"I am Jedediah Shine. 10 years undefeated all-division champion. No man yet found drinks his tea blacker.
Until tonight.
The fight began as they all began. Shine ripped into Drake, delivering blow after blow, combination after combination.
But Drake offered no counter blows. Round after round the same result.
I will knock you out as I did the last time you met me in this ring he thought.
But there was no KO of Bennet Drake. Blows and bells later, the referee called for boxers to go to their corners. Shine sat heavily and stared.
Why will he not go down? he pondered.
The bell rang and Shine pounced toward Drake. He tried to swing with a hard left hook, then a right.
Drake bobbed and beat him to the punch. The crowd roared.
The two men waivered, broke and staggered, then Drake charged again.
Shine lost footing. Stumbled.
The men again embraced each other in a sweaty clinch.
Shine's body could take no more.
Drake pushed him away and drove Shine into the ropes. Attacked with a right uppercut, followed by a left hook.
Shine parried and tried to hit out, parried again.
Gloves up. Guard. GUARD! he commanded himself.
"KILL HIM!" the voice of Inspector Reid came somewhere ringside. Shine could no longer see from the blood in his eyes. He would not cower from death, if death was indeed to come.
He was merely waiting Shine now knew.
Shine registered Drake's glove holding up his chin. He waited for the killer blow. It never came. Instead the floor gave way, and then the world turned black."
...
Word spreads fast, as it tends to do, when the mighty fall. Josephine Buxton heard the news while running an errand in Whitechapel. H-Division's man, Sgt. Bennet Drake, who had been defeated by Shine in the past, knocked him down to the canvas. Shine was incapacitated from the blows. He was a massive bloody mess. 'E got what was comin' to 'im. Cocky bugger, 'e is.
Josephine listened to the commentary. Not believing. Her errand could wait.
...
Above her head she heard rough voices, and arguments, laughter, and the sound of heels on stone and wood. She nearly missed an assault of piss falling from the emptied chamberpot as she crossed a street. Somewhere glass broke, and a large dog was barking furiously from an apartment above. Several times she considered going back to Greenwich, but by now she was almost to her destination.
Josephine nipped down into Limehouse with an air of determination, trying not to lose her breath from the tightness of her corset and heavy bombazine material. She wore no expression as she gazed downward behind the mourning veil, passing through these parts anonymously, but not unnoticed by vendors and stall-owners as they watched the woman in black cut across their streets.
Her dark hair was modestly gathered into a low bun at the nape of the neck. The skirt sported no ostentatious bustle or train, but gathered in the back, as most skirts did at the time. Her bodice sported a short basque. Her sleeves, plain and tight, were full length and her collar narrow-standing. Her skirt was not as short as she would have preferred as she strode through the muddy streets, though custom would have it that she not be out and about anyway. She had just buried her late husband, Charlie, not one month ago. Charles Buxton, a Sergeant with R-Division, had been found strangled outside an opium den in Limehouse. The circumstances surrounding the case were questionable and an inquest was ongoing. It had not been a happy marriage in the end. Her husband had become a regular visitor to the docks and the sins of his habits had started to seep into their lives in ways she never expected. When Charlie did not come home for a week, she prepared herself for the worst. In truth, she had felt more relief than despair when she learned of his passing; a fact, in truth, she sometimes struggled with.
Josephine gathered up her skirts to keep from picking up so much dreck, though her black leather boots were already caked with a greasy mud. Coming to a corner of White Horse Lane, she recognized the innocuous door across the way and stepped into the street to complete her journey.
...
Letting out a breath she knocked firmly.
"Miss Buxton," Sgt Barton greeted her at the door.
"Hello Sgt. Barton. I wondered if I might have a word with Inspector Shine, please."
"Inspector Shine is currently recuperating after last night's fight. Doctor's been in to see him. Inspector's been awful dizzy, though. He's been given some medicine to help ease the pain and pacify him."
"Oh dear. What has he had?"
"Laudanum, I believe it was, miss."
"How much?"
"A lot, miss. More than I've seen any man take. 'Tis Shine, though. Most resilient cove in all Limehouse, he is"
"Indeed. I do not wish to be inappropriate, but I would like to see him if I could."
There were certain people that Barton knew never to turn away. Josephine Buxton was one of them.
...
Josephine went to Shine's bedroom door. When there was no response to her soft tap, she let herself in. He was asleep on his side, his long form motionless beneath the covers. His breath was deep and sturdy.
Coming to stand beside the bed, she removed the veil and laid it across the footboard. She looked down at him with tender protectiveness. Jedediah Shine: exactly the sort of man your mother warned you to stay away from: a man without scruple, who will unashamedly employ charm, lies, and seductive skills to bring about the ruination of a woman for his own selfish and impure gratification. Sharp eyes with an unwholesome glint in them, that looked at the world impertinently, as if remembering something wicked. "A presence that excites and a quality of animal spirits in the soul," was what she read somewhere in a lady's journal warning young maids to avoid certain beasts. He could be savage, yes. Perhaps she was as savage as him, for the animal spirits that existed in him had often recognized the animal spirits in her.
Plasters had been affixed over the fresh cuts next to his swollen left eye and forehead. His upper lip was swollen and his nose was bloodied. His face was a shambles, and had she not been familiar with every angle, curve and dip on this man she would not have recognized him. His hair, dry now, had certainly been drenched in sweat at one point in the evening. And, having no pomade to tame them, the brown curls were frenzied with having been set free for once. She stroked one of his locks gently. Felt his forehead for fever. His high regal forehead, his straight nose, his stubborn chin. Some lines were deeper, she noticed, the lips thinner and paler, the cheekbones more hollow.
Josephine turned towards the window and attempted to lift the sash ever so quietly, desiring to bring some fresh air into the stale bedroom that smelled of man and sweat. Had she exhaled at all as she journeyed to Limehouse from Greenwich?
Lost in thought, she heard Shine's breath catch and turned to see him. He swallowed and slowly opened his eyes, drowsy with exhaustion and opiate tonic.
"Josie," he knew her presence. His voice was raspy and low. Shine strained and struggled to sit up.
"No. Jed. Don't. You'll re-injure yourself." She implored softly. She sat down on the bed and placed her hands on his naked chest, gently guiding him back to the pillow. He inhaled sharply, a bout of dizziness overtook him. After a moment she said, "What can I get you? Some barley water? Is it late enough for some hot brandy?" She smiled, lightly.
"You."
He felt for her hand and brought it to his lips.
Her breath stopped.
"To what...do...I owe this...pleasure?" He struggled with the words.
"Jed, I understand you've been dosed with enough laudanum to take down an elephant." She said trying to sound light. "Perhaps it would be wiser to not try so many words," she said, giggling. "Go back to sleep."
"Stay...with me. Don't go back home tonight."
Her stomach tightened. "You know I can't." she whispered.
Undeterred, he gripped her wrist and began to pull her toward him with painful determination.
She yielded, nudging up on the bed next to him, careful to remain above the covers. He could barely open his good right eye, but she knew intensity and ambition in those green irises. She gazed at his peaceful visage. She felt a bolt of painful longing suddenly.
"I had to see you."
She felt his arm gently tighten around her in response. He turned his face towards her as if to say something, burying his face in her hair, when exhaustion took him again. When she felt the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, she slowly climbed out of his hold and stood up to straighten her skirt and her hair. Thoughtful of his comfort and inability to do so, she closed the window.
Looking back at him once more, she drew a breath as she left his quarters and started her way home. The sun was beginning to melt down into the ashen sky and she started, realizing she had left the veil in Shine's bedroom. She cursed herself for being so forgetful as well as the damnable Victorian society for insisting that women be so damned fashionable during one's time of bereavement, however false it was.
...
The next morning, Shine swam to the surface of sobriety and sat up with a grimace. His ribs and face hurt. He sat on the side of the bed, hunched over, holding his head. He slowly got up and made his way to the washstand, where he looked at himself.
He was not used to defeat. He remembered Reid's command to end his life.
Drake, you should have killed me in that ring. He thought to himself. You will regret you ever crossed me, Edmund Reid. You will never know peace whilst you walk on this earth, I will make sure of it.
He caught a glimpse of the veil strewn over the footboard. One particular memory hit him: a figure of a woman in black, a whisper, "I had to see you."
Was it a dream?
He stopped.
"BARTON!"
Sgt. Barton appeared at the door, "yes, Inspector?"
"Was Ms. Buxton here?" he panted.
"Yes, sir. Came to see you, she did."
"And what...did she say?"
"She came to see you, sir, after the news of the championship results," Barton saw a calm fury in Shine's reflection. He was not sure what to expect.
"Thank you, Barton. Leave me now."
"Yes, sir."
When Barton shut the bedroom door he heard the crash of the washbasin hit the floor. He flinched. The other men came at once and looked to Barton for orders. He only shook his head.
...
2 days later
It was 11:00 PM by Shine's timepiece as he made his way up Josephine's street. Low-lying clouds, thick with moisture, clipped across the sky, occasionally exposing a full moon. It was bitter cold, the kind of cold that went straight to your bones. Not a soul was out in this weather, not if it could be helped. Shine was singular minded in his quest tonight, however, and the thought of Josie, alone in her house, filled him with fire. He knew the door, the house number, the window that was hers.
He ascended the steps to her door and loitered for a second; then he knocked. He buried his hands in coat pockets and braced himself against a fierce wind. No answer came. He looked up the street, down the street. He knocked again. Still no answer. He tried the doorknob. Locked. He stepped down the stoop and stood on the sidewalk looking up at the windows for any signs of movement. None. He had half a mind to try the windows, but thought it best not to in case nosy insomniac neighbors were watching.
He walked around the building searching for a back entryway. He found a gate to her modest backyard garden and opened it without challenge. He gently crunched through the frozen grass and foliage and made his way to the door. He could see the house was dark inside. Behind him a broomstick fell over and smacked the window before sliding loudly to the ground. "Bugger!" he hissed. He wrestled with the doorknob again until it yielded. He was in.
Josephine's eyes flew open. Her heart pounded; her mind was empty. It was as if a hypodermic of adrenaline had been emptied into a vein. She strained into the utter darkness, frozen in her position, afraid to move. After a time, her breathing rate began to steady. She checked the time. It was just after 11. Yes, she had indeed locked the front door; had she locked the back door?
Sitting up on the settee and placing her book on the floor beside her feet, Josephine gathered her wits and looked round. The fireplace was now just ash. The house felt brittle and lifeless. Darkness surrounded her.
But she became acutely aware of a presence as the hair stood up on the back of her neck.
Jedediah could hear the careful padding of boots on wood and the swishing of her skirt as she made her way down the hall in trepidation. He dared not go any further for he had not wanted to scare her.
She startled when she came into view and saw him.
"Jedediah?" she gasped.
She could see his partially illuminated face; his eyes fixed on her like a hawk. He was as still as a statue- so much so that she briefly considered she may be dreaming.
The blood rushed through him. He felt a greed for her body, for her scent, for her taste. He saw only her at that moment, the porcelain face surrounded by the mass of black and dark. He yearned to peel off every layer of that mournful material that surrounded her gorgeously warm flesh...
He made his way to her, slowly. She stepped back ever so slightly. He was not deterred.
"Jedediah,"
"You left this," he held out her black veil.
"This was not why you came." She thought of all the answers she might demand of him. She asked nothing, however. She knew him well enough.
He smirked. "No."
She stared at him and made not a move.
He stood so close now she could feel his breath.
Josephine looked up at what she could see was his bruised visage.
He could feel the tension in his own body, the effort of holding back, of not pulling her against him and taking her, however inappropriate and stupid and unwise; kissing her like he did when they were so young and hopeful, the way he had thought he would never, in his life, be able to kiss her again.
"Josie," She heard the roughness in his voice as he whispered her name.
"Jed," she said with a softness and a slight anxiety which almost undid him. She shivered slightly and leaned towards him.
He took it as permission.
He dropped the veil; his mouth came down on hers.
Her arms came up round his neck as he pulled her against him… His hands flattened against her back. Josephine rose onto the tips of her toes and kissed him fiercely. He clung to her more tightly, knotting his hands in her hair.
His other hand moved down to her waist, down further, pushing her up into him.
Up, up, she went into his arms and he carried her, ascending the stairs. To her bedroom he took her, where they would throw the gauntlet down to fate, barring death from the house for the rest of the night, and breathe a passion and a fire back into this perjured house of mourning.