Breathless (Scarlet Suffragette, Book 2): A Victorian Historical Romantic Suspense Series

by Nicola Claire

  And did not emerge from the other side.

  I took a step forward, dumbfounded at his temerity. Stupefied by his idiocy. And immobilised by the opportunity his access to Newgate could provide.

  The wagon halted at the west gate. The guard taking his time clearing the delivery from his trusty list. My heart beat a military tattoo inside my chest, my thigh twitching with renewed agony; reminding me why it was my sergeant placing himself at risk and not me. I held my breath and did not release it until the wagon had rolled through the gate and the doors had clunked shut behind it.

  Blackie was in, but whether or not he’d get out was another matter.

  I settled in for the long wait; the wagon had been heavily loaded. And there was no telling if Blackmore would use it for his escape, or be forced to wait upon another. Every second that passed chilled me to the bone. Every beat of my thundering heart sounded a death knell for the sergeant. Seconds felt like hours. Minutes like days.

  The shock of the gate opening again some time later had my heart lodging in my throat. I fisted my cane; sure there would be some form of disruption upon finding a stowaway beneath the axle of the wagon. But after a brief inspection, the vehicle was on its way.

  I stepped out from under the shadow I had claimed and followed it back toward Ludgate Hill. Blackie did not emerge, but from another carriage alighted the familiar form of a gentleman. I hesitated. Follow the delivery wagon? Or follow this unexpected arrival?

  I watched as the wagon rounded the corner, disappearing toward St Paul’s Cathedral, and decided my course of action.

  I stepped onto the street and crossed toward the Old Bailey.

  Where Henry Tempest, Esquire had just entered through the front doors.

  My Name Is Mary

  Anna

  “Must you continue to pout?” Emily enquired as the carriage rattled across the pavement.

  “I am doing no such thing,” I argued, straightening on my seat.

  Emily studied me for a long moment and then leant forward. “He is a catch, I will admit. But whatever happened to make the cane necessary?”

  I turned my gaze on my friend.

  “It is a long story,” I advised.

  “One you are privy to. I do declare; this is exciting. A mystery wrapped up in a romance tied up in tragedy.”

  “You speak such nonsense, Dr Tempest. I sometimes wonder how it is you gained your degree.”

  “With winsome talents and fluttering eyelashes and a backbone made of steel.”

  I smiled. Emily grinned back at me.

  “But do tell,” she said, quickly returning to her earlier curiosity, “just what did the fine inspector do to garner such a heroic injury.”

  “Heroic?” I enquired of my friend. “Think you not, he might have come by the wound in a more mundane manner? Perhaps navigating the stairwell in the middle of a night, searching for the outhouse?”

  “Oh, Anna! You do shock with your jests. But I shan’t be distracted. A man of his stature did not come by his injuries in such an ordinary fashion. No! I won't countenance it. He was chasing a criminal, wasn’t he?”

  Emily was usually quite distractible, but like so many who came in contact with the inspector, her fascination this time would not be diverted so easily. I sighed inwardly. Andrew’s stories were his to tell, but some of his history was not so unknown to the public.

  “The Ripper, if you must know,” I said, looking to the window for my own distraction.

  “You don't say? How simply macabre.”

  “Indeed.”

  “We’ll say no more,” she declared, magnanimously. “Besides, I do believe we have arrived, dear one. And look you there! Mrs Pankhurst. We arrive with today’s nobility.”

  “I hazard a guess, Mrs Pankhurst would argue your moniker for her.”

  “Pish! If she succeeds in her franchise, then she will pave the way for a new nobility.”

  I studied my friend. Emily was a strong supporter of the suffragettes, but I did not for a moment believe she would give up her luxuries in order to achieve full rights for our nations’ women.

  “I believe you will adore Dorothy’s,” she said with enthusiasm. “Such a fine establishment with a noble bearing.”

  “Gad! You are incorrigible. Just as Henry suggests.”

  “My brother would have me embroidering my days away. Perhaps providing a respite when he decided it time for me to be wed.”

  “Is he such a tyrant?” I asked carefully.

  “The worst! He is restless to be travelling again. So he turns his energy to making sure I remain a lady. Thankfully, I have waylaid any interference on his part and found myself a suitable gentleman.”

  “You have?” I was not aware of Emily courting anyone.

  “Yes. A fine doctor. One who has travelled, as well. They have much in common, my Dr Cream and Henry. They even present alike. Enough welcomed familiarity to halt Henry’s pursuit of any further matrimonial prospects for the time being, at any rate. I shall not wed, of course. But Dr Cream does provide a worthy distraction.”

  I shook my head at the chit. Emily could be so mercurial at times. Shy one minute and fearless the next. Having a brother like Henry made the duplicity a necessity no doubt. “Is Henry aware of today’s suffragette meeting?” I asked, staring out of the window at Mortimer Street.

  “Never!” Emily exclaimed with a shudder. “And don't you dare tell him, either. I shall cease our friendship immediately should you betray me so.”

  I smiled as the carriage rolled to a stop outside the restaurant.

  “He would sequester me in your embroidery room along with you, should he think it is I who encourages you to these misdeeds,” I said as the door opened.

  “Then we shall be misfits together! Seeking our combined freedom. And the odd gentlemen to entertain us.” She offered a wink.

  “He is your brother not mine, sweeting.”

  Emily smiled; a mischievous, conniving one. It changed her innocent demeanour completely.

  “He may not be your brother, Anna, but I assure you he longs for you to be my sister.”

  On those portentous words, she alighted the carriage, opening her parasol once on the pavement, and staring up at the tall, red brick building with something akin to wonder.

  I followed suit and took in the austere appearance of one of London’s most popular venues for business women. And a fitting location for a suffragette meeting.

  We walked through the doors and divested ourselves of our coats and parasols in the cloakroom, then made our way into the restaurant proper. Over fifty suffragettes sat at various round tables, the clatter of so many female voices rising in pitch on the air. Scents of roast lamb and rosemary wafted from the adjoining kitchen, the young Misses Pankhursts running between tables, offering drinks, sneaking bread rolls, giggling even as they stared wide-eyed at their mother’s compatriots; their modern day heroines.

  “Oh, Dr Cassidy!” Christabel Pankhurst cried, her younger sister Sylvia turned wide-eyes to me as she followed in her rambunctious sibling’s wake. “Mama will be so pleased you are attending. Will you speak to the congregation about your Antipodean efforts?”

  “Now, now, Christabel,” Emily chided softly. “Dr Cassidy is here as a guest, not a speaker.”

  “But their franchise is so far advanced than ours. Mama said it is to the colonies that we must look for guidance.”

  “I assure you, Miss Pankhurst,” I murmured, “our efforts match yours in their success. We all still have a hard row to hoe.”

  The chit looked crestfallen. But reality for our plight was essential. This was not a quick fantasy, but our destiny. Equal rights for all women. I would not have a child believe it should be easy. For nothing worth fighting for is ever painless to achieve.

  My own dear Papa had often said, If you believe in it, then you fight for it. And no fight is ever trouble-free.

  I had lived by that mantra for so long now; I did not know any other way to survive. Everyt
hing I sought in this world, I sought with determination, grit and alacrity. I would not be deterred. In our efforts as suffragettes. And in my pursuit of a position in the Auckland Police Force as a surgeon.

  It was a lesson young Miss Pankhurst should heed. Ours is not an easy road to walk, but it is an essential one for humanity.

  “I should like to pay my respects to your mother,” I said, offering the girl a chance to shine in a small capacity.

  “Oh, yes. She would like that indeed. Please, won’t you follow me?”

  “Dear one,” Emily said, laying a hand on my sleeve before I could take a step after the young Miss Pankhurst. “I, too, wish to pay my respects, but I must declare, I am feeling ill suddenly. Too much tea, it would seem. Do you mind?”

  She nodded toward the door to the ladies’ powder room, looking decidedly peaky indeed.

  “Of course. I shall check on you shortly.”

  “Thank you, sweeting.” She gripped my sleeve tightly and then walked toward her sanctuary.

  I turned, looking for Miss Pankhurst, but saw only a rich sea of colours, feather bedecked bonnets, and a plethora of silk and taffeta for my efforts. I sighed, then started the arduous task of locating the leader of the British suffragette movement, and hoping this hunt would not prove as fruitless as our hunt for Mina had so far been.

  With Wilhelmina on my mind, I made my way around the room, sharing greetings and enthusiastic words with several newly acquainted suffragettes, and failing to locate Mrs Pankhurst.

  Then a swathe of dark colours and the distinct profile of the formidable lady caught my eye, as she vanished around a corner. I followed swiftly in her footsteps, lest she escaped me. Chasing the tail of her skirts as she disappeared some distance down a hallway.

  Silence pervaded my senses as my muffled footsteps came down on the thick floral carpet beneath my feet. But the snick of a door closing ahead had me speeding up, until I caught the door handle and turned the nob, ending the hunt, finally.

  The room within was all shadows and harsh light. The sun making a brief but welcomed appearance through the parted curtains along one wall of windows. The bright light blinded me, making me raise my arm to shield my face, tears welling in my eyes and blurring my vision completely.

  “Mrs Pankhurst?” I called, unable to spot the woman within. I stepped inside, my eyes straining to make sense of the darkened corners, blinking rapidly to rid themselves of the white spots that now adorned the view before me.

  Then jumped at the sound of the door closing behind my back.

  “Do not turn around,” a woman’s whispered voice said; I did not recognise it. “I have a pistol pointed at your head.”

  I froze, my chest heaving, my corset too tight.

  “Who are you?” I demanded. “Where is Mrs Pankhurst?”

  “No doubt regaling the assembled about her useless plight.”

  “You are not a suffragette?”

  “I have no care for such nonsense. For where would the likes of me be without men believing their high and mighty roles in society?”

  I struggled to understand the situation as it presented to me. Who was this woman? What did she want? Why lure me to a room, threaten me at gunpoint, and not reveal yourself? All at a suffragette meeting, one my opponent did not entertain. Yet I could not shake the feeling, she believed herself superior to our male counterparts, much like many of my contemporaries here today.

  “Who are you?” I asked again.

  “Can you not guess, Doctor?”

  “I should not even attempt such a thing.”

  “For shame, and here I thought we so alike.”

  “MM,” I whispered, wanting to turn so desperately.

  My body shifted, the muzzle of a gun pressed into my back, halting its trajectory.

  “You, Dr Cassidy, can call me Mary,” the pistol wielding woman said.

  “You wrote the letters,” I murmured, alarmed and intrigued in equal measures. “From the Dutch East Indies. Why?”

  “Oh, I don't think we’re truly ready for that just yet.”

  “Then why this confrontation?”

  “To introduce myself. I could not deny the urge to see your face.”

  “And yet, you will not afford me the same privilege?”

  “You have not earned it. Not yet. But we’ll see.”

  I struggled to keep my breathing level. So long I’d been haunted by those missives. Those strange gifts. The image of the nightingale in the corner of the paper flared to life behind my trembling eyelids, reminding me just how twisted this entire state of affairs actually was.

  “Why the bird?” I asked, breathlessly.

  “’Tis pretty, is it not?”

  “What significance is a nightingale to you, madam?”

  “You ask such silly questions. The better one should be, what comes next?”

  I chewed on my bottom lip and fought the need to turn and face her; this woman who had tormented me. Who may or may not have been involved in Mina’s absence. Who had a link to Eliza May Kelly.

  “Who are you?” I said again, but this time with emphasis.

  “Ah, and we reach the end of our discussion.”

  “This is not a discussion!” I had no idea what this was, other than a threat, it seemed.

  Hot breath washed over my neck, a gloved hand lifted a loose curl and drew it back, sliding it beneath a hairpin with practised ease. I shook with trepidation and the need to face my admirer.

  The absence of my parasol felt like a hole in my chest, crippling me.

  “The woman you seek,” she whispered, almost intimately, “is not the woman you think you seek.”

  “What woman?”

  “My name,” she said harshly, “is Mary.”

  “Mary who?”

  The muzzle disappeared. The room seemed to expand as if having spent the past few minutes in a vacuum. The door squeaked on rusty hinges.

  “Moriarty,” was whispered as the sun beat down and the shadows loomed, and the door clicked closed at my back.

  Moriarty. Mary Moriarty. MM.

  “Someone has been reading A Study in Scarlet,” I muttered, shivering. “Moriarty, indeed.”

  And Fears For Anna

  Inspector Kelly

  My credentials, such as they were, allowed me entry into the Old Bailey. A quick scan of today’s proceedings gave me an excuse to enter further into the sacred heart of London’s legal system. Black gowned men, their powdered wigs shining brightly in the lamp light, crossed the marble foyer; purpose in their gait causing those before them to scatter. Reporters milled around the edges, pencils to notebooks, darting eyes on their surroundings, occasionally attempting to approach a member of the courts, only to be rebuffed summarily with obvious disdain launched down lifted noses.

  A photographer worked beneath a blackout shroud; an artist sketched beside him. Voices rose in a moderate hum of masculine pride, the discordant sound of a woman crying disturbed the otherwise professional scene.

  I’d attended court cases before, in my previous capacity as Inspector to H Division. But I was not here to witness the downfall of a criminal. Unless, I thought darkly, Henry Tempest fit that bill.

  I spotted the man in question entering one of the main courtrooms. Following swiftly behind, I slid through the still closing door and took a seat at the back of the room.

  A young man stood in the witness box; worn clothes, worn features, worn physique. Before him gathered a plethora of lawyers. The judge, a Justice William Blackborough, sat above the congregation, his stern façade making short work of those formerly speaking in the gallery. A hush fell over the courtroom, lifting the fine hairs on my arms.

  I scanned the seats on the lower floor and found my man. He'd managed to circumnavigate the room, and sat directly opposite me; to the left of the judge and I to His Honour’s right.

  “Garotting is a serious crime, Mr Grimes,” the judge said into the now silent crowd. “What say you of this charge, sir?”

 
; The young boy looked down at the hat in his hand, contrition obvious in his frame. But when his face lifted and his eyes met those of the presiding judge, I could have sworn I saw a glint of something less appealing.

  “’Tis my word against his, Your Honour. I did not do as he says.”

  “You were witnessed fleeing the scene, stuffing pound notes in your pockets.”

  “They were mine, sir. ’Tis not illegal to earn a livin’.”

  “But to steal one?”

  “I did not mug ‘im. I swear it on me life! He uses me circumstances against me, sir. I worked hard for me blunt. And like the rest of ‘em, he wants to take it from me calloused hands.”

  The gallery burst into a frenzy of agreement; anger rife on the air with the perceived injustice.

  The judge leant back in his seat, his hard eyes scanning the crowd. In seconds he’d spotted Henry Tempest. He stiffened, scratched at his greying beard and then sat forward.

  “Where do you earn your…living?” the judge asked.

  “I’m a telegraph boy, Your Honour. Honest labour it is.”

  “And the notes that day? Far more than a telegraph boy should earn, I think.”

  “I’m the best in me area. The fastest and hardest workin’ of the lot. Just ask me boss, sir. He’ll tell you.”

  The judge scowled, his eyes darting to where Mr Tempest sat looking for all intents and purposes bored.

  “Very well. Is your superior here today?”

  A man in telegraph uniform stood in the lower gallery, his hat nervously turning in his clasped hands.

  “I am, Your Honour.”

  “Your name?”

  “Arthur White, sir.”

  “And you vouch for this young man?”

  “I do indeed, sir. One of our finest.”