A Love For All Time

by Chloe Douglas

  “Believe me, it hasn’t been for lack of trying.” Mick gestured to the capacious stair landing and the numerous doors that opened onto it. “The simple truth of the matter is that I can’t find him. Vast doesn’t even begin to describe this house.”

  Seizing her one and only advantage, Lettitia said, “What if I told you that I know where and when you can locate my father?”

  “I’d say lead the way.”

  “And I shall lead the way… under one condition.”

  At hearing that there was a caveat, Mick glowered at her. “You’re doing it again,” he growled. “You’re trying to get me to do your bidding by holding that damned time device over my head. Well, forget it, Tisha. You can’t dangle the time portal in front of me like a carrot, forcing me to jump when you say ‘jump.’ You wanna know why? Because after the other night, I’ve decided that it might not be such a bad thing being stuck here in the nineteenth century. In fact, the idea is starting to appeal to me.”

  Mick Giovanni’s impassioned declaration came as a complete surprise. And for all that it lacked in poetic nuance or romantic hyperbole, the words nonetheless filled Lettitia’s heart with a burst of pure, unmitigated joy. Clearly, the night they’d spent in one another’s arms had meant as much to Mick as it had to her.

  “You… you can’t stay,” she murmured, having known at the outset that their affaire d’amour would end all too soon. “And I wasn’t going to ‘dangle’ the time portal in front of you. I will take you to my father provided that you let me assist you in questioning him. That is the stipulation.”

  As he deliberated on her proposal, Mick rubbed a hand over his jaw. After keeping her on tenterhooks for far too many seconds, he finally said, “All right. But I have a feeling your father is gonna be a hard nut to crack. So if we want to get a result, I suggest that we try the good cop/bad cop routine.”

  “How does this routine work?” Lettitia inquired, too thrilled that he’d given his consent to gloat.

  “It’s simple. I play the bad cop, or the combative one, who comes at your father with the hard-driving questions, one right after the other. Then you, being the good cop, not only commiserate with him, but you then protect him from further attacks by me. All of which, if done correctly, will ultimately gain his trust.”

  Lettitia envisioned the mock scenario in her mind’s eye. “And once his trust is gained, I suppose he’ll then be more amenable to answering the questions put to him.”

  “You got it.”

  Approving of the idea, she nodded. “I believe it is a good plan. However, I have one small change that I would like to implement: I shall play the bad cop.”

  Mick’s eyes opened wide, his dubious expression near comical. “Tisha, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. I mean, you don’t have any experience playing the good cop, let alone the bad one.”

  “True enough,” she readily agreed. “But I have years of experience interacting with my father which you do not have.”

  Knowing that was the one argument that Mick couldn’t naysay, Lettitia wasn’t the least bit surprised when he reluctantly nodded his consent. With a measure of good grace, he then gestured to the staircase.

  “Lead the way, Detective Merryweather.”

  * * *

  “I need to have a word with you, Father.”

  Alfred raised his bald pate and glared. Seated behind a desk of Olympian proportions, he was clearly peeved at hearing the strident tone in Lettitia’s voice.

  As he did every afternoon at three o’clock, her father was busily engaged in reviewing his business accounts. It was a daily ritual, the reason why Lettitia knew that she and Mick would find Alfred in his office at the stroke of three. There was only one pursuit that her father loved with a greater passion than hunting: making money.

  “What’s he doing here?” Alfred demanded, pointing an impolite finger at Mick.

  Lettitia spared a quick glimpse at the “good cop” who, for his part, was examining the collection of stuffed animal heads mounted on the wall. “He is my guest this weekend, as well you know.”

  “I meant, what is he doing in my office?”

  Seemingly unaware that he was the topic of a heated exchange, Mick ambled toward the desk. “Damn, Mister Merryweather. That is one helluva coffee table you’ve got.” Appearing awestruck, Mick gestured to the table in question, which was supported by four stuffed foxes. “That must of have been some fox hunt.”

  The flattery worked wonders; the fierce scowl on Alfred’s face instantly relaxed.

  “You do any hunting, Giovanni?”

  “A little deer hunting in the fall,” Mick replied with a pleasant smile. “Although I admit, I don’t do nearly as much hunting as I’d like to. It’s hard to get away from the job.”

  It was the perfect reply for Mick to have made. In Alfred Merryweather’s myopic world view, hunting animals was a sign of a man’s virility, a testament to his innate conquering spirit. The fact that Mick mentioned his employment would have also impressed her father, who was, despite everything, an industrious man.

  “So what is it that you want to discuss with me, Lettitia? You’ve already taken up a goodly amount of my time.”

  By her reckoning, they’d not been there more than two minutes.

  Refusing to be cowed, Lettitia took a stabilizing breath. “I wish to speak to you regarding Emmaline.”

  The moment that she spoke her sister’s name, Alfred lunged from his thronelike chair and strode to the front of his desk. Having yet to change his attire, he was still garbed in the tweed jacket and leather gaiters that he’d worn to go shooting. Though not a tall man, he was stout and often used his bulk in an intimidating manner. In a word, her father was a bully.

  “I forbid you to mention her name in this house!” Alfred roared, his face turning an unhealthy shade of red.

  “And why would you forbid such a thing?” Lettitia challenged, refusing to acquiesce to her father’s demand. “Emmaline was always your favorite. You made no secret of this when we were growing up.”

  “She is dead to me now. She died the day that she ran off with that Welsh stable master.”

  Surmising that she was in for a bruising battle, Lettitia’s hands balled into fists. “I admit that Emmaline made a terrible mistake but she did not cease to exist. She is still—”

  “Hey, Lettitia, how about cutting the man some slack?” Mick interjected, taking a step in Alfred’s direction. “If she’d been my daughter, I probably would have done the same thing.”

  Her father endorsed the sentiment with an approving grunt. “I was just going to fix myself a brandy and soda. Care to join me, Giovanni?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  Whilst her father busied himself at the liquor cabinet, Mick surreptitiously turned in her direction. Looking her directly in the eye, he balled his right fist, pointing his thumb toward the ceiling. Lettitia wasn’t entirely certain, but she thought that he was praising her performance thus far.

  Lettitia waited until both men had their drinks in hand before she continued. “Aren’t you the least bit concerned about Emmaline’s whereabouts?” She purposefully framed the question to obscure the fact that Emmaline was dead. Mick had been adamant that they not “show their hand” too soon. “There is a mad man roaming the streets of Whitechapel, the very streets that Emmaline is known to inhabit.”

  “I’m too busy running my business to be concerned about a couple of dead whores in Whitechapel,” her father scoffed. “Although such women serve their purpose. A man needs to keep the sap running, eh, Giovanni?”

  “I’m with you on that.” Mick raised his glass in a show of fraternal camaraderie. After taking a sip of his drink, he said, “Whoever this Ripper fellow is, he sure is leading the police on a merry chase.”

  Alfred concurred with a nod. “That he is. And while I happen to think the world is a better place without those four pox-ridden whores, it’s damned unmanly of this Ripper character to have butchered ’em the
way that he did. Yes, indeed. Damned unmanly.”

  Lettitia caught a quick flash of disappointment on Mick’s face. With that one innocuous remark, Alfred had absolved himself of all suspicion of murder. She sensed that Mick had just realized, as she’d known all along, that for all of her father’s faults, Alfred Merryweather could not have slain four innocent women, let alone his own daughter.

  On the verge of concluding the unbearable interview, she was surprised when Mick silently mouthed the word “blackmail.”

  Uncertain as to why Mick wanted to question her father regarding Emmaline’s blackmail scheme, Lettitia nonetheless obliged his silent request. “I happen to know that Emmaline is blackmailing you,” she stated matter-of-factly, making no attempt to whitewash the damning accusation.

  “Again proving that she was an ungrateful chit who didn’t give a damn about her family,” Alfred retorted. “However, that irritating problem has since resolved itself.”

  The callousness with which her father made his last remark stunned Lettitia. She could think of only one reason why he would have said such a thing.

  “You know that Emmaline is dead,” she accused pointblank, staggered that her father would have kept the tragic disclosure to himself. “You’ve known all along, haven’t you?”

  “I told you already: she died on the day that she shamed our family by publicly cuckolding Lord Wortham. Given the licentious life she led, it came as no surprise when Sir Charles notified me of her death. As she did in life your sister tried to do in death, shamelessly getting herself murdered on a darkened street corner in the middle of Whitechapel. Thank God, Sir Charles had the common decency to silence the matter. Had the story made The Times, it would have ruined me.”

  His callous justification met with a horrified silence.

  Lettitia had always known that her father was an insensitive man. But until that moment, she’d been unaware that he could be so monstrously devoid of tender emotion.

  Mirroring her father’s posture, Lettitia belligerently placed her hands on her hips. “Did it not occur to you to apprise me of Emmaline’s death so that I could grieve my sister’s passing?”

  “If you ask me, it would have been a waste of black cloth.”

  “I cannot believe that I am hearing this,” she railed at him. “Where is your sense of common decency?”

  Finished with his brandy and soda, Alfred wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. There was a coarseness about him that no amount of money could soften or refine.

  “Do you know what your problem is?” He pointed an accusing finger in her direction. “You spend too much bloody time with those whores and lowlifes at St. Ursula’s—although that will come to an end soon enough. Lord Wortham has assured me that he will curtail your wayward pursuits. It reflects badly on me that one of my own behaves like a radical reformer.”

  “I will not discontinue my work at St. Ursula’s,” Lettitia asserted, drawing a line in the sand. “I would be derelict in my Christian duty if I turned my back on the poor and the downtrodden simply to please the whims of a husband.”

  “ ‘Christian duty?’ God help me, that sounds like the same tripe your beloved William Hardwicke used to spew at me when he tried to get me to spend my hard-earned money on those ingrate hops pickers. As if it isn’t enough that I give the buggers two months of fresh air and an honest day’s labor. Oh, no! Your Reverend Hardwicke wanted me to give them three meals a day and open a school for their bloody brats. Well, the good Reverend got his just desserts, didn’t he? And you’ll meet the same end if you continue associating with the vermin in Whitechapel.”

  The breath caught in Lettitia’s throat. She was flabbergasted that her father had mentioned William Hardwicke’s name, and in so cruel a manner.

  “You go too far, Father.”

  “I’ll go as far as it takes to get you wedded and bedded,” he said crudely. “The day that you walk down the aisle is the same day Wortham has agreed to sponsor me for the House of Commons. God knows, I paid a pretty penny for it.”

  Without thinking, Lettitia rushed toward her father, shrieking the one word, the only word, that mattered. “No!”

  Smiling maliciously, her father raised an arm to backhand her.

  Mick, who’d stood silently throughout the entire family argument, snatched hold of Alfred’s meaty fist, halting the blow in mid-motion.

  “If you put a hand on her, I’ll lay you low,” Mick cautioned in a deep-throated growl. When, in the next instant, her father tried to jerk free, Mick yanked Alfred’s arm behind his back, effectively holding him prisoner.

  “Let me go, you damned blighter.”

  “Not until you tell Lettitia that you’re sorry.”

  Her father’s eyes narrowed into furious slits. In all the years that she’d known him, no man had ever had the temerity or self-confidence to best him. Until today.

  “I apologize, Lettitia, if I offended your delicate sensibilities,” her father snarled between clenched teeth.

  “Apology accepted,” she replied with a curt nod. The apology was a sham, as both she and her father knew full well. Theirs was, after all, a battle without end.

  Evidently satisfied, Mick released his hold on Alfred.

  Keeping to a safe distance, her fulminating father bellowed, “I want you out of my house by day’s end, you damned American interloper!”

  “Hey, no problem,” Mick said with an unconcerned shrug.

  “And you,” Alfred hissed, pointing a finger at Lettitia. “I’m going to see to it that by the end of next week you’re a married woman!”

  Chapter 15

  “I thought you might need one of these.”

  At hearing that unexpected voice, Lettitia peered over her shoulder. To her surprise, Mick stood several feet away. Even more surprising, he had a slender cigarette pinched between his fingers. Although she’d taken up a position at an open window, she’d not seen him approach the abandoned building. Because of recent storm damage to the roof, the oast house was eerily empty; only the musty smell of last year’s crop lingered in the air.

  Still out of breath from her mad dash across the fields, Lettitia gratefully accepted the cigarette. Her hand visibly trembled as she brought it to her lips. Unable to speak, she nodded her thanks.

  “I know that I’ve got some matches here somewhere,” Mick said, patting the front of his frock coat. “I used one last night when I—Here they are.” He removed a small box from his breast pocket. A second later, he struck a match against a wooden post. Then, cupping a hand over the flame, he lit her cigarette. “When you ran out of your father’s study, I nabbed a handful of cigarettes from the leopard-skin case that he keeps on top of his desk. I figured that you’d be in dire need of one right about now.”

  As the richly textured smoke filled her lungs, Lettitia closed her eyes and leaned against a sturdy post. “You are shocked by my vice, aren’t you?” she inquired after a lengthy pause, opening her eyes to gauge Mick’s reaction.

  “More like intrigued. But I already knew that you were a closet smoker, remember?”

  Lettitia well recalled the incident—it happened six days ago. Have only six days lapsed since I first made his acquaintance? Truly, it seemed like they’d met a lifetime ago.

  She exhaled a plume of smoke through her pursed lips. “Smoking is just one of many things denied my sex.”

  “Yeah, us men get to have all the fun, don’t we?”

  “You should know,” she snapped, irritated with his quip.

  “Hey, what does that wisecrack mean? In case you forgot, I’m on your side.”

  Then why do I feel so utterly and completely alone?

  Placing a hand on her shoulder, Mick kneaded the tense muscles with his fingers. “You’re just a little wound up right now. That was a real knock-down, drag-out fight that you had with your father. Things got a little out of control and—”

  “You are a fine one to lecture me on the loss of self-control,” she interjected, her irritation
transmuting into a barely controlled ire. “If memory serves me correctly, I found you yesterday in the gymnasium on the verge of running Lord Wortham through with a fencing foil. A more intemperate, unrestrained spectacle I have yet to witness.”

  “Okay. I admit that it wasn’t my finest moment.” Unable to look her in the eye, Mick studiously stared at the wooden floorboards. “Ever since the mass shooting at Kingsborough, I’ve, um, I’ve had some issues with rage management,” he admitted somewhat hesitantly. “My lieutenant wants me to get some professional help. And though I originally dismissed her suggestion out of hand, I probably do need some help with, you know, sorting things out in my head.” Finished with the confession, Mick raised his head and looked her directly in the eye. “Satisfied?”

  “I did not mean to castigate you.” Lettitia paused, taking a moment to collect her thoughts. While she was unable to comprehend the full meaning of Mick’s remarks, she grasped the spirit of them. “I was so angry at my father that I… I unthinkingly lashed out at you. Forgive me.”

  “No need to apologize.” Mick leaned against the wooden post opposite hers. Crossing his arms over his chest, he took her measure. “This conflict between you and your father—it’s been going on for quite some time, hasn’t it?”

  “A conflict? More like a battle of wills.” Having suddenly lost the taste for her half-smoked cigarette, Lettitia tossed it onto the floor, crushing it beneath the sole of her shoe. “And, yes, the battle has raged since—” she smiled ruefully—“since I left the womb, I suspect.”

  “During the argument, you mentioned something about Emmaline being your father’s favorite daughter. Having your old man play those kinds of mind games must have been hard on you.”

  She nodded. There was no sense in denying the charge. “Even though I was the elder daughter, I always lived in Emmaline’s shadow. While she was petted and praised for her horsemanship and her shooting skills, I was belittled by our father, who did not approve of my bookish ways. One year, desperate to gain his favor, I tirelessly practiced my marksmanship to prepare for a planned quail shoot. I spent hours shooting at targets. My father is quite the sportsman, you see, and I thought that…” Her voice trailed into silence, the memory a painful one.