The Weeping Lore (Witte & Co. Investigations Book 1)

by Gregory Ashe

  “Why?”

  Irene drummed her nails on one of the remaining boxes.

  Cian lifted the lid on the top box. He swore when he saw what was inside.

  “Before you say anything—” Irene began.

  “No.” He set the box back on the bed. “Thank you. Very much. But no.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because,” Cian fumbled for an explanation. “It’s not—you shouldn’t—”

  “Cian Shea. Open that box right now. Unless you’re going to say no to a woman who was beaten within an inch of her life last night.”

  When Cian looked at her, he saw that her eyes were wide, her lower lip trembling. His knees crumbled.

  “Irene—” It was a weak, ineffectual protest, and it died almost as soon as it began.

  Her face transformed into a smile. “Go take a bath and shave. And take these.” She handed him the rest of the boxes. A mountain of boxes.

  Cian stood there a moment, juggling the last of his pride with the mountain of boxes.

  “Go,” Irene said. “Now.”

  So he went and bathed and shaved, and Cian had to admit that he felt a hundred times better afterward. The boxes held clothes. Fine silk shirts as white and soft as a cloud. Crisp collars. Wool trousers thick enough to stop a bullet but that didn’t itch or chafe. Seven shirts. Three suits. Two hats.

  Socks.

  New shoes.

  Twice Cian started taking the new clothes off. It was ridiculous, letting a woman buy clothes for him, as though he were some sort of kept man. It was even more ridiculous letting Irene push him around like that, making him dance just because she had a pretty mouth and those deep, dark eyes.

  The clothes Harry had given him were fine. A bit stiff and fragrant from three days’ wear, but perfectly suitable, and they hadn’t come from Irene.

  Each time, though, Cian’s resolve crumbled, and when he finally left the bathroom, he was wearing the new clothes.

  Irene’s smile could have started a fire.

  “Well, well,” she said.

  Cian’s cheeks were hot. He cleared his throat. “They fit very well.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Um, yes. Well. Thank you, again. This was very kind of you. As soon as I—”

  “Don’t you dare say you’ll pay me back.”

  “Don’t be foolish, Irene. These clothes must have cost a fortune.”

  “It’s my money. I’ll spend it however I please. Consider it a thank you for saving my life.”

  “If you think I saved your life because I thought you’d give me a few suits—”

  “Cian.”

  He paused, trying to recover the strand of his tirade. “If you think—”

  Irene yawned, and he noticed the empty glass on the nightstand. “I’m a bit sleepy, Cian.” She closed her eyes and snuggled deeper into the mound of blankets. “Say you’ll stay.”

  Cian stared at her for a minute, trying to figure out what had just happened. Her breathing was soft and even. He mentally ran through his argument one last time, telling Irene exactly what she could do with these fancy new clothes and her money.

  Then he hung up his new jacket, sat on the bed, and leaned back against the headboard.

  Irene shifted and slid her hand under his arm.

  They spent the day in the hotel room. Irene slept most of the time. Cian read the newspaper and found time to send a message to Harry, letting him know—without too many details—what had happened. A message came later that day from Harry telling them to stay safe and return when they could.

  When Irene wasn’t asleep, though, she was impossible, as always—making ridiculous demands for chocolates and sweets that had Cian running to the pharmacy or the concierge twice an hour. He tried to refuse. Once. It had ended with Cian coming back with a cheap silk rose that he had found in a shop two streets over as an apology.

  In the late afternoon, Irene woke, bathed again, and dressed. A lavender dress accented with white flowers and ruff, it was more conservative than some of the dresses Cian had seen Irene wear, but it covered her shoulders and arms and hid the bruises. She didn’t wear any jewelry—that surprised Cian a bit, but he liked it—but at some point she’d put on a spray of perfume, and the scent was enough to make Cian’s blood pound.

  “Well?” Irene asked.

  He tried to smooth out his voice. “I thought we agreed you were going to rest.”

  “Really. That’s all you have to say?”

  “What?” Cian said.

  “Nothing.”

  “No. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Let’s go downstairs and have dinner. I assume that’s not too far. You won’t mind helping me?”

  “Are you sure? Maybe we should order up. Or I could bring something back.”

  “Cian, I’m starving. And I’m not going to eat like a barbarian hunched over the coffee table. Now I’m going down to dinner. You can sit up here all night for all I care.”

  She tried to march to the door, but it was barely more than a pained hobble. Cian stood up and held out his arm, doing his best to assist her as they made their way to the elevator. Even with his help, Irene’s progress was slow, and Cian’s thoughts turned to whoever had done this to her.

  “You’re squeezing my hand particularly hard, Cian,” Irene whispered as they rode the elevator down. “Are you trying to break every bone I have? Or just reminding me that you’re there?”

  Cian flushed and made himself loosen his grip. “Sorry. I was thinking about something else.”

  The dining room was a sea of brass and crystal, with white tablecloths floating like blessed islands. Everywhere men in suits and women with perfect hair and perfect dresses, their voices forming rolling waves, laughter like storms on the horizon. Rich folk. People who had money and were comfortable in it. People like Irene.

  “You’re doing it again,” Irene said as a waiter guided them to a booth. Cian helped her sit, noticing her wince as she slid onto the red leather. Cian sat opposite her.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Making that face. The one like you just saw the man who killed your father.” She paused. “You don’t have that gun with you, do you?”

  Cian studied the room and didn’t look at her.

  “Oh, Cian,” she said.

  “Well someone has to think about keeping us safe. We can’t all spend our lives in places like this, with waiters tripping over themselves to bring us whatever we want, laughing as we talk about the stock market or the railroads or whatever the hell people talk about.”

  “Keep your voice down.”

  “Why? So I don’t embarrass you?”

  “You’re embarrassing yourself,” Irene hissed as the waiter returned.

  Cian set the menu down on the table and tried to study it. He didn’t trust his hands. The words swam in front of him.

  He ordered something. He had no idea what. Most of the dishes were unrecognizable.

  Irene went on at length with the waiter, asking about wines by names, laughing. When the waiter left, Irene looked over at Cian and sighed.

  Cian stared out at the dining room and ignored her.

  There was just so much damn money here. The huge chandeliers with electric lighting. How many families in Kerry Patch could live off what it cost to light this place? Hell, for that matter, how many families could live off the damn suit Cian was wearing? The collar felt like a noose and he worked his finger under it. Everything here was expensive. The silverware was real silver. The plates were china. And there was so much of it—more forks and spoons than any man needed, big plates, small plates, big glasses, small glasses.

  When the wine came, Cian took the bottle from the waiter and poured himself and Irene a large glass each. Cian missed the waiter’s shocked look until Irene waved the man away.

  “Great,” Cian said. “I did that wrong too.”

  “Not wrong,” Irene said. “Just different.”

  “Everything’s different here.
What am I supposed to do with this tiny little knife? You can’t cut anything with that.”

  “It’s for the butter.”

  Cian took a drink. And then a second.

  Irene barely touched hers.

  The wine was good—damn good, in fact, which meant it was expensive too. Cian swallowed it like a man trying to drink the sea. The wine started hitting back, hammering at the knot in Cian’s shoulders. Irene watched him, tracing the stem of her glass with one finger.

  Her eyes narrowed as she focused on something behind Cian.

  “What?” Cian asked.

  “I thought—”

  Cian turned to look, and Irene said, “No. Don’t look.”

  “Well, how am I supposed to see who it is?”

  “Never mind. I don’t know who it was, he just looked familiar. He’s gone now anyway.”

  Ignoring Irene’s sounds of exasperation, Cian craned his neck, trying to see anyone that might be familiar. Aside from the woman in the next booth, who had a sagging chin and stared at Cian like a bird inspecting a worm, he saw nothing out of the ordinary. He glared at the woman. She shoved a frantic spoonful of soup into her mouth, and Cian dropped back into his seat.

  The salad came next. Cian seized the closest fork, but Irene shook her head.

  The waiter eyed Cian, as though studying some new specimen that had crawled up through the sewers.

  Irene held up a smaller fork. “This one.”

  The waiter hadn’t left. He was still watching Cian.

  “Need something, buddy?” Cian asked.

  Color rushed into Irene’s cheeks. “Thank you, we’re fine now.”

  The waiter nodded at her and left.

  “There’s no need to be rude, Cian.”

  “He was staring at me.”

  “He was probably wondering if you wanted any help.”

  “It’s a damn salad. I don’t need any help eating a salad.”

  Irene mumbled something.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No, go on. What?”

  “I said clearly you do. This is the salad fork. Not the one you had.”

  Cian set the fork down. He wiped his hands on the napkin. Good, solid cloth. He twisted it and threw it onto the seat next to him.

  “What?” Irene asked. “Now you’re angry?”

  “I’m not angry.”

  “You’re red as a beet.”

  “I’m not angry.”

  “You sound angry.”

  “I’m not fucking angry,” Cian shouted.

  Silence descended, smothering the clatter of forks and knives, the voices, the laughter.

  Irene stared at him, pale and composed and distant as a painting.

  “I’m just clearly not cut out for such a fancy place,” Cian said in a lower voice.

  He stalked towards the door. Voices began to pick up, here and there, all of them alive with curiosity. People stared. Cian didn’t care.

  Irene didn’t come after him.

  The lobby of the hotel, with its vaulted ceiling and brass designs and gold leaf, was cool and quiet in comparison to the dining room. A man in a long coat had just come in from the cold and was shaking snow from his shoes, and a bored clerk straightened up at the front desk, but otherwise Cian was alone.

  He shoved his hands into his pockets because he was still shaking.

  Outside. He needed fresh air. A walk. And to be somewhere else.

  As he pushed through the hotel doors, a blast of cold hit him, cutting through the suit jacket and making Cian wish for the heavy coat he’d left upstairs. He took another pair of steps before regretting his decision.

  It didn’t matter though. He couldn’t go back. Not now.

  “Cold night to be out,” a familiar voice said as Cian turned to head up the sidewalk.

  Cian looked up from the pavement.

  Irving Harper smiled. He had a revolver aimed at Cian’s chest and a pair of cuffs in his free hand.

  The red leather upholstery of the booth cupped Irene’s form like a kid glove. She had always loved the dining room here. Her father had brought her several times, along with Mother. Once, there had been a ball. The chandeliers, the scent of the women’s perfume, the sweat and heat from the dance, it had seemed like something from a children’s book.

  She had always loved the dining room here.

  Now, though, men and women at the other tables stared at her. She knew many of them by name. The Davies, two tables to the right, studying their tablecloth when she looked at them. Mrs. Wolhampton, her eyes magnified behind an immense pair of spectacles, studying Irene without any hint of shame. Judy and Ruby Williams, sisters and the city’s biggest gossips, sitting like cats who had come across—through no effort of their own—a bowl of cream.

  By tomorrow, everyone would know.

  Father would know.

  The red leather upholstery only accentuated the bruises.

  Irene downed the glass of wine. It landed like a boxer, throwing quick jabs at the back of her head, cracking the lights and her too-tight nerves. She poured herself another and drank more slowly.

  She wondered if Cian had noticed. It was the same wine he had taken from that cellar. She had thought—

  But then, she had thought so many things.

  After the second glass, when the wine had settled into her ears with a burgundy whisper, she picked at the salad. When the waiter passed her table—his eyes sweeping over her, the salads, the empty seat—Irene waved for him to remove the salads. The man hesitated, studying the second place setting, obviously trying to decide whether to bring two meals or one. He looked like a mortician in his cheap black suit.

  The one she’d bought Cian had been much nicer.

  Irene met the waiter’s gaze and said nothing. She wasn’t going to help him make his decision.

  After the waiter left, she sat there, tracing a purpling ring on the tablecloth left by a drop of wine. The crackling energy of the room had lowered, but not enough. Cian had thrown chum into shark-infested waters. St. Louis’s social scene had just gotten its dose of winter gossip.

  Irene couldn’t tell why she cared so much.

  “Irene?” a voice said.

  She glanced up. The world had taken on a shimmer from the wine, and she blinked against the brilliance of the chandeliers. Dark hair. A flash of a boyish smile.

  “Patrick? What are you doing here?”

  He laughed. “I admit, the Louisiana Grand is not one of my normal haunts. I’m afraid I’m a bit under-dressed.” He wore trousers with ragged cuffs and a heavy winter coat. The kind of clothes that marked him as a man from Kerry Patch. The kind of clothes Cian had been wearing when she met him. “I was looking for you.” He glanced over at the waiter, who was coming towards them with a disapproving look on his face. “I don’t think I’m welcome.”

  “I’m tired of this place anyway,” Irene said. She stood and grabbed the bottle of wine and both glasses. The waiter stopped, staring at her and then at Patrick. “Have the food sent up to my room,” Irene said, not bothering to lower her voice.

  The waiter nodded. She knew what he was thinking. She knew what they were all thinking.

  Even with the wine fuzzing the pain, though, it was hard for Irene to walk. She made it out of the dining room before she felt her knees wobble. Patrick slid an arm around her. Up close, he smelled good. Masculine, with a trace of soap. He took the bottle and glasses in one hand and laughed.

  “A bit too much to drink?” he asked as they made their way to the elevator.

  “Not enough,” Irene said.

  “I’ve helped some drunks in my time,” Patrick said as they rode up. “But none quite so pretty.”

  “I’ve seen the men in Kerry Patch,” Irene said. “I think you’re not being fair.”

  Patrick laughed again. The tension in Irene unraveled like cheap yarn, and suddenly she was smiling. A drunken smile, yes, but a smile nonetheless. It was easy with Patrick. He was hand
some and young. He had nice shoulders and nice hands, and she liked how it felt to have him stand close, one arm around her.

  He helped her to her room. Irene took more aspirin, but she ignored the sleeping powder for now. Instead, she lay on the chaise longue, watching Patrick through half-closed eyes. He studied the room, shrugging out of his coat and turning in a circle.

  Yes. Very nice shoulders.

  “Do you mind?” he asked, gesturing to a chair.

  Irene shook her head.

  The way he watched her opened a pit in Irene’s stomach. There was no mistaking what she saw in Patrick’s eyes.

  Not like that idiot Cian.

  A knock at the door interrupted them. A different waiter had brought a cart with two covered trays, which Irene directed into the sitting room. The waiter laid out place settings on the coffee table and left without a word.

  “I don’t suppose you’d mind eating with me?” Irene asked. “I’m afraid I’ve ordered too much.”

  Questions were all over Patrick’s face, but all he said was, “Who says no to a meal with a beautiful woman?”

  Cian had ordered the filet mignon and potatoes au gratin, which Irene set in front of Patrick. She had a cutlet of veal in white wine and winter squash.

  As they ate, Patrick told stories and jokes, pouring wine for both of them, until the heat from being near Patrick had become a white-hot roar under Irene’s skin. His boyish smile never faltered, his easy manners never slipped, and Irene found herself leaning over the small table to be closer to him, to laugh at his witty comments, to bask in the attention he showered on her.

  When they’d finished eating, Irene moved to the sofa next to Patrick. He moved to make space for her, but only a few inches, and their legs pressed together. Irene put a hand on his knee.

  Patrick’s smile faded like the sunset. He took her hand and stood up.

  Irene raised an eyebrow. “You did come looking for me, Patrick. Didn’t you?”

  He cleared his throat. “I did. Believe me, I did.”

  “My hand is the least interesting part of me.”

  Patrick risked another smile. He didn’t let go of her hand. “Irene, I certainly didn’t come here to get you drunk.”