The Timeseer's Gambit (The Faraday Files Book 2) (61 page)

The doctor smiled.

Olivia turned an expasperated expression onto Chris. He didn’t know what expression he returned, but it
did
make her laugh out loud.

“What do you think of that, Doctor?” she asked.

“I think… I think that sounds like a dream come true.”

“Then your carriage awaits, good doctor. You’ll be leaving immediately.”

When they reached the two women waiting outside, Miss Banks rushed up to Chris and grabbed his hands in both of hers. “Are you quite all right, Christopher?” she asked, her dark eyes scanning his face. “You certainly put yourself at risk for our efforts, didn’t you?”

“I’m quite all right,” Chris said, lying through the best smile he could manage. He felt nothing close to all right.

Maris glared at him furiously as Miss Banks approached the good doctor. He tried to avoid her gaze but it burned into him.
It was the right thing
, he wanted to say to her, but he couldn’t get the words out, and knew they would do nothing even if he could. He felt the tenuous friendship they’d formed over the past three months splintering. Would she ever understand? Perhaps not.

“Don’t tell me you’re so sour about this you’re off to Summergrove yourself,” Olivia asked, sauntering up to the officer.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Maris snapped, focusing her sharp gaze on Olivia. Chris felt immediate relief when it was away from him. “I simply don’t intend to let Em ride off into the countryside with a man half of Tarland still wants to see
dead.”

“How protective,” Olivia said.

“Sod off.” Maris’s clipped voice held none of its usual fond exasperation. Olivia extended a hand to her. Maris stared at it for a moment and then turned away, climbing up into the carriage. “Get him up, Em,” she said. “We haven’t got all day.”

Miss Banks stopped before them. She gave Olivia an apologetic look. “I’ll try and work on her,” she said quietly, pushing up her specs. “But she won’t even tell me what, exactly, has happened that has her so angry with the two of you.”

Olivia sighed and shrugged one shoulder. “Don’t bother,” she said. “Maris will work through it on her own time. She always does.”

They stood in the rain and watched the carriage vanish down the road, splashing water in all directions as it went. And then they silently made their way back inside, soaking wet.

“I really did never want to get involved in the whole affair,” Olivia said morosely, sinking into the nearest chair. “And now I’m helping shelter a miniature reformist movement in my own girlhood home.” She sighed.

Chris shook his head. His thoughts were racing and he tried to let his mind catch up with all that had just happened. “Olivia. Gods. Albany―I was completely taken in. I
knew
what he was, and somehow I was
still
completely taken in. He used Rachel like a prybar and I just
let
him. I almost gave up Rosemary!”

Olivia carefully arranged her skirts. She was still wearing her gown from the previous night, a ridiculous, glittering ball gown sitting in his parlour as the sun set on Darrington City. “Well,” she said. “You’re very fortunate that Livingstone’s wife remembered your name when we visited his abode.”

“What the bloody hell did I miss?” Chris demanded. “Your mother―wants to shelter Livingstone in Summergrove? Won’t that draw attention?”

“Emilia heard from contacts of Maris’s that the Doctor was being released tonight. No reporters, no frenzy. Quietly, from a back door. After how embarrassing this has turned out to be, the traditionalists wanted it kept quiet almost as much as the good doctor himself did. So, I went with Em to the doctor’s home because I was busy trying to convince Maris to arrest Elisabeth Kingsley.” Olivia’s lips folded into a line. “Which I did not manage successfully. My voice can never outweigh Emilia’s with Maris, and Emilia wanted this all… quiet.”

“Then…” Chris reeled. “Then she just… went free?”

Olivia smiled faintly. “No,” she said, sadly. “No, absolutely not. Something had to be done about her, didn’t it? Emilia’s idea was actually quite fair. I just hate having to mark a case unsolved.”

“And Emilia’s idea?”

Olivia pulled a folded paper out of her reticule and passed it to Chris. He unfolded it. Beautiful, neat handwriting spread out before him.

Dear Mister Buckley,

I can never thank you enough for what you did. I wanted to die in that moment. I wanted everyone to die with me. It just all caught up with me, suddenly. I’d killed Lachlan, my Youth, and how could I continue living?

But somehow, you made me see. Life is better than death. And atonement is better than running. I will have time to pray to Maiden and Youth for forgiveness at the place Miss Banks is taking me. She says that it is comfortable, and that the staff are kind, and that I will be well taken care of. And that they will… help me.

I should feel guilt for the others I killed. I do realize that. Murder is the worst of sins, no matter the reason. Timothy, Virginia, Georgiana, Jason. My head should be bowed in shame for what I did to each of them. But despite knowing that, I feel nothing but pride. And I know that makes me… broken.

Miss Banks understands. She says it is better if I am away from people, and opportunities to hurt them.

She is right.

Please do visit me sometime, once I am allowed visitors. You are a good person, Christopher Buckley. I will pray for your friend, as well. The man who raised you. I will pray for your peace as well as my own.

Maiden’s Blessings,

Elisabeth Kingsley

Chris lowered the letter. “An asylum,” he murmured.

Olivia made a vague sound in the back of her throat. “Emilia knows a place. Somewhere humane. Gentle. This way, the disruptor never has to go into any reports, and mad Sister Elisa doesn’t live with the stain of being a murderer.” She stuck out her tongue and twisted her face as if she’d bit into a lemon. “Though I
swear
, Maris is
not
allowed to be angry at us anymore. My record is nearly
perfect
and she’s putting a black smudge right on it! My first serial murder and I’m not even allowed to say that I
solved
it?”

Chris smiled faintly. “I… I think this is probably for the best.” He folded the note, wincing as his burn bent in an unfortunate angle. “I really don’t think that Miss Kingsley is a bad person. She’s just… just a
broken
one.”

“I suppose,” Olivia said noncommittally. “Though
you’re
certainly quick to forget that she attempted to kill you.”

He could picture the stricken look on her face as she held the disruptor up to the bathtub perfectly. He shook his head. “It wasn’t anything personal,” he said quietly. He took a deep breath and straightened. “Well.” He tried to sound brighter. Less like he needed to sleep for hours. What he’d done to Elisa… it had taken everything out of him. “The status of your record notwithstanding, I suppose that’s that.” He smiled faintly. “To tell it true, I’m sorry I missed the end of it. Logistics though it may have been.”

“Hmm,” Olivia hummed. “Logistics indeed. You didn’t miss much of anything and, well. You had other things to worry about.” She gave him a look.

Chris glanced away. “I… yes,” he said.

“And is it settled?”

He laughed quietly. “Gods, Olivia,” he murmured. “Not even a little. You―” He closed his eyes. Swallow it down, he told himself, but he couldn’t. He understood how Sister Elisa had felt. Sometimes, you just needed to speak of something. Keeping it inside of you just made it bigger. Wise or foolish, the words had to come out. “I don’t know what’s happening to me,” he said quietly.

“I thought we were talking about William,” Olivia said, tapping her fingers on her knee.

Chris smiled weakly. “We are. I―” He had to avert his eyes, close them. “I kissed him,” he murmured. “Gods, I kissed him
twice
. I’d kiss him again if he were right here. I don’t know why―why I can feel that way toward him, and then, at the same time, Miss Albany…”

His eyes fluttered open. He looked at Olivia. He waited for her to mock him. She said nothing. Just watched. He breathed.

“I don’t think he and I should―that is, I don’t know what―” He closed his eyes. “I don’t know what I want. No, I do know. But I don’t―I
can’t
do it. What Maris and Miss Banks do. I can’t be that strong. Miss Albany is lovely, I care about her, she’s
safer
, it would just―it would just be so much easier.” He ran his hands through his hair. He fisted them. “Ah, but she might as well be a world away, and I kissed him twice and I
still
couldn’t tell him that we shouldn’t see one another anymore!” He spread his fingers. He looked up. “If he and I keep being around one another, I’m just going to keep on… but I
still
…”

Would that be so bad?
He heard it in Olivia’s voice, and he paused and waited for her to say it. She didn’t.

“You’re not telling me what to do,” he said. It came out sounding like a plea.

“I think I probably shouldn’t.” Olivia sighed. “Not in this case, at least. Though I am biting my tongue so hard I think it’s bleeding.”

“Say something, then,” Chris pressed, and Olivia folded her lips and shook her head. Chris balled his hands into fists. “What if I
want
you to?” he demanded. “What if I have no idea what to do, about anything at all, even a little bit, and I just need you to help me? I can’t lose him. He’s the only friend I have. Everyone else
leaves
me, like Georgie, like Fernand, and―” And his voice broke. He took his time. Swallowed slowly. “Gods Olivia,” he finally whispered, hoarse. “I’m just so
lonely
.”

There was a long silence. And then, finally:

“I’m thirty-five.”

Chris looked up.

Olivia was flushing, averting her eyes from him. “My flat is a block from the office. It’s tiny. There are a lot of throw blankets. I do love throw blankets when I’m up late, thinking about a case. I have two cats. They have very silly names. I won’t tell them to you.”

“I―”

“I’m a very private person, Christopher,” she said. “Do you understand that?”

Slowly, Chris nodded.

Olivia sighed. “But I suppose… I suppose there comes a time when maintaining your
privacy
becomes… shutting people out. People you would rather have
in
.” She curled a lock of wet hair around one finger. She shrugged. “It’s not like me, is it? Growing fond. Growing close. Not even my mother knows about the cats. But. Well. It is what it is. Here’s the truth. You’re lonely? Well. Well, maybe I am, too. Maybe I have been for a long time. Maybe I was waiting for the one person in Tarland I can put up with long enough to assuage it.”

He didn’t know what to say.

She spared him having to find something. She straightened, putting her hands in her lap, and asked, very primly. “Well, then. As your friend-person, I declare that if you need some time apart while you put yourself in order, who am I to say that isn’t perfectly legitimate? I’ll do my best while you’re at it. So. What do you and William usually do together?”

Chris smiled.

“Cards,” he said.

Olivia nodded. “Right, then,” she said. And, shockingly, she produced a deck from her reticule. “Rummy. I’ll deal, Christopher. Clear the table, won’t you?”

And he did.

Thanks to my family, my friends, and my Elzie. Everyone who I mentioned in The Deathsniffer’s Assistant was as much a part of this one. I still couldn’t have gotten this far without all these people who mean the world to me, and I’m eternally grateful to the whole lot of you.

Love to everyone in irc who read the book early, gave me honest feedback, and were ready at the drop of a hat to go digging through book one to find someone’s eye colour because I keep terrible notes. Writing is so damn hard in a vacuum, but you guys make me feel like I’m not just flinging words into a dark corridor during the long birthing period that is writing a novel.

Special thanks goes to my dear friend Willfor and to late night host Jay Leno. I refuse to write anything I don’t understand, and I don’t understand a damn thing about engines! Only Leno’s youtube channel showcasing old steam cars and Willfor’s patient help explaining the particulars let me do any justice to Emilia’s brilliant mind. I don’t have the head for logistics, and Willfor, bless him, eats logistics for breakfast. I think I’d be like 70% less smart without him.