The Fire in the Glass

by Jacquelyn Benson

  “You’ll need help getting up,” he noted, something a bit tentative edging his tone.

  “I suppose I do,” Lily admitted.

  There was the slightest hesitation before he extended a black-gloved hand.

  The leather felt softer than she would have guessed, extraordinarily fine and well-worn. His grip was firm as he pulled, levering her to her feet.

  The maneuver left them standing closer than was strictly polite. Lily noted that the stranger was of an even height with her own, his gaze meeting hers at roughly the same level, a feature that made his nearness feel even more unsettlingly intimate.

  He quickly released her hand and stepped back.

  “Thank you,” Lily acknowledged.

  He assessed the scene, his eyes moving to the great, rambling pile of the ruined manor on the hill. The canvas covering the scaffolding rippled with a gust of wind. It was the only activity to be seen. Though the place was obviously under construction of some sort, no hammer blows resounded from its walls and the drive was free of any lorry or carriage.

  He glanced the other way, toward a small copse of woodland into which the road disappeared.

  “There’s a farmer’s cottage about half a mile down the road,” he noted. “You might be able to wait there while I fetch a physician.”

  Lily followed his gaze and could see the curl of smoke rising from the far side of the trees.

  She considered her options.

  The Triumph lay on its side, having slid halfway into a gorse hedge. The drive chain was snapped, which explained the wound in her thigh—it had whipped out as it broke, tearing through twill and skin. The motorcycle was useless until she could replace the part.

  She knew her resistance to accepting this gentleman’s assistance was entirely unfair. It was born of her reaction to that well-heeled accent.

  Someone else was responsible for that prejudice, not the man in front of her. If she insisted on refusing his help, she would be left with wheeling the Triumph back to Highgate, hobbling the whole way on her wounded leg—which she was forced to admit likely did need a few stitches.

  It was already mid-afternoon. She wouldn’t make it to the village before dark.

  “Fine,” she agreed.

  The gentleman whistled, the tone clear and lilting. His horse trotted over.

  “Can you mount?”

  “I think I can manage.”

  He guided the horse beside her and held the stirrup in place as she fitted it onto the boot of her good leg. She took hold of the pummel, pushed against the stirrup, and hefted herself toward the saddle.

  She felt her balance shift at the last moment. The stranger’s hand shot out and caught her waist, steadying her. He pulled it back as soon as she was in place.

  “Are you settled?”

  “Yes. Thank you,” she replied.

  “Slow and steady, Beatrice,” he said, stroking the horse’s neck as he took the reins. He lead the animal down the road at a pace sedate enough for a child on a pony.

  She was aware of the incongruity of it, this well-bred gentleman parading her down the deserted road across the heath like some battered knight leading his princess home after rescuing her from the dragon.

  “Isn’t this a gelding?” Lily asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then why did you name him Beatrice?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Then who did?”

  “Virginia. My sister. She’s very fond of Shakespeare.”

  “Why not Henry? Or Hamlet?”

  “He doesn’t seem like much of a Hamlet,” he countered.

  Lily didn’t press the point. There was nothing to be gained from it. He had been courteous enough to stop and assist her. Admittedly, he didn’t seem to conform to the type of his class. His curiosity was too open, his suit too unfashionable. Still, she did not need or want anything more from him.

  They passed through the dark little wood, the bare branches of the trees forming a woven canopy overhead. The road turned and Lily glimpsed the farm her knight had described. It was small, just a low cottage, freshly white-washed, and a few scattered outbuildings. A muddy pony grazed in the back field, a scattering of chickens pecking in the yard.

  The door opened as they approached, two small boys exploding out of it to run screeching down the drive. A stout female figure of middle age appeared after them.

  “Walter, keep Reggie out of the chickens. He’ll scare them up the roof again. Oh!” she exclaimed, catching sight of the strangers at her gate. “Good afternoon, then.”

  “Apologies for disturbing you, madam. I am Lord Strangford.”

  Lord Strangford.

  The sound of the title crawled up her skin.

  A nobleman. That was something even worse than a gentleman.

  “My companion Miss . . .” He paused, looking up at Lily. “Miss?”

  “Albright.”

  “Miss Albright is in need of a physician. Might she rest here while I fetch a doctor to see to her? I assume there is a someone in the village.”

  “That old sot?” The woman snorted. “He’ll like as not be tipsy as a sailor by this time of afternoon. No, you’d best leave her to Edna Sprout. I’ve five lads under the age of fifteen. I’ve seen more wounds than a military surgeon and I’ve a finer hand with a stitch than any doctor. It’s not as though doctors spend their evenings mending torn socks and trousers so you’d never know they had holes in them.”

  “Really, I should insist—”

  “That will be fine,” Lily cut in.

  It was a petty attempt to thwart his will, which she had no indication was directed at anything other than seeing that she was properly cared for. Fairly or not, she was annoyed at him for being what he was, so any victory felt worthwhile.

  “Could you help her into the kitchen, your lordship? Mr. Sprout could do it but he’s been mucking the stalls. I wouldn’t subject a lady to him till he’s had his bath.”

  “Right. Yes. Of course,” he bit out, a touch awkward.

  “Come along, then,” Mrs. Sprout ordered, heading into the house without looking back.

  Lily made a quick protest.

  “Is that really necessary?”

  “It’s possible I might be able to fit Beatrice through the door but I am not certain your physician would appreciate it.”

  He appeared to be seriously considering it, as though it were a possible solution to some unspoken problem.

  “She said she has five boys. The horse would likely be an improvement.”

  A smile twitched at the corner of his lip. Her own itched to mirror it. She resisted.

  He was a nobleman.

  “Probably best if we just walk in.”

  “Let me help you down.”

  He set his gloved hands on her waist. Lily let herself slide forward off the saddle. He caught her, his grip steady, and guided her gently back to the ground.

  He looked at her uncertainly.

  “I’m not sure I can carry you.”

  The notion of him attempting it struck a chord of alarm through her. The last thing she needed in her day was to be carried across the heath by an aristocrat with seemingly heroic intentions and a missing top button.

  “I was thinking we might hobble,” Lily countered.

  “Excellent suggestion.”

  He looked at her as though unsure where to begin.

  “Perhaps if I put my arm over your shoulder to take the weight off my leg.”

  “Right. Of course.”

  He took a step closer and Lily set her arm across his shoulders.

  “Shall we?” he offered.

  They started forward. Lily bit back a curse. He stopped.

  “You have to let me take your weight on the off-step.”

  “Right,” Lily breathed. “Perhaps if you put your arm around my . . .”

  “Your waist. Yes. That would be sensible.”

  His arm came around her. They took another few steps, finding a rhythm that avoided jarr
ing Lily’s leg.

  “I was better at this when I was ten,” he noted, a touch short of breath.

  “Serving as a crutch?”

  “Three-legged racing.”

  “What’s a three-legged race?”

  He stopped, surprised.

  “You don’t know?”

  Lily shook her head.

  “It’s . . . this, more or less. But without the bleeding.” He considered. “Perhaps that’s not entirely accurate. I remember a fair bit of blood. You really never played it?”

  “No,” Lily replied shortly.

  They reached the threshold. Lord Strangford helped her hop up into the dark interior of the house. He released her at the table, which Mrs. Sprout had cleared of everything but a basin and a pile of clean towels.

  “How may I help?” he asked.

  “It’s only the thirteenth time I’ve set a needle to flesh and this one is less likely to wriggle than my usual patients. I think I can manage it just fine on my own.”

  “Then I’ll see if Mr. Sprout will allow the use of his cart to retrieve the lady’s motorcycle.”

  He bowed out through the low doorway.

  Lily waited for Mrs. Sprout to comment on the oddity of a woman riding a motorcycle, but something far more intriguing had captured the housewife’s attention.

  “How lovely for you to have a lord carrying you about,” Mrs. Sprout exclaimed as she took a solid black kettle from the stove and poured the steaming water into the basin on the table. “And a fair specimen of one too, if I’m any judge of it.” She dipped a clean cloth in the water, wringing it out with calloused hands. “How long have you been courting?”

  “We’re not courting.”

  She winced as Mrs. Sprout pressed the hot cloth against her flesh. The wound fired in protest, pain flaring. The housewife wiped at the gash and Lily saw the blood, which was already drying and sticky, come away.

  “You ought to see to that,” the older woman countered. Lily knew she was not speaking about the wound.

  A pair of boys came dashing into the room, whirling around like a maelstrom before zipping back out the door.

  “Walter, mind the chickens. And find Reggie his trousers!” Mrs. Sprout shouted.

  The evidence of family life was scattered through the cozy space around her. A wooden duck was toppled on the ground in front of the fireplace. Abandoned cups of milk were scattered here and there. A stray shoe laid in the center of the floor, laces still tied. She could hear voices from the yard, the high squeal of a child’s laughter.

  The noise and warmth and comfort—all of it was foreign to her, as strange as a country she had only rarely visited, never known.

  The truth of that cut at her, a pain worse and more lasting than the wound on her leg.

  Mrs. Sprout returned to the table with a bottle of carbolic and a well-thumbed newspaper. She handed the latter to Lily.

  “Best have something to distract yourself for this part.”

  Lily hissed as the acid hit the wound, the burn of it shooting pain through her flesh.

  The woman glanced over at her approvingly as she threaded her needle.

  “Any one of my boys would have been howling.” She doused the thread and instrument with more carbolic, then turned to Lily’s wound. “This’ll pinch,” she warned.

  Lily obediently lifted the paper and tried to lose herself in it, gritting her teeth as the needle was deftly applied to her wound.

  It was one of the tabloids, printed on cheap, thin newsprint, covered in block-cut illustrations of all manner of horrors—arms being severed in sawmills, men crushed on docks. There were train wrecks in Afghanistan rife with bloodied heads and shattered limbs. Another story luridly described a massive, hairy beast reportedly seen in the wilderness of British Colombia.

  None of that pulled Lily’s attention from the prick of the needle against her flesh—until she turned the page.

  Spiritualist Vampire Claims Another Victim, ran the headline.

  The words raised the hairs on her arm.

  The story was simple, an update on a case the paper had apparently been following for some time.

  Three women had so far succumbed to what the paper described as “a cruel, violent demise”. All of them went to sleep in the evening as usual only to be found in the morning dead in their beds.

  Their bodies were drained of blood, the only mark found on them a small puncture at the throat. All the doors and windows were locked with no sign of any intrusion.

  All three had made their living as mediums, speaking to the dead.

  “That’s a real horror, that one,” Mrs. Sprout remarked, peering over the edge of the paper as she tugged at another stitch. “Right gave me chills. Of course, the police aren’t saying it’s a vampire. But you tell me what else could slip into a house all locked up tight and make off with a person’s blood like that?”

  Dead mediums. A puncture in the neck.

  The images forced themselves back into Lily’s mind, sharp and clear.

  Snow piling against the pavement. The mirror cracking. The shadow, a blur of force and movement, rushing forward.

  Estelle, pale as a ghost, with her bloodstained hand pressed to her throat.

  Thief. Murderer. Alukah.

  The coincidence was too powerful to dismiss. Lily knew in her bones that the murderer in the paper was the same monster that would come for her friend. It was not some ill chance Lily had foreseen but the act of a calculating killer, a single fiend who had done this before and would do it again.

  Unless . . .

  “There,” Mrs. Sprout said, the thread in Lily’s thigh tugging as she pulled tight her knot. “Just four of them. The rest of it will heal right enough as it is, or I’m not Edna Sprout.”

  “How is she?”

  Lord Strangford stood in the doorway, the fading light of the afternoon spilling across his shoulders.

  “I’m just putting on a fresh bandage,” Mrs. Sprout announced.

  “The motorcycle has been collected. I’m afraid it’s in no condition to use. Mr. Sprout has kindly offered to take you wherever you need to go in his cart, but if you would prefer something more comfortable, I could ride back to the village and secure a carriage.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Lily cut in quickly. “I’m sure the cart will do nicely.”

  “We’re all settled here, unless you’d like me to try to mend these trousers,” Mrs. Sprout asked.

  “You needn’t bother. They’re quite spoiled, I’m afraid.”

  “What, with a bit of blood? That’s no trouble. Just needs spit.”

  “Sorry?” Lily asked.

  “Spit. Old seamstress’s trick. I learned it from my godmother. Cover the whole stain with spit, then launder it in hot water with a bit of soda. Though mind, it has to be the spit of whoever did the bleeding. Won’t work otherwise. Does the job like a charm, every time. Trust me, I’ve had plenty of reason to put it to the test.”

  Lily felt very aware of Lord Strangford’s presence beside her, the stains of her blood marking the fine wool of his trousers thanks to their hobble up to the cottage door.

  Should she offer to spit on them for him?

  She stayed quiet.

  “If you’ll help her back out again, m’lord,” Mrs. Sprout ordered.

  “Of course.”

  “I can manage it,” Lily protested.

  “You will accept the gentleman’s assistance,” the housewife retorted. “I do not like to see my handiwork spoiled.”

  Lily wondered how much of the woman’s intervention had to do with the stitches and how much lay in her obvious interest in playing matchmaker.

  The wound throbbed.

  She slid her legs from the table, feeling the tug of the thread against the skin of her thigh, and levered herself upright.

  Lord Strangford placed his arm around her waist again. Lily let him take the greater part of her weight. They limped together into the yard, which was looking a bit less rough-aro
und-the-edges thanks to the golden cast of the late afternoon light.

  Mr. Sprout tipped his hat to her as they emerged. His face was kind, his rubber boots covered in manure.

  “Set her in the back on the horse blankets,” Mrs. Sprout ordered. “You’re not to put another ounce of weight on that leg for the rest of the day. Longer if you can manage it, though lord knows my boys are up and dashing about on their stitches within the hour, however I try to keep them still.”

  Her rescuer stopped at the cart. He released her and Lily sat down on the open tailgate. She pushed herself back into the nest of blankets, which smelled warmly of dry straw and horse.

  Mrs. Sprout leaned over the rail and patted Lily on the shoulder. “It was a pleasure to tend to a nice young miss for a change instead of a howling wee devil.”

  “Thank you. Most sincerely.” She looked to the hatless aristocrat standing at the foot of the horse cart. “You as well, my lord.”

  “Beatrice and I will follow you into town and see that you’re settled.”

  “That isn’t necessary.” Lily’s reply was a touch quicker than was strictly polite. She saw Mrs. Sprout’s eyebrow go up.

  “I see,” Lord Strangford replied. A guarded note had come into his tone and Lily knew that her reaction had not gone unnoticed. “If you’re certain.”

  She acknowledged that the set-down wasn’t entirely deserved. He had been nothing but helpful. It wasn’t his fault he was an aristocrat.

  “I’m sure Mr. Sprout is quite capable of looking after me. You have done more than enough already.”

  “Then I wish you good evening.”

  He bowed. It was elegant, without a hint of irony, the sort of bow that ladies in a ducal drawing room would find entirely acceptable. It was not a gesture a bedraggled woman in ripped trousers had any reason to expect as she reclined in the back of a farmer’s cart.

  It didn’t matter, she reminded herself firmly.

  Mr. Sprout snapped the reins and Lily’s conveyance rumbled into motion.

  Spiritualist Vampire Claims Another Victim.

  Just beyond the broad, empty stretch of the heath lay the sprawling, teeming expanse of London—her home. Somewhere inside its maze of streets and alleys, a murderer waited.

  One murderer. One threat. A threat that could potentially be identified, captured, and brought to justice.