Lady Killer

by Michele Jaffe

  Clio nodded. It all made sense. “Can you tell me anything else about him?”

  Kimberley was quiet for a long time, lying still with her eyes closed, and Clio thought she might have gone to sleep, or worse, but then her lips parted. “He was wearing a mask over his eyes,” she said, finally. “But I could tell that it made him glad to see me scared.” She turned her head toward Clio and said. “I am so tired. But I had to tell you. You will find him? You will fi…” her voice trailed off.

  Clio rose and crossed silently to the door, startling the eavesdropping Annie when she opened it.

  “She dead?” Annie demanded as Toast gleefully dragged Clio from the room.

  “No.” Clio motioned the woman down the stairs. “But she needs a doctor.”

  “What that girl needs is a priest,” Annie corrected. “She doesn’t have a cent to pay a doctor. And I already give her those new linens for free.”

  “That was kind of you,” Clio assured her.

  “Kind, nothing. Them flies were all over the other ones. Never seen so much blood in my life.”

  “Her blankets were covered in blood?” Clio asked, shaking her head. She felt as if she were coming out of a fog.

  “Soaked through they were.”

  “Here,” Clio said, handing Annie her entire purse. It was one of the reasons she never had any money. “Repay yourself for the linens and pay the doctor I will send to her. Do you understand?”

  Annie poured the contents of the purse into her hand, held them very close to her eyes, then put all but one gold piece back. “I don’t need that much,” she told Clio, returning the purse. “You keep it, miss. Give it to someone else. This one coin’ll do Annie and the doctor right enough.”

  Despite the story she had just heard, despite everything, Clio smiled. “You’ll take good care of her, won’t you?”

  “Do my best.” Then Annie looked around and sniffed the air. “Bad Harvey is ’round here somewhere. I can smell him.”

  Clio left the old woman on her doorstep, checking the air for Scent of Bad Harvey, and let Toast lead her toward home. It was Saturday, after midday, and the street was crowded with people gossiping and buying and selling. There was one fellow selling meat pies, next to whom Toast danced dangerously close, but Clio hardly noticed. She was going over Kimberley’s story, word by word, to be sure she had it completely. Everything about it confirmed what they suspected about Doctor LaForge’s methods. Except that Kimberley had lived.

  The image of him leaning over the girl, his lips, his teeth on her neck, was so clear in her head, so real, that it chilled Clio clear through. And what was worse, she knew it was supposed to. The vampire thrived on the fear of his victims. Even Kimberley had sensed that. He might not have needed their blood, but he needed their terror.

  Clio pushed this disturbing thought from her mind. The girl said the vampire had come the night Clio’s advertisement appeared in the news sheet. Clio knew exactly when that was. It had appeared on her birthday. The day there were fireworks. The day she and Miles had—

  “Lady Thornton,” a voice called to her from across the street. Clio looked up and saw that it came from a coach with the Dearbourn arms on it. Waving to her from beside the coach was Jocelyn, Mariana’s maid. “Lady Thornton,” Jocelyn cried again, and, scooping Toast up so he would not be run over, Clio crossed toward her.

  “Thank goodness I found you,” Jocelyn breathed. “They want you back at Dearbourn Hall immediately. Corin told me to tell you they found Doctor LaForge and that you should return with me.” Jocelyn opened the door and motioned Clio through it.

  “They found him?” Clio asked with excitement, pushing Toast into the vehicle and climbing in after him. “Where?”

  “Here,” an eerie voice said from deep within the dark shadows of the coach as the door clicked shut behind Clio. “I have been waiting for you right here, Lady Thornton, for well over an hour.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “I was under the impression that the lock you designed for my door could not be opened without the key,” Miles said to Tristan tersely as his cousins ambled uninvited into his apartment. “And I have that right here.”

  “I accidentally made two of them,” Tristan replied with an unapologetic smile.

  “You know,” Sebastian explained. “In case anything should happen to you.”

  “The only thing that is going to happen to me this afternoon is that I am going to be left alone with my thoughts. Now go away.”

  “Your thoughts?” Sebastian asked, looking pointedly at the four decanters of wine that stood in the middle of the table.

  Miles looked up to glare ferociously, but Ian moved into his line of vision. His expression was grim. “We have something to say to you, Miles.”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” Miles said, turning away from them. He had been staring at the decanters of wine he ordered from Corin since returning from his meetings at one o’clock. It was now half past three and he had not touched them. Somewhere inside he recognized that they would only make what he was feeling worse. But now, seeing his cousins, he stood, reached out for one of them, and poured himself a glass.

  Ian’s hand closed over his before he could take a gulp. “You are going to listen to us, Miles. Sober.”

  Miles put the glass down and regarded them bitterly. “You have nothing to worry about. I am not going to disgrace the family. I will behave with perfect courtesy tonight and go through with the betrothal tomorrow,” he said. “You have my word. Are you satisfied?”

  “No,” Crispin replied for all of them. “That is not why we came. We—”

  “Then what is it? Do you want my promise that I will not see Clio after I am married? You can have that, too. I would never do that to her. I could never treat her that way.”

  “Damn it, Miles, sit down and let us speak,” Tristan said, and it was so unlike him to be serious that Miles did what he said.

  “Good.” Ian, who had been designated as spokesman, nodded. “We have a proposal for you, Miles. We know that by the terms of your betrothal, if you do not marry Mariana you must sacrifice your assets, your property, everything. We cannot do much about replacing your title, although L. N. is working with the queen on that, but we will each give you a quarter of our fortunes to make up for what you will lose.”

  “What?” Miles asked, thunderstruck.

  “We want you to be happy, Miles,” Crispin explained. “We have never seen you as happy as you have been during these past nine days. And we are fairly sure it has nothing to do with the approach of your marriage.”

  When Miles still looked dumbfounded, Sebastian spelled it out in clear language. “We want you to marry Clio Thornton.”

  Craven and unworthy, the contract said he would be if he did not abide its provisions. “I can’t,” Miles answered plainly.

  Crispin looked at him, uncomprehending. “But you will have plenty of mone—”

  “It’s not about the money,” Miles interrupted his cousin. “It has never been about the money.”

  “It’s about proving your worth to your father,” Tristan said, reciting the line they had heard from Miles so many times. “But damn it, Miles, your father is dead.”

  “It is not my father. It is about proving something to myself.”

  “What?” Tristan demanded.

  “That I am not the man he thought I was. That I am not craven and unworthy. That I am not dishonorable.”

  Tristan waved his hand. “Those are just words.”

  “No,” Miles shook his head and his cheeks were flushed. “Not when they are said by your father. Not when they are said about you.” Suddenly anger edged his voice. “But I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” he went on, glaring at Tristan. “You don’t even know who the hell your father is.”

  His words seemed to scorch the air, and Miles was immediately sorry. “Oh God, Trist, you know I did not—”

  “You are right,” Tristan interrupted, not stiffly. “I am a bastard.
And a thief.”

  “That is not what I—” Miles began, but Tristan cut him off again.

  “Perhaps you remember that I was fairly troubled by that when you all rescued me from the hanging cells at the Doge’s prison, what was that, sixteen years ago? Remember how I growled at you and told you that a thief and a bastard could never be accepted as one of the famous and honorable Arboretti? Remember how I tried to drive you away?”

  Miles, chastened, nodded.

  “Then maybe you remember what finally convinced me to come with you and assume my birthright. No? It was this very young and idealistic poet, one of my cousins, whose hair kept falling in his eyes and who was already at that time a half head taller than me, who would not accept my arguments. He grabbed me by the collar of my best shirt and said, ‘Honor does not mean blindly acceding to somebody else’s expectations, Tristan del Moro, it means making your own and living up to them. Stop acting like a fool.’ And then stormed off. Of course, he could not get far because the cell door was closed, but he had made his point.”

  Miles’s expression was distant. “I had forgotten about that.”

  “I hadn’t. And now, even though you are still taller than I am, I’m going to do the same thing to you.” Tristan dragged Miles up by the collar and looked in his eyes. “If you love Clio Thornton, you should marry her, Miles Fraser Loredan. And if you don’t, I’ll marry her myself and then you’ll really have a reason to call me a bastard. Personally, I do not want to be the only Arboretti not wed to a woman who was once wanted for murder.”

  All of a sudden, Miles found that he was smiling. And laughing. He hugged Tristan around the neck. “Thank you,” he said.

  “It was the least I could do. If it wasn’t for you, I would not be here now,” Tristan told him. “Now I think it is time you introduce us to your bride-to-be.”

  He was going to marry Clio. Unable to contain himself, Miles let out an enormous celebratory holler.

  Corin burst into the room then as if he had been fired from a cannon.

  “Corin, listen to the news,” Miles began, but the expression on his manservant’s face stopped him cold. It would have been enough to sober Miles even if he had drunk all four decanters of wine. “What has happened?”

  “I think there is something you should hear, my lord,” he said, stepping aside to let one of Miles’s handpicked footmen enter the room. He was panting.

  “We found Doctor LaForge, sir,” the footman said between breaths.

  “Where?” Miles asked in a voice none of his cousins had heard in years. They exchanged perplexed glances.

  “He was in one of your coaches,” the boy elaborated, still breathing heavily. “Apparently your betrothed’s maid, Jocelyn, borrowed it for him. That was how we found him. Coachman passed the word to Arnold when he saw us on the street.”

  “Did you know about this?” Miles demanded of Corin, who shook his head and looked gray. Miles returned his attention to the footman. “Go on.”

  “We caught up with him in Whitefriars, waiting outside some old house. When he started to move, I came to inform you. Arnold is still following him, on foot.”

  “Good work. Stay with him. Keep us notified.” Miles began to turn away.

  “Yes sir. There is just one thing, sir.”

  Miles turned back. “What?”

  “There’s a lady with him. A lady with a monkey.”

  “Is it Lady Thornton?” Miles asked and his voice was deadly calm.

  “I did not get a perfect look, sir, but I am almost certain that it was.”

  Clio realized four things at once: the figure hunched opposite her had no accent and no beard, but there was no mistaking that he was Doctor LaForge; she was alone with a man who brutally killed women; he had a pistol aimed at her forehead; and he looked like he knew how to use it.

  That meant she had two choices. Pray the coach hit a bad spot in the road, upsetting LaForge’s aim long enough for her to get away. Or learn what he intended to do with her and start planning an escape.

  The coach bumped over something then, and swerved abruptly, but Doctor LaForge’s aim did not waver.

  One choice.

  “Where are you taking me?” Clio asked in what she hoped was an engaging tone.

  “Shut up,” Doctor LaForge replied.

  No choices.

  Clio did as he said, pressing herself into the corner of the coach. Toast huddled against her, every now and then peering at the man with the pistol, then turning and hiding his face. Nor could she blame him. Doctor LaForge’s expression was one of such complete malevolence that it was chilling just to look at him.

  Clio felt his eyes boring into her, seeing but not seeing, almost feverish in their menace. But she would not be afraid. She would not give him the benefit of her terror.

  Not until she could not help it.

  Unhelpful thoughts flitted through her mind. How many victims had he taken? Two dozen? More? Would he kill her with the pistol or with poison? Which would be more painful? What was going to happen to Toast? Would she at least get answers to her questions before he killed her? Would Miles still get married the next day?

  This last thought rattled around her head, preoccupying her, until the coach drew to a stop. She was astonished to see they were at the Painted Lady. And relieved. Surely, Lovely Jake would be able to help her.

  But he was nowhere to be seen as they entered and ascended the back stairs, and before she could even think of calling out she felt the pistol pressed hard against her back. She did as LaForge indicated and pushed open the door of a room, but when she saw what was inside she almost could not make her feet cross the threshold. It was some combination of Toast’s running ahead and the pistol at her back that propelled her.

  LaForge shoved her into a chair that had been set up opposite the door. As soon as she saw it, she knew that he had been planning whatever was about to happen, because the chair had been modified. Attached to each of the arms were leather straps, with which, despite her attempts to stop him, he managed to bind her wrists. She flexed her hands and pulled against the straps, but they held fast. She was immobile. There was no way for her to escape.

  It was one thing to sit across the coach from a madman and remain calm, she realized as she became aware of her growing panic, but quite another to stay tranquil as he tied you into a chair.

  “I am not afraid of you,” Clio told him, as much as herself, and was surprised by his unconcern.

  “Your feelings are of no importance to me. You are merely a pawn.”

  Had she misunderstood? Was he not interested in her fear? “A pawn? What game are we playing?”

  “The game of revenge,” he explained smoothly, testing the leather thongs holding her hands to ensure they were tight. “A game that requires you to die. Preferably in a great deal of pain.”

  You will pay for this Dearbourn, Clio remembered the vampire saying before he plunged into the river last time. “Revenge on Viscount Dearbourn?”

  “That is only part of it,” he told her, lifting a satchel from under the bed and opening it.

  “Tell me the rest,” she urged. “Tell me how you survived after Dearbourn shot you.”

  “I swam,” LaForge answered plainly. “Then I went to Europe, where I had the pleasure of meeting up with your idiot cousin and that bitch you call your grandmother.”

  “How? Did you seek them out? Did you know Mariana was betro—”

  “I don’t like your questions,” he interrupted, removing three rusty knives from the satchel, each one longer and thicker than the other. “The only sound I want to hear from you is the sound of the life draining from you as you cry out, in vain, for help.” He spoke entirely without emphasis or inflection, which only made his words more hideous.

  Her one chance, Clio saw, was to find a way to delay him. “But I want to know,” she said, and she allowed a hint of desperation to creep into her voice. She had read in a book once that leather became malleable when warm, and she wriggled h
er wrists slightly to create friction around her bonds. “I want to understand, Doctor LaForge.”

  “My name is not Doctor LaForge.” He turned and stared at her now. “My name is Samuel Rightson.”

  Samuel Rightson. The name was familiar to Clio, but—“You are Theolinda Rightson’s brother,” she blurted suddenly. “The one she inscribed the book to.”

  “Ah, you found that,” he said in a disaffected voice. “I figured you would.”

  His coldness was horrible. She had to slow him. “Tell me about your sister. What was she like?”

  For a moment something like emotion whisked across his face. “She was wonderful. She had come to London to visit me. She—” his face grew black again. “She died.”

  “It sounds like you loved her very much.”

  “I did.”

  “Then how could you do it? How could you suck your own sister’s blood? How could you kill her like that?”

  His face became a hard mask. “I did not kill her. Dearbourn killed her.”

  “What are you talking about? You bit her neck. You sucked her blood.”

  He bent down and brought his face close to hers, so that she could feel his spittle on her cheek as he spoke and the pressure of a knife against her throat. “You think you know everything, but you know nothing. Nothing. Mark my words, Lady Thornton, you have been blind. Crime is a virtue and virtue is a crime. You will understand that soon enough. But by then you will be dea—”

  The sound of a pistol shot rang out in the air, startling them both.

  “What is that?” the man formerly known as Doctor LaForge demanded, spinning toward the door. “It is too early. I am not ready.” Silence followed the loud noise. He opened the door an inch to peer out.

  And then came crashing backward into the room, falling in a crumpled heap beside Clio. The knife he had been holding flew from his hand and nicked her on the shin, but she barely noticed, her relief was so great.

  “Thank God you have come,” she panted, twisting against the bonds in her chair. “He was going to kill me, Miles, he was—”