Like Clockwork

by Bonnie Dee

  He looked at her mouth. His eyelids lowered and he inclined his head. Victoria leaned forward, her own eyes nearly closing. And then his mouth settled on hers, warm and soft but uncompromising, the hardness of his kiss making her feel feminine and fluttery. Inside her, something opened like a mouth, hungry and yearning to be fed. Her pulse throbbed between her legs and her breasts ached where they pressed against her corset.

  What a difference a day makes. The inane thought flashed in her mind as his hands slipped around her waist, holding her steady.

  These same hands had drugged her with chloroform and then carried her away, she reminded herself, but instead of making her angry the thought gave her a perverse thril . The heartbeat between her legs grew stronger.

  Victoria wasn't sure what to do with her hands. They pressed against his waistcoat and she slid them up his chest to hook them over his shoulders.

  Dash canted his head to fasten his mouth more firmly over hers.

  She startled as his warm, wet tongue touched her lips. She opened her mouth to gasp and his tongue slipped inside. His hands splayed over her back as he pul ed her even closer to him, holding her hard and kissing her harder. He clung to her with desperation, as if she were an anchor in this shifting, uncertain world.

  Victoria al owed him to slide his hands up and down her back.

  They came to rest on her bottom, clutching the layers of fabric as if wanting to burrow through to reach her flesh underneath. A wise little voice inside told her she should put an end to his kissing and fierce hugging, but she didn't care to listen to it at al . She was floating, flying, and loving his hard, demanding kisses with every living particle that made her human.

  Another polite rap at the door was fol owed by the door opening.

  Dash jerked his mouth away from hers and let go of her. Victoria stepped back quickly as Patterson entered the room.

  He gazed at them with his blank-eyed stare. "May I clear the tea things, miss?"

  She felt her cheeks burning. Why should she blush? He was not a human being, only a machine, and yet she lowered her face and folded her arms over her tender breasts. "No, Patterson. You may get Mr. Dash his coat, please."

  "Very good, Miss Waters." The butler turned with precision and left the room.

  "I'm sorry." Victoria apologized to Dash although she had no idea what for. The interruption had been quite opportune, pul ing them both back from the brink of a precipice that didn't bear thinking about.

  As if he hadn't just held her in his arms or she hadn't flung her arms around his neck, as if he hadn't been kissing her so passionately her toes flexed, Victoria held out her hand to bid her visitor good day.

  "I wil learn what I can and meet you in the park tomorrow at two o'clock."

  He cleared his throat. "Yes. Thank you." Nearly as stiffly as Patterson, he bowed and strode from the room.

  Victoria did not see him to the front door. She col apsed on an armchair stil warm from his body and pressed her fingers against her burning lips. "Good heavens, what in the world am I doing? This is impulsive even for me."

  Chapter Five

  What in the world was he doing? Dash's head was awhirl as he practical y fled the fancy house on Gaslight Lane. Too much had happened in too short a time. His kidnap plan had been derailed like a trol ey careening off the track as Victoria Waters took control of it. And then Lizzie's murder, which he didn't want to dwel on for even a moment, unless it was to figure out a way to find and kil her kil er.

  Lastly, his compulsion to grab the scientist and kiss her until they both exploded in a blaze like a Guy Fawkes Night bonfire. Dash assured himself this had been a reaction to the loss of Lizzie, the need to embrace a warm body and feel life stil flowing through him, but he knew it was more than that. He'd wanted to kiss Victoria Waters since the moment he'd looked down at her face as he carried her in his arms.

  Insanity to try it, and yet she'd kissed him back and clung to him almost as hard as he'd gripped her. He hadn't been completely off the mark in believing he sensed attraction between them. But what could come of it? Nothing. Victoria was no tavern wench or maid on her day off that he could seduce, fuck and forget. Those few kisses were the only contact they'd ever have, for surely she wouldn't al ow such familiarity again.

  Dash hurried to the station where he'd first encountered Victoria on the platform only a few hours ago. Not much time in the course of history, but in that one day everything had changed for him. He was tired and would've liked to ride the train back to Whitechapel, but he didn't have the coin for it so he hoofed it through the underground again.

  When he reached the meeting chamber, Robeson and Jones were stil there but Annie Hyatt had packed up her knitting and gone home, and Perrier no longer huddled by the fire.

  Robeson was deep in his cups. He drank so much al the time he had a high tolerance for alcohol, but right now he wore the bleary-eyed bel igerence of an angry drunk. "Where's the girl? What've you done, you daft cunny?"

  Dash wasn't about to tel them that he'd spent time at Miss Waters's house. "We talked. She's going to do what she can and we'l meet again tomorrow."

  "Oh ho, real y now?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you trust her?" Jones was much calmer than Rogue, but his furrowed brow betrayed his doubts.

  "I do. She's setting up a meeting between you, me and the Commission."

  "Just you and Jones, eh?" Robeson finished his gin and poured another. "You think the rest of us don't clean up good enough?"

  Jones nodded. "Very wel ." His polite tone reminded Dash of Victoria's butler Patterson, even though the other was a machine.

  That smooth, polite, cultured-but-not-as-cultured-as-his-betters tone must be a prerequisite for butlers.

  "I'm very sorry to hear about your friend," Jones added. "Was it indeed she?"

  Dash nodded. His head was beginning to ache, probably from the unaccustomed scotch. Beer or cheap gin were more his element.

  "There's real y nothing more to discuss. I'l meet you al tomorrow at the Sheep's Head Inn at four, after my meeting with Miss Waters."

  Without waiting to hear whatever other snide comments Robeson might have to make, Dash turned and left. Some solitude and a good night's sleep was what he needed to put his scattered thoughts in order.

  But when he reached his dingy room squirreled in the attic of a boarding house, al he could think of as he lay on the narrow cot were the two women who had changed his life that day--Victoria Waters alive in his arms and Lizzie dead in an al ey. Two sides of a spinning coin.

  Pleasure and pain whirled in his mind until he could scarcely tel one from the other.

  ***

  Almost as soon as Dash left, Victoria went to the police headquarters at Scotland Yard to request information. Because of the extreme nature of the crime, she guessed this case would not be handled by the district unit but by the main investigative force.

  The superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department was difficult to convince with her story of having a passing acquaintance with the victim.

  "Elizabeth Turpin late of Harper Lane is a friend of yours, miss?"

  The man's thick brows rose nearly to his hairline.

  "I did some volunteer work very briefly at Mrs. Carol Partridge's Refuge for Homeless and Wayward Girls and there I became acquainted with Lizzie Turpin. I'm not saying I knew her wel , but when I heard of her death I wanted to learn more about the circumstances."

  It was a weak story and the superintendent knew it. "How did you hear about the murder? The evening paper hasn't been published yet."

  Victoria waved the handkerchief she'd been dabbing at her eyes.

  "Rumors spread news faster than the print media ever could. A friend cal ed upon me and mentioned the latest murder, including the name of the victim."

  "Wel , Miss Waters, this case is currently under investigation. I'm afraid the inspectors can't share the gruesome details even if they were appropriate for a young woman to hear." His tone
was dry. It seemed he'd pegged her for a thril -seeking society miss with nothing better to occupy her time than dabbling where she had no business.

  "When I knew Miss Turpin, she shared some information about her family with me. Perhaps it might be of interest to the investigators."

  The superintendent reluctantly al owed Victoria an interview with the two inspectors on the case. She shared with them only a vague story based on what Dash had told her about Lizzie's life on the street, nothing that couldn't be said of any streetwalker. In exchange, she learned little from the police other than the same facts anyone could read in the newspapers. Like the other victims, the woman had been cut open as if for a dissection and once again the heart was missing from the body.

  "So dreadful," she murmured. "Do you have suspicions about the perpetrator of this heinous crime?"

  The lead investigator, Parkins, fixed her with a hard stare through thick spectacles that magnified his eyes so they looked huge.

  "Could be any one of a hundred scoundrels in this city."

  "But this appears to be no regular brutal crime, not violence born of passion or anger," she argued. "This man must be someone with a particular hatred for women."

  "Or an interest in stealing their hearts as perhaps some woman once stole and crushed his?" Inspector Babbitt, a plump man with a luxuriant moustache, chimed in. "The man is very meticulous, too. Almost surgical in his precision. Not real y a 'slasher' at al .

  Trying to understand how he thinks and what he feels about women could lead us to identify him."

  His partner al but rol ed his eyes at the idea of plumbing the depths of a kil er's mind. "Witnesses, Babbitt. I keep tel ing you.

  Someone must have seen something or know something and that is the only way to catch a criminal." Parkins turned to Victoria. "Now, how did you say you knew the victim, Miss Waters?"

  She gave her story once more and then left the station.

  It was nearly dark. She hailed a cab to take her home and thought about her overwhelming day. In the space of about nine hours she'd been kidnapped, seen a murdered body, kissed a stranger and been questioned by the police. She should've been exhausted, but she simmered with nervous tension. And she couldn't stop thinking about how kissing Dash had made her body burn.

  There'd been a time, shortly after her parents' death, when she'd imagined she might marry Harvey Samuels. She'd been so alone and he so kind and comforting that Victoria could picture a future in which they would work and live together, as comfortable as a pair of old shoes. She wasn't attracted to him, but marriage contracts were rarely about romance or love. They would have serene companionship and that would be sufficient, certainly preferable to the many long nights alone that awaited her as a spinster.

  When Harvey continued to be nothing more than kind to her, she'd final y broached the subject, simply asking him if he intended to marry her.

  His eyes had opened wide and he'd been as near to flustered as she'd ever seen him. "My dear Miss Waters, I'm so sorry if you misunderstood my intentions. I view you as a protege, a col eague and a friend, but nothing more than that."

  "Oh dear." Humiliation had turned her face bright red and she'd wanted nothing more than to flee from the laboratory and never come back.

  But Harvey had grasped her hand and held it. "My dear, dear girl.

  I'm nearly twenty years your senior. I'm a confirmed bachelor and content to remain that way. But if I were of a mind to marry, I could find no woman to compare with you. My inclinations simply don't lie in the direction of, er, matrimony."

  "I see." She'd stared at her hand, wil ing him to let go of her so she could disappear. "I'm very sorry, Professor Samuels. Do forgive me."

  "Nothing to forgive, darling." He'd patted her hand. "But hear me.

  You must never sel yourself short. You're a woman who's ful of passion. So far you've turned that passion only in the direction of research and knowledge, but if you should ever decide to focus such intensity on a man... Wel , he would be a lucky fel ow, indeed."

  Had she found a new focus for her passion today? For the first time, Victoria thought she might believe what Samuels had said that day. Today, Dash had kindled an unexpected fire in her that glowed deep within, and she didn't know if she could douse it.

  She felt restless, ful of energy and incapable of sitting stil . When the cab hit a traffic jam due to a carriage accident a few blocks from her home, it was a relief to get out and walk the rest of the way to clear her mind.

  As Victoria paid the driver, he questioned the wisdom of her walking alone in the dark, but she reassured him.

  "I live very close. It's al right."

  She passed the accident before turning onto the side street that led to her neighborhood. A dray wagon had col ided with one of the new steam-driven motorcars cal ed an Ambulator. The carthorse thrashed and screamed in pain and the wagon lay on its side. The Ambulator's driver with his goggles hanging around his neck was talking to a constable. Just before Victoria turned the corner, the driver of the wagon drew a pistol and aimed it at the injured horse's head.

  She looked away quickly. She'd seen enough bloodshed for one day. But the inherent symbolism in the scene struck her--the old ways running head-on into new technology. A shot rang out and she jerked.

  The noise and confusion faded behind her as she entered the quiet, sedate neighborhood where her family home stood. Only her shadow accompanied her, showing up like a familiar friend every time she walked through the glow of a gaslight.

  In the silence, her footsteps echoed from the houses, a soft tapping in time with her pace. But she suddenly realized it was more than just an echo, the rhythm was subtly off. Victoria stopped walking and whirled around to scan the dimly lit street.

  No one was there. She was not being fol owed.

  Nevertheless, her heart beat so hard she could scarcely breathe.

  "One kidnapping per day is sufficient," she muttered to herself and resumed walking faster.

  She was a block away from her house in a neighborhood where crimes simply never happened. The stodgy houses and their stuffy inhabitants wouldn't al ow such foolishness. She would be fine. Yet the moment she resumed her walk, the echo, which was not just resounding from the wal s of the buildings, also continued.

  When she sped her pace to a near trot, the other footsteps went faster too. Victoria ventured another glance over her shoulder without stopping. She stil saw nothing. Her imagination was running away with her.

  And then she did glimpse a figure moving among the darker shadows--or thought she did.

  Victoria began to run. She turned another corner. Her house was the third one on the street and she raced toward it. In her imagination, the thing fol owing her leaped out of the darkness and dragged her down like a cat pouncing on a mouse. It tore into her, leaving her broken and bloodied body on the street for the neighbors to discover along with their morning papers.

  She pul ed her skirts up high to give her legs the freedom to run and pounded down the pavement the last few yards to her house.

  Her chest burned from the unaccustomed exercise and she nearly tripped as she vaulted up the steps to her front door. With no time to unlock it, she pounded for one of the servants to let her in.

  Victoria looked behind her, scanning the street with a frantic gaze. But even as Patterson opened the door and she rushed into the hal way, she could see there was no one behind her. She gasped for breath, her ribs straining against her corset, and met her butler's expressionless look.

  "You were running, miss."

  "Yes, I was." She removed her hat, which had miraculously stayed pinned to her hair, and then began to unbutton her coat.

  "May I ask why? Is there anything I need do?"

  "No, Patterson. It was my imagination. Everything's fine."

  "Very good, miss. Shal I tel Mrs. Rose to prepare you a tray?"

  "Please," she answered shortly as she thrust her hat and coat at him. "Thank you." His everlasting concern about
her wel being and knowing the details of her day was grating. The mechanical man was determined to carry out to the letter his protocol of serving her.

  "And please tel her to draw me a bath," she added. A long soak in a hot tub was exactly what she needed to relax from her overwhelming day.

  But later, as she lay in the copper tub with steaming water up to her shoulders, al Victoria could think of was how it had felt to have Dash hold and kiss her. Her body reacted to the memory with pleasurable sensations that made her overheated skin flush even hotter. Yet the delight of that memory was counterbalanced by the gruesome image of the murdered girl, Lizzie. Pleasure and horror--two sides of a whirling top spun so fast they became a blur of color and motion and she could hardly tel the difference.

  Chapter Six

  Dash couldn't remember the last time he'd gone to a park for any reason other than to transact business of some sort. For some reason his clients felt safer meeting him in broad daylight in the open than in a dark al ey in the slums. It was a mystery.

  Of course, old Brownlow wouldn't have approved of his sales and deals, but a man couldn't afford to be too idealistic when he was hungry. Stolen merchandise, il egal drugs or black market trading--it was al the same to Dash so long as he got paid.

  Now, as he stood staring at the duck pond and waiting for Victoria Waters, Dash felt like a boy again, beside himself with excitement at the prospect of the St. Nicholas candy the charity ladies handed out on Christmas Day. The few free sweets had made Christmastide a cause for celebration, even in Whitechapel.

  If possible, he was more anxious about seeing Victoria today than he'd been yesterday as he'd ratcheted up his courage to kidnap the woman. This meeting with her promised to be much more pleasurable than yesterday's.

  He glanced up from watching a pair of stately swans circling the perimeter of the pool to see Victoria hurrying up the path toward him, and his heart did a stutter and leap. Christ, he was sick with it. A stolen kiss or two from a society miss and he was reacting like an inexperienced youth who imagined himself in love.