Zealand was not exactly . . . proper.”
Rolling around in the sand dunes, making love recklessly as young people are wont to do. Despite all her jibes aimed at Wellington, she only fell into bed with men she loved—and she had not loved that many. One of them was here in the flesh, before her. Another had been killed in Bedlam without her ever telling him, nor doing anything about it.
In this moment of clarity she regretted many of her sharp-edged jokes aimed in Wellington’s direction.
“No,” Eliza sat on the chair opposite him. “It was perfectly improper, yet at the time I enjoyed it.”
“As did I,” he leaned forward, his arms on his knees, “But now it is time to confess something to you.” Despite her confused thoughts, she was intrigued, but she let him continue. He cleared his throat. “When Mother declared she was coming to London, I insisted on coming with her. I wanted to see you.”
“And why was that?”
Douglas pressed his lips together, and appeared to be searching for some words. The perfect words. Eliza waited patiently. “I’ve been on adventures all over the world. I’ve sailed up the Ganges, and climbed the Alps. Through all that I couldn’t get you out of my head.”
“Of course you couldn’t,” Eliza replied in a flat voice. She was trying her very best not to be excited by this.
“I need you in my life.” Douglas took her hands into his, and pressed the palm of her hand to his lips. “Come away with me. Explore the world.”
Visions of adventures in exotic places around the globe popped into her mind. Safaris in Africa. Camel caravans over the Khyber Pass. That was certainly preferable to her servitude in the Archives.
“And if we are determined, maybe we can sort out that little problem in New Zealand. Please, let me take care of you.”
“Take care of me?” she murmured, a little distracted by all the other images crowding her brain.
“Yes,” he pressed, “I want to do that above all things. I think you need that too.”
That was like an ice bucket of water over her. Whatever her realisations about Wellington Books might have been, she was shocked by Douglas’ expectations.
“I think you had better leave,” she stated, jerking her hands free of his. “I appreciate you trying to take care of this poor, weak woman—but I think you should know the time for that has long passed.”
His eyes cleared, and then he flushed red. “What do you want of me, Eliza? I’ll have you know, Mother has introduced me to so many eligible young ladies I’ve lost count, but all I can think about is you.”
“And that is somehow my fault?” Eliza paused, feeling a new sensation warming her skin, but this heat was not out of wanton desire. She took a deep breath and continued. “Douglas, I am sorry that I preoccupy your thoughts in such a way, but that Eliza Braun isn’t me anymore. A lovely memory of days of innocence, certainly, but that wide-eyed girl no longer exists.”
“Given time, I’m sure you will come back to your true self,” Douglas implored. “You just have to put this English nonsense behind you, is all.”
Nonsense? Did this prat know how many times she had saved the Empire from imminent danger? Nonsense?!
“Eliza, I have summited Kilimanjaro and Everest,” he said, his eyes growing deep and piercing as he confessed, “but I know now I am closest to Heaven when I am with you.”
Her head dropped to one side, an eyebrow crooking sharply. “Seriously?”
Douglas’ brow furrowed. “What?”
“Is this the part where I come running into your arms, and then clothing flies in all directions?”
He stammered. Apparently, this was not the Eliza Braun he
had known in Aotearoa. “You used to love hearing me say such things.”
“I was young and foolish back then,” she stated. “Now I’m old and foolish.”
“Not that old, Eliza,” Douglas replied.
She knew he meant well, but suddenly she wanted him gone.
Eliza got up and walked to the window. Outside, a rain shower had cleared, and the hint of a sun was peeking over the tops of the buildings. It had taken her a long time to get used to the cold; the snow her town never saw, and the clawing fog that she could already see rolling in from the river.
Melancholy thoughts for lost times and feelings had taken her over ever since she’d encountered Douglas again. Understanding that was the first step in clearing her mind. “I’m glad you came to London, Douglas. To help your mother. Yet I wonder why you never did that for me—not in three years.” Her voice was calm as she turned back to him. “You see, I’ve spent that time thinking it was my fault. That I had destroyed everything, but finally, I’ve realised something. I wasn’t the one that could travel. You were.”
He blinked.
Now her melancholia was being replaced by anger. It felt much better—more familiar. “All that time you were conquering mountains and hunting game all over the world, you never once stopped in London. You never once sought me out.”
Douglas frowned as he slipped his shirt back on. Obviously he knew that no more clothing was coming off, but she recognised the signs of his growing anger; pressed lips, and teeth being ground. He didn’t say anything, but made for the door.
He tugged it open, but the answer he shot over his shoulder to her was as harsh as his kisses had been sweet. “Did you ever think, Eliza, that maybe it took me that long to forgive you?”
And then he was gone.
Interlude VI
In Which a Jewel of India Is Taken
Ihita stood on the doorstep of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrence’s covert warehouses and looked up and down the street. There was no hansom in sight, and the mist was rolling in from the Thames. She tapped her foot, pulled her coat around her shoulders, and then finally set off up the street.
It was only three o’clock, but already the fog had stolen away the weak winter sun. Its green fingers wrapped around everything, including the throats of the citizens. Ihita clapped a handkerchief to her mouth in a vain attempt to keep the sulphurous odour out.
Why on earth the Director of the Ministry had not chosen a nicer location for the offices was a mystery. The fog was always the worst around the river.
In this weather the cabs would stick to the main streets, but the hotel, which was her destination, was not really that far away. Eliza was not the only agent to carry weapons, or to know how to use them. Ihita knew she was not as flamboyant as her New Zealand friend, but she knew how to handle herself. She kept her own brace of pistols, and the terrors of the capital’s fogs did not frighten her.
It was a chill London day, as far from an Indian one as it was possible to get, and yet Ihita had a warmth she was nursing. It was not one her parents would have appreciated or condoned, but she’d learned to be her own woman. She was a long way from the little girl growing up in the splendid wealth of a raja’s palace. Wrapped in silks since birth, she had long ago traded them in for wool and tweed. Now she was an agent of the Ministry, and tonight she was going to meet another.
Agent Brandon Hill had taken notice of the blush he caused in her cheeks at dinner with Eliza and Douglas, and had asked her to take afternoon tea with him. Alone. Not everyone in the Ministry thought Hill entirely sound of mind, but working with him in the last month, she had seen another side; a kind, shy side not hidden beneath the bravado of his tall tales.
As she walked down the street her footsteps were muffled by the fog and her view of the streets around her was limited. It was somewhat akin, she imagined, to being a blinkered horse. Not many people—let alone women—dared the streets on days like today, but romance wouldn’t wait for something as silly as fog to clear. If she didn’t get to the hotel Brandon would think that she had stood him up.
The mere thought made her increase her pace. She passed a dockworker, who whistled to her, but he was nothing more than a blink in her perception, and the fog ate up the sound in a moment. She was very nearly there when she ran past someone that she knew. A lady. Ihita only caught a glimpse of her face, and the flash of the suffragist’s badge.
Normally the young woman was a stickler for formalities, and in any other situation she would have stopped and greeted her fellow sister—but now she was in a hurry. Besides, the other woman only glanced at her, with not a flicker of greeting. At the strangeness of that, Ihita stopped and looked back over her shoulder. She had only caught a flash of the woman, and recognised her, but could not put a name to the face. She stood there a moment, her handkerchief still clamped over her nose, and thoughts of Agent Hill disappeared in curiosity—because she had noticed something else. The woman had been wearing a pair of tinted goggles around her neck. What could be the reasoning behind that, by the river and at this time of day?
For some reason a chill ran down her spine and settled in her stomach. Turning, she began to walk quickly away. Within another few seconds she was not walking, she was half running, an unreasonable fear driving her on. At first Ihita thought it was her rather vivid imagination, tricking her within the swirls of the fog, making her hear the rap-tap of footsteps following after her.
No matter how fast she ran, the footsteps came after. Even when she stopped, whirled around, yanked out her pistols and pointed them in the direction of the footsteps, she could see nothing. The sounds stopped abruptly. Ihita’s heartbeat sounded in her ears, and her breathing rasped over her teeth. It had only been ten minutes since she’d set off so confidently from the Ministry’s front doorstep, but she really had no idea where she was, and the familiar line of shops and warehouses had been swallowed completely.
“Brandon,” she whispered to herself. If there was a more competent agent in the Ministry she had not heard of him. Hill had wrestled polar bears and fought evil in all corners of the Empire. If she could just reach him, then this madness would be sent howling on its way.
Ihita turned and ran. It was a dangerous thing to do blindly in a London fog—there had been plenty of people who had fallen into the Thames, or run off the ends of piers in such circumstances. She didn’t care, because there was now a feeling in the air that had nothing to do with the stench off the river. It filled her nostrils and almost choked her.
She turned the corner, and in a break in the fog, she could see a line of lights that signalled the front of the Empire Hotel. It was going to be all right, she was going to make it. Her hands flew to her head, as it flared with sudden pain. Dimly Ihita heard her weapons rattle on the ground as the air tightened about her, and a bright web of light snatched her up. For a heartbeat she could only see the blue glare. The agent was held suspended out of time and place.
Suddenly Ihita was dropped to the floor, and only barely kept her feet under her. One heartbeat. One frozen moment with her at its centre, a strange, captured butterfly held pinned by the light.
The glow was coming from all around her, from dials, levers and tall tubes. It was as if someone had captured lightning and made of it a net. Someone was standing at the machine. Ihita caught a glimpse of the woman looking over her shoulder. Even in profile Ihita could tell it was the same woman she had seen in the fog. How could that be?
Her mouth opened, to cry out in anger or for some kind of pity. Then the light grew bright again, searing her eyes, and choking back any sound she might have made. She was thrown into emptiness, and lost her place.
The rush of information to her brain suddenly caught up. Nothing below her windmilling feet. No ground. She was back in the fog. It was cold.
The one fact that tore all these other strange ones away was the noose around her neck. Her lungs wanted air and there was none of it to be had. Ihita’s eyes bulged, and she wanted to scream but c
ould not. Even as panic started to wind itself around her, Ihita recognised where she was: hanging beneath the Tower Bridge, by a rope. She thought of home, her mother and father, and wondered if they would hear of her death and be sad.
Painstakingly, she managed to get the very tips of her fingers between her neck and the rope. It was not much, a moment to drag a gulp of breath and look around. Here the fog was thinner, and she could see right along the river. Lights flickered, alternatively being revealed and disappearing into the murk, the tops of the buildings appearing above it like half-seen animals. It was a beautiful scene that many not-so-unfortunate people would see.
Ihita determined that she would tell Agent Hill about this scene; tell him when he saved her. She held on to that fact as she heaved with her arms and flicked herself upside down. It was impossible to kick her boots off, but she did manage to get one of her legs twined around the rope.
She could breathe—by all that was holy she could breathe. Tiny gulps filled her lungs with a little air, and even at the small amount, she found herself sobbing with relief. The breeze caught her, swinging her like a reverse pendulum, and her heart leapt with new fear. Even wriggling her fingers, she couldn’t quite get enough pressure off her neck to loosen the noose.
Only one choice remained. She had to hold on. If she panicked and her leg slipped from around the rope, she would fall. If she waited long enough then Brandon would find her. He had to be wondering. A scrambled and terrified brain would hold on to anything, but Ihita held on to that belief.
The wind was picking up from the sea, racing along the Thames to scatter the fog. The citizens would be pleased, but it swung Ihita around on her rope.
Her thighs twitched, already beginning to ache. She could hold on. He would find her.
Chapter Nineteen
In Which Our Dashing Archivist Finds Himself in a Most Uncomfortable Situation
