The Winter Rose (17 page)

"Which one, Joe? The rose silk or the plaid sateen?" she said to her hus-band, holding two suit jackets up for his inspection.

"Neither," he replied, coming up behind her and kissing her neck.

"Joe, luv. I'm just about to have a bath. I'm sweaty as a navvy. Leave off."

"I love you all sweaty," he said, fumbling with her nightgown's buttons. "All warm and salty and tasty..."

"You make me sound like a chipped potato."

"You're almost as delicious."

"Almost!"

"I love you, Fee, I do, but chips are chips." He opened her nightgown
and cupped her ripening breasts. "Blimey, lass, just look at them!" he
said, ogling her reflection.

"Will you stop? I've a train to catch."

"They're twice as big as usual," he said appreciatively.

"Will you let go of me?"

Joe didn't reply. Instead, he pushed the gown off her shoulders and
let it fall to the floor. He kissed her neck again, moving his hands
down to her swollen belly. "Let me have you, Fee. I'm hard as a rock for
you."

"I don't have time!"

"Won't take long, luv, believe you me." He moved one hand down lower, between her legs.

"Stop, Joe. I can't. I really can't."

But she didn't want him to stop. She craved his touch. More than
ever. It had been like this when she was carrying Katie, too. She had
wanted him all the time then. Couldn't get enough of him. His fingers
found her and stroked her, making her breathless and wet. She closed her
eyes and leaned her head back on his shoulder.

"Still want me to stop?" he whispered.

"Don't you dare."

He led her to their bed and sat her on the edge of it. Then he knelt
down and pushed her legs apart. His tongue on her, then in her, made her
groan with desire.

"God, you feel good," she whispered. He always knew just how to touch
her, and where. He had always known. Now he was making her impossibly
hot, teasing her, bringing her to the verge of pleasure again and again,
then pulling away, making her need of him build until it was almost
unbearable. "Oh, yes," she moaned, burying her hands in his hair. "Oh,
Joe... now, please now... oh--"

"Mummy!"

Fiona froze. There was the sound of little feet pounding down the
hallway outside her room. Then little fists against the bedroom door.

"Mummy! Mummy! Mummy! Mummy!"

Fiona bolted to the armoire and grabbed her dressing gown. She got it
on just as the doorknob turned, a split second before Katie burst into
the room.

"Hello, Mummy!" she crowed.

"Hello, my darling!" Fiona bent to scoop her daughter into her arms.
She kissed Katie's cheek, then buried her face in her neck, inhaling her
little-girl smell.

"Play, Mummy!"

"I can't right now, my love. Mummy has to get ready for a trip."

Anna, Katie's nurse, appeared in the doorway. "I'm terribly sorry,
Mrs. Bristow," she said breathlessly. "The little minx darted out of the
nursery while I was drawing her bath."

"It's all right, Anna. Leave her here for a bit. I want to see her before I go."

"Yes, ma'am. Good morning, Mr. Bristow."

"Morning, Anna," Joe said.

He was sitting in a chair near the bed, holding a pillow in his lap
to hide the bulge in his pajama trousers. Poor lad, she thought. She was
rather hot and bothered herself.

Fiona walked over to Joe, still carrying Katie. "Go to Daddy for a bit, duck. Mummy has to..."

"No!" Katie yelled, clasping her mother in a death grip. "Mummy, play!"

"Katie, darling, I can't right now."

"Please, Mummy," Katie said.

Fiona swallowed hard. Katie's words were like a knife to her heart.
She had just returned from a business trip to Edinburgh yesterday and
was leaving for Paris this morning. She'd barely seen her little
daughter all week.

"We will play, Katie," she said. "On Saturday. As soon as I'm home. I promise."

"No! No! No!" Katie howled, kicking her legs. Fiona deftly shifted
the wailing toddler so that her flailing feet would not catch her belly.

"Oi, you!" Joe scolded. "That's enough!"

"Katie, behave yourself," Fiona said.

"Play, Mummy!"

"All right then, look... we'll play dress up. Mummy will have a bath,
then put her nice plaid suit on, and you can sit on the bed and put her
jewels on. Would you like to play that game?"

Katie nodded vigorously. Fiona sat her down, handing her bracelets
and a rope of pearls to keep her occupied. She was just about to pick
her plaid suit up off the floor when a growling, snapping bundle of
white fur came hurtling into the room, sending her clothes flying. It
was Lipton and Twining, the fox terriers.

Katie laughed and clapped her hands at the sight of them.

"Are those mongrels still around?" Joe grumbled. "How'd they get in here?"

"Anna must not have closed the door all the way," Fiona said. "They've got something. Someone's tie, I think."

The dogs were playing tug of war with a blue silk necktie. Each had
sunk his teeth into an end, and from the sound of their growls, neither
had any intention of letting go.

"Is it yours, luv?" Fiona asked Joe, lunging for the tie.

"My what?"

The dogs scooted out of her reach, still snarling and tugging.

"Come on, Lipton ere's a good dog. The tie, Joe, the one that these filthy beasts are destroying. Is it yours?"

"I have no idea. Katie, luv, don't eat those," Joe said, jumping out of his chair to pull the pearls out of Katie's mouth.

There was another knock at the door.

"Yes?" Fiona called, an edge of desperation in her voice.

A young woman stuck her head into the room. "Beg pardon, ma'am, but
Mr. Foster says to tell you that the carriage has been brought round and
if you don't leave smartish you'll miss the eight oh five train and the
next one's not till eleven fifteen and that one won't get you to the
coast in time to board the ferry for Calais and..."

"Thank you, Sarah," Fiona said. "Tell Mr. Foster I'll be right along."

"Yes, ma'am," Sarah said, closing the door.

Fiona glanced at her clock again. There was no time left to take a
bath. Not if she wanted to make the earlier train. She would have to go
to France sweaty. What a lovely way to start an important business trip.
Skirting around the dogs, who were still whirling about with the tie,
she found fresh underclothes and quickly put them on. She kicked her
dirty things into a heap, then stepped into her skirt.

"Joe, luv, Cathy rang yesterday. She said to tell you not to forget
supper tonight. She wants to go over the plans for the Brighton site,"
Fiona said, reaching for her blouse.

"Good thing you mentioned it. I had forgotten."

"Look, Mummy! Pretty?" Katie asked, showing Fiona the bracelets she'd put on.

"Very pretty, my love," Fiona said, pulling her jacket on.

"Did the newspapers come yet, Fee?"

"Um... yes."

"Do you have them?"

"I do."

Joe rolled his eyes. "Can I have them?"

"Um, well, they're in my carpetbag. All packed away with sales
reports and Seamie's appalling school report," she said, hoping to
change the sub-ject. "It came yesterday. He failed French again and
English Literature. Barely passed History."

Joe stood up. "I won't disturb things. It's only the Times I'm after.
There's talk of an apple blight in Normandy. I'm hoping there'll be
some-thing in there on it."

"I'll get it," Fiona said quickly. There was one paper she did not want him to see.

Joe waved her away. "Don't be silly. I can find it."

He dug in Fiona's bag and pulled out a pile of newspapers. Fiona held her breath, hoping the Times was on top.

"The Clarion? What are you doing with this rag, Fee?" he asked,
laughing. He looked at the tabloid's front page, jokingly reading off
headlines about mayhem, murder, and the music halls. And then he stopped
laughing. "�The New Underworld,'" he read aloud. "�Crime Pays
Handsomely for East London Firm.'"

It was quiet in the room while he read the article. All Fiona could
hear was Katie singing as she slipped a rope of pearls over her head.
She didn't have to ask Joe what the article said. She knew. She'd read
it earlier.

Robert Devlin, the Clarion's editor, had done a series of stories on a
powerful East London crime lord. Calling him a new breed of villain,
Dev-lin said that he ran crime like a business. There were no
smash-and-grabs, no pickpocketing, no unnecessary violence. The Firm, as
he called them, did nothing to attract any unwanted attention. Instead,
they ran a series of legitimate operations, pubs and clubs among them,
but these were only fronts for far more lucrative
concerns--prostitution, gambling, extortion, and opium. In addition, the
Firm was widely believed to have been behind a recent spate of
shockingly bold robberies.

"These are not the random and impulsive acts of the petty street
thief," Detective Inspector Alvin Donaldson had been quoted as saying,
"but the well-planned campaigns of a group of bold, ruthless, and highly
organized criminals."

Freddie Lytton had been quoted, too. He'd recalled how he had
con-fronted the gang's leader man-to-man in a Limehouse opium den and
had been assaulted, but felt it was a small price to pay for the safety
of his con-stituents. The article explained that Lytton had returned to
the scene the following morning with the police in tow, but the evidence
had been en-tirely cleared away. There was not even one opium pipe left
with which to make a case.

"The enemy is cunning and slippery," Lytton had said, "but we know
who he is and how he works and he will be brought to justice. It is only
a matter of time."

Devlin hadn't identified the man by his name--he wasn't stupid--only
by a nickname, the Chairman. But he had run a photograph. It was a
profile shot. The man's cap was pulled down over his eyes and his face
was blurred, but even so Fiona had recognized him. It was Charlie.

Joe finished reading. He lowered the paper and looked at her. "Is that why you have the Clarion?" he asked. "Because of Sid?"

Fiona looked away, dreading his next question.

"Fiona, are you still looking for him?"

"I am."

"You've hired someone new. After I asked you not to."

"I've hired no one."

Joe looked at her, disbelief on his face. "You've gone after him yourself?"

She nodded.

"When? Where?"

"I just ...I made some inquiries. In Limehouse."

"Where in Limehouse?"

"Ko's laundry."

"Jesus Christ, Fiona! That's a bloody hop den!" Joe thundered.

Katie, startled by the raised voices, stopped playing and looked from her mother to her father, wide-eyed.

"Please stop shouting," Fiona said.

"No, I bloody well won't stop shouting! You know what happened to
Michael Bennett. You saw his arm. Do you want to end up the same way? We
talked about this, Fiona. You said you would stop!"

"No, you said I would stop. I never agreed," Fiona retorted. "He's my brother, Joe."

"I don't give a damn who he is. I won't have you mixing with the likes of Sid Malone!"

"Charlie! His name is Charlie Finnegan. Not Sid Malone."

Katie burst into tears.

"That's just bloody great," Joe said disgustedly.

"Don't cry, my love," Fiona said, picking her up. "It's all right. Please don't cry."

Katie wailed piteously. Fiona, trying to shush her, noticed that she
had two more teeth. When had that happened? she wondered. How did I miss
it?

There was another knock on the door.

"What is it?" Joe barked.

"Beg your pardon, sir, but Mr. James is here to see you. And Mrs.
Bris-tow is certain to miss the eight oh five. Will you want the
carriage for the eleven fifteen, ma'am?"

"No, Sarah, I'm coming," Fiona shouted. "I've got to go now, Katie love," she said to her daughter.

"No, Mummy, no!" Katie pleaded, tightening her hold.

Fiona looked helplessly at Joe.

"Come on, Kate the Great," he said, pulling her away. "Let's go and see if Cook's got your porridge ready."

But Katie wasn't to be placated with porridge. She began to cry
harder, reaching her arms out to her mother. Fiona faltered. She was
torn in two. She quickly kissed her sobbing daughter, then her husband.

Joe caught her arm. "Sid Malone is not Charlie Finnegan. Not by a long shot. Charlie is dead. Remember that."

"Don't say that. Ever!" Fiona shouted, suddenly blindly furious at him. "He's not dead. He's not!"

She grabbed her jacket and valise and ran out of the bedroom, near
tears herself now. Sarah had packed her trunks earlier, and they were
al-ready in the carriage. She fiew down the stairs and out the front
door. Katie's wails followed her.

"Hurry, Myles," she shouted at her driver as he closed the carriage door behind her. "I have to make that train!"

Myles climbed into his seat and cracked his whip. Fiona fell back against her own seat as the carriage rolled forward.

"Damn it!" she said out loud, as if Joe were with her, as if he could hear her. "Why can't you understand? You don't even try!"

She was so upset. This fight, and the one they'd had during her party
for the girls' school, was the first real discord of their married
life. They almost never disagreed, and they certainly never shouted at
each other--not un-less they were talking about Charlie.

Since they had reunited three years ago, Fiona and Joe had been
bliss-fully happy. They'd lost each other once. They'd known a sad and
second-best life without each other, and both had been careful never to
take one second of their new happiness for granted. In all the years
she'd known Joe, Fiona had only once ever been truly angry with him--the
day he'd left her for someone else. Years ago, when they were both
teenagers and engaged to be married, Joe had made a girl named Millie
Peterson pregnant. He'd had to marry her. The day he told Fiona what
he'd done, he had shattered her. The anger she'd felt then had been
mixed with grief and despair for every-thing he'd destroyed--their love,
their life together.