Downtime

by Tamara Allen

  I offered a wordless apology with a bump of my knee against his, which brought a reluctant smile to his lips. Sid handed me a cup of tea and, as I took it, brushed his fingers over my wrist. He wasn’t unattractive, but it was difficult to hold his gaze. It was too—ravenous. Lustful looks were one thing; Sid’s eyes burned with a primitive hunger too disturbing for my taste. He knew better than to pounce on me, though. He just watched me through heavy-lidded eyes, no doubt weighing what it would take to get me into bed.

  “Not one for playing hard-to-get, are you?” I commented.

  “Not a game I care to learn. I have a talent for several others, however.”

  “Yeah? Pick them up from Jem?”

  His smile faltered, then flared back to life. “Jem Montague has nothing to teach me. You, on the other hand….”

  “I kind of suspect I couldn’t show you anything new.”

  “Care to try?”

  “Upstairs?” I suggested, putting down my cup.

  Sid’s eyes widened. He hadn’t expected to land me so easily. “Indeed, yes,” he said with relish, and flung an arm around my shoulders. “Let us away.”

  I threw a quick look at a worried Ezra and felt guilty for leaving him among the wolves. “Give me a few minutes,” I whispered to him as Sid all but lifted me bodily from the sofa and headed for the stairs in triumph.

  The bedrooms were simpler than I anticipated, iron bedsteads with a curtain hung around for additional privacy, a wash basin with towels, and pegs along one wall for our clothes. I decided to keep mine on as Sid removed his coat and sprawled on the bed. “Charming, isn’t it? Like home.”

  He patted the quilt, an invitation to sit. I sat, as out of reach as possible, with my back against the bedpost. “Home for you is Whitechapel, isn’t it? Where you got your start selling yourself for a living?”

  “So brutally direct,” he murmured, leaning up on his elbows. “I do like that about you.”

  “Can you be as direct?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “I want to know if there’s a real Sid behind this voracious thing you present to the world.”

  He laughed aloud and, rising to his knees, got into my face with a devilish smile. “And why do you bloody care if there is?” he whispered with the hint of his native accent. “Think you’d fancy him better?”

  Gripping the post above my head for balance, he moved in to kiss me. I shoved him flat on his back and kept him there with an iron hold on his wrists. “I warned you about that, Sid, old boy.”

  He didn’t resist, just smiled as if we still played his game. “What a delightful creature you are. So rough and tumble, so fearless.”

  “Gentle doesn’t really suit you, does it?” If his tone hadn’t told me, the solid bulge pressing into my leg would have.

  As I shifted away from that contact, he closed his eyes with a soft sigh. “When I was a lad, I didn’t care for cod liver oil.” Lashes lifted to give me a glimpse of laconic amusement. “I grew accustomed to the taste.”

  “You’re saying you got started young?”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “Depends on whether you consider sixteen young.”

  He chuckled softly. “What would you consider half that?”

  The blood chilled in my veins. “You were eight?”

  “Perhaps seven. Who can recall? Oh, but I was the manly little fellow. Dear mum convinced the gentleman I was older and he found me most delectable. He did as he pleased, after he’d paid his fourpence, of course, and we were properly introduced.”

  The gentleman won’t hurt you much….

  The memory of that cajoling voice slid cleanly and coldly into my mind. In the moment before he meant to kill me, Jack had whispered to me as tenderly as a mother calming a frightened little boy. Goddamn. I sucked in a breath, conscious of Sid’s steady gaze and the smile on his lips that couldn’t persuade me what had happened to him was anything but a nightmare.

  He certainly didn’t linger over it. Extricating one hand from my loosened grip, he unbuttoned the top button of my waistcoat. “Dear mum, she presented my soul to the devil on a silver platter….” There was a sly glint in his eyes as the second button parted from its hole. “Now that we’re past introductions, what is there for us but to revel in our basest sin?”

  Less a revel, it seemed, and more a compulsive reliving of the only kind of sex he understood. It brought fresh to mind a kidnapping case I’d handled; six years after his rescue, the boy was still in therapy and likely to be for years to come. But there was no therapy for Sid, except that he had created in the darkest, most desperate corner of his mind.

  “Can I ask you something else?”

  He studied me with a detached, almost bored air. “Do you interrogate Ezra in such a manner before you kiss that sweet, smiling mouth?” He tugged at my tie. “I am not familiar with the way Americans play at love, but it seems tiresome. You must try even Ezra’s patient soul.”

  “Leave him out of this—” I heard a growing commotion beyond the door, and in the midst of it, Ezra calling my name. At the same instant, a fist slammed into my jaw, throwing me against the bedpost. The post snapped off and I fell with it to the floor. Half-blinded by the pain shooting through my head, I started to reach for my gun. A hand mussed my hair and I heard Sid, soft and teasing.

  “Another time, dear boy?”

  Then he was gone and I struggled to my feet to follow. A look over the stair rail showed me Ezra heading up at a run, three grim and determined guys hot on his heels.

  “Ez!” My warning came too late. The three men, bouncers I guessed, grabbed him and began hauling him back down the stairs. Sid pushed past all of them and kept going. I sped down, cussing under my breath as the front door slammed.

  “Mind the glass,” Mr. Bernsey snapped from the parlor, but Sid was gone. Bernsey refocused his wrath on us as we reached the bottom of the stairs. “This is not a public house, sir, nor a common lodging. We expect a certain level of decorum, as do the gentlemen who frequent this establishment….”

  More thunder on the stairs cut him off. Said gentlemen in various states of undress scurried past us, some demanding a cab, others a refund, all of them under the impression the place was being raided. I took advantage of the chaos to grab hold of Ezra and pull him out the door. As I expected, Sid was nowhere in sight. Ezra looked sick with regret. “He’s escaped.”

  “For the moment. Ez—”

  “I’m going with you. It’s because of me he’s gotten away.”

  “Don’t apologize. I’m the one who should be sorry, leaving you downstairs alone with that—”

  “Charming host,” Ezra concluded, with a pointed look past my shoulder. I turned around with another apology on my lips, but I didn’t get the chance to offer it. Ezra and I were hustled down to the street in a strong, thick-fingered grip.

  “And don’t come back,” Bernsey snapped before he slammed the door behind us.

  I grinned at Ezra. “Keep burning your bridges, don’t I?”

  Though I knew Whitechapel was a bewildering labyrinth for anyone not intimately familiar with its streets, I had fallen in with the modern-day notion that the Ripper might possibly be someone other than a mental case residing in the same neighborhood as his victims. I’d perfected the art of the wild goose chase where Jem was concerned. His apparent back-and-forth over his sexual identity gave me a loophole to ignore established evidence that gay killers seldom chose female victims. Because of that same evidence, I hadn’t even considered Sid. He knew himself—at least he’d seemed to—and further, had appeared to thrive on that awareness. But under that convincingly rapacious exterior lurked a soul being eaten up with self-hatred. I might have discovered that sooner, had I not been so interested in pinning the murders on Jem.

  And, unfortunately, Jem was our best source of information on Sid.

  Back at the house where I had attended my first nineteenth-century shindig, Ezra and I were greeted by Jem’s brother, Rob
ert, who looked us over with a strangely worried face before letting us in.

  “I’ve been turning away visitors all day,” he confided, more to Ezra than me. “But—well, he said he expected you to call any day now. He wouldn’t say why, but that I should let you up….” He sighed. “So I shall, but you must be prepared. He’s been having one of his spells and he’s not himself.” Robert shook his head grimly. “Mother’s talking of a trip abroad, when we cannot even persuade him to leave the house for a stroll around the block.”

  As he talked, he led us upstairs, then asked us to wait while he went in to talk to his brother. It was a good fifteen minutes before he reappeared and beckoned us to the door. “He seems rather relieved to know you’re here. Distract him with cheerful talk, will you?” Robert gave Ezra a pat on the shoulder and me a somber smile before standing aside to let us in.

  What was probably a sunny, comfortable room under normal circumstances now had, with the tightly drawn drapes and low-burning gaslight, all the cheer of a mausoleum. Expecting to find Jem in bed, I was surprised to see him sitting on the floor in the corner, dressed only in a bathrobe, his long legs stretched out in front of him. A blanket his brother had probably given him lay puddled beside him and, even though the room was chilly, he hardly seemed to notice it. He did, however, notice us. “Thank you, Robert.”

  “I’ll send up some tea,” Robert whispered to us as he slipped out. If Jem heard that, he gave no sign. Ezra sat on an overstuffed ottoman and I took the chair, managing a wry smile as Jem’s attention moved to me. The corners of his mouth lifted slightly in response.

  “Mr. Nash. Have you found him out?”

  I didn’t let my surprise show, but Ezra couldn’t hide his. “You knew?” he said in a hushed voice.

  Jem suddenly laughed, a rumbling, humorless laugh. “Dear Ezra. I know how pathetic I must appear, dallying with the likes of Sid while leaving Clara to wait and wonder. But you, of all chaps, should understand. There are some—needs—that will not go overlooked. Pleasures that others may freely enjoy which you cannot, without subterfuge.” His smile faded. “We all have so many faces. So many of which must be kept concealed. I’ve seen Sid’s other faces and yes, I’ve suspected. I distanced myself and he threatened Clara. So I broke it off completely with them both.”

  “Dear fellow,” Ezra whispered in dismay, and Jem shrugged.

  “Does it matter?” His attention shifted to the thin shaft of light breaching the drapes. “The world out there, it’s not ours. It will never be ours. Why the pretense of living in it?”

  “It will get better,” I ventured, “with time.”

  His blue, blue eyes found me again. “Ah, dear Morgan, time we do not have.” He brushed a hand over the velvet blanket, gaze gone distant. “‘The long day wanes, the slow moon climbs. The deep moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, ’tis not too late to seek a newer world.’”

  He closed his eyes, shutting us out, and was quiet so long, I wondered if he’d forgotten we were present. Ezra looked at me and I shook my head. We couldn’t push him. I couldn’t, anyway. I barely knew him, but I could see the man was dealing with some serious pain. Then, abruptly, Jem came back down to earth, startling us with his matter-of-factness. “Sid only plays the fool, you know, to catch people off their guard.” His tone was affectionate, as if some small part of him still thought well of Sid, despite everything. “He’s rather good at catching people off their guard. You’ve turned him over to the police?”

  I didn’t beat around the bush. “We have to find him first.”

  That little smile again. “You want me to give him to you.”

  Something in his tone made my heart sink. “The only betrayal here is his betrayal of you. If he’s the one killing, he won’t stop. He can’t stop. He’s too sick—”

  “They will hang him.”

  “He’s insane,” I said. “They’ll lock him away for the rest of his life. And that’s about all they can do.” Which in my opinion would be worse than hanging, but Jem might tolerate that more easily than the idea of being the one to bring about Sid’s death. “If we do nothing, more women will die,” I reminded him.

  “Have they named their murderer?”

  He directed the question to Ezra, who fidgeted on the ottoman. “They haven’t accused anyone. But they follow him about.”

  An affectionate light showed in Jem’s eyes. “Dear old Ezra. Remember when I suggested you set up shop? You’d make a fortune with that trick, you know. Perhaps you and Mr. Nash together….” He faltered, then went on with a false cheer. “I’ll never make a detective, myself. I thought Sid one of those chaps that don’t care to show their feelings. The only emotion I saw in him came when he tried to anger me over some triviality. He seemed to want me to—hurt him.” Jem shook his head slowly back and forth. “Other than that, nothing. He even spoke of drowning Clara in the river as though she were a stray cat he wanted to be rid of. Perhaps he hated me in the end. Certainly after I let him know he was a substitute—and a poor one—for someone else.”

  “Eddy,” I put in. Ezra looked at me anxiously. It was a sensitive subject and I had a feeling part of his uneasiness stemmed from Eddy’s position as prince and future king. Of course he didn’t know and neither did Jem that Eddy would never be king; and I didn’t intend to tell them. But stripped of his royal veneer, Eddy was just a man like us, a man Jem loved, more than he cared for Sid or Clara. And he was letting it eat him alive.

  At my comment, Jem merely nodded. From under the velvet puddle came a pistol and I started to my feet as he pressed the muzzle to his head. Ezra reached him first, wrestling it away. It went off, burying a bullet in the wall near the ceiling. I took the gun from Ezra’s shaking hands as Jem sank back into his corner, blue eyes dulled and distant. “They’ll even stop you dying in peace,” he muttered.

  “It’s not a peaceful way to go,” I told him. “Assuming it would kill you, which isn’t always the case.”

  The discharge brought Robert and half a dozen servants flying upstairs. Robert apparently didn’t need any explanation from us. He stared at his brother, an agony of helplessness on his face, and I felt for the guy. He wanted to help Jem, but he hadn’t the first idea how. I didn’t doubt that Jem’s family had no idea of his love for the prince, even if they knew of his preference for his own sex. Telling them would only make matters worse.

  Robert, not unkindly, asked us to leave and on our way out, Jem called after Ezra. As Ezra turned, Jem gave him a hint of the old charming smile. “If you see me, by and by, put in a good word for me, will you? For old time’s sake.”

  I knew what he meant as well as Ezra did. On the stairs, I warned Robert to lock up the guns and get his brother away on a long vacation. Time might ease the loss tormenting him, but even if it couldn’t, shutting him in St. Andrews didn’t seem the answer. I regretted confirming his suspicions about Sid, even though we’d prevented his suicide—for the time being. It wouldn’t help his state of mind to know he’d slept with a monster.

  As for the monster, we would hunt him down, ourselves, and the best place to start was where we had seen him just before Liz and Catherine’s deaths.

  The Ten Bells was as lively and raucous as it had been on our last visit, par for a Saturday night, I was sure, and maybe every night. I zeroed in on the barkeeper, whittling down Ezra’s funds to buy a couple of drinks and maybe a little information. But when I asked if he knew Sid, I could tell it wasn’t the question so much as my accent that sparked immediate suspicion. “Had all sorts, from coppers on down, inquiring about one customer or another,” he remarked. “You’re the first American what’s come nosing around. Have your drink and be on your way.”

  “Look you here,” Ezra protested in a surprisingly good working class accent. I managed not to react, but tried to look innocent as he went on. “You mistake us. Sid ain’t seen Morgan since he was a lad and here’s Morgan springing a visit on him unawares.” He leaned in, grinning. “A great joke too, after
all Sid’s bragging he’d know his own kin even after twenty years. I told him there’s a tenner in it if you do and he took the bet, thinking Morgan hadn’t a prayer of ever crossing back. Now here’s his own blood, bold as life, and Sid won’t know him from Adam.”

  Feeling it was safe, I let the grin come before my face cracked from the need. The barkeeper looked as amused, all suspicion fled. “You know, Sid could square what he owes me with that ten. I’m sorry to say you missed him. He was in just a quarter of an hour ago, but only for a pint. You might find him home if you’re quick.”

  I furrowed my brow. “Not still the house on Berner, is it?” It was a risky question and Ezra hesitated just long enough to prompt the barkeep to jump in, giving us an address right around the corner.

  Night was falling fast, stormy weather returning for an encore, and as we approached the house, Ezra suggested trying to locate Sid psychically. I vetoed that right away.