Downtime (23 page)

The corners of his mouth twitched upward. “I still cannot decide whether you are angel or demon, Morgan Nash. I shouldn’t be half surprised some night to receive a message from the future asking if we might please keep you here instead of sending you back.”

“I’ll have you know I fit right in where the future’s concerned.” I put an arm around his shoulders. “Want to skip out on the rest of this party and go get a drink somewhere?”

“I have been invited to leave,” he said, and I caught a subdued flash of pain in his eyes as his gaze dropped to the marble floor. “But I must find Derry and Kathleen and let them know what’s happened. If they don’t know already.”

“I’ll go with you.” I couldn’t let him face that crowd alone. I didn’t have to care what any of these people thought of me. But Ezra would be facing their wrath long after I was gone.

As we headed back, we saw no sign of George or anyone else, apart from an older man apparently on his way out. Something about him caught my attention, and as I looked at him again, I realized he was heading toward us. And not with the intention of expressing support, judging by the disapproving set of his jaw and the frosty blue eyes. I wondered just how many people intended to give Ezra hell for his decision. Well, this was one guy who wasn’t going to be throwing in his two cents without getting an earful in return.

Ezra reined me in before I could follow through with that idea. “I know what you mean to do,” he whispered. “But you must leave it to me.”

“Ezra—”

“Please.” The grip he had on my arm tightened and I realized he was practically vibrating with tension. Before I could say anything, he let me go and launched into conversation with the sour-faced codger moving our way. “You will let me explain.”

The man eyed him with calm deliberation. “No, sir, I don’t think so. You will come home with me and let the doctors take you in hand before you bring us all to ruin.”

Ezra seemed to deflate a little. “I don’t need a doctor.” He said it as if he knew it was merely wasted breath. And it was.

“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 can 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.