Yes, she was right. Eliza May had known what we were doing in that room or had suspected as much.
I endangered her, and yet for the life of me, I could not give Anna up.
I closed my eyes and fisted my hands, and let the sounds of the city surround me.
“You were unable to follow their trail?” Anna asked.
I opened my eyes and glanced at her; she held my cane out to me. The reminder of what had transpired in my former home to cause the cane’s necessity should have been enough to still the ardour I felt for Anna.
It was not, nor would it ever be.
I shook my head, accepting the cane from her gloved hand. “We’ll not find them now.” And I had no desire to let Anna wander these streets alone. Nor would I allow her to accompany me on a blind chase through the slums of Auckland City.
Anna adjusted her hat. My eyes trailed over her body hungrily. I noted her corset was not quite fastened correctly. Achieving that without assistance would have been difficult, and she had been under pressure to follow me. My eyes lingered on the evidence of what we had done. What I had allowed to happen.
What I’d had no hoping of denying her or me.
“I shall escort you home,” I said quietly.
Desire flared in her eyes, and my body instantly responded.
A sound caught my attention. I spun around, cursing myself silently for allowing the distraction, and saw the flared nostrils and bared teeth of a dray as it rounded the end of the street. A rider sat atop, their body completely covered in a hooded cloak. The horse screamed; its hooves loud against the packed dirt of the street. People shouted. Some had to throw themselves sideways to avoid collision.
The horse bore down on us; death evident in its wild eyes. I recognised the breed; Percheron. But this one possessed a temper more appropriate for warfare than working.
However, it was not lost on me that Eliza May had been partial to such a breed.
I reached out and grasped Anna’s arm, and then spun us away from the oncoming threat. The horse changed direction, the rider intent on doing us damage. In the fleeting moments, before it connected, I attempted to confirm the rider’s identity. Anna’s shocked scream made such endeavours impossible, however. I wrapped my arms around her body, losing my cane to the filth covered street, and threw us to the ground near the boardinghouse’s entrance.
It was not far enough away from the hooves of the horse.
Its shoulder punched into me. We spun. I did everything in my power to protect Anna. The ground came up to meet us. The crooked boards of the house met the side of my head. A hoof kicked into my thigh muscle. I grunted when what I wanted to do was yell in agony.
The world spun. The collision made bones crack; breath leave. Blood slipped down my forehead into my eyes, making vision hazy. My shoulder hit the ground. Anna’s body landed on top of me. I curved myself around her. My back took the brunt of the horse’s passing. All breath left me.
And then the sound of the thundering hooves dimmed, as did my consciousness, and the black of night invaded my senses.
I woke to excruciating pain. In my thigh. In my back. In my torso. My head. I was alive, but for a very small moment, I wondered if that was a blessing.
And then I thought of Anna.
“Anna,” I murmured. My lips were dry. My throat parched. Sound was distorted, and I could not see.
“I am here. I am fine,” came her soothing voice. And then competent hands assessed me. “You have a fractured rib. A concussion. Contusions to your lower back and spine. I have not yet assessed your leg injury, but your extremities are responsive.”
“Anna,” I managed, reaching blindly for her. A gloved hand wrapped around mine and squeezed.
“A cart comes,” she told me.
“I can move.” I meant to say “walk.” However, my body was more aware than my mind, it seemed.
“We will see,” she said and started issuing orders to someone nearby.
I had observed Anna in her role of physician on many occasions. I had witnessed her assessing the scene of a crime. I had watched as she tended to minor injuries. But this was on a level of competency I had yet to see.
Anna controlled that part of the city, and all who approached did her bidding.
Could Chalmers not see her worth? Could not society? Freemans Bay did. The inhabitants of the slum surrounded, offering aid and following her directives. In short order, a cart was brought to the street. The wheels slipped through the ruts in the dirt road as if it had travelled these alleys for centuries.
Calloused but careful hands lifted me. I gritted my teeth and held my breath; my skin dampening with sweat; my stomach roiling with nausea. The world dimmed and then returned in painful clarity.
Anna climbed up onto the back of the cart, wincing. She favoured her right side. The side she would have landed on. I had tried to protect her, but clearly, I had not succeeded.
I wanted to check her for bruising. I wanted to touch her to reassure myself. I did neither as eyes watched and shadows hung altogether too close for my comfort. The horse and rider had long gone. I could only assume the brick had been the cloaked figure’s doing. I suspected my wife, but I could not be certain.
Eliza May was more than aware that I knew her penchant for Percheron horses. Would she choose to ride one through the slums of the city and identify herself as the culprit in such an obvious attack on our persons?
And the diagram? I now suspected it was left in that boardinghouse for us to find. Nothing my wife did was without purpose. Even failing to kill us this evening would have been part of her greater plan.
I did not know what I should do now. I did not know how I could combat this type of adversary. She was cunning and deceitful and yet I knew we had not seen the worst of what she could achieve. This, all of it, the murders, the clues, the brick and the collision, all of it was simply a game to her. Part of the picture but not the whole of it.
We were at a disadvantage, despite my knowing so much about her. We faced an altogether different foe than those we had faced in the past.
Ethel Poynton and Emily Tempest were children compared to Eliza May Kelly.
The cart slowed as it came to rest outside Anna’s house. The front door was open, and Mrs Hardwick stood on the step; concern and worry etched on the older woman’s features.
Anna had brought me home.
This would not play well for the future; for her safety.
“I should return to the barracks,” I said.
“Nonsense,” was the only reply she deemed necessary.
Pain lanced through me as the men who had accompanied us lifted my body and between them carried me into the house. I expected to be delivered to Anna’s surgery, but we bypassed that part of the house and ascended the stairs.
“Anna?” Wilhelmina Cassidy’s delicate sounding voice said as we made the landing. “What has happened?”
“A minor incident, sweeting,” Anna said; it was a lie. “Return to the warmth of your bed; I have it in hand.” That was not a lie, for in Anna’s care, I felt delivered.
And yet that knowledge shamed me; it should have been me who protected her in this and in everything.
“He is pale,” Wilhelmina observed as my body was carried past.
“He has received a shock, nothing more,” Anna replied, busily herding her cousin off the landing and into one of the bedrooms. I was carried into one at the back of the house.
It was small and sparsely decorated. But there was a bed, a dresser with basin and jug, fresh towels and a cupboard that bore the evidence of medicine and wound dressings. This was a room Anna used for patients when their injuries required a longer stay than her surgery could provide.
The thought that she allowed strangers to sleep in her house, the same house she and her cousin slept in, on occasion angered me. Sometimes Anna could take risks I did not approve of.
The bed was firm, but not uncomfortable. The sheets smelled clean, and the room was free of dust. I was not sure if tha
t was an indication of the frequency of its use, or more an insight into the cleanness of Mrs Hardwick. But for the moment, I could not think on such. The journey from the cart to here had exhausted me.
I closed my eyes and breathed through the aches and pains and nausea, and only when my mind returned to the here and now, did I realise I was alone with Anna.
“Anna,” I chastised. “You should not have brought me here.”
“Be quiet,” she said and proceeded to cut my clothes from my body.
“Anna!” I all but yelled.
“I cannot assess your injuries if I cannot see them, Andrew.”
“Where is Mrs Hardwick?” I demanded.
“Seeing to the men who brought you here.”
“You should not do this without a chaperone,” I instructed.
“And yet only an hour past you did things to me without such in attendance.”
My skin flushed. Her cheeks pinked.
“Anna; she will be watching your house.” Eliza May would retaliate for this.
“She brought this upon herself; she can suffer the consequences.”
I almost smiled at the fury in Anna’s eyes.
“And what of the consequences bringing me here has brought?”
“We will deal with them if they arise.”
“They will arise,” I told her.
“And so, we shall be ready. I have sent word to Inspector Elliott for his assistance. I have also requested the men who carried you in here to remain until the inspector arrives. Hardwick is feeding them as we speak. We have people on the premises. For now, we are safe.”
She had thought of everything. I was eminently grateful for her quick mind and fearless nature.
“You are remarkable,” I said, and then sucked in a breath of air as her gloveless fingers probed at my thigh.
“It is not broken,” she said. “But the bruising is deep.” She studied the site. “Your scars protected you somewhat.”
What an unusual thing. The burns Eliza May had inflicted had in some way caused her latest attempt to do me injury to fail.
I watched Anna as she looked studiously at the horrific evidence of what my wife had done to me. She did not shy away from the gruesome site. She did not offer judgement in her assessing gaze. She had never seen the wounds before; the extent of them. But I lay before her, completely bared to her grey gaze, and she did nothing more than study me.
She turned away after some length of time and opened the cupboard in the corner of the small space.
“Is this room used often?” I asked.
“No. I considered placing you in Papa’s bedroom, but this room has a firmer bed. In addition to the accoutrements that I desire.”
She turned around with an armful of such. She placed the tinctures and bandages and needles and thread on the bedside table, and then she filled the basin with water and scrubbed her hands and arms. She’d removed her cloak at some stage, and now stood before me in her dress, an apron covering any misdeeds from this evening, including her corset which I was certain was still not quite returned to order.
My body stirred at the remembered images despite the damage it had sustained.
I shook my head and attempted to calm myself. This was terribly inconvenient.
Once sanitised and prepared, Anna returned to my side with a fresh basin of water; then proceeded to wash my wounds with careful hands and a low simmering fire in her eyes.
My body had a mind of its own, it seemed, for the more she cared for me, looked at me like that, the more it reacted.
Heat flushed my cheeks, my neck, the better part of my chest. Anna’s lips twitched in a small smile.
“Vixen,” I muttered.
“Be quiet,” she instructed, her voice husky.
My cock jerked. Her eyes flicked toward it, where she had given into modesty to some degree and placed a cloth across my groin. It hid nothing of my current state of awareness. And as if it had a mind of its own too, the damnable thing thickened under her perusal.
“It would be wise for you to ignore it,” I said, my own voice somewhat deeper and rougher than usual.
“It is hard to ignore,” she responded.
“Poke a rib,” I told her. “That should settle the damn thing down a little.”
She laughed. Would that I could bottle that sound; I’d make a fortune.
And yet, I could no further share Anna than I could heed my wife’s warning and distance myself.
“We are in trouble,” I admitted.
Anna’s eyes met mine, the needle and thread she held in her hand suspended above a gash on my thigh.
“I disagree,” she said. “Attraction such as this is healthy. One would say, it is necessary. God made us this way for a reason, and I am not ashamed to feel thus.”
I smiled, even as the needle pierced skin and pain speared me.
“I speak not of the attraction,” I said, through gritted teeth.
“Ah,” Anna said, studiously stitching me. She did not mention my wife, but I knew she was aware of the threat Eliza May presented. Not saying her name was entirely for me.
Or, I thought, as I watched Anna tend to my wounds, her hands often lingering, for herself and this moment. She would not invite the other woman in our wretched triangle into this room willingly.
But the fact remained, we were in trouble. I could not distance myself; instead, I found myself being drawn ever further into this love affair that for now could be little more than that.
I wanted Anna with every fibre of my being. I wanted her for my wife.
But first, I had to find Eliza May and find a way out of my disastrous marriage.
I had no notion of how to achieve that. And I had every fear that before this was through, I would suffer for past choices and agreements. Eliza May would see to that.
Anna finished with the last stitch, the last bandage, the last gentle stroke of her hand on my flesh. And then she covered me. My eyelids were heavy. My body thrummed with a constant ache. But I could breathe more freely with my ribs bound. And the ointment Anna had administered did make the bruising seem less threatening. And the bed and company did make it difficult for a man not to relax and dream of decidedly more desirable things.
And then Inspector William Elliott walked into the room and destroyed any peace I could have.
I Could Not Do It
Anna
“Don’t you make a pretty sight,” Inspector William Elliott said as he surveyed the assortment of injuries visible on Andrew’s body. “And you, Doctor?” he said, turning to me. “Did you come away from your…exploits this eve uninjured?”
“I am quite fine, Inspector,” I said.
He made a sound in the back of his throat which reminded me of a disagreeable governess I had as a child.
“This is a mess, Kelly,” Elliott said, pacing across the room and peering out of the window. He would only have seen the shadows of the back garden, but he studied them for a time as if they held the answers to the universe.
Andrew attempted to sit up. His face lost all perceivable colour, and sweat beaded his brow instantly. I held back for as long as my conscience would allow, giving him a moment to prove his masculinity, and then stepped forward and slipped an extra pillow behind his back. My body between Andrew’s and Elliott’s, I took the opportunity to wipe Andrew’s brow with a cloth, removing any evidence of weakness.
His eyes held mine in gratitude for a second and then I was forced to remove myself so he could speak directly to the inspector.
“The horse was a Percheron,” he said. I arched my brow. I had not the wherewithal at the time to ascertain the breed of the blasted thing. “Eliza May favoured such at one time.”
“Did she?” was all Elliott said.
“The diagram for the device used to kill them was out in the open, on the bedside table shared by the Bohemians in their room at the boardinghouse.”
“How convenient.”
“Indeed.”
“Excuse me,
” I said, interrupting them. “This is significant, I gather?”
“Clues to crimes committed, Dr Cassidy,” Elliott said, “are not oft left out in such an obvious manner for us to find them.”
“She is playing us,” I concluded.
Elliott nodded his head and stared down at Andrew. “You know her best, Kelly. What is her motivation for such?”
Andrew looked toward the darkened window and said nothing for a long stretch of time. I could not fathom the depth of betrayal he must have felt. He had loved her once; this woman who taunted him. He had loved her enough to make her his wife.
“Eliza May has one defining character trait,” he eventually said. “She believes herself superior to all others. Be that in practical terms or intellectually.” He turned his head and looked directly at the inspector. “In other words, William, she is showing off. And the audience to her preening is meant to be me.”
“She reminds you of her superiority and fears no reprisal.”
“Indeed. She believes me incapable of besting her. I have failed in the past, repeatedly. Now will be no different.”
“So she thinks,” Elliott said. Andrew did not offer agreement. “Her next move?”
Andrew looked about the room pointedly.
“She will be aware you are here,” Elliott guessed. “In Dr Cassidy’s care. And she will retaliate.”
“I believe so. I need to be moved to my barracks.”
I stepped forward. “You are not well enough to be moved.”
“I am quite fine, Anna. Thanks to your care. But it would be unwise for me to stay here.”
“As your attending physician, I must insist you remain here a day at least.”
“A day would be too long. She will have eyes on the house.”
“So have I,” Elliott offered.
I blinked at the man. “Why?”
“You are the key, Doctor,” he said. “For had you not existed, we - none of us - would be here.”
My legs felt suddenly weak, and I sank down onto a chair in the corner of the room.
“Anna,” Andrew said, sounding pained. “This is not your fault, but mine.”
“The inspector is correct,” I murmured.
Heartless (Scarlet Suffragette, Book 3): A Victorian Historical Romantic Suspense Series Page 10