Fearless (Scarlet Suffragette, Book 1): A Victorian Historical Romantic Suspense Series

by Nicola Claire

  The Whitechapel Murderer one newspaper article declared. Leather Apron another shouted in bold print. Ghastly Murder In the East End a third pronounced.

  My eyes skipped to the closest post-mortem report. Five teeth missing and slight laceration to the tongue for Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols. A bruise marred the right side of her face, the surgeon had written. My hand lifted to my own cheek, feeling the tenderness left by Entrican. I shook myself and moved closer to the board, searching, searching, searching for what I was unsure. But determined to find it.

  The body was terribly mutilated, one line read. The throat was dissevered deeply, the same report went on to say. The blade six to eight inches long and sharp and narrow.

  There was indication of anatomical knowledge, it said of Annie Chapman. Again the neck had been cut. For Catherine Eddowes he’d drawn the intestines out and placed them carefully over her right shoulder. Like an ornament on a Christmas tree. Her ear had been cut. Her face mutilated, eyelids sliced. She’d bled out from a carotid artery puncture.

  Mary Kelly was found naked, her abdomen eviscerated. Her breasts had been cut off. Jack had placed the viscera around the body, parts beneath the head, between her toes, under her arms. A macabre stage set for the bobbies.

  I let a slow breath of air out and just stood there, staring at it all, not truly taking any more of the horrific information in. Wondering at its presence, its depth of detail, some of which I had never read nor heard of. It took more effort than it should have, turning to face the inspector. Who throughout my perusal had remained some distance away, patiently waiting for me to finish.

  “You were in H Division,” I finally said, my voice sounding slightly alien to me.

  “I was,” Kelly confirmed, his own voice subdued. He stood beside the fire, his face flushed with colour either from heat or embarrassment, I could not say. His clothes were still dripping water, the shirt clinging to his large frame in places, making it difficult to pull my eyes away.

  I shivered and he took a step closer; his limp so much more pronounced than mere moments ago, when he’d carried the additional burden of my weight.

  “Come by the fire,” he said gently, halting in his advance. And then he stepped away, from the heat, from me, allowing a clear path towards the hearth should I need it.

  “Why did you leave?” I asked, looking between him and the board, ignoring the lure of the flickering flames.

  “The Ripper stopped killing,” he admitted. “Although there were always deaths to be dealt with in Whitechapel.”

  “That’s not why you left,” I pointed out; a guess, but an educated one. I knew Andrew Kelly, even if he tried his level best to keep a distance between us, I knew him.

  He hadn’t been the only one to engineer meetings and direct my father’s conversations.

  “No, it’s not,” he said and elaborated no further.

  “You won’t say?” I enquired, finally advancing on the fireplace, needing the warmth when the world was full of such evil.

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “Three years,” I pointed out, raising my gloved hands to the flames, and then thinking better of it and removing the sodden garments to bare naked fingers to heat.

  “Three years can be a lifetime,” he murmured.

  “One of which it took you to arrive here,” I pressed. “Where did you go when you left H Division?”

  “Anna,” Kelly started.

  “This,” I said, interrupting him and indicating the board with a flick of my now warmed hand. “This is not closure. This is not over for you. Why? Because of the Suffragette murders? Is that why you’ve brought this out and put it up in your…” I glanced around the large open spaced room, noting the table and two chairs, the bed in the corner, with clothes hanging on a rack. The chest of drawers, the soft armchair near the fire, the books beside it on a small occasional table.

  This was his home, I realised. Not just his “Not so private operations room.”

  I glanced back at the board, took in the wear of the notes and articles and photos. The discolouration of the paper, the curve of the edges. The small rust marks left by the pins.

  “You haven’t just put this up, have you?” I asked. My chest aching, my heart beating too swiftly.

  “No,” he said so quietly it was difficult to hear.

  “He got away,” I said, understanding. “He got away and you don’t like that.”

  “Justice was not served,” he commented, running a hand through his damp hair and slowly letting out a beleaguered sigh. His shoulders drooped once he’d done it, as though he’d been holding himself rigid as I’d stared into the darkest parts of his soul.

  “This murderer,” I said softly. “The one who has killed Margaret and Mary and Helen,” saying their names had not become easier, but vital all of a sudden, faced with this room, “he is not The Ripper.”

  “I know,” Kelly remarked, walking toward the armchair and looking down at it, as if considering whether sitting would be a good idea or not.

  It must not have been, because he turned and began to pace.

  “Yet you taunt yourself with his crimes every day. Every night. Why?” I asked, my desperation to understand resounding clearly in my tone.

  “I do not like unfinished business,” he declared, stopping beside the table and staring down at a book that had been left open there. He reached out and slowly closed it, then picked the book up and carried it to a shelf. I noted the image on the dust cover; a flower. But could not read the text.

  “Have you discovered it?” I asked, moving from the heat of the flames towards him. I did not feel their absence when I drew nearer to his body. “The flower on the notepaper,” I said, reaching for the book on the shelf and coming up short when Kelly’s hand wrapped around my wrist.

  I turned to look at him, my arm still clasped in his grip. His face was impassive, but his eyes shone with something I couldn’t quite decipher. Panic? I wasn’t sure.

  “Anna,” he said in what was clearly a pleading tone.

  “What is it?” I pressed, shifting closer, looking up into the dark depths of his gaze.

  So consuming.

  He slowly reached up and removed the pins that held my hat in place, then took the millinery off and placed it to the side.

  “You’re still wet through,” he murmured

  “I don’t feel wet through,” I whispered back.

  His lips twitched at the edges, and then he stepped back, leaving me chilled.

  “Remove the coat and sit beside the fire, I’ll make you a hot cup of tea.”

  I watched him walk off towards his kitchenette and then shrugged out of his coat as directed. I placed it on the table, my eyes alighting on the book sitting in its place on the shelf. I wouldn’t reach for it; he didn’t want me to. But that did not mean I wouldn’t ask.

  “You’re hiding something, Inspector,” I remarked, as I removed my own cloak and added it to his on the table’s surface.

  “You’re wrong, Miss Cassidy,” he replied, without looking back from his task.

  “The flower means something,” I murmured, moving toward the fireplace. The thought of not following his instructions didn’t even cross my mind. Without his nearness, I did indeed feel wet through.

  He didn’t deign to answer my comment.

  “I’d hazard a guess, the board means something as well,” I added. He did look at me then. Just briefly, just long enough for me to know I was right. “Why did you leave?” I repeated.

  “I injured myself,” he said. Too swiftly. Too easily. Andrew Kelly did his level best to hide his limp. He used a cane, but many gentlemen did for little more than the look of it.

  The limp, though, he hid. And sometimes, it hid from him.

  “Chasing The Ripper?”

  “Indeed,” he replied, moving closer with a tray of tea and biscuits. For a bachelor he did rather well. “Drink,” he instructed, handing me a steaming cup. I wrapped my hands around the hot porcelain gr
ateful for the added warmth.

  The room had heated some, but these barracks had not been made to be homely.

  “Will you tell me how it happened?”

  He stared down at me from his superior height, leaning against the mantel of the hearth. Dark eyes assessed me, dipping no lower than my mouth. I must have looked a sight, drenched through, dishevelled, practically undressed before the man. But he remained a gentleman, and kept his eyes only on my face, my lips.

  “It was a fire,” he said carefully. The crackle of the wood on the andiron made a statement all its own.

  But his proximity to the flames intrigued me, in light of his admission. He did not fear it. No, it was more of a challenge, I should think.

  Little scared Andrew Kelly.

  “You were burnt?” I asked softly, taking a sip of my tea and watching his eyes watch me.

  He nodded, shaking himself out of the moment and glancing across the room toward the table and bookshelf.

  “A beam came down and trapped me,” he said, his mind no doubt back in that burning building, back in the inferno of his past. “I was sure I would not escape death.”

  “And The Ripper did this?” I asked, aghast.

  He didn’t reply. The omission was as much an answer as if he had voiced one.

  Who else had the inspector been chasing?

  Although there were always deaths to be dealt with in Whitechapel.

  “So you left H Division? Left Whitechapel?” I asked, finishing off the last of my tea and placing the cup and saucer on the tray again.

  “I left and will never go back.”

  “And here you are,” I said more brightly, not liking his heavy tone, nor the notion I was the cause of it.

  “And here I am. Inspector of Police again.” He glanced at the board and frowned. “Investigating murders again.”

  “It is what you do, Andrew,” I said softly. “Seek justice for those who cannot.”

  His gaze came back to me, a sadness and weight to it that I had not seen before.

  “I wish it were so, Anna,” he whispered. “I wish it were so.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I wasn’t sure what to do. I wanted desperately to go to him, but Inspector Andrew Kelly had ghosts in his past he did not wish to share with me.

  The pain I felt at that realisation was enough to wake me up again.

  “So, the Suffragette killer,” I announced. “How do you intend to stop him without me?”

  His sharp gaze flicked back to my face and he frowned.

  “I will not use you as bait, Miss Cassidy.”

  “Then he will get away. Again.”

  I stood up and walked toward the board purposefully, feeling his eyes on my back as I took each measured step. I looked toward the flower book on its shelf, aware Kelly would track my line of sight as well.

  When I finally turned toward him - hands clasped before me, shoulders set, back straight, chin lifted - I declared, “And justice will not be served.”

  His jaw flexed, his fingers twitched, wanting no doubt to curl into fists, but he only muttered, “Damn it, woman,” under his breath. “Your father was bloody well right.”

  I smiled.

  “Spare me your winsome talents, Miss Cassidy,” he growled in obvious frustration. “You’re a danger to yourself and other men.”

  My smile turned into an arched look of disbelief.

  Really, he could be so very dramatic sometimes.

  But he hadn’t said no.

  The smile returned in full. Whether it was “winsome,” I could not say.

  Twenty-Three

  Except Myself

  Inspector Kelly

  I let out a huff of disgruntled breath and just shook my head. She beguiled me. And that was the problem, wasn’t it?

  She beguiled me too damn much.

  “And how, pray tell, do you suggest we bait a murderer?” I demanded. The thought of placing Anna in danger left me in a cold sweat. My vow to her father aside, Anna was the most precious thing in my life. I could not lose her. Even if I could never have her.

  “It would need to be public.”

  Heaven help me, she was serious.

  “Go on,” I said, regretting the words already.

  “He believes we are kindred,” Anna continued, warming her hands on the heat from the fire. I watched as she turned them, over and over, delicate fingers, such a thin wrist. Pale skin. Blood against her complexion would indeed be scarlet. “Your words, Inspector,” she pointed out. “Perhaps if he witnesses my disgruntlement and frustration at achieving my goals, he’ll show himself.”

  I reached up a hand and scratched my chin, trying futilely to rein in my temper.

  “And how would you show your disgruntlement, Miss Cassidy?”

  She frowned slightly, a most appealing furrow forming between her brows.

  “Mr Entrican is to deliver his rescheduled mayoral speech tomorrow. Perhaps I could make a scene there.”

  I closed my eyes briefly, sucking in a fortifying breath of air.

  “So, not only do you intend to draw the killer’s attention to your person, but you also intend to endanger those in attendance at a mayoral race speech.”

  “Well, when you put it like that.” She frowned some more.

  Then brightened. I did not trust that perked up look one little bit.

  “I am sure you could have policemen in plain clothes dotted about for the security of the audience. And you cannot tell me you have not considered this sort of practice before now. How else do you call out your criminals?”

  “Preferably with as little collateral damage as possible,” I murmured.

  “He’s killed every night since Monday,” she immediately argued. I feared she was winding up. “He will kill again tonight.” I grimaced at the accuracy of the statement and the fact that, yes, Anna was on a roll. “What have you planned to prevent it, Inspector?”

  “I…”

  “Have you a clue who this devil even is?”

  “We…”

  “No. You have not. No scheme in place to ensure he does not perform his heinous skills on another woman. No identities to help direct your investigation further. You are at a loss, aren’t you? So what, pray tell, do you intend to do?”

  If she wasn’t so damn perfect, I’d throttle her.

  “I have men informing all of the Suffragettes to remain with someone and indoors all evening and night. I have increased the presence of uniformed constables by one hundred and fifty percent for the twilight hours and into dark, both on suburban streets which house a Suffragette and in public locations such as parks, halls and walkways. I have assigned my top men to various activities involved in identify all those people in attendance at the deputy mayor’s speech on Monday - the inception of the crimes. I have more scouring the dockyard area, looking into the activities that occurred the evening Mary Bennett expired. And then I have myself gone over every single detail of every single crime, including post-mortem reports and eye witness accounts and the physical location of every single piece of evidence when it had been found. I am not sitting by idly while a murderer is on the loose, Miss Cassidy, and I resent your comments most vigorously.”

  I was breathing far too quickly by the time I’d finished and Anna was looking up at me with big, grey eyes. But I could not tell what was going on behind that beautiful stormy colour. And I could only guess at the shock she must have felt at being spoken to in such a manner. I sucked in a harsh breath of air and went to open my mouth, intent on apologising profusely.

  “Good,” she said, halting the words on my tongue. “That is a start.”

  “Pardon?”

  “But have you included his knowledge of chemicals and drugs, and in particular his dallying in the opium market?”

  The air rushed out of me and so did my temper.

  “We are aware he used opium on Miss Nelson,” I said carefully. Anna didn’t even blink. She’d distanced herself from the victims. She’d done whatever
was necessary to allow her to continue to help. This woman shamed me. She could put to shame so many of my colleagues, with her aptitude and conviction and, yes, dedication to the task.

  But at what cost?

  I searched her face now for any hint of pain or agony. Any sign that she could not hold this weight aloft. I wanted to unburden her. Hell, I wanted to send her home under the watchful eyes of Constable Mackey, with firm instructions to hug her cousin and stay indoors. Better yet, I wanted to tie her to a chair by this very fire and watch her myself.

  My eyes strayed over to the bed in the corner of the room and all manner of inappropriate thoughts trailed after.

  I cleared my throat and brought my attention back to Anna. Not a hardship, but it didn’t help my wayward thoughts.

  “It is not certain where he would have obtained the Laudanum he used, but we have canvassed all available apothecaries and are attempting to spot anything out of the ordinary through a very thorough process of investigation.”

  “He uses it himself and not in a tincture.”

  “How can you be certain?”

  Anna walked over to the table and retrieved her magazine article from inside her reticule. She’d managed to avoid getting it too wet, protecting the damnable newspaper more than she’d protected herself. She returned with the magazine open to the article about Lazăr Edeleanu and his central nervous system stimulant drug. She handed me the paper, but I didn’t need to reread it.

  “Anna, we can’t be sure he has taken this chemical synthetic.”

  “To what else do you attribute his strength?”

  “We are uncertain at this time. But just because we did not find him at the last pugilist ring, does not mean he won’t be at another.”

  “And how many pugilists have you already investigated, Inspector?” She arched her brow and crossed her arms over her chest, foot tapping impatiently for my answer.

  “Enough to know he has hidden himself well,” I reluctantly admitted.

  “I’m telling you, Andrew, he takes this drug or one similar.”

  “Do you know of one similar? This phenyl-whatever-it-is is relatively new.” I looked down at the article and said, “Discovered in 1887, to be precise. And most of the past three to four years has been given over to researching it further, rather than pushing it onto the market. It is not a readily available substance.”