The Bachelor Girl's Guide to Murder (33 page)

“I bet I am not as charming a companion as Gavin Crawley.”

“He was awfully charming through
Figaro.
He kept leaning over and making sure I knew that the piece made a
bold statement on the human condition.
” She giggled in spite of herself.

“He only said that because he didn't understand anything that was going on. He'd probably read it somewhere and repeated it.”

“But you would understand
Figaro
?”

“Of course.” Then he raised both hands before him, as if making himself stop some line of thought. And when he spoke again, it was with a voice with its playful flirtation ironed out: “Jem, this is a disaster. You don't belong with someone like me.”

“I don't belong with anyone, do I? A girl in trousers who follows Merinda Herringford around the city. But I need to be in your life.” She settled in her seat and faced the stage in front of her. Perhaps it would be easier to say these things if she faced forward. He didn't need to see her nose wrinkle up in concentration or the lump she couldn't swallow in her throat. “I know that you'll need to chase your stories. That you don't want to be cooped up. Maybe I won't ever be the first thing in your life, but… ”

He sat in silence for long seconds. “Jem,” he said at last, “I'm scared.”

The word rippled through her.
Scared.

“Scared to feel back,” Ray said. “I did, I always did. But I knew I wouldn't be able to keep the words from spilling out.”

“
You
were scared? I was the one taking the first step! Me! I'm not even sure if I can fit the role I was meant for. To cook and clean and tend a house and raise a family and… ”

“It doesn't matter to me! It never did.” He smiled. “I once told you I preferred you in pants. Do you remember?”

“No.” But as soon as she said it, the wheels in her mind recalled the night of the Policeman's Ball. Something about
pantaloni.
Now she smiled. “Oh.”

“You're going to have to learn Italian.” He patted the seat between them. “14-F looks rather lonely. Where do you suppose your prince is?”

“If we take much longer, Merinda will occupy it.”

Ray moved to 14-F. They were shoulder to shoulder, face to face. He inched closer and their noses just touched.

“Hello,” Jem whispered.

“You're awfully, awfully beautiful.
Sei molto bella
.”

Jem wasn't sure she needed to learn Italian. If he kept saying
those
things in
that
voice, she doubted she'd need a translation.

The funny thing about happily-ever-after moments, Jem thought, is that they never aligned with what one's mind had concocted in years of dream-weaving. But then the heart catches up with the head, urges one to hold on, slow down, and make it last as long as possible.

Ray kissed her. He kissed away her white picket fences and matching dishes. He kissed away the cello music she had selected for the wedding ceremony. All she wanted was to be near him and hear every thought that entered his head before he even had time to scrawl it into his journal, even before he had the opportunity to filter it into English.

“You have to open your lips,” he said, delightfully frustrated. “I can't work with this.”

She squeaked. “How am I already bad at this?”

“It's still a big improvement from last time,” he said, his breathing uneven on her cheek. “And you're just learning.”

“You're going to teach me?”

He let his eyes brush over her face as if painting a picture. “Something like that.”

“I wore you down,” she said triumphantly as she paused to catch her breath.

“To absolutely nothing.”

“But it was worth it, wouldn't you say?”

He wasn't sure. But change coursed through him, starting to take the stubbornness and fear in stride, replacing both with a conviction that obliterated the differences between them. He knew he was being selfish, even as his mind thought ahead to the million ways he would try to change the world for her. And he knew she deserved better. “Yes it was worth it,” he finally said before leaning in for another kiss.

She opened her lips under his for just a moment, but then she pulled back, her eyes bright as she looked at him. “I suppose you know what this means.”

“What does this mean?” he asked cautiously.

“The first man I kiss is the man I will marry, remember?” She cocked her eyebrow, and a slight flush colored her cheeks. “And I've kissed you twice.”

Ray tried to swallow the clammy feeling in his throat. “The first one doesn't count,” he said slowly.

“But this one does.”

“Jemima Watts.” He stared into her face, which was all starlight and expectation. “Are you asking a man to marry you?”

“Yes,” she said brazenly. “I am asking
you
to marry me.”

“Then yes,” he said before he could run it through his mind or even blink. He patted his pocket. “I don't have a ring.”

“I suppose it isn't customary when the woman proposes to you.”

He pulled out his father's watch. The only possession that mattered to him. He pressed it into her hand. Like a token or a promise. A past and a future, all ticking along underneath battered bronze and worn edges and rusty chain.

Then he turned her so she could see the whole of the theatre in flowers, painted pastorals, and pastels. “I told you your first real kiss should be in a garden.”

EPILOGUE

M
erinda Herringford turned from side to side in front of the mirror, admiring her new bobbed curls. All the girls in Paris were wearing it this way, she had read. It was the Bohemian style. She rocked back and forth on her heels, then plopped on the settee. Cracker jacks, the house was quiet. She and Jem had settled so nicely into the clockwork of their lives, and now the woman had the misfortune to be getting married! Merinda could just as easily think of separating from Jem as she could of sawing off her right hand.

She turned to the empty chair in the sitting room and said again what she'd said when Jem had last sat in it. “We haven't finished yet, Jem! We jumped one hurdle. But the Morality Squad is as insufferable as ever, and as long as Tertius Monague is in office, women and immigrants will be exploited the city over.”

Merinda paused, and in her mind she could see and hear Jem's reply. “We never anticipated we could fix it with one sweeping gesture. It will take more than just us.”

“You'll be too distracted,” Merinda had whined. “You'll be consumed with laundry and that man and babies!” It couldn't be over… it simply couldn't be.

“Cabbagetown isn't the other side of the world,” Jem had assured her.

But Merinda felt—then and now—that it was indeed a world away. “Someday,” she told the empty chair, “we will be back in the game.”

Mrs. Malone stood in the doorway. “I hesitate to interrupt your… conversation,” she said, “but Jasper Forth is here.”

Merinda flounced her curls. “Very well. Show him in.”

Jasper came into the parlor and Mrs. Malone went for tea and scones.

“My purgatory has ended!” Jasper was happy.

“Whatever do you mean?” Merinda said, sitting and indicating that he should do the same.

Jasper wore a broad-striped casual jacket, checkered trousers, and two-toned shoes. He sat on the sofa and put his hat in his lap. “As of Monday, I can return to my post.”

“Detective Constable Jasper Forth once more!” she said. “Congratulations!”

“Thank you.”

“And now you will be Toronto's most effective detective, of course, seeing as you are backed by the deductive prowess of Herringford and Watts.”

“Don't you mean Herringford and
DeLuca
?” Jasper asked pointedly.

“Herringford and Watts. I've already had the signs made. Besides, our clientele expects the same names they see in the
Hog
.”

He scoffed again. “And how will that play out, Merinda? You're going to rouse Jem at all hours—a respectable married woman—to trail after you in trousers?”

“Respectable married woman?” Merinda laughed. “Listen to you.”

“Life will change, Merinda. You don't want to be left behind.”

She ignored him, opting for a different thread of conversation. “I really ought to thank you,” she said.

“To thank me?” Jasper repeated, astonished.

“Yes,” she said, her eyes on her hands. “I know it would have been easy for you to take what we learned at the Danforth racetrack and try and get your job back. But you maintained our confidentiality, and that allowed Herringford and Watts to solve our first major crime.”

Jasper cleared his throat. “Yes, well. There are more important things than mysteries.” He reached into his coat pocket and extracted an envelope. “But I didn't come here to be thanked. I found something that might be of interest to you.”

He handed over the envelope, and Merinda removed and unfolded a slip of paper:
No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law. How can it be within the law? The law is stationary. The law is fixed. The law is a chain that binds us all.

“Interesting,” she said. “Though odd, coming from an officer of the law.”

“It's a quotation from Emma Goldman. The radical anarchist.”

“Emma Goldman,” Merinda repeated, looking even more interested.

“She'll be in Toronto next month. She's been causing quite a stir in the States. Keeps getting arrested, locked up, and tossed over here where she's safe. She was here several years ago, raising money for some society of hers.”

“And you thought I'd be likely to go hear her speak?” Merinda asked.

“Emma Goldman never appears anywhere without both bringing and summoning a corps of anarchists.” He looked at her appreciatively. “Merinda Herringford, I predict we are soon to have a bit of a revolution on our hands.”

Merinda clapped. “Do you really think so, Jasper? Do you really?”

“I don't think you should be so happy about it.”

“Cracker jacks!” Merinda said merrily. “A radical revolution! Imagine.” She stretched her legs in front of the fire and crossed them at the ankles. “Demonstrations in the streets. The city on fire!” She threw a glance in the direction of the circled names on her blackboard, her mind churning with ideas for reform. “As I told you, Jasper, the adventure is only just beginning.”

“It is?”

Merinda sprang from her chair, took his face in her hands, and kissed him hard on the cheek.

Jasper sputtered and blinked and then leaned toward her hopefully.

She was so excited she kissed his other cheek. “It is, Jasper! It
is!”

Dear Jemima,

Your mother and I learned recently of your marriage to an immigrant Papist.