Jane held out her hand. “I know how it must look. You’re hurting, Jonesy. I understand.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “You must believe me.”
“I knew you would cause trouble that morning I found you with Clarice. You drove a wedge between us. I couldn’t compete with you, no matter what I did. No matter how much I loved her.”
Jane swallowed back her fear, helpless to know what to say in order to convince the distraught woman of her innocence. “You’re wrong,” she whispered. There was no appeasing her. Jane prepared for the worse.
“Put the pistol down, nice and easy, Jonesy.” Randolph stepped up behind her, his gun fixed on her back. “Don’t make me use this,” he added carefully.
Jane’s feet were frozen in place, her eyes locked with Jonesy.
“Clarice is gone, Randolph. It’s because of her.” She kept her aim on Jane.
“She’s not the reason.” Randolph spoke in a calm voice—the voice of a friend.
“You don’t know her, Mansfield. You don’t know how she seduced my Clarice with her façade of innocence.”
Jane glanced up and he saw the question in her eyes. Should she tell Jonesy the truth? Tell her that she’d been with Randolph all night?
The woman leveled her gun at Jane’s chest.
“I wasn’t with Clarice. I haven’t seen her in days.”
“Liar!” she shouted. Jonesy’s aim shook and she clamped both hands on the gun.
“Jonesy, you’ve been drinking. You‘re not thinking straight. Jane and Clarice have never been together,” Randolph said with greater insistence.
Jonesy gritted her teeth in determination. “How do you know she’s not lying?” She shifted, turning her body slightly to glance at him, but kept her gun pointed at Jane. Her eyes brightened, shock flashing through them. “Of course, it’s just like old times, eh, Randolph? Only instead of me, it’s this little tart.” She turned toward Randolph, gun poised level to his. “Why can’t things be the way they used to be?”
“Put the gun down,” he warned.
“Bloody hell,” she ignored Randolph and screamed at Jane. “If I can’t have her, then neither shall you.”
Two explosions rang out. Jane watched in shock as Jonesy’s body crumpled to the floor. There was a strange shrill whistle rushing past her ear and a scream tore from her throat. Suddenly, the room was filled with London’s plain-clothes men. Somewhere in her mind, she heard Randolph barking orders while another man checked Jonesy’s body, still on the floor. The words self-defense, threatening Miss Goodwin, and sorry, no pulse, swirled in her head.
Jane’s knees went weak. She lowered herself to the floor, watching helplessly as several men gathered Jonesy’s lifeless body and carried her from the room.
Randolph knelt beside her. “Jane? Are you hurt?”
In a daze, she looked up at him and lifted her trembling hand to his, allowing him to pull her to her feet. “No, just a little shaken. What about Jo—?”
A quick shake of his head gave her the answer she sought. Jane grabbed his coat and buried her face in his chest, his comforting scent of tweed and leather twisting her heart. It all was so senseless, so unreal.
“There, there,” he asked, his tone professional. He patted her back. How else should she expect him to act? He cupped her shoulders. “Perhaps you should sit down for a few minutes.”
Jane stared at the pool of blood on her bedroom floor—Jonesy’s blood. “I’m…I’ll be fine.” She stepped away, still trembling but determined to stand on her own.
He studied her face. “If you’re sure. I need to check downstairs, but I have to ask you some questions. If you’re up to it.”
She nodded. “Yes, I’m fine. Please go. Check on Benning and Martha. She said she gave them something. I want to be sure they are unharmed. And Lady Hampton should be contacted.” She turned away, grabbing the iron bedpost to steady her.
“Jane.” Randolph covered her hand with his. “My men are seeing to the servants. I will send a man to call on Lady Hampton.” The warmth of his body close to hers enveloped her. “You should sit down and collect your thoughts.” He touched her elbow as he moved aside the clothes in her reading chair. She couldn’t stop looking at the spot where Jonesy had died. Her brain tried to catch up with her emotions and she realized it would have been her blood staining the wood floor had it not been for Randolph. She glanced up at him. “Why were you here? How could you have known?”
He sat on the edge of the bed, facing her, his hands clasped over his knees. “I’ve been on watch most of the evening—just down the street. I saw Jonesy get out of a carriage. She looked hell-bent to prove something. I followed her in the house and heard everything.”
She searched his face. “I owe you my life. But I don’t understand.” She placed her hand on her forehead trying to make sense of it all, but couldn’t.
He sighed. “I came earlier to see you, but Lady Hampton said you didn’t wish to be disturbed. I’ve been waiting outside to take you to the station.” He pushed from the bed and began to toss her clothes in the trunk.
Jane looked at him aghast. “Surely you don’t think that I’d leave now? Not with both Wesley and Clarice missing? What if these disappearances have something to do with me? What if the killer has them—or worse?” She stared at him with the wild possibility driving her to near madness.
“Jane, listen to me.” Randolph looked at her, his dark eyes intense. “I received a threatening note today, telling me to stay away from you, or I’d be the next to wash ashore. This lunatic is getting desperate. Desperate criminals get sloppy. I know we’re about to catch him.”
“Then I was right about the notes, wasn't I? Please, I beg you let me stay and help you.”
He shook his head as he paced to the door and back. “We are not dealing with a rational person, Jane.”
“But what if Jonesy was right? What if Clarice was the one sending me the notes?”
Randolph shook his head. “No, that’s not possible. I know Clarice. She would be much more forward if she truly wanted something.”
Something in his manner made her curious and, at the same time, hesitant to ask him to explain. Lady Hampton had mentioned they were friends…and then there was the comment Jonesy had made—like old times, eh, Randolph? Jane swallowed with a sickening realization that the three may have been much more than simple acquaintances.
The frightening events of the evening had overshadowed the sadness she felt given Randolph’s dismissal, but this new information made her realize that perhaps fate had saved her from a greater heartache. Maybe she should accept this as an opportunity to reassess her life, her goals. “How much time do I have until the train departs?” Jane’s pride stepped forward, taking charge. Her aunt had, after all, managed fine without benefit of a male companion. Many forward-thinking women had done well for themselves.
He took out his pocket watch. “Two hours.”
She moved to the trunk and resumed her packing.
“Would you like me to stay and help?”
Jane glanced up and saw Randolph bend down and pick up the corset. She had the fleeting desire to ask him if he recognized it as Clarice’s. Instead, she plucked it from his hand, folded it carefully, and placed it on the dresser. “Clarice might want this when she returns.” She left no question to an alternative end to this mysterious dilemma. “Thank you, no, inspector. I’m quite fine on my own.”
His steady gaze reflected that he understood her meaning.
“I’ll wait downstairs and make a few notes, then. My men can carry these down when you’re ready.”
“And what about your questions?” Jane asked.
“I can take care of that on our way to the station. I just have one or two. I overheard most of the conversation between you and Jonesy. There is nothing any of us could have done differently. My concern now is Clarice’s disappearance. This is the first I’ve heard about it. Lady Hampton told me about Wesley, but I attribute that to the impulsiveness of you
th and expect he’ll show up anytime.”
“You don’t feel Clarice is in any danger, do you?”
Randolph stepped around the blood on the floor. “You’re a tenacious woman, Jane. Even after all that’s happened to you tonight, you’re still asking questions.”
“Ah, yes, and you find that odd, don’t you?” she volleyed back.
He regarded her for a moment in silence. “On the contrary. When I first met you, I thought you were one of those nosy women, bent on making the point that she can do everything a man does. Not because you are passionate about it, but to simply make your point.”
Jane stopped folding her clothes and gave him her full attention. “And now?”
“Now? At risk of you taking this the wrong way, I have to tell you that I find your questions insightful, your instinct remarkable. You have a bright future ahead of you, Miss Goodwin. You are quite capable of great things. I expect I shall hear about you in the daily news one of these days.”
Jane’s eyes welled, but she could only look at him and wonder why that wasn’t enough for him.
“I’m afraid it doesn’t change the way things are,” he said quietly. “The way things have to be.” He nervously tapped the doorframe. “I’ll send someone up straight away to clean this up.” He hesitated as though unsure what to say next, then he spoke, ducking his head as he left. “I’ll see you downstairs when you’re ready.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Jane spoke no more than necessary to answer Randolph’s questions, making the ride to the train station seem twice as long. He tapped his small notebook on his knee, his face turned to the passing streetlamps. “So, you haven’t seen Clarice in how long?”
“As I’ve made clear, it was sometime earlier in the week. She was at breakfast with Jonesy and myself.”
“And this can be confirmed by Lady Hampton?” he pressed again, needing to fill the silence or he would go mad.
“She was late for breakfast that day, as I told you. But yes, she would be able to confirm what I’ve told you.”
He set his jaw, having never felt so bloody awkward in his life. “I appreciate your cooperation.” He wanted to tell her more than that, wishing he could make the promises he knew she wanted to hear. But this case was growing more dangerous, and now with Clarice’s disappearance, all he could think of was getting Jane safely aboard a ship as far from there as possible. The rest would have to wait. In one respect, he wished Jonesy had been correct in her accusation that Clarice was running away to America. He knew how flighty she could be, how adventuresome, and if she ran into the wrong bloke there was no telling what might happen.
Randolph cleared his throat and swung his gaze to Jane seated across from him. She wore her travel suit, a peacock blue with a short jacket and feathered hat that made her look like a fashionable well-to-do woman about town, not the same woman whose sighs captured his heart. He stared at her for a moment longer, memorizing her features, only averting his gaze when she looked at him
“Will you see to it that Lady Hampton wires me when she hears from Wesley?”
“Of course,” he responded, pretending to be busy making a note in his memo book. Was she now pouring her interest into this boy too wet behind the ears to appreciate a woman like her? Maybe jealousy prompted his next question. “Lady Hampton mentioned that you and Wesley had a falling out? How long ago was that?”
Her eyes held his. “Several weeks ago, actually. Shortly after I arrived.” She turned her face to the window. Outside the fog had rolled in from the sea, blanketing the ground in a dense white blanket.
“Would you care to tell me what happened?”
“That is rather a private matter, if you don’t mind,” she commented without looking at him. “And it has nothing to do with your investigation.”
He tried not to let his imagination run wild with what might have happened between the two. Of course, how could he blame Wesley for becoming enchanted with her beauty, her independence? “I have to look at everything involving those who have been around you, Jane—including young Wesley,” he tossed in for good measure.
“He isn’t but a few years my junior, and well trained in manners,” she shot back.
“Well, then, do you know of anyone who would have a reason to harm you?”
She pinned him with a frown. “We have been over this and over this. I’ve done nothing to anyone that would warrant such behavior.”
“Even Wesley?”
She drew back in shock. “Are you saying that you suspect Wesley?”
He shrugged, sensing her anger. Then again, she already had a head start on that. “I’m saying that Lady Hampton was just telling me this evening that Wesley and Clarice had been chumming around together as of late. Did you know about that? And suddenly, I discover that not only Wesley has disappeared but Clarice, as well. I find that a strange coincidence. I just thought perhaps you might have noticed something between them when they were at Writers House.”
She held his gaze a breath longer, then looked out the window before answering. “I’ve been rather busy with my own life to pay much attention to Wesley’s, inspector.”
He didn’t have a response to that, but they both knew what she meant. “I have no evidence pointing to Wesley as a suspect, Jane. I am merely trying to cover all possibilities.”
“Understood,” she replied without looking at him. “Here’s the station. If you can have your drive unload my bags, I can see my way from here.”
“Jane, I’d like to walk you—“
She stepped out of the carriage, slamming open the door as on the first day they met. She nearly bowled over his driver.
Randolph crawled out after her and, noting her bag on the seat, grabbed it and tucked a note he’d written to her inside. He hoped that she would find it at sea, lest she decide to try to turn around and come back. But he couldn’t let her leave without offering her an explanation. And since he’d had a lot of time while watching guard earlier, he’d drafted the note, giving a full account of his past. He’d never confessed what had happened, or his part in it, to another living soul. Putting the words to paper, knowing the trusted soul who would eventually read them gave him a small semblance of peace. Of course, he didn’t know how she’d react. Maybe she’d be filled with disgust. Maybe fear that one day the violence he’d experienced might take its toll on those around him. Maybe it was a silent plea for help. “You forgot this.”
He handed her the small carpetbag. He didn’t know what to do with his arms. His first urge was to pull her into his embrace and tell her he was sorry that it had to be this way. Instead, he clasped his hands behind his back in an authoritative manner. “I hope you have a pleasant trip, Miss Jane.”
She looked up at him. “You’re sure this is the best thing?” she asked. The brim of her sheer hat fluttered with the night breeze. She pressed her lips together, waiting for his answer.
He swallowed, tearing his eyes from that mouth that he could even now taste in his memory—how pliant, how giving. He looked down at his feet. “I do. Regrettably, I do.”
“Then I suppose this is goodbye.” She picked up her bag.
He looked up then. She waited for him to do something, to show he had one ounce of decency inside him after what they’d shared. But if he gave in, gave her even the smallest bit of himself, he was afraid he might not let her go. He reminded himself of the unknown body parts awaiting identification in the morgue. Until the killer was caught, she was not safe in London. “Goodbye, Miss Jane. Perhaps one day we will meet again.”
She smiled, turning to walk away, and then suddenly pivoted on her heel and rushed back to him. Grabbing his lapels, she pushed to her toes and offered him a lingering kiss. It took every bit of what little control he had to keep his hands off her. She pushed a packet into his hands.
“Maybe these will help you,” she said and looked up at him as though she wanted to say more. She hurried away then, and he watched until she boarded the train. Knowing before he o
pened it what it was, his heart still squeezed tightly when he found her journal and all of her notes. He knew what this information meant to her, the weeks of research it represented.
The loud squawk of the train whistle jarred him from his daydream. Randolph had no desire to go home. He climbed into the carriage, tucking the packet inside his jacket, and asked the driver to take him to Whitehall and the bottle of whisky he kept hidden there in his desk drawer.
***
He said his goodbyes and watched her board the train. He could see her waving at him from the window, her expression stoic, much braver than he felt, certainly. From the corner of his eye, he spotted a dark figure, no more than a silhouette, undistinguishable, walking down the aisle toward her. The train began to move, faster than he could keep up. The roar of the engine drowned out his screams, warning her of the danger coming upon her, closer. He couldn’t save her. His heart pounded in his chest. The faster he ran, the faster the train moved beside him. He looked up with one last attempt to save her. She turned at that instant and opened her mouth in a silent scream, a look of terror on her face as the train sped out of reach.
Randolph jerked upright, knocking a sheaf of papers off his desk. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs, his throat dry. He scanned the department, wondering if he had called out her name, or if anyone was in the station at that hour. He glanced over his shoulder out the window, seeing the yellowish-gray strip of a new dawn. He must have fallen asleep—passed out, most likely—as he finished off a bottle of brandy and went through the pile of his case notes for the hundredth time. Randolph worked out the kinks in his neck, frustrated that he couldn’t seem to find the one piece of the puzzle that would make everything fall into place.
“Getting an early start, inspector?”
Randolph sat up straight, swiping his fingers over his eyelids to remove the blur of his restless sleep. He raked his hand over his ears, smoothing back his hair. His assistant carried in a tray of tea and placed it on his desk. If Willoughby had heard anything out of the ordinary, he didn’t seem terribly concerned.
The Dark Seduction of Miss Jane Page 27