“I ought to burn it to the ground,” I told James Lee one night when the children were asleep. I had traded my usual brandy for whiskey; I found some solace in the strong fumes in those days. Outside the window, the greenery was giving way to fall’s wet decay. Everything smelled rotten, not sweet and green as before.
“It’s not something I’d advise at this point.” James was wearing a suit that night: crumpled and worn but a suit nonetheless. His bowler hat sat on the table, next to a bowl of half-peeled potatoes; the jacket was flung over a chair.
“There is a fire every day in this city.”
“They are already looking too closely.”
“They won’t find a thing.” I tightened my shawl around my shoulders. “Oscar doesn’t have the means to have them do the whole autopsy, and the insurance companies won’t pay for it.”
“Still, they are watching you.”
“They will never find me out. They never did before.”
“You didn’t kill a man then.” He knocked back his whiskey and held out his glass for more. “Remember Mr. Holmes? He hanged.” James had been deeply fascinated with Mr. Holmes in the years after the world fair, when the newspapers were rife with stories of his murder hotel. He had admired Mr. Holmes’s cunning: how he had lured and killed his victims to sell the bodies to medical students and suchlike. James thought him clever to have constructed such a bold enterprise.
“They won’t hang a widow and a mother,” I claimed.
“Unless they do.” I could not read his face. “One never knows with such things; if they are angry enough, they will. They might find you a disgrace to motherhood itself, and then all bets are off. People so often adore their mothers.”
I smiled at that last part and tasted my whiskey. “If I can make the insurance companies pay what they owe me for Mads’s death, and all suspicion goes away. I’ll torch the house then, not before.”
He shook his head, but he was smiling too. “You are a fearless creature, Mrs. Sorensen.”
“They never found me out before,” I repeated.
“One day they might.” His brow creased with concern.
“But not today. I have some devil’s luck in me yet.” I had to believe that. I clung to that notion with all my might.
“And if they do pay—both companies—what will you do then?”
I looked down at the table, where the Chicago Tribune rested with grease-stained pages. “I haven’t decided yet. Perhaps I’ll buy a farm. I see advertisements for fine pieces of land all the time.”
“Surely not a pig farm.” James’s face fell.
I shrugged. “Peter Gunness’s wife is pregnant but very ill. They don’t expect her to last.”
“And now you want to take up with that butcher?”
“As I said, I haven’t decided yet. First I have to manage not to hang.” I closed the newspaper and pushed it away. What good were dreams if I could not achieve them?
James would not let the subject of Mr. Gunness go. “Is he your lover yet?”
I did not answer; what was it to James? None of his concern. “He is a fine and decent man. A good father too, I think.” I lifted my chin a little when I looked at him.
“He will never satisfy you.” The lips below the mustache tightened.
“How do you know? He has a bloody trade.” Our gazes met across the table. He lifted his chin a little too, to match me.
“He will never be one of us.” James’s voice was full of contempt.
“Neither would I want him to be.” I could not help but laugh. “I just need him to raise pigs and take care of us all.” I looked away, to the stove, filthy with soot and food spills, and the bowl on the counter, brimming with rotting vegetables. These latest debacles had left me weak, sloppy, and blind to decay.
“You lust for him, that’s it.” James lit a cigar and blue smoke rose toward the ceiling.
“Would you judge me if I did?” My eyes were back on him. Our gazes dueled across the table; his was glittering and dark, with a sharp, sharp edge.
“Who am I to judge you?” James dropped his gaze, drank again, and left his glass to hover in midair. “I’ve always had the utmost respect for your lust.” He added a lazy smile.
“I know you do.” I smiled as well, and marveled at how his shifting eyes could still make my breath catch in my throat. “You have always been good to me in that way.”
“I hope I always will be.” He set his glass back down, leaned over the table, and caught my face in his hands. Then he kissed me. His breath was strong with drink, his lips as soft as ever. I only flinched a little when he bit me, and the taste of iron flooded my tongue. I reached with my hand for the peeling knife on the table and pressed it to his throat, not hard, but not too gently either. The knife was sharp enough, newly cleaned and whetted. I could tell from his breathing that he liked it, having the steel there where his vein throbbed. I knew he would be hard by now, aching for release.
“Come.” My voice was a little bit husky when I spoke. I was not unmoved by him either. I lowered the knife but kept it with me as I led him by the hand through my night-quiet house, passing the open door to the children’s room. I did not stop before we stood on the chilly floor in my bedroom, where the massive bed stood empty with no simpering fool in it. “I know you always wanted to play the husband.”
He laughed, utterly delighted. “What a gift, Bella, my dear. Your marriage bed at last.”
“Only for a visit,” I said, but I laughed too. I whimpered when he pushed me up against the wall and fondled my breasts through the cloth of my dress and the stiff panes of my corset. His lips were at my throat, his favorite spot, and he chewed at the soft flesh there. I dropped the knife to the floor, dug my fingernails into his scalp, and spread my legs when he tugged at my skirts. By the time his hand reached its mark, I was slick around his fingers.
Over his shoulder, I saw the open closet where Mads’s ironed shirts still hung.
“On the bed,” I whispered, flushed with want, and pushed him roughly away, only to attack him when we tumbled onto the mattress, clothes and hair in disarray.
I pulled my dress over my head and he fished the knife from the floor to slice the strip of satin that held the hooks of the corset—too eager now to bother with them. Not once did I flinch when the cool metal moved close to my skin. My breasts lay large and heavy in his hands; he fondled them greedily and licked them with his tongue.