Cry for Passion (20 page)

A series of bongs penetrated the whine of carriage wheels and the inaudible motion of fidgeting bodies: It was twelve noon.

Sarah—taller than those who had mobbed the Old Bailey Courthouse—abruptly identified the gray-coated man and black-cloaked woman she had glimpsed on the corner of Old Bailey and Newgate: Rose Clarring and Jack Lodoun.

Promptly the vision was replaced with the postcard of a man fondling his penis.

He had told me that . . . that having intimacy without the hope of having children is like . . . is like what this man is doing, Rose Clarring had confessed during the meeting in which the club members had too late shared their emotions as well as their intellect.

And now Rose Clarring had found a man with whom she could share the intimacy for which she yearned.

Sarah wanted to warn her that she was not a widow like Frances Hart: A husband could inflict far more harm than either a son or a father. Sarah wanted to caution her that Jack Lodoun was not James Whitcox: But they had both seen that during the trial.

Sarah asked, simply, “What would you like to know?”

Rose Clarring matched her bluntness: “Is the Mensinga diaphragm as effective as a condom?”

“I don’t know,” Sarah truthfully replied, face ridiculously hot: Rose Clarring was consulting her as a physician, not as a woman. “But I believe that a Dutch cap is.”

“What is a Dutch cap?”

“It fits over the cervix.”

“Does not a diaphragm also fit over a woman’s cervix?”

Standing—chair shooting backward—Sarah rounded the sturdy table. Stepping behind Rose Clarring—wood creaked; she could feel the younger woman’s gaze following her—she grabbed a pamphlet out of a plain pine case crammed with books and papers.

The page she needed was dog-eared.

Silently she proffered the pamphlet.

Rose Clarring looked for long seconds at the two black-and-white illustrations.

“A Dutch cap can be left in position for several days,” Sarah gruffly expounded. “Unlike a diaphragm, it fits directly over the cervix.”

Glancing up—cheeks rouged with the heat that seared Sarah—Rose Clarring asked: “Can you measure me for this device?”

“No.” The contraceptives that were most effective were not affordable to those who most needed them: Sarah had neither the necessary equipment to make such a measurement nor the caps. “But I can direct you to a gynecologist who can.”

A whistle shrilled over the careening traffic, a bobby charged to protect the morals of London as well as the physical safety of her citizens.

Taking a deep breath—woman to woman—Sarah added, “And I will give you a pill to take if your monthly courses should ever be late.”

Chapter 21

A twelfth bong faded into the wafting grind of carriage wheels and the snick of a turning lock.

The outer door to the suite of offices had been breached.

Jack stared through thick glass at the city of London.

He did not see what he needed, view obstructed by ever-heightening buildings.

An almost inaudible click was chased by a draft of cool air.

Jack did not face the opening door. “How many people inhabit our great country, Mr. Dorsey?”

It was a rhetorical question: Jack knew the answer.

“At the last census, sir, we were twenty-five million, nine-hundred-seventy-three thousand, five hundred and thirty-nine.”

“And how many of those are women?” Jack asked.

Jack did not know the answer.

“Thirteen million, three-hundred-thirty-four thousand, five hundred and thirty-seven,” the clerk calmly responded.

“More than half,” Jack said neutrally.

“Nearly fifty-four percent, sir.”

A majority, yet the majority did not rule.

Dark motion caught Jack’s eye.

In the distance a pulley elevated a scaffold up the front of a brick building, one storey at a time. A man—arms like matchsticks—clung to invisible ropes.

The Saturday edition of The Daily Herald reported that a window washer had yesterday plummeted to the pavement and died.

He envisioned Rose Clarring standing on the scaffold.

“Do you support the women’s movement, Mr. Dorsey?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know, sir.”

The clerk’s ambivalence was shared by both men and women, statesmen and civilians.

When it is not necessary to make a decision, it is necessary not to make a decision.

“Seaton rang while you were out,” Jack said. The pulley stopped, scaffold swinging, man clinging. “I refused the Greffen situation.”

“I’ll send a letter extending our regrets,” Nathan Dorsey replied quietly. “Did Mr. Olsen make his eleven o’clock?”

“Yes.” Jack swivelled the leather chair around and faced the clerk. Slanting sunlight divided them. “He offered me fifteen hundred pounds if I would support his appointment to public office. Has Jonathon Clarring petitioned for the restitution of his conjugal rights?”

There was no surprise on the junior man’s face, either at the fact that Jack had been offered a bribe or at the change of subject. “No.”

So why didn’t Jack feel relieved?

“Which judge is most receptive to a writ of separation?”

“The Honorable Arthur Bellington.”

Jack was familiar with the name but not the man.

“He’s granted more separations than the other judges?”

“Yes.”

“How many children does he have?”

“Eight.”

Gladstone, the former prime minister, had eight children: A Liberal, he staunchly argued against divorce.

“Is the judge open to bribery?” Jack asked.

“The court clerks say he’s a conscientious man.”

Jack could be said to be a conscientious man. So, too, could James Whitcox.

They were both diligent at their work.

“Did you find any records of a separation that had been granted to a wife who lived apart from her husband?”

“No.”

Jack would win Rose a separation. But he did not know how.

“Did you talk to Frowt?” he pressed.

A private investigator.

“Yes, sir. He said he’d compile a report on Mr. Clarring as soon as possible.”

Nathan Dorsey had done all he could do; now it was up to Jack.

“Go home, Mr. Dorsey,” Jack said flatly.

“The letter to Mr. Seaton—”

“Will wait until Monday.”

Neither relief nor regret marked the clerk’s face. “Very good, sir.”

The clerk’s departure was a clicking closure.

First inside his office. Then inside his suite.

The dull throb inside Jack’s thighs and back was a pulsing reminder he no longer straddled the fence of ambivalence.

Standing, he locked his satchel inside his desk.

Brass winked.

Jack retrieved his coat and hat from the heavy, ornate coat tree.

He remembered the small brass coat tree that dominated Rose’s foyer.

She had said she didn’t regret their time together. But she had been naked in his arms. Regret, he thought, would occur when—fully dressed—she faced Jonathon Clarring inside a courtroom.

Jack locked the door to his office, and then the door to his suite. Gunmetal—the same metal as the hour hand on Big Ben—blackened the corridor. A push of a button catalyzed grinding gears and coiling cables.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Lodoun.” The opening cab revealed a navy-uniformed man; he did not smile. “Splendid day, sir.”

Would Rose still want splendid fucks, Jack wondered, if Jonathon Clarring offered her the intimacy she needed?

Jack stepped into the dully lit elevator. “Quite splendid, Mr. Applebaum.”

The drop of the lift brought home the fact that Jack did not know the man Rose loved.

He knew the pain Jonathon Clarring caused Rose. But he did not know the face that Rose carried in her mind while Jack occupied her body.

The cab opened to blinding light.

“Good evening, Mr. Lodoun,” trailed after him.

Jack pushed through a heavy glass-plated door. The noon sun warmed his face even as a cool breeze batted his hat.

A hansom waited at the front of the queue in the cab stand: Jack stepped up onto the iron rail.

“Where t’, gov’nur?”

Where could Jack find the knowledge he needed?

There was only one place that came to mind. “The London Stock Exchange.”

The cab door obliterated both light and air. A faint scent filled the dark cavity, sweeter than soap.

His cock hardened in realization of what he smelled: Rose’s skin; Rose’s sweat; Rose’s sex.

He wondered if Jonathon Clarring would recognize her scent.

The London Stock Exchange monopolized the greater triangle formed by the streets of Throgmorton, Bartholomew, Threadneedle and Old Broad. Carriages clogged the busy intersection. Men and women crowded the pavement, bowler hats bouncing, bonnets bobbing. Footsteps irrevocably marching forward.

Jack tossed the cabby a florin.

Inside the newly expanded building light poured through a glass-domed ceiling.

Men and women congregated around a rectangular column. Men formed circles in front of a bank of elevators.

Impervious to the consequences of his actions—he a man who lived for the public—Jack punched a bronze button.

Metal clanged metal, a cab descending a wire cable. Metal slammed metal, the elevator door opening.

“Which floor, sir?” cheerfully enquired a burgundy-uniformed man.

He did not recognize Jack. And why should he? Jack ironically thought. This was the world of finance, Jonathon Clarring’s world.

Jack stepped into the cab; his reflection inside a bronzed mirror stepped toward him. “Whichever floor where I can find Jonathon Clarring.”

“That’ll be the fifth, sir.”

The elevator opened onto luxurious burgundy carpeting. Crystal wall sconces flickered in artfully subdued shadows.

“That way, sir,” the lift man offered, pointing.

Jack stalked his quarry.

A third mahogany door sported a bronze nameplate.

Silently he turned a white porcelain doorknob. Silently the door swung inward.

A woman with dull brown hair twisted in a loose topknot leaned over a typewriter; she jerked upright in surprise. “May I help you?”

Jack stared at the young woman for long seconds: She was in the latter stages of pregnancy.

Blushing a painful crimson, she glanced downward, clearly embarrassed by her condition.

The dull pain inside his thighs and back traveled up to his chest.

“I’m here to see Jonathon Clarring,” Jack said, voice expressionless.

He did not know if he hid his emotion, or if he had no emotion to show.

The young woman glanced up: There was no knowledge of his identity inside the hazel eyes that shone with good health and pregnancy. “I’m afraid Mr. Clarring has no appointments today, Mr. . . . ?”

This was a game Jack was not going to play.

“Blair Stromwell referred me,” he said, giving the name of the Chairman of Justice, a man known by all of England.

The woman’s eyes widened in recognition. “Of course. Perhaps Mr. Clarring can spare a few moments. If you’ll be seated . . .”

“Of course,” Jack echoed.

He remained standing.

Flushing darker yet, the young woman hurried from behind the secretarial desk, blue wool skirts swishing. Briefly she knocked on a massive mahogany door before opening it and slipping inside Jonathon Clarring’s office.

A faint murmur leaked through the crack.

Instantly the door opened wide.

The pregnant woman—Jack estimated her between seven and eight months—pressed her back against the mahogany wood; awkwardly she gestured. “If you’ll step through here, sir.”

Jack stepped over the threshold.

Sunlight illuminated the spacious office, glanced off expensive bronze and crystal. It silvered fine brown hair that was devoid of gold or red highlights.

It took only a second for Jonathon Clarring to recognize Jack.

“Close the door, Mrs. Jacobson.”

There was no emotion inside the sky blue eyes.

Not of a man’s grief, for the children he could not sire. Not of a man’s betrayal, married to a woman who had in the eyes of the public cuckolded him.

The door closed behind Jack with a soft thud.

“Have you now come to subpoena me, Mr. Lodoun?” Jonathon Clarring asked.

Jack studied the man who had spurt his “love” inside Rose.

Jonathon Clarring was thirty-three; Jack was forty-four. Jonathon Clarring was smoothly shaven; Jack’s long sideburns fanned out into side whiskers.

The two men had nothing whatsoever in common, save for one woman.

“I’ve come on behalf of your wife,” Jack said.

The pain that flashed through Jonathon Clarring’s eyes almost buckled Jack’s knees.

The younger man—Jack wondered if he had ever looked that young—leaned back into dark mahogany leather and closed his eyes.

The wafting whine of carriage wheels interspersed the sharp cries of street vendors.

Jack pictured Jonathon Clarring proposing to Rose with the demand for children. Jack pictured Jonathon Clarring bedding Rose—both of them children still—on their wedding night.

Jack pictured Jonathon Clarring visiting Rose on the eve of Christmas, hoping for a miracle baby.

The image of the pregnant secretary laid down between husband and wife.

Jack harshly asked: “Is it yours?”

“I am sterile.” Jonathon Clarring opened his eyelids. Jack stared into blue eyes that contained neither greed, nor malice, nor hunger for power. “As you know.”

Jack swallowed fleeting disappointment, no less bitter for its passage.

It would have been so much simpler if Rose were the one who was sterile, and Jonathon Clarring had impregnated his secretary.

He remembered the words with which Rose had battered him.

“Do you imagine the child is yours when you fuck your secretary?” Jack asked.

“I have not, nor will I ever touch Mrs. Jacobson.” Jonathon Clarring did not flinch at Jack’s deliberate crudeness. “Can you say the same about my wife?”

Jack would not lie. “No.”

Pain dilated his pupils; Jonathon Clarring remained calm. “I will not divorce Rose.”

“Even though you know she’s fucking another man?” Jack goaded, wanting to pierce the calm and find the man who had made Rose laugh with happiness.