Fearless (Scarlet Suffragette, Book 1): A Victorian Historical Romantic Suspense Series (20 page)

"Please have a tray prepared," I asked, forcing myself to speak strongly. "Tea, some milk and sugar." And then as an after thought added, "Two glasses and my father's whiskey, as well."

Hardwick stalled in her movement to turn away at the command, her eyes searching my face, her cheeks whitening.

"Bad news," she whispered.

"The worst," I found myself admitting. Even at six-and-twenty I still couldn't help embracing the mother figure she had always provided.

"Right away, miss," she replied, ducking her head and effecting the subservient servant role finally. I closed my eyes as her footsteps sounded out in retreat to the kitchen, willing myself to move. Too grateful for her acquiescence to manage more than grasping the banister to save from crumpling into a loose pile.

My emotions were quite out of control; a fashion I did not much care for. I sucked in another deep breath and then started up the steps, feeling every creak in my body, every bruise on skin, every stretch of tired muscle as though I had run a Greek marathon.

Not entirely unexpected, Wilhelmina waited at the top of the stairs, hands wringing, face blanched of all colour, her night-rail billowing in an unseen draft from deeper within the house somewhere.

"What are you doing out of bed?" I remonstrated, ushering her back along the hallway and in through the open door to her room. The fire was still burning, but much of the heat had escaped as she'd stood, for God knows how long, on that landing. Listening. Waiting. Fretting. "You'll catch your death of cold," I added, wincing at the unfortunate and inaccurate pun.

"I heard your return," she advised, scrambling back into bed and clutching the blankets around her shivering shoulders. "I heard voices," she whispered, making me glance towards her from where I was stoking the fire.

"Just Hardwick and myself," I reassured her. Mina's fears were always so close to the surface. And right now, we could have all done with a little distance.

"What has happened?" she demanded, her voice stronger in that instant than I would have given her credit for.

"Hardwick will arrive soon with some tea," I stalled.

She was having none of it.

"You have been gone all afternoon, cousin. And return in the thick of night. Face leached of all colour. Blood staining your hands."

I looked down at the evidence of my pastimes, cursing my failure to clean up at the Station. Not that I would have been allowed near the Surgery in order to do so. And anywhere else inside the establishment was earmarked for men.

A soft sigh escaped my lips and I stopped fussing with the fire iron. Staring instead at the brightly coloured flames. Letting the crackle and hiss fill the silence.

"I am strong enough, Anna," Wilhelmina finally murmured. "You have given me time to find that strength again."

I turned around and looked my beloved cousin in the eyes; she deserved that much and more. Crossing to her desk, I moved to pull out the chair, my gaze snagging on an advert for the upcoming mayoral elections. The obvious wording designed to favour men.

"Mr Crowther's I presume?" I enquired, flicking the flyer over and quickly reading the back.

"We thought it best to see what Mr Entrican's opposition was all about," she advised. "I do believe, for all his vitriol, that the gentleman could be persuaded to our cause. If only one could separate him from his cronies."

My eyes came up reluctantly from the paper, spearing Wilhelmina with a doubtful glance. It was better than the alternative I was feeling: Shock that my cousin had self-motivated to act.

Then a thought occurred. One I did not want to countenance. But I knew Mina, and it had to be asked.

"Whose idea was this, dear cousin?"

"Why, Mrs Poynton's, of course."

I sat down in the chair, my legs shaking with nervous energy.

"And who is the 'we' that you speak of?"

"Anna, have I done aught wrong?" Her voice trembled, but she valiantly held my gaze.

"No, Mina," I rushed to assure her, but I feared I'd already misspoken. "You have not, but I'd still like to know who accompanied you to retrieve this."

Heartbreakingly, I thought I might just know the answer.

"Helen accompanied me," she confirmed then, making the room spin and cold sweat to bead my brow.

Oh, dear Lord. How close had Wilhelmina come?

He'd seen them, of that I was sure. He'd seen and followed them, and somehow, God alone knew how, he'd picked off Helen, leaving Wilhelmina alive for now. But for how much longer?

A chill invaded my bones, sinking deep into marrow. I closed my eyes and only opened them again when Hardwick knocked on the door. She bustled in, silence her companion. Either aware of the tension that hung on the air, or astute enough to note now was not the time to pass comment. She placed the tray, with china pot and cups that had once belonged to my mother, and the whiskey decanter and tumblers that had been my father's purview, on a side table, and then lifted heavy eyes to my own.

I nodded my thanks, and within seconds Hardwick had left us alone, the hiss and spit of burning wood on the andiron the only sound to fill the room.

Until Wilhelmina said, "Whiskey. This is bad, indeed, if you have broken into Uncle Thomas' store."

"Mina," I said on a breath of pained air. Too much death, now and then. Almost too much to bear.

"Shall I pour?" she asked, slipping out of the bed and walking towards where Hardwick had left the tray. I let her, she needed the movement.

For myself, I couldn't seem to shift under the weight that weighed me down.

A shaking hand offered a finger of the amber liquid, the strong scent of honey and oak on the air. We both took small sips, well familiar with the strength in which the liquor could strike. Then held our glasses in still hands, staring into the fire.

Eventually I placed my glass on the desk behind me and stood, taking the steps necessary to reach my cousin's side. There was no easy way to say this. No simple structure of words to make this all right. I had to pray that Mina was stronger than I had realised, and evidence tonight would indicate such.

I took her free hand, removing the glass of whiskey from her other and placing it on the mantle. Then I faced her, gripping both palms firmly in mine and did what had to be done.

"He struck again tonight," I said, voice low as if I feared the words alone would summon the killer.

Too late for that.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered, as she began to shake in earnest. My throat closing over, my heart breaking apart under the strain. Tears welled in my eyes, mirroring my cousin.

"Helen," she said on a suppressed sob. "It was Helen," she repeated, her words vying for strength, but failing miserably to find any.

"Yes, dearest," I whispered back. "Darling Helen is gone. I'm sorry."

She was in my arms, a wail that wrenched at my body, her fingers clinging to my cloak like I had done to the inspector's jacket, in the next heartbeat. The warmth of the fire unable to ward off the chill that suffused
everything
. Her tears wet my collar. The racking of her frame went right through to my core. I felt every pain-filled sound as though it was belonged to me.

In the centre of a maelstrom I had no hope of escaping.

We ended up on the rug before the hearth, holding each other as we cried. The heat from the fire went from a distant tickle to an inferno. One side of us warmed to scorching, the other frozen in a kind of hell.

And all the while I kept thinking that Helen lay on an impersonal slab, in the surgery that should have been mine.

And I kept telling myself that he would
not
get Wilhelmina too. Because the injustice of seeing her somewhere other than my father's house was too great to stomach right now.

And then I cursed Ethel Poynton and her need to send her flock into the fray. And the inspector for not making our leader understand the gravity of her choices.

And finally I damned the killer, who preyed on the innocent, and left my cousin so fragile, so frail, so not the woman I loved and admired. In so many ways.

After hours of holding Mina and staring at the embers in the dying hearth, I finally managed to get her into bed with Hardwick's assistance. A skeleton of my cousin, blank eyes staring at the ceiling, soft breaths belying the frantic beat of her heart.

"Shall I fetch the Laudanum, miss?" Mrs Hardwick enquired, as we both stood looking down at our catatonic charge.

I shook my head. "Laudanum would only increase the hallucinations," I whispered, keeping my voice pitched low so Wilhelmina wouldn't hear. "I'll stay with her," I added. "I expect the night to be long."

"You need anything, young miss," she said, using the moniker she'd adopted when my mother had passed, "you call right away, you hear?"

"I will, Hardwick," I promised, giving the older woman an impromptu hug, and then ushering her out the door.

I turned and looked across the room to Mina, her body so small in the voluminous bed. Her face so pale, her lips still trembling.

"Sleep, sweet Mina," I said, tucking in the edge of her bedclothes. "I'll be right here," I promised, pulling the hard backed chair from her desk to beside the bed, and wrapping a throw about my shoulders as I took it.

I stared at my cousin until the sun rose.

I stared at her as she stared up at the ceiling, unseeing, unblinking. Not really there.

I was still staring at her when I heard Hardwick scream.

And through it all, through
everything
, Mina didn't even stir.

Eighteen

I Owed It To Them

Anna

Mrs Hardwick stood shaking in the entrance foyer, a box sitting open at her feet. From my perch on the bottom tread, I could see what awaited inside. But I could only guess which part of Helen's anatomy he'd chosen this time, and the answer was not welcome in the slightest.

"See to Wilhelmina, Mrs Hardwick," I instructed.

"What devil works this evil, Miss Cassidy?" the housekeeper whispered, not moving from her stance above the delivery.

"Not a devil, Mrs Hardwick. But evil this man is."

"Why here? Why to you?"

I shook my head. I did not know the answer, but the censure in the old woman's eyes was enough for me to reply curtly.

"See to my cousin, Hardwick. I will send word to the inspector."

"Right you are, miss," she answered without inflection. The lack of tone enough to tell me she was worried beyond all sense.

Hardwick walked stiffly past me to the stairwell, and began to climb the stairs with exaggerated aggression in every step. Keeping her occupied with Wilhelmina was the surest way to avoid a talking to.

Not that anything she had to say wasn't something I hadn't already considered.

The Cassidy residence was in danger. Under attack, Hardwick would dramatically say. And with my father gone, she had expected me to marry quickly. Ensuring all of our safety. The fact that I hadn't and now a killer had singled us out, was proof enough in the old woman's eyes of my selfishness. My inability to do what she perceived as right.

Had Kelly proposed I may well have followed the expected path. But he hadn't. Not even come close to suggesting that was a possibility. And there was no other man who held a match to him. Not for me. Not ever.

I waited until I heard Mina's door click shut behind the housekeeper and then I took the steps necessary to reach the parcel's side. It was a plain brown box, one you could easily acquire at the postal office. Inside lay a meaty lump of flesh, nestled in the same thin paper the killer had used to package Mary's tongue. I crouched down and lifted the edge of one of the fine sheets, peering under the "gift." It was obvious he'd placed the breast upside down, allowing the first glimpse to be that of muscle tissue, fat and bloody sinew, rather than pale skin and her nipple.

A soft sound of distress left me. I tamped down the emotion and delved deeper into the box, locating the letter I had known would be included. I pulled it out, replacing the breast where it had originally been, and unfolded the crisp parchment. It matched the one delivered yesterday. The same embossed flower in the corner, taunting in its pristine beauty the words that mocked with their evil filth.

My dearest Miss Cassidy,

Perhaps it is fitting that my next honoured deliverance be that of one of your misguided friends. I shall imagine your wistful thanks, your lush lips pressed into a determined grin. For I know you understand the importance of our work. You alone have walked this path, but not yet been accepted into the higher planes of its existence. Never fear, for I shall guide you. Together we will traverse the loftier heights of Dedication.

Did you like the location? I chose it for two reasons, of course. The nearness of the inspector's not so private operations room and the inclusion of the horn blowing cherubs. Isn't love a strange thing? The heralding of something thought to be good. But like Miss Nelson, Kelly does not fully commit. Will he? Will she?

'Tis fitting they now both haunt the Albert Barracks.