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

by Nicola Claire

  “What the devil are you playing at?” he whispered urgently. “We’re here to observe, not scare the proprietor off.”

  “There is little to observe and less still to lead us to our killer,” I whispered back. “But the Chinaman has access to more than just opium and cannabis.”

  “Damnation, woman! How am I to protect you, if you constantly throw yourself in front of danger?”

  “Smoke the pipe,” I whispered back just as angrily. “We are being watched.”

  “Enough of this!” he said, moving to rise. “I’m delivering you home where you’ll be safe.”

  My hand reached out and gripped him by the wrist; I had no hope of holding him if he hadn’t let me. He stilled as my thumb swept across bare flesh beneath his glove. His body shuddering and then sinking to the chaise again, dark eyes on my face, lips wet where he’d just licked them.

  “A moment longer, Inspector,” I murmured. “Our Chinaman is intrigued.”

  He made a strangled sound, as if he wanted to agree with the sentiment but couldn’t quite manage the words to do so. He lifted the pipe to his lips with one hand and reached up to cup my head with the other. A puff of smoke lazily curled towards the ceiling, haloing his head in blue-green wisps that unfurled like pirouetting dancers. His fingers stroked through my hair as he effected a relaxed pose, lounging back on the chaise and practically lying on top of my semi-reclined body.

  “Is he watching still?” Kelly asked, voice low and more than husky. It was no doubt the smoke that had caused it, but my body said otherwise.

  I opened my mouth, closed it again, and then felt his fingers run down the side of my neck to rest in the hollow below my throat.

  “Anna?” he whispered, but didn’t say more.

  “He’s no longer watching,” I managed, my eyelids fluttering, unable to decide if I should let them close or keep them open. His palm flattened on my upper chest, just above my bodice. A fire began to burn.

  And then it was gone. His heat receding. My body more confused than my mind.

  I sucked in a deep breath, in the process inhaling the ambient smoke in the room, and then stifled a cough, my eyes watering.

  “He will not appear,” Kelly announced, his pipe up to his lips but no smoke unfurling. “It is too dangerous, even for the likes of him.”

  “There are no Suffragettes here,” I agreed. “And I fear he has his own supply of narcotics.”

  Kelly nodded in agreement, eyes continually assessing the people as they lounged.

  “What of the mayor’s son? Is he about?” I asked.

  “No. His involvement will be behind the scenes. If at all. The Chinaman will be their front.”

  “An establishment like this,” I offered, “would surely not be invited by the local authorities. Once you tell Chalmers, it won’t be long for this building.”

  “If it is mobile, it will appear somewhere else in time.”

  “Which leads one to suspect that there is a consortium of buildings available for such an enterprise.”

  The inspector turned his attention to me. I hadn’t moved far from my recline, not for want nor desire, but unable to forget his nearness, the feeling of him pressed, even slightly, against me. I was savouring it and my cheeks heated with that thought. Kelly let his gaze trail over my corset, and up over my flushed skin until it rested on my eyes. I watched as he swallowed visibly, his Adam’s apple rising and falling as though it might hurt.

  “So clever,” he murmured, his hand lifting from where he had it rested on his thigh and moving toward me. It hung in the air between us for a suspended moment, and then returned to his thigh.

  I sat up. Desperate for his touch. Bereft having been denied it.

  “I had not thought there would be others,” he murmured.

  “Others?” I asked, losing track of our conversation. Losing the ability to think at all, I feared.

  “Whether this has anything to do with our murderer, I cannot say,” he went on. “But I’ve seen enough to know it warrants further investigation.”

  “Dens are not illegal,” I declared, finally managing to catch up with the topic of discussion.

  “No, but since 1871 a vendor of opium must be registered and this Chinaman is not. Nor is the family trust the building is owned by.”

  He looked about the place, once again assessing the customers and then disregarding them. I agreed. Our murderer was not here. He was more intelligent than that. Drugs consumed or not. Our killer had a level of knowledge, as far as narcotic and stimulant substances went, that was beyond what could be found amongst those present.

  Even the Chinaman, I’d hazard a guess.

  “We retrieve Blackmore and return to ask questions,” Kelly announced. “However, I would prefer it if you were not involved.”

  “I am involved now, whether you want it or not. Some of these patrons are my clients.”

  The look he threw my way was most alarming. A kind of disbelief mixed with rage.

  “And you didn’t think to tell me that?” he growled, pulling me to my feet.

  I swayed slightly, and he clutched me close, chest to chest, legs to legs, groin to groin.

  His eyes found mine, his lips pressed in a thin line, his brow furrowed. I reached up and pressed a finger into the crease, trying futilely to flatten it.

  “You didn’t, perchance, inhale, did you?” he asked quietly.

  I lifted a hand up between us, and held my thumb and forefinger a half inch apart.

  “Maybe a little,” I offered with an overlarge smile.

  He looked down at me and didn’t say a thing. For a second I thought he was going to kiss me. I licked my lips. He closed his eyes. And then his forehead met mine and he sighed. It sounded weighted.

  “Anna,” he said, just as the door to the den smashed open and Sergeant Blackmore’s overloud voice rang out.

  “Sir!” he cried across the room, making the opium smokers groan and roll about jerkily. “It’s ‘im, sir,” he declared.

  “Who him?” Kelly demanded, not letting me go, but pulling back enough to stare hard at Blackmore.

  The sergeant swallowed, his eyes going wide when he looked at me. Or the inspector holding me. Or maybe the entire room and the smoke as it danced around my head.

  I heard Blackmore’s steps get closer, but I was too busy watching the Chinaman who smiled like a Cheshire cat.

  “The superintendent, sir,” he said, keeping his voice low. “He approaches in a curricle. Black as the night.”

  I stood upright, suddenly clear of head. Kelly was staring at the sergeant. The Chinaman was smiling on watching, waiting.

  Everything seemed to be suspended in that moment, in that second between fright and flight. The superintendent coming to a dark den. Coming to the dark den we happened to be investigating. And from the looks of it, he’d been invited.

  “I fear, sirs,” I declared, adjusting my hat on my head. “That we have been sold out.”

  “What the devil?” Kelly remarked.

  I separated myself from his embrace, rather reluctantly, but needs must. And crossed to the Chinaman, who greeted me warmly with a bow.

  “You play an interesting game, sir,” I advised.

  “No game. No game,” he said shaking his head.

  “Coincidence?” I asked. “I think not.”

  “Who called him here?” Kelly demanded from over my shoulder.

  “Not I,” the Chinaman rushed to offer.

  “One of your men?” Kelly looked behind the Chinaman to a curtained area, the visibility poor within.

  “Not I,” he repeated with that damnable smile.

  “Then you won’t mind if we make ourselves hidden,” I offered, indicating his curtained off area and handing the man a five pound note.

  He looked down at the note for quite some time. Too long. I feared the superintendent would barge through the door at any moment. Kelly’s hand came over my shoulder adding another fiver to the offering. And then a very disgruntled B
lackmore added his own.

  “Not a word,” I said to the now beaming and still nodding Chinaman. “On the name of your talented family… not a word.”

  His face sobered. He drew his hands together before him and bowed.

  “No word, nǚ shì. Not I.”

  I wasn’t sure if we could trust him, but we didn’t have a choice. One entrance, and one entrance only, to the building. If Chalmers caught me here, with Kelly and Blackmore on an official police investigation, there was no telling what he would do. The man actually did scare me. He held power that could mean my surgery, my livelihood. And he wielded it without shame or regret.

  Besides, I wanted to know what the superintendent was up to. Smoking a pipe was not illegal.

  But there was a murderer on the loose in these dens.

  Twenty-Five

  It Was All I Could Do Not To Smile

  Anna

  The superintendent stormed into the den as though the hounds of hell were on his heels. And he was not alone. Three uniformed constables accompanied him and immediately began to move between the opium customers, shifting them upright, shining light on their faces where the illumination was dim, rousing them from their stupor with demands for their names.

  The Chinaman ran forward, bobbing his head, hands out beseechingly, his broken English worse for the fear and anger he displayed.

  “You no harm,” he said, moving to intercept a constable as he roughly pulled a lounging lady toward his lamplight. “Leave be! Leave be!”

  “We have reason to believe you harbour a criminal,” the superintendent declared, ignoring the fretful pleas of the Chinaman.

  He smoothed down his long white whiskers as hard grey eyes assessed the scene. He showed neither reproach nor disgust at what he witnessed. Nor shame or guilt at having disturbed the people here. He had a job to do and simply did not care.

  The man was as hard as stone.

  “Are these the only people in your establishment?” he demanded, once the constables had grouped the opium users into three separate bundles. One consisted of all women, the next men of small stature. The last contained the two tall opium smokers I’d pinpointed for potential suspects in the Suffragette killings.

  I looked up at the inspector, standing beside me behind the curtain, watching the proceedings with thin lips and narrowed eyes. He wasn’t angry, per se, but he was not pleased with what was happening either.

  Chalmers was hunting the murderer. Kelly’s murderer. And the inspector had not been advised.

  “Stay here,” Kelly whispered, then looked toward Sergeant Blackmore and nodded his head. Both men swept past me and through the curtain before I could chance to offer any objection.

  My heart leapt into my throat as a constable shouted out, “Ho!” Billy clubs appearing in two of the three uniformed officers’ hands, before Inspector Kelly ordered, “Stand down, men. I’m your superior.”

  Chalmers, for his part, did not look surprised, but then the man was standing motionless without so much as an emotion reflected in his façade.

  “Inspector Kelly. I was not aware you were investigating this particular establishment,” he offered in way of greeting.

  “Mere yards from where the second victim was located,” Kelly advised. “Of course it was under suspicion. But your arrival has interrupted things.”

  “Things?” Chalmers pressed, glancing toward the curtained area where both Kelly and Blackmore had just emerged from. “And what things would those be?”

  “Why are you here, Ian?” Kelly enquired, not answering.

  “Following a lead.”

  “On my case?”

  “You are my subordinate, Andrew, must I remind you of that fact?”

  “Not at all, sir. But fair warning might have been appropriate.”

  Chalmers waved the statement away angrily. “Occasionally there is little time for such niceties. We received a tip-off.”

  He looked around the room assessing the patrons.

  “How long have you been here?” the superintendent asked.

  “An hour, no more.”

  “And no one has left in that time?”

  “None. What was your tip-off. Sir.” Added a tad late for the superintendent’s liking.

  “And have you uncovered any evidence that these men are suitable suspects?” he asked in an arched tone.

  Kelly hesitated, looking down at the men in question and avoiding the curtained area, where I stood, quite astutely.

  “Not as such,” he finally allowed.

  “Then what have you achieved, Inspector?” Chalmers leaned forward and sniffed loudly, inhaling Kelly’s scent, and, no doubt, the aroma of opium smoke. “Other than your own satisfaction.”

  Kelly bristled. “I resent that, sir.”

  “Then out with it. You’re hiding something.”

  I may not have particularly liked the superintendent, but I couldn’t deny his observational skills. My father had referred to him as the Old Owl. For his penchant for sitting unobserved above the melee and taking every single detail in through those large grey eyes..

  “This establishment is mobile. It was not as it appears two nights ago,” Kelly said carefully.

  Chalmers glanced around at the fresco and statues and caged bird.

  “Go on,” he encouraged.

  “It also provides more than just opium and hemp to its guests.”

  “And this is relevant how?”

  Kelly moved closer, in order to keep the conversation between Chalmers and himself, but they were both near enough to my curtained hiding hole to overhear. Although the Chinaman, deep in excited conversation with Blackmore and the constables, would not have been any the wiser.

  “We suspect the killer is taking a synthetic stimulant in addition to opium. In order to enhance his strength.”

  Chalmers was silent for so long, I feared he would not provide an answer to Kelly’s admission. But then his eyes lifted from where they’d been staring at the delicately patterned carpet to the curtained off area.

  “This is your suspicion, Inspector?” he asked, stepping forward before Kelly could stop him.

  He pulled the curtain aside as I frantically searched for a place to hide, and then reached in and wrapped a hard hand around my upper arm and hauled me out into the lamp light. “Or your woman’s?”

  He practically shook me on those last words. I bit my lip and fisted my hands, my eyes on the inspector and not the superintendent.

  “I should have known something like this would happen,” Chalmers growled. “Have a care, young lady, you are walking on rather thin ice.”

  I hadn’t said a word, but clearly the superintendent knew me rather well, and was getting his admonishments in early.

  “Miss Cassidy is aiding us in our enquiries,” Kelly offered, his own hands fisting ineffectually at his sides.

  “Why would you listen to a word this charlatan has to say, when we have a qualified surgeon on our payroll?” Chalmers demanded. He still had not released his tight grip on my arm; it was beginning to hurt fiercely.

  “Miss Cassidy has been well trained, sir. Dr Thomas Cassidy taught…”

  “She is not Thomas!” Chalmers yelled. “She is a meddlesome child who hasn’t accepted her father’s death. Who can’t let go of the past. And who you encourage most recklessly. You do her a disservice, Kelly. Not to mention make a laughing stock of yourself.”

  Chalmers had yelled at me before. And his thoughts on my skills as a physician were not new to me. But never had he used me as a weapon against Inspector Kelly. Never had I faced such agony as I did seeing the look of disbelief, followed by chagrin, that etched itself into Inspector Kelly’s face.

  “I have had enough of your interfering, Miss Cassidy,” Chalmers announced, turning me roughly to face him. “It is time you behaved as the young lady your father expected you to be.”

  I opened my mouth to argue that sentiment, but saw Kelly shake his head surreptitiously off to the side. He was right. The
re was no arguing with Chalmers this evening. Anything I had to say would be instantly dismissed. Ridden roughshod over in his mounting fury.

  “I have banned you from the station and thought that enough to make you understand,” Chalmers went on. “But it appears I must be more direct. You are not a surgeon, you are a partially trained doctor I grant, but not a police surgeon. And, young lady, you will never be, if I have anything to say about the matter.”

  My eyes burned, my chest felt tight. I could feel my nails digging into my palms through my gloves. I struggled to wrench myself free of his grasp, but the superintendent only tightened his hold, well beyond reason now, his face red, his jugular standing out at the side of his neck, his teeth grinding behind the twitching mass of his whiskers.

  “You leave me no choice,” he said in an even tone which frightened me more. Because he was not in any way stable, and the tone hid a wealth of anger I would have preferred to face head on. “As of now, your surgery will be under investigation. Your practises and patients subject to assessment. John Drummond shall oversee the enquiry, during which, you are forbidden to practice in any way, shape or form. Do you understand?”

  He shook me again on those last three hurtful words. My teeth rattled, my eyes finally gave up their valiant attempts to withhold tears, and a single drop cascaded down my cheek, burning a path through the heat of my anger and embarrassment.

  “Sir, this is quite unnecessary,” Kelly remarked, reaching up a hand towards where the superintendent still held on to me determinedly.

  Chalmers yanked me away from his grasp.

  “You, I’ll talk to back at the station,” Chalmers ground out. “Don’t think for a minute the chit is the only one receiving punishment tonight. I’ve had enough of these shenanigans.”

  He sucked in a breath of air, his gaze already alighting on one of the constables, when I said, “My father told me, you were a reasonable man.”

  Chalmers stilled at my voice, his hold on my arm weakening for a moment, and then tightening again when his eyes met mine.

  “He said he could bring any idea to you and you’d consider it in full before passing judgement,” I added. “He admired your open mind, your ability to see more than what was in front of you. He often mentioned your skill at marshaling your men; in particular your skill at using all available assets to their greatest potential. He respected you, and, I believe, he thought he had your respect as well.”