After Clay was deposited in a jail cell, Cabe made his way back to the St. James Hostelry where Janice Dirker fawned over him, though nothing was really injured but his pride.
“You’re lucky to be alive, Mr. Cabe,” she kept saying as she drew him a bath. “Just darn lucky.”
“Well, the fact that I am…well, it’s your husband’s doing.”
“Jackson is a very dutiful man,” was all she would say on the matter.
Cabe had his bath and when he went back to his room, planning on taking a nice long nap while he had the chance, Janice was waiting for him there. She had changed his sheets and bedclothes, had built a little fire in the corner stove. It felt nice in there, warm and comfortable.
“Earlier this evening,” she said, “a man came to see you.”
Cabe laid on the bed. “Not another one of the Clays?”
“No. Nothing like that. This one was a very polished gentleman, said his name was Freeman.”
Cabe sat up. “Freeman?”
“Yes. Is that a problem?”
Cabe wanted to lie, but he couldn’t bring himself to. He told her who and what Freeman was, how he and Dirker had almost got him.
Janice looked decidedly pale, but recovered herself nicely as only a Southern lady could. “Well, yes, but I’m no prostitute.”
“He could’ve killed you nonetheless.”
And Cabe was figuring that was exactly what he’d had in mind. Freeman knew Cabe was after him and what better way to rub defeat in Cabe’s face than to not only slip away, but to slaughter the only woman in town he’d truly befriended.
Janice said, “He told me, told me to tell you…”
But it was getting to her now. Even all that breeding couldn’t fight the fear of what could have happened. Of what her death might have become. There was no getting around that. She allowed herself to be held and Cabe held her, liking the feel of her and smelling the wonderful musk of her flesh that no perfume could hope to mask.
“Tell me,” he said after a time.
She breathed deeply. “He said to tell you that he’s off for parts unknown. That you should not follow him…but, but to watch for signs of his work in other places in the years to come.”
“Did he say anywhere particular?”
“London. He said, in the coming years he would be busy in London.”
But then none of it seemed to matter and all those months of hunting seemed trivial. Freeman had spared Janice and Cabe didn’t know why and could never truly guess, but it was enough. Enough then as she flowed into his arms and they melted together into a delicious pool of something seething and moist that was made of flesh and limbs and hot, seeking mouths. And then it was done and they lay naked in one another’s arms, each speechless in the warm afterglow.
And each wondering, wondering, where it could possibly take them.