Darwinia

Colin Watson stood waiting at the corner of Market and Thames. He embraced her briefly, then hailed a cab. He smiled as he helped her up, the smile a jejune thing half-hidden by his ridiculous moustache. Caroline supposed he was suppressing his natural melancholy for her. His hands were large and strong.

Where would he take her tonight? For a drink, she thought (though not at the Crown and Reed). A talk. That was all. He needed to talk. He was thinking of resigning his commission. He’d been offered a civilian job at the docks. He hadn’t lived in Jered’s storeroom since last September; he had taken a room at the Empire and was alone most nights.

That made things easier — a room of his own.

She couldn’t stay with him as long as she would have liked. Jered and Alice mustn’t know what she was doing. Or, if they knew, there must be at least a certain doubt, a gap of uncertainty she could defend.

But she wanted to stay. Colin was kind to her, a sort of kindness Guilford had never understood. Colin accepted her silences and didn’t try to pry them open, as Guilford had. Guilford had always believed her moods reflected some failure of his own. He was solicitous — thoughtful, certainly, after his own lights — but she would have liked to weep occasionally without triggering an apology.

Lieutenant Watson, tall and sturdy but with moods of his own, allowed Caroline the privacy of her grief. Perhaps, she thought, it was how a gentleman treated a widow. The upheaval of the world had cracked the foundations of civility, but some men were still gentle. Some still asked before they touched. Colin was gentle. She liked his eyes best of all. They watched her attentively even as his hands roamed freely; they understood; ultimately, they forgave. It seemed to Caroline there was no sin in the world those quiet blue eyes couldn’t redeem.

She stayed too late and drank more than she should have. They made scalding, desperate love. Her Lieutenant put her in a cab, when she insisted, an hour later than she had pla

Jered and Alice were home, of course. Caroline struggled to maintain her dignity while she put away her coat and Lily’s, saying nothing except to soothe her daughter. Jered closed his book and a

But if Alice had, she didn’t show it. “That little girl needs her sleep,” she said flatly. “Don’t you, Lily?”

“I’ll put her to bed,” Caroline said.

“She doesn’t look like she needs much putting. Asleep on her feet, at this hour. Bed’s warm and waiting, Lily! You go along, love, all right?”

Lily yawned agreeably and waddled off, leaving her mother defenseless.

“She slept late this morning,” Caroline offered.

“She’s not sleeping well at all. She’s afraid for her father.”

“I’m tired, too,” Caroline said.

“But not too tired to commit adultery?”

Caroline stared, hoping she hadn’t heard correctly.

“To fornicate with a man not your husband,” Alice said. “Do you have another word for it?”

“This is beneath you.”

“Perhaps you should find another place to sleep. I’ve written Liam in Boston. He’ll want you home as soon as we can book passage. I’ve had to apologize. On your behalf.”

“You had no right to do that.”

“Every right, I think.”

“Guilford is dead!” It was her only counterargument, and she regretted using it so hastily. It lost its gravity, somehow, in this under-heated parlor.

Alice sniffed. “You can’t possibly know that.”

“I feel the loss of him every day. Of course I know it.”

“Then you have a fu

“Unfair!”

“We don’t get to make the rules, Caroline. Only keep them or break them.”

“I won’t be a widow for the rest of my life!”

“Probably not. But if you had any sense of decency at all you might think twice before conducting an affair with a man who helped murder your husband.”

Chapter Seventeen

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

The voice seemed to condense out of the tavern air, smoky, liquid, and ingratiating. But it wasn’t a message Vale wanted to hear. How best to sum up his response?

Be succinct, he thought. “Please fuck off.”

A figure took the stool beside him. “That’s not called for, is it? Really, don’t mind me, Elias. I’m only here to chat.”

Groaning, he turned his head. “Do I know you?”

The man was tall. He was also suave, carefully dressed, and handsome. Though perhaps not as handsome as he seemed to think, flashing those horsey white teeth like beacon lights. Vale guessed he was twenty-two, twenty-three — young, and far too confident for his age.

“No, you don’t know me. Timothy Crane.”

Hand like a piano player’s. Long bony fingers. Vale ignored it. “Fuck off,” he repeated.

“Elias, I’m sorry, but I have to talk to you whether you like it or not.” The accent was New England, maddeningly aristocratic.

“Who are you, one of the Sanders-Moss nephews?”

“Sorry. No relation. But I know who you are.” Crane leaned closer. Dangerously close. His breath tickled the fine hair on Vale’s right ear. “You’re the man who speaks to the dead.”

“I’m the man who would like to convince you to fuck off.”

“The man who has a god inside him. A painful and demanding god. At least if it’s anything like mine.”

Crane had a cab waiting at the curb. Jesus Christ, Vale thought, What now? He had the blurred sensation of events accelerating beyond his comprehension. He gave the cabbie his home address and settled in next to this gri

It had been a quiet autumn, a quieter winter. The gods followed their own agenda, Vale supposed, and although the game with Eugene Randall had not played itself out — there had been two more séances, to no visible effect — the resolution seemed comfortably distant. Vale had even entertained the wistful notion that his god might be losing interest in him.

Apparently not.

The chatty Mr. Crane shut up in the presence of the driver. Vale tried to force himself sober — braced his shoulders, frowned and blinked — as the taxi crawled past electric light standards, globes of ice suspended in the frigid night. Washington winters weren’t supposed to be so cruel.

They arrived eventually at Vale’s town house. The street was quiet, all windows primly dark. Crane paid the cabbie, removed two immense suitcases from the vehicle, lugged them through Vale’s front door, and dropped them insolently next to the umbrella stand.

“Staying a while?”

“Afraid so, old chap.”

Old chap? Preserve me, Vale thought. “Do we have that much to talk about?”

“Lots. But it can wait until morning. Suppose you get a good night’s sleep, Elias. You’re really in no condition. We can discuss this when we’re both more refreshed. Don’t worry about me! I’ll curl up on the sofa. No formalities between us.”

And damned if he didn’t stretch out on the velvet settee, still smiling.