“No, I mean—” She caught herself. What was she doing? All but spitting in Fergus Boyle’s face when he accused her of allying herself with the Irish Republican Brotherhood, then turning around and defending them to Quinn. It made a bad preface for what she said next. “I’m no Fenian.”
As she feared, he didn’t believe her. “We know you’ve been helping them.”
“I have not!”
“I understand being loyal to family, Miss O’Malley. But you have to see that there are things more important than kin.”
He said it so seriously, and yet she had no idea what he meant. “They’re Americans, aren’t they? No kin of mine.”
“But your father is.”
It felt like the chair dropped two inches without warning; her hands clutched the arms for balance. “My father’s in Newgate.”
Quinn didn’t bother to glance at his notes. “Not since the twenty-ninth of May.”
She couldn’t let go of the chair. James O’Malley, out of prison at last. If she’d been in Whitechapel, she would have known. But she’d done her best to hide from her own world, and so it fell to a police constable to tell her about the only family she had left.
Out on the twenty-ninth. On the thirtieth, Eliza asked for the night off, and then four bombs appeared around London.
She’d been visiting him in Newgate, the night she chased the faeries to Charing Cross.
“I haven’t seen him,” she whispered. “You must believe me.” Surely her shock was proof enough. But Quinn just sat there, looking at her, until she asked the question eating away at her heart like acid. “Was he there? Did my da help them?”
“We have a man who says ye both did.”
It wasn’t true. At least for herself, it wasn’t; she knew that beyond a sliver of doubt. In which case, who would—
Boyle. Like a slap to the face, she remembered Father Tooley warning her at Easter. Fergus Boyle’s been spreading trouble. Did he hate her that much, to point a finger at her when the Special Branch boys came calling?
For Maggie’s sake, he might. And that thought was bitter as poison, that Maggie might hate her so much, when they’d been sister-close in the years before Owen was stolen. But now she and her mother were tottering on the brink of starvation, and that made a woman harsh. Maggie could have told them, or told Boyle to do it. Or he’d done it of his own will, to make sure Eliza would never come to trouble the Darraghs again.
“Tell me what you know,” Quinn said, very softly, “and I’ll do what I can for you. No lass should be caught in a place like this.”
The gentleness of his voice startled her. Why such sympathy, such kindness? Then Eliza sniffled, reflexively, and realized she was crying. And Quinn, not knowing her thoughts about Maggie, thought it was guilt that sent the tears down her face.
With the remnants of anger in her belly, she considered—ever so briefly—telling him to look into Fergus Boyle. That was a man she wouldn’t mind seeing locked away; whatever Maggie’s state, she could do better than him. But no: that would make her as bad as him, turning Irish over to the English for no better reason than hate. Quinn at least had a purpose for what he did that went beyond his own feelings.
Sniffing away the tears, wishing she had a handkerchief, or at least could lift a hand to wipe her face, Eliza met Quinn’s eyes. “What my father’s done, I don’t know—but I’m no Fenian, and I’ve never done a thing to hurt the innocent, or to help anyone else do it, either. Do I want Ireland free? You may be sure of it. Christ knows the English haven’t been any good for us. But I was born here; London is my home. I’d never do anything to change that.”
Quinn held her gaze, eyes still creased with that unexpected line of sympathy. “Then why all the lies? What have you been doing, these nine months past?”
She knew it was weak of her, to give in to that sympathy—knew he was probably doing it on purpose, to soften her resolve. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from answering him more honestly than she had any man in seven years. “You’d never believe me. You’d think me mad.”
He didn’t offer her any easy reassurance, even though she might have taken it. Instead he considered the words, then gave a faint, rueful smile. “And then you’d lose what? You’re already locked up as mad, Miss O’Malley. If I don’t believe you, then all it means is staying where you are. But if you know something true, and can prove it to me—”
“I cannot prove it.” Her frustration felt like it would burst out of her skin. “Not from in here, and maybe not out there; but that’s what I’ve been trying to do.”
“Perhaps I could help.”
If he believed her. He never will, she thought, with the wounded instinct of constant failure.
But as he said—what would she lose by trying?
In the end, it was his voice that did it, the familiar Irish cast to his vowels. Castlecarra, Ballyglass. She didn’t know the place, but he was a country boy, and might have heard country stories.
Eliza took a deep breath, and told the truth.
Faeries at Charing Cross. Faeries in Newgate. Faeries that stole Owen Darragh away. Even the stories the traitor had told, about the fading Queen of a dying realm, though Eliza admitted they were probably empty. She held back nothing except Louisa Kittering, and that only because it would do her more harm than good; Quinn would never go after the daughter of such a rich family, and the accusation would make Eliza look mad after all. But the rest of it, she told, and Quinn listened to it all without speaking, almost without blinking.
He didn’t take notes. When Eliza was done, he sat very still, then glanced down at the notebook as if he’d forgotten it was there. After a moment of consideration, he closed it. “Sure that’s a fine queer story.”
“And you don’t believe a word of it.”
“I didn’t say that.” He tucked the notebook away. “I’ve learned something, Miss O’Malley, working for Scotland Yard; I’ve learned not to make up my mind without evidence. And that means not disbelieving you, either. As you say, you’ve no proof—but at least it makes sense of what you’ve done, which is more than I’ve had until now.”
“Let me out of here,” Eliza said, “and I’ll get you proof.” In the form of an unconscious Louisa Kittering, if she had to.
He put up a cautioning hand. “I cannot promise you that. But I’ll look into it, and see what I turn up. If there are faeries in London, I should be able to find them.”
Eliza wished his confidence went deeper. I should, he said, not we should; he wasn’t about to set his fellows in Scotland Yard to hunting. Well, she couldn’t blame him. He hadn’t laughed in her face, though, and that was something.
Quinn stood. “In the meantime, you behave yourself in here, Miss O’Malley,” he said, replacing his papers in the case. “Mind what they tell you, and you’ll have less trouble.”
Spoken like a man always on the strong side of the law, who’d never been subjected to the abuses of a place like this. Eliza gritted her teeth and looked away, rather than speak the words that might have undone all the good of a moment before. Quinn waited for her to say something, then sighed and went out, closing the door softly behind him.
A few minutes passed. Then the workhouse matron came back and unlocked her from the chair. Eliza cringed, thinking of the black cell and its ghost, but the woman took her back to where the rest of the inmates were rubbing their fingers raw, picking oakum. She fell to work gratefully, drinking in every bit of light as if it were water. If Quinn had arranged this, then she blessed him with her whole heart.