Breathless (Scarlet Suffragette, Book 2): A Victorian Historical Romantic Suspense Series

by Nicola Claire

  As did the fact he held my gloveless hand in his own in the hansom cab the entire wretched journey to Lambeth.

  It Is Yours

  Inspector Kelly

  Anna sat with her back straight and her chin up; one hand securely wrapped around her parasol, which lay across her lap. The other wrapped up in my fingers. It was warm and soft and so very small compared to mine.

  And trembling.

  Anna Cassidy rarely showed her fear. But in this, she was terrified. And I had no idea how to soothe her.

  So I sat silently. Stoically. Giving her the only support I could in the form of her hand grasped in mine. It was a privilege that I should not have taken. A sweet innocent affection that was bound by a fierce longing. A simple action that was layered in the complexities of my desire and the inappropriateness of my attentions.

  For months…years, I have told myself I am not for Miss Cassidy. She is destined for far more deserving than me. I am not at liberty to pursue such a free spirit. For I, myself, am by no means free.

  I still remember the day I first laid eyes on her. She was in her father’s home surgery, attending a cadaver with tweezers in one long-fingered hand and a pencil in the other, as she jotted down notes in a book to the side. ’Twas not the sight of a woman bending over a deceased body that caught my attention. Nor the scarlet of blood that coated her wrist and hand.

  It was the pencil. She licked the tip before she wrote her note down. My eyes drawn to the movement as if Icarus drawn to the sun.

  I burned for her. It was instant. I would have gladly met my fiery fate for one taste of this woman.

  And then her father had walked into the room.

  “I see you’ve met my daughter,” Thomas Cassidy had said.

  “Introductions have not been made,” Anna had offered, her attention riveted on the corpse.

  Look at me, I’d thought desperately. I could not look away.

  “Anna,” Thomas had said distractedly as he hunted for something on his desk. “This is Inspector Kelly from London.”

  And still, the cadaver held more sway.

  “Miss Cassidy,” I’d managed, bowing slightly; a redundant movement as she never lifted her eyes from the body before her. Her focus was my undoing.

  “Be a good man and hand me the trephine,” she’d said in place of a greeting.

  “The trephine?”

  “The human brain, Inspector!” she’d announced with vigour and a wicked glint to her eye. “To discover a nut’s secret one must first peel back the shell and peer within, wouldn’t you say?”

  “The skull?” I’d idiotically murmured. “You’re removing the skull?”

  She’d smiled. That smile. I can see it now as if it were only yesterday.

  Anna Cassidy had been playing with me. This slip of a woman, elbows deep in the blood and gore of the deceased, had been teasing me. She hasn’t stopped since that day.

  I’d known then, that my greatest challenge in Auckland City would not be crimes of a dark nature, but my own conscience. My own morality.

  For at every opportunity I found myself seeking her next smile, that next quick retort. That next mock or taunt.

  Even when I shouldn’t have.

  Anna is my weakness. The one thing I crave. The one thing I cannot resist. Although God help me, I have tried. And yet, I have constantly failed.

  I should not have been enjoying the sensation of her warm, smooth skin against mine. The feeling of supple strength and delicate precision her hand in my own conveyed. I should not have been.

  But I was. So help me God, I was.

  I have studied her movements at a crime scene. I know her every tell. I have committed each to memory. Savoured her. Devoured her with my eyes alone. Her dance as she assesses what should not be seen by a lady. The way she tilts her head when she diagnoses an illness no one can explain. The narrowing of her eyes when she’s faced with an insidious method of demise. Her lifted chin when challenged for the right to be there. To be heard. To count. To be the voice of the dead.

  She is my downfall. My saviour. The light that keeps the darkness at bay.

  And I am naught but a shadow, a Machiavellian predator who threatens her world. Who brings little but heartache and angst and…terror.

  I let a breath of air out and studied the scene through the window. We were crossing the Thames, soon to enter Lambeth proper. Wilhelmina Cassidy had been missing for three days. I could not countenance the belief that this body we sped toward would be Anna’s cousin. I could not fathom the depth of pain her death would cause the woman I loved.

  The impotence I felt at that moment was astonishing. It sucked all air from my lungs. I attempted to assess the situation methodically. A rote coping mechanism I’d established early on in my career. One I’d used with much success since. One which had proved faithful as I’d chased down the Ripper and greeted the darkness of a new day. The darkness of Eliza May.

  Wilhelmina had been pursuing clues to my past. Visiting my old haunts in Whitechapel. Chasing my ghosts. Had she found one? Had she found the ghost of my past?

  The letters from the Dutch East Indies, the gifts, the flowers. Nightshade. Nightingale. Scopolamine. Strychnine. Orphaned children. Bribed judges. The Marquess of Londonderry’s coal mines. It all correlated but I had not the wherewithal to link the evidence precisely.

  I could not distance myself from the events when the events harmed Anna.

  With dawning realisation, I faced my greatest fear. I was incapable of separating myself from the crimes, the cases, the potential for loss and heartache.

  If this body proved to be Wilhelmina Cassidy, the world would know my rage.

  “It’s all right,” Anna said softly to my side.

  “Pardon me?” I enquired, brought out of my panic with one quietly murmured phrase.

  Anna tightened her hand in mine, stroked her thumb across my palm. I should have done that, I realised. I should have soothed her with more than a simple holding of hands. I should have done more.

  “It’s all right, you know,” she said again. “If it’s Mina.”

  My throat constricted painfully. My heart was ripped from my chest.

  “It may not be,” I said gruffly.

  “You do not need to protect me, Andrew.” Always. With my dying breath. “I have known for some time that Wilhelmina would come to some such fate.”

  “Murdered?”

  Anna shrugged; it was stiff and accompanied by an indrawn jagged breath of air.

  “She is so lost to her own reality, that she often fails to register what is around her. She is innocence brought low by former depravities; ones which her mind has graciously chosen to forget, yet her body still remembers with aching clarity. She would not have fought; it would not have occurred to her that should have. She would have greeted her death with wide open eyes and yet she would not have seen it coming.”

  “She is a dichotomy.”

  “She is beautifully complex. And yet singularly simple in her desires.”

  “What does Miss Cassidy desire?” I was grateful that Anna was still using the present tense. She had not given up hope entirely.

  “Love. Acceptance. Peace. I have tried to provide it. To give her what she needs. But coming to London was a mistake.”

  “How can you say that? Your degree.”

  “I could not have left her with Mrs Hardwick. My housekeeper is fair and kind, but she does not understand the intricacies of Mina’s condition. I thought it best to keep my cousin near. To keep her safe with my proximity and love. But I failed to offer the full trinity of necessities. I failed to offer her my time.”

  “You cannot live your life for another, Anna.”

  “Even if you love them more than life itself?”

  “She is your cousin. She knows she has that love. But to sacrifice your own desires for her wellbeing would diminish that affection. It would soon sour.”

  Anna turned to me, her eyes large and full of such emotion my heart sti
lled at the hauntingly beautiful sight.

  “You speak from experience,” she said.

  “I…” Did I?

  “I would not have you sacrifice yourself either, Andrew.”

  “That is different.”

  “It is not so different, I think.”

  “Wilhelmina can survive without your love, Anna.”

  “Evidence to the contrary is fast approaching.”

  I shook my head, turning in my seat to fully face her. With both hands, I gripped her own, held them tightly, placed them on my lap between us. Demanded her attention with a tug toward me.

  Her eyes met mine. Such sadness. Such intelligent assessment. Too clever for her own good was my Anna.

  Too compassionate for her own heart’s survival.

  “I would that you did not have to face this,” I said earnestly. “But I am keenly aware of your strength of character, Dr Cassidy. I have watched it for these past four years. I am acutely acquainted with your conviction and dedication, your loyalty and compassion, your sense of self. Your courage. It will not be easy, should the worst come to pass. But you will survive it. You have survived worse.”

  She blinked. A tear slowly rolled down her cheek. My thumb came up and caught it. My hand cupping her cheek.

  “And you, dear Inspector, would survive, too, would you not?”

  How could she say that? How could she compare her love of her cousin to my love of her?

  Why would she not? I have not claimed her. I have not made any vows of undying love. I have not forsaken all others. I still hold a necrotic part of my heart for Eliza May. The blackened organ hell-bent on vengeance. I will have it. I will have my justice. Until then, my heart can not heal. My heart is not whole enough to openly love.

  But I love her. Dear God, I love Anna Cassidy with the entirety of my soul, if not the entirety of my heart.

  And yet, I would die for Anna. I would sacrifice myself if it meant she lived on.

  I had never felt the need to do so for my wife.

  “You have my honour,” I said, stroking my thumbs over the back of Anna’s hands. “You have my loyalty. You have my soul and, God help us all, you have what is left of my heart.” I swallowed. Anna’s mouth opened in shock, or fear, or disbelief, I am uncertain.

  I pulled her closer still; hot breaths mingling, the temptation to wrap her in my arms a heavy weight on my conscience.

  I kicked my conscience to the dust.

  Gripping the back of her neck, lifting her over the seat and onto my lap, I wrapped a hand around her waist and held her against my chest. Intimately.

  “My darling Anna,” I whispered, laying a kiss to her cheek, her jaw, the soft dip below her ear. I lifted my lips to her lobe and added, “You have my body. It is yours.”

  Damnation

  Anna

  Of all the times for Andrew Kelly to declare himself, to commit himself, he chooses this.

  I wanted to throttle him.

  I wanted to throw him to the ground and cover his body with mine.

  I wanted to savour his taste, cherish his words, have him repeat them while he lay naked at my side.

  My desires had really taken a turn for the physical of late, and yet it was his soft tone, his grave countenance, the heartfelt words which undid me.

  You have my body. It is yours.

  Of course, those would be the words my mind chose to repeat with aching clarity.

  “I trust,” he murmured against the flush of skin beneath my ear, “that you have the strength to resist me. For I no longer have the fortitude to distance myself. I am lost to you, Anna. But I am still the same man. Tainted. Darkened. Not worthy.”

  “Stop talking,” I said, bringing my lips to his and silencing his doubts with the sweep of my tongue.

  His hand at my neck tightened; not enough to harm, but enough to feel desired. His fingers at my waist dug into my corset, branding me in that simple touch. His hard thighs pressed into my rear, the rapid rise and fall of his chest matched mine. His tongue delved between my lips, danced with my own, tasted divine.

  He groaned against me, his breaths rampant with longing. I licked into his mouth, showed him my conviction and dedication, dared him with my courage.

  “Anna,” he rasped. “Say no. Stop this.” He pulled me closer, held me tighter, ruined his objections with his fervent touches. Desperate hands and searching fingers. Hot breaths and achingly ardent kisses.

  “I choose you,” I said.

  He held me closely, kissed me softly, then lay his forehead against mine.

  “Dr Cassidy,” he said. “I will ruin you.”

  “You long ago ruined me, Inspector, for all other men.”

  He growled, his forearms flexing beneath my fingers. His hands gripping me almost too tightly.

  “Anna,” he pleaded, “turn me away.”

  I opened my arms and waited.

  “I am yours, Andrew Kelly,” I said softly. “And you are mine.”

  “I am not whole,” he argued, his body leaning toward me, his eyes sweeping my face, dancing down over my breasts, coming back up to rest on my lips, staring hungrily.

  “And yet I have never loved a man so completely.”

  “Anna.”

  “No. No more. It is done. I choose you, Andrew. I choose you and no other.”

  He searched my eyes, my face, the air around me for long moments.

  “So be it,” he murmured. “I cannot fight this any longer. I need you. I want you. I love you.”

  “Then have me,” I said, breathless. “Take me.”

  He smiled. It was stunning; the sun emerging on a cloudy day.

  “Right here?” he asked, one eyebrow raised. “In a hansom cab, no less. Doctor, you disappoint me.”

  I blinked. Uncertain.

  Andrew leant close, wrapping his hand up in my hair, burying his nose against my neck, laying a soft kiss there.

  “I intend to take my time with you, Anna,” he whispered against my skin. “A long, slow, delicious amount of time to be precise. With no interruptions. No chance of being stopped mid ruination. And somewhere,” he said, licking up my neck and then gentling biting my earlobe. I shuddered. My back arching, nipples hardening, my gasp filling the air. He chuckled; so manly, so self-satisfied. “Somewhere,” he repeated, “where you can scream my name without fear of being overheard.”

  “Andrew,” I said, shocked. Delighted. No, shocked. No, definitely delighted.

  “Yes, my love?”

  The carriage rolled to a stop and reality crashed into our little slice of heaven.

  He stilled. I stilled. Our eyes met.

  I closed mine before he said a word and gently removed myself from our entanglement. I could hear Andrew straightening his clothes, returning himself to the police inspector the world knew him as. I struggled. Dear God did I struggle to make myself as professionally presented. To don the mien of physician.

  To detach.

  I didn't want to detach. I didn't want to face what waited out there. I didn't want reality to wipe away the fantasy that had so recently presented itself inside here. If I were honest, that was my greatest fear. Shockingly not finding Mina laid to waste on a dirty street in Lambeth - my mind could not countenance such a macabre visage - but inviting that distance between Andrew and myself by allowing reality to creep in.

  Would he be reminded of his former convictions? Would he realise how inappropriate society would deem us? Would he be faced with the treachery of his wife and forbid himself his freedom?

  Would he push me back out again?

  My heart was still thundering inside my chest. My breaths still uneven. I could feel his touch, his heat, his physical desire as if he were still pressed against me.

  I could still taste him on my lips.

  With a jumbled mind and distracted expression, I climbed down from the hansom and took in the scene before me. Lambeth in all her gritty glory. Crooked roofs and haphazard chimneys. Broken windows and crumbling brick fences. Narr
ow streets and grimy gutters. Houses leaning toward one another, as if to offer support to the woe begotten. Children paddling barefoot in puddles, the filth of everyday life coating them from toes to knees and beyond. Laundry drying on open lines, crisscrossing the roadways in a plethora of faded colours.

  Across the way, a large orange-brick workhouse stood sentinel to the poor and faithless. Grey smoke billowing up into the heavens, the scent of charcoal hanging heavy in the air. The aura of despair coating everything like soot from the oversized chimney.

  Andrew stepped down beside me, cane in hand, hat in place. He stared across the street, his eyes taking in perhaps more than mine did. He spotted what he was looking for, offered me a single glance, and then took off toward a group of policemen, some of which held up off-white sheets.

  I knew what we’d find behind those makeshift curtains. I knew the chances of the body which lay forlorn on the other side being anyone but Mina was not great. But I sucked in a breath, lifted my chin, and followed behind the inspector.

  I was a police surgeon. A qualified physician. I would not let Mina down by behaving any other way.

  A portly man with greying beard separated himself from the crowd at the crime scene, striding across the packed dirt toward us. His eyes narrowed on noticing me, but he quickly hid his reaction. Then thrust out his hand for Andrew to shake.

  “Superintendent Cox,” Andrew greeted.

  “Inspector Kelly.” His astute eyes turned to me. “And you are, miss?”

  “Doctor Cassidy,” Andrew replied before I could. “My surgeon.”

  Well, it was an improvement from previous monikers, even if it wasn’t the moniker we’d established today.

  What was my moniker? Lover? Partner? Mistress?

  Reality that cunning and devious harridan slammed back in my face. I would never be wife to Andrew Kelly. I would never be introduced in such a way.

  I lifted my chin further, practically having to look at the superintendent from down my nose.