My emotions were in turmoil. My horror at the carnage he’d left in his wake now reverted to fury at Slade. If he wanted to add me to the list of people he’d harmed, he should accept responsibility for his most egregious crime against me. “You say you love me; you purport to be sorry I’ve been charged with murder. If you really care for me, then why did you take Katerina as your mistress?”
“I did not,” Slade said, adamant.
“Couldn’t you have obtained her cooperation without making love to her?” I was too beside myself to use politer words.
“I never made love to her,” Slade insisted.
“You’re forgetting that I saw you with Katerina, that night at the theater. I saw you kiss her.” My voice quavered at the memory. “You didn’t even care if I saw.”
“I kissed Katerina precisely because I wanted you to see.”
“What?” This was cruel torment. “Why?”
“To protect you.” Slade rushed to explain: “When I came out of the theater with Katerina and you suddenly appeared, I wanted to rush to you, seize you in my arms, and never let you go. But I couldn’t.” Agony glazed his eyes. “You looked so beautiful and innocent. I couldn’t touch you, lest you be contaminated.”
Slade held up his hands and regarded them as if they were smeared with filth from his sins. “I had to drive you away. So I climbed in the carriage with Katerina, and even though she and I weren’t on intimate terms, I kissed her.” He smiled glumly; he rubbed his cheek. “You didn’t see it, but she slapped me. I resisted my urge to look back at you. I couldn’t bear to see the look on your face. I hated to leave you, but it was for the best.”
He leaned closer, his eyes shining fiercely in the remains of the daylight. “Now I’ve told you everything. Now that you know the worst, do you still love me? Will you still have me?”
My heart urged me to cry, yes! My love for Slade was as ardent as ever. I was humbled by his belief that he no longer deserved me, and moved by his wish to protect me. But as blind as love can be, my mind couldn’t ignore the fact that eight people were dead and Slade deserved at least some of the blame, no matter that he’d done everything he’d done in service to his country and I believed he was a good man at heart.
“I see you hesitate,” Slade said. “At the risk of driving another nail into my coffin, I must remind you that I’m a fugitive. I can’t wed you in church, lest I be caught and arrested. If you choose to be with me, it would be on the lam, without the benefit of clergy.”
Once more I found myself walking the same path down which I’d sent Jane Eyre. She’d had to choose whether to live with Mr. Rochester in sin or flee and retain her honor. Now I faced my own crossroads. Slade was a criminal in the eyes of the law, and although I had stepped outside the law in order to find him, I was bound by convention. My love couldn’t stand against my bred-in-the-bone belief in the sanctity of marriage. Choosing to be with Slade meant estranging myself from everyone else who mattered to me. I must renounce him or lose my family, my friends, and my virtue. My choice must be the same as I’d made for Jane.
Slade’s face took on a look of triumph blended with devastation. “I see that I’ve succeeded in destroying whatever regard you had for me. You are offended because I made you such an insulting proposition. You despise me now.”
Of course I did not! Yet I was so upset that I couldn’t find words to explain my decision or lessen his guilt and misery. I could hardly believe that our positions had reversed-that I was the object of his unrequited love, or so he thought.
“You should go,” Slade said. He wasn’t Mr. Rochester, who’d begged Jane to stay even though it would compromise her. He was a stronger man, with higher moral standards.
I realized that my path must diverge from Jane’s: running away wouldn’t save me from disgrace. “I’m not leaving.”
Slade looked at me as if he thought he’d heard incorrectly.
“Not until I prove I’m innocent and exonerate you,” I clarified. I didn’t admit that I wasn’t ready for us to part even though we must. Now that I had found Slade, I could not immediately give him up, and I had ample justification for delaying. “I can’t go home while I’m in as much trouble with the law as you are.”
“Damn your obstinacy!” Slade burst out, venting his emotions in anger. “Just how do you intend to clear both our names?”
I was silent: I had no idea. I’d plotted my course up until this point, but no further. Alas, I was like a heroine in a novel whose author did not know how to bring the story to a satisfying conclusion.
“Are you hoping to turn Niall Kavanagh over to the police and say he’s the Whitechapel Ripper?” Slade said, incredulous and scornful. He was trying to offend me and thus drive me away. “And after that, track down Wilhelm Stieber, drag him before Lord Palmerston, and make him confess that he, not I, was responsible for the deaths of the British agents?”
I knew how foolishly simplistic it sounded, but I supposed I had entertained thoughts along those lines. “That would do.”
Slade regarded me pityingly. “You are so naive.”
“I admit that I am,” I retorted. “It takes a certain amount of naivete to think that one can write a novel that people will buy. It takes even more to believe that one can foil a plot against the British Empire. The fact that I’ve done both things indicates that God rewards naivete.”
Slade groaned. “She invokes God as her accomplice!”
“Why not? I’m a parson’s daughter.”
Night had come; the moon had risen. The workhouse appeared even more intimidating than ever. But I took my courage in hand, and I moved along the path, circling the mansion.
Slade followed. “What are you doing?”
“Having a look around.”
“I wish you had shot me and spared me the trouble of protecting you from yourself!”
The windows of the house were dark now that there was no sun reflecting from them. “Is Niall Kavanagh here?”
“No,” Slade said. “I’ve been keeping watch on the place for two days. He’s gone. Nobody in town seems to know where. That’s why I was breaking in-to see if he left any clues, or if there’s any sign of his invention inside.”
I thought he would try to force me to leave, but he didn’t; perhaps he couldn’t bear for us to part any more than I could. We seemed to have come to a tacit agreement to quit the topic of our relationship, to pretend Slade’s confession hadn’t happened. We were conversing easily, but our talk felt brittle, like ice thinly frozen over a turbulent ocean. I said, “How did you find out about Kavanagh’s secret laboratory?”
“I went to his house in Whitechapel. While questioning people in the neighborhood, I found a man who used to be Kavanagh’s servant. He told me where Kavanagh had moved.” Slade said with abrupt suspicion, “How did you find out?”
I evaded the question in case the answer was a bargaining chip I might need later. The path veered away from the house. “What’s in that building up ahead?”
The smell of decay wafted toward me as I approached it. Slade hurried in front of me to block the path. “You don’t want to go in there.”
“Why not?” I stepped around him. The building was a barn that had once contained animals that the workhouse residents had raised for food. The wooden doors were open; a padlock dangled from broken hinges. I entered before Slade could stop me. The foul odor was so strong that I covered my nose with my hand. On one side of the barn, sheep lay dead in pens. Flies buzzed and maggots swarmed over the rotting carcasses. On the other side were cages of small corpses with matted fur, wizened claws, and long tails-rats.
I gagged and ran out of the barn. Gulping fresher air, I said, “What was Niall Kavanagh doing with those animals?”