by Eve Silver
He drew a slow breath, shifting on the hard seat as the reins looped through his fingers, the horses drawing the high-sprung, two-wheeled carriage at the pace they chose.
Would pretty Miss Canham cry out with the same strength and passion she showed as she walked? Would she struggle and rage?
He smiled at the thought of Elizabeth screaming and screaming while he cut away her lovely curls, bright as the sun. Cut away her scalp. And then her fingers.
Treasures. His treasures.
Letting the horses have their head, he slid his right hand to the pocket of his coat to draw forth a cloth-wrapped little bundle. He brought it to his nose, inhaled deep and long. The metallic scent of old, dry blood filled him, and through the cloth he felt the fingers, delicate little fingers. Sarah’s fingers.
He would take them home. Put them in a jar with maggots. In the end there would be only the bones.
Treasures. Perfect little white bones for his treasure box.
Oh, how Sarah had cried and struggled and screamed against the gag. She had died too quickly for his taste.
But Elizabeth—
“Beth,” he whispered her name aloud, feeling the thrill of it shoot straight to his groin.
—Elizabeth would die slowly.
Chapter Nine
Stepney, London, January 15, 1813
Henry dared not breathe too deeply. The scent of blood, sharp in the cold, thin air, mingled with the stink of tallow that wafted from Sam Loder’s candle. The rank combination made his gut clench and bile crawl up his gullet.
Raising his hand high so the light of the flame dipped and plunged, Sam peered along the dim and gloomy hall, then brought the flame low and stared at the bloody footprints. They led from the black recess at the end of the hall to Mrs. Trotter’s still form, painting a macabre trail.
Henry followed Sam’s gaze, then drew up short, shook his head. The footprints were wrong. Going the wrong way. They ought to be heading from the dead landlord to his murdered wife, not from the parlor to the taproom as they did. That would mean a third victim...
A chill of premonition twisted up his spine. He took a step along the hall.
“Look here,” said Sam, drawing Henry to a halt. He hunkered down and moved the candle to better view the crimson marks, his head bowed and eyes cast down. “These footprints... I think he went first there”—he jutted his chin toward the far end of the hall—”and then came here where he encountered Mrs. Trotter.” Sam tapped his index finger against the floor. Once. Twice. Henry wanted to scream. “He killed her here, and continued on, met the landlord, murdered him last.”
“Yes,” Henry said, the word like dust in his mouth.
Ginnie was safe. She was not here in this place of horror and foul murder. She had gone to see her sick mother and bring her a mince pie.
Even as he recited the litany, he wondered why he did not rush down the hall, did not look in the parlor, did not see for certain that she was not there. He took a step and another, only to stop, feeling dizzy and sick.
Because he knew.
Oh, vile coward that he was, he knew.
Ginnie.
If he did not go to the parlor, he could not see that which was too terrible to consider.
He stood, a shadow of a man, turned inside out and barren. He thought that to feel anything right then was to feel a dread so profound that he would die from it. And so he hovered, frozen, looking down at Sam Loder where he hunkered beside the landlady’s dead body, seeing the whole of it as if in a muddied dream.
Sam rose and started cautiously along the hall.
Henry closed his eyes, then opened them, willing himself to follow, one foot before the next, his gut twisted so tight he felt like he was sawed in two. In his mind he ran, reached the parlor door, found the room empty.
In reality, his feet were made of lead, dragging and heavy, each step more effort than he could bear, his legs flaccid and weak.
As they came to the parlor door, sick certainty bubbled in his gut, an acid brew.
Sam made a sound, turned toward him, his hand held up with the palm forward, a paltry barrier to Henry’s forward movement.
Too late. Too late.
With a cry, Henry stumbled back a step as the room swam and his heart twisted into a cold black knot. He slammed his eyes shut. If he did not see her like this—with her throat slit so wide her head was almost all the way off, and the blood a dark, shiny puddle all around her—then she would not be here, lying like a broken doll on the parlor floor.
Not Ginnie.
Not his sweet Ginnie with her bouncing golden curls.
He opened his eyes, reached for her hair, to smooth it, to touch it, one final memory.
There was only blood, glistening blood.
Where was her hair?
Chapter Ten
Burndale, Yorkshire, September 13, 1828
Beth sat on the stone bench in the shade of the veranda on the south wall of the school, watching Isobel and Lucy at their gardening tasks as she had each afternoon for a week. Her embroidery bag lay by her side, and a square of linen was open in her lap. She had rolled and hemmed the edges, and had begun to sew her mother’s initials in the lower right corner. Staring at the cloth, she tried and failed to summon more than listless interest in colored thread and tiny, neat stitches.
Edginess rippled through her, a powerful tide. There was no true reason for her unease, no particular trigger. There was only...
She glanced over her shoulder, her skin prickling.
The school was not three feet behind her. She studied each window in turn, and saw... nothing. No one watched her, yet the fine hairs at her nape rose and her pulse raced as though someone did. She ought to have grown inured to it by now. Each afternoon this past week she had sat in this garden watching the girls, certain that someone watched her from the shadows. Each afternoon she rose and paced, and each afternoon she failed to find him.
She was beginning to wonder if she was sliding back toward the terrible episodes that had punctuated her childhood, the overwhelming fears, the secret terrors. Not a particularly pleasant possibility.
Her fingertips tapped a random pattern against the stone as she made a last slow perusal of the garden.
Drawing a deep breath, she stilled, determined to rein the scrabbling agitation under her will and control. Based on what she had observed of the women she had met here at Burndale Academy, she imagined that all teachers were calm and genteel and sanguine at all times. She supposed that if she was meant to maintain her employment, she would be wise to present the exact same mien.
With a glance at the girls, who worked side by side at the far end of the garden, she set her embroidery aside. Lucy and Isobel appeared content enough, even happy. That gave her no small measure of satisfaction.
She turned her gaze to the sky, the vast, open sky. Small, dark shapes—swans, she thought—glided through the clouds in the distance, their flight beautiful. The open space, the freedom of the birds, the sound of Lucy’s laughter... these things made the unease in her heart settle a bit, and she was glad of it.
She must not allow her control to crack, must not let her anxious temperament slide free. She knew where that would lead. Her heart would race, her chest grow tight, her palms grow slick with sweat. The world would fade away and there would be nothing but cold and bitter fear, a black pit of despair.
She had spent years learning to master her terrors.
How many doctors had she seen? A half dozen? More? Her parents had sacrificed so much to afford the exorbitant fees. Once, they had even taken her to a German doctor who was reputed to be a worker of miracles.
Beth could remember well the concern that had laced her mother’s words as she sought the opinion of those experts. She does not sleep, Doctor. Night after night, she prowls, or tosses about on her bed. She cannot bear the dark or closed spaces. Throngs of people near send her to fits.
Oh, she bitterly regretted the money her parents had wasted on t
hose consultations. One had said she needed to have all her teeth removed, for poisons in her mouth were poisoning her nature. Another had said she should have her blood let once each fortnight to release vile humors. More than one had suggested that she would be best off in Bedlam or some similar place, that her condition was a weakness of her feminine nature, that she was inclined to hysteria.
And perhaps she was.
But now was not the time to indulge in it. Now her family was relying on her income, and she would not allow herself to fail in this.
Over the years, her mother had expressed hope that she would outgrow her peculiarity. That had proven a fallacy. But at least Beth had learned to master her terror to some small degree, to lie in the dark though she knew it would smother her, to stand in a close crowd and imagine a barrier of distance between her body and others, to travel in an enclosed carriage and not fling open the door and throw herself from the horrid, tight little box.
She had learned to funnel the powerful unease into tasks that busied her hands and her mind.
And she had learned to hide her secrets.
Her terrors had not faded completely, but they came upon her less frequently, and she learned to control them rather than allowing them to control her. She had worked so hard to master them and, until now, she had thought her success quite remarkable. But that success had been achieved within the safe confines of her parents’ home, where everything was known and familiar. With the horrific change in their circumstance—her father succumbing to apoplexy that left him confined to a bath chair, unable to walk or speak, the subsequent loss of their home, their dire financial straits—Beth had found the waves of panic grew ever stronger, more difficult to hold at bay.
And it appeared that Burndale Academy, vast and remote and cold, brought out the very worst of her anxious nature.
Returning her attention to her embroidery, she raised the handkerchief and frowned at it, irked by the series of uneven stitches. Again. That was the very reason this gift would be so precious to her mother: because she was well acquainted with Beth’s inability to sit still long enough to form anything remotely resembling fine stitchery.
With a little shake of her head, she began to unpick what she had only just put in. Yet again. How many times had she repeated these same actions? At this rate, her mother’s gift would never be complete.
Lucy’s voice carried to her, and Beth glanced up at the sound. Ever bossy, Lucy was instructing Isobel in the proper way to squat in the gravel, and the correct angle for her bonnet, and the best way to turn the earth. Isobel stared straight ahead and listened. Or perhaps not. Perhaps the words only washed over her like the tide.
Watching the two for a moment, Beth smiled. Yesterday had been the last day of the punishment she had imposed on them. No, punishment was the wrong word. Both girls had appeared to enjoy their gardening duties, and had brought themselves here today, though no requirement constrained them. Their presence this afternoon was no longer mandated, but was purely their own choice. Beth found a quiet satisfaction in that.
As though sensing her regard, Isobel paused and raised her head. She met Beth’s gaze, then turned to study the top of the high garden wall. Seconds ticked past, and the girl did not move, her shoulders hunched with tension, her body tight as a bowstring.
Wariness trickled through Beth’s veins. Was Isobel subject to the same eerie sensation that ruffled Beth’s calm?
Her gaze slid to the trees beyond the wall. There was nothing to see, save greenery and turning leaves, but... Was there a sound out of place? The faint crunch of gravel? No... but... something...
Tucking her embroidery away in her bag, Beth rose and walked the perimeter of the garden, feeling twitchy and jittery. Her every sense was attuned for a clue, an indication of any sort that her wariness was justified.
She looked back to the girls. Lucy hummed quietly as she worked, but Isobel was still, frozen like a rabbit stalked in an open field, as though she, too, sensed a strange current in the air.
The child stared hard at a tree that grew on the far side of the wall at the corner of the garden. She tipped her head slightly to the right. Her brows rose and the ever-dreamy expression she bore sharpened and changed.
She smiled, open and bright, joy radiating from her in a way that Beth had not seen before.
Startled, Beth stilled and stared.
The moment passed too quickly. Isobel’s smile disappeared as it had come, in an instant. Then, dropping her chin, she went back to turning the soil.
Beth glanced at the tree and saw nothing. She sifted through the limited information she had, lining up bits and pieces until she was satisfied with the result. Certainty chased through her, and she strode to the corner of the wall.
With her back to the tree and her arms folded at her waist, she spoke, her tone conversational, though too low to carry to the girls.
“Why do you hide in a tree to watch your daughter?”
Silence greeted her query, and then sound: the rustle of leaves followed by the dull thud of booted feet hitting the ground. She turned to find Griffin Fairfax an arm’s length away.
Her heart jerked and plunged.
Tall. Broad. Darkly intriguing. She had thought it was only wishful memory and imagination that painted him so in her thoughts. But here he was, more alluring in the flesh than in her private recollections.
He was disreputable. He wore no hat, and his dark hair, long and thick and shiny, curled over the white collar of his shirt, a vivid contrast. His brown riding coat was square cut, finely tailored and perfectly respectable, as were his tan waistcoat and cord breeches. But the open neck of his shirt was not respectable in the least.
She stared at the vee of sun-kissed skin revealed there, the hollow at the base of his throat. For all that the cut and fit of his clothing screamed quality, he was feral beneath a thin veneer of civilization.
He studied her, his expression both quizzical and intent and she felt a warmth run from her belly to her arms and her legs, a rushing heat. The way he looked at her—absorbed, thoughtful, a little puzzled—left her breathless.
“How did you know I was there?” he asked, his tone laced with a cynical and self-directed humor. He gestured at the canopy of changing leaves. “The foliage obscured your view.”
She heard it again, the odd shade to his vowels, the clipped, round tones that spoke of a gentleman, and the coarser underlay that hinted at something else.
Swallowing, she glanced at the tree he had so recently vacated, and said, “Isobel knew you were there.”
The low, breathy quality of her voice made her feel ridiculous. Did he hear it?
“Isobel...” He cut a sidelong look to his daughter, and Beth was uncertain of the emotion that crossed his features. Love? Hope? Regret?
With her head bowed, Isobel worked away at the weeds and did not look in their direction. After a moment, whatever sentiment Mr. Fairfax had allowed to surface faded away, and the silence hung like a damp fog, heavy and cloying. Uncomfortable.
“And you made a sound. In the tree. You... crunched,” Beth said in a rush, compelled to fill the void, to explain the answer to the riddle. She looked pointedly at his left hand, where he yet held an apple core, his fingers long and dark against the remains of white flesh. That had been the sound she had heard, not the crunch of gravel, but the faint noise of his teeth breaking the skin of the apple.
She could not imagine why the thought of that made her mouth feel so dry.
“You are most observant, Miss Canham.” He lobbed the apple core over the wall.
Turning back to her, he raised a brow and smiled a little, enough to flash bright teeth against the stubble that shadowed his jaw. It was not a wide smile, or an open one. Not a nice smile.
That smile was for her. Her alone. Hinting at secret thoughts and private entertainment.
It made her shiver, made her wonder about forbidden things.
Dangerous things.
The silence pricked her l
ike an itch she was desperate to scratch. Words tumbled out to fill the void.
“I suspected there was someone there... in the tree.” Had she said that already? “I assumed... given that I have observed you in the vicinity of Burndale Academy at least once each day...” His brows rose. “That is...” Her voice trailed away as she realized that her disjointed observation implied that she had watched for him each day.
She had, from the upstairs window or a shadowed doorway, and once from beside the privy where the nettles grew thick. Each time the sight of him had sent an odd little thrill through her veins, and she was mortified that because of her loose tongue, he knew it.
“Do you watch for me, Miss Canham?” he asked, the words smooth and soft as satin.
No reply came to her. What to say? That each day she waited for some glimpse of him? That each night when she walked on the road, she watched for him? She shook her head, glanced away, but her gaze was drawn back to him like metal shavings to a magnet.
A peculiar and foreign euphoria rushed through her, like that she had felt when they had walked side by side on the road. She was hot inside, butter melted in a skillet, warm and liquid and finally, sizzling. She looked away, torn by the strange emotion.
What was it about this man that she found so fascinating?
She thought of their conversation on the road, when they had spoken of the widow, Mrs. Arthur, and her little brown glass bottle of laudanum. Mr. Fairfax had understood exactly where her thoughts lay. They knew each other not at all, yet he appeared to understand her as well as anyone ever had.
With sardonic humor, she wondered what he thought of close spaces and crowded places and the deepest, darkest hours of the night.
She glanced at the girls. Neither Lucy nor Isobel paid them any heed; they were busy still. Though they needed no supervision, Beth continued to watch them, her heart beating too quickly. She was afraid to look at Mr. Fairfax once more, at the thick, long lashes that made his eyes so extraordinary, at the high curve of his cheeks, the hard line of his jaw. The tiny white scar that she knew marked the right corner of his mouth.