Chapter 25
She came to him in the night. With a warm smile dancing on her lips, she embraced him and buried her nose into the crook of his chest. I’ve missed you, Henry Asheford … I’ve missed you.
He buried his face in the softness of her hair.
It smelled like lilacs.
Eva…
He placed his hands on her hips and brought her closer to remove the annoying inch of space between them, but she would not move. He pulled harder. The space persisted. The desire to feel her warmth was a desperate one and he pulled her closer, and closer, and closer until her flesh melted, falling through his hands like grains of sand in an hourglass.
Henry jerked awake. His heart pounded so hard, he half-imagined to have been reanimated from death’s grasp by a rod of raw electricity. For a moment, his arms flailed in the darkness. This was not his bed. Where was he? He sat up, wildly looked around for a receptacle and vomited into a bucket by his bedside.
“Take this,” a familiar voice said.
Henry opened his tired eyes to see Elias before him, holding a spoonful of liquid. The dull light of the candle sliced through his skull and he winced.
“Is it poison?” Henry choked out.
Elias’s face visibly hardened with disgust.
“If it isn’t poison, then I shall not take it,” Henry said.
“Ye have a death wish?”
“My soul burns for it.”
“Your soul—” Elias muttered. “Committing suicide is a sin, Henry.”
“I am already damned, and the devil waits for me.”
“Och, why do ye say such things?”
Henry sank back into the depths of his pillow. His head spun like a wicked carousel.
“What has happened for ye to react like this?” Elias urged. “First the pub and now this…”
“You will not help me then?”
“To murder yerself?”
“To set me free.”
Elias tossed the spoon to the bedside table. “Ye would seriously ask that of a pal? Have ye forgotten yer morals? Ye’ve gone mad!”
“Maybe I have.”
Like Father.
A silence permeated the room.
Henry swore he heard Eva’s laugh in the distance. The sudden lurch of his heart made him dizzy, his stomach heaved and he vomited once more.
“Take the water,” Elias said softly.
Henry did. The coolness of the liquid soothed his burning throat.
“How long have I been out?” Henry said.
“Less than two days.”
“Hell.”
That left precisely six days until the announcement of his engagement to Fanny Davenport. He would not have enough time to locate the time-travelling device and personally return to Asheford Hall. There would be no choice but to find a trustworthy messenger to deliver it to Eva. Regardless of this, he was not yet certain if he could even get hold of the damned thing. The possibility that Eva would remain in this world for a little while longer was a very real scenario, and if that were to happen, there was no way he could hide his engagement.
“Yer in a great deal o’ pain?” Elias said.
Taken out of his tumultuous mind, Henry glared at his friend.
Elias nodded. “Yer stomach.”
Unknowingly, Henry sat hunched on the bedside, one hand clutching the side of his torso. He slowly lifted his shirt and winced.
A deep-purple bruise stained his skin.
The more he studied himself with his fingertips, the more he realized the ugliness of the broken man he had become. Open sores marked the ridges of his knuckles, there was bruising around his wrists, a welt protruded above his left ear, and one eye was nearly swollen shut. His tongue licked the split in his lip, tasting the coppery remnants of his battle.
Shouldn’t he feel more pain?
Through heavy lids, he looked at the empty glass on his bedside. A small vial containing a well-known reddish-brown liquid sat next to it.
Laudanum.
He recognized the feeling well enough to realize that Elias had drugged his water with the medicine. For over a year he had managed to avoid all temptations of the drug, but he could feel the opium tincture warm his bones and blanket his suffering in a feel-good sensation, reanimating the flame of addiction within him. And that made him furious.
“You—” Henry leaped from the bed. “You drugged me against my will.”
A soft blow came to Henry’s chest. He swayed back, knocking over the glass and candle from the bedside table to the floor. The room spun.
“Lay down.” Elias picked up the candle. “At this rate you’ll burn my house down too.”
“I did not want it … the laudanum.” Henry fell back onto the bed. “I should not have taken that.”
“Yer mad to think I would allow ye to suffer.”
“You do not understand,” Henry said, trying to sit up.
“Oh, I ken plenty.” Elias pushed his friend’s shoulders, forcing him to lay down. “And we will speak of it when yer lucid. Now lay down, rest your heid and dream of faraway lands.”
Henry did not want to lay down and sleep. He had plenty to do. But the drug was too far in his system to purge it out. Moreover, the dose was strong. On his back, he stared at the yellow light of a streetlamp flicker against the white ceiling.
The rush of pleasure hit him hard.
He felt it from the tips of his toes to the ends of his hair. It was a distinct sensation, like the warm afterglow of lying with the woman he loved. He closed his eyes. In that moment, he allowed himself to imagine that the warmth of the drug was her embrace, her laugh, her music, and it brought happiness to his trampled heart.
Life was dangerously beautiful again.
He was whole.
He fell asleep dreaming of her face, with the whisper of her name upon his lips.
***
It was nearly midnight when Henry forced himself out of bed. Stiff as a corpse and his chest heavy with fatigue, he went to the desk and began to write. There was no master strategy or plan. All he would do was ask for a meeting with Clarkson and deliver the letter that very night.
He clutched the pen and wrote.
Dear Mr. Clarkson,
It has been brought to my attention that you are investigating Edwin Asheford with regard to the death of your informant, Benjamin Cooper. While I cannot comment on his passing, I can surely provide you with information pertaining to the illegal goods smuggled into Britain. In return, I will ask for your complete discretion and honesty.
Meet me outside the docks, across from the Asheford Sons wharf, upon tomorrow midnight. Bring no one.
Mr. Edwards
Henry folded the letter, placed it in an envelope and addressed it to Clarkson with a final swipe of ink. Once done, he readied himself to face the outside elements.
With a great deal of pain, he put on a jacket and hat, and regarded his reflection in the washstand mirror. He was a hideous, unrecognizable monster.
He ran a finger over his swollen eye.
That’s exactly what you hoped for.
Tomorrow, with his battered face and a set of poor man’s clothing, he could pass as a creature of the night in the harbour’s grimy street. No one would suspect him of being Henry Asheford. It was the perfect disguise under which to meet Clarkson.
He left the room, entered the hallway and nearly bumped into the housekeeper holding a candlestick.
She gasped. “Good evening, sir. It pleases me to see you are well again.”
“Indeed,” he said coolly.
The housekeeper briefly nodded, turned and disappeared around the corner. No doubt she was keen to escape his ghastly presence.
He continued down the narrow staircase and made his way to the front door.
Quick footsteps came from a room to his right. Elias burst into the hallway. “Where the blazes are ye going?”
“Out.”
Elias’s emerald eyes studied his injured face. “In yer condition?”
Henry frowned. “I have business, Elias.”
“The deuce ye do!”
He was already walking toward the door when Elias intercepted his path.
“Is that all? Yer back to yer cold, untalkative self without any explanation as to what has happened the last few days?”
“There is nothing more to say.”
“No, Henry.” Elias wagged his finger. “Ye cannae fool me after everything ye’ve said and done. Now, I ask that ye finish yer thoughts.”
Henry glared at Elias.
“I cannae let ye leave when ye have a business to harm yourself,” Elias urged with more desperation and then sighed. “For God’s sake, if ye have a need for business at this ungodly hour, then at least allow me to accompany ye. I can call for a carriage.”
“Fine.”
Within minutes, the two men were in a carriage, sitting opposite one another. The streetlamps flashed past every so often, illuminating the hardness of Elias’s face.
“What business have ye at the police station?” he demanded. “And if ye say none of my bloody business, I will throttle ye before ye can finish the sentence.”
“You never were a patient man,” Henry said.
“Aye, and ye’ve exceeded that threshold a long time ago.”
“Very well,” Henry sighed. “I will ask for a meeting with an investigator.”
Even in the darkness, Henry could see his friend’s face grow pale.
Elias leaned forward. “For what reason?”
“I require information regarding a matter.”
“Is that all?”
“Perhaps.”
“Henry…”
“You have always known what we were, Elias,” Henry said. “And I have purposefully been vague with you for that reason. This matter is no different.”
Elias crossed his arms. “Aye, I’ve known who yer father is but I didnae expect that ye would follow suit with the business.”
“It isn’t by choice.”
“Are ye bein’ threatened into it?”
Henry lowered his gaze.
“You are!” Elias shouted. “How come do ye allow this to happen?”
“Do you think I would continue to allow it if there were a way out?” Henry seethed through clenched teeth. “Besides, what’s the difference between duty and threats? It’s the same bloody thing, isn’t it?”
“Duty is not forced on the premise of threats,” Elias said.
Henry shook his head and focused on the passing street beyond the rain-streaked window. He was too tired to argue.
“What has yer father threatened ye into this time?” Elias said.
“It does not matter.”
“It does if it has ye begging for your death.”
Henry exhaled sharply. “Look, if I do not obey, bad things may happen to the people I love, and I will go through hell’s fire to ensure their safety.”
“Am I to assume Lottie is in danger?”
“Not any longer.”
“Christ,” Elias muttered. “Your father is using her as bait, isn’t he? Like the time he pulled her out of school and took her to London when Rhys refused his orders to marry.”
Henry brought a palm to his forehead. His head was starting to ache again.
Shortly after his mother passed and they had wrangled the time-travelling device from his father, they took Edwin to a private asylum in the south of France for rehabilitation. His mind had been broken to the point of severe delusion. At first, he would not speak or even look at the person speaking to him. Years passed undisturbed until, one day, they received a letter that their father had been released, claiming he was healed. Within days, word came out that his father had forcefully taken Lottie out of school in Paris and brought her to his London home on the pretense of spending time with his estranged daughter. In reality, he used ten-year-old Lottie as a bargaining chip against his grandfather, threatening to take her away or worse, if he did not get hold of the time-travelling technology. That marked the start of his father’s extortion methods. At the time, Henry was twenty-three and in school alongside Elias. Since he had to abruptly leave during the school year, he had told Elias of his troubles but used marriage as an excuse for his father’s behaviour.
Henry drew in a deep breath. “The less you know, the better. All I can say is that Lottie is safe.”
A quietness filled the carriage.
Elias’s gaze narrowed slightly. “And what about Eva?”
Henry almost jolted out of his seat. Her name had the power to elicit heart-wrenching emotions. To make matters worse, it was uttered by the lips of a man who had feelings for her … a man who should have never known that name in the first place.
“How do you know that name?” Henry growled.
“Judging by your reaction, she means a great deal to you.”
“How?”
“You whisper it in yer sleep.”
Henry’s muscles relaxed. He unclenched his fist. Of course, he would whisper her name because she continued to visit him in the night when he took a dose of laudanum.
“Tell me how I can help ye,” Elias said.
Numbness pervaded his body. A vision of Elias and Eva living an honest, happy life flickered in his mind. He saw her free from the Asheford curse, safe in Scotland, with half a dozen honey-haired children running around. While he was forced into an unhappy marriage with the shallow daughter of an American family all in the name of business.
It crushed him.
The vision proved too much.
For the first time in years, the tears came fast without a chance to suppress them. He buried his head into his knees.
Elias placed a hand on his shoulder. “I cannae pretend to know yer sorrow. But I’m always here for anything ye may need, pal. As I have been for the past twenty years.”
“Save her,” Henry said.
“What?”
“Save her from this monstrous world.”
“Save the woman ye love?”
“Take her to Scotland—”
“I cannae understand when you cry into yer knees. What exactly are ye asking?”
Henry propped his elbows onto his knees. “If my plan here does not work, I want you to take Eva and marry her. Give her the life I would have; bless her with the same love.” There was a break in his voice. “Bless her with the same love I would have bestowed, make her happy—”
“I cannae marry the woman ye love!”
Henry took hold of Elias’s shoulders. “The time has come to fulfill my duty, not only as an Asheford but also as heir to the company. I have no other choice. My fate has been written, hers has not and there is still a chance to save her from my father. Please, I beg you to consider these words when I officially ask you for the favour.”
“Are ye … not asking me now?”
“No.” Henry pulled away. “There is one thing I must try before it may come to that.”
The carriage pulled up in a street near the police station.
Henry staggered out of the carriage and shut the door behind him. Before going near the post box, he pulled up the collar of his jacket and angled his hat to hide his face. The freezing rain immediately seeped through his clothing, icing his aching bones to a rattle.
When the street was empty of witnesses, Henry hurried to the designated post box outside the police station. He dropped his letter into the slot. Without a backward glance, he returned to the carriage, feeling slightly better than when he had awoken that morning.