Downtime

by Tamara Allen

  But as terrible as the tossing and turning was, it had nothing on waking to find him gone.

  “Ez?” I jerked upright and looked around the dimly moonlit room, to find he hadn’t gone far. Still in his nightshirt, he knelt over a small suitcase into which he was stuffing his possessions. He worked with a speed bordering on panic. I hated to imagine the nightmare that had led to this. “You going somewhere?”

  As I sat beside him on the rug, Ezra continued to throw anything at hand into the suitcase. “He will not be done. When he knows I’ve gotten away, they’ll come again and I’ll be locked up some place where no one can find me.” Eyes bright and anguished fixed on my face. “Not even you.”

  “Ezra—”

  “Come with me. We’ll run away, to Paris or Naples. America, if you like. He’d have no hope of finding us there.”

  Goddamn, I wanted to kick someone’s ass and I knew just whose. I caught the feverishly moving hands, putting an end to the packing for our new lives as fugitives. “Listen to me. He’s not going to come after you. It’s over.”

  “You don’t know that. You can’t know.”

  “I do. He won’t, because….” I sighed. I hadn’t wanted to tell him, at least not until he was a little steadier. “Your dad was the one who signed the papers for your release.” I gave him the truth, without quoting dear old Sir William; that shit, he didn’t need to hear. Ezra let me get it all out, seeming too dazed to interrupt. An uneasy corner of my mind wondered if he would hate me for what I’d done. He didn’t seem angry. I wasn’t sure what he seemed. “You okay?”

  “You blackmailed my father.”

  “We didn’t know how else we’d get you out of there as fast. Or even at all,” I added, reaching for any points I could.

  “You blackmailed him.” He couldn’t seem to grasp the concept. His eyes rose to mine. “For me.” He said it as if it were a revelation beyond all imagining.

  A teasing response came to my lips and I swallowed it back. His eyes were gleaming with the tears he hadn’t so far shed. I couldn’t brush off a reaction like that. “I hated to do it that way. He’s your father and should love you unconditionally. If he can’t do that, at the very least he owes you the simple respect to let you live your life as you want to live it. We all owe that to each other.”

  There was a soft hitch in his breath as he spoke. “Didn’t you….”

  “Didn’t I what?” I prompted gently when he couldn’t seem to get the words out. He was tired and chilled and I was getting a little cold myself. Pushing away the suitcase, I got up and led him back to bed. Once we were comfortably entangled, he relaxed against me and I wondered if I should just let him sleep while he could. But then, with his head tucked against my neck, he got the question out.

  “Before Sully came, you thought I must be mad—didn’t you?”

  It wasn’t a question I really wanted to answer. But I couldn’t be less than truthful with him. “Once I was pretty sure you weren’t a con man, yeah. I figured if you were seeing something I couldn’t, you had to be hallucinating. But I was wrong. If anything, you’re holding yourself together better than all the rest of us.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “You’ve been stuck down here with us, but for some reason, you can see beyond the veil. You’re living in two worlds and I’ve gotten a good idea lately of just how hard that is. I don’t think a weak mind could handle it. Look, if you were the big guy upstairs and you needed a little help sorting out the recently deceased, you’d want to give the job to someone who had his shit together, right?”

  Ezra’s expression was tinged with the wry humor conversations with me seemed to provoke. “Are you trying to say that God has given me the ability to see spirits because I am, in fact, not insane?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  He didn’t seem to know whether to laugh or give in to the still-threatening tears. “That is a specious argument for my sanity.”

  “Maybe it is. But I believe it.” And I hadn’t believed in ghosts two weeks ago. I wished like hell I could persuade him beyond a doubt that he was okay. Then again, maybe a grain of doubt about one’s sanity was safer than cocksure certainty in this world. “You all right?”

  “I shall have to be. And you? Are you all right? I saw the blow you took for me.” He threaded fingers gingerly into my hair. “I think I felt it.” His voice dropped. “All the ride to Northampton, I prayed someone would come to tell me you were all right. I cannot seem to recall what happened after that. Your Mr. Sullivan came briefly, but I do not remember that he spoke to me. So many others were begging and crying….”

  He closed his eyes, fighting to keep his composure, and I pulled him hard against me. “I’m sorry. Sorry they put you through that. Hell, I’m sorry for everything I’ve put you through.” I remembered the look on his face when he had set eyes on me at the asylum. Now I knew what it meant. For an instant, he’d thought he had seen a ghost—mine. It hadn’t occurred to me that out of all the terrors he’d faced, the one that would stick with him was the fear I’d been killed. “I’ve really complicated your life.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve never been so free. I owe you more than I could repay in a lifetime. So perhaps in the next one.” Fingers intertwined with mine and squeezed lightly. “I will hope for that.”

  The ache in my throat made it a little hard to breathe, let alone talk. “You changed your life. I think you’re the bravest damned son of a bitch I’ve ever met. And I’ve met a lot of them.”

  He looked rueful and a little embarrassed. “Let us hope it is not some sort of Dutch courage stimulated by your presence or I shall have a devil of a time of it when you leave.”

  “Trust me, it’ll be for the best. You haven’t known me long enough to know what Reese and the other guys I’ve dated eventually figured out. I’m too much of a pain in the ass to keep around for long.”

  “I rather thought it was because you put your work above all things.”

  “Well, that’s a big part of it.”

  “Why do you?”

  If I had a nickel for every time I was asked that question…. “It’s my job to pull monsters like Jack off the street. Granted, I haven’t accomplished anything in this case, but I’ve managed to haul in a few in my own time.”

  “How many must you capture to finish your penance?”

  I smiled reluctantly at that. “Got me all figured out, huh?”

  He slid closer and rested his chin on my shoulder. “When my mother died, she came to me in a dream, to ask me to let her go. The guilt I’d felt over not being able to save her kept her coming back to try to ease it. In my darkest moments I was quite certain that if I’d only concealed my own weaknesses better, she might have borne up for a longer time under hers.”

  “Come on, you were just a kid,” I muttered, all too aware of the point he was trying to get across. Archie had come to me in a dream and maybe he’d been doing the same, trying to get through to me as we rode together one last time. I had spent years of my life coming up with every scenario, every way in the world I could have prevented his death. And all those years he might’ve been hanging around, waiting for me to finally figure out that I’d been powerless to prevent it. That if I had been there with him, I might have died too.

  Whatever the case, my guilt wasn’t doing either of us any good. And I had to figure the same went for Sully. But I couldn’t let Sully go; not right now, anyway. He was my safety net, my only link to my own world. With all its real moments, Ezra’s world was still a dream, and my interrupted life stood far in the future, at a standstill, waiting for my return.

  What worried me now was that I didn’t mind letting it wait. Turning back onto my side, I molded myself against a half-asleep Ezra and closed my eyes, wanting only to lose myself in the warmth and comfort of his presence. His arms came around me as mine went around him and he breathed an appreciative sigh. “Morgan.”

  “Yeah?”

  “If my father had refused….�
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  “Derry did say storming the gates seemed to come second nature to me.”

  A bright, clear dawn woke us and, at breakfast, we discovered Derry had sown the seeds of our plan far and wide. And we weren’t the only ones headed for a day in the sun. The crisp morning had lured everyone in town to the same destination. Nannies pushed carriages across the vast, open green, older children trailing after like baby ducks. Women strolled in stately procession under their umbrellas or sat in the shaded pavilion, listening to a band. It was picture-perfect, in disturbing and startling contrast to the dark, grimy world I’d gotten a glimpse of in Whitechapel.

  We spread a blanket under an enormous ivy-draped oak and I handed over all eight hundred pounds of hamper with relief. The day was warming up and I had no intention of spending it in layers of clothing. Tossing my hat into the grass, I shucked off my coat and dropped onto a corner of the blanket to let the breeze wash over me. Ezra divested himself of hat and coat too, and sat beside me. I watched him from the corner of my eye as he watched the boats in the distance. He might be more relaxed, but he was still not quite himself.

  “You row in college?”

  “Some, yes.”

  “As did I,” Henry said from his perch on a low, twisting limb.

  “Yeah?” I couldn’t resist. I nudged Ezra. “That old Oxford and Cambridge rivalry? You guys win?”

  Derry’s smirk should have warned me, but it took Kathleen’s soft groan and the flush of angry color in Henry’s face to get through to me that I’d just unearthed a serious bone of contention. Ezra was struggling to suppress a smile, but the glint in his eyes was unabashedly wicked. “We gave a good account of ourselves.”

  “That was our win and should have been called so,” Henry said. “Dead heat, indeed.”

  “Dead heat?” I grinned. “How about a rematch?”

  Kathleen and Hannah came as far as the boat house with us. Once Henry and Ezra had decided on a finish line, they chose two boats and I rolled up my sleeves and hopped in with Ezra, Derry with Henry. Hannah started us off with a wave of my handkerchief and I put my back into it, determined to leave Henry and Derry in the dust. It was clear to picnickers on the shore what we were doing and I heard some cheering as we passed, though I had no idea whom they were rooting for.

  Ezra and I fell into a smooth rhythm and I did my best not to be distracted by the play of muscles in his bare forearms, or the way the wind whipped his hair but couldn’t flatten the curl—or the delighted grin he flashed me as we passed up Derry and Henry and kept going. I tried not to be distracted, but damn, it wasn’t easy. They caught up with us and we pulled hard and fast to stay ahead. We crossed the finish first and, dropping our oars, raised our arms in triumph. Applause came from the shore, and I waved cheerfully at Henry as they caught up again. He appeared unamused as he and Derry turned the boat around to head back.

  Ezra, flushed and laughing, gave my hand a shake. “Top notch. You must have rowed at school.”

  “Well, actually I didn’t.”

  “Oh heavens, don’t tell Henry. We’ve tormented him enough.” He was grinning from ear to ear and looked as if he wanted to kiss me. I wanted the same. Instead, I gave his hand a squeeze before letting go. We rowed slowly back, savoring our victory and accepting the congratulations of other boaters along the way.

  At the boat house, we met with a less enthusiastic group. Henry, on the bench wringing out his pantlegs, ignored us. Hannah was hardly any more aware of our return, preoccupied trading bashful smiles with the young, barefoot fellow renting the boats. Kathleen, who’d been immersed in a book, looked over at us and clucked her tongue at our winded, disheveled appearance. “I think it is time for dinner.”

  Our picnic was not the haphazard affair I remembered from childhood. It had to be my first without paper plates. Kathleen set a tidy table, even when the table was a blanket on the grass. While we ate, I tried to keep the conversation innocuous, but Henry wouldn’t let it stay that way.

  “Lady Marchmont’s party, Ezra. You haven’t said a word about it.”

  “Henry,” Derry burst out in disbelief, and I threw in an exasperated glare for good measure. Ezra smiled at us with good humor.

  “It’s quite all right. Go on, Henry. What did you want to know?”

  Henry’s expression settled into its natural pained state. “Sarah Danby mentioned that you left early, without a word to anyone. One would have thought a French leave quite beneath you.”

  That sounded less than complimentary. “You weren’t there,” I reminded him coolly. “You have no idea what went on, so I don’t think you have any business giving Ezra a hard time.”

  Ezra squeezed my wrist, trying to reassure me. “I should not have gone at all. I’ve done enough to hurt Charlotte. And truth to tell, I wasn’t comfortable in that crowd.”

  “They did cut you, then,” Kathleen said, her eyes steely gray with her slower-burning anger.

  “Not everyone. But it isn’t as important to me as it once was. Not as important to me as all of you.”

  They were quiet, smiling, and Kathleen had her head bent suspiciously over her teacup.

  “And none of you need tiptoe around me,” Ezra said. “My life has changed, yes, but I will believe for the better.”

  “If you’ve no more bun fights to worry over,” Derry said, “It’s nigh a blessing.”

  When Ezra laughed, I made the grievous mistake of asking what the hell a bun fight was. He exchanged a gleeful look with Derry. “I do believe we’ve turned the tables on Mr. Nash. What do you think?”

  “I think I shall enjoy recalling that flummoxed expression for years to come.”

  Even Kathleen couldn’t suppress a laugh.

  I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Don’t tell me.” I’d just ask Dr. Gilbride later.

  The young boatman came by on a bicycle and, introducing himself as Tom, shyly offered Hannah a ride. As Hannah hopped unafraid onto the handlebars, Kathleen started to protest and Derry quickly intervened, inviting the young man to sit down for some lunch.

  I supposed riding a bicycle was not the most ladylike endeavor, in Kathleen’s eyes. While the kids stuffed themselves on sandwiches and cake, I looked over the bike curiously. A long way from a modern bicycle, it was a spare if sturdy prototype in basic black and a good ten pounds heavier than my own bike at home. Asking and receiving permission, I pedaled it in the grass for a few minutes to find the chain drive was a little creaky, the seat hard as a rock, and the wheels, God have mercy, were solid rubber. I rode it over to where Ezra had appropriated Henry’s oak bough, nearly running into him as I tried to figure out where the hell the brake was. Ezra grabbed the handlebar as the tire bumped into the limb, causing all the leaves to flutter. “You may wish to let old injuries heal before courting any new ones.”

  I patted the handlebars. “Hop on.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “Are you serious?”

  “Not afraid, are you?”

  “Immeasurably,” he admitted with a dry smile, but nevertheless got up and handed his plate to Derry.

  Kathleen’s eyes widened. “Derry, you must tell him he cannot be so foolhardy. They’ll both be killed.”

  “Now, my dear, bicycles are not so dangerous as that,” Derry said placidly.

  “Aye, the stitches you took last year weren’t evidence enough, I suppose. The man who invented that ridiculous machinery should be shut away for his good and ours.”

  I realized Kathleen’s alarm at seeing Hannah on the bike had nothing to do with propriety. “Don’t worry, Kath. I’ll take good care of him,” I said as Ezra climbed on, gaining a white-knuckled grip beside my own. “I’ve been riding since I was two…”

  The bike wobbled and Ezra slid against me. I grabbed him and kept the bike upright as he struggled to keep his seat. He was laughing. “Derry, I hereby give you leave to dispose of my possessions as you see fit,” he said, clinging to the bars as I pedaled across the lawn.

  Picking up speed, I cut toward a p
ath leading through the trees.

  “It looks like rain,” Ezra ventured, voice rattling along with the bike. “We should go back.”

  I threw a glance skyward. “Nah, it’ll be a little sunshower, at worst—”

  “Morgan,” he gasped in alarm and I jerked my attention back, in time to see a curly-haired dog race into our path.