Downtime (36 page)

“At least take him home, for God’s sake. Spare him any further humiliation.”

“You’ll have to fetch him back, then. He won’t come with me.”

Ezra sighed in frustration and looked at me. “Morgan—”

“I’ll hang on to Sid. You drag Jem back and we’ll stick them in a cab.”

Ezra brightened in relief and took off after Jem. I wondered how much information I could weasel out of Sid in the interim. He was clearly wondering what he could get from me. He leaned in, to breathe in my ear, “Do you love him very much?”

“Ezra? I’ve known him two weeks.”

“Not the romantic, are you, dear boy. Fancy a little Brahms?”

I stayed with him as he meandered toward the music room. If there was a real person behind Sid’s flamboyant facade, I was in no frame of mind to ferret him out. I was more interested in details about Jem Montague. “Who’s Jem in love with, Sid?” I asked, hoping he would confirm Ezra’s suspicion.

The question didn’t seem to surprise him. “A fellow he tutored a few years back.”

“Who?”

“Just a fellow….” Sidney twirled a hand in the air. “High up. Very high up.”

“Eddy?”

Sid peered around the drape that framed the doorway, gazing over the guests poised attentively on chairs and sofas within before he finally bothered to reply. “It was quite the wild romance for a while. Until his mum put paid to their—communications.”

“Jem say anything about wanting to get back at her for it?”

One question too many. Sid turned to study me face to face. “Do you think to fit the suspect to the crime? Whyever Jem?”

“A few reasons. Anyway, something strange is going on with him.”

“And which little bird told you that? As if one couldn’t guess.”

“It has nothing to do with Ezra.”

“No? Jem’s a bit mad, I will admit. I mean—Clara Alworth!” Sid rolled his eyes. “That he fancies that high-blown dollymop, there’s proof enough. You’ve saved Ezra from that cold bed—clever lad you are—but I shall not be so lucky.” Grinning, Sid leaned close. “Here’s your lovely boy at last.”

Said lovely boy did not have Jem in tow and looked glum as he pulled me away from the doorway and whispered, “He refused to come back. I suppose he’ll go home and leave Sid to his own lookout. We’ll have to give Sid cab fare and make sure he goes….” Worried blue eyes shifted past my shoulder. “Damn it all.”

Sid had apparently concluded he was on his own and had taken off. We snuck into the music room on the chance he was looking for another potential ride home. There was no sign of Sid, but cozy, front and center on a sofa with other birds in the same bright feathers, sat Charlotte. Ezra stared at her until I gently nudged him. “You okay?”

He gave me a distracted glance as if he hadn’t heard me, then slipped out of the room, leaving me to run after him. I caught up in the corridor, snagging a handful of his coat to slow him down. I didn’t want to let on that I was fighting an irrational concern he’d discovered stronger feelings for Charlotte, so I kept it breezy. “I thought you were a fan of Brahms.”

Humor flashed in his eyes, taking the sharp edge off his distress. “That was Mozart.”

Sid’s education was far from complete—as was mine. I doggedly stuck to the relevant subject. “What’s wrong? I’m guessing not a ghost this time.”

“I am the ghost,” he said ruefully, with a backward glance toward the room where faint strains of music still issued. “In the world that was mine. I hadn’t realized….”

“That you’ve left it behind?”

A corner of his mouth twisted. “I was thinking it had left me.”

“You’re the one moving forward. Take my word for it.”

He looked at me with an eloquence no words could match. The silent relief that someone was there for him, the gratitude, it hit me hard. I knew that tongues would wag and I didn’t give a shit. Ezra did, though. We were leaving behind the shattered remains of what had once been his life, and even though he’d been the one to complete the destruction, it had to hurt. I would eventually go back to the life I knew, the one that was familiar, the one I was so homesick for. He could never return to his.

Ezra was silent all the long walk through the house and the garden, down to the street where lamps shone with ghostly light through another fog settling over the world. It wasn’t until I’d hailed a cab and we were safely inside it that reaction set in.

“I’m sorry to act such a fool.”

He looked so blue I put an arm around his shoulders and pressed a reassuring kiss on his forehead. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

“I’ve gotten into the habit of it—I suppose because I believed there was something wrong with me. Father was so sure of it.”

“What about your mother? What did she think?”

“I never knew. She was always unwell and gone away to the country for a rest. I thought it must be my fault, because I could see things I was not supposed to see. I pretended for a while I couldn’t, but it didn’t save her. Father sent her to St. Andrews. He said her mind was not right and that I had inherited her weakness.” He slumped back against the seat and stared ahead into the darkness. “When I asked if I might visit her, he said he expected I would be there myself, soon enough.”

Comprehension hit me with disturbing clarity. “She died there.” I clung hard to Ezra’s hand, another question on my lips I couldn’t bring myself to ask.

But Ezra knew. “She did come to me after, and she was with me for a while. I saw her less and less as the years passed. When I was about twenty, I saw her for the last time.”

“Did your father ever know?”

“I told him once and he vowed that if I said such a thing again, he would send me away.”

A shiver went through me with the realization that what love and affection Ezra had known in childhood had come from a dead woman. I wrapped my arms more securely around him and rested my chin on his shoulder. “If your dad was always gone and your mom was ill, who the hell looked after you?”

“Looked after me? There were servants. I had a governess and a tutor.”

That didn’t sound particularly warm and cozy. “They were nice?”

“She was very kind. And certainly patient,” he added with a wry twist of his mouth. “I believe it disturbed her to have the care of a child who always appeared to be talking to himself. Frederick was a jolly chap who somehow had my father thinking he was quite serious and severe. But we spent more time getting into mischief than poring over history lessons. He was more like an elder brother than a tutor, I think. Or perhaps there is less difference between the two than I know.”

So Ezra was an only, after all. “Frederick sounds like an okay kind of guy. Did your dad sack him?”

Ezra’s smile faded. “No, he died when I was twelve.”

I wondered if there was any time in his life Ezra hadn’t been suffering the loss of someone he loved. “Did your father hire another tutor?”

“Not at that point. He sent me away to school.”

“Figures. What the hell’s wrong with the guy, anyway?”

His lips twitched. “I’m not sure that anything is wrong with him. He just has very certain ideas about what is wrong with the rest of us.”

“Oh yeah? He must be damned near perfect, to be so comfortable passing that kind of judgment on his own son.”

“He’s done quite well for himself, really. He’s popular in parliament, and hoping, so I’ve heard, for a promotion to the cabinet. The worst that may be said of him is that he has indulged in some questionable business practices, which I discovered when I assisted in auditing the building society’s books. I’ve not been permitted to see the books since, so I cannot say if he is still rather inflating the assets. But I suppose such a practice is more common than not.”

“A guy can end up with a prison sentence for something like that.”

Ezra nodded. “I did warn him, but I imagine he’s too intelligent to fall to such an end. He will only let those into his confidence he can trust.”

“What about you?”

“I’ve not been in his confidence for some time.”

“He’s not afraid you’ll turn him over to the police?”

“I think because he imagines me mad, he believes everyone else sees me the same way. So any accusation I may level against him would be viewed as the ravings of a lunatic.”

I studied his somber profile. “That’s how you see yourself.”

It took him a moment to answer. “I used to imagine what it might be like to end as Mother did, locked away, to die among strangers. For the longest time, I tried to ignore the spirits that spoke to me. And the feelings that came over me when….” His grip on my hand tightened briefly and he met my eyes with the faint gleam of tears in his.

“When you met a bloke you fancied?”

His mouth twisted, somewhere between smile and grimace. “You make it seem like the most reasonable notion in the world.”

“Your feelings aren’t lunacy. Some people might want you to believe they are, but time will prove all those people wrong.”

I think he wanted to believe it. Whether he was able to was another matter. I decided to switch to a more cheerful subject. “You up for a funeral on Saturday?”

“A funeral?”

“Yeah, Elizabeth Stride’s. I’m curious to see who might show up.”

“You think he will?” Ezra said, with a little awe at the prospect.

“I think it’s possible.”

A carriage stood parked at the curb when we arrived home. Ezra seemed unworried by it so I figured it was nothing to be concerned about—until just inside the doorway I heard the officious tones of either a government official or cop. Two policemen accompanied by two glum-faced guys in dark suits crowded the foyer. At the alarmed look Kathleen shot Ezra, I followed a sudden gut feeling and firmly shut the door in Ezra’s face.

Standing with my back against the door to prevent him from opening it, I turned to Kathleen. “May I ask what this is about?”

Before she could tell me, the taller of the two plainclothes spoke. “I’m Franklin Botting and this is Mr. Wilton, of St. Andrews Hospital. Are you Mr. Ezra Glacenbie?”

I locked down the anxiety stirring in my gut and slid into an easy smile. “No, sorry. Morgan Nash.” I held out a hand and the fellow shook it with all the warmth and charm of a DOJ attorney. “I think Ezra’s gone on a holiday,” I continued as Derry came in through the kitchen hall. “Isn’t that right, Kath?”

My familiarity caught her off guard, and she answered yes in a sardonic tone that masked her own anxiety. Derry took in the scene as he swept off his gardening gloves and offered a hand to Mr. Botting. “Gone to America, he has, and I’m not half envious. I would have gone with him if I’d the funds. And who wouldn’t? I ask you.”