The Heartbeat Thief (20 page)

“No need to beg, dearie.” He panted, wearing a wolf’s grin, and rubbed his mouth with his free hand.

“You did me.” Strengthened by the life she stole from him, she held her side, and pushed to her feet again. The sluggish seepage of blood soaked the ruins of her dress. Licking her lips, she slid her blood-slicked hand up and around his grimy neck and tugged his face down until his forehead rested upon hers. “Did me good, Evans.”

“I did.” A tease lightened his voice. He smiled, genuine pleasure twisting his wretched lips, and pressed against her. His lewd intentions were more than apparent. “But I’m not done.”

“Yes, you are.” She slipped her own knife out, a small, sharp blade, one she’d stolen from Molly’s kitchen, and pressed it up into the hollow niche under his chin. “It’s my turn.”

She shoved hard, the blade slicing thickly up into his mouth. Twisting the knife, she pulled it out, her fist thumping into his collarbone.

Blood sheeted down his neck, turning his collar dark. He gurgled and dropped his knife, clutching at his throat. Astonishment painted itself across his paling face.

She shoved him away. “You’re done ripping’ girls, Jack.”

Deprived of speech, he spit out a mouthful of blood and staggered away.

Senza watched his uneven stumble as he lurched back out to the street. The wound would not immediately kill him. But it would bleed fiercely, and it would drain him drop by drop, and it would kill him. They’d find him in a gutter, a victim to yet another senseless act of violence. London was full of them.

She slid to her haunches, skirts soaked scarlet and swaddled about her legs, and let her head fall back against the wall. Each breath dragged a white shooting pain in its wake. Just needed to catch her breath, try to sneak one mouthful of air around the impossible sharp hotness in her side.

Tired. So tired. The loss of blood made her lethargic.

She blinked, trying to focus her eyes, struggling to remember the last time she’d truly felt fatigued. The thought of making her way back to the inn seemed a distant impossibility. A moment, just a quick rest—she needed to close her eyes, surely no more than an eye blink.

But when she next snapped open her eyes, the cold glow of sunrise was seeping through cracks in the circle of buildings. Dawn. Hours had passed while she huddled in a blood-stained heap in a filthy alley. Had no one seen her? Had no one called for help?

And what would they have found, if they would have?

With a worried groan, she pushed to her feet. The blood had darkened and dried, making her skirt stiff with deep wrinkles. She had to beat the material against the brick wall to get it to soften enough to lay right. She lamented the fraying of the material as it snagged on the rough stones.

She slipped her fingers in through the gash on her dress, feeling the flesh beneath. Intact. Her fingers came away dry, the bleeding stopped. Just as she knew it would. A bit cramped from spending the last few hours crouched lifeless in an alley, but even that discomfort didn’t last. By the time she’d walked out to the street, the pain was merely a memory.

She took off her black shawl and wrapped it around her waist to hide the blood and walked to the corner. Across the street, a hansom. Salvation.

Hailing the cab, she gave the address of the inn, and sank her head back as the horse trotted off. The sun climbed unfailingly, heatless rays that never seemed to penetrate all the way down to the streets. A rogue sunbeam flashed across a bright patch on the seat opposite her. Curiosity got the better of her and she reached for it.

The moment her fingers came in contact with the rough parchment, she knew. She closed her eyes on a long exhale before looking at the paper.

His spindly script.

Time to move along, bien-aimé. I think you’ve had enough fun.

One day sooner. If only it had come one day sooner when Mary was alive and able to go with her. One damned day, one life, one chance. Just one.

The tears were hot and sudden, the rage even hotter. It swelled like a tempest and she screamed at the top of her lungs, grief and anger because he’d denied her that one damnable day.

By the time the cab stopped in front of the Iron Lion, the tears were dry, the rage completely burned away. Her soul felt hollow and charred. Up in her room, her bags were packed and standing by the door.

The tavern was dark and still, Molly and the barkeep still asleep in their beds. No one saw her leave. No one said goodbye.

No one had ever hoped to have the chance.

And so, in 1888, Senza left Whitechapel and all of London behind, hoping to never return.

Years passed. Senza stopped counting them.

She drifted away from the cities, growing ever disenchanted with the crowds and the crush of overwhelming superficiality. She travelled through the country, seeking solace in simplicity. So many parchment slips had appeared as she wandered, so many destinations.

Senza would merely glance at them and set off, no anticipation in the journey, no bright expectations of the broad endless future ahead. Her destiny was shaping up to be a lonely one, a hollow victory.

Every night before she closed her eyes, she pictured each face, every friend, every loved one, and said a prayer for them. Grandmother. Felicity. Her parents. Mary. So many others, several lifetimes’ worth of faces, a world full of them.

The years never dimmed their features, never diminished a single memory. She fought diligently to remember their smiles, their dancing eyes, the countenances of her beloveds at their very best. Sometimes, it was a struggle to avoid thinking of them at their worst. Each of their faces she’d memorized, both in life and in death.

Stop, Senza. Don’t think of those times. Think of the joy, the life—

Yet, when she tried to picture Knell, her memory stumbled. He hadn’t appeared since she ran away to Whitechapel, where the streets held more of the horrors of repulsive death than anywhere in her world. Each year dimmed his features a bit more, as if he had decided he must not be remembered and took back her recollections of him.

Why not? He was a creature of magic, was he not? He’d pulled the very life from her chest, turned her into a creature that subsisted on the life of others.

It was completely plausible that such a phantom could deliberately dissolve his image from her memory, as easily as he’d turned into a swirl of fog on a Woking train platform one spring day, so very, very long ago.

She retained only the vaguest impression of him, the pallor of his skin, the dark hair sweeping back from a stern brow. A peculiar scent she could never quite name but would often catch, a tickle on the memory. The only thing that she’d been able to hold onto was the sound of his voice, every word, every chuckle, clear and unmuffled.

Should he ever come back for her, speak her name and beckon her to his side, she would know him, and run to him.

Industrial advances chased her from even the simplest of cities. She did not want to see the world changing so quickly, so harshly. England had become commonplace and monotonous and very, very empty. And then the Great War began—

She couldn’t bear the sight of the lines of soldiers, young men marching off to their deaths, for King and Country.

Senza crossed the Channel into France in early 1921, wandering deep into the Provençal hillsides, running from the conflicts of war. There, the last half a century had seen a revival of rural traditions, of conservative life, a way of living that beckoned to her with its long-ago familiarity, its scrapbook-heart. She longed to submerge herself deep in the countryside, pretending to be a child once more.

She’d long since shunned her gowns and her fine boots, instead dressing in simple garb. Plain cotton dresses of weathered white, sturdy leather shoes. Her jewels had long been stowed away, their hard glint and glimmer too painful a reminder of the years she’d left behind. Now, she tucked simple daisies into her long braid, spots of sunshine against innocent petals. She melted into the thin villages that hummed with pleasant pastoral melodies, hard work and meager luxury.

An inn at the edge of one such village caught her fancy. What drew her to it, she could not say; its plain-plastered walls and lumbered frame, its simple beaten roof. It simply had a heartbeat beneath the surface, a heartbeat she could not ignore. She turned her head toward the inn as if hearing a faint but familiar voice and, without a further thought, she went inside.

Seating herself at the table, she waited for the inn keeper to approach for her order. But no man came.

No one came at all. The place was empty. Curiosity led her to the door near the bar and the kitchens within. “Hello?”

Her voice echoed through the room, unanswered. A pot simmered in the fireplace, however. That, at least, was some sign of life.

The door to the back yard stood wide open. A stables took up a large part of the yard. No one out here, either.

The aroma coming from the pot took her attention again, and her stomach grumbled. She unclipped her purse from her belt and set it on the edge of the worktable before reaching for a metal bowl. A ladle hung on a hook from the front of the fireplace. Another look around, and she delayed no longer.

A thick stew, beef and potatoes, carrots and onions and celery, with plenty of ground pepper. Stout stuff. She scooped a generous portion into her bowl and procured a fork from a side table. Clean enough. Wasn’t like a little dirt would kill her, anyway.

She speared a chunk of meat, tender from a good long turn on the fire and blew on it. Anticipating the first taste. Her mouth watered.

“What are you doing in here?”

A stern male voice snapped her attention up and she froze. Very carefully, she turned, fork still raised.

He seemed to be a little older than she appeared, twenty at most, but several inches taller. Clad only in work pants and a torn tunic, soiled with the laborings of a farm-hand, he must have come in from the stables. A shock of blond hair, more suited for a tow-headed youngling, did little to soften the look of harsh reprimand on his face. His fists, bunched, ready for conflict.

One of those fists held a pitchfork. A sharp one.

She eyed him carefully, not wishing to test his manners. “Eating?”

The pitchfork lifted as he advanced a step. “We don’t tolerate thieves.”

That word. She exhaled slowly, trying to ignore the thread of worry that insinuated itself through her stomach.

“I paid.” Her eyes locked on his, and she tipped her head. “There. On the table.”

He crossed the room in three swift strides and picked up her purse. His brows lowered as he hefted it, weighing it. “What’s in here, rocks?”

Suspicion cast a shadow across his eyes and he tugged open the strings, up-ending the contents into his palm.

Silver coin. And lots of it. His eyes practically bulged at the sight.

Apparently, it was coin enough to relieve the tension of the confrontation. Senza slowly lifted the fork to her mouth and took the now-cooled bite, allowing him time to decide what to do next.

She sincerely hoped he was done with that pitchfork, though. She’d survived a single blade before, but three? A forever full of holes didn’t exactly thrill her.

“I think your tongue is broken.” He slid the coins back into the purse and plucked out a small coin. “I’ve had that stew today. It isn’t worth this much.”

He walked to the door and leaned out, resting the pitchfork against the side of the building. “Sorry about this. We don’t get many in here for lunch. Come, sit down.”

He tapped a side table that stood beneath the window, and shrugged. “Or you can go out to the tavern. Wherever.”

She noticed a pair of three-legged stools near the table and wondered if her skirts would cooperate enough for her to sit. “No. Here is fine, if that’s acceptable.”

“It’s where I eat, so that’s fine by me.” He returned to the fire, filling a dish for himself. Grabbing a loaf of bread from the warming shelf, he took a seat next to her and sawed off a hunk of bread. He set it next to her plate before cutting a second for himself.

Crusty on the outside, warm and light on the inside, and oh, the fragrance—Senza cupped the bread in her hands, inhaling deeply. Grandmother had baked bread such as this. Amazing that a simple scent could bring back so faded a memory, making it new again.

“Hungry?” He spoke around a mouthful, enthusiasm showing in his eyes.

She grinned. “I haven’t had something like this for a long time. I’d forgotten how hungry I was.”

“You must have been starved, if you were brave enough to eat this.” He used his bread to scoop up a chunk of stewed vegetable. “Where you from? You don’t sound like you’re from around here.”

She’d never seen anyone eat with so little decorum. It was noisy, and chaotic…and charming.

“Oh, I’m not.” She broke off a soft corner of her bread. “I lived in London.”

He whistled in admiration. “Fancy city.”

“Have you ever been there?”

“Me, no. I lived here my whole life. Lots of folks move away and go to the city. Maybe not all the way to your fancy London, but there’s others. Like Paris, you may have heard of it?” His teasing grin disarmed her. “Not too many pass through this way anymore. You’re the first in a long time.”

“Does the master take lodgers? I need a place—”

“You’d be lucky if he ever lets you leave.” He laughed and spooned up another hunk. “He hasn’t had a lodger in weeks.”

They finished their meal without Senza catching a glimpse of the inn keeper. The man gave her a key to the back room, the largest and the brightest, and carried her bags up for her. Seeing her settled, he excused himself and went back out to the barn, picking up where he’d left off to give her lunch. She could see him through the open windows of the loft, pitching fresh hay.

Eventually, she grew bored and wandered downstairs. Still no innkeeper. The kitchen, though, still had a wash tub full of dishes. Senza rolled up her sleeves and tackled them. Dishes done, she scrubbed the tables, cleaning off the sideboard where she and the stable boy had eaten, then the broad work table, still coated with flour. That done, the floor seemed most deserving of her attention and she swept and mopped until her arms ached.

Senza wiped her brow and surveyed her work. It had been a long time since she had done anything taking exertion. Gusting out a breath, she felt the locket warm, sending out a heartbeat that throbbed into her chest. Closing her eyes, she pressed her hand over her heart. It had caught her unexpectedly.

“Are you all right,
mademoiselle
?” The young man stood in the doorway. “My. You’ve been busy. Haven’t seen this room so clean since the master’s wife passed.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I was bored—”

“Don’t apologize, miss. I’m sure the master will consider your tab paid up a day or two.”

“Perhaps not.” A grumble of a voice came from the door to the dining room. “You have a guest, Gehring?”

“No, master. You do. I rented number three to Miss—”

“Senza,” she whispered to him.

“Miss Senza here, sir. And it seems she knows how to properly clean the iron, too.”

Senza curtsied, eyes down. She’d watched Cook clean the kitchen iron her whole life—

Her whole natural life. And that was so very long ago. Funny, how some things one never forgot.

She lifted her gaze enough to peer at the master. The innkeeper surveyed Senza, scrutinizing her dress, her shoes. “Pretty girl like you shouldn’t be cleaning in the kitchen. But if you know how to fill a glass with ale, you might help out at dinner tonight.”

He jerked his head toward Gehring. “He makes for a loathsome barmaid.”

A barmaid? Her? She had been raised in proper society, the eldest daughter of a wealthy trading captain. What would her father say if he saw a tavern wench in her place?

What, indeed? She was a thief, a killer, a liar, a demon. Deep in her heart, she knew she was no longer her father’s daughter. She was no one’s. And if she wanted a roof over her head, a bar maid was more honorable than a courtesan, if not quite as extravagant.

It would be nice to earn her way instead of waiting for her deceitful dark seducer to provide her means of living. This was something she could do on her own, a good something. Finally. The dark clouds of her useless future dimmed, a dearly-missed light once again touching her world.

She nodded and took an apron from the table. Rustic homespun and dyed a warm orange. She shook it out and wrapped it about herself. “I imagine him too broad about the waist for the apron to gracefully hang.”

Gehring chuckled. “You have no idea.”

“I’d be happy to help, master. And thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,
mademoiselle
.” He turned to leave, waving her to follow him. “You haven’t met the locals.”