Chapter 9
What a damned nightmare.
They were going toward the north shore in a boat; Keats didn’t dare hire a hansom or take the train. When he’d mentioned the Thames Subway, Jacynda had panicked and tried to run away. So he’d hired a waterman to ferry them to Wapping.
Clancy had called Keats a damned fool for risking his life over a crazy woman. That hadn’t set well. The Irishman was just worried about the reward money. Finally, Clancy had offered to deliver Jacynda to Whitechapel himself, but her level of trust was paper thin and only Keats seemed to be worthy of it.
Ramsey would be hunting him in Whitechapel; that much Keats would wager. Still, he saw no alternative but to deliver her into the doctor’s hands. She was incapable of rational thought, and there were too many who would take advantage of her weakness.
What if Alastair isn’t home? What will I do then? He couldn’t keep her with him, and in her condition he dared not leave her alone at the boarding house.
Keats slipped a look at his companion. Jacynda was asleep on his shoulder, a ragged and filthy mess. The filth could be cleaned away. It was her docile behavior that frightened him. This woman would never have confronted the anarchists that night in Green Dragon Place, thrown herself into the middle of an affray. Something awful had happened, something that had broken her fiery spirit.
By the time they reached Whitechapel he’d formed a plan of action, one that he hoped would allay suspicion: he would send a street urchin to the boarding house to summon Alastair on a medical call. It might work, even if Ramsey had the place under surveillance knowing it was only a matter of time before Keats visited his friend.
That time had come.
“Just a bit longer,” Keats urged. No reply. It was like walking with a lamppost for company. Jacynda’s shivering was worse now as her clothes slowly dried in the night air. His weren’t much better. He still felt water in his boots with every step.
It took considerable effort to find Alastair’s new location.
“Of all the times for you to move house,” Keats grumbled under his breath. They’d stuck to the back alleys, the passageways, and deserted areas, away from the main streets. It was a chore with Jacynda at his side. She moved slowly and just about everything frightened her.
Keats studied the front door of Alastair’s new house like a copper. The doctor had chosen a good place to reside, though it was just too dangerous to march up and hammer on the door. With his companion in tow, Keats worked his way behind the building and was eventually rewarded by finding a back gate. There was a light in the rear of the house.
Who else would be there? Perhaps Ramsey had laid a trap for him. His blood chilled at the thought. There was no other option but to knock and ask for help. Jacynda had put her life on the line for him more than once. It was only right that he do the same.
“Stay here,” he advised softly, pointing to a patch by the fence. It was dry and relatively clean. “I’ll go see if Alastair’s home.” He gently pulled her shawl up, like a scarf. She obediently slid to the ground. Her acquiescence, though welcomed, was profoundly disturbing.
His heart hammering, Keats rapped on the back door. Footsteps came his way.
He shot a look back at Jacynda. She was right where he’d left her.
What if Alastair can’t help her? What if she remains like this for the rest of her life?
The door edged open. Keats let out a sigh of relief when he saw the doctor’s astonished face.
“I am in desperate need of your help, my friend.”
Alastair’s mouth fell open, then closed just as quickly. “Come in! Hurry, before someone sees you.”
“One moment.” Keats hustled into the back yard and helped a bedraggled figure to its feet.
Alastair bolted the door behind the pair of them and then ordered, “Go down the passage. Stay in the kitchen. There are no windows there.”
“Is there anyone else in the house?”
“No. Mrs. Butler doesn’t move in until tomorrow.”
Keats helped the figure sit in a chair and then removed the red shawl.
“Jacynda?” Alastair said, astounded. She looked up at him with a lost expression, quaking intensely. “What has happened?”
“Some sort of mental collapse,” Keats explained. “I found her in Rotherhithe wading into the Thames in some bizarre attempt to reach this side of the river.”
“Why in the…” Alastair knelt and took one of her hands. It was icy. “Help me move her closer to the stove. I’ll make some tea.” Once she resettled, he stoked the fire and put on a kettle, shooting occasional worried glances toward his guests. “You look awful,” he observed to Keats.
The fugitive mustered a game smile. “I know.”
“Apparently, you are still unable to go en mirage.”
“That continues to elude me.” Keats removed his boots and set them near the stove, draping his wet socks over them. He wiggled his pale toes. “Ah. That’s better.”
“Fisher told me about your letter. Have you had any luck finding the Irishman?”
“Not a bit of it, though I am getting closer to the explosives.”
“Then that’s some good news. How are your injuries?”
“Healing. Still can’t do heavy work.”
Alastair knelt next to Jacynda, warming her hands between his. She looked toward him, confused. “Do you know who I am?”
A slow shake of the head. “Not…right,” she said, pointing to her temple. Alastair leaned closer, thinking what he saw was a smudge of dirt.
As he reached toward her, she shied backwards. “I won’t hurt you.” She closed her eyes as if anticipating great pain. Delicately moving her hair aside, he studied the round mark.
“What in the devil…”
“There is blood on the back of her collar, as well,” Keats added, shaking his head in despair. “I felt you were her best hope.”
Alastair examined the wound at the back of her neck with great care, all the while feeling his anger rise. Leery of frightening her, he went clinical to keep his seething emotions in check. “She’s been struck with something. It’s not fresh, though. A few days old.” He addressed Jacynda. “Who hit you?”
“Macassar,” she said.
“What?”
“She’s not made a great deal of sense,” Keats explained. “I ask her questions and often she has no answers. She didn’t remember my name or yours, for that matter, but she insisted she had to get to this side of the river.”
“What’s this?” Alastair carefully pulled her collar aside, making her tremble. He looked up, disgusted. “Thumb marks. Someone has attempted to strangle her.”
“Good God,” Keats murmured.
Jacynda looked up at the doctor as if he’d just appeared in the room. “Who are you?”
He groaned. “Alastair. Alastair Montrose. We met at the boarding house.”
She shook her head, brows furrowed. Then she turned to Keats. “You?”
“Jonathon Keats. I’m with Scotland Yard. At least for the present.” She gave another shake of the head. Keats’ eyes filmed in sadness. “She wasn’t this bad a few nights ago.”
“When was that?” Alastair asked.
“The night Effington died. She found me in Rotherhithe. We went back to my room and—” Keats looked away, “she suddenly went hysterical, claiming that we were on a sinking ship. She said this temporary madness was because of her job, that she comes from the future. Quite impossible.”
Alastair fixed him with a look. “Was that all that happened?” he asked evenly.
Keats nodded too quickly for Alastair’s liking. Jacynda was rolling the edge of her shawl up and down in rhythmic fashion, watching them with childlike fascination.
The kettle’s whistle cut through the air and Alastair found himself welcoming the distraction. He assembled the tea and returned with the pot, placing it on the table with two of the new cups Mrs. Butler had purchased. He’d expected happier circumstances for their first use. While he sliced the cheese, he debated. Even if Jacynda and Keats had become lovers, her condition rendered the question moot. There was no point in hiding the truth from his friend any longer.
“She did not lie to you, Keats,” Alastair informed him quietly. “She is from the future.”
“Nonsense!” the sergeant spluttered, hot tea splashing over the edges of his cup as he replaced it firmly on the saucer. “If she’s going mad, just tell me. Don’t cloak it as some ridiculous tale.”
“It is not a ridiculous tale. I have seen her travel into the future.”
“Nonsense,” Keats repeated. In his distraction he was stirring the tea, though he’d added nothing to it.
“Remember that night when she was knifed in the alley, and no one could find her? She went to her time to be healed. The knife had slit her lung. She would have died here.”
Keats’ face darkened. “I simply refuse to believe that you—you, of all people—would accept the ramblings of an obviously misguided woman as truth. You’re so under her spell that you don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I saw the technology she carries with her,” Alastair insisted, his voice rising. “It was no parlour trick.”
Keats opened his mouth to deliver a broadside, then stopped. “My God, you’re serious.”
“If you handed me a Bible, I’d swear upon it.” Alastair took a deep breath. “Her lover, Mr. Stone, was from the future as well. That is why she dared not go to the police. As she put it, how do you solve the murder of a man who hasn’t been born yet?”
Keats rose from his chair and paced in the small room, his face wrinkled in thought. As he passed Jacynda, she shyly pointed at the cheese. He handed her some and she started to nibble on it, watching him the entire time.
Keats finally came to rest in his chair.
“This is too outlandish to believe,” he declared with a shake of the head. “It can’t be possible to journey through time.” He looked back up at Alastair. “Can it?”
Sensing an opening, Alastair pressed his advantage. “Yet it is possible to send wireless messages through the air, to light whole streets with electricity. We even journey by train beneath London’s streets. Feats that would have seemed remarkable to people a hundred years ago!”
Keats stared at Jacynda for a long time. She was nibbling on a second piece of cheese. “She gave me a list of Effington’s warehouses. I wondered at the time how she’d gotten them all. It must have taken a great deal of effort to collect that information.”
“Not with her contacts in 2057.”
For a moment, it looked to Alastair as if Keats were coming to terms with the concept. Then he shook his head. “I cannot accept this. I admit that she acts in an unusual manner most of the time, but to believe it is because…” His brows furrowed.
“You know I am not given to exaggeration, Keats. Remember, I saw the technology myself. She used it on you after your head injury.”
Keats stared at him. “I…remember feeling so cold. Like I was… Then I felt better, warmer. I thought it was because of the blanket.” He glanced over at Jacynda again. The cheese plate was empty, and she was eagerly eyeing the teapot.
The sergeant issued a long sigh. “So, what is it like? Have we gained utopia?”
Alastair relaxed, despite the skepticism in his friend’s tone.
“I sense that’s not the case,” he replied. “Although their medicine is infinitely superior, all is not well. Jacynda’s job, as I understand it, is to keep time on track. They send visitors to different eras, and apparently some of them are inclined to meddle.”
“So nothing much changes, then,” Keats replied sourly.
“Not that I can tell. She has tenacious enemies. Mark my words, this—” he pointed toward the darkened circle at her temple, “is something far more unholy than a knock on the head.”
“Something from her time?” Keats inquired, sounding curious in spite of himself.
“I fear so.” Alastair offered Jacynda a cup of tea. “Here, it will warm you.” She looked at Keats for approval. He gave a nod and she took the cup. When Alastair went to put his hand on her forehead, she shrank backward.
“I promise I will not hurt you,” he repeated gently. She nodded and he touched her skin. “No fever, at least.”
“That’s a miracle,” Keats remarked. “She was wet up to her waist. I had no way of warming her.”
“River,” she murmured.
“What?” Alastair asked.
“River. Cold. Threw me in.”
Keats leaned closer. “Someone threw you in the river?”
She nodded and then pointed to her neck. “Brother.”
“Your brother?”
“Not brother.”
“Was it the same fellow who stabbed you?” Keats pressed.
“I doubt it,” Alastair remarked. “He was found guilty of her lover’s murder and is incarcerated in her time. At least that’s what she told me.”
“Lord, she has more enemies than I do.” Keats watched her swirling the tea in her cup, entranced by the eddies. “How will you treat her?”
“I’m not sure. Perhaps her memory will return spontaneously, but I doubt it. I will consult Reuben. He may be able to offer some advice.”
“At least she’s off the streets,” Keats allowed. He began to pull on his socks and then his boots. “I miss my good pair. These make my feet ache.”
“While you’re here, I should examine your rib, ensure it is healing properly,” Alastair offered.
“No need. It’s doing fine. I’d best leave. If Ramsey finds me on this side of the river…” Keats took down the last bit of his tea with a gulp.