The Winter Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  Laughter erupted now--harsh, derisive, shattering. Berridge and his pack had attacked, and the Tories--sensing an advantage for one of their own--had let him. Meanwhile, Freddie's own party--realizing that the cause was lost--had abandoned him to them. The Speaker called for order once more. The House quieted. Berridge motioned that the bill be put to a vote. It was, and the nays carried it. Home Rule was finished.

  And very possibly so am I, Freddie thought.

  Recess was called. Members stood, milled around, left the Chamber for a smoke or a drink. He felt a hand on his shoulder, a pat on his back. There was noise from above him--whispers, gasps, and murmured exclamations. Freddie gazed up at the Strangers' Gallery. He saw a grim-faced Bingham with Wish beside him. He saw his opponent Richard Lambert smiling and members of the press scribbling furiously.

  He remained where he was. He was in no hurry to leave his seat and resume the day's business, for he knew that when he did, he would no longer be fighting for Home Rule, but for his very survival. He watched Berridge leave the Chamber, accompanied by the smiling prime minister, and felt curiously free of animosity toward him. He'd only been fighting for his party. Berridge had engineered his defeat, but Freddie knew he would have done the same thing in the same circumstances.

  No, there was only one man to blame for what had happened. Not Berridge. Not Lambert. And most definitely not himself.

  It was Sid Malone who had done this to him. Had he not robbed the Stronghold, those guns would never have made it to Ireland. There would have been no shooting. Home Rule would have carried the day, and its success would have guaranteed his own.

  It was Malone who had ruined him, and it was Malone who would pay. Quite soon. And dearly.

  Chapter 23

  Sid lay splayed out on his bed in his flat above the Barkentine. A naked Gemma Dean lay sprawled on top of him.

  "Christ, Gem, me side," he wheezed.

  "Hurts, does it?"

  "Like a bastard."

  "Poor thing," she said, rolling off him. "Any better?"

  "Much."

  "Like a drink?"

  "I would."

  Gemma got out of Sid's bed, wrapped herself in a robe, and padded to his bureau to pour two whiskies, singing some music-hall song as she did. Sid touched his fingers gingerly to his wound, making sure the dressing was still in place. It had been three days since he'd come out of the hospital, two weeks since he'd had his accident. His side was healing nicely, but even so it would be some time before he could withstand Gem's sexual ac-robatics. What that girl could do with her hands, her mouth...

  She handed him a whisky and climbed back into bed, sloshing some of her own drink on his chest as she did. She bent over, licked it off, then smiled at him. "Missed you," she said, kissing his mouth.

  "Missed you too, luv," he said, downing his drink and placing the glass on his night table.

  He reached under his pillow slowly, carefully, so she couldn't see what he was doing. When he had what he wanted, he sat up.

  "You'll never believe what Frankie did while you were gone," Gemma said.

  "I probably would."

  "He nicked one of them listening things from the doctor. You know, the thing they use to hear your heart?"

  "From what doctor?"

  "The lady doctor. The one who fixed you up."

  "Fucking Frankie! She needs that thing," Sid said angrily.

  Gemma looked at him as if he were mad. "It's only a wotsit, Sid. Doctors make plenty of brass. Bet she's already bought a new one. Anyway, he's been using it to listen to locks. Been putting it on Desi's safe. Says he can hear the tumblers falling. Des caught him at it and Frankie told him the safe was poorly and he was doctoring it. He almost had him. Funny, isn't it?"

  Sid forced a smile. "Aye. Funny," he said. But it wasn't. How could Dr. Jones work without that thing? What if she did have to buy a new one? The price would have to come out of her clinic savings. He would tell that sod of a Frankie to give it back.

  "What's up? Something wrong?" Gemma asked.

  "Just a bit tired," he said. He remembered what he had in his hand.

  "That Frankie's a piece of work, ain't he?"

  "Aye, and he's not the only one." Sid hooked a finger in the V of her gown. He pulled it open and nuzzled her breasts. "Why, you could bury treasure in here," he said.

  Gemma giggled as he reached in and stuck his fingers into the deep cleft between her breasts and let the object he'd hidden in his palm fall into it. "I'm serious, Gem, there's no telling what a bloke might find in here. Why, just look at this!"

  He pulled out a dazzling necklace and dangled it before her eyes. It was made of flawless white diamonds. It had a medallion in the center with the initials GD worked in more diamonds. She turned the necklace over. There was an inscription on the back.

  "For Gemma. Break a leg. Love Sid," she read. "Blimey!" she gasped. "Is it for me?"

  "It is," he said, fastening it around her neck. "Pity there aren't any ear-rings to go with it."

  "Sid, you didn't..."

  "I didn't check? You're right, I didn't. Very careless of me." He played with her bosom again, pretending to hunt for additional treasure, then frowned. "That's it, I guess."

  Gemma pouted.

  "Wait a mo'," he said, opening the robe the rest of the way. "There's one more place I could look." He slid his hand between her legs.

  "You dirty bugger!" she said, giggling.

  "Here we are!" He handed her a pair of chandelier earrings, a match to the necklace.

  "Oh, Sid!" she squealed. "They're lovely! Really they are! And huuuuuge!"

  She kissed him hard on the lips, then bounced out of bed and ran to the mirror to put them on.

  "A little something for your debut," he said. "I'm glad you like them." And he was. The stones were from a job he and the lads had done up in Greenwich some months ago. They'd cracked a mansion there and stolen a good deal of jewelry. He'd had the pieces broken up and the diamonds reset. He'd been sleeping with her for a few months now, and felt that he should show his appreciation. The diamonds were a nice bit of flash. They'd look good on her now, and when she was a bit older and hard up for cash, she could sell them. Sid had known many girls like Gem. They always ended up older and hard up for cash.

  Gemma admired herself in the mirror, turning this way and that, twisting her thick brown hair up and letting it fall again. Sid noted the luscious curve of her bottom, the way her breasts swayed as she moved, and found himself wanting her again.

  "You look smashing," he said.

  She smiled, bounded back to the bed, and straddled him.

  "Ooof! Crikey, luv, go easy," he said.

  She thanked him again, kissed him, then sat up and took him inside herself, rocking back and forth, slowly, tantalizingly. Her hair was loose and wild about her shoulders, and the diamonds sparkled against her skin in the dim lamplight. He tried to reach for her, but his wound made him wince.

  Gemma shook her head. "Lie back," she said. "Be still." She cupped her breasts and squeezed them, sliding her thumbs back and forth over her stiff, dusky nipples.

  "Aw, Jesus, Gem..." he groaned. It was too much. She was so gor-geous, so wild. He came almost instantly.

  When he'd caught his breath, she leaned over him and kissed him. "There's not a third piece, is there?" she asked coyly.

  "A third? You want a bracelet, too, you greedy girl?"

  "I want a ring, Malone. A diamond ring."

  Sid sighed. "Ah, Gemma. You're not going to start that again, are you? I told you what was what from the start. I'm not the marrying type."

  "I know what you said, but I thought maybe things had changed, that maybe..."

  "I take care of you, don't I?" he said brusquely. There had been other jewels. A flat of her own. A dozen dresses. A fur or two. Even her solo in the Gaiety's upcoming revue was due to him, though she didn't know it.

  "Of course you do," Gemma said. "You give me so many things, but not the thing that I w
ant most--your heart."

  "It's not on offer," Sid said. It never would be. He didn't want to love anyone. Ever. He had loved once, a long time ago. In another lifetime. And the loss of what he had loved--his father and mother, his entire family-- had nearly destroyed him.

  Gemma was angry. He could see it in her face. "You're walled off. You know that?" she said. "You've been sleeping with me for two months now, and I still don't know the first thing about you. I don't know if you have a mother or where she lives. I don't know where you come from. Who your father is."

  "And you never will," he said. "Either get used to it, luv, or get out."

  Gemma's eyes flashed. "Good enough to bed, not good enough to wed, is that it?"

  "No, that's not it. It's because I do care for you that I'd never marry you. You know who I am, what I do. What kind of man would I be to drag you into that life?"

  "I'd take the bad with the good," she said.

  Sid laughed bitterly. "What good? It's all bad. You should find someone else if marriage is what you're after. I won't stand in your way."

  "It's not what I'm after. I don't want to marry for marrying's sake. I want you. I want to be with you proper like. It's all I dream about."

  Sid wondered what it was like to have a dream. He was sure he'd never know. Not everyone got to have dreams; some got only nightmares.

  He got out of bed, pulled on his trousers, then crossed the room to pour himself another glass of whisky. This row was giving him a headache. Gemma Dean was an East London girl, a girl with few illusions. Sid fig-ured she could probably deal with the darkness of his past better than most. But he doubted even she could deal with the worst of it. He could barely do that.

  The memories were always there, lurking. He could keep them down during the day, but at night they tortured him. He barely slept anymore. When he closed his eyes, images came rushing at him--his dockworker father dying in the hospital. His mother lying in the street, her blood seeping into the cracks between the cobbles. His early days with Denny Quinn. Prison.

  It had all started with Quinn. Things could have gone so differently for him after his mam's death, if only he'd known it. He might have gone to his uncle Roddy, not a blood uncle but a family friend, and told him what had happened--that he'd run at the sight of his murdered mother. Lost his mind for a bit on the Isle of Dogs. Then got into a fight with the real Sid Malone and killed him. But he'd been afraid. Roddy was a police constable, and Sid thought he might turn him in. So he'd gone to Quinn instead, and that had been the end for him. The sale of his soul hadn't happened all at once, but in bits and pieces. Den had started him out on the softer stuff-- collecting debts, strong-arming unruly punters, guarding his whorehouses. He'd done well with those duties, and progressed to more challenging tasks--knocking off wharves, finding buyers for high-end swag, selling smuggled opium.

  And then he got caught. He'd broken into a jeweler's, stolen some rings, and had been stupid enough to be seen wearing two of them the very next day. He'd swaggered and boasted, telling anyone who'd listen what a dod-dle the job had been, and the next thing he knew, he was standing before a magistrate, listening to the man sentence him to three years at Wormwood Scrubs.

  He'd turned eighteen two weeks before he was sent down, and he'd felt his life had ended. When he first saw his cell--cold, damp, and dirty--he vowed to put distance between himself and Denny Quinn. He would serve his time, get out, and follow the straight and narrow. The days were horri-ble. The back-breaking, mind-destroying tasks: smashing rocks, walking a treadmill, turning a crank on a revolving drum--sometimes for eight hours at a time, and all for no reason. The pointlessness. The loneliness. The beatings for the smallest things, talking maybe, or just making eye contact.

  The days were bad, but the nights ...If Sid could have taken a knife and cut out the part of himself where those memories were kept, he would have. The lockdown, then lights out. He would sit on his bunk, barely moving, barely breathing, just leaning over every now and again to vomit into the tin chamberpot. The sick feeling always started early, when daylight began to wane. He would sit there in the darkness of his cell, forsaking sleep, and listen, every muscle in his body tensed, for the footsteps. Hoping that they wouldn't come. Knowing there was nothing he could do if they did. He'd wanted to kill himself in those early days. And he would have, too, if he'd been able to get hold of something to do the job.

  Quinn had twigged. He'd come for a visit, taken one look at him, and said, "I want a name."

  Sid had shaken his head. There would be another death on his head if he gave it, and he'd be bound to Denny forever.

  "Don't be so fucking stupid!" Den had hissed. "You've been in for four months. Your sentence is three years. Can you survive three years of this? Three fucking years?"

  Sid had finally choked out the name of a guard. "Wiggs. Ian Wiggs."

  Two days later, Ian Wiggs was dead. Throat cut. Body dumped in front of the prison. The screws left Sid alone after that. So did the other prisoners. It was the beginning of things. Of a reputation. Of power and respect. When he got out, he was twenty-one years old.

  "You have served your time, Mr. Malone. Your debt is paid," the warden said, upon his discharge. "We hope that you have learned from your mistakes and that the justice meted out to you has had a reforming effect upon your character. I trust you will now follow the straight and narrow path."

  "Yes, sir," he'd said. The hell I will, he'd thought.

  The nick had changed him all right, but not in the way the warden intended. It had made him hard, bitter, determined never to be at anyone's mercy again. Because there was no such thing as mercy. Not for him.

  As soon as he returned to the East End, he went straight to the Taj, sat down with Denny, and announced that he was going to take over East Lon-don. North and south of the river.

  "Bit ambitious, don't you think?" Denny had said. "Bowler Sheehan might have something to say about it." Sheehan, one of the East End's most vicious men, controlled Whitechapel, Wapping, and much else on the north bank.

  "I didn't say I'd do it next week," Sid said. "It'll take time." And it had. He'd gathered men around him. Lads he'd known and others he'd met in prison. Lads who understood, as he did, that it was better to be smart and quiet about what you did than dumb and loud. Lads who'd figured out, as he had, that power--real power--was found in a man's head, not his fists.

  They had started on the south side of the river. Like a general mounting a campaign, Sid positioned his men in a loop on the outskirts of Rotherhithe and Southwark, then tightened that loop bit by bit, driving out the lesser gangs by reason when possible and by force when not. Letting it be known there was one guv'nor now, one manor. Making his way slowly but surely toward the wharves and the riches they contained.

  After two years, he'd gotten the south bank locked up. There was almost nothing going on there--fights, prostitution, gambling, fencing, protection, drugs--that he and his men didn't get a piece of. He'd just started to make inroads on the north bank when Denny Quinn had been murdered. He'd had his throat cut by Bowler Sheehan, who'd objected to Denny's fraternizing with Sid. And then Sheehan himself had wound up dead, his own throat cut in Newgate jail. Sid hadn't done it, but many believed he had. He let them. With Sheehan out of the way, the north bank had been his for the taking, and take it he had.

  Sid had never wanted the life, and he didn't want it now, but he was in too deep to ever get out. He'd made too many enemies. And too many friends. Like Billy Madden, who'd murdered dozens on his way up the West End ladder, and the Sicilians--Angie Vazzano and Nicky Barrecca-- who ruled Covent Garden and the Haymarket. They all shook hands when they met, bought each other dinners, drinks, and women, but Sid knew they all coveted his patch and would go for him in an instant if they ever scented weakness.

  And for Sid Malone, the greatest weakness of all was love.

  "Won't you come back to bed?" Gemma asked now, in a conciliatory voice.

  Sid was about to answer whe
n there was a knock at the door. He tensed. "What is it?" he barked.

  "There's someone here to see you, guv." It was Lily, the barmaid.

  Sid yanked the door open. "Who is it? Donaldson? I told him we had nothing to do with the Morocco."

  Donaldson had accused Frankie of burning down the wharf and killing its watchman. Frankie had sworn he'd had nothing to do with it, and Sid believed him. He wouldn't have dared do such a thing, not after Sid had told him, and all his men, to steer clear of the place.

  "It's not Donaldson," Lily said. "It's a woman."

  Bloody hell, Sid thought. Fiona.