“Assuming he is, in fact, behind this,” Barnabus said. “He’s not the only coldhearted murderer in London.”
“Do you suppose we’ll have more answers after all this?” Fletcher asked. “Or simply more questions?”
If Barnabus had learned one thing in life, it was that no matter how many answers he found, there were always more questions. Always.
Chapter 5
Hope was a terrible tease.
Gemma had felt it creeping about, whispering promises she wasn’t certain it could keep. And, yet, she let herself believe the assurances that fickle friend dangled before her: that she was home and wanted and that everything would be different this time.
She and Baz had not wed out of love or attachment. Marrying her had been another in Baz’s long list of heroics. And yet he’d never treated her like some pitiful, helpless waif. He’d shown her kindness and respect. He’d held her when she was sorrowful or fearful. He’d even kissed her a few times, though nothing beyond a friendly salute. She’d not known him from Adam when they’d first crossed paths, and he’d’ve been hard-pressed to pick her out in a crowd for some time after. But he’d proven kind. More to the point, he’d provensafe. So few people did.
A few days after the charitable endeavor in Shoreditch, Fletcher Walker and Elizabeth Black dropped in to take supper with them. Gemma felt almost like a regular gentry mort, playing hostess to fine guests. Except Fletcher sounded as London as she did. No one hearing the two of them would’ve believed they were anything but riffraff.
Elizabeth hailed from outside London, the only child of a fine-feathered family and now the headmistress of a respectable school in London. Fletcher and Elizabeth seemed terribly mismatched. Unless one watched ’em together—then it became clear how perfect they were for each other.
“I’m sorry I ain’t read any of your novels,” Gemma said toElizabeth. “I ain’t illiterate, mind you. I simply haven’t coin for books. I’d likely not be able to twig what they was about as it is.”
Elizabeth didn’t turn up her nose at that. “Thank the heavens we live in a time when there are offerings available for all tastes and preferences and incomes. Stories are such wonderful things.”
“I keep telling her she ought to chuck her bonnet in the penny dreadful ring. I’d wager she’d be proper good at it.” Fletcher tossed a wink to Elizabeth, who shook her head at the tease and smiled.
Some of the fine and fancy writers would likely be offended by the suggestion, but Elizabeth didn’t seem to mind.
“Iffen you’re itching to dance that jig,” Gemma said, “you’d do well to spin tales of something other than medical mysteries and oddities. I understand there’s a writer what has already made a name for himself in that category.” She twitched her head in Baz’s direction, though not the least subtly.
“There is, indeed,” Baz said. “But he’s rubbish at it.”
At that, laughter rang out from all of them. Baz didn’t always let himself join in a jest, but the rare sound of his laughter was one of her favorite memories of him.
“Was Barnabus publishing his stories when you two first met?” Elizabeth asked. “I confess, I’m not certain when either began.”
“I had dabbled a little,” Baz said. “But I hadn’t had the right push to take the full leap until—”
“Until Gemma gave you that push?” Fletcher asked.
Gemma wasn’t certain about that. Shehadnudged him.
Barnabus nodded. “Every time I told her that I was certain the story I was writing wouldn’t go anywhere, she said I wouldn’t know until I tried, that new things were always the most daunting before they were started, and that I oughtn’t give up on myself. I don’t know that anyone has ever expressed such faith in me.”
Few things made Gemma blush, but hearing him speak so highly of her managed to put her to the glow. For most of her life, she weren’t ever on the receiving end of kind words. It was little wonder she’d fallen so entirely in love with him, and further, why she held out hope that he’d learn to love her despite there being so little evidence of it.
“I, for one, am glad you chose to listen to her,” Elizabeth said. “I’ve enjoyed your stories and feel I’ve learned from them. And your writing is the reason you know Fletcher, which is the reason I know you.”
“You read his stories?” Gemma asked Elizabeth. She didn’t think the Quality spent much time perusing the penny dreadfuls.
“I read a variety of things,” Elizabeth said. “There is so much to be learned and observed in life. It doesn’t do to ignore chances to expand one’s horizons.”
Gemma moved a bit closer to Baz on the settee. “Do you remember when, not long after we were married, I heard some of your patients having a bit of a chinwag about dancing the waltz, and I didn’t know what they were on about?”
He stroked his mustache, something he always used to do when befuddled. Did he not remember? That night had been magical. She thought back on it often, even now. How could it not’ve mattered as much to him?
She pushed ahead. Hoping. “You described the steps to me. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it leftways or rightways. But you said it were likely one of them things a person learned by doing. You spent a whole heap o’ time that night teaching me how to waltz.”
“I do remember that.” He nodded, seeming pleased at the memory.
Gemma leaned against him, slipping her arm through his the way she used to. “Dancing was the perfect escape from all our worries.”