“And they told everyone she had died in the accident?” he asked, unable to believe such a thing. “Why would they do such a thing?” he asked, despite knowing the likely answer.
“It was for the best of everyone,” his mother said.
They’d hidden her away rather than having to care for her, financially, the rest of their lives. But they hadn’t even given her a chance to meet a man and to marry. Certainly there was someone out there willing to look past her affliction and take her to wife. “The best for everyone but Mia.”
His mother straightened in her chair, both eyebrows raising. “You are familiar enough to use her Christian name, Alex? I don’t think that is a good idea. Remember what you are about. You are a duke, for heaven’s sake. You are supposed to be courting your future wife, a girl who will be the right kind of wife to be a duchess.”
“Knowing Mia’s name does not mean I’ve decided to court her instead of Juliet. Though I do think her family made a terrible choice, it is not mine to undo. Still she has been dealt a deplorable hand in life.”
“I’m relieved to hear you say that. I think it would be better for everyone if you left the girl alone. You’ve gotten her story, now leave her to her madness.” His mother poured herself another cup of tea and stirred in some cream.
“Mother, she is no more mad than you or I. Quite the contrary, she seems rather intelligent,” Alex said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” his mother scoffed. “The girl is damaged beyond repair. Can she even walk on her own?”
“Now, who is being ridiculous,” he said. “She cannot see, that appears to be her only impairment.” But that made her imperfect. Something his mother would not abide. And she wasn’t the only one. The Carrington name had born so much scandal. Her blindness only mattered if he were intending to pursue her, which he, of course, was not.
Why he was drawn to her was inexplicable to him. Her sightless eyes were haunting, and tragically beautiful. And her thin body didn’t boast the soft curves that so many proper ladies had and that he himself preferred in women. But she moved with purpose and grace, and she spoke with confidence and authority. And she was no more impressed with his title and wealth than he supposed Queen Victoria would be. Her indifference to him in that regard was oh so appealing.
“I still think you should keep your distance. There is no need to encourage the poor girl into thinking she is welcomed into our home,” his mother added sharply.
He said nothing further to his mother through the short remainder of their breakfast. But he couldn’t cease his thoughts about Mia. She was a Danvers, a well-bred lady. That fit. She was lovely and graceful. And had she not been denied a Season of her own, she no doubt would have had her selection of suitors. Perhaps he would have thrown his hat in her ring. She was different enough to be interesting, but of good breeding to ensure she could have made a good duchess. He shook his head. It was a futile thought.
Blind girls weren’t the stuff of duchesses.
Chapter Four
Several days later at another house in Mayfair, the Ripper stood in the corner of the ballroom and watched the couples dancing. The men next to him discussed a particular wager in a fight at their club. He nodded a few times, to let them know he was still with them, still in the conversation. But he wasn’t truly paying attention. He didn’t care. Tonight he was here for one reason, and one reason only.
He had tried to be patient, but he knew he could wait no longer. He recognized it was too soon, that he should wait, but he couldn’t. And he shouldn’t have to. After the three in Whitechapel that went unnoticed, he’d waited, bided his time while he’d made a new plan, and this was it. He would hunt in Mayfair and see how long the damned police could ignore him.
The people here never ignored him. He fit perfectly with the Society elite. He could have been out there on the ballroom floor, he was an invited guest after all, but he had no desire to dance. Instead he wanted to watch, wanted to hunt, to find the right girl he could have tonight.
He was in the wrong room, he knew that. The ballroom offered no potential girls for him to choose from. Perhaps someday he would take one of the pretty ones, one of the elegant dolls the aristocracy paraded about looking for the highest bidder. But not now.
Carefully selecting his words, he excused himself from his friends. He stepped outside of the ballroom and into the high-ceilinged foyer. Somewhere in this massive home would be the perfect girl.
He checked the first room. It was a billiards room full of men. One, whom he’d met a few weeks back, waved to him with a welcoming smile. But the rest did not even look up from their game.
He closed the door and made his way to the staircase. He climbed the stairs and once the landing split, a hallway turning left and one going right, he opted for the left side. It seemed darker, perhaps a better place to find his girl. He checked first one bedchamber and then another and both were empty.
He came to a dead end and turned to head to the other side of the hall.
“Do you need some help, my lord?” a sweet voice behind him asked.
He turned and smiled, knowing she would be his. She was pretty enough with a halo of brown curls framing her face and large brown eyes. “I do need some assistance,” he said.
She curtsied to him and smiled, looking up from her lashes. She was a flirt as he knew she’d be. They all were.
“What’s your name?” he asked, trying to maintain the charm in his voice and not yet let her know what would really happen to her tonight.
“Molly, my lord.”
“Molly, would you be so kind as to show me where I can find the gardens?” he asked. “It is a perfect night to share the moonlight with such a pretty face.” She would always say yes. They always said yes. He was handsome enough, important enough, and he knew how to charm them when he had to.
Her smile brightened. “Yes, my lord, this way.” She led him back down the stairs, but instead of going through the ballroom and out the balcony doors as a guest might do, she led him through the darkened bits of the house, outside of where the partygoers indulged in dance and drink. A good girl wouldn’t have taken him through unlit halls and rooms. A decent girl would have brought him right back to the center of the party. But she wasn’t a good girl and she deserved this, deserved what he would do to her tonight.
They went through a small dining room and then into a parlor that had French doors that led out to the gardens in the back of the house.
“It is a lovely night,” she said.
“Indeed.” The moon was brighter than he would have liked. He would have to make certain they found a secluded area, one shrouded with shrubbery or a darkened side of the house, against the brick.
“The gardens are just out that way,” she said. She stopped walking and pointed.
He held his hand out to her. “Don’t you want to walk with me? I would appreciate the company.”
She chewed down on her lip and looked behind. “I don’t know if I can. Master Griffin doesn’t approve of the servants conversing with the guests.”
He flashed her another smile. “I won’t tell if you won’t.” He reached up and wrapped one of her curls around his finger. “If I ask nicely?”
One last look behind her, and then she slid her small hand into his and followed him down the steps.
Chapter Five
Mia couldn’t understand why the conversation with Alex had made her feel a semblance better. Perhaps it was merely knowing that he wasn’t going to sit aside and allow this crime to be swept under the proverbial rug. No, he fully intended to do something about it, investigate on his own and speak to the police to ensure the killer was caught.
And if that meant she had to relive the ordeal a few times while giving him the details, then so be it. She certainly hoped he would have gone to such lengths had she been killed that night, too.
Mia started at the sound of her cottage door opening. “Who’s there?” she asked.
“Mia, it is merely I,” R
achel said. “Is everything alright?” she asked as she closed the door behind her.
Mia relaxed and realized for the first time that her breathing was labored. She supposed it would take a while for her nerves to right themselves again. “Rachel, of course it is you. My apologies. I’m a bit jumpy this evening and you startled me.”
Rachel laughed. “I do suppose I’m getting in rather late in the evening. My apologies. Aunt Katherine’s rig lost a wheel halfway here and we had to hire a ride for the rest of the way into London.” Mia heard Rachel drop her bag, then sling her heavy cloak to drape over a kitchen chair, the weight of it shifting the wooden seat so that it scratched against the floor. “It was a lovely visit, Mia, I do wish you’d agree to accompany me one of these days.” Then her friend paused. “Are you ill?” Rachel asked as she rushed over and sat near her on the sofa.
Mia released a shaky laugh. “It would seem I’ve had a most eventful time in your short absence.” Mia swallowed several times to prevent herself from crying. Funny how she could share details with Lord Carrington and not become overly emotional, but having Rachel here the emotions threatened to overwhelm her. “I made tea if you would like some.”
“For now I shall skip that tea, let me hear all about your adventure.” Her longtime friend leaned forward and patted Mia on the leg.
“Perhaps we shall call it an ordeal instead of an adventure,” Mia began. She went through the witness of the murder, leaving out the most horrific details so as to not upset Rachel too much.
Rachel grabbed Mia’s hands in hers, pressing a handkerchief into them. “My dear friend, what a horrible thing to have witnessed. You were so very brave to go and speak to him about what you heard. I have no doubt that Lord Carrington will make things right and bring justice to that poor girl.”
“He is an honorable man,” Mia agreed. “If not a little too starched.”
“Well, he does bear a weighty title and with that comes extreme responsibilities,” Rachel said. She was silent for a moment. “And he is relatively new to the title. He was a military man, I believe, when his brother and the previous duke passed away.”
“Yes, I do recall you reading something from The Times about such a thing,” Mia agreed. She had forgotten that. Clearly that was why he was in such a rush to find himself a duchess. The last duke had failed to produce an heir and Alex must have felt the weight of the situation and intended to rectify it.
“He is taking your story to the investigators, then?” Rachel asked.
“Yes, I believe so. I don’t think he completely believed me when I first arrived at Danbridge after it had happened. In truth I can hardly blame him. I must have looked a fright. I’d been standing in the freezing rain, hiding and then ran straightaway to tell him. No wonder his mother told him I was mad.”
“Did she, now?” Rachel asked. “Fools, the lot of them. Bunch of proper prigs.”
“Well, I have no idea what my own mother told them about me and why I had to live in the cottage. Perhaps that was her excuse. It matters not now, I suppose.”
“No, I suppose not.” Rachel was quiet for a few moments before she spoke again. “Mia, you can continue talking about it if you need to, there is no reason to try and protect me from the details. I can assure you I have a rather strong constitution and you certainly look as if you need to say more.”
“Are you certain?” Mia asked.
“Absolutely.”
Mia started talking then, the details pouring from her as if they’d been waiting in her mouth to tumble free. She wasn’t certain if she spoke in chronological order of how things actually happened; she merely spoke as she remembered things, trying to once again rid her mind of the terrible ordeal.
Mia shook her head, then took a sip of tea. It was warm now, no longer steaming from the earlier brewing. She had spoken so long about the girl’s death that her tea had nearly cooled.
“I know that look on your face,” Rachel said.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re not going to let this go. Despite the fact that Lord Carrington has said he will take care of it, you’re not going to simply walk away, are you?”
“You well know that I cannot.”
***
Alex sat at his desk again, flipping through the one invitation after another, and it was beginning to get tedious. The pile of envelopes to his right had yet to be opened, while the pile to his left were invites he would woefully decline, and the ones directly in the middle were the few he would attend. Who could have known that being socially available would take so much work? He’d spent more time attending parties and dinners in the last two months than he had managing any of his properties.
Despite the fact that he wasn’t actually looking for a woman to court, him pretending to be available whilst in mourning was taking up a considerable amount of time. If he was to have this “arranged” marriage, he wished they could simply get on with things.
It wasn’t as if he were foolish enough to look for love—he didn’t even believe in such nonsense, but he knew that wasn’t the case for most women out there, and to have them all looking at him with hope and stars in their eyes . . . it was too much. If he had been actually looking, Alex would have wanted a woman for whom he could feel some affinity and desire. A woman who was pleasant to look at and didn’t drive him batty with her incessant chatter about fashion and needlepoint.
But his own desires were a moot point. And he couldn’t really complain with his would-be betrothed. She was a viscount’s daughter—polite, genteel, pretty. They hadn’t had much time to converse so he wasn’t too certain of her intellect, but she seemed smart enough.
His eyes lost focus on the invites neatly stacked upon his desk; after a while they all began to blur, much like the girls he’d met. Though one woman did stand out among the crowd, her image crystal clear in his mind. Her lithe figure draped in that dowdy dress that hung over her, giving her a nearly shapeless frame. Her hair was pulled back from her face, highlighting eyes that were so blue, they seemed ethereal. She was beautiful, but not at all in the fashionable manner.
Mia Danvers.
She had said she’d never learned to dance and she’d wanted to hear every detail about the ball. She hadn’t pried, merely been curious about the sights and smells and what people had been wearing. He hadn’t indulged her, only answering a couple of questions. Which was appropriate. There was no reason to pretend that he and she could have a friendship. Men and women were not friends. Most husbands and wives were not friends.
Still as he sat at his desk he found himself thinking of things he could have shared with her. The fact that Lady Davenport’s ridiculously large earring had fallen off into the bowl of lemonade. And the fact that the center cellist had been so old he’d fallen asleep in the middle of every song the band had played, waking up just in time to play the last few bars.
Alex found himself smiling, something that rarely happened, especially when dealing with anything out in Society. He normally despised parties, preferring more to manage his properties, the family’s affairs and perhaps read.
He picked up today’s copy of The Times that Hodges had left on his desk. And he opened it. That was enough time spent thinking about a woman he had no business thinking about. He glanced down at the paper, and there on the first page was a notice about the murder.
GRISLY MURDER IN MAYFAIR
The inspectors had been correct; the newspapers would have great fun at his family’s expense, tying the Carrington name to the heinous crime. Immediately he started thinking of how he would explain it to those around him. How the Carrington property could be involved in such a scandal. He didn’t consider himself an emotional person, but his heart did speed up at the prospect of what might be said about his family. The Carringtons had survived so many scandals, it seemed as though they were destined to move from one to another. But Alex would be damned if he’d allow the Carrington name to be disparaged again.
One of his own ser
vant girls. His mother would have his head if he couldn’t make this story disappear. Alex read through the details, but the more he read the more he realized this wasn’t, in fact, the girl who’d been killed outside of his property, but instead a servant girl who’d been killed last night. Right in the gardens of the Pattysfield home. During a ball.
Now that was a scandal.
There was a brief line about this being the second killing and that the previous one had been murdered in the alleyway near Hyde Park, but no mention directly of Danbridge Hall.
A crime that violent and in such a setting was extraordinarily brazen of the killer. He would have to be accustomed to Mayfair, to some extent, to accomplish two killings in this area within a week. The inspectors he’d spoken too had said they didn’t believe Sally’s killer could be Jack the Ripper, but it was certainly looking more and more like he’d moved uptown and was now after girls here.
Alex had already sent a request to Scotland Yard to speak with the lead inspector on Sally’s case. When they finally paid him a visit, he would share Mia’s information, but also he wanted guarantees that they were examining every possible scenario for these crimes. Simply because the Ripper had been quiet for nearly two months did not mean this was a different killer.
Either way, it seemed as if Mia might be the only living witness to his violence. Alex knew that regardless of what his mother said about the girl, she could potentially help solve this case and he wouldn’t ignore that.
***
The following morning, Alex had just entered his study and sat with his cup of tea when his butler entered the room. “Your Grace, there is an Inspector Jacobs here to see you,” Hodges said from the study doorway.
“Yes, I’ve been expecting someone from the Yard,” Alex said. “Send him in.”
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