Druid's Daughter

by Jean Hart Stewart

  He hoped he’d learned more about Druids, but he wasn’t even sure of this.

  He’d seldom known his mind to be so muddled. Well, Morgan wanted them to be only business acquaintances. If he would agree, life would be easier for them both. Easier, but not nearly so interesting.

  Dammed if he was ready to agree to so prudent a solution.

  * * * * *

  Morgan found her mother still up and reading when their butler let her into the townhouse. She smiled at Jackson as she handed him her long velvet cloak and her gloves. She felt completely bemused. Was her mother meddling in her affairs? It was not like her if she were, but Morgan’s incipient feelings toward Lord Lance Dellafield were too important for her to take a chance.

  She went into the sitting room and sat opposite her mother. Her clear green eyes were fixed on the vibrantly stylish woman in her gilded chair. The sumptuous golden cushions would have swallowed up or dimmed a lesser woman, but Viviane shone brightly as the only worthy sight in the room. Her red hair glowed in the light of the gas lamps.

  “Mmmm,” said Viviane putting her book aside and looking up with the special smile reserved for her daughter. “You smell wonderful.”

  “Did I use too much scent? I hope not.” Morgan appeared as alarmed as she felt. She hated overpowering perfumes and was careful to apply her own lilac scent lightly.

  “No, of course not, love. You know how I can smell anything within ten feet.”

  Morgan grinned as she sat. “And I remember how I used to be upset when you instantly knew when Cook had slipped me an extra biscuit.”

  Her mother laughed, a low and attractive sound Morgan had always loved.

  “And for a while you wondered how I always knew. Chocolate biscuits have a very loud smell.”

  Viviane paused and then motioned to her daughter. “Come sit by me and tell me what’s bothering you, my dear one.”

  Morgan’s answering chuckle was rueful. “I’m sure your mother was equally talented and knew what you were thinking most of the time. It does take a bit of getting used to though, when you’re young and trying to get away with some kind of nonsense or other.”

  “But now I no longer invade your privacy, Morgan, as I think you know. I only used that power on occasion when I worried about your safety. Now I can feel emotion radiating from you and since you’ve just been out with the handsome Lord Lance, I assume your thoughts concern him. But I don’t know for sure.”

  Morgan’s sigh was heartfelt. “I do thank you for telling me. I guess you’ve already given me my answer. I needed very much to know what Lord Lance and I feel for each other comes from our hearts alone.”

  “No wicked witchery, you mean. Don’t blush, dear, it’s a natural thought in a family such as ours. I would not interfere in anything this important unless you requested me. And maybe not then.”

  Viviane reached out and took Morgan’s hand.

  “You two have a natural and rare attraction for each other. What you do with such a feeling is up to you. I think, however, such unusual appeal could delight you or wreck you. I would you be very careful. If you possibly can.”

  Viviane stroked her daughter’s hair and added in a pensive voice, “I will confess I interfered just a little when Lord Richfield made plain his interest in you. You were just sixteen and newly thrilled at being a beautiful young girl. He was a hardened rake, as I think you now know. I let slip to him I still had some witch’s power, if I chose to use it. Notably I could destroy the erect status of one’s manhood.”

  Morgan hooted. “You are a wicked woman! I knew you’d frightened him off somehow, but I never dreamed of such a diabolical threat.”

  The two heads, one chestnut gold shot with red, the other a deep auburn slightly shot with silver, came together as mother and daughter threw their arms around each other, locked in merriment.

  Finally Morgan gasped. “Could you do that, could you really?”

  “I don’t know,” her mother said between chortles. “But I would have tried if he’d pursued you any longer. That’s when we got Ambrose to help safeguard you.”

  “But you were married at sixteen.”

  Viviane stopped laughing. “No love, you were conceived when I was sixteen. I was under orders in my training to be a Druid priestess and a false priest convinced me I owed my virginity to him. All part of the Goddess’s plan, he said, for the religious festivities of Beltane.”

  Morgan had not heard the unmarried part before, although she’d never seen her father. “What happened to him,” she asked. “Do you know?”

  “Not really.” Viviane’s soft voice grew even softer. “He was banished from Druid training and disappeared. When I learned he’d tricked me I didn’t care to see him again in any case. Maybe I should have tried some wicked witchery on him, but I was very young to cast a good spell back then.”

  Her charming smile lit up the room as she added, “And as you know, I’m sworn to help people, not harm them, no matter the provocation.”

  Morgan tried to mask her surprise. She was surprised, but not shocked. Her mother was always perfect in her eyes. If she ever met her father she’d try to pull off a wicked spell herself.

  “Have you ever discussed your talents with the Commissioner? Does he even realize how gifted you are?”

  “Not really. We met at a friend’s party and he’s been pursuing me ever since. He knows I’m a Druid and would have been a priestess in olden days. He doesn’t seem to mind, but I fear greatly associating with me might hurt his career. I’m not sure he knows what my training entails. We’ll have to see. I worry about him most of all.”

  Morgan got to her feet, her fluid grace slowed by her anxiety. Her mother with the same problems as she! A more wonderful woman than her mother had never existed. Any man should be honored if she were even interested in him.

  She would pray for her mother’s happiness. Her father had been false to his vows and to any sense of decency. She could not mourn his absence from her life. She never had.

  For the first time Morgan wondered if her beliefs made sense in the world she lived in. Perhaps it was better to acknowledge the old rites had vanished. She certainly would never submit to giving her virginity to an unknown man, no matter the phases of seasons and the dictates of the Goddess.

  But those days were surely over. Druids might no longer have any place in the modern world. Still the Druid central premise that all gods were one would solve many of the world’s problems if it were universally accepted.

  Even less acceptable today seemed to be the Druid belief that each person’s deeds were counted in contributing to improvement of one’s position in his next life. This made perfect sense to her, but seemed difficult for others to accept. Yet how else did anyone have a chance of achieving perfection?

  She was out of step. Totally. She’d been raised in and esteemed a world that no longer existed. Yet she could not give up the values she treasured.

  Was she out of step with Lord Lance Dellafield?

  Definitely. She and Lord Lance were poles apart and always would be. They could never agree about the essential purpose in life, the very basis of her existence. He was a born aristocrat, no matter his current occupation. He would always champion his class. His interest in her was simply a fancy that would pass and he’d eventually go back to his conventional existence.

  She slowly climbed the stairs to her room, wondering why her thoughts depressed her quite this much. All the joy had gone out of the night.

  * * * * *

  Lance could make no sense at all of the newly found murder. That she was a prostitute was established. Her name was Polly Adams and she worked the Covent Garden area, evidently on her own. She’d been very young. Operating on her own was unusual, as the girls in this area generally worked for a pimp who directed a bevy of prostitutes. Perhaps that was one reason she’d been easy to entice into the dark alley where she met her death. Definitely her lone status made the search for her murderer more difficult.

&nbs
p; His men had combed the Seven Dials area and beyond. There were far too many stores selling the cheap brand of paper the murderer had used in forming the letter “W”. No one remembered a particular purchaser of the paper.

  The famed C.I.D. of Scotland Yard had little else to investigate. Merely a corpse who was not likely to give up her secrets.

  Lord Lance sat at his desk, frankly wondering what he should do next. Had he left any clue uncovered? Going back once again over all the details, he could find no fault with his investigation.

  He pushed aside the papers with the sparse data they’d been able to collect. Not much beside the facts quite evident at the scene of the crime. Going to the door, he called to Shriver.

  “Are there any new facts at all, Shriver? Or any old ones we should be addressing more carefully?”

  Shriver bristled. Only a little, as he knew how harassed his chief was feeling.

  “No, Sir, nothing at all. I think we’re well on top of the facts we have.”

  Lance walked over and patted his man on the back. “Sorry, Shriver. Of course you’d have told me instantly if any new fact came in. This case is getting on my nerves, I’m afraid.”

  “Yes Sir, I understand, Sir.”

  Lance walked back to his own desk, leaving the door open. How he’d relish seeing Morgan walk through into his office. He couldn’t seem to stop his thoughts drifting to her. She seemed to slither in any chink on his concentration.

  He had not seen her, although he’d called on her twice. The butler had informed Lance Miss Morgan was not at home. Still he couldn’t stop her from invading his mind at all times of the day. Sometimes he would be staring at his calendar, always crammed with routine tasks he should be pursuing, when her image floated before him. Suddenly boring tasks. Morgan was interfering in every aspect of his life.

  Her lovely face, her green eyes glowing, her lower lip trembling as she listened to the melodic arias of La Traviata. Unashamedly wiping her eyes, giving him back his handkerchief and smiling at the same time. Her depth of emotion was just one more reason to make him determined to understand her. He was sure no man had touched her deep reservoir of passion.

  Her lack of experience both amazed and thrilled him. She was virtually untouched. But did he really want to be the one to unleash the emotion buried deep within her delectable body? If he succeeded he knew his life would never be the same. His brain told him she was not a woman he could pursue and then drop. His body didn’t seem to recognize the warning.

  He did not, did not, want a close relationship with any woman. Certainly he could not afford to let an intuitive woman like Morgan near enough to try to understand him. It would be disaster.

  He threw down the papers in his hand. To hell with dreary duty and his dreary thoughts. Nothing was pressing enough it couldn’t wait an hour or two. He’d head for Miss Morgan McAfee’s residence.

  He was shrugging into this coat when Sergeant Shriver burst in. Lance gave one look at his white face and staring eyes and stopped and turned back to his desk.

  “Daniels is here, Sir. I made him sit for a minute. There’s been another one and he found her.”

  “Did he leave no one with the body?” Lance asked in a sharp tone.

  “No Sir, a policeman was passing by the end of the alley and Daniels called him in to stand watch. He wanted to come himself and tell you. This one must have been horrible, Sir. He’s shaking like a wet dog.”

  Lance headed for the door. A warm-blooded man, he seldom wore an overcoat. The days were still pleasant, so he merely grabbed his hat and started off on a near run, motioning Daniels and Shriver to follow. Daniels stopped his shaking enough to run after his chief. A driver was already waiting and Lance jumped in his carriage, holding open the door for Daniels and Shriver.

  “Give him the directions, Daniels. I want to see this one as soon as possible.”

  Daniels stammered out the address, a street deep in the Seven Dials stews and then shrank back again as the carriage set off.

  Lance was beginning to be seriously annoyed. Some loose fiend was almost thumbing his nose at the police and Lance was beginning to take it as a personal insult. He did not intend to have a maniac running around killing people while he was the head detective in the C.I.D.

  Lance, Shriver and Daniels soon reached the alley where the victim lay. The brutal killing method appeared to bear the same evil marks. Again a young girl lay viciously murdered and again it seemed likely she’d been a prostitute. She lay on her stomach, her hands now limp but on the edges of her hiked-up skirts. Her throat had been slashed so violently part of the wound could be seen at the side of her neck. There seemed to be a little more blood this time. Her long brassy hair was oily and fell over her cheek and down into the blood. On looking closer Lance saw the expected little slit in the back of her red-and-white-checked blouse.

  “The bastard has to have studied anatomy,” ground out Lance. “Whether in a medical school or reading by himself. If it’s the latter he’s been very lucky to hit just the right spot to get to the heart. Or rather I should say the victim’s lucky, since she was dead before he started carving her up.”

  And carve her he had. Besides slitting her throat, on each bare buttock he’d carved the letter “W”. This time the red of the letter glistened not from a crayon, but from blood. These letters were evidently cut even after the throat slicing, as the cuts of the letters had bled scarcely at all. The damned killer must have dipped his finger in the blood from her throat and painted the letters on her naked backside.

  Lance growled. “I’ll get the bloody bastard one way or another. He can’t be allowed to survive much longer.”

  He pulled the girl’s skirts down and turned away. Somehow it seemed almost indecent to stare at her, although he’d looked as carefully as he could for any clue. There was another small stain on her dress, again about the middle of her back. This one was still damp and as he leaned over and sniffed it definitely smelled like semen. There was no other clue. Nothing new to help them.

  A sex deviate killer was loose and daring the police to catch him.

  Lance was well aware the investigation of Jack the Ripper had rebounded on the police because they tried to exclude the press from any information. The press had been forced to make up and exaggerate a good deal. As a result the general population became frantic with fear. This time the press should be given as much accurate information as possible without compromising the case. Hopefully fear would be lessened if imaginary clues weren’t printed and magnified.

  Lance gathered his mind and spoke to his men.

  “One of you reach the Commander immediately and ask him to meet me at the Commissioner’s office. I think the Commissioner will want to tell the Queen. Then we’ll call in the press.”

  He tossed a rapid series of orders to Shriver and then dropped him off at the office. He directed his new driver to take him to the Commissioner’s office.

  He had no way of knowing Morgan was pacing in his office. Waiting for him and anxious to see him.

  Chapter Seven

  The night before, Commissioner Devon Randall had taken Viviane McAfee to dinner with the express determination of talking her into marriage. He knew it would take all his powers of persuasion. He entertained no illusions of his position or his wealth influencing the independent, baffling woman he loved. Loved with a passion he’d never even known existed.

  No matter Queen Victoria herself sometimes called Randall in for consultation. Queen Victoria, now ruler of her people for over sixty years. His royal mistress would never understand his unconventional choice. But then she seldom understood anything outside her conformist experiences. Nor would many of his associates exhibit any more sympathy. He knew Viviane would throw these facts at him. He did not care about others’ opinions in the slightest, as long as he could convince her. Viviane was the only one who mattered.

  He wanted Viviane as his adored wife and devoted mother of his son. Jamie worshiped her and she seemed to love him
with equal intensity. Why should the opinions of others then be of any significance?

  Commissioner Randall smiled a lot through dinner.

  “Could I give you more wine, my dear? I know you drink little, but this is mild and very good.”

  He held up the bottle, preferring not to call a waiter to the table.

  Viviane smiled her beautiful, knowing smile and shook her head. He kept the conversation light and on general topics until dessert. He doubted he was fooling Viviane about his seeming lack of purpose.

  Viviane spooned the last of a delicious trifle into her mouth, as Randall watched her lips lick the last bit and wished they were someplace private.

  “Devon, you’re looking like a child denied a treat.”

  He crossed his long legs under the table and looked at her, his yearning for a different kind of dessert evident on his face.

  Viviane’s smile vanished.

  Devon groaned.

  “I’d hoped to ply you with a little more wine before I got serious, my dear. But as usual, you can see through me as if I were a two-way glass.”

  He reached over and took her hand as it lay on the table. With the sweetest smile he’d ever seen, she covered his hand with her other one.

  “Devon Randall, you’re forty-eight years old. Don’t you yet know you shouldn’t try to keep secrets from a woman who loves you?”

  He half rose from his chair with delight, but then something on her face made him sit slowly back down again.

  “You’ve just said the words among all those under heaven I most want to hear. Why do I feel there’s something more I’m not going to like at all?”

  Viviane for the first time did not look directly at him. One of the traits he most treasured was the way her steadfast gaze locked on his own. He never had the slightest doubt Viviane was honest in all she did and said.

  “You are too honorable a man to want any relationship beside marriage. And while I will gladly consent to be your mistress, I will not marry you.”

  For once Randall allowed his face to show exactly what he felt. Which was shock and horror at her suggestion.