by Maren Smith
God, the familiarity…
Bending, Draven gathered her into the cradle of his arms, lifting her off the hard stones. She was every bit as slight and small as Elise had been. All but fairy-like in his embrace.
“What is that?” Losing his grin, the Fat Man squinted now instead, trying to make out the bundle Draven held. “What’ve you got there? Oi, Grey!” He pointed his massive slab of a hand. “That’s no dog, Grey!”
“Fetch a doctor!” Draven yelled back.
With a curt word, his neighbor sent his youngest running up the street, but Draven didn’t stay to see which direction—and which doctor—he went for. He had to nudge the heavy shop door open with his boot. His knives clinked and clanked in time with his steps as he rushed her through the dark interior of his butchery to simple brown curtain that hid the steps to his second-floor flat. Tiny as she was, he barely felt the strain as he carried her upstairs.
Compared to the upper class, he probably lived in squalor. Compared to most of Whitechapel and Spitalfields, his accommodations were damn near royalty. He had a spacious main receiving area, a private kitchen, a parlor, and a bedroom, all without the cumbersome luxury of walls to separate them. Long and narrow, his home took up the entire space above his shop. He had six windows, which was four more (and in some cases six more) than could be said for most of Whitechapel’s residents. Right now, he counted that a blessing. It meant he didn’t have to light a candle before carrying her across the open floor, his bootsteps alternately crisp and then muffled as he passed from hardwood to rag rug, and laid her on the bed.
The sun was up now. More than half of its blazing face peeked over a landscape of soot-stained buildings, shingled rooftops and smoking chimney stacks, shining brightly through curtains that had once been white but which time and infrequent washings had turned dingy. Elise would have been appalled.
That that should be chief among his concerns right now was even more appalling.
Momentarily lost, he stared down at the stranger in his bed, seemingly blanketed in angelic daylight that only amplified the white of her hair. A halo, marred as it was by a mat of coagulating crimson. The strangulation bruises on the alabaster paleness of her neck were an abomination he could barely stand to witness. From the pitcher on his dresser, he poured clean water into the basin and wet a cloth. Bruises wouldn’t wipe away, but blood would and at least this was something he could do for her.
He pressed the cool cloth to the gash on the top of her head. Gentle as he was, she still flinched and gasped. Eyes still closed, she tried to roll her head away, which helped him better see the knot swelling under the drying blood.
Damn.
“Oi.” He tapped her cheek with the backs of two fingers. “Open your eyes. El—” Draven caught himself. “Look at me.”
She rolled to face him. She squinted, weakly raising her hand to shield her eyes from the light. After only a second, though, she tried to touch the gash on her head instead.
“No, no.” He caught her wrist and she flinched. “Shh, you’re safe, luv. I know it hurts, but you’re safe with me. What’s your name, pet? Tell me where you live and I’ll send for someone.”
Eyes fluttering, she tried to shield them from the window light. Snapping the curtains closed, he coaxed her to open them until, slowly, she obeyed. Baby blue, God help him.
She blinked several times, her brow wrinkling as she took in the unfamiliar room. She looked at her hand, her sleeve, and finally, no less confused, her gaze settled on him before the distraction of a long clump of blood-matted hair draped across her shoulder and breast caught her attention. She picked it up. Alarm now as well as confusion filled the blue of her eyes as they snapped back to him.
“He can’t hurt you now,” Draven promised. “I won’t let him.”
He said it the way he imagined anyone would. Human beings should comfort one another when distraught. But sitting on the edge of his bed, bent over her this way, staring into a face so unbelievably similar to his departed wife’s, he was surprised at how much he meant what he said. This wasn’t Elise, he had to remind himself. She didn’t need his protection. Somewhere in London, someone—a father, a brother, perhaps even a husband—must be pacing the floor, waiting on her return. The responsibility of protecting her fell to that man, not him. It might take a reminder or two, but he was determined to keep that in mind.
“Who,” she rasped with a wince, swallowing with obvious discomfort. “Who… are you?”
“Draven Grey.” He made himself soften, tense muscles relaxing as he tapped a saluting finger to the brim of a soldier’s cap he hadn’t worn in years. “At your service, luv.”
“Where…” The confusion in her wandering gaze helped to finish that question for her.
“You’re in my home.” He caught her wrist when she tried to touch her forehead and then her nose.
“Hurts…”
“I know, dovey.” Holding onto her hand now, he gave it a comforting squeeze. “Sawbones’ll be here soon. Aw, don’t you worry.” He managed a wink and even a smile as he nodded at her head. “Not likely he’ll be amputating something that pretty. Not today, at any rate. And don’t you worry about that other matter. I chased the tosser off. He won’t be bothering you anymore.”
She blinked twice, then mouthed, “Tosser?”
“The man what knocked you down. Did you know him?”
She blinked twice more, confusion deepening.
“Do you remember what happened?” he gently pressed.
She started to shake her head, but the pain must have stopped her. “No,” she mouthed instead.
“These are mean streets, dovey. Grown men have lost more than their money wandering about at this hour, never mind what could happen to a missus.” It was as close to scolding as he’d let himself get with someone who wasn’t his. He frowned. “Never mind. As I said, you’re enough safe now. Unless you were out without your mister’s knowledge, in which case, don’t be looking to me to save ye.”
He’d have thought that smoky glimmer creeping through the confusion on her face panic. Her nostrils flared and her breathing quickened. It was such a minor change. If he weren’t sitting so close to her, he might easily have missed it.
“Your man doesn’t know,” Draven guessed, the only thing in that moment that made panic like that make sense. But instead of guilt, her confusion intensified. That stopped him. Did she have more than a well-smacked bottom to fear from her spouse? Had her attacker been her spouse?
His hand tightened on hers. It took conscious effort for him to soften his grip. It wasn’t his business, and he knew it. But he also knew, if that faceless, nameless mister did turn out to be the same man who had knocked this false Elise to the ground in front of his store, bashing her head to the cobblestones and strangling her unconscious before laying the sharpened blade of his knife to her vulnerable throat—that man would have far more to fear from him than she ever would, from anyone.
She opened her mouth, her gaze searching his. “I… I d-don’t know.”
“Don’t know what, luv?” Draven asked, shaking himself from those dark thoughts. “If your man knows yer out? Well, he’s going to find out in a minute. Tell me where you live, dovey. I’ll have him fetched.”
Her brow furrowed, but the light of panic and confusion only brightened. “I…”
When she hesitated, he brushed her blood-matted hair back, fingertips gently skirting the painful swelling that rose off the crest of her head like a unicorn’s budding horn. “What, tell me.”
He had no idea how unprepared he was to hear what she whispered back.
“I don’t know where I live. I… I don’t know who I am.”
***
He paced the Crown Place alley like an animal, caged in by the soot-stained brick buildings of a dairy shop on one side and Franklin’s coffeehouse on the other. From here he could see Bosman’s Butchery far across the wide street. Stupid, stupid, stupid! How could he have been that careless? To get caught not
just once, but twice in the same night! The run was over, but his heart still raced. Still pounded at his ribs as if it meant to break through the bone. His hands were damp from his hasty wash up at the first water pump he’d come to, once he’d realized the butcher no longer pursued him. The lingering dampness made the handle of his knife slippery in a way blood never had.
What was he going to do? The sun was up and the streets here ten times busier now that it was light. He had work, and if he didn’t leave, he was going to be late. The morning of a fresh murder was not the day to alter his routine, not even in the slightest. But to leave a witness behind… Not just one, but three! What to do?
What could he do?
How much had the butchers seen? One had been across the alley. The other had been much closer, but fortunately he’d been deep in shadow with his back to the man at the time. In all likelihood, that fellow had chased him simply because he’d run.
The woman, however… Oh now, she had seen more. Much more. Possibly everything, in fact. She was a real danger to him and once the body was discovered, police would spread out, searching for anyone with any kind of answer to their questions.
He wiped his mouth, glaring across the road at the butchery that sheltered her. He couldn’t leave, not while there was a possibility that she might yet live. But worse, he couldn’t stay either. The relentless tick of time could be felt in every hammering beat of his furious heart. He had to finish what he started. He had to get her to the ground, tuck his knife up under her chin and silence her before she told anyone what she’d seen in the window at Miller’s Court.
Turning, he paced as far as the mouth of the alley, but stopped when he felt a light bumping tap against his upper thigh. He glanced in surprise at the delicate necklace chain caught on his coat button. Dangling from the end of that chain was a round locket, tarnished and worn by the relentless passage of time.
Gathering the locket, he opened it and for a long time stood staring at the picture inside.
“Below!” a woman called, his only warning before the filthy contents of a chamber pot were hurled from an upstairs window just feet from him. “Buy somethin’ or push on,” she said with a knowing frown. “I gots three more to empty just like it, and I don’t know you.”
Bitch.
Scowling, he tucked the locket away. Out of time and options, he turned his back on Bosman’s, on Butcher Row and on Commercial Street entirely. The weight of his knife was both a comfort and an impatient curse in his coat pocket. He still seethed, but London was waking up and so he put on his daily mask.
Slipping out onto an already active street, he gave a tip of his cap to the first person he passed and fell into cold, tromping step with the rest of the crowd marching off to work.
Chapter 4
She wove in and out of unconsciousness, the light and her own exhaustion making it impossible to open her eyes, the pounding ache in her head making it impossible to sleep. At least, she didn’t think she did. She didn’t think there were gaps in the low conversation passing between the two men, the only other people in the room with her, but there must have been. In blinks they went from standing at the window and talking to one another, to standing over her and shaking her shoulder so they could talk to her. Sometimes their words had meaning; sometimes she couldn’t make sense of anything falling from their moving mouths.
They poked at her, prodded the sore spot on her head, her neck, her chest and her knees. They asked her questions and she tried to cooperate, but the sunlight shining through the open window curtains hurt her throbbing head and she was tired. So tired that it felt like a mountainous chore just to follow all the questions they kept asking.
How many fingers were they holding up? Six, but it might have been four. Everything was really blurry.
What day was it? Saturday… maybe.
What was her name? Her head was killing her. First name? Surname? Nickname? Why couldn’t she remember?
She was so very tired. If they’d just let her sleep, just for a little bit, she might be able to remember. Already it perched right there, there on the tip of her tongue and on the forefront of her brain. So close that if she nodded it might come spilling down out of her skull and finally fill her mouth. But her head and the light and all this talking and poking and prodding, it was too much. All she wanted was to pull the blankets up over her head and be quiet for a while, but neither man would let her and maybe that was for the best. Every time she closed her eyes, nightmarish things kept flashing through her mind.
The head-hurting daylight vanished. Thin glints of lamplight and shadow dripped along the flashing edge of sharp knives. Knives in the darkness. A lot of knives, slashing hungrily in search of her, with daggers longer than her forearm and all of them seen only in terrifying glimpses from the periphery of her gaze.
She had to run, but couldn’t. She was stuck, her feet rooted to the streets as if mired in rivers of bloody molasses. Where was it all coming from? She didn’t know. She couldn’t see or smell or touch anything in the black—only the glinting blades dancing just out of her ability to focus on them clearly—and the echoing gunshot sound of footsteps running just behind her.
“Citrate of caffeine for the headache.”
She startled awake in time to see the older of the two men handing the other a glass vial. Draven, he’d said his name was. Draven Grey—a man in his forties or so, tall and lean with long brown hair pulled back in a low ponytail, dark eyes and hard, chiseled features. Hard, chiseled everything, it seemed, if the veins running up his muscular forearms were any indication. No longer standing directly over her, he and the elderly doctor—his back slightly stooped and his muttonchops almost completely grey—were at the foot of the bed instead.
“Food and water sparingly,” the doctor continued. “She might vomit once or twice, but if it persists or she falls into a sleep you cannot wake her from, have me summoned immediately.”
Noticing her eyes open, he bent to touch her foot beneath the worn but warm rag blanket that covered her. The touch of his fingers on her toes was startling. Hadn’t she been wearing shoes?
“And you, young lady,” the old doctor said, not unkindly. “You are to do as this man tells you, do you understand? Stay a-bed and rest, doctor’s orders.”
Almost immediately, the itch to get up and follow him from the room planted itself right in the small of her back and refused to be dislodged. But nor could it be obeyed. The second she tried, her body rebelled. Pain exploded through her head the instant she lifted it from the pillow. Smoggy sunlight drove through her wincing eyelids as if with pointed spikes. When she rolled her face away, the whole world spun, and continued to spin even after she stopped moving. Her groan came out on a rasp of painful air. She cupped her throat before she could manage a swallow.
The doctor patted her foot, lowering his voice as he told Draven, “I’ll send a runner round with some opium for the sore throat.”
“Thank you.” Shaking his hand, Draven walked him as far as the door.
“Stay, stay,” the old man said and lowered his voice even further; small as the room was, she had no problem hearing it when he said, “Don’t leave her alone just yet. I’ll show myself out.”
“Don’t leave her alone?” Draven echoed, somewhat incredulously. “Dr. Phillips, I can’t stay up here. I have a shop to run.”
“Not today,” Dr. Phillips countered.
“No,” she croaked, and would have shook her head, but she knew better. She cupped her forehead instead, using her arm to shield her eyes from the daylight. “Go. Work. I’m fine.”
Draven and the doctor gave her identical looks.
“Fine, are you?” Draven propped his hands on lean and slender hips, as if he hadn’t just been arguing the necessity of running his shop mere seconds before. “What’s your name, dove, yeah? Where do you live? Who’s your family?”
She glared at him from beneath a light-shielding hand. “I’m fine,” she rasped.
“Give me someo
ne to contact,” he challenged.
“You don’t know me,” she challenged back, her temper pricking just enough for her not to care how much it hurt each time she spoke. “You said so yourself, so you can’t possibly care two shits—” Draven and Dr. Phillips both startled and stared at her. “—about whether I stay or go, except at how much it inconveniences you to keep me here. So don’t. If you need permission not to feel guilty about… whatever the problem is, then give me a few minutes to get this headache under control and I’ll go.”
“Go where?” Draven demanded. In three steps, he closed the distance between the foot of the bed and her hip. He lowered himself to sit on the edge of the mattress and calmly took her hand, applying only enough pressure to pull it from her forehead. “Where do you want to go? Do you even know?”
She floundered, the fog in her head refusing to provide any answers and the sunlight filtering in around the curtains positively killing her.
“I may not know who you are, but I know more about you than you do.”
She tried to take back her hand, not at all sure she understood why her stomach kept tightening or why a slow, pulsing heat had begun to thrum in time with the gentle stroke of his fingers as they brushed her forehead, blocking the light now for her. As much as she would have loved to yank her arm away, she couldn’t seem to make herself pull hard enough to remove her wrist from his captivity.
“Smooth, uncalloused palms,” he noted. “Skin, soft and pale. No pocks.” He caught her chin with the same gruff gentleness. “Paints on your lashes and your lips. That says upper class to me and yet your clothes scream money. At first glance only, though. Closer inspection shows something more. You’ve a little dirt here and there, a tear at knee level, but the stitches ain’t silk and although new, the cloth ain’t rich. No ring on your finger; widowed, perhaps? Oh,” he said, absolutely convinced. “You were a lady once. Maybe not royalty since you’re American, but definitely upper class. Your dress could do with a mend and a wash, but the cloth is fancier than I’m used to, that’s for certain. You’ve travelled, too. I can’t place your accent, but you had money once. Actress, maybe. I don’t know, but the only reason one like you would be in Whitechapel now, is if you’d somehow lost it all.” His already narrow eyes narrowed further. “Only question I have is, are you sleeping rough, hm? Or is there a man out there somewhere, ready to swoop you back up out of danger?”