Bunny.

For a short while after that things did improve.

Raffles had had an excruciatingly close call toward the end of March; a crib he'd thought he'd have sewn up had proven more difficult than he'd anticipated, and he ended up getting himself into some rather hot water; a situation worsened by way of the fact that he'd elected to leave me off of that particular job. His hubris in doing so had nearly been his downfall, and it was through little more than luck and the courage of the vine that I had been able to come to his rescue. But come to his rescue I had, and thanks to me — though I was reluctant to take all of the credit Raffles heaped upon me in the aftermath — A. J. was freed from the trap of his American adversary at the eleventh hour. Raffles gave me far more praise for my role that episode than I would have given myself, but his gratitude and admiration, however undeserved, did much to hearten and encourage me, and as such a situation which really ought to have worsened my nervous state instead ended up giving me a second wind. I felt useful. I had saved him. I had, in some small way, one small time, proven my worth to the man who took so many risks for me. I clung to that knowledge like a drowning man to driftwood.

A few weeks passed and Spring was by then in full tilt. With the weather improving by the day, A. J. had begun his cricket practice in preparation for the season proper. Watching him bowl and bat in the nets in the sun, holding his own against countless professionals, his inky curls becoming ever more dishevelled in the brisk April breeze, it was impossible for me to feel permanently blue. There were sufficient pleasant things in existence to give my weary and troubled spirit respite. This isn't to say that the Queensberry trial and the relentless, vitriolic gossip surrounding the case had relaxed the hold which it had upon me, but rather that I had, for the moment, got my demons leashed, if not vanquished. I knew where my fears laid, I knew what they were and why they existed — and knowing and naming them as I did, I could, for an hour, for a day, manage to ignore them enough to be halfway tolerable company. Enough to avoid driving myself into complete madness. Whilst dark clouds still dominated my horizon, I had managed to expand my view enough to let in some light — for a while, anyway.

It is said that the darkest hour is just before the dawn; in my experience the brightest days are just before the storm. It is always when you are just beginning to turn your face upwards once again that life aims its hardened fist square at your jaw and knocks you for six. It is when you begin to lower your guard, believing that the dog days might finally be over and that the madness of their fire might finally have passed, that is when the true blaze rains down, when you have at last dared to hope.

So it was that April.

Perhaps I had been riding too high on the euphoria of having been useful to Raffles in rescuing him from the American's trap; perhaps I simply needed some outlet for my anxieties, something I could control at a time when I felt decidedly out of control; whatever the reason, that April I got it into my head that I needed finally to take a much more active role in our criminal occupation. I was already a liability and a burden in Raffles' personal life, and as there was little I could do to mitigate the dangers on that front, I could at least ensure I was less of a burden professionally and financially. And though Raffles was sceptical of my plan to burgle my own old childhood home, and still adamant that I had nothing to prove to him in any case, I had insisted. I had insisted and he had acquiesced with little challenge, possibly out of some continuing gratitude over my rescue of him, or maybe out of nothing more than morbid curiosity to see how I might fare; though I admit, I do believe part of him felt some thrill at the novelty of placing himself entirely in my hands.

Masterful and independent as he usually wsa, I had not expected Raffles to be as keen a follower as he was a leader, but to my surprise I found him a model second-billing accomplice. Raffles proved himself more than willing to follow both my plan and my lead, reckless and foolish as both were. And the reward for his humility, his condescension, his uncharacteristic obedience, was that he followed me straight into near oblivion. Because, as anyone should expect, that night of my own planning went disastrously — very nearly fatally — wrong. It all went wrong. It all went wrong and it was all my fault. I've no desire to rehash that night now — that is not my reason for writing all of this down — but suffice it to say that whilst I nearly ruined the night, Raffles saved both the day and our skins.

He was the perfect gentleman over it all, of course. My subsequent spiral into ever worsening guilt and melancholy owed nothing to his treatment of me — or at least not to his bad treatment of me, though his kindliness did little to assuage my shame and self-recriminations. If anything it would have been better had he been angry at me, had he blamed me and criticised me, shouted at me and berated me — I certainly deserved it! What I did not deserve was his patience, his understanding, his admiration even, for the abominably sentimental, weak, cowardly way in which I had acted that night, and for the reckless, thoughtless, insecure inception of my plan to begin with. All his gentleness proved to me was that I was, as I had long suspected, the one blind spot in his otherwise clear-sighted vision. If anyone else had behaved as I had, Raffles would have been justifiably furious. But because it was me he was lenient. Because it was me he had happily followed me into the most unnecessary of dangers, allowed me to lead him on the most foolish of goose chases, and done things which he never in his right mind should have done on his own. Because of me.

Even in the immediate aftermath, when we'd tumbled into his rooms at just gone eight forty-five in the morning, filthy and freezing and exhausted; even when the true extent of my foolishness and villainy were revealed to him — for stupidity had not been my only sin that night — he was so kind to me. Raffles invited me to join him at the Turkish Baths where he said he would explain to me all that I had missed. His frank willingness to tell me the full truth of how he'd repaired my damage cut me to the quick, so stark in contrast as it was to my own unforgivable perfidy of the past hours. Still, as touching as his response had been, I declined his offer. If Raffles was hurt he didn't show it, and made no protest when I preferred to leave him, taking myself back to my own rooms in Mount Street to think.

I spent the next few hours, the next few days passing through every shade of guilt, regret, and self-hatred imaginable, passing from one agony to the next with no breathing space between. It had been too close a call, far, far too close a call. We'd had near misses before, many a time, but never one so needless, so stupid, so unnecessary and preventable. Never one so completely my own fault. I indulged in masochistic visions of what might have been had we been caught: I saw myself tackled by a policeman and brutally cuffed, saw my torn and bloodied palms, from where I'd gripped that lightning conductor making my escape, opened up once more as I slammed them into the ground to break my fall. I saw Raffles getting away and abandoning me to my fate, and I cursed him for his imagined betrayal. And then my mind corrected itself, forcing me instead to play out the much more likely scenario of Raffles coming back for me, coming back to rescue me from my well-deserved fate, and getting a truncheon across the back of his head for his troubles. I saw the blood matting his hair as they cuffed his limp hands; saw myself crying out to him whilst men in hunting pinks laughed; saw my childhood friends watching on as we were dragged away, realising everything, judging me, pitying me.

I saw the trial. I saw prison. I saw disgrace in every horrifying detail. I saw all of the scandal I had wished to avoid when I had turned to Raffles those four years ago hurled back at me tenfold, my borrowed time returned to my creditors with interest, my name dragged through the mud and deservedly so. And I listened, with the ear of my imagination, to the judge as he read out the list of my crimes — god, were there really so many? When had I become such a villain? When had I sunk so low? And as I watched myself in the dock I saw a man I no longer knew; a man I no longer wanted to know. As I laid alone on my bed at three o'clock in the afternoon, golden sunshine stealing in through the gaps in my drawn curtains, taunting me with the lightness and brightness of spring, I saw my own inevitable future.

I saw Raffles' future, too.

He came to see me, two mornings later.

'Hello, Bunny,' Raffles said with a smile as I opened the door, as bright as I was sullen. 'How are you this fine spring day? And how are your poor hands?'

'No worse than I deserve,' I muttered, stepping reluctantly aside to let him in.

'Come now, none of that, rabbit,' he said softly as he entered, squeezing my arm as he pushed passed me and, once the door was closed, pressing a kiss to the side of my head. 'Have you a pot of coffee on? I'll help myself to a cup, if it's all the same to you.'

I shrugged, caring little if he wanted to help himself to all the money in my possession and the very clothes off my back. I sat down on my small sopha, suffering from a crisis of conscience, both for myself and for the liability I was to Raffles. I was in no mood to reply in kind to A. J.'s relentless morning cheeriness.

'You're not still put out over that business at your old house, are you, Bunny?' Raffles said, sipping his hot drink and leaning up against the mantelpiece.

I glared at him. 'Put out? We could have been killed, Raffles, you know that? We could have been arrested! Why did you do it, A. J? Why did you let me do it?'

'Why do I do anything?' he shrugged. 'Why does anyone?'

'Why indeed!' I cried. 'God, we were so close to— I can feel the handcuffs on my wrists, the bullet in my back! See myself dead at the bottom of that lightning rod, see you—! And for what? A few gems and a diamond tiara? God, is that the price of my freedom? Is that all my reputation is worth? My life? My integrity? A few paltry jewels that will barely even cover a few months' expenses? And you risking so much, because of my stupid whim—!'

'Bunny, you are overreacting. It really wasn't half so close as you seem to think it. I've been in far tighter spots than that entirely of my own doing. That business with Barney Maguire just a few weeks ago, for one; and it was you who got me out of that! I admit that I didn't, and still don't, believe that it was a wise decision to touch your childhood place to begin with, but not because it was too risky, and not because you didn't do a devilishly good job at planning the thing out. You did marvellously, Bunny, and I was more than happy to place myself in your capable hands. I would do so again instanter, provided you chose a job less sentimental; or for other things you might think up. We simply had a run of bad luck that night, that's all. Happens to the best of us. And it all turned out all right in the end, didn't it?'

I shook my head, his sunny reassurances irritating me more than placating me. 'If it did, it was no thanks to me. And if you had any sense, you'd get shot of me because of it. I'm a fool, Raffles. A fool and a liability.'

Raffles waved away my self-recrimination. 'My dear boy, it was nothing like as bad as you've worked it up to be; once we were over that one stormy bit, it was practically plain sailing! And though not perhaps under the best sight-seeing conditions, I was rather pleased to finally see your childhood home,' he added with a grin. 'I never once imagined so big a place as all that, Bunny; you were such an unassuming little cuss at school, I never would have guessed your family house was so nice a pile of bricks!'

This was too much. Whether his imperturbable good humour was sincere or affected for my benefit I neither knew nor cared; it made my blood rise. 'Put whatever spin on it you like, Raffles,' I snapped, 'the fact remains that I nearly got us killed. I nearly got us arrested! And I forced you into such a corner that you had to take a shot at a man — you who've never taken a shot at a person in your life!'

'There's a first time for everything, Bunny,' he replied with a smile, as though we were talking about me introducing him to a new brand of cigarettes rather than to attempted murder. If anything he'd probably have taken abandoning his precious Sullivans more seriously. 'In any case, I neither hit the old chap, nor intended to. As a first time goes, it barely even counts!'

'That would make no difference if we were brought before a court! That single shot alone would have added another ten years to your sentence, if we'd been caught — and well you know it!'

'If, rabbit, if we had been caught, which we weren't; in no small part thanks to that little shot in the dark, I'll kindly have you note.'

'It was too close, Raffles, far too close,' I said, running my hand through my hair. 'God, if anything happened to you because of me—'

'I can look after myself, Bunny; don't you start worrying about me, my boy.'

'Perhaps you can,' I conceded, though still believing he had more confidence in himself than was sensible, 'but what about me? If last night proved anything, it was yet again just how useless I am. Worse than useless — dangerously stupid, and a liability! We can't keep doing this Raffles; I can't keep doing this. I'm going to get you into serious trouble — I'm going to get myself into trouble! No — I am in trouble; all that's waiting now is for me to get killed, or worse, caught, and then god only knows what will get dragged out in the courts and in the papers—!'

I looked up as Raffles' heavy hand fell upon my shoulder, giving it a squeeze as he sat down beside me. 'Bunny, you've worked yourself up into a minor frenzy. This is what comes of you sitting and sulking by yourself by day and night at a stretch,' Raffles replied with a condescending shake of his curly head and a soft smile. 'You should've come to the baths with me as I suggested, and we could have talked the whole thing out. You do rile yourself up, rabbit, when you don't have a voice of better reason to challenge you on the point. But I'm not here to argue with you.'

'Why are you here then?' I said sullenly, turning away from him, leaning against the arm of the sopha, burying my face in my folded arms. 'Go away.'

'To invite you to a music hall, and then to dinner afterwards,' he said, unphased by my mood.

'I don't want to go.'

'Nonsense,' came his light-hearted reply as he stood, his hand falling upon my head and ruffling my hair as he went. 'It's just the thing for you, Bunny mine. Moping like this does nobody any good. You need cheering up.'

'I'm not in the mood.'

'Of course you're not; if you were, I wouldn't need to cheer you up, would I?'

'I don't deserve to be cheered up.'

'Come for my sake, then. You know I hate dining alone.'

'No you don't.'

'Well, that's true; but I much prefer dining with you, even when you are terrible company. And even you know how I hate going to music halls by myself. Theatre, maybe, if it's something really worth seeing, but not music halls. Music halls are places for company, Bunny, and there's none better for me than you. And I've gotten us tickets to see Vesta Tilley.'

I looked up at that, and Raffles grinned. He knew he'd won me over.

'...Vesta Tilley?'

'The Sailor Boy herself, yes; I thought that would get your attention. Right then, I shall see you at the Albany — come for seven thirty, and don't be late, Bunny!'

I did go, of course. Raffles was probably right in his assessment that moping around the flat by myself doing nothing but worrying did me no good; and in any case, I soon found that the prospect of going out to the theatre did in fact distract me enough to put my fears on a shelf for an evening, at least. My troubles were not likely to go anywhere, so I reasoned I might as well make an evening of it and return back to them after. I was in sore need of distraction, and whilst Raffles was so often the source of my woes, he oftener still provided my respite from them. I was in fact beginning to regret letting him leave my rooms at all, missing his company and regretting my churlishness the moment he closed the door. I reconciled myself to the fact that I should see him in just a short while, and that his charming, always irresistible company would doubtless distract me from my self-pitying, self-despising state with ease.

Unfortunately, my distraction proved to be all too brief.