The Epiphany Club by Andrew Knighton

Author:Andrew Knighton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: steampunk, alternate history, pulp adventure, Victorian
Publisher: Andrew Knighton
Published: 2018-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6: Beneath a Sheet

Dirk couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this good. Not that this was the first time he'd woken up in a tangle of bedsheets, a beautiful woman lying next to him. Not even the first time it had happened in a fancy hotel room, with fine carved furniture and soft sheets. But there had never been a woman who'd left him feeling so amazed, so overjoyed to wake up to the sight of her.

"Guess we ain't going out investigating today." He nodded toward the window, where a thin sliver of dusk was visible between the curtains.

"I think we earned that rest." Isabelle sat up smiling and ran a finger across his chest. Everything about her was stunning, but that smile was what really made Dirk's heart skip.

Then he remembered the last time she'd left him feeling stunned, and a question blurted out, unwitting, from his befuddled brain.

"Was there ever a Mr McNair?" he asked.

"Oh, Dirk." Isabelle shook with laughter. "You really know how to judge the mood, don't you?"

Dirk didn't like being mocked, but it was hard to be cross at her. He found himself laughing too.

"I'm not the one pretending to be married," he said. The damage was done, he might as well go with it.

"Alright, you have me." She stood, a figure out of some renaissance painting, and set to rummaging in the clothes scattered across the floor - the clean ones they'd both changed into after bathing, not the filthy heap piled up beside the bathtub back in Dirk's room. "There was a Mr McNair, a missionary in west Africa. I was a servant in his household, the only one left by the time the cholera passed through our community. Poor Mr McNair was the last to go, and the only European apart from me for a hundred miles around. He left me what money he had. The name I simply took. He didn't need it any more, and I knew I would have more freedom as a married middle class lady than as Miss Isabelle Jones, maid and tutor."

She pulled her underskirts on, then turned to look at him, an all too familiar defensiveness returning to her face.

"No-one was harmed," she said firmly. "He had no family left, no-one else who was losing out. I have met many men who have done far worse."

Dirk slid to the end of the bed, reached out and took her hand in his.

"You don't need to justify yourself," he said. "Not to me, not to anyone. We've all done some bad things to get by, or because they seemed like good things at the time."

He stood, letting the sheet fall away, but that wasn't what left him feeling naked. It was the thought of what he was about to say. He'd decided before this, long before this and yet less than a day ago, that he was going to be open with her. However tough that was, now was the time to do it.

"My name ain't my name either," he said.

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