The Detective's Dilemma (10 page)

He answered, “No, not at all.” But he wasn’t sure about that. He still wanted her. On the sofa would be good.

She gave a nod. “Then please understand that I shan’t go into that house.”

He rubbed his chin and considered the matter. He wouldn’t leave her here in case she still harbored some ludicrous idea of leaving him out of her plans. Two things occurred to him at that moment. He wanted her physically, but he also craved her presence and had no intention of allowing her to melt into the city without him.

It had been months since he’d had a driving ambition. She’d given him several.

“I’ll employ a messenger,” he decided. “We will take a carriage.”

“I shall stay here, I promise.”

“If you want my help, come with me now,” he said, trying to sound calm.

“With stipulations.”

He nodded for her to continue.

“I will not go within a block of that place. If you attempt to find reinforcements I don’t approve of, I shan’t help you.”

“Any more instructions?”

“I want the loaded gun.”

“Ah.” He shook his head. “No.”

“The gun, then, and you keep the bullets.”

He tapped his thigh as he considered. “Done. I don’t mind if you have a prop to make you feel safer.”

“Indeed.”

He fetched the gun, opened the barrel, and made sure the chambers were empty. She slid the weapon back in the bag, then held out her hand.

“What?”

“The book.”

He walked over to her and, before she could protest, wrapped an arm around her waist and with his other hand slipped the book into her pocket the way Brennan had. It was hardly the time or circumstances for this, but he felt lighthearted. And her squawking protest of “Here, now, Detective” made him laugh.

She’d become an ally, and he didn’t have any of those.

“Shall we go?” he asked.

She picked up the sack of fruit and cheese. “All right. I shan’t be returning.”

After all they’d been through, including the interlude he would never forget, she was still not entirely convinced he was on her side. Ah well, he’d have to work on her. He looked forward to that part of his future. They left the apartment, and she carefully locked the door and pocketed the key.

When they walked out of the building, he laughed. They’d gone perhaps a half a mile from her house and remained in Greenwich Village not far from Washington Square.

“You had the driver go in a big circle?” he asked.

She nodded solemnly. “It’s not a long walk to the Winthrops,” she said.

“I’d say nine blocks, and you’re limping because of those awful shoes. Besides, we have to pick up my messenger first, and he’s downtown.”

She still carried the large bag weighed down with the gun. He reached over and took the sack of apples.

They had to walk a block to find hacks for hire, and she limped along beside him.

“You can lean on my arm,” he said after they’d gone only a few steps.

“No, thank you.”

“Why not?”

“I’d prefer not to.”

He gave her his best lascivious grin. “I won’t try to grab you again.”

She blushed and studied something on the sidewalk—a faint smile touched her mouth. She leaned on him.

In the carriage, a large closed hack this time, he decided he’d take notes. He fumbled at his pocket and pulled out his incident book. Maybe, if he took on his usual role, he could fall back into the old way of thinking. She’d be a witness and not the woman he still craved. He could ask her any question, including some she’d probably resent. “Tell me again. What words did your husband use when he spoke to you of the offenses against his body? Do not spare my feelings, or your own, for that matter.”

“What will you do with what I tell you?”

“I don’t know yet,” he admitted. “Gather as much information as I can and see if any of it can be used to stymie the Winthrops or at least convince them to leave you alone. We could threaten them, I suppose.”

She frowned at him. “Threaten them with what?”

“Exposure. How would you feel about going to a newspaper reporter?”

They rode with only the clop and jingle of the carriage for a few moments. “My father-in-law would hate that.” She wore a small smile. “He loves the world’s adoration. I know making what they did to him public would have mortified James, so I hesitate… But not very much.”

She hadn’t spotted an obvious truth, so he pointed it out. “Anyone reading the notebook would see something about your husband’s relationship with Brennan. That will change the world’s view of them and also of you. It will create an enormous scandal.”

The smile died, and she stared out the window. “And perhaps people will applaud what the Winthrops did to their son because of his, um, predilection.”

He nudged her. “For what it’s worth, knowing that information about your marriage and your husband doesn’t affect my opinion of you.”

She gave a strangled laugh. “No doubt the way I forced to you come with me and dragged you all around the city would create a stronger impression.”

“Yes, indeed,” he said, grinning. Well. His opinion of her husband had certainly been lowered—he’d been a fool to prefer anyone else when he had Julianna. What she had let him do in the apartment… He had trouble shifting his mind from that subject.

She leaned against the cracked leather of the bench and gazed down at her hands. “I can’t imagine revealing the secret of Brennan and James, not unless my parents-in-law actually get their hands on Peter and there’s no other path.”

“Or perhaps you could use that weapon if anyone attempts to threaten you. Other than me, of course.”

Another flash of a smile that quickly vanished. “Still, I don’t see what good it would do to pull in Brennan.”

“Well, he did give you the journal.” Which spoke well of the man, Walker reflected sourly.

Walker decided he’d be entirely honest with her. “I’m not sure what showing the book to a reporter, telling your story, could do either, other than make your life and Brennan’s harder. But we can’t separate out the entries in which James talks about his abuse from the ones where he talks about his DH.”

Her flinch was tiny, more of a blink, but he saw it.

“Poor Brennan,” she said.

He found it difficult to feel sorry for the servant, but opened his book to take more notes—he’d have to interview Brennan again, probably not in the presence of Julianna. He stopped when the carriage jerked as it hit a large rut.

She reached for the strap to stop falling off the seat, missed it, slid, and bumped against him. He put an arm around her shoulders to stop her fall.

He held the handle next to his head with one hand and clasped her as they bounced a few more times.

“You can let go now,” she said. “I’ve braced myself.” Sure enough, she’d put her feet up and pushed against the back-facing seat.

“Mm,” he agreed and didn’t release her.

She wiggled from his grasp and slid along the seat away from him.

“You escape my clutches once again,” he said and pressed both hands to his heart and fluttered his eyelashes like a melodrama’s heroine.

She grinned at him. “You are far sillier than I would have guessed.”

“I like making you smile.”

Of course those words immediately wiped the smile from her face. But a moment later she said, “Thank you.”

The carriage slowed, then came to a halt on Broadway in the shadow of the towering brick structure of Thomson, Langdon & Company, the corset manufacturer. Walker lowered the window and hoisted himself partially out to see what caused the holdup. A group of men stood around, examining tumbled and broken barrels near a flatbed cart with broken ropes and a few barrels still on board. Pickles? Fish?

He sniffed and couldn’t smell anything. He pulled back into the carriage. “A wagon lost its load in the middle of the street. Listen, I’m going to hop out, go find my messenger, and return with him in a flash. We’re not far from the Nassau and Spruce, so I’ll stop at the
New York Tribune
, see if I can grab something from the morgue.”

“The what?” She put her hand to her mouth.

“Where old newspaper files are kept.”

“What a peculiar name.”

He opened the door. She called, “How do you know your messenger is available?”

“He always is. I’ll be back in a half an hour or so.”

“That long?” she said.

“You’ll miss me, eh? I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He opened the door, swung out, and—after a brief shouting match with the driver about his intentions—took off at a trot down the road.

She watched his figure wind through the crowd and felt a strange dismay. Unlike her friends’ parents, Julianna’s mother had been forthright about the power of physical attraction. She would sing “Love, Oh Careless Love” to Julianna and warn her about feminine desire shoving good sense out the window. After her infatuation with Brennan, Julianna had understood the blinding power of desire. She would be extremely careful with this detective. Or rather she would be from now on. Bolting the barn door after the fact, she reflected. The horse had galloped off with that first kiss they’d exchanged. Not again.
Not yet
,
you mean,
the light-hearted hopeful part of herself chimed in, the part she’d thought had died long ago.

Julianna settled more comfortably on the seat and pulled out her husband’s journal. The words on the page blurred. Three long breaths, and she could read again.

James was such a jumble of contrasts on these pages. He’d written about a game of cards…and, on the opposite page, lines about his torture. She read about the death of his dog—killed by S, whom she suspected to be his father’s accomplice, Springfield. James had never said a word to her about the dog or its demise.

He wrote about shopping with his mother and about being locked in a room with no food for three days. The words he used sounded so like his voice—sweet, funny, and slightly oblivious James.

She had to stop now and again and gaze out the window at the crowds to bring herself back to the present and the world without her husband.

Words he’d told her came back now.

“You save me from myself,”
he’d said.
“I used to mark down my thoughts to keep them at bay, and now, with you, I don’t have to.”

That might explain why she hadn’t found anything like this journal in their home after his death. The thought eased her heartache.

She picked up the book and read about his consuming passion for his own stern yet loving DH.

She bit her lip hard to force herself to keep reading even through a not well disguised description of passionate lovemaking with DH. Had James ever thought of his kisses with her as “molten”? Or her limbs as “perfection”? She tried to think back to their times in bed and came up with the soothing weight and warmth of him on her—a pleasant but hardly earth-shattering intimacy. They’d talked long into the night, though, and laughed together. He’d been her best friend and comfort.

Only today had she finally understood what the phrase “all-consuming passion” meant, and she hadn’t completely undressed to experience it or even known her partner well.

“This is utterly useless,” she said aloud and pushed the book into her pocket again. Later on, she would copy the passages that would embarrass the Winthrops and hope that would be enough. She’d hate to have to deliver the actual book up to anyone else. She tried to recall where she had stashed James’s correspondence that would have confirming examples of his handwriting when someone just outside the carriage shouted, “Oy, you the Winthrop lady?”

A round-faced, gap-toothed boy stood outside the carriage, staring at her. He wore dark, moth-eaten knickerbockers, a black sweater several sizes too large for him, and a battered gray cap. He looked like a thousand other boys who existed on the streets selling newspapers or delivering goods. He could be any age from eight to twelve.

“You know Mr. Walker,” he told her.

“Yes,” she said cautiously.

“I’m supposed to tell you Mr. Walker is on his way and was held up by an old friend, only not literally, since you might worry about that happening twice in one day.”

“Ah. Thank you.” That certainly sounded like something Mr. Walker—Caleb—would say.

“I’m Danny. I’ll be carrying messages. Let me in?”

All the warnings about young thieves and cutthroats came back to her, but she opened the door. He climbed in, and she saw he had a case of some sort slung on his back with straps.

He carefully slid the straps from his shoulders, swung down the box, and tapped it with dirty fingers. He beamed at her.

“I shine shoes,” he said proudly.

He wedged himself up on the seat facing her and opened his filthy wooden container. “See? Brushes and all. Got the whole kit for only a nickel.”

How could an innocent like this survive on the streets? Peter might end up like this if something happened to her.