Downtime

by Tamara Allen

  “You no longer know what you need. You are not competent to make any sort of rational decision in regard to your own welfare.”

  That was all I was willing to hear. “Before you rip him to shreds, you might consider just what he’s been through this evening already.”

  Ezra’s look of alarm stopped me from saying anything further. The old guy threw a scathing glance at me, then shifted the weight of his stare back to Ezra with a vengeance.

  “I have been patient, admirably so, but this is indecent. Keep on as you are and you will go to prison. That sort of scandal will be the end of me. The end of us both. Is that what you want?”

  Ezra couldn’t seem to find his voice, but he managed to shake his head. Sir William Glacenbie—for it finally hit me just who this bossy asshole was—didn’t appear to find the response believable. “I wonder. At any rate, you’re a damned fool if you think I will put another penny in your pocket while you sink my good name. Perhaps you’ll be less attractive without the funds for beer and comfortable lodging.”

  That was directed at me, apparently the rent boy du jour in Glacenbie Sr.’s eyes. I reined in my temper, helped by the indignation sparkling in Ezra’s eyes on my behalf. “Morgan is a gentleman,” he said quietly, “and a friend. You’ve every right to be upset over my broken engagement, but you’re not being fair. And you needn’t hold the money over my head. I won’t be a burden—”

  “You’ve been nothing but,” Sir William said. “Your mother may have overlooked the signs of affliction in you, but I cannot afford to. Will you come with me?”

  “Not there.” A note of desperation broke Ezra’s surface calm. “I don’t belong there. Neither did she.”

  “If you hope to be cured, you must accept the necessary treatment. Come, get your coat. I’ve called the carriage.”

  “No.” Ezra got it out with a gasp and retreated as if he feared he’d be dragged out kicking and screaming. “I don’t need doctors. If you could just understand—”

  “Oh, I understand. It is all too pathetically clear.” Sir William looked at me again as if he wished he could have me arrested on the spot. Other guests, as they passed, glanced our way. Sir William’s ire faded remarkably, his gaze on Ezra as polite as if he and his son were no more than nodding acquaintances. “You’ve made your choice, sir. We are done.”

  I was glad to see him leave, but I couldn’t say the same for Ezra. He stared after his dad, and I thought I’d never seen him look so dejected. In every century, it seemed there were brutal dues to pay for being different. I’d paid mine by fighting my way through high school and almost ending up in juvie because of it. But that seemed like nothing compared to the shit Ezra put up with. I nudged him gently. “Let’s go round up the kids and get out of here.”

  The ride home was quiet, until we turned onto Thanet. Then Ezra, who’d been lost in his thoughts, seemed to wake. He looked around at us, and I knew he was about to apologize. Derry recognized it too. “Don’t, Ezra. Morgan’s right, you know. I’ve thought as much the past few days and I wish I’d had the heart to tell you.”

  Ezra dredged up a smile. “I knew you thought so.” He leaned forward and patted Derry’s knee. “I’m sorry I did not come sooner to the same understanding.” The smile turned rueful. “I’ve been a trial to you all and tonight was the worst of it.”

  The others immediately protested, even Henry, who shook his head with an impatient air. “I think you’ve made a grave mistake, but it is your business if you marry or…” with a sidelong glance at me, he cleared his throat, “…remain a bachelor.”

  Oblivious to Henry’s veiled reference, Kathleen looked at Ezra with a schoolmarmish glint in her eye. “I cannot think why you would turn down such a suitable marriage, but as Henry says, it is your business, and certainly ’tis the lesser sin to end it now than run from the girl in ten years when you cannot bear it anymore.”

  It was gratifying to hear my words echoed by Kathleen, of all people. Following the grave little group into the house, I found our resident cinder girl had lit a fire in the parlor and fallen asleep in front of it, her head resting on the plump ottoman, her broom on her lap. I figured she had been waiting up to hear about the ball. Kathleen woke her and, bidding us good night, spirited her off to bed. When Henry and then Derry went up, I moved to sit beside Ezra on the sofa. I wasn’t much on apologies, probably because I was so seldom in the wrong, but I felt I owed him one. “Ezra, about tonight….”

  He shook his head before I could get any further. “I think you’ve done me a good turn, even if it may not seem so at the moment. No need for apologies.”

  A good turn. For a guy who’d just experienced one, he seemed awfully glum. “Well, I am sorry—about your father, anyway. He was pretty harsh.”

  “He has reason to be upset. People will talk terribly.”

  Which was apparently a more important issue to Ezra’s dad than preserving what relationship they had left. “So? It’ll die down.”

  “Eventually, yes. As soon as another more interesting scandal takes its place,” he concluded with a shake of his head.

  I grinned. “Want me to start one?”

  He caught me off guard with an affectionate smile. “You do seem to have an affinity for them. Morgan….” His gaze dropped. “I think it’s best if you stay with the others until we can send you back home. I’ve asked Derry if you might sleep with him tonight. Since you’re leaving soon, it seems the wisest course for us both.”

  Rejected before I’d even had the chance to consider whether I could take advantage of his vulnerable state. But he was right.

  “Think you’ll be okay sleeping on your own?”

  “Much the same as always, I suspect,” he said with a resigned cheer. “Whitechapel tomorrow, then?” Despite the difficult evening he’d endured, a familiar humor flashed in his eyes. “You’ll want to bring your firearm, I think.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, well, if I’m bringing you, you’re getting some sleep.”

  “I will.”

  I knew it was a promise he wanted to keep. And I knew he hadn’t been able to when a small hand on my shoulder woke me from a sound sleep and I saw Hannah’s worried face peering at me in the flickering moonlight through Derry’s window.

  “What is it?” I whispered, trying to sit up without waking Derry.

  Hannah tugged at my sleeve, pulling me toward the door before I could find a robe or my pants. If it was so urgent that she’d been brave enough to come in without even a knock and wake me, I didn’t have time to worry about proprieties. As soon as we were on the stairs, I asked her again what was going on. She shushed me with a finger to her lips until we were well beyond the range of Kathleen’s hearing and she felt safe to speak. “I know he don’t want it, sir. He never would, if he knew the harm in it. I’ve seen it. I know.”

  “The harm in what?”

  She led me toward the kitchen and quietly pushed open the door. The gas was low, but I saw Ezra sitting at the table, as still as a statue, his back to us. On the table was a cup and what looked like a pocket-sized whiskey bottle. I whispered a quick thanks to Hannah and told her to go back to bed. When she’d gone, I shut the door, not wanting to wake anyone else.

  “Hitting the hard stuff? I suppose that’s one way to get to sleep.” I picked up the bottle. It wasn’t liquor—well, it wasn’t only liquor. It had one other ingredient, one that shocked me despite the fact I knew it was in common use in Ezra’s day. “The really hard stuff,” I murmured, putting the bottle back down. The cup was dry, and unless he’d taken it straight from the bottle, he hadn’t yet imbibed. “You don’t take this regularly, do you?”

  Ezra exhaled and looked at me with a certain apprehension. “Dr. Gilbride prescribed it when I first came here, to help me sleep, but—no.” He grimaced. “I haven’t been able to dose myself since Cambridge. It helped me through examinations, but then I found it extraordinarily difficult to give up.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s addictive. And you ca
n get to sleep without it. Let me help you.”

  “I don’t know if you can.” He rested his elbows on the table and his face in his hands, exhausted despite his wakeful state.

  “Give me a chance?”

  Seeming to consider it, he looked at me, then simply nodded. I think he agreed not because he thought I’d succeed, but because he was touched that I wanted to try.

  As we got up, I took the bottle, intending to dump it out at the first opportunity. If I had to stay up all night to make sure he didn’t take any of it, I would. I followed him up the familiar route to his bedroom, where I could see by the rumpled bedclothes that Ezra had at least tried to get some shut-eye. I could also tell by the way he sat at the foot of the bed, one arm hooked over the rail, that he didn’t believe he was going to get a wink tonight.

  A little innocent distraction was necessary. “You don’t have any really old clothes, do you?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Old clothes. For tomorrow. We’re going undercover.”

  His brows drew together. “Under cover of what?”

  I tried not very successfully to choke back a laugh. “We’re going to disguise ourselves. Dress down, so we fit in with the crowd.” I wondered if I still had those evidence baggies in my jacket pocket. Not that I’d find a nice, pristine forensics lab to spirit them off to, but it didn’t hurt to be prepared. I rifled through my jacket and found two bags, and a third in my wallet. Ezra watched me curiously.

  “May I see that?”

  “Sure.” I handed over the wallet and he moved to the bedside table, slipped on his reading glasses, and turned up the lamp to study my badge.

  “Federal Bureau of Investigation. FBI,” he concluded with a faint smile. “Hmmm.” He flipped past it. “What is this?”

  I sat beside him. “License. So I can drive without being arrested.”

  “Drive? A cab?”

  “No, a car—” Damn, I had to stop doing that.

  “A car….”

  “Horse and carriage, minus the horse.”

  “Oh yes, I’ve read of a model which travels—I believe—more than ten miles an hour.”

  I swallowed a grin. “Remarkable.”

  Sheepish good humor shone in his eyes. “I suppose they’re rather faster in your time.” He discovered he could take my license from the plastic to get a closer look. “Date of birth, October twenty-seventh, nineteen hundred and sixty-nine. I still can’t quite believe it. Do you know I shall be one hundred and ten years of age when you’re born?”

  I snorted. “Be sure to look me up.”

  The smile deepened as he continued. “Height, six feet.” He eyed me sidelong. “You can’t be more than five eleven, dear fellow.”

  “Five eleven and a half.” Near enough to fudge on the license, anyway.

  Ezra laughed. “Five eleven and a half, then. Hair, brown. Eyes, brown.” His attention shifted back to my face and his own softened. “Yes, they are. Quite brown.”

  “You like brown?” I leaned against him, shoulder to shoulder. “I prefer blue, myself.”

  “Do you? It’s very….”

  He seemed to lose his train of thought. I saw no sign of the trepidation that had been in his eyes the last time we were so close. “Very what?” I eased off the glasses perched on his nose.

  He exhaled none too steadily. “Commonplace.”

  That deep hazy blue was anything but commonplace. “I think it’s my turn to teach you a little dance I know.”

  “Now?” he said as I pulled him to his feet.

  “Don’t worry. We won’t wake anyone.” Lacing my fingers with his, I snaked my other arm around him and eliminated the remaining personal space between us. Two thin nightshirts didn’t do a thing to prevent me from judging just how it felt to have every inch of him molded against every inch of me. It was a whole lot better than I’d imagined—and I had imagined it pretty damned thoroughly.

  Ezra’s imagination had apparently failed him as well. He sounded a little breathless as he asked, “You’re sure this is a dance?”

  “A slow dance.”

  “It is that. We’re hardly moving.”

  “Movement is not the goal of the slow dance.”

  “Yes, the goal is rather evident,” he said, not objecting as I dipped my head to press a kiss just under his jaw. In what seemed more instinct than conscious decision, he turned his face toward mine and sought my mouth. His kiss was not the kiss of a terrified groom struggling with a life-altering choice; it was persistent and curious, testing waters he hadn’t tested in a long while, if ever.

  I had to admit I found it a turn on, being kissed by a guy who wasn’t too sure he ought to be kissing me but just couldn’t help himself. As much as I wanted to crawl all over him and turn him inside out, I let him take his time. Men I’d dated seldom wanted to spend a lot of time just kissing, and that had always been fine with me. But I was enjoying this particular unhurried lip-lock, maybe because Ezra seemed to be too. He opened eyes that had drifted shut and I saw a hint of hesitation in them. “Morgan….”

  “Mmm-hmm?”

  “What of Reese?”

  A gentleman to the end. “Reese pretty much called it quits. Not that I blame him. You don’t know what a pain in the ass I can be.” As his eyebrows lifted, I conceded with a laugh, “All right, maybe you do. And that’s the point.”

  “You’re not completely impossible. But it may be that I find you so attractive, I don’t care.”

  The kiss that followed that welcome assessment was all confidence and desire. I had to wonder who was leading whom astray as he backed me to the bed and nearly buried me in the downy mattress when he landed on top of me. God, had anything ever felt so good….

  “Clothes,” I whispered succinctly and he nodded, rising awkwardly on hands and knees so I could whisk his nightshirt high as his chest before he tugged it off over his head. The sight of him hovering lean and naked over me damn near did me in. The warm weight of him settled on my legs as he reached for the hem of the shirt twisted around my hips. He eased it loose and, hands splayed on my hips, slowly pushed the cotton up past my stomach. His eyes had deepened to a twilight blue, and they stayed on my face as his fingers grazed my stomach—that touch alone making me catch my breath. As accustomed as I was to moving from a few arousing kisses to heated groping in mere minutes, I couldn’t bear to speed up the pace Ezra had set. Not yet.

  His light touch came to rest on an erection I hadn’t thought could get any harder, and his eyes stayed locked with mine as those fingers familiarized themselves with the territory. I withstood several seconds of it before wrapping my hand around his wrist. “Jesus. You call me a demon.”

  Lips curving, he pushed off my nightshirt and more than replaced its warmth with the heat of his skin on mine. He smelled better than any guy living in the muck and haze of nineteenth-century London had a right to smell. The lingering scent of that crisply fragrant soap and his own natural smell had teased me for days, as had that vulnerable inch of skin between his jaw and stiff shirt collar. I nuzzled it now, inhaling the scent of him, and wondered how I’d held out an entire week before giving in. Ready to give him a little of his own back, I dropped a hand to his hip, then slid it between us.

  Ezra seemed to stop breathing. I pressed a thumb along the underside of the twitching shaft in my grasp and then he was breathing again, fast and hot against my neck. He mumbled something too incoherent for me to make out, and I squeezed him gently. “What was that?” I whispered, caressing him in precisely the tormenting way he’d done me a few moments ago.

  “I said you are a damnable monster,” he choked, but made no effort to stop my teasing touch.

  “That’s what I thought you said.” I stroked once, tearing a low groan from his throat. “Show me how you do it,” I murmured in his ear. “How you wicked heathens have your way with each other back here in the dark ages.” The reminder that I was breaking the law didn’t faze me all that much.

  Nor di
d it cow Ezra. I’d never been particularly quiet during sex, especially with a pair of warm lips doing their worst. Dragging the quilt over my head, I closed my eyes and gave myself over to Ezra’s tender mercies. How I did it without waking the household, I couldn’t have said. I think it was less a fear of incarceration than having to spend the night on the sidewalk.

  When Ezra slid along the length of my body to hover face to face, a sudden attack of shyness seemed to overcome him. “All right, was it?” he murmured.

  “Holy shit,” I said when I could breathe.

  He shushed me, but he was smiling. “I’m glad. I’ve not done that before.”

  “You’re kidding. Does that mean no one’s ever….” I trailed off, letting him see my broad grin, and his eyes widened. Before the halfhearted protest left his lips, I had him on his back. Not too worried that he’d rouse the house—he had already proven himself a lot quieter than me—I took my sweet time pressing more kisses from the tender hollow above his collarbone to his trembling stomach. Having picked up the nonverbal clues to the sort of caresses that took him over the edge, I was rewarded by nearly being thrown off the bed as he climaxed.