“Lovely!” George Hennesy said, beaming. “My dear . . .?”
“Everyone must have some,” Maggie said. “I'm so very grateful to you all.”
“Of course, of course, I'll get glasses,” Ellen Hennesy said.
Soon, they were brought. The brandy was poured. “Cheers!” Maggie said, lifting her own glass. She pretended to drink.
Thankfully, Jeremiah's “boys” all liked their liquor. They drained their glasses quickly. “Oh, do finish the bottle!” she said. “If I can reach Frank tonight, it will have been the most special occasion ever. I'll have felt that I enjoyed it with some new but very good friends, and my dear Frank himself!”
She gritted her teeth and forced a smile as George Hennesy was the first to reach for more. But the “boys” were ready for a second round, and she, Cecilia, and Mireau were able to offer up empty glasses for a refill, all having managed to toss their first rounds beneath the table.
Only Arianna had ignored her glass.
“You're not enjoying this wonderful warmth!” Maggie said to her.
Arianna shook her head, eyes filled with warning as she looked at Maggie. “I'm not much of a drinker, mum.”
“Don't insult the woman,” John said, and Maggie felt her jaw harden as she watched the way the young thug bit his fingers into the girl's shoulder.
Arianna picked up her glass, and drank. She swallowed down the brandy in a gulp, set the glass back down.
Mireau saw that it was quickly refilled.
“Definitely a special taste,” John commented. He'd probably never had good brandy before in his life, but he pretended to study the color. Maggie smiled, then frowned, looking Arianna's way again. Her serious concern brought John's fingers to Arianna's shoulders once again. Before he could touch her, the girl swallowed down the second glassful.
It was not, however, Arianna who went first.
Ellen Hennesy was simply sitting one minute, enjoying the taste as they awaited Jeremiah, then, without word or whimper, she crashed forward, head downward, onto the table.
* * *
Jamie chose to keep out of the City of London, and walked the surrounding streets. He had split up three couples, earned two beatings about his head by way of the prostitutes' poor reticules, and angrily offered up doss money for the women himself thus far. One woman ran straight into a pub, and he felt his aggravation rising. This was not an easy task.
It was near one-thirty when he saw the suspicious fellow in the deerstalker hat and sweeping black cape walking along the side of the road. He was keeping deep to the shadows, and his every movement seemed furtive. Jamie watched him, following at a distance, then saw an opportunity to duck into one of the alleys, leap a gate, and come at the fellow from the opposing direction.
He slipped into the alley, ran the length of it. A cat let out a horrid screech. In the mist-shrouded night, it sounded like a glaring alarm.
He leapt the fence at the end of the alley, and came around.
His quarry had apparently heard him, and stopped.
For a moment, he remained still against the fencing, waiting, listening. No sound of footsteps. Indeed, he'd been betrayed by an alley cat.
Still, he forced himself to wait. At last, he heard a furtive movement. But he was certain his quarry knew that he was on the other side of the fence.
Indeed, the man knew. He burst out into the night suddenly, a walking stick with a wicked blade at the end of it poised for the fight. Jamie burst into motion, knotting his muscles, racing forward, catching the man in his midriff with a violent tackle.
They both went down into the mud of the street. Jamie had the edge, and was able to sink a knee into his opponent's middle. The man caught his jaw with a solid punch, and he nearly staggered from his position. He gained his balance and prepared to strike.
“Jamie!”
He hesitated, peering against the poor light, staring down.
“Justin!”
“What in God's name are you doing, man?” Justin demanded. There was suspicion in his voice.
“What are you doing?”
“Stalking the Ripper,” Justin said.
Jamie rose, dusting the mud of the road from his clothing. He reached out a hand to Justin, helping the fellow leap to his feet.
And for a moment, rumor, talk, fear made them both stare at one another.
Anyone might have been the Ripper. A rich man, a poor man, uneducated, well tutored, they just didn't know right now. The killings might be part of a conspiracy; they might be perpetuated by a fellow capable of walking the streets as an ordinary citizen by day . . .
“It's a strange place for you, Justin,” Jamie said.
“And stranger for you, Lord Langdon.”
“I've been asked to look into this matter,” Jamie said.
Justin studied him, then shook his head. “And I came down because I've been made to realize recently that I've not led a very useful life. And sadly, I am familiar with these streets, because some of the company I keep is fond of the most tawdry amusements.”
The sound of a carriage crashing along the street at a dangerous speed, caused them to leave off their focus on one another, and stare in the direction of the sound. “Out of the way, or we're both dead men!” Jamie warned, shoving Justin.
But Justin stood in the street, staring at the approaching vehicle.
“It's Darby!” he said.
“Whoever it is, we're about to be run down!” Jamie warned him, and, grabbing him by the collar, dragged him to the edge of the road.
The carriage jerked to a halt just past them. They'd been seen.
Darby jumped from the carriage. “Sweet Mary, Mother of God!” he exclaimed. “I've been looking for the two of you for hours!”
“Why?”
“Letters for you. I tried my hardest to eavesdrop, that I did. But Lady Maggie has been very secretive since last night. I tried to stay with her, but she was going off with Lord and Lady de Burgh, and their coachman was taking them . . . wherever it was that they were going, and I've got my suspicions!”
“She's down here somewhere!” Jamie said, taking the letter offered to him. “Damn her! She promised that she wouldn't come around here!”
Justin had ripped open his own letter by then. “There's a street name here. But no number! And the letter says that we need to be there by two o'clock, a matter of life or death.”
Jamie pulled out his pocket watch. “We've about three minutes,” he said grimly, and started for the carriage. “Three minutes! Let's go!”
* * *
“What is wrong with her!” John called out, alarmed.
And then, Arianna went as well.
“Oh! The poor dears!” Maggie cried, leaping up. She went straight for Arianna. Frowning, John started to come around for Arianna. He came to the table, staggered back, and then fell. Slowly. But he could not prevent himself from doing so.
“What have you done?” the one called Matthew grated out. He drew a pistol from inside his jacket and took aim, straight at Maggie. She caught hold of Arianna's shoulders and dragged the girl from her chair, and to the floor.
The gun exploded. The shot went wild. Matthew lay flat out on the floor beside them.
“Maggie!” Mireau called.
“I'm fine!”
He and Cecilia came around beside her. She stared at them. “They're all down, they went in order, smack, smack, smack!” Cecilia said.
“We must be quick! Whoever is outside will have heard the shot!” Mireau warned.
“Get Arianna,” Maggie said, struggling to her feet. Cecilia helped Mireau struggle up with the girl's dead weight.
George Hennesy had collapsed over his wife. One of the thugs was lying in the archway. Cecilia leapt over him. Mireau followed.
Maggie was about to do so when the fellow stirred. He, too, had a pistol out.
He didn't aim it at Maggie, but at Arianna's lifeless form.
“No!” Maggie screamed, and she stepped forward, giving the man's arm a lethal kick. The gun went flying.
His fingers wound around her ankle.
“Maggie!” Mireau called, blinded by Arianna's body draped over his shoudlers.
“Go, I'm fine!” she called.
But she wasn't. She tried to wrench free, and sprawled down on the ground herself. The man halfway rose, eyes on fire with fury as he fought to keep his mind alert. His hands reached out for her throat.
She couldn't reach the little pistol in her reticule. She struggled for balance and knotted her hand into a fist, slugging him as hard in the jaw as she could manage. She heard the sound of the crack of her blow against his face. But still, he kept reaching for her . . .
Then fell back.
She shoved his weight off her and made it to her feet. She raced then for the door, bursting from it.
Eustace was there, as he had said he would be, his carriage in the street. She could see that Mireau was stumbling forward, bearing Arianna's weight. Cecilia was following him, her back toward the carriage as she fired shots randomly at anyone who might follow them.
She heard police whistles; bless Darby! He had gotten her letter safely to one of the station houses.
And there was the sound of a runaway carriage racing toward their location. Jamie, her brother . . . they'd both yell at her, of course. But it wouldn't matter. Arianna was safe, and Jeremiah's thugs were out, and if they didn't have the murdering fake himself, they would surely find him this time.
She started to open her mouth, to cry out to Cecilia to quit firing so that she could reach the carriage herself.
But even as she opened her mouth, she felt the sharp pain against her nape. A blow struck hard, one that caused her to stagger instantly, one that seemed to add to the mist of the gaslight and the fog that filled the streets.
“Bitch! I thought it was you. But you are a clever thing. And a pretty one. We'll have some fun . . . before you die.”
The carriage that had been racing down the street was coming to a halt. The Langdon carriage, Darby driving. She thought she saw Jamie leaping from it. It all seemed to be spinning before her eyes, and yet it all seemed to be playing out in slow motion.
“Maggie!” She could swear that she did hear her name shouted. Cried out in anguish.
Jamie. Jamie's voice . . .
Then the mist and the gas-lit fog turned to black, and she crashed down into a state of ebony oblivion.
Chapter 18
There was bedlam on the street.
The police had arrived, and their whistles were blowing. They were running around like chickens because they knew that they were looking for something amiss, but they didn't know what they were looking for. The gunfire had ceased. Mireau had gotten into the de Burgh carriage with Arianna, and Cecilia was standing with her husband by the carriage door, and there was no sign of Maggie.
“What the hell is going on?” Justin demanded. “Where's my sister?”
“Right behind us!” Mireau said. “But careful . . . the guards left at the outside are armed . . . Cecilia and Eustace were firing back and they might have taken them down, but . . .”
One of the police inspectors was there as well.
“Guards? For who? What is going on here?” he raged. “There will be pandemonium any second now, people spilling out on the streets, thinking we've got Jack the Ripper!”
Jamie caught hold of Cecilia's shoulders. “Cecilia, who was in there, what is going on?”
“A fake spiritualist,” she gasped out. “Arianna . . . ran away, wound up kidnapped, really, and we brought laudanum to knock them all out and . . .”
He didn't wait for any more but went streaking toward the house. A shot blazed, so close that for a moment, the buzzing sound cost him his hearing in his right ear. He heard the bullet embed in the fence post behind him.
There was a man half fallen against the front wall of the house. His smoking pistol was still raised, aimed at Jamie. His hand was shaking; he had a bullet wound in his shoulder.
Jamie instantly calculated the risks, and flew at the man, bringing him down. The gun fell with the man's hand to his right side. Jamie rose, kicking the gun away, reaching for the injured man and dragging him up.
“Where's the woman?” he demanded.
The fellow grinned eerily. Then slumped into a dead faint. Jamie realized that he was covered in blood.
He dropped the man and burst into the house. People were splayed about everywhere, so it seemed.
Justin came running in behind him. “Where is she? My sister?” He saw one of the fellows, prone of the floor, and tried to drag him up. “Where's my sister?” he raged.
But the man couldn't answer. He lolled in Justin's hold. Disgusted, Justin dropped him.
By then, Jamie had made a cursory inspection around the small house. Everyone in it was out cold. There was no help to be had here.
Time, Jamie was certain, was of the essence. He ran to the carriage and dragged Mireau from it. “Maggie's gone.”
“He came back, then, he's got her,” Mireau said.
“Who?” Jamie raged.
“Alexander. Adrian Alexander. He's calling himself Jeremiah Heath now.”
Justin burst forward, reaching for Mireau's lapels in a fury. “You let her come here! Jesus, I should kill you here and now, on the spotâ”
“Stop it!” Cecilia cried. “She forced him to keep silent. They had Arianna, don't you see!”
Perhaps Justin didn't. Jamie did.
He'd had his chance. When she'd come that morning. And when he had raged so . . .
She had decided on her course of action.
“Justin, take the north, I'll head east. Mireau . . . you, go south, and Eustace, head down there in a westwardly fashion. Cecilia, tell the police what you canâget them moving as well. Then, take your coachman, please, get Arianna home, and get the doctor for her. Not Sir William Gull! Get Dr. Mayer, and stay with her, please! Stay at Moorhaven.”
Cecilia nodded, jumping into the carriage. She caught Jamie's hand briefly. “It was the only way she thought that she could save Arianna!” she said softly.
“It doesn't matter now! He has herâwe have to find them.”
“I know, but . . .”
“What?”
“You know she loves you,” Cecilia said.
“All that matters is that I find her now,” he replied, and freed his hand. Time. He had to hurry. He'd seen Adrian Alexander in action before.
And he believed that the man was capable of anything.
* * *
Maggie woke because of the water being thrown on her face.
For a moment, all she knew was that it was cold and startling. Then she realized that she was lying on a hard stone floor, that her cape and wig had been snatched from her, and that someone powerful and very angry had not just sluiced her face with water, but was then nearly suffocating her, scrubbing away with a vengeance at the theatrical paint she had been wearing.
Instinct made her fight. Fingers wound into her hair, pulling so hard that tears came to her eyes. Then the hold eased, but as she fought to get the cloth from her face, she became aware of another, far more terrifying sensation.
There was a knife at her throat.
She held very still, barely breathing.
“There, there! I knew you weren't a stupid girl. You're not about to scream, are you, Lady Langdon? You're quite fond of living. Who wouldn't be, in your position. Funny thing is, I didn't get who the girl was right off. But, after our little debacle, I naturally tried to discover just who you might be. And when I looked back, I found the newspaper reports, and . . . I honestly didn't recognize you last night. But then, something warned me . . . some spirit, maybe! So I waited tonight, and watched.”
It was almost completely dark. Maggie thought that after he knocked her out, he must have dragged her into an empty house or factory. It was damp, and freezing, as well. Only a pale illumination seeped in through broken windows from the streets beyond.
Alexander seemed to have the eyes of a cat, or else he was accustomed to the darkness and the shadow of the East End. He knew her discomfort as well, knew that he held all the advantages.
“You thought that you would strike a blow against me tonight, eh? Good heavens, woman, what on earth is wrong with you? Haven't you heardâthere's a madman out there. Why bother with a spiritualist?”
He started to laugh. The knife edged closer to her throat. If she took a breath at that second, her flesh would be cut. She remained dead still. Chills swept through her as she remembered how he had come in the night before.
With his hands wet.
As if he had just washed them.
Washed away . . .
Blood.
She fought the rising panic within her.
Whether this man was actually Jack the Ripper or not didn't really matterâsince his intent was to kill her!
“You know, though, m'lady, you actually make many an
unfortunate
in this area look like a saint. Ah, well, perhaps that's pushing it. They're whores, wretched whores, wanting their alcohol more than there own silly little lives. If Jackie weren't taking his knife to the bitches, they'd die soon enough anyway, rotting to pieces from pickling their own innards! But then, that's the likes of them. And there's the likes of you. What a high price to be paid for your companionship! But then, not a few pennies, eh? For your favors, you'd have a marriage license, and lots and lots of riches. Then you're all supplied with a coachman, or several coachmen! And you can buy disguises. And set out to attack people who had no argument with you!”
Maggie remained very still, tensing only as she heard the police whistles and footsteps that suddenly broke the quiet of the night.
“Look at the commotion you've caused! Alas, pity, I really must get going tonight. There would be no way to do you any true justice . . . but, then again, you'll help me to slip into the darkness.”
The knife was suddenly gone. Maggie breathed in and out, desperate to see in the night. Then she gasped out involuntarily as a noose was slipped around her neck. “They'll have to let you die to take me!” he said cheerfully, and she was dragged up to her feet. She felt the coarse rope around her throat. “Let's see . . . a doorway or window . . . or the lamppost. The lamppost, and quickly.” He dragged her to a doorway. She struggled to find the reticule she had brought, the braided handle of it held on her person through the black sash that tied around her waist. As he pushed her forward, she struggled to find her little pistol.
He had a grip of steel. She was tight against his body as he held her, looking out. “One sound and I will gut you like a pig!” he warned.
Then . . .
The little square, with the gaslight that was out or broken, was empty again. No sound of footsteps. No shrill of police whistles.
He forced her out. She kept attempting to slip her hand into the reticule.
It was difficult, for he dragged her through the street, with the strength of his hold, and with the ever tightening pressure of the rope. She worked her fingers into the bag . . . curled her hand around the pistol. . .
Then gasped, choking, as he threw the rope over the lamppost, and used his weight and strength to jerk her up.
She fired . . . quickly, desperately, in the split seconds before she dropped the gun, drawing both hands instinctively to the stricture around her neck.
She heard a scream . . . police whistles again . . .
But they were fading. No matter how she tried to slip her fingers beneath the rope and stop it, it was strangling the life from her; she was dying . . .
“Maggie!” She heard a voice. His voice. Once again.
Maybe she would always hear it. Maybe there really was such a thing as true spiritualism. Maybe she would hear him, envision him, see and feel and need him, far beyond the grave....
“Maggie!” It was a shout again.
Then, she heard a shot crack through the night again. And she was no longer choking, but falling . . .
Hard upon the cobblestones below her.
There was no mist, no fog. Rockets seemed to explode before her eyes.
Then her shoulders were lifted, cradled gently into a lap. “Maggie, oh, my God, Maggie! I'm sorry, I had to shoot the rope . . . I couldn't wait, you were kicking and strangling. Is anything broken . . . can you move?”
Jamie. Brows knit in a frown of desperate concern, cradling her on his lap, in his embrace. At first, she couldn't talk. She moistened her lips, nodded. Croaked, “I'm . . . I'm all right.”
“Take her!” Jamie said. She was dimly aware of footsteps hurrying toward her. Someone else was there. Her brother. Justin was taking her. Mireau was there, too, at her side.
“I've got to go after him!” Jamie said. And then he was gone.
“I have her,” Justin said firmly, and she was lifted into her brother's arms.
“Sorry, Lord Graham,” someone with a voice of authority said. “We've got to talk to her for a few moments.”
“I don't think she can talk right now!” Justin said, outraged.
“We need her help,” the other man said quietly.
And so, she was taken first to a police station, and she tried hard, with Mireau's help. Finally, what seemed like hours later, they were free to leave.
In the carriage, Justin supported her. And partway home he said to her, “I could actually strangle you myself! Maggie, what were you thinking? You need to be locked away in a tower somewhere. Of course, I am your brother. And I've let you play these dangerous games. Well, I didn't exactly let you.” Then he quit trying to sound so stern. “Maggie, thank God, oh, thank God!” And he hugged her.
He was still so protective as they made their way into the house at Moorhaven. She was actually able to walk somewhat, with him supporting her, Mireau at her side.
They came into the grand salon. Mrs. Whitley, Dr. Mayer, and Cecilia came rushing forward.
“Arianna?” Maggie said, her voice still a bare scratchy whisper.
“She'll be fine. She'll come out of it soon enough,” Dr. Mayer said.
Maggie was stunned when her brother suddenly gasped. “
That's
Arianna?”
The girl was lying on the settee by the hearth. Pale, stretched out, black hair streaming behind her, porcelain skin as white as the snow, she lay in a state of suspended beauty.
“Of course,” she murmured, frowning.
“Arianna!” her brother breathed.
And then, to Maggie's chagrin, her brother almost dropped her flat. In fact, she would have fallen if Mireau had not been at her side.
“Delighted to see that you've fared well enough!” Cecilia said dryly.
Justin was oblivious to having left his sister. Long strides brought him across the room. He fell to his knees at Arianna's side. “Arianna!” he breathed again.
“He knows her name,” Mireau commented.
Justin took the girl's hand reverently. He stared, fraught with worry, at her still face. Then, delicately, lightly, he kissed her lips.
The girl stirred. Her eyes very slowly opened. “You!” she breathed.
“But they've met, haven't they?” Mireau said, confused.
“They have now,” Cecilia said. “How darling!”
“Indeed, just adorable.” Maggie grinned, and then the night proved to be just too much, and she sagged into Mireau's arms in a dead faint.
* * *
She awoke much later, sometime the following day. She heard birds, and the sounds of their chirping seemed a miracle. Her eyes opened very slowly. Her throat hurt terribly. In fact, she had pains everywhere. She remembered the cobblestones that had embraced her when she had fallen from the lamppost.
“Maggie?”
She turned her head. Even doing so hurt.
Jamie was there. He was a mess. He had been up all the night, she knew.
“Maggie . . . I . . . I should give you a sound thrashing!” he said.
She tried to smile. “I'm not sure it could hurt much worse than what I'm already feeling,” she told him. And he smiled and shook his head, touching her cheek very tenderly. “We didn't get him. You wounded him . . . you did get him with a shot . . . but he didn't die. He escaped. We looked all night.”