The man gulped and nodded. “I will, yer lordship. I rightly will.”
Returning to the hallway behind the boxes, Paul suddenly remembered the velvet bag. Removing it from his pocket, he untied the top and opened it in view of the dimly lit gas lamp. Upturning its contents into his left hand, three jeweled pieces fell into his palm. Two rings in a set: one a diamond band, whilst the other contained a flawless central diamond, flanked by a smaller pair of diamonds and two sapphires, set into a ring of fine gold. The last was a jeweled cross on a chain. All were known to him, just as the scoundrel Urquhart had promised; they had been worn by Patricia Stuart every day of her married life to her first husband, Elizabeth’s father, Connor Stuart. How had Sir Clive gained access to items surely collected by H-Division more than nine years earlier? Paul replaced the items into the bag and hid them once again within his pocket.
Deciding to say nothing to Elizabeth, Paul brushed the dust from his coat with his hands, hoping her observant mind would not notice or ask for an explanation. The less she knew, the better she would sleep. Better that he lose sleep than she. Parting the curtains, he found both women quiet.
“Sorry to be gone so long,” he whispered as he sat beside the duchess. “Sir Clive remained behind, Miss Morgan,” he said to Susanna. “Beth, you are pale. My fault, I fear. I should not have left you.”
“No, I’m just enjoying the play,” she lied. “May we leave soon, though? I’ve caught a chill, I think.”
“We may go now, darling, if you wish it. Miss Morgan, I shouldn’t like to leave you unattended. We shall wait until Sir Clive returns.”
Susanna laughed and tapped the earl’s upper arm. “My, you are muscular!” she said with a wink. “Oh, I’m just fine here on my own. In fact, I might even wander about, have a look to see who’s here.”
Aubrey kissed the American’s hand politely, noticing her seductive glance as he did so. “Then I shall say goodnight, Miss Morgan. Tell Clive that I shall contact him soon.”
He left with the duchess, and Susanna waved to the man in the opposite box. In a few moments, the tall man had joined her, and the pair entered an intense conversation.
Once at home, the earl and duchess sat quietly in the red room, a favourite drawing room for after dinner conversation at Queen Anne House. Miles served tea and brandy along with several light desserts, retreating once he’d made sure both his charges were comfortable.
“Thank you for bringing me home early, Paul. I was surprised that you spent so much time with Sir Clive, but I imagine it was business. He is quite rude, though. Don’t you think?”
“He’s a bounder, but yes, we had business to discuss. His manner toward you is beyond rude, darling, and I will have none of it. I as much as told him so.”
Elizabeth sat next to him, using her small hand to brush his long chestnut hair back from his soft blue eyes. “Yours is a great heart,” she said, kissing his cheek. “And I cherish it. I would not risk that heart for the world.”
He leaned into her embrace, letting his head fall against her shoulder, his hand in hers. “You are my world, Beth. My sole reason for being. I’ve loved you since you were born. Loved you at first with the innocence of a cousin, loved you later with the faltering devotion of a restless school boy, and now with the ardent passion of a man. I would walk through fire and back again if you asked it. And I would—I would…”
She kissed his forehead. “Do not think on it, my darling. Let us live for now. Forget any fears, any dangers, any secret lives from the past that rise up to haunt us. May we do that, Paul? Live only for this moment?”
“This moment, Beth?” He sat up, his blue eyes smoking into a deep grey hue as he drew her into his arms with a fire in his mind and body he could no longer hide. His lips touched hers for the first time in their adult lives, not with the sweet affection of a cousin, but as a lover. His muscular body wrapped around hers in a way she had never before experienced, and it was like disappearing into a raging inferno.
Elizabeth allowed him to take her this way, to make her his own—if only for that moment, but as his kisses grew hotter, she suddenly felt emotions stirring she’d never felt before, and it startled her. “Paul, no, please! Not like this,” she whispered huskily, pushing him away.
“I am sorry! I forget myself, Beth—forgive me! Please!” He looked like a wounded child now, pain and regret etched across his brow like a brand. “Oh, my darling Cousin, please, forgive me.”
She kissed his hands, her small mouth crimson with the rush of blood still pulsing in her ears. “Always, my dearest,” she assured him. “Always.”
“Marry me, Elizabeth. Now, tonight. Marry me! Let me protect you from all that awaits in the shadows of our lives. Please, let me be there night as well as day, to love you and keep you safe.”
She wanted to say yes. She knew she would eventually say yes, but somehow tonight she could not—the memory of St. Clair’s embrace and his kisses were still too fresh.
“I truly do love you, Paul. Love you now and will always love you. You are the Scottish knight of whom I dreamt as a child, and I long to know you as husband, too…but not now. Not yet. Please, may I have until Christmas? Then, I will accept your proposal. I promise. And we shall marry in the spring.”
He knew she meant it, but a great gathering shadow had taken root in his heart, and he wondered if the thing he’d seen at the theatre might not be some omen of dark days to come. He longed to run away with her—to whisk her away to some safe ground, to lock her up where he alone could reach her, but he knew she would never permit it. Yes, she feared what Trent and his cabal might try, but her brave heart would never allow him to risk all for her. He loved her even more for knowing it.
“I shall content my heart with that promise,” he told her, “but until that official day, when you publically proclaim your heart joined with mine, until that announcement at Christmas, will you not wear this?”
He withdrew a small, blue velvet box from his pocket. He’d carried it for weeks, hoping for the right moment to ask her, to see it fitted onto her slender finger. Now, he prayed, was the time.
He opened the box, revealing a brilliant blue diamond set into a band of platinum and gold. On either side of the flawless ten-carat blue, two companion diamonds of clearest white served as sentries to the magnificent centre stone. The duchess gasped at the ring’s remarkable beauty. Looking up, her eyes brimming with tears, her sweet mouth open as if to speak; she appeared suddenly struck mute. She bit her lip, her eyes dropping great tears onto her dress.
“Paul, oh, my precious Paul. How long have you been planning this?”
He hoped this meant that she accepted—even if only for their own private moment. “A month. Perhaps longer. I don’t know. I only know I saw this stone last time I was in Antwerp, and I knew it must be on your hand, and yours alone. You needn’t make any promises, Princess. Just wear it as a gift from your Scottish cousin.”
She sighed, knowing what accepting really meant, but she loved him so—and had for so very long—that she gave him her hand. “Perhaps, we should make certain that it fits,” she said, noting the look of hope in his handsome eyes.
He removed the ring from the box and slipped it easily onto her left hand, kissing her fingertips as he did so. “A perfect fit.”
She nodded. “A perfect fit, but then I would expect no less from you, Lord Aubrey. Kiss me now, and let us seal our private arrangement. I promise you, Paul; we will let the world know at Christmas.”
He kissed her, whispering into her ear. “At Christmas.”
But that day would never come—not as they hoped. Shadows had already set sights on the pair, and a tall man had just stepped onto the sands of Hampton-on-Sea, his grey eyes riveted on the great manor house a few miles from the seaside village, beyond the dark woods.
CHAPTER SEVEN
6, October
Leman Stree
t, even on a quiet day, could be a raucous and very dangerous avenue on which to travel, but this day—two days after the first phase of the Catherine Eddowes inquest, one day after the sudden adjournment of the Liz Stride inquest (postponed now until the 23rd) and the very day of Stride’s burial—the citizenry of Whitechapel were enraged by what they perceived as deliberate mishandling by the police. In response, some men formed committees whilst others merged organically into murderous mobs, as if driven by an unseen spiritual leader, and the east end parishes rose up into a maddened riot with revenge and blood on their minds, and some even called for revolution and anarchy.
Street women who plied their trade in alleyways and crosscut rookeries had all but shut up shop, excepting those who dared not for want of bed and breakfast, and many of those terrified women now hurled accusations if not actual stones at the men in blue. The dusty sidewalk and muck-stained cobbles in front of the doors of H-Division teemed with overworked police constables holding back a mob of strumpets, ironworkers, hauliers, bakers, beggars, costermongers, and honest merchants from across the east end. But amongst their number circulated a political patchwork of university-educated anarchists, Bohemian protesters, militant suffragettes, writers, artists, news reporters, and opportunistic trade union rioters; a melee of humanity, choosing sides and vowing vengeance for the women whose names most had never even heard spoken before the Ripper began his dark work in the impoverished east end streets.
Inspector Edmund John James Reid was a short, stout man with an iron face and close-set eyes. Beside him, and several inches the taller man, stood a gruff individual who looked more like a banker than a police detective. Inspector 1st Class Frederick George Abberline, Edmund Reid’s superior within CID, had been assigned to oversee the Ripper investigation, and as the colourful inspector often phrased it, was currently appointed as ‘head zookeeper’ at the Leman Street police station. Since the murders began, both men had racked their brains to decipher any clues left behind, only to be stymied by decisions ‘up top’ at the Yard by Police Commissioner Sir Charles Warren, or worse by Parliamentary muckabouts using the murders to advance their own political ambitions.
Neither man had slept well in recent weeks, but both stood now alongside their men, billy clubs in hand. The club was a one-foot-long wooden truncheon able to inflict severe pain to a shin, a shoulder, or a back in the practised hands of the division’s well-trained men, and Abberline and Reid had many years of such practise between them.
It was nearing noon, and the sun stood directly overhead, illuminating the crowd and overheating the rabble who often wore an entire wardrobe upon their scrawny backs for lack of any permanent place to live. Michael O’Brien, a noisome reporter for The Star, took copious notes of the protest whilst his co-worker, American-born Harry Dam, snapped photographs using an expensive Kodak No. 1 box camera.
Reid shouted for both men to move. “O’Brien, you and Mr. Dam will withdraw your fancy boots from this sidewalk, or I shall find myself in possession of a very fine camera, and the two of you will spend a night in my cells!”
O’Brien, a slender man of thirty with sandy hair, stepped backward several steps until his feet touched the cobbles. “I stand upon public property, Inspector Reid. Shall I mention your threats in my article alongside one of my colleague’s fine photographs?”
Reid sighed, advancing slightly toward the reporter. “Shall I introduce your wrists to a set of iron bracelets, Michael? Or do you prefer to rephrase that?”
O’Brien smiled and waved to two other detectives who now watched from within the police station facility. “Good day to you as well, Superintendent St. Clair!” he called. “Have you a quote for The Star? A comment on your recent investigations? Your trips to a certain fashionable address in Westminster, perhaps?”
Charles St. Clair turned his back to the glass and continued to sip his coffee. “France, tell me when that hellish man is gone. Else I shall have to kill him.”
Inspector Arthur France, who had served with H-Division since before the ‘duchess murder’, as the Scotland Yard insiders called it, stood beside his superior, just inside the doorway by a large mullioned window. “Do you think he followed you to her house, sir?”
“I think T.P. O’Connor’s minions would do anything to uncover a salacious story and sell newspapers. And when they lack for evidence, they merely manufacture it.”
Charles feared his visit to Queen Anne House had been observed, but if not already known, it would only be a matter of time. He’d shared some of the visit’s details with his friend Arthur France, but certainly not all. With Ripper madness providing the public with a steady diet of sensationalism, hints and accusations against anyone from Scotland Yard—particularly one connected with peerage houses—could add thousands of new subscribers to The Star’s ledgers, and St. Clair had no wish to involve the duchess in such libelous muckraking.
“I imagine O’Brien’s American friend has already photographed me,” St. Clair remarked.
“Many times, sir. Those cameras cost half a year’s wages, I’m told. Oh, but look, sir. Isn’t that Ida Ross? The one who used to work across from your house?”
St. Clair turned back toward the window, his blue eyes narrowing. “It is. Don’t tell me she’s been beaten again. France, could you ask one of your men to help her inside? If Lusk’s crowd sees her, they’re sure to bring her even more harm. That man may claim to be a champion of the downtrodden, but he’d happily trod upon her, if it suited his ambitions.”
France tapped a police constable on the arm. “Rickets, see to it that Miss Ross makes it through our doors safely.”
The young police constable nodded and left to escort the prostitute indoors. In a moment, the thin woman stood near the sergeant’s booking desk, trembling with fear. “Mr. France, sir. Thank you, sir, for your help. I wonder, is Superintendent St. Clair here today? I stopped by his house, and Mrs. Wilsham told me he might be here, on account o’ the protest an’ all.”
The superintendent left his lookout spot near the window and gently took the young woman’s emaciated arm, leading her away from the desk. “Miss Ross, you need a doctor.”
She shook her head. “Nah, sir. I ain’ got no money for such. I’ll be all right. I just come in to tell ya that there’s been a man at your ‘ouse, sir. Funny lookin’ gent, an’ he’s been writin’ stuff in a book. Reporter, I reckon. Oh, and...and...” she started to say, but her eyes rolled up in her head, and she fell forward into the detective’s arms.
“France! A little help!” he cried, lifting the frail woman up and carrying her into the main parlour of the station house lobby as France held open the door. “Fetch Dr. Sunders, if he’s here.”
France sent Rickets to bring the physician from his work in the morgue, and Charles poured cool water on a linen towel, using it to wipe her forehead and cheeks. The woman’s face was gaunt—thinner than the last time he had seen her, and her eyes were rimmed in dark circles and ugly bruises.
Sunders arrived in shirtsleeves, and he knelt beside the unconscious prostitute. “She’s in bad shape,” he said bluntly. “He may have killed her this time. Poor girl.”
“She told me she’d left him,” St. Clair said softly. “Sunders, can we get her to the Eastern Dispensary?”
“Perhaps. I can take her over, Superintendent. Why on earth do these girls keep returning to the men who knock them about?”
“I cannot say,” Charles replied as France joined him.
“Sir, it’s Lusk. He’s making threats again—saying he’ll start arresting any and all the Jews of the city who even look at a woman.”
“Will he now?” St. Clair said, rising from the chair. “I imagine Reid and Abberline can handle it, but let’s go see if they require our help. Some days, France, it doesn’t pay to leave Whitehall.”
“I suppose that’s the price one pays for being overseer for the east end, sir,” Arthur France rep
lied, as the pair walked back to the large window, where they could see a thick group of outraged citizens standing toe to toe with the two overworked police detectives. “Shall we stop it, sir? Lusk and his crew, I mean. He’s about to give Mr. Abberline a clattering, it looks like. Lusk thinks he’s right smart.”
“Yes, well, it looks like Abberline’s not lost his persuasive ways,” St. Clair noted proudly. A fracas had broken out near the sidewalk between Michael O’Brien and several rough looking men from the Vigilance Committee, but Fred Abberline’s mutton-chop face spat orders at the builder, making it clear that his interference was neither wanted nor needed.
George Aken Lusk and his rabble-rousing vigilantes had gained ground and support the past few weeks, and it seemed to France that they had also gained financial backing, for many of the men had foresworn their day labour jobs in favour of protesting—most working on the new, construction projects near the river basin under the banner of Sir Clive Urquhart’s fashionable company, Urquhart Investment Group. France had mentioned this to Superintendent St. Clair two days past, and he now said as much again in conversation.
“I just wonder who’s paying Lusk’s bills,” the young man said to the superintendent. “Must be nice to spend an entire week off the job and still have a bob or two in your pocket. And he’s wearing a new hat, or my name’s Plum.”
“You know, I think you’re right, Arthur. It’s worth looking into,” St. Clair replied. “See what you can discover along those lines and get back to me. If Lusk is in the pay of someone who benefits by the fomenting of violence in Whitechapel, then I want to know that man’s name. I’d certainly like to find just cause to arrest Lusk, wouldn’t you, France?”
“I pray for it each morning, sir,” the younger man said.
St. Clair stepped closer to the glass and watched Reid and Abberline with a certain pride. “I’ll wager those two would love it if Lusk and his lot did try to penetrate the station house. Reid especially. He’s a scrapper for a runt.”
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