by Diana Ballew
I stood in the hallway, paralyzed with uncertainty and trepidation.
The servant smiled as she approached me. Sensing my anxiety, she opened her arms and hugged me.
“She’s here. She’s back, Derek. You must act soon. I beg of you.”
I nodded and gathered my wits before heading toward the parlor. To an awaiting Ersule. To an awaiting Erin.
My God.
The moment I entered the room, Erin’s chin angled upward with obvious determination.
Though common sense warned me to keep my distance and give her space, my heart said otherwise. I advanced toward her far too fast.
She gasped and twisted away.
I took a step back and inhaled deeply. “Miss Richland.”
She slowly turned and gazed at me with green eyes radiating emotion I had never seen before. I remembered what Koenig had said so long ago. “She will be drawn to you for reasons she does not understand.”
Confidence guided my feet forward. I gazed down at her, willing myself not to pull her into my arms and kiss her. “I’ve missed you, Erin.”
She gazed into my eyes, but only for a moment. She turned on her toes and walked toward the sofa and sat. “I’m here on personal business.”
I smiled and ventured toward the couch. “Personal? I like the sound of that.”
“Yes. I need your help with Frederick.”
She avoided my gaze as I stood like a gargoyle poised above her and thrust my hands in the pockets of my woolen trousers. “Frederick Dimsdale?” I asked, my voice rising. “I read that he’s in jail. Why on earth would I help him?”
She sighed dramatically. “Because he’s innocent. And according to him, he’s only in there because of you. Frederick is a hypocrite, I know, and his vile interest in Madame Delacour’s parlor, well … ” Her voice trailed away with the rising flush upon her cheeks. “Let me just say, while I know he’s a rat, I truly don’t believe he’s capable of murder.”
I sat next to her, my gaze narrowing. “I read your article in the newspaper about this new murder he’s accused of — truly horrific.”
She inched away and folded her trembling fingers in a pile on her lap, the bloodied scratches on her hands and wrists now nothing more than faded scars. “Well, Frederick is many things, but he’s not a murderer.”
“Did he send you here to plead on his miserable behalf?”
Her eye color dulled to unpolished jade. “No. Not exactly.”
She might be pleading on behalf of the Dimsdale lout, but I sensed she was truly here for me. I leaned forward and whispered. “Then why exactly are you here, Erin?”
She rose from the sofa, her shoulders wilting, and shook her head as though flushing cobwebs from her mind.
Without thinking, I bolted up and pulled her into an embrace. “Erin, sweet Erin,” I whispered against her ear. “Talk to me.”
She melded against my chest. I smoothed her ebony hair. “Talk to me,” I repeated. “Why are you really here?”
She gazed into my eyes. “I’m angry. I’m confused. I’m so many things right now that I can’t think straight anymore.”
She pulled away and turned her back to me. Instantly, my heart hammered, squeezing the breath from my lungs. She turned on her heels and faced me with a menacing gaze, but moist tears softened the intended intensity.
“That night. The night in the woods. I must know. I don’t understand.”
Her eyes narrowed, brows knitting together as she attempted to stare deeply into my eyes. She stepped forward, her gaze locked upon mine.
I froze.
“Who are you, Derek?” She took another step until she stood mere inches away. “Who are you really?”
For years, I had imagined dozens of possible confrontations with her, but the scenario before me now was not one of them.
“Your voice. Your touch.” She gently tugged my chin, forcing me to look at her. “Those blue eyes.”
Panic gripped my gut. “I thought you needed my help with Dimsdale,” I managed to croak out.
As if a spell had suddenly been broken, she blinked repeatedly and dropped her arm to her side. “Oh, yes, that.” She rubbed her temples, and her face paled. “Pardon me, Mr. Rudliff, could I get a cup of hot tea? Perhaps some toast?”
Her posture wavered. I gripped her elbow and led her to the sofa. “Are you ill, my dear?” I asked, though I suspected what truly ailed her.
She leaned her head against the sofa back. I rang the bell on the side table, signaling for help from the staff.
Mrs. Schauss entered, and upon seeing Erin, her eyes grew wide.
I gave the servant a reassuring nod. “Please get Miss Richland some hot tea and toast.”
With a swift nod in reply, Mrs. Schauss scurried toward the kitchen.
My gaze swept over Erin. Did she know she was with child? My child? Was that why she was here?
“Perhaps I should return home. My father is expecting me shortly. Ever since that night in the woods, well, he’s not been himself.”
My anger swelled as I recalled the night of the attack. Erin’s frightened eyes. Her loss of consciousness. The mad dash in the ratty supply buggy to get her swiftly home. Her father’s hostile, threatening words to me at the front door of his home.
I enclosed her hand with mine and asked, “Your father has not been unkind to you, has he?”
Erin covered her mouth with a shaky hand. “I’m sorry. A touch of dyspepsia. I could really use that tea and toast now.”
Mrs. Schauss entered with hot tea and rye toast and placed the items on the coffee table in front of Erin. “Perhaps this will help,” she said, laying a linen napkin on Erin’s lap before departing.
Erin sipped the tea and took a bite of the crisp buttered toast. She winced. “I don’t know why, but nothing tastes the same to me anymore.”
She didn’t know.
I gestured for her to eat more. “As you were saying — your father?”
“He was so angry that night. He’s barely spoken to me since, and Maggie skulks around the house, muttering below her breath, avoiding both of us. Father visits Frederick in jail and listens to his tale of woe. Thanks to Frederick, he, too, suspects you’re somehow behind the mess.” A crimson hue stained her pale cheeks. “Frederick is beside himself. He can’t remember the night in detail, but I overheard father saying he had been found ‘buck-naked’ and ‘covered in blood’.”
I couldn’t conceal the growing smirk on my face. I quickly pulled her into my arms. “You don’t say.”
She lifted her face to mine. “God help me, Derek, I’ve tried to stay away. Truly I have, but … ”
I dipped my head and kissed her lips tasting of chamomile tea and sweet honey. “But?”
She wrapped her arms around my neck and whispered against my cheek, “Try as I may, I cannot keep away from you, my love.”
My love.
She had said, “My love.”
My stomach fluttered. Something didn’t feel right. I was one step closer to Ersule, of fulfilling the dream I had longed for, yet I couldn’t imagine Ersule, my wife of long ago, the love of my life, coming back to me and Erin’s spirited soul taken from me at the same time. I loved both women; one body, two minds, two souls.
She nuzzled my neck. “Do you hear me, Derek?” she whispered again. “I love —”
The abrupt knock at the front door caused us both to flinch.
“Derek. Derek, you in there? Mrs. Schauss, open the damn door!”
“What the devil?” I bolted up and opened the door.
“I’m just beside myself!” Gregore said, marching inside. “The murders, trouble at the morgue —”
“Gregore,” I said, signaling him with my eyes, “you remember Miss Richland.”
He looked past my shoulder at Erin, who rose from the sofa with a puzzled look upon her face.
He instantly strode past me and clasped her hand. “Miss Richland, I was so worried about you after the vicious wolf attack.”
&n
bsp; “I’m fine now, thank you,” she said. “But what is this about the murders — the morgue?”
If there was one thing I knew about Erin it was that nothing caught her attention faster than a sensational story for the newspaper, or the chance to break the murder cases plaguing Everett.
Gregore released her hand and glanced at me before turning quickly back to Erin. “I’m sure I know less than you, Miss Richland. I’ve been reading your articles in the paper.”
Erin’s gaze narrowed. “I’m assuming you’re talking about the murdered prostitute just this past week, yes?”
“Yes, yes,” said Gregore hesitantly. “That and the voting results, of course.” He winked. “I knew you women would get the vote. Congratulations.”
Undeterred, she stepped closer to Gregore. “What is this about the morgue? I’ve heard nothing about suspicious events there. As I recall, you’re employed there, correct?”
Gregore quickly glanced at me before saying, “I, well —”
I stepped forward. “Such dreary talk, you two. What is it you came here for, Gregore?”
Gregore sighed, clearly thankful for the reprieve.
“Derek, I must discuss some urgent business matters in private.” He smiled crookedly at Erin. “I’m sure you understand, Miss Richland.”
I led Erin back to the couch. “Please, my dear. Have a seat and finish your tea. This should take only a moment or two.”
Erin pinched my side playfully, out of view of Gregore.
Mrs. Schauss sauntered through the hallway with a dusting feather, whistling a ditty.
“Mrs. Schauss, please get Miss Richland more tea.”
She smiled. “Yes, sir.”
Erin sighed and reached for her teacup. “I’ll be fine here, you two. Run along.”
Gregore followed on my heels to the library. I shut the door behind us. “What the hell is going on?”
Gregore raked unsteady fingers through his thick hair and sighed. “Everything is going on, that’s what.” He turned away and faced the wall of dusty hardbound books towering from floor to ceiling. “We have to get out of here, Derek. The sooner the better.”
I marched forward, grabbed his shoulders, and spun him around to face me. “What are you talking about?”
Gregore broke into guttural sobs.
I drew him close. “Christ, Gregore. Tell me what’s wrong.”
He pulled from my embrace and stared at me, unblinking, fear radiating within his moist gaze.
“This morning my employer discovered my stash of strained blood. He found the tins of herbs and the ledgers. He hasn’t put two and two together yet, but he knows I’ve been up to something. Christ Almighty, Derek. I’ve been draining the dead and falsifying documents for my own greedy purposes. I’ve made a mint on the cocktail, but he’s on to me. All of this along with the recent murders, well, I’m sure a scandal of monumental proportions is sure to break soon.”
“Oh, God.” I winced and turned away, my mind racing.
“Oh, God, is right, King. I’ve done the best I could covering our messes. Same with Franz and Edgar doing their part, but we’ve stayed too long. We must leave Everett.”
With his feet planted firmly in front of me, he gazed up with misted, poignant eyes. “This city is far too small. We can’t get away with the same things we did in New York. You said we could leave once, well, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” I said more abruptly than intended.
My mind sprinted. Erin had been within a mere tick of declaring her love for me, the avowal I’d been waiting centuries for. Now this disturbing news arrived with a terrified Gregore.
“How close are you?” Gregore asked in a small, hesitant voice. “Has she?”
I waved my hand. “Don’t worry about it. I have it handled.” But the more I grumbled, the less confident I became. With Regine and Rudolpho determined to fulfill their devious plan, and time being of the essence more than ever, my plans would need to change.
Chapter Nineteen
She shouldn’t have scooted out on Derek without so much as a goodbye, but the longer Erin sat in his parlor, the more her stomach had twisted into nauseous knots. What she couldn’t shake now was Mrs. Schauss’s odd reaction when the older woman had caught her slipping out the front door.
“Please don’t go. Please don’t, Miss,” she had said, blocking the exit.
And when Erin firmly asked the older woman to step aside, the servant’s eyes misted with tears.
“So strange,” Erin muttered, gazing out her office window. She sighed and sank into the chair at her desk. Flipping through the pages of her calendar, another wave of dizzying nausea hit. She stared at today’s date. Her hand moved in a flurry of fingertips back and forth along the calendar, examining the dates more closely.
She yanked her hand back and groaned. “Oh, nooooooo.” She’d not only missed her monthly once, she’d missed it twice, and she’d been far too busy of late to even notice.
And now the daily episodes of nausea.
“Good afternoon, you,” David said, walking into her office and promptly taking a seat on the chair opposite her. “You see your father yet?”
Had he just asked her a question? Erin tore her gaze from the calendar. “What?”
David leaned in and crossed his lanky legs at the ankles. “Oh, my. A party last night get the better of you? You look awful.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Thank you very much. I need your nasty comments like I need a hole in the head.” She shoved her chair back, paced to the window, and folded her arms across her chest.
The grating sound of scraping chair legs along the hardwood floor filled the office. She turned and saw David advancing toward her.
He froze, clearly measuring her seething gaze.
“Lord above, Erin. I’m sorry. It’s just that, well, it’s just that you look different somehow — extra tired perhaps. Truly, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
She really wasn’t offended, but his timing stank. She sighed and nodded. “I know. I’m sorry for biting your head off.”
Her father hurried past the open office door in flash of woolen trousers and suspenders, grumbling something about “incompetent idiots.”
“What was it you were saying about my father?”
David rolled his eyes. “He’s on a tear to get to the bottom of the latest murder, and there’s been some chatter about trouble at the morgue. Course, the hunters sent into the logging camp to find the bloodthirsty wolves that attacked you turned up nothing, either.”
The morgue. Was that what Gregore had been talking about when he entered Derek’s house?
She frowned and waved her hand. “Father’s been impossible lately. It’s best to avoid him as much as possible these days. Trust me, I know firsthand.”
As she walked home, Erin drew in the fresh air whirling across the bay. Angry steel-gray clouds above threatened a downpour. The thought of returning home another evening to a disappointed Maggie gave her pause, and she slowed her pace. On second thought, perhaps she’d drop by the florist shop to see if Delia were there and available for dinner at a restaurant.
“Whoa, there, now,” she heard a familiar voice say.
She turned to see Derek’s irritable driver, Franz, tugging on leather reins, guiding the horses to the side of the street. The moment the carriage came to a complete stop, Derek exited the carriage door and was by her side in a flash. She gazed at his face, etched with lines of concern.
“Erin. My God, woman. Are you all right?”
She had never been happier to see anyone in her life. Caught off guard, she stared into his eyes in awkward silence as pelts of rain dropped from the charcoal sky, landing in loud flops upon her coat.
“Come,” Derek said, leading her by the arm to his carriage. He guided her inside just as the sky broke open in a deluge of showers. He adjusted the cushioned seat and tossed his hat to the side.
Sparking blue eyes suddenly paled to blue-gray as he gazed at
her with an expression she couldn’t place. Sadness? Sorrow? A sudden stab of guilt for leaving him earlier pierced her ribs.
A warm hand slid over hers. “Have dinner with me, please. At my home.”
Without hesitation, she murmured, “Yes, of course.”
Derek rapped the carriage top, and the driver urged the horses forward.
“You left me without a word, Erin. Again.” His tone was smooth, yet firm. Heat radiated from his body, warming the chilly air.
She jutted her chin out. “I wasn’t feeling well.”
He inched closer and looped his arm within hers. “And are you feeling better now?”
Actually, she was much better and hungry for the first time today. She nodded.
He gazed out the window and sighed. “I’ve just returned from freeing your Mr. Dimsdale from jail.”
Erin frowned. “You did? But how?”
“I have my ways.”
Of course he had his ways. He was Derek Rudliff, and nothing about him surprised her anymore. She cleared her throat in an attempt to rid the nagging realization. No doubt, it wouldn’t be long before Frederick showed up on her doorstep with lame excuses for his immoral behavior, begging for her forgiveness.
The steady beat of the iron-hoofed horses matched the rhythm of her heart. Sitting beside Derek, his warm body next to hers, soothed the growing agitation that had plagued her for most of the day.
She gazed out the window. If her life wasn’t complicated enough already, the realization today that she was carrying a child, Derek’s child, was a prickly reminder. Instinctively, she placed her hand upon her small belly.
A fierce rush of wind ripped across the bay with a mighty howl. The carriage shook and shimmied. Tossed like a ragdoll, she shrieked as she was thrown against Derek’s hard chest.
He steadied her shoulders and pulled her close. “There now. It’s just an angry gust, my love.”
She stared out the window, smiling. My love. He loves me, just as I love him.
The driver urged the horses to a faster clip. Naked branches passed by the carriage window, twisting, bending and snapping like the bony fingers of skeletons. Franz soothed the wary horses with calming words as the beasts sidestepped the dangerous terrain.
