A Rip in Time (Out of Time #7)

by Monique Martin

  When Vale arrived, Blavatsky smiled. “Ah, my dear child, what did you think?”

  “You’re amazing.”

  Blavatsky shook her head. “The room was not conducive. But I tried,” she added with a put-upon sigh.

  “I’d like to introduce you to someone,” Vale said.

  Madame Blavatsky nodded tiredly and turned her gaze to Simon and Elizabeth.

  “This is Simon and Elizabeth Cross.”

  Blavatsky eyed them briefly before turning her attention back to Vale. “Help Peter with the pamphlets, would you?”

  Vale smiled, happy to be of service and hurried to hand out literature about Theosophy as people lingered.

  Blavatsky watched her for a moment before turning back to them. She looked at Simon briefly and then her gaze slid to Elizabeth.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Elizabeth said.

  Blavatsky stared at her, her eyes squinting slightly, her expression unreadable. She tilted her head to the side and then pushed herself out of her chair and took a step toward Elizabeth to close the distance.

  Elizabeth looked uneasily to Simon and then back to Blavatsky.

  The older woman took Elizabeth’s hands in hers. “I am sorry for your loss.”

  Elizabeth laughed nervously. “What loss?”

  If she didn’t have Simon’s attention before, she definitely did now.

  Blavatsky’s eyes searched her face and then darted over to Simon. “Your child.”

  That fist around Simon’s heart clenched. Elizabeth looked over at him, near-panic in her eyes.

  They’d had this conversation before, but somewhere else and with someone else. Old Nan, the blind seer in Natchez, had said the same thing to them and it had haunted them both ever since.

  Elizabeth shook her head and Simon heard the way she struggled to keep her voice calm. “We don’t have any children.”

  Blavatsky smiled, a little sadly and a little something that made Simon’s skin itch. “Perhaps it has not come to pass.”

  The words took Simon’s breath away. He stood transfixed for a moment, stilled by the shock of a conversation repeating itself decades later and thousands of miles away. Forcibly, he pulled his mind under control. This was not right.

  Gentle, but insistent, he pulled Elizabeth away from her, breaking the contact.

  Her face had gone pale and she looked up at him with large, frightened eyes. As much as he wanted to pull her into his arms and comfort her, he couldn’t. Not here. Not now. Instead, he shook his head and shifted his eyes quickly to Vale across the room.

  Elizabeth seemed to understand and forced a smile to her face, and turned back to Madame Blavatsky. “Well, let’s hope you’re wrong about that.”

  Blavatsky raised her eyebrows and gave a small, indifferent shrug. “I see what I see.”

  “Yes,” Simon said, and had to clear his throat to continue. “It was a fascinating evening.”

  She lowered herself into her chair and waved a regal hand, dismissing them.

  Simon took Elizabeth by the arm and led her across the room.

  “Simon…”

  “I know,” he whispered, his voice sounding strained even to his own ears. God, he had to get out of here. He had to get some air in his lungs.

  She nodded and let out a shuddering breath. They found Vale and quickly begged off dinner.

  “Are you sure?” Vale asked.

  Elizabeth touched her forehead. “I think it’s my turn to have a headache.”

  “I’m sorry,” Vale said kindly and then frowned. “It wasn’t anything to do with this evening, I hope?”

  It could have been Simon’s imagination, God knows it was working overtime just now, but it almost sounded as though there was a hopeful note in Vale’s question. And for a moment he saw in her face the older version of herself, her eyes calculating the depth of their misery and enjoying every nuance of their suffering.

  If Elizabeth noticed it she ignored it and shook her head. “Just overtired.”

  “Of course,” Vale said. “Well, we’ll see you later this week?”

  “I’m sure,” Simon said, already easing Elizabeth away. “Give Charles our apologies.”

  Vale smiled and nodded, and they made their escape. Although, Simon thought with a horrible sinking feeling, perhaps from some things there was no escape at all.

  ~~~

  Victor’s patrol had been much as everything else here, pointless. He’d talked to people, but, unsurprisingly, no one had seen anything. For reasons he didn’t want to examine too closely, he stopped back by the pub before heading to his rooms for the night.

  Marie was nowhere to be seen. Just as well, he thought. He was in no mood for company. He settled into his hard wooden chair to drink his lukewarm beer when Lizzy Stride came in. She sported a fresh bruise under her eye and the remnants of a fat lip. After a stop at the bar, she slid onto a chair at the next table where two of her friends sat drinking.

  “Oi, that’s a new one,” one of them said.

  Stride snorted loudly. “It’ll be the last, I’m tellin’ ya.”

  She reached over and took her friend’s beer and finished it in one long, sloppy drink. Wiping the dribbles off her chin with the back of her forearm, she continued, “I was paid a little visit last night. Not a gentleman caller.”

  One of her friends leaned forward, her eyes red and glassy. She tried to put her elbow on the table, but missed and she sloshed forward before catching herself. “Who was it?”

  “Berk named Roderick,” Lizzy said. “Chi-chi valet, he is, thinks he and his master can do wotever they likes.”

  That caught Victor’s attention. Roderick was Dr. Blackwood’s valet.

  “Think they can shut me up with a little beatin’. I’ve had worse from people I like!” she said.

  Her friends nodded, dumbly.

  “No one’s gonna stop me from gettin’ mine,” Lizzy said. “Not after what he done. Ain’t right.”

  She shook her head slowly and then seemed to suddenly remember she hadn’t gotten her beer and screamed like a banshee at the bartender for one.

  “All right, Lizzy, all right,” the barkeep said with a tired shake of his head.

  Lizzy snorted again. “I ain’t no pushover. I gots a plan. And that rich doctor,” she said, leaning in whispering loudly, “he’s gonna pay.”

  “They should all pay,” Victor said, raising his beer in solidarity and hoping he could get more information from her.

  “You’re right about that,” she said without thinking and then her eyes narrowed at him. “Who’re you?”

  “Victor. Friend of Marie’s.”

  She squinted her eyes even tighter as she tried to remember who that was. “Marie? Oh,” she said and then gave a short laugh. “Right. Marie.”

  “Did the doctor hurt you?” Victor said. “No man should hurt a woman.”

  She nodded, her head heavily flopping up and down. “He ain’t wot he seems,” she said, and then leaned over conspiratorially. “None of them is.”

  Her breath was fetid, but Victor nodded and leaned in. “What did he do?”

  She smiled, a secret smile, pleased with herself and then started to open her mouth to talk, but like drunks so often do, her mood changed in an instant and she shook her head. “Naw, then you’ll be in on it.”

  She shook her head more dramatically now. “You ain’t hornin’ in. None of ya is!”

  She stood then, knocking her chair back and sending it nearly clattering to the floor. “You’d like that, wouldn’t ya?” she said, addressing the whole bar, none of whom had any idea what she was on about or cared.

  She stood there swaying for a moment, before flopping back down into her chair. She turned to Victor. “It’s a secret, see? And I ain’t supposed to be talkin’.” She put a dirty finger to her lips.

  “It’ll be just our little secret,” she said to the top of the table as her head drooped forward. “Shhh…be as silent as the grave.”

  She nod
ded to herself and laid her head down and fell asleep.

  ~~~

  “Help me undo this,” Elizabeth said tugging at the waist of her dress. “I can’t breathe in this thing.”

  Simon closed the door to their rooms and turned up the gaslight.

  He moved behind her and unhooked the back enclosures of her dress. “It’s going to be—”

  She pulled away and turned to face him, her cheeks flushed with anger and emotion. “Don’t say it. Don’t tell me everything is going to be all right.”

  Simon closed his mouth and nodded slowly.

  Elizabeth looked at him, her anger ebbed quickly and her face fell. “I’m sorry. Maybe you should say it. I think I need to hear it.”

  Simon took hold of her arms, lowering his head to see eye to eye with her. “It is going to be all right.”

  She hesitated and then looked at him with love and a little admiration. “How can you be so sure?”

  He let her go and took off his jacket. “Because I won’t allow it to be anything else.”

  Elizabeth laughed lightly, but it wasn’t unkind. “When you say it like that, I almost believe you.”

  He turned back and caught her eye for a moment before turning away and hanging up his coat on the wooden valet. He wanted to believe it, too.

  “How did she know?” Elizabeth said, voicing the one question that plagued them both.

  Simon pulled down his bracers. “Vale, I suspect.”

  Elizabeth paused as she undressed. “What do you mean?”

  He pulled off his boots and set them aside. “Vale’s letter could have easily included information about us. What better weapon to use against us than,” he said, pausing as he imagined their future child, “our most vulnerable area.”

  “She did needle us about that in Cairo,” Elizabeth admitted. “But I’m still not sure how she knew.”

  “She might be mad, but she’s clever and, unfortunately, very astute.”

  “True,” Elizabeth said and then added with a look of apology. “I let her push my buttons. And all that did was let her know that I had them.”

  He nodded and undid his cuffs. “We’re both guilty on that front.”

  Elizabeth sat down on the edge of the bed. “So you think older Vale told her younger self how to hurt us?”

  Simon let out a breath. “And she told Blavatsky. It made for fine theater, after all, didn’t it?”

  Elizabeth pursed her lips. “But those words? Those exact words? How could Vale know what Nan said? She wasn’t there.”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted, “but she’s…motivated and—”

  “Hates our guts?”

  Simon frowned. “Yes. With the ability to time travel, there’s no telling if she found out where we’d been and went there herself.”

  “Time stalking?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past her,” he said.

  “Well then it’s a good thing future her is in the Council jail and her younger self will be in Bedlam soon. Unless we screw this up.”

  Simon walked over to Elizabeth as she tossed her corset aside.

  “Which we will not do,” he said.

  She nodded, but he could see the fear in her eyes. Fear not for herself, but for their child.

  Gently, he pulled her to her feet and against his chest. “I wish I could take you away from all of this, somewhere safe. Where this couldn’t touch us.”

  “It already has touched us,” she said, looking up at him, resigned to it, but not beaten by it. “And unless we stop whatever it is she’s up to here…”

  Simon kissed her forehead. “We will.”

  Elizabeth sat back down on the bed heavily. “What is she up to? It obviously has something to do with Jack the Ripper’s death. Do you think she kills him?”

  Simon sat down next to her. “Possibly.”

  “But why? What would she get out of that?”

  Simon shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe she’s somehow realized that’s a focal point in Council history and is targeting it because it unravels so much, alters her path.”

  Elizabeth leaned against his shoulder. “Maybe. I mean, managing not to be sent to Bedlam is a pretty good motive to change things. It’s just that…”

  Simon leaned away from her to get a look at her face. “Just what?”

  She shook her head as she thought out loud. “It seems impersonal. Everything she’s done so far has been very personal, with us at the center of it.”

  “Or Graham,” he said, realizing that while they bore the brunt of her vengeance, it was only because they had been there and he hadn’t. “She was out to destroy Graham in San Francisco and in Cairo. We were just in the way.”

  “And Graham’s here this time.”

  “And looking for the Ripper.”

  Elizabeth shifted to face him. “Maybe she finds him first and kills him.”

  “Or has him killed,” Simon suggested. “Or has them both killed.”

  Elizabeth nodded and chewed her lower lip in thought. “Maybe.”

  “Either way, I think we should warn Graham. Whatever she’s up to, you can be assured he’ll be a target.”

  She nodded, but looked worried. Not that he blamed her. He was damned worried himself.

  He ran a hand down her now bare arm until he reached her wrist. It was so slender he could reach around it with his thumb and forefinger. So small and fragile. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.

  She smiled back at him, but the unease remained in her eyes. No words of assurance would take it away. It would stay with her, with him, until this mission was over. One way or the other.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  SIMON LEANED BACK IN his seat as their carriage made its way out of the city and into the country, but he did not relax as he watched the city disappear into the distance behind them. It would hardly be the respite George had painted when he’d invited them. With Dr. Blackwood and both Graham and Vale also in attendance for the weekend, there would be little rest and no relaxation.

  After the revelation of Vale’s letter and the disturbing encounter with Madame Blavatsky, Simon had been waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop. Every time they’d seen Vale, he’d been prepared for the worst, prepared for her to strike like the viper she was. But, if anything, she’d been calmer than before, kindness and pleasure in their company oozing out of every pore like a noxious perfume.

  The nervous energy she’d exuded when they’d first seen her here in London was nearly gone. Frankly, he’d rather she’d have ranted and raved and foamed at the mouth. Her quiet confidence and unnatural grace were far more unnerving.

  Coupled with the new and far from improved Katherine Vale, their investigation had stagnated. After Victor had told them about what he’d overheard from Lizzy Stride, they thought they’d finally caught the break they needed. If she were blackmailing the doctor, that meant he’d done something worthy of it. It also gave him a motive for killing her. With her connections to the other victims, it seemed like they were finally onto something. The doctor was looking more and more guilty. But after that night, Stride clammed up and the doctor kept to himself. Every attempt Victor made to get more details about her “plot” and the reason for it came up dry.

  And so, instead of things coming to a head, they simmered, slowly, their reserves burning away. Each day moving achingly, painfully, slowly forward toward the next murder, but bringing nothing of use with it. And all the while the words Blavatsky echoed from their past still lingered. The fear of them coming to pass was cancerous.

  The days stretched into weeks. The dinners and luncheons and parties all ran together in his mind. Nothing stood out. No more clues, no more revelations. Everything and everyone seemed to settle into a slow, relentless rhythm; each day grinding past, melting into the next, drawing them inexorably toward their fate.

  He looked across the carriage at Elizabeth as she leaned toward the window soaking up the green landscape and fresh air. He knew that despite
her indomitable spirit, she was feeling the strain as well. Her beautiful blue eyes were rimmed with dark circles from lack of sleep. Her laughter was less frequent. Her smile dulled just enough to break his heart a little.

  He would have given anything to take it all away from her, to shoulder her burden. But even if he could have, she wouldn’t have let him. And that just made him love her all the more.

  Roxbury’s estate, Larkridge Manor, was an imposing Elizabethan country house with gothic pinnacles and a vast array of mullioned windows.

  Elizabeth gave a soft, impressed whistle as their carriage turned down the lane toward the main house.

  “And I thought Grey Hall was swanky.”

  Simon chuckled. His family estate was actually quite modest compared to many, including, it seemed, Roxbury’s. Larkridge was impressive.

  The butler, a small man with keen eyes and an implacable expression, greeted them.

  “Good afternoon, Sir Simon,” he said, bowing slightly. “Lady Cross.”

  Elizabeth didn’t quite manage to stop her snort of amusement at her title.

  The butler’s right eye twitched slightly, but that was the only chink in his otherwise impenetrable social armor. As the butler of a grand house should be, he was precise in every way, from his flawless livery to his ramrod posture.

  “Sir George is out at the moment, but should be back shortly. If you’ll allow me,” he said, gesturing to the large entry hall behind the immense front door.

  “Thank you,” Simon said, giving him a lingering, questioning look.

  “Jeeves, sir.”

  Elizabeth tried to cover her sudden burst of laughter with a coughing fit.

  “Is the lady all right?” Jeeves asked, oblivious to the reason for her outburst.

  Simon fought down a smile of his own with a pressing frown. “She’s fine,” he said with a glare that Elizabeth happily ignored.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Thank you, Jeeves.”

  Simon could see her struggling to keep from laughing again. “Perhaps some rest before dinner?”