by Darcy Burke
He stood and crossed the room in three strides. His hand shot out, wrapping around the bottle. The bottle had three rows of clay stacked on top of each other to form the lip. His mouth would enclose the top two rows in a blighted kiss, knocking back the first sip. Harder at first, the burn bright and fierce until he got used to the taste once more. Then he could afford to nurse the drink, give it proper attention.
The burnt orange clay should have seemed right. Familiar. Comforting. An escape when he’d lost control of everything else.
Clasped around the bottle, his hands were still bruised and battered from the explosion. He looked down at his right thumb pressed over the “Lady’s Delight” etching, a furious red slash from the bottom joint to the middle of his thumb. The cut festered, exposed to dirt and grime.
Carefully, he tilted the bottle over his thumb, splashing the alcohol onto the infected flesh. He gritted his teeth against the sting of sizzling inflamed skin, swallowing down a yell. The pulsation of the rain against the patched roof of the lodging house continued on, filling up the silence.
Rubbing his thumb against his pants, he dried the alcohol. The cut ached, a pain that ebbed and flowed with each passing second. It reminded him he was alive, senses alert.
How much could one man be reasonably expected to handle? He didn’t know the answer.
In the past, he would have believed the bottle contained a deep-seated secret and if he simply imbibed enough she would finally share the truth with him. Lady’s Delight was always a woman, like Emporia’s old ships that sailed from the harbors at the London Docks. She had been the only relationship he’d trusted when he fled back to Dorking.
Daniel leaned his head back against the chair, grip tight around the clay. He could remember Kate straddled across his lap, but he didn’t have the power to pretend she was here with him. Memories, that was all he had, memories that transmuted and faded over time until all that was left was the subtle scent of her soap and the whisper of her voice.
He lifted the gin to his nose and inhaled. Crisp juniper and pine needles, an astringent bouquet designed to knock him down. “I can smell it on your breath,” Poppy had said. “You never hid it well.”
Poppy wouldn’t need to know. When he got to Dorking, he’d buy another bottle to get him through the visit, but he’d chew mint. That would mask the scent. He’d be more careful this time, control the urge around Moira so that she wouldn’t grow up to know her uncle was perpetually in his cups.
Yet that was a lie like every other lie in his life. He breathed in one last breath and set the bottle back on the table next to him. He settled back into the chair, eying the gin, unable to staunch the feeling that it might disappear from him if he didn’t watch it.
It would not be his first relapse. He’d stopped when Poppy had given birth. But the cries of her daughter had been too much for his worn down nerves. Seeing Moira had reminded him too much of what he could have had with Kate. He’d fallen from grace and submitted to the ruin’s hold.
Seven months without a drink. Moira had been three months old. The air was clear, the sun shone, and it had all seemed so unbearably perfect that he couldn’t stand to view it hazily. He’d handed the bottle to Poppy and told her he was done, for good this time. He couldn’t stop that bastard from seducing her, but he’d be strong and have a positive effect on her daughter’s life.
But he was a failure and failures drank.
Pragmatically, he knew Jasper Finn would kill him if he stayed, for Daniel had gotten too close to Finn’s resurrection men. Finn knew where Kate lived. He had prior ties to her. Would Finn go back and find her? Daniel’s stomach wrenched at the thought. If he left, Finn would have no reason to hurt Kate. He had to hold on to that hope.
Women who helped him paid the price. He was powerless to defend them.
Outside his window, the storm continued to brew. A clap of thunder penetrated the walls. Shaken from his thoughts, he stood and picked up the bottle again. One hand wrapped around the base, he poured out a sixth into the glass and swirled the gin.
But he didn’t drink.
Instead, he thought of Kate. How she’d rested her head against his shoulder and fallen asleep in his arms. How content he’d felt, without the gin to hamper his faculties, fully alert to everything that had happened between them. The pain stung and ripped away his reserves but it was real, so achingly real. It sang of truths he’d never comprehend, but knew existed in the grand scheme of life.
I want more. It’s not enough.
Kate had chosen another path, clinging to her memories and not the life they could have had together. The gin that sat so complacently in the glass across from him was a passageway to his old life and the man he’d been then. If he went back there, the last seven months were undone. The man he’d tried so hard to become—a better version of himself, free of the taints of vice—would no longer exist.
He wanted to be more. To exist on a plain outside of his basest needs, to live a life he could be proud of and to help those he loved. He wanted to know that he’d done everything he could to eradicate the sins of his past.
He wanted justice.
Picking up the glass, he walked to the window. Rain flowed in through the cracks in the panels, dribbled down onto the floorboards where already a puddle formed. Daniel raised the glass to his lips, breathed in the aroma of gin, and then poured the contents through the split panel.
Sober, he’d mourn the loss of Kate in his life like he should have three years ago. He’d feel every bit of the hurt and become something new from it. “You are stronger than you think,” Poppy had said, and for the first time in his life he believed her words.
He was done hiding.
***
Thunder roared in time to the frantic pounding of Kate’s heart. Panting, she skidded to a stop in front of Daniel’s door. Water streamed from her dress, her hair, even from her hands as she tried the doorknob. The pink fabric was now brown in places, thickly coated with mud.
Locked. She pounded on the door, shook the knob, screamed as loud as she could. “Daniel!”
No answer came, nor was there any light emanating from beneath the door. She could barely see in the hall—what few sconce candles there were had burnt out before this late hour. If Ezekiel had found Daniel before she’d gotten here, then Daniel would be on that floor, gasping for his last breath. Provided he was even in the room, for he could be anywhere in London at this moment, and she’d not be able to get to him.
She couldn’t think like that. She’d save Daniel. She had to, if she could get inside the damn room. Fishing in her pocket for her set of lock picks, Kate forced herself to take a deep breath.
Calm, clear mind.
She jumped as another clap of thunder shook the house’s foundations. Lightning crackled in the sky, casting an ethereal golden glow from the window at the end of the hall. Seizing the sudden light, Kate inserted her pick into the upper part of the keyhole in the door. The rest she could do by touch, feeling for the pins and coaxing them into compromise.
“Come on, come on,” she muttered under her breath, leveraging the torque wrench and the pick in the lock.
One pin wouldn’t move.
“Daniel!” she yelled again, her voice breaking as she pushed at the stubborn pin. Not too hard, enough to get it to move, when all she wanted to do was rip the lock off its hinges. “Daniel, please. Oh bloody, bloody hell.”
She felt the pin go down.
Without hesitating, she used the tension wrench to rotate the cylinder and unlock the lock. She turned the knob, yet nothing happened. Something blocked the door. Was it Daniel’s body? Had Ezekiel beaten him and then left him there to die?
She shoved the door. Kept shoving, kept yelling out his name.
Chapter Twenty-Three
In the room, something cracked and fell to the ground. Kate pushed harder.
“Christ, Katiebelle, you’ll break the door down.” Daniel’s voice cut through her panic.
S
he stopped immediately, hand on the knob. The door opened.
He was alive, unharmed, and without a shirt. On the floor behind him were the remains of a wooden chair, shoved up underneath the doorknob as a failsafe lock. He pulled from his left ear a cotton plug, grimacing at it. “Neighbors were bloody loud this evening. I’m sorry I didn’t hear you the first time.”
He continued to speak, but she no longer heard him. His voice melded into the most harmonious of songs, Sussex accent with that hint of Irish brogue on the edges. Without hesitation, she flung herself into his arms, landing hard on his chest.
“Oof!” he grunted, but his arms wrapped around her waist to pull her closer to him. Instinctively, like he’d been expecting her all along.
She forgot about her damp dress, the storm outside, even the danger. Clasping her hands together behind his neck, she leaned back in his hold to look him in the eye. Strong chin with the hint of stubble, his fiercely red hair and wide forehead, everything she held dear in that face.
“I didn’t expect to see you again,” he said.
Brazenly, she told the truth. “I didn’t expect to be back again.”
A small crowd of interested parties had assembled in the hall from the noise. Quickly, she shut the door behind her. She knew Finn hadn’t followed her. She’d been vigilant about checking behind her, and with the storm the roads were close to impassable.
But if she’d been able to pick her way into Daniel’s flat, so could Ezekiel—born and bred in the rookeries as he appeared to be, it was a safe assumption he’d been picking locks since childhood. The armchair to the right of the door was solid and would serve as a better stop-gauge for the lock.
“Help me move that chair.” She went to the side, beginning to shove it to the left.
He complied, lifting up one end of the chair. Chair moved against the door, Kate stood back, somewhat satisfied.
Daniel tilted his head. “Katiebelle, you want to tell me what’s happening?”
“Finn’s sending Ezekiel after you.” She stepped closer to him, grabbing his hand in hers, needing to be close to him. “I went to the brothel to see Sally Fletcher. Finn caught me outside.”
She didn’t want to think about Finn. Squeezing Daniel’s hand tighter, his touch made it all seem surreal. The heat from his body warmed her frigid fingers.
Daniel’s gaze locked on hers. “Did he hurt you?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Not much, at least. He…he tried to touch me, but I got away.”
“Bastard,” Daniel cursed. “I’m going to tear him apart by his bloody limbs. This happened tonight?”
“Before I came here.” A shiver went through her frame, either from the chill in the room, the wet of her dress or the memory of Finn’s attack on her. “You’ve got to get out of here, Daniel. Ezekiel will come after you.”
He dropped her hand to envelop her in his strong hold. Running his hands up and down her arms to warm her, he held her close. “With the storm raging, we won’t get far, love. Madame Tousat said the hack routes are a mess.”
She looked back toward the door and the chair. It would stick, at least until the rain lessened. She’d barely made it here in the first place.
“We’ll leave as soon as the storm abates,” Daniel assured her. “I’m concerned, of course, but any attempt at venturing outdoors is going to get us wet and lost. At least here, we’ve got a roof over our heads. I’ve kept watch for anyone following me, and I take a variety of ways to get to the flat. I’m registered under an assumed name.”
She leaned her head against his chest, the smell of bergamot and cloves surrounding her in something that was utterly male and utterly Daniel. They were strong once, and they could be strong again.
“I’ve got my gun, and you have your truncheon, yes?” She pulled from him to look about the room, finding the gun on top of his trunk. Standing back from him, she surveyed the room. “Though I think my powder’s wet, as the gun didn’t fire off properly at Finn.”
Daniel scowled. “Hate that you had to use it at all. He’ll pay for this, I promise.”
She barely heard his words. On the table by the door was an empty bottle of Lady’s Delight.
Kate’s stomach wrenched.
“Oh, Daniel. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for you to go back to the bottle.” She picked up the bottle. It was feather-light in her palm, deceptively so when it was the root of his past problems. He’d been so determined not to return to that.
She couldn’t help but feel it was all her fault.
Daniel’s larger fingers covered hers around the clay bottle. “I didn’t drink it.”
She exhaled. He squeezed her hand before prying her fingers off the gin. The bottle returned to the table.
“I bought it with every intention of drinking it. I thought it’d be easier, if I could find some peace, if the dreams would stop. But then I thought of you, out there with Finn on the loose.” He cupped her chin in his hands, truth reflected in his jade eyes.
He had worried for her safety, while she’d rushed back to protect him.
“And I thought of Poppy, back home with Moira. I want to bring them to London and give her a fresh start where no one knows the story of Moira’s birth. Poppy could pass as a widow. I can’t bring them here if I’m still wanted.”
“We will find a way to make that happen.”
He gave her a grateful smile. “But mostly, I don’t want to be a shell anymore. Forever apologizing for what I’ve done in the past. I want to make it right and then move on, live life as I should have all along.” He let his thumb trace the curve of her jaw.
She shivered at his soft touch, leaning into his hold. “I have every confidence you will.”
Daniel’s fingers ceased moving. He tilted her chin up so that she looked him in the eye. “Where do we go from here, Katiebelle? Obviously, we need to avoid Finn’s men, but you and me…where do we stand?”
“My father was guilty,” she said simply, closing the little bit of distance between them. She laid her head down on his chest, heard his heart beating. Only now did she feel back at rights, able to deal with the atrocity of her father’s past.
She followed Daniel’s movements, noting with relish the sculpted lines of his bare chest. How could she ever have thought she could live without him? Every part of her had ached for him, died a little bit more without him.
“Yes.” Daniel didn’t inquire further, and for that, she was glad.
She could tell him all about her father’s deeds in the morning, when the threat had passed and they could fathom some way to go forward. She shivered and he put an arm around her, running his hands up and down her arms to warm her.
“Finn said Papa had been broke even then. Oh, Daniel, what have I done? If I’d only known, I could have provided the ledger and you might have gone free…” She sniffled, unable to stop the sob that escaped. She’d ruined everything by believing in the wrong man and trusting her memories over facts.
No one was perfect, yet she’d held her father up on a pedestal.
Tears streamed down her cheeks, melding with the rainwater until she was a torrential downpour. As if the unrest in her mind had been amplified to unnatural volumes, thunder boomed as her shoulders shook.
“Quiet,” Daniel murmured. “That’s all in the past. Neither of us is faultless.”
He pulled her closer, the warmth of his bare chest and arms surrounding her. There was no fireplace in the room. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the windows were patched ineffectively with a bit of red cloth. The scarf he’d lent her because again, in a moment like this one, she’d been cold and worn out from exposure to the elements.
It had been so long since anyone had done anything to bring her comfort. She’d been on her own for two and a half years, lost to the emptiness inside of her and certain she needed no one else to survive.
But she did. She needed him. It was not weakness to want to share her life with someone else. That knowledge burned within her, burne
d like the flames of Friggard’s Pawn, licking at her insides until she could not stand on her own two feet without effort.
She sagged against him. At her falter, he lifted her from the ground, his arms wrapped around her legs, her feet hanging idly off to the side. He brought her to the bed and set her down gently.
Going to the closed County Cork steamer trunk, he pulled out a blanket. She blinked at the ordered rows of his clothing. He was never that orderly, unless he was trying to bide his anxiety with menial tasks or he was to go on a trip.
He had been about to leave.
“Daniel?”
“Yes?” He wrapped the blanket around her shoulders.
She tugged the blanket tighter around her, her gaze on the neat stacks. “Are you going somewhere?”
The bed creaked as he sat down next to her. His arm draped over her shoulders and he scooted her closer so that she could rest her head against his shoulder once more. She snuggled deeper against him. His clothes smelled faintly of lye from the washing soap, something good and clean in this hovel of waste and rotten food. She fisted the end of his shirt, clinging to it as if she could stop him from leaving simply by hanging on to it.
“I had thought to return to Dorking,” he said. “But I’m not going anywhere now. I don’t want to turn tail and run anymore, Kate. I want to stay and do what’s right.”
Her heart was suddenly lighter, the pent-up stress of the past few weeks released. They could look toward the future together, if only they could deal with the sins of their pasts. She wanted that, wanted it with every fiber of her being.
Before, she had feared admitting love for him again. It would leave her vulnerable, a prisoner to her emotions. But as she leaned against him, his heartbeat echoing in her ears, she felt stronger than she had in ages. She was no longer alone, but part of something bigger than herself, this union between them that enriched her life and brought out a better side to her.
The blanket fell from her shoulders as she reached for him. Her hands came to rest on his shoulders, for she could not imagine not touching him, not being near him. He was everything that made sense. Everything she’d ever loved.
