Ellianne might not understand his tortured mind, but she knew she did not wish to remind him of her rejection. His arm at her midsection was pressing more tightly, and his voice was higher pitched. His breathing seemed to come harder, and she could smell the stench of his sweat.
She had to keep him speaking of something else, then.
“You said an accident? Could you not have explained to the magistrate? I am certain a man of your distinguished reputation would be believed that it was self-defense or some other factor beyond your control.”
“Do you think I wished anyone to know that I visited that kind of woman? Filth, she was, for all her airs and graces and expensive demands. Filth, I say!”
His spittle wet Ellianne’s cheek. Obviously the first murdered woman was not a good topic either. “But there was an accident?”
“She laughed at me.”
So his hand slipped? He just happened to be holding a razor-sharp blade to the woman’s throat at the time? Ellianne had to keep reminding herself that the man was insane; he did not have to make sense. He had a knife instead. “But…?”
He needed no prompting now. “She called me a little man. I did not mean to kill her, just frighten her, I was so angry. Then she laughed. I had to stop her then, or she would have kept laughing, not believing me man enough for that, either.”
That was not Ellianne’s definition of an accident, not by half, but if it kept the madman talking, it kept her alive. She vowed not to laugh—if by chance anything funny occurred to her. “What about her hair? Why did you shave it off?”
“Why, to make her ugly, so no other man would want her.”
“When she was already dead?”
“I had been seen with the Cyprian, although none of her neighbors knew me. I had to make her harder to identify, so no one came here looking. You were the one who insisted Bow Street put out posters with the other ones’ pictures.”
“I do not understand. If you did not wish her identified, you could have hidden her body instead. Why did you let her be found at all?”
“Why, so I could conduct the investigation, of course,” he said matter-of-factly, as if gentlemen killed their mistresses every day, just so they could carve them up afterward, officially. Ellianne was growing nauseated, both by the pressure on her stomach and the cold-blooded derangement of her captor. At least she was not dead yet.
She kept talking. “What did you do with her hair?”
“I have it, all of it, in a box. Now she is mine, you know. I can touch it anytime I wish, and she cannot laugh. She did, you see, when I asked to comb it. Lovely hair, it is, honey-colored and wavy. I made sure there were no knots.”
Ellianne squeezed her eyes shut to keep from crying at the horror that was creeping over her with every word he spoke. She needed to maintain her wits, but how could she hope to reason with a Bedlamite? A sob escaped from her throat.
He took that for encouragement. “I did not see your hair the first time we met. You wore an ugly black bonnet, but you said your sister’s was red, like yours. I had to see for myself.”
“I could take my bonnet off now, so you could see it. I have a comb in my reticule. Let me fetch it and you can comb my hair, see how long it is.” She prayed he would release her long enough to get her purse, to run or scream or kick or claw, to do anything but die, helpless in his arms.
Heaven ignored her prayers, and Sir John ignored her offer. With a flick of his wrist he neatly sliced her bonnet strings, tipping it to the floor. The knife was back at Ellianne’s throat before she could blink, much less act. “I wanted to have it for myself, but now I won’t have time,” he mourned, nuzzling his nose in the braided coil she wore at the back of her neck.
He would not have time? That meant she would not have time. “Of course there is time. Let me take it down and you can see.” She’d cut it off herself and give it to him, in exchange for a few more minutes.
He pulled out a hairpin with his teeth, and she almost retched. When he did not reply with anything but another moaning sound because he could not unfasten the rest without using his hands, she asked, “What about the other women? Surely you could not have killed so many innocent girls just to get my attention.”
“They were whores,” he said, as if prostitutes were as disposable as ants at a picnic. “And I could not stop.”
“Not Maisy, the serving girl,” she said, desperate to stall for another minute, or sixty. How long did her maid think it took to identify a body? “She was a hardworking maidservant, no courtesan.”
“She offered herself to me. She thought I would wed her if I had a sample of her wares. She was no better than those others who put a price on their favors. Whores, the lot of them. Filthy, foul sluts, going from man to man. But lovely hair. They had to have nice hair. Except this last one. I did not have time to be so particular, you see, and had to find a green-eyed doxy so you would come tonight.”
Ellianne was truly sick now that another poor woman had died for such a stupid, senseless reason. She could not give in to that weakness any more than she could give in to tears. “But I am not like that! I do not sell my body.”
The knife moved a hairbreadth away from her skin while Sir John thought. “But you will not have me.” The point returned to press deeper than ever. “After giving yourself to that cad Blanchard. Or did you think I would not hear all the talk?”
“I did not give myself to that dirty dish. It was all talk, all his braggadocio. No one believed it, and he was forced to leave Town.”
“What about Wellstone? You would raise your skirts for him, I’d swear, if you have not already.”
“No, I am not like those other women. I would not lie with a man who was not my husband.”
He did not believe her, perhaps because she no longer believed it herself. Oh, how she wished she had begged Stony to stay with her, or fly away with her. He did not love her? She could live with that, for however long they had together. He did not want marriage? She could stifle her scruples and live with that too, to have him. She could not live here, not with a madman’s knife at her throat. “I never have, I vow.” He made that rasping laugh sound.
“I am a virgin,” Ellianne cried, weeping in earnest now. “I swear on my sister’s name. You cannot kill an honest woman, sir, you cannot.”
He could. Sir John drew the blade away, ready to turn it sideways to slice across her throat, severing the veins and arteries and sinews whose names he knew in Latin. “Too bad I will not get to perform an autopsy.”
Ellianne could not see through her tears, and she could not think of any prayers but “Please, please, please.”
This time her pleas were answered. She heard the sweetest sound in all of creation: Stony, from the doorway. “I say, am I interrupting?”
*
Stony had followed the black coach in the rain for ages, it seemed, in the direction of the harbor, until he began to wonder if Thomasford was planning on forcing Ellianne and her maid on board a ship. He could carry them off to Scotland or Nova Scotia, for all Stony knew.
Then the carriage pulled up in front of the government building that housed the coroner’s office and one of the city’s morgues. Perhaps he had misjudged the maw-worm after all, Stony thought, and they were holding the lecture here. But there would be other coaches, crowds of other corpse lovers. Or maybe the benighted knacker had to fetch some papers before going on. But why take Ellianne out in the rain?
There must be a hundred good reasons why Miss Kane would go with Sir John into a nearly deserted building after dark with no protection but a maid. Stony could think of none.
She was not being forced. He could see that from the alley he waited in. Sir John held the umbrella, not a weapon, as they entered the building side by side, the maid following. Stony waited. And waited. Whatever errand they had there could not take this long, not if they were to go to the lecture, or to dinner. He waited a few minutes more, then tied his horse to a railing under an overhanging roof, out of the ra
in.
Remembering his last visit to this place, Stony faced the door with dread in his heart. He’d rather be anywhere than here, the tooth-drawer’s, Newgate Prison, even Almack’s. But here was where Ellianne went, so here was where he had to follow.
He pushed the unlocked door open and walked in. There was the maid, sitting at a desk, anxiously shredding her handkerchief, watching a clock that hung on the wall. Some kind of clerk was asleep at another desk, his head on his arms.
The maid was ecstatic to see Stony. She did not like this place; Miss Kane had been gone too long; and Jenkins, the man at the desk, snored. Stony told her that he would go down to fetch her mistress. If, however, they had not returned in five minutes, she was to sound the alarm. “Wake up Jenkins, stand in the street, and scream for the watch. Send a hackney to Bow Street. Anything, but bring help.”
The maid agreed and Stony went down those cold stone stairs. He opened his coat and removed the pistol from the waist of his breeches as he descended into Thomasford’s private hell.
No one was there. No one still breathing, at least. Stony averted his eyes from the sheet-draped bodies as he stopped to listen. Yes, he could hear voices, and more light was coming from the side chamber where Thomasford must have his office. Stony walked across the vast central room as quietly as he could and paused outside the narrow door, which was slightly ajar. He recognized the voices as Sir John’s and Ellianne’s, but he could not make out the conversation.
He peered around the door, then instantly drew back against the wall, cursing at himself. Fool, fool, fool. He was twenty times a fool. This was a tryst, not an abduction. They were embracing, by Harry. And by lantern light, with wine.
Stony flattened himself against the wall, trying to catch his breath past the cannonball lodged in his throat, waiting for it to sink to his stomach so he could go home. Lud, she was even making those little mewing whimpers! For a loose fish forensics expert.
Or was that a real whimper? He peeked around the door again, then jerked back.
Bloody hell.
Lud, he’d rather she’d been kissing the cad.
Options, his mind screamed. He had to have a plan. He could not shoot, for Ellianne was in front of Thomasford. She was so blasted tall, not enough of the dastard showed to make a target. He could not lunge at the man, for that shining, sinister blade was already at Ellianne’s throat. Zeus, he did not want to startle the blackguard into any sudden moves.
Then she sobbed. To hell with a plan. Stony walked into the room, his pistol pointing at whatever he could see of Sir John’s head. “I say,” he drawled. “Am I interrupting?”
“You.” Thomasford’s lips were pulled so taut he could not raise so much as a corner of one in his habitual sneer. “I should have known you would turn up.”
“Yes, you should have. Your typical bad penny, that’s what I am. But what are you?” he asked, as casually as if he were offering port or cognac.
“I am the man who holds a knife to the throat of your bit of muslin. Put the pistol down.”
“I think not. Why do you not release Miss Kane and we can all go home.”
“Only I would go on a plank. Unless you are too missish to shoot. I heard about your cowardice. Everyone did. And there would be blood,” he reminded Stony, as if the viscount did not know his own weakness.
Stony answered: “Yet I am not the one hiding behind a woman’s skirts.”
Sir John licked his lips. “No, you would not shoot now anyway. Too much chance of hitting your paramour. So put the gun down, I say.”
When Stony still hesitated, Sir John pressed the point of his blade into Ellianne’s tender flesh. She winced, and a drop of blood welled beneath her chin. Stony would not look. He trained his gaze on the glitter in the villain’s eyes instead, weighing his chances, Ellianne’s chances. Low, too low.
“No, Stony,” she cried. “Don’t put it down. Shoot him. He is going to kill me anyway.”
“No, he knows he cannot kill both of us with one knife. He’ll never get away.”
“Yes, he can,” she insisted. “There is another exit, and he has a yacht in the harbor. Shoot him, Stony! You have to! He is the Barber, the madman who has been killing all those women.”
“Yes, sweetings, I guessed that. I did not think he was demonstrating lessons in surgical procedures with that blade at your pretty throat.”
More tears ran down her cheeks. “But he is mad, Stony.”
“I never thought otherwise, my love.”
“Enough!” Sir John yelled. “Put the gun down or I kill her now!”
Stony looked around, saw Ellianne’s reticule on the nearby chair. Her eyes widened when she saw where he was looking. She whispered, “Yes.”
He put the pistol down and picked up her reticule. Yes, it was satisfactorily heavy, so she was still carrying her useless weapon. It would have to do.
He swung the purse by its strings, trying to make it appear less heavy. Thomasford watched it, distracted as Stony had hoped. Ellianne’s eyes almost crossed, trying to send a message. Stony nodded, knowing she would be ready to act on his signal. Now he had to make an opportunity.
Still swinging the bag like a pendulum, Stony took a step closer to Ellianne and Thomasford. He addressed the crackbrained coroner, watching his weasel eyes as they followed the motion. “If you are such a downy cove, why do you think I will let you kill my…lover, then scurry out your side door, like a fox leaving its barrow when the hounds come digging? I will not, you know. A gentleman defends what is his.” He took another step in Thomasford’s direction, swinging the purse.
“She is mine now!” The man’s eyes were shifting from side to side. “And do not come any closer! I know what you are trying to do, and it will not work.”
It had already worked for a few feet. “Do you know how handy I am with my fives? Was that part of the gossip you heard? It should have been. I have been training at Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Parlor since my university days. I boxed there, too. I’d say I have the advantage in height, weight, reach, and science. Perhaps stamina, from the look of you. Are you willing to chance killing my woman, and making it to the door?”
“I am a dead man anyway.”
“Not if you let her go. I will not follow you. Word of a gentleman.” Stony would send out the militia, but he would not follow.
Thomasford licked his lips again.
Stony took another step, holding the drawstring purse by the bottom now, not the strings. “Our little heiress must have a fortune in here, the thing is so heavy. What say I toss you the reticule and you toss me the girl?”
“No!” Ellianne screamed.
Stony raised his eyebrow. “I know money means a great deal to you, my love, but surely you can spare your pocket change.”
“I lied!”
“You are not one of the wealthiest women in England? No matter. There is bound to be a tidy amount here.” He shook the purse and they all heard the jingle of coins, or something, over Ellianne’s moan. “What say you, Sir John, a trade?”
“You won’t follow?”
“I gave my word. On the count of three then?” Ellianne’s eyes were squeezed shut, and Stony prayed she’d open them in time to move when she had to. He doubted they would have another chance. “One.” He swung the purse once more, took another step, and took a solid grip on the weight inside it. “Two.” Ellianne groaned. “Sorry, pet. You shall just have to foreclose on another mortgage. Three.”
He swung the bag with all his might at Thomasford’s head.
At the same instant, Ellianne stomped her sturdy sole down on her captor’s toes.
The reticule connected. The pistol in the purse exploded. Sir John’s hands relaxed. Ellianne leaped sideways. Sir John fell forward, at Stony’s feet.
And Stony said, “Bloody hell. That’s what you lied about?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“You mean it was loaded all the time?”
“Of course. I am not fool enough to ca
rry an unloaded pistol.”
They would discuss the depth of her foolishness later. For now Stony was staring at the smoking fabric in his hands. “You mean I shot a man with a lady’s reticule?”
Ellianne brushed plaster dust off her nose. “No, I think you shot the ceiling. Sir John might not be dead, only concussed. Someone ought to look, I suppose.” She did not sound eager for the job.
“Not dead? Damnation!” Stony leaped to the chair where his own pistol rested. Keeping it aimed at the murderer’s greasy head, he prodded Thomasford over with his foot. He was dead, all right, impaled on his own stiletto. There was not much blood, thank goodness, but Stony shrugged out of his coat and tossed it over the still form anyway. He turned away, saying, “Good riddance.”
Then he looked at Ellianne. Tears ran down her cheeks. If ever a woman had earned a bout of crying, Ellianne had. After all his years with Gwen, he could manage tears. But then he saw her neck. Blood was running from under her chin down to the collar of her cloak. He could never manage—
“Don’t you dare, Wellstone. I need you with me now. I swear, if you swoon and leave me here alone with him, I will take your gun and shoot you myself. I can say he did it before he died. I promise you I will.”
Stony swallowed, his eyes closed, and breathed deeply. “You won’t be alone long. Help is coming.”
She raised his chin. “No, look at me. At my face, Stony. What do you see?”
“Red. Red hair, the color of—”
“No! Look at my eyes. Green, Stony. They are green.” She didn’t want to search her exploded reticule for a handkerchief, so she pulled at his loose neckcloth until it was untied, then used it to stanch the blood she could feel already drying on her neck. She wrapped the white linen around twice, so Stony could not see the marks left by the madman’s blade. “There. Now look more closely. What else do you see, Stony?”
“The bravest, most beautiful woman in the world.” Then she was in his arms, and he was stroking her back, her hair, her shoulders, everything he could touch while she wept in relief. He showed his own relief by murmuring to her, “When I think how close I came to losing you I could cry, too, sweetings. Lud, I almost did not follow you. Then I thought… Well, it does not matter what I thought. I did follow, and in time, thank heaven. We’ll never know for certain what might have happened, but I would have died along with you, you know. My heart was ready to shatter in a million pieces. Maybe part of it did, for I swear it is beating triple time. Can you hear it, my sweet?” He placed her hand on his chest. “Can you feel it?”
A Perfect Gentleman Page 28