Chapter 29

TWENTY-NINE

John never did get any rest that night. He and Edward spoke for a long time over a bottle of the very fine whisky, and when the leader of the Limehouse Gang went home with the light of dawn limning the edges of the rooftops, John also left. For the first time in his life, he allowed himself to hope, and he made the journey to Bradford House on foot, as the streets were still empty, with only a few delivery vehicles beginning to make their rounds.

He did not make his way to the back door this time, choosing instead to ring the bell at the front, rubbing his hands together in excitement as he waited for Harris. He had already decided, over his glass of whisky with Edward, that he was going to go with Violet. If she’d have him, he would go to Paris so she would never have to give up her art, and he was bursting with the need to tell her. The door opened a few moments later and the butler looked relieved as he spotted John standing beneath the portico.

“Ah, detective inspector, how good to see you. We are all so very relieved to have Miss Clara home safely. We must thank you, of course, for your quick response and getting those fiendish kidnappers off the streets,” the older man said with a fierce scowl as he guided John towards the drawing room.

“I am relieved as well, Harris,” he replied as he plucked the derby hat from his head.

“Please, allow me to fetch Lady Bradford – I know she wanted to speak with you.”

John nodded as the butler departed, and, too anxious to sit, he made his way around the room, absently tracing the edge of the limestone mantel and glancing out of the tall windows to watch the snow swirling in gentle eddies across the empty street. He gave a little smile at the wintry scene beyond the rippled panes of glass, feeling lighter than he had in ages, longing to run to the bottom of the stairs and shout Violet’s name, to pull her into his arms and tell her the wonderful news.

Thus, he turned with a grin as the door opened to reveal Lady Bradford, wearing a simple floral wrapper, her dark hair hastily pinned up on the top of her head. Her pale blue eyes were sunken with exhaustion, but she offered a wan smile as she crossed the room.

“I was going to stop at Scotland Yard this afternoon to speak with you, but I’m glad you’re here, detective inspector.”

He chuckled. “I am almost certain that it was three years ago now that I asked you to call me John.”

Her smile brightened and she nodded. “Of course… John. And you must call me Della. I still do struggle with the titles, you know.” She paused and her expression grew solemn as she reached for his hand. “I wanted to thank you for helping get our Clara back safely. Cole hasn’t left her side since we brought her home last night. He’s still sleeping with her – he’s never going to forgive himself for allowing that to happen.”

John shook his head. “He couldn’t have known – I had thought the whole raid was in hand until Bess warned me. But you’re very welcome. Though, most of the credit should really be given to Miss Latimer.” He paused and glanced towards the door. “Is she… awake, by any chance? I have a few things I must discuss with her. About the operation,” he added quickly. It was only when Della looked up at him with a softly sympathetic expression, that his heart plummeted, and his chest tightened.

“John… she left.”

“Left?” For a moment, the words confused him. She was supposed to be here; she was taking the afternoon train. Della gave a somber nod.

“Yes… not an hour ago. She wanted to be on the earliest train.”

For a moment, John was speechless, and he stared down at Violet’s friend with his mouth agape before he finally shook his head.

“I don’t understand… was she not to take the afternoon train? I had wanted to… say goodbye. And to thank her.”

Della’s lips pressed together, and her shoulders lifted in an apologetic shrug. “I’m sorry. She was rather… shaken… by what happened last night. She came home after speaking with your sergeant and gathered her things. She left for Charing Cross soon after.”

John was already turning and jamming his hat back on his head as he made for the front door, and just as he was reaching for the lever, Della’s hand stayed him, and he turned to face her.

“The first train leaves in half an hour.” Her expression was knowing, and he gave her a quick nod before he tugged the door open and stepped out onto the portico.

By now, John’s heart was in his throat as he raced through the gates and out into the street, searching frantically for a hansom cab, cursing when he found naught but drays with morning deliveries and a single rider on a great black gelding. He cursed into the quiet of the snowfall, but there was nothing for it. He ran.

It was the same train, and the same hollow feeling as when she had arrived here in this very station only a few months’ past. But so much had changed in that time – so why did she feel so empty? She should have been sad, or heartbroken, or even angry – but she felt nothing. Violet sighed as she stood upon the platform at Charing Cross, staring as the train which would take her back to Paris pulled into the station with a deafening whistle, its wheels squealing as they slowed, smoke billowing all around her.

She had spoken to Della in the wee hours of the morning to tell her that she must go; that she wanted to be on the first train out of London bound for Dover. She couldn’t bear the thought of seeing John again and having to say goodbye. Perhaps Della was right… maybe John wasn’t the sort to judge, but Culpepper’s words had cut her so deeply that she couldn’t bear to know the truth, regardless of what it was. And there was the other truth in what he had said: she had been a prostitute. And if John was seen to be having a relationship with her, he would suffer for it, perhaps even lose the career he had worked so hard for; the one which would help to ease the guilt of his sister’s death. Violet would not be the one to hold him back, no matter how much he had hurt her.

And even as she clung to the idea that John had never felt anything for her, it didn’t stop the terrible ache of leaving behind something she had never thought she could have again: love. She closed her eyes to hold back the threat of tears as the train finally came to a screeching halt. The doors opened for the passengers to depart, and Violet stood on the platform, her single suitcase in hand, as they flowed around her, voices blurring together as she thought of John’s last words to her: You are an artist, Violet Latimer. And you always have been .

She cursed under her breath as a single tear slipped down her cheek. Finally, the porters were calling for the train to be boarded, and Violet dragged in a long, shaking breath, straightened her shoulders, and marched forward. Her only consolation in leaving would be a return to her art, and her new source of inspiration. It would no longer just be railyards and factories. Violet was ready to capture the people just like her; the people who had grown up with nothing and who had no voices to speak for them. She was ready to show the world that, even if men like Culpepper did not think so, people like Violet were worthy – of love, of hope, of something better.

Violet clung to her newfound inspiration as she stepped aboard and found an empty seat. She set her suitcase down beside her and finally leaned her head back and closed her aching eyes with a sigh. She supposed she would rest the whole way to Dover as she had not slept in a frighteningly long time, and she was exhausted down to her very bones. It seemed fitting, then, to be leaving as she had arrived – sleep addled aboard a train, with naught but her suitcase and a broken heart.

She shifted in her seat as the train filled, smoothing down her skirts and trying to make herself comfortable in anticipation of a much-needed nap, when her fingers trailed over a sharp bump in her left pocket. Realizing what it was, she opened her eyes and reached in for the item. It was the envelope Edward Brill had given her at the party. A proposal, as he had called it. She had shoved it into her pocket without much thought earlier that morning as she had changed out of her lush emerald evening gown and had not had a moment to actually read the thing. She slid a fingernail beneath the seal and withdrew a sheet of paper before unfolding it and beginning to read.

John’s legs burned and his chest throbbed, but he did not stop, and he did not slow as he raced up The Mall, dodging early shoppers and workers, too terrified that if he stopped to check the time, he would miss her; he would never get the chance to tell her he loved her and that he wanted to be with her. Always.

His arms pumped wildly, and his lungs heaved as he pushed himself faster, faster, heedless of the shouts of disapproval and the glares that followed in his wake. Soon, the great iron roof of the train station came into view over the tops of the other buildings, now dusted with snow, and then the elaborate fa?ade was revealed as he finally reached the building, swerving to avoid a newspaper stand, past the tower dubbed the Eleanor Cross, and up the stairs into the station. His pulse pounded in his ears, and he found himself whispering under his breath, “Please, please, please.” A whistle sounded from the platforms beyond the ticket counter and panic was settling its claws into him as he darted around a group of waiting passengers to throw his hands down upon the counter.

“Dover,” he gasped to the shocked gentleman behind the bars. “What platform for the train to Dover? Police business,” he added, glancing anxiously towards the inside of the station.

“Platform three, sir—” the man started to reply, but John was already off again, sparing only a glance for the signs which directed him down a set of stairs to reach platform three. He was down them in a flash, his chest now throbbing from running flat out for… how long had it been? The train had been due to depart half an hour after he left Bradford House. Wild now, he searched for the sign for platform three, found it, and let his gaze fall… to an empty track.

He stared. “No…” was all he could say, the word ripped from a heaving chest as he gaped, breathless, at the space where the train had been. He turned, looked out of the large opening to the platforms, and there it was, a smudge of black with a puff of smoke rising from the top, nearing the point where the track disappeared into the distance.

“No,” he said again, shaking his head in disbelief. He walked, his legs shaking, towards the vanishing train, gasping for air, but soon it was gone. She was gone. He rubbed a hand over his face, closed his eyes, and looked once more. There was not even a trace of smoke to be seen.

Violet was gone, and she had left thinking that her past was an embarrassment to him; that she was not loved. Worse, that she was undeserving of it. His face was burning and the muscles in his legs were quaking, and so he slowly lowered himself onto a nearby bench and dropped his face into his hands, finally taking a moment to catch his breath as a crushing ache settled in his chest; the guilt of not having told her how he had felt. Just as he hadn’t told Lucy.

“No,” he whispered into his fingers, closing his eyes against a wave of anguish and the cold it left in its wake. He sat on that bench for a long time, cursing himself for a coward and a fool, until the snow began to drift onto the platforms.

“John?” came a sudden, soft voice behind him, and he whirled in his seat.

It was Violet, her suitcase clutched in front of her, looking down at him with a confused expression. John leaped up from his seat, shocked and elated she was still here. Her eyes were red-rimmed – from exhaustion or crying he could not tell, and was hurt to think it was either – so he said what he should have already told her, what he had been terrified to think she might have left without hearing:

“I love you, Violet.”

Her whole countenance changed at those words. The pinched, weary look dissipated and her eyes widened as her cheeks warmed. His heart thundered in terrible anticipation, worried that he was too late, that she had already taken Culpepper’s words to heart and whatever he said would not matter. After what seemed an eternity, during which he was barely aware of the world around them and the chill in the air, her lips turned up in a hesitant smile and she slowly set down her suitcase before she launched herself into his arms.

John caught her with a noise somewhere between laughter and a sob, and he held her. Even with his muscles quivering and his chest heaving, he held her, and there were a thousand other things he wanted to tell her, but he couldn’t even think, so great was his relief, and so he simply tightened his hold on her. She said nothing, either, just melted into him and buried her face in his chest with a long, shaky sigh.

When the platform began to grow busy once more and the whistle of another train arriving broke through the quiet of the snow-filled morning, they finally drew apart, though John still held her gloved hands.

“I thought you’d left,” he whispered, his heart still racing inside his chest as he looked down upon her, at the emerald eyes which he so loved, as the relief still pulsed through him. “I thought I had lost the chance… to tell you…”

Her lips, so lush and pink, curved up just a little as she stared up at him and he couldn’t help it. Surrounded by strangers who would most certainly disapprove, he leaned down and pressed his mouth to hers, joy and relief bubbling through him. When he pulled back, just enough to murmur against the soft curve of her cheek, he knew with absolute certainty of the truth when he spoke the words again, “I love you.”

Her eyes were shining as she touched her fingers to his face and smiled. “I love you, John. And I’m gonna stay.”

John blinked and he frowned, confused. “Stay? No, I came to tell you I would go with you. To Paris.”

And now it was Violet who frowned, furrowing her lovely brow. “No, John. You worked so hard for your position?—”

“I’m leaving. I’m leaving the police. Culpepper told me what he said to you…”

Violet’s mouth flattened into a hard line, her expression hardening as he caught her hands in his and squeezed them.

“I will not continue to work for someone who thinks that I would be diminished by loving you, when that couldn’t be further from the truth. I am better for it, and I was devastated to think you had left without knowing that.”

Violet swallowed and closed her eyes before she shook her head. “John, I’m stayin’ because I have seen the good you’re doin’ for others.” She looked up at him. “I will not take that from you. I can paint anywhere,” she added with a smile and this time, it was John who shook his head.

“And I can do good for others anywhere. There are people in need of help in Paris just as there are here. I spoke with Mr. Brill last night?—”

He stopped when she withdrew a sheet of paper from her pocket and held it out to him.

“I, too, have spoken with Mr. Brill,” she said with a little smile, as he took the paper, bemused, and started to read. After a moment, he looked up, unable to hide his wide grin.

“A commission?”

She nodded eagerly.

“But what of Paris? Violet, all you’ve wanted was to go back. You almost got yourself killed to go back.”

Violet only smiled. “And you did everythin’ you could so I could go back, as well, didn’t you? You made sure there was nothin’ keeping me here. That’s why you didn’t tell me you loved me before… I see that, now.”

John swallowed. “I wanted to tell you a long time ago… I should have told you I loved you, from the moment I knew.”

“But you didn’t want me to have to make that choice.”

He only shook his head, and she raised herself up to touch her mouth to his.

“And you don’t have to. I’m choosin’ this. I’m choosin’ my art, the art Mr. Brill will pay me to make, because it can help, too. He wants me to show the world what life is like in the rookeries – all the very worst of it, and the best of it, so people can see for themselves. I’m doin’ this for me… and I’m doin’ it to help you. Because I want to.”

John only held her hands tighter, as though he could implore her to change her mind through that alone. “Violet, you hate it here. Paris was your fresh start… I want you to have that.”

Violet only gave the smallest of smiles and reached up to touch his cheek. “I’m stayin’, John. Culpepper and the lot of them don’t matter – if you love me for all that I am, and all that I was, that’s good enough for me.” She laughed, the sound as bright as summer among the snow now whipping about them in the wake of the arriving train. “Edward Brill is gonna pay me more than your superintendent makes in a whole bloody year – what do I care what he thinks of me?” She bit her lip and gave him another little smile that made his whole chest throb with want. “Say it again,” she whispered.

John breathed out. “I love you, Violet Latimer.”

And Violet Latimer, hard-nosed, hard-raised and utterly perfect, giggled at the words.

“And I love you, John Barrow.” She raised a brow. “But if you’re leavin’ the police, what else are you gonna do?”

He gave an exaggerated shrug and finally stepped away, boldly taking her hand in his as they turned to leave the platform. “I believe Mr. Brill has been playing matchmaker with us. We spoke last night, and I shared my reservations about returning to Whitehall. He has been wanting to expand his empire for some time now, and that includes his own foundation… he asked me if I would like to join him, in whatever capacity I deemed appropriate. Wherever I deemed appropriate.” He looked over at Violet as they stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “I told him I would be honoured, and that I would be more than happy to accept a position… as long as it was in Paris. So I could be with you.”

Violet chuckled and raised herself up to touch her mouth to his.

“He is quite the matchmaker, isn’t he? I always suspected he knew more than he was lettin’ on.”

John’s smile faded as he tightened his grip on her hands.

“Just know, Violet… should you ever change your mind, should you ever want to go back to France, I will be with you…” He paused as the idea came to him, so suddenly it almost took his breath, and yet, so very obvious. He smiled. “Marry me, then, Violet. I will go with you to the ends of the earth, wherever it is you want to make your art, as long as we do it together.”

She stared up at him, her eyes wide in disbelief as other passengers bustled past them, but he was hardly aware of them as the corners of her mouth hitched up in the faintest of smiles.

“You wanna marry me ?” She spoke as though she could hardly believe him, and he reached up to touch her cheek, not able to hold back the laughter bubbling up inside him.

“I do. I don’t think I’ve wanted anything more in my life.”

Her eyes were still wide. “I never thought that I’d…” She trailed off, swallowing as her eyes began to glisten and he leaned down close to murmur against her ear.

“I would consider myself a very lucky man indeed, if you were my wife. And I fully intend to spend the remainder of my days showing you that you are loved, Violet Latimer.”

And finally, she smiled, and she squeezed his hand.

“Then my answer is yes. I’ll marry you, John.” She laughed again, the sound like bells ringing, and he caught her in his arms to press his mouth to hers, his hopelessness, his uncertainty about his future demolished with those few words. Whatever he did going forward – with the police, or with Edward Brill, or anything else – he would do it with her.

“I love you, Violet,” he whispered again, “I love you, and I’m so sorry that you spent even a moment doubting it.”

Her smile was bright as she looked up at him. “I’ll never doubt it again.”