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

by Nicola Claire

  I returned my assessment to the man across the seat from me. There was nothing for it; I had to ask.

  “What of Eliza May Kelly?” The words hung suspended in the darkened coach for several long seconds, as I was sure not a soul sucked in breath enough to breathe.

  Tempest’s eyes met mine; there was knowledge there. The man would be hopeless at cards with a face that gave such tumultuous emotions away with ease.

  “You know of her,” I surmised. Reid, although appearing still relaxed, kept his sharp gaze on our prisoner.

  “I…” Tempest blinked and shook his head. “She does not use Kelly.”

  Of all the things he could have said, I had not expected that. Why? I am unsure. Eliza May walked away from our marriage over five years prior. Left it to crumble in the ashes of our charred house. Of course, she would have stopped using my surname. I had thought it was her using the moniker of Moriarty.

  But Tempest’s acknowledgement of my wife’s Christian names proved the disconnection between the two. Was Mary Moriarty none other than Emily Tempest? Had my wife been involved in any of this, at all?

  “Explain,” I demanded.

  “She…I…” Tempest shook his head again and then let out a heavy sigh. “I met her in the Dutch East Indies.” The letters had originated from there. How did this all fit together?

  Eliza May. Mary Moriarty. Emily Tempest. And then there was the male ‘doctor’ who had been slipping the whores strychnine tablets. None of this made any sense, but I was determined it would by the time we reached the Londonderry mine.

  “I spent some time there,” Tempest was saying. “I enjoyed the climate. The people are very friendly, you see? I delayed further travels to submerge myself in their culture. I was on a journey of self-discovery.”

  “We’re not interested in your character’s development,” Blackie sneered. “Tell us about the woman.”

  Tempest paled at the sergeant’s inclusion in our conversation; his fear of Blackie’s fists once again making contact was real. Blackie for his part, looked as though he wouldn't hesitate to reintroduce Tempest to his knuckles. Which even in the dim light of the carriage looked bruised and battered.

  “She was…is…a very formidable woman.” Tempest sounded as if he truly did admire my wife. “Much of Batavia is indebted to her organisational skills. She is freely giving of her time and expertise.”

  “Expertise?” I pressed.

  “In business management. She aids many store holders and started a community group in which the sharing of knowledge is given freely. Business is booming in the Orient.”

  “Is this business corrupt?” I enquired, working hard to keep my voice level.

  Tempest shook his head most vigorously. “No. No. Perhaps it once was, but Mrs Adler’s involvement has brought the entire area into good repute.

  “Adler,” Anna said, a measure of humour in her voice. “Good god, the woman is incorrigible.”

  I turned partially in my seat and looked at her.

  “The name means something to you?” I asked.

  “As it should you, also. Irene Adler? ‘A Scandal In Bohemia?’ Published in 1891 by Arthur Conan Doyle.”

  “A Sherlock Holmes story,” Reid offered. “Moriarty,” he added.

  “Indeed,” Anna agreed, straightening her gloves angrily. “It would appear this is all a game to her. A story evolving on life’s biggest stage. And we the side characters.”

  “Is she Mary Moriarty, then?” Reid enquired.

  “The letters addressed to myself were from an MM,” Anna declared. “Which I take to mean Mary Moriarty. They were also post stamped the Dutch East Indies.”

  Anna withdrew several letters from her reticule. The scent of jasmine was faint but unmistakable. She lay them flat on her dress skirts and ran a hand over them; then a steady finger outlined the nightingale in the corner.

  I pulled mine from my jacket pocket and placed it beside Anna’s. The writing was dissimilar, but there was no denying the coincidences.

  Reid leant forward, as did Tempest; caught up in the intrigue despite himself.

  “The slant of the writing is off,” Blackie said. “In such a way as to make you believe it is contrived.”

  “I agree,” Reid said. “The effort is too great.” He tapped my letter. “This was post stamped the Dutch East Indies as well?”

  “No. London,” I supplied.

  “Then perhaps we have misinterpreted the writing differences,” Reid surmised.

  It was all so confusing. Apart from the fact that Eliza May was indeed in the Dutch East Indies.

  “Has Mrs Adler arrived in London?” I asked Tempest.

  “I do not believe so,” he stated. “I, too, have had correspondence from her.” We all looked sharper at the man. “Amicable correspondence. The sort one receives from a friend.” We continued to stare at him. He became more and more agitated. “Emily corresponds with her as well, I’ll have you know!”

  “Does she now?” Reid asked purposefully. “And what would that correspondence be about, Mr Tempest? When it was you, who met with Mrs Adler on your travels.”

  “Emily visited him in the Dutch East Indies once,” Anna provided. “Before I arrived in London. She took time out from seeking her degree when it became obvious how difficult competing in London’s male dominated society for a role in medicine was going to be.”

  “She never did like being challenged,” Tempest muttered.

  “So, they met in the Dutch East Indies,” Reid surmised.

  I looked to Tempest. “They may have,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders and then he resolutely stared out of the coach’s window.

  “And my wife is actually not here,” I said, stunned.

  “We cannot assume that is the case,” Reid argued, settling back in his seat, making himself comfortable.

  “If she’s not ‘ere, then who poisoned the doxies?” Blackie asked.

  “The perpetrator was described as a male,” I offered.

  “Dr Cream,” Anna said with dawning understanding. “Emily’s new beau.”

  “He is not her beau,” Tempest argued purposefully.

  “She believes so,” Anna said simply.

  “She is not entertaining a man like him!”

  “You worry about her courting prospectives,” Reid asked, “when it is obvious she is complicit in multiple crimes? Fear not, Mr Tempest. I am sure there will be plenty of opportunities for her to rise above her station whilst confined in Newgate awaiting trial.”

  With a lurch and swing, Tempest’s fist connected with Reid’s cheek. The carriage rocked. I threw an arm across Anna’s chest to keep her seated. Then Blackie was up, and fists were flying, and the driver was yelling something from atop the coach itself, and Reid pulled a pistol.

  The sound of the weapon firing left us all momentarily senseless. Then noise rushed in again as if heralding an Armageddon.

  Tempest lay in a pool of blood, his eyes staring sightlessly. Reid no longer held the pistol. I looked toward Blackie, his gaze darting down to the smoking gun in his hand. He dropped it. The sound of it thudding to the floor of the carriage sent an ominous shudder down my spine.

  Then Reid sat forward and swiped the offending article up off the floorboards, disappearing it from sight completely.

  Anna moved. Intent on checking on Tempest. Just as the door to the coach was thrown open and Emily Tempest pointed her own weapon into the darkened confines.

  Reid shifted, covering Henry Tempest’s body from view. Blackie moved, allowing the chit to find a broad target in his chest and no one else’s.

  And Anna said, voice soft but no less hard for it, “Emily Tempest. Or is it Mary Moriarty? I am certain there are other characters in Mr Doyle’s books you could yet acquire. Which is it?”

  Anna pushed past Blackie before I could stop her, stepping down out of the carriage and facing off against the woman who had abused her cousin so heinously. Who had brought such wretched memories to the fore. />
  My chest ached for Anna. My heart sped up at her reckless behaviour. The roaring of my rapid pulse in my ears made it difficult to hear her next words.

  But I managed.

  “Or have you courage enough to be yourself?” she said, the voice of an avenging angel. “And face what it is that’s coming.”

  To Everyone But Us

  Anna

  It all made complete sense, in the most peculiar way.

  Emily had befriended Eliza May in the Dutch East Indies. Perhaps received tutelage in the art of manipulation from the woman herself. It was Emily who controlled London’s darker streets and hovels. Emily who ran the Blind Beggars gang in Covent Street Market. Emily who fired the dart full of strychnine at Andrew’s informant, and then used scopolamine on Andrew himself. Emily who had fingers in so many different pies, such as The Blind Beggar Tavern, where she could manipulate and control her overbearing brother in its backroom brothel. Emily who abducted the orphans for her uncle’s mine, perhaps using the increased revenue to fund her own desires. Emily who used the network of telegraph boys to garner information on London’s well-to-do. Emily who manipulated Dr Cream to murder those working women.

  Emily Tempest. My friend. My greatest friend since arriving here in London. The woman I had sat beside in lecture theatres, and stood beside at laboratory benches. Emily who I had graduated London’s School of Medicine for Women alongside.

  Emily who had cornered me in Dorothy’s Restaurant and outside The Blind Beggar Tavern in Whitechapel; altering her speaking voice, hiding in shadows, using the hood of her cloak to conceal herself from knowing eyes.

  It had been Emily all along. Not Eliza May Kelly. We’d been chasing a ghost. A powerful one, but a ghost all the same. A ghost brought to life by Emily’s acquaintances with Andrew’s wife. She knew things another person would not have known. Perhaps she knew things even Eliza May was not aware her protégé had acquired.

  “Where is your Dr Cream?” I asked, circling the woman so as Inspector Reid, Sergeant Blackmore and Andrew could climb down out of the carriage and close the door before Emily could see her brother’s body.

  I was not yet sure if I should feel a loss at Henry’s death. He had been complicit in the bribery of Justice Blackborough, so how involved he was in his sister’s affairs was not yet known. But I believed his innocence in harming Mina. I’d carry that small smattering of hope for his eternal soul.

  “Right here, Doctor,” Cream announced, as he appeared from behind the coach. He made quick work of divesting Inspector Reid of his pistol; if he noted its heat, having been recently fired, he did not comment. He proceeded to pat down Blackmore and then Andrew, but left Andrew his cane; clearly failing to see it as a potential weapon.

  I wondered if he viewed canes as fashion accessories as Henry had done. And then I realised Henry Tempest would never jaunt along Hunter Street, swinging a cane, ever again.

  I glared at his sister; for it was at her feet, I’d lay the blame.

  “Ah, dearest,” Emily said sweetly. I was sure it was all an act. “Impeccable timing as usual.”

  Cream smiled at her as if she were the sun to his moon. He moved to stand beside her, using Reid’s pistol against us.

  Two guns, and we armed with only a walking stick. The odds were not in our favour.

  “Strychnos nox-vomica,” I said, garnering a sneer from Emily and a look of pride from Cream.

  “Such a nasty little plant, wouldn’t you agree?” the man in question asked.

  “An interesting choice, Doctor,” I said. “I presume you are in fact a physician?”

  “Indeed. One must keep up appearances, mustn’t one?”

  “But to use a poison so readily known to have been the choice of weapon of another,” I offered.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Strychnine was my wife’s poison of choice,” Andrew offered, following my train of thought exactly.

  I glanced toward him, but could not afford to keep my attention off the two murderers in our midst. Andrew appeared calm and untouched by the current topic of conversation. I could only hope that his state of mind was as such.

  “I am not aware of your wife, sir,” Cream said stiffly.

  “Ah, but Miss Tempest is, isn't she?” Reid offered.

  “Quite familiar,” Blackmore added.

  “In fact, is it not Eliza May Adler whom you model yourself on?” I said to Emily.

  She stared, first at Andrew, then at Reid and Blackmore, and then finally at myself.

  A bubble of laughter erupted from between her lips; so frivolous and as much the Emily I had often seen. This was the act; the gay façade she showed the world. The shallow socialite not witnessed within the confines of a theatre. The duplicity astounded but did not surprise.

  She had fooled more than just me.

  “Well done, Anna,” she said happily. “I am impressed. And here I thought you were so focused on your suffragette franchise that you failed to note a thing of worth outside of its cause.” She clapped her hands together with a little too much enthusiasm. “Brava! Brava! Really, it is quite impressive. What else have you learned?”

  “Does she know you emulate her?” I asked, not bothering to answer.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know, eh?” she teased. “But I digress. We have much to discuss. Unfortunately, not all of those here need be present for such.”

  She turned her pistol on Inspector Reid and fired.

  It happened so quickly. The sound of the weapon discharging almost deafening. The shock of it happening at all, despite the threat that had hung over us since we’d exited the carriage, debilitating.

  And then Andrew was moving, his limp barely noticeable and Blackmore was rolling out of the way of a second shot, and the cane came down hard on top of Cream’s wrist, disarming him in one fell swoop. And I shot forward and kicked Emily’s side, making her stumble. And then we were grappling for control of the pistol.

  Rolling around in the dirt and grass, our hair coming loose, our skirts getting tangled, elbows poking, and fingers scratching, and the pistol going flying.

  I’m not sure how much time passed, but the cocking of the weapon at Emily’s ear had her stilling, and the nudge of the muzzle to her temple had her releasing my throat from her clawed hands. I sucked in air and rolled away, relieved to see Blackmore tending a still living Inspector Reid. My vision wavered and then refocused, then I watched as Andrew stepped back, pistol still held steadily on Emily as she righted herself on the ground as if nothing untoward had happened.

  I searched for Cream and found him out cold to the side, a long welt marring his features. Exactly the width of Andrew’s cane.

  “Where is your uncle?” Andrew demanded.

  “Quite some miles from here, I should guess,” Emily replied.

  “The children?”

  “Why do you care, Kelly? They are just orphans.”

  “Orphans made to work in appalling conditions, no doubt.”

  “You have softened,” Emily sneered. “I can hardly fathom what she saw in you once. Such a proud man, she said. Such a loyal fellow. One cannot simply confront Andrew Kelly; one must convince him first of his follies.”

  “What is this?” Andrew said, taking a step backwards and then realising his mistake. He straightened his back and waved the pistol. “Speak,” he demanded.

  “All right,” Emily said, pushing to stand upright. “Your wife.” She offered that same sneer to me on those words and then returned her attention to Andrew. “Your wife has a knack for assessing character, and in you, she saw something unforgiving. Something she believed would assist her in her quest to right the wrongs in the world.”

  “Wrongs she alone perceived,” Andrew snapped.

  “Does it matter? They are wrongs in your wife’s eyes and therefore wrongs which were to be corrected. Upon meeting you, of course, I did wonder what it was she saw in such a male. The scopolamine didn't reveal anything new on that count, so I set about testing
your morals. Did you like Newgate Gaol? Did you enjoy being cuffed and escorted out of the boarding house?”

  “Would your…professor be pleased with your attempts to entrap me?” Andrew asked.

  “The pupil has become the teacher, wouldn’t you say?” Emily said.

  “Professor Moriarty,” I murmured. “But the letters I received are from the Dutch East Indies. From Eliza May. Does she also use that same moniker?”

  “I suggested it, actually. A way to keep her new identity separate but still connected to her current one. The Orient is not the backwater it once was. People really do travel there. My wearisome brother is a case in point.”

  No one mentioned his demise. Emily was far too close to the edge to warrant such honesty.

  “So, you both use the moniker,” Andrew concluded. “Eliza May in her letters to Anna from the Dutch East Indies. And you when you chose to confront Anna directly.”

  “You do possess a canny ability for summation,” Emily said. “Did it confuse you? Were you chasing your tails while I muddied the waters? That last letter was of my hand, you know,” she said, tilting her head at me. “Did you enjoy it? Did it perplex you?”

  “Emily,” I said. “This is not a game. You killed people. Had them killed.” I glanced toward Dr Cream, who was now trussed up ready for committal at the Old Bailey. “‘First, do no harm,’” I said. “Have you forgotten so quickly? You have broken laws and defied logic, to what end? You had a career. A degree in medicine. Why throw it away now?”

  “You are so small minded, Anna,” she snarled. “You fight the good fight, making a place for yourself in this male-centric world. You do not realise the freedom to be had when men believe themselves superior. We will never achieve equality. Not in our lifetime. Not sufficiently to count. But we can direct things from the background. Manipulate men to do what we would never be able to do in this or fifty lifetimes. Do you honestly believe once they grant you the right to vote, that your life will alter so significantly? It won’t. But, oh, the joys to be had, the money to be made from the background. Now. Not five years from now. Not ten. But now.