He grew frustrated as they didn’t seem to find a trace of her. Michael even asked a few discrete questions of some of the shopkeepers he knew. No one had seen the woman.
“We should probably head back soon,” Michael finally said, his voice pitched so only Eric would hear. “Your lady-mother will be worried otherwise.”
“I’m not giving up,” Eric said through gritted teeth. “We’ll lose time if we have to keep going back and forth. Let’s find an inn to stay at tonight, so that we can resume our search first thing tomorrow morning.”
“As you wish, sir,” Michael said, nodding. “There’s a place a few streets over that has a decent reputation. Best to let me do all the talking.”
Eric nodded, still searching the street for any sign of Charlene. Finally, though, he had to give up his search for the night. It was getting dark enough that even if he were to see the woman, he might not recognize her. He followed Michael to the inn and they got a room.
The food the innkeeper’s daughter served them was greasy and lukewarm, but Eric didn’t have much of an appetite anyway. He went upstairs afterwards even though he still felt restless and unsettled at the thought of Charlene out there on her own.
Had someone taken her in and given her a place to stay? He doubted that she had had much coin on her when she ran away. She must have found someplace safe to sleep, though. Otherwise, surely she would have returned to her aunt’s.
He was curious about the girl’s story. But he wouldn’t know what happened to her until he found her. He only hoped he could find her in the morn. She shouldn’t miss her father’s trial.
Sleep did not come easily for him that night, but eventually, he managed to get some rest. His dreams were filled with Charlene’s face.
More than once, he woke from nightmares of finding her body sprawled out on one of the back streets.
He rose at dawn to continue searching. He had to find her. He simply had to.
Chapter 29
Miss Charlene Ellington
Charlene was relieved to finally find another apothecary that she could stay at. Of course, the situation there wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t the nicest part of town, and she couldn’t help but feel that everyone else who lived there was staring at her.
At first, she was worried that she had been recognized. Then, she worried that it was because she stood out from the rest of them.
She tried her best to hide her manners and her education, but surely some of them were intelligent enough to see through her act. There were some things about her manners that she just couldn’t seem to change.
It took her a while and a couple awkward gropes before she realized why they were really staring at her. It made her cheeks flame just to think about it. She tried simply to focus on her work.
Things certainly weren’t done to the same level of protocol here. A woman like her, on her own, was seen as an open invitation. She was just glad that one of the older women had taken a shine to her and kept the men away from her.
This is the way my life is now, Charlene thought grimly to herself. I’d better get used to it.
She tried her best not to think about her former life. If these grubby men and women only knew. But Charlene would never tell them about it.
“Teresa – work!” the shopkeeper snapped at her. She hurriedly busied her hands with the mortar and pestle.
There was one good thing about working there, which was that she had to pay attention to what she was doing. Her whole focus was on the task before her, and she couldn’t possibly think about her father or her aunt or any of the rest of them.
Eric.
Those thoughts always came to her at night. She tossed and turned restlessly most nights. No matter how much she lied that it was the hard and uncomfortable mattress, she knew that even the plushest bed in the world would afford her no sleep now.
She felt guilty for leaving Helene behind. She felt guilty for missing her father’s funeral, because she was almost certain that she had by now. Unless somehow, Eric has managed to talk the judge into another hold…
What were the chances of that, though? Lord Ambrose might not have the same social standing as Eric, but he was the chief investigator, and he wanted this trial to go off as quickly as possible.
Still, as the days went by and Charlene didn’t hear anything, she was sure there must have been another pause.
Surely with how angry people had been over Lord Henrich’s death, she would have heard something? Then again, the ton had taken it as a direct attack on them. These working-class men and women didn’t really care about the death of some lord.
Charlene tried not to think too hard about everything that she would miss out on in light of her new situation in life. The nobility had never felt so far away as they did now.
She might be in the same city, but barely a rumor of the upper classes came here. She would never hear if Matilda married. She would never hear news of her aunt.
But she was certain that she had nowhere to go back home to. Everyone must be scandalized about her abrupt departure. She had only given them one more thing to talk about. She had only given them a new set of terrible names to call her by.
She couldn’t find it in herself to care anymore. Let them call her what they would.
The only insult that she cared about was the fact that they were all likely still claiming her father was a murderer. That was unforgivable.
Charlene hadn’t been able to find out any more information about Harvey, and by now, she had mostly given up on trying. She just couldn’t balance that search on top of her busy work schedule during the day, and after a few nights sleeping out on the streets, she had no desire to lose her position here. At least she had a roof over her head.
Even if she had to worry that one of these nights, one of the men was going to force his way into her bed. She’d be more worried about that out on the streets.
She wondered if Helene was still searching for her, wanting her niece back in spite of the scandal that Charlene had brought to the family name. When she thought back to how she must have looked at the theatre, she felt ashamed.
Her father had raised her to be better than that. Aunt Helene had always had such high hopes for her, too. As Charlene lay in her bunk staring at the rough ceiling, she smiled bitterly. Look where she had ended up.
She couldn’t help but miss Eric. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the kisses and the passion that she longed for. She felt too numb to miss that.
No, what she missed was the way that he smiled. The way that he assured her that everything was going to be all right. She missed his confidence and his solid presence in her life.
She missed the gentle brush of his fingers on her cheek and the warm feeling of his chest beneath her cheek as they embraced.
She would drive herself mad if she continued to think about him, though. He had promised her that he would do the impossible, and yet she still had expected him to come through for her. That wasn’t fair, but it tarnished the vision of the duke that she had in her head.
Somehow, she would have expected that if he couldn’t prove her father innocent, he would have told her so. Instead, he had lied and insisted that he was able to do the crazy task that she had set to him.
She felt tears prick the corners of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. That part of her life was over now. No sense in crying about it. This was her life now.
As guilty as she felt for having run away, there was a part of her that definitely felt glad for what she had done. She could never accept Lord Ambrose’s marriage proposal, regardless of the outcome of the trial. And she dared not face the shame society brought against her.
No, she was positive that if she had stayed there in her aunt’s home, regardless of the outcome of the trial, she would have died of shame.
She finally managed to drop off to sleep for a few hours. She woke feeling ever more exhausted. She only hoped that one of these days, her continued exhaustion would make it easier for her body to slip
into sleep at night. If not, well, she supposed she would just have to get used to this feeling.
She headed to the apothecary even earlier than usual that morning. Her boss wasn’t there yet, but there was a new man in there. Her hackles immediately went up. “Who are you?” she asked, freezing just inside the door.
“I work here,” the man said, raising an eyebrow at her.
Charlene frowned. The owner of the apothecary hadn’t mentioned that there was anyone else working there, but she supposed it made sense.
This was one of the most visited apothecary’s in this part of the city, and it would have been impossible for one person to keep the place operational. Charlene had only begun to work here recently.
Still, she couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable there with him, alone in the shop. Perhaps it was the fact of her upbringing: she knew that she shouldn’t be alone with a man, not under these circumstances.
She was unmarried still, and although things were done differently in these parts of the city, she doubted that they were done so differently.
What should she do, though? She couldn’t lose her job here, and she couldn’t ask him to leave until she had some explanation from the apothecarist.
The man slid closer to her as she worked, until he was practically breathing down her neck as he watched over her shoulder.
“You have the most beautiful, dainty hands,” the man said in an undertone.
Charlene glanced to the other side, but there was still no one else to overhear the man’s comments. She tried not to grimace. She tried especially hard not to cringe with worry and discomfort.
Why were men all so horrible?
Not all men… She pushed thoughts of Eric out of her mind, though, and forced herself to concentrate.
“Sir, I’m simply not interested,” she said coolly.
He barked out a laugh. “Well, all right then,” he said affably. He winked at her. Charlene couldn’t help but feel nauseous.
She wondered why his face looked so familiar. She almost felt as though she ought to know the man. But here in this part of the city, it was so unbelievably impossible that she would know anyone. She had never been to these parts before. No one that she knew had been.
Probably, he simply looked like someone else that she had met since she was here in Whitechapel. That was the only thing that could possibly make sense.
Fortunately, when she refused to say anything else, the man fell silent. Charlene could feel his eyes on her still, but he didn’t say anything else.
Charlene had resigned herself to a lifetime alone. Even though she knew that her virginity likely made no difference anymore, she still didn’t have any desire to couple with anyone.
Eric would only ever be the only one for her. Even if he wasn’t…the one for her.
She sighed and tried to focus on her work. Somehow, it was difficult for her to do. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she knew this man sitting beside her.. But she had no idea why.
Chapter 30
Mr. Harvey Parsons
Harvey could hardly believe that Charlene hadn’t recognized him. Of course, he hadn’t been so foolish as to go by his real name here at the apothecary. And she had practically ignored him after her warning about the fact that she wasn’t going to be with him.
He wasn’t interested in her either. At least, not in the way that she seemed to expect that he was. He had plans for her, sure, but they had nothing to do with sleeping with her.
He knew that he was meant to be lying low. His employer had told him that he shouldn’t be anywhere near London anymore. Nor near Bath. Unless he was called back for another position, he was meant to disappear.
However, it wasn’t as though anyone knew of his involvement in Lord Henrich’s death. So why should he be made to disappear, to hide in the shadows for the rest of his life? It was enough that he wasn’t allowed to tell everyone what he had done.
He wanted everyone to know that he was the one who had killed Lord Henrich. He certainly wanted everyone to know that he had been the one to put the blame wrongfully on that foolish doctor. He would have to wait at least until after the doctor hanged first, though.
He wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize seeing Dr. Ellington sentenced to death in disgrace.
It wasn’t enough just to see the doctor die, however. He wanted to destroy the daughter as well. She had stood by and watched as her father brought that ludicrous case before the medical college. She could have stood up for him. She could have reminded everyone that he had never done anything to harm her.
She had never paid him even the slightest attention. She had avoided being in the same room as him. Now, she couldn’t avoid him any longer, but she thought that all he wanted was to have sex with her.
His obsession with her went a lot deeper.
What a foolish girl.
He remembered her from when he had first started working for her father. She had been jealous of his position then. She seemed to have thought that he was taking over her space. It was a space that she could never have deserved. She was a foolish female, and her father was one of the best doctors in Bath.
That was what Harvey had thought, that was. Until Dr. Ellington had made a fool of him and driven him out of the older man’s practice, and indeed out of medicine entirely.
Harvey knew that he had never done anything worthy of the ill repute that the doctor had graced him with. A true scientist needed to experiment, else no new discoveries would ever be made.
Dr. Ellington, in Harvey’s opinion, should never be called a scientist at all, no more than a minstrel should be mistaken for a bard.
The doctor deserved whatever he got. And his daughter deserved whatever punishment he could give her as well.
He had known that it would be a risk to be this close to her. What if she recognized him? He knew that Duke Cumberland of Havenport was trying his damndest to determine who had really killed Lord Henrich.
The man had become quite a pest, really. But he had yet to find Harvey, and Harvey would bet that the man lacked sufficient evidence to really bring him to trial.
He had decided to take the risk when it came to the girl. What were the chances that she would remember him? Now, he was glad that he had taken that risk.
Clearly Charlene was so caught up in her thoughts about herself that she wouldn’t look past whatever was right in front of her nose.
Harvey was safe. When the time was right, he would show the foolish chit just how unsafe she truly was. The world could be cruel. Fate, he had decided, should be just as cruel to her as it had been to him.
He would disgrace her. He would harm her.
He simply did not know whether to do it before or after her father’s death. If he killed her before the doctor was hanged, then someone might realize that there was something amiss.
Someone might look a little deeper into things and find that the doctor had in fact not been the one to poison Lord Henrich.
Harvey almost liked that idea. How would it be if Dr. Ellington had to live the remainder of his life without his dear daughter? Yet he knew that his employer would be angry with him for refusing to lay low as he had promised. His employer would be certain that Harvey would lead the investigators right back to him.
Harvey had no desire to invite his employer’s vengeance. The man had an evil streak that was not to be trifled with.
So perhaps he would be better off waiting until the conclusion of the doctor’s trial. As much as Harvey tended to be impatient, he had to admit that there was a certain pleasure to be found in that. He felt like a spider, spinning his web, just waiting for the woman to do something too stupid.
Perhaps he would befriend her first. Convince her to trust him. Convince her that he wasn’t like other men, who apparently only wished to bed her. He would become her confidant. And then, when she counted him as a friend, he would reveal to her who he really was. Her father’s killer.
She would be distraught. He would lock her away in
some dank basement, where she could do nothing but think on the fact that he had killed her dear old man. He would continue to toy with her. To use her. To ruin her.
And when he grew tired of her, he would kill her too.
Harvey glanced sidelong at the woman. She was working resolutely with mortar and pestle, making no sign that she was aware of him at all anymore. But he knew that she must be.
He wished that he could hear her heartbeat. To feel her fragile little pulse beneath his fingertips. He held her life in his hands. And she didn’t even know it.
He felt lust surge through him. But it wasn’t her body that he desired, not in that way. It was the sense of power that stirred his body to attention.
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