Ripped (37 page)

Collin sprang to his feet. “It's up to you and me, Katie!” he cried, waving his cigar in the air like a bandleader with a baton. “It's up to the two of us to stop Major Brown, who just happens to be Jack the Ripper . . . and clear Toby's name.”

With a thunderous
thwack!
the Duke crashed his cane down on the desk top. The sound of splintering wood reverberated across the room. The Duke's eyes were brilliantly alive. They roved around and around the room from Toby, to Katie, to Collin. “
By thunder
, we're not licked yet!” But his voice cracked just as the wood had a moment before with a sort of groaning, splintering defeat.

Chapter Forty-three

Murder and Mayhem say the loud bells of Bedlam

“
L
ooks as if it
'
s up to you
and me, Katie, old girl,” Collin said. “It's up to
us
to stop Jack the Ripper and clear Toby's name. I know you thought I was crazy when I challenged Major Brown to a duel. Don't deny it. I saw it in your eyes. But I won't let Scotland Yard take Toby away. Not Toby. He's my best friend and my cousin, er . . . illegitimate cousin to be sure, but cousin nonetheless. Major Brown won't get away with this, not while there's an ounce of breath left in my body.”

“What nonsense are you spouting off?” the Duke demanded, scowling at Collin. “You're not going anywhere, m'boy. I can save Toby's hide. Just like I saved yours. But you have to make a small, legal adjustment to your lifestyle.”

“Legal adjustment? Are you saying I should hand over my legal rights to my bastard cousin . . . ? Because if you are, well . . . that's a jolly good idea! We'll claim Toby is my legal cousin. We'll fake a birth certificate. Shouldn't be hard to do. Jolly good plan. I'm older than Toby by six months. This way you'll have an heir and a spare, as they say. Fancy that! Give me the documents and I'll sign on the dotted line! Good show, guv'nor. Major-
bloody
-Brown can't go after two ducal heirs!”

“I wasn't thinking of anything so . . . convoluted,” chuckled the Duke. “You'll have to sign, all right. But a document of a different sort. A marriage document.”

“Bloody hell!” Collin yelped. “I'm only seventeen!”

“You'll be eighteen in December. I was married to your grandmother at nineteen. You shall marry Prudence Farthington, the Earl of Dorchester's daughter. This is not a request or a polite how-d'you-do. It's an order.”

“But why on earth—?”

“Like you said,” the Duke roared with laughter. “I need an heir . . . and a spare.”

“Bloody hell! And how does this benefit Toby?”

When the Duke didn't answer, Collin turned to Katie and whispered, “Looks like you're on your own with Jack the Ripper, old girl.”

Hurrying out of the Duke's study, the three teenagers fled through the conservatory and down the hall into the large lofty library where Toby carefully locked the double doors behind them. When he turned and edged past Katie, their elbows touched, and they both flinched.

Watching Katie stride to the long windows at the far end of the library, Toby was all too aware of her physical presence. And when Katie fingered the velvet curtains and stared out at the garden beyond with its lush, green grass and thick line of willow trees, Toby could think of only one thing—in a very short time he would never see her again.

Now that he was under house arrest and soon to be locked up in Newgate Prison, Toby realized how difficult it would be to lose Katie. Just being in the same room with her made him ache in a way he would never have dreamed possible only a few short weeks ago. What were the odds he would fall in love with a girl from a different century who could travel through time? Or that Major Brown would come after him like a bulldog after a rat for the murder of Georgie Cross? He was doomed, past hope. Major Brown would never back down. And Katie, Toby felt sure, was as far from reciprocating his feelings as the moon was from the sun.

Toby tore his eyes from the girl.

Next to the fireplace, flanked by stone gargoyles, Collin had plunked himself down on an overstuffed sofa and was staring up at the top section of the library with its iron balcony circling above. A tea service had been set on a book table next to the sofa, with a plate of biscuits and a silver bowl brimming with butterscotch toffees. There was a strong scent of wood smoke from the lone log crackling in the fire grate.

Collin reached for a butterscotch toffee, took careful aim, and chucked it into the fire where it sizzled and smoked and sent off a burnt-caramel odor.

Katie continued staring out the window. There was a chill in the vaulted library despite the blaze of sunlight outside in the garden and the fire in the grate. On the trees in the distance, Katie could see fluttering leaves tipped in yellow and gold, hinting at the autumn to come. A sparrow swooped past the upper window. Everything outside looked bright and cheerful and full of promise, unlike inside where gloom had descended as palpable as the chill in the air.

Behind her, Collin tossed another butterscotch candy into the flames, followed instantly by a tiny
pop!
as the sugary glob bubbled and blistered and sent off a pungent toffee smell.

With a sigh, Katie swiveled back to the others, avoiding Toby's eyes. But his face, she saw instantly, was grim and strained as he paced the room. Collin, too, appeared morose as he continued hurling butterscotch torpedoes into the protesting flames.

“
Bloody hell
,” Collin finally muttered, pitching a handful of the hard candy all at once into the fire where it crackled loudly, then burst into a staccato of small cork-popping sounds.

Poor Collin, Katie thought. The Duke had made it clear that Collin had no choice but to become engaged to Prudence Farthington.
And if the family history in Grandma Cleaves
'
s Bible is correct, Collin will marry Prudence, have a child, and accidently drown in a peat bog all within the next y
ear.
There were dark circles below Collin's reddish-blond lashes, making the whites of his eyes, usually so luminous and clear, appear yellow and dull.
I can
'
t tell Collin that he has only a year to live! That
'
s a terrible thing to know . . . like having an anvil hanging over your head that
'
s attached to a ticking bomb. And if we stop Jack the Ripper, that means we can change history. And if we change history, that means Collin
'
s death isn
'
t inevitable . . .

“It's freezing in here,” Collin shouted in a peevish whine. “Ring for Stebbins to add more logs to the fire!” He clamped his eyes on Toby. And although Collin didn't actually snap his fingers, the effect was the same, as if to say, “Do as I say and hop to it!”

Toby shook his head. “No. We need to talk without interruption. We need to formulate a plan. I've been thinking . . .”

“Well, that makes bloody two of us!” Collin grabbed the last butterscotch candy from the bowl and was about to pitch it into the flames when he tossed it high up into the air and caught it in his mouth like a trained seal. “
Katie
!
” he slurped, chomping with such fervor, her name sounded like “Kay-we.”

“What's that look on your face?” he demanded, sucking harder on the butterscotch. “Like your dog just died.”

Katie's stomach lurched. She quickly glanced away.

Toby was standing off to the side, his elbow resting on a middle rung of the library ladder. She met his gaze. He looked calm and unruffled . . . and, well . . . handsome. No matter what Major Brown was about to accuse Toby of, no matter what obstacles he threw in Toby's path, Katie felt sure Toby would win out.
He has
to,
she told herself. Otherwise, how would he end up on the moors with Collin a year from now?
I need to warn Toby again. He can
'
t let Collin go anywhere near the moors
.

Toby was looking at her with a strange expression. “All right,” he said, “we know—
or at least, Katie has told us
—who the next five victims will be, and when and where the Ripper will strike. We have the
how
and
where—
just not the
why
.”

“
Or
the who. We don't know for sure that Major Brown is Jack the Ripper,” Katie said.

“We bloody well do!” Collin shouted, his face flushing purple.

Toby nodded, his dark eyes intense. “If your information is correct, Katie, it shouldn't be too difficult to save those girls.”

“And
how
exactly”—Collin frowned—“do you propose to save anyone while under house arrest? Last time I looked, ‘house arrest' meant being confined to one's domicile.”

“I've some mates in the East End who will help. Let's go over the list again. The next two victims to die at the hands of the Ripper are Molly Potter and Catherine Eddowes on September thirtieth. Is that correct?” Toby turned his full attention on Katie.

She nodded. “A double murder on the same night. Molly Potter on Berner Street in Whitechapel, and then just before midnight, Catherine Eddowes in Mitre Square.”

Katie's mind flashed back to the Chamber of Horrors and the hologram woman with the apple cheeks and church-organ voice describing how Molly Potter had been seven months pregnant. The thought of the poor girl's evisceration at the hands of a homicidal maniac sent a chill up her spine.

“
Forget
Jack the Ripper!” Collin sprang to his feet. His red hair, darker at the edges, spiked out around his head like a kid who'd put his finger in a light socket.

“This is all hearsay and speculation.
Clairvoyant
speculation,” Collin sputtered indignantly. “And in case you weren't
listening,
my grandfather wants to fry me in oil! Marry me off to Prudence Farthington! This isn't the dark ages. I refuse to be bullied into an arranged marriage. God's eyeballs! I know I'm ahead of my time, but I have this forward-thinking notion that one
ought
to have at least a bit of . . . well . . .
passion
for the girl one is to marry. I suppose you think that's unreasonable. But there you are. It's how I feel. The very idea of an arranged marriage to Horseface Farthington is as hateful to me as, well . . . drowning in a bedpan full of slops!”

Katie bit back a weak smile. “I remember your telling me you were
fond
of Prudence. And would be very glad if she accepted you. A feather in your cap, you said.”

“
Piffle!
I remember no such thing. I'm being forced to marry someone I don't give a fig for! This isn't the olden days! I've got new-fangled, modern ideas. Oh, all right. I'll concede there are some sound reasons for arranged marriages—provided you at least
like
the other person—the nobility must, after all, maintain bloodlines and keep their titles up to snuff. But
God
'
s teeth!
I don't feel the sort of passion for Horseface-Prudence that I feel for . . . say . . . er . . . Dora Fowler. Now there's the girl for me!”

Toby cast a sharp glance at Collin. “
Dora Fowler?
That's a bloody rum joke. Dora can't hold a candle to Prudence. What's more, you've been rattling on lately about how much you adore ‘old Prudie.' You said she has smashing Scotch eggs and beautiful pork pies.”

“Horseface-Prudence? Nice legs? Beautiful eyes?
Sata
n
'
s elbow!
I don't give two hoots for old horseface's legs or eyes . . . or her bones, teeth, or curvaceous . . . well, never mind. She has a damnable good, er . . . carriage. But never mind that. I don't give a tinker's toenail about her now that I've met Dora Fowler.” Collin marched across the room to a bookshelf and snatched up a bronze ram's head wedged between a two-volume The Tragedy of
King Richard the Third.

“What chance do I have of happiness”—Collin railed, waving the ram's head in the air—“if I can't be with Dora? And, anyway, I sort of . . . you know . . . pledged myself to her. So an engagement to Prudence is out of the question.”

“You what?” Katie and Toby said in unison.

Collin replaced the ram's head next to a stuffed snake draped over the collected works of Thackeray on the shelf above, then turned back to the others, but wouldn't look Toby in the eye.

“Dora's not like other girls. She wouldn't have me . . . you know . . . unless I pledged my . . . what did she call it? My applecart. So I pledged my heart like a proper gentleman—or ‘gent' as she calls me—and sealed the deal with my signet ring!”

Katie fastened her eyes on Collin's right hand. His signet ring with the Twyford crest was missing; in its place, a telltale band of white skin.

“
You bloody fool
!
” shouted Toby. “Dora Fowler, with her ventriloquism and bird whistles, would take you into her bed for far less than—”

“How dare you talk about my beloved that way?” Blue veins bulged in Collin's forehead. “She's pledged herself to me . . . for . . . for all eternity!” He sprang toward Toby, fists clenched, blue eyes fierce.