Time & Tide - Original Wattpad Version

Chapter Thirty-Three: In Which Jessie Makes a Homecoming

"There was a burglar in my room," I told the milk-faced policeman who was sitting in 'my' bedroom, dabbing my eyes. Around me, the room certainly looked like it had been hastily toppled, vanity rifled, jewelry box overturned. Though I couldn't tell you whether or not anything was actually missing - I hadn't owned the stuff long enough to know the catalog of its contents by heart. "He was trying to steal my jewellery. We surprised him in coming back upstairs so early - you see, Dear George and I were just married! He didn't expect us to be in the house, and George, he... the burglar pushed dear George out, into the hall you see and he-- he--!"

Okay, yeah, so maybe I was laying on a little thick, but the shock had finally set in. I had, effectively, committed murder. I mean, was it premeditated? No. Did I mean to hurt Mr. Lewis? Yes.

Did I regret it?

I didn't know.

Honestly, I didn't. But I was pale, and shaking, and Susan kept reappearing with cups of tea and finally a cut-crystal glass of sherry, and reassuring pats on the shoulder, and kind murmured words and she looked... she looked relaxed.

Fuck. She looked happy.

And it was all, "Yes ma'am," and "Of course, Mrs. Lewis," and "You poor dear." It was one hell of a performance. And when the policeman asked about the state of her face, she said the burglar backhanded her, and when he asked about mine, she clucked and chirped over me, saying it wasn't kind of the ruffian to lay hand on her Mistress as well, how dare, a gentlewoman struck so, which sent the policeman into tizzies of indignation and wow, was I glad that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle hadn't been born yet.

By the time the cops and coroner had cleared out, and someone had scrubbed down the steps, dusk had fallen and Susan had somehow arranged for a cold dinner to be served in the dining room for "Mrs. Lewis" and her guests.

"Guests?" I asked, as she helped me out of the hateful pink dress and into something black. Jesus, more fucking black. And I would have to wear it for six months, Susan explained. Well. "More police?"

"No, Ma'am," Susan said. "My letter, it seems, got through."

Letter.

Francis and his navy friends. Too little too late. No need for Francis' sword now, but better late than never. They can at least help us make sure Francis doesn't get punished.

I barely let Susan finish lacing up the back of the dress before I was downstairs like a shot. I leapt over the last step, still damp from it's cleaning, and rushed down the hall toward the big dining room. Along with the corpse, the servants all vanished to different parts of the house. I hoped it was to take as much portable wealth as they could find and stuff it into their own luggage. They bloody well deserved it.

But when I got to the dining room, there wasn't a gaggle of sailors and men in blue coats with their swords out, ready to defend the honor of one of their own. I had sent out the letters not only to Francis, but to his the inn where young Mr. Fletcher and his ilk were staying on land, too - and each letter decrying Judge Lewis and his cruel manipulation of the law to trick and blackmail poor Post-Captain Goodenough. It was the only way I could think of to get a bunch of blades in this house, and between me and my asshole husband.

But none of those blades were here. Instead, the room was occupied only by a woman in a plum-colored dress and bonnet. At first I had assumed it was Rose, for the lady was dressed in a similar travelling gown, her bonnet the same pale straw. But no, I knew that golden curl that peeked out at the nape of her neck. Then the woman turned, and I was struck full-force by the look of desperate relief in a beautiful pair of moonstone-blue eyes.

"Margaret," I said. My voice crackled, tight and dry in my throat. The world, which had been shifting constantly under my feet for the last day, seemed to suddenly lurch once and then completely still. Grounded. The vague burning ache that had lived behind my heart for the last two weeks was quenched by the way her smile curled in the corner of her mouth.