Eve Silver (19 page)

Once more Darcie began to pace the cramped confines of her chamber, fighting the nausea that roiled and writhed and climbed to sting the back of her throat with its acrid taste. She had spent the night in Damien's bed, in Damien's arms. His hands had roamed freely over her naked skin. The hands of a healer? A murderer?

She could not bear it.

Snatching the newspaper from her bed, Darcie folded it, again and again, until it was only a small square, approximately the size of her hand. She ran her fingers across her brow then down along the curve of her cheek, feeling trapped. She turned this way and that, searching from some release from the gnawing anxiety that festered in her thoughts.

She must go to Mrs. Feather's house. Her sister's warning, the words she had uttered when she first sent Darcie to Damien Cole, pounded loudly through Darcie's mind
... have a care of him. Dr. Cole. He is a man to fear. Stay out of his way. Stay clear of his work. And keep your nose out of his secrets.

Chapter Ten

Holding the folded newspaper in her hand, Darcie hastened from the room and made her way down the stairs and out the back door. She was intent on finding John and asking him to take her to Whitechapel, to Mrs. Feather's house. She did not stop in the kitchen on her way. The breakfast that Mary had told her about earlier held no appeal. Her stomach was clenched in tight little knots, the pain sharp, but it was the ache in her heart that was unbearable.

The days spent living under Damien's roof had lulled her into a false sense of security. She had come to feel safe, to feel that she had a place, to believe that she was cared for. She had allowed herself to hope, to dream. It was too dreadful to conceive that just as her fantasies and expectations began to bubble and grow, they must crash to the ground in a horrible conflagration and burn away to cold, dead ash.

So frenzied were Darcie's thoughts that she did not see John moving across the drive toward her. It was not until she slammed up against him that she was pulled from her reverie.

“Whoa, there girl,” he said, as though speaking to one of his horses. His hands closed around her upper arms, steadying her.

“Oh, John!” Darcie exclaimed looking up into his kind eyes. “I'm terribly sorry.”

“No harm done.” He let go his hold of her arms and dropped his hands to his sides. “Where were you heading in such a hurry?”

“I was looking for you. Damien—I mean, Dr. Cole—said that I might ask you to take me somewhere today.”

“To the park then? Like last time?” John asked with a smile.

Darcie swallowed. “No, to Whitechapel. To the place you took us once before. Mrs. Feather's house.”

The coachman looked startled. “Why would you want to be going there? ‘Tis not a fit place for a young girl like you.”

“Please, John.” Cloying panic began to ferment deep inside of her. She had not considered that he might refuse to take her there.

John gazed down at her and slowly shook his head, and with his denial her panic grew, squeezing her chest in a vise-like band. She must go to Mrs. Feather's. She must have her answers. What if she had bedded a murderer—

No, she could not think it, not until she questioned her sister. Damien was good. He was kind. He had shown her only goodness, yet—

Darcie caught John's arm as he began to turn away.

“Please,” she whispered once more, but as he turned his face back towards her and she saw his resolute expression, she tried the only argument that could possibly sway him. “Please, John. I must go. For you see, Mrs. Feather, she is...” The words seemed trapped in her throat. She could read in his eyes that he would not agree to take her, and sucking in a single shallow breath, she then said in a rush, “Mrs. Feather is my sister.”

John blinked, clearly astounded by her admission, and for a long moment he said nothing. His expression remained guarded, and for a solitary interminable heartbeat, Darcie thought he would turn her down. Abruptly, he nodded.

“Right, then. Off we go,” he said, turning in the direction of the carriage house. “I'll have the carriage ready in a few minutes.”

Darcie sagged in relief. He would take her. She would go to Mrs. Feather, to her sister, and demand answers. Her sister may well refuse her demand, in which case she would beg. Beg for answers, beg for reassurance that the man she loved was not a cold-blooded killer.

Loved.

The enormity of it crashed over her in merciless waves. Darcie sank to her knees on the cobbled drive and buried her face in her hands. She had fallen in love with Damien Cole, a man of secrets, a man she knew little about. She loved him, even in the face of such damning circumstances and suspicions. She loved the man she glimpsed behind the walls of his rigid self-control.

She thought of Steppy, how he had been such a wonderful father for most of her life, only to turn into a monster at the end. She had lived with Steppy for years, but had not truly known him at all.

How, then, could she be certain that her heart was right, that Damien was a man worthy of her love? Could love survive without trust?

She closed her fingers tightly over the folded newspaper, crushing it, wishing she had never seen the terrible article about the Whitechapel murders, wishing that she were still cocooned in the glowing aftermath of the night spent in Damien's arms. Forcing herself to her feet, she moved woodenly to the front of the house to await the carriage.

True to his word, John had the horses ready in short order, but the trip to Hadley Street seemed to take forever. Darcie unfolded the newspaper, smoothed the crumpled surface and read the article once more. The dates, the times, everything seemed to point towards Damien's involvement. There was the matter of the bloodied shirt, and even more damning, the disembodied human heart that he had dissected in his laboratory the morning after Sally’s heart had been ripped from her body.

And why, oh why, did he have that laboratory at all? Why did he not carry out his dissections at the medical school?

Darcie shivered, trying to reconcile the tender lover of the night before with the image conjured by the horrifying newspaper article. The two seemed incompatible in the extreme.

The door to the carriage swung open, and she looked up to find John waiting patiently. She was back in the East End. She was back in Whitechapel, in the cauldron of human suffering that was the hunting ground of a demon who preyed on the weakest and poorest.

“I'll wait here,” John said gruffly as he helped her down.

“Thank you,” Darcie whispered.

She had taken but a few short steps, when a thought struck her. Turning, she faced John once more.

“John, you have been in Dr. Cole's employ for many years, have you not?”

“Yes, many years.”

“Do you know”—Darcie hesitated, then rushed on—”how is it that Dr. Cole made the acquaintance of Mrs. Feather?”

John's expression was closed, remote. “Can't rightly say, missy. You'd have to ask the doctor that.”

Opening her mouth to say more, Darcie thought better of it. She would get no answers here.

“I don't think I'll be long,” she said. Turning away, she then made her way to Mrs. Feather's door.

She knocked, and after waiting several minutes with no results, knocked again with a great deal more force. Shifting her weight from foot to foot, Darcie waited impatiently for someone to answer.

No one came.

With a sigh, she raised her hand and rather than rapping smartly with her knuckles, she turned her fist and used the flat side of it to pound on the door.

“What is it?” The words were spoken in a tone that was hardly friendly.

The portal swung open to reveal none other than Mrs. Feather herself, her complexion devoid of paint, her hair hanging loose and scraggly over her shoulders. When she saw Darcie her face took on a distinctly unwelcoming expression.

“Told you not to come back here,” she said sullenly.

Darcie nodded. “I know. I'm sorry, but I had to speak with you.”

Through narrowed eyes, Mrs. Feather peered at her, as though seeking to look deeper than her skin, all the way inside of her to her very core. “How’d you get here, then?”

“By coach. I came in the doctor’s coach.”

“Well la-dee-da!” Mrs. Feather gave a harsh bark of laughter. “In his coach, no less. Just like a lady.” She closed strong fingers over Darcie shoulder and gave her a rough shake. “You didn't heed my warning, did you, foolish girl?”

Uncertain of her meaning, Darcie stared at her mutely.

“You're in love with him,” Mrs. Feather clarified.

Darcie's composure faltered at her sister's words. How could she know such a thing merely by looking at her?

As though reading her thoughts, Mrs. Feather shrugged. “If I could turn back the years, I'd be in love with him myself. And it’d be a painful mistake. Heartbreaking to love someone who cannot love you in return.” She stepped back from the door and motioned Darcie to enter. “The girls are asleep,” she muttered, leading the way through the narrow hall towards the back of the house.

Darcie struggled to maintain an outward show of calm. She had no wish to show her sister that her observations had landed with unerring precision, that the idea of loving someone who could not return her affection was terrible indeed, but even worse to love a man she could not trust.

When she reached the kitchen, Mrs. Feather sat on one of the simple wooden chairs and motioned for Darcie to take another. The scarred table was barren save for a half-empty bottle of whiskey and a chipped glass.

Mrs. Feather lifted the bottle and poured some of the amber liquid into the glass. Her hand shook, and a small puddle sloshed onto the tabletop. Darcie watched as her sister tossed back the liquor in a single gulp.

“You're mourning her.” Darcie moved her hand tentatively across the table, closing it over Mrs. Feather's.

The other woman deflated before her eyes, as though Darcie's expression of sympathy had somehow poked a hole in her defenses, sucking the bravado out of her. A single tear traced a path down her pale cheek.

Mrs. Feather nodded slowly. “Yes, I'm mourning her. She was a good girl, always smiling.”

Darcie watched in stunned amazement as Mrs. Feather buried her face in her hands. Suddenly, she wasn't Mrs. Feather anymore. She was Abigail. Just plain Abigail. Darcie rose, crossed to her sister and sank to her knees by the other woman's side. She wrapped her arms around Abigail's heaving shoulders and held her while she sobbed.

At last, her tears exhausted, Abigail quieted. “Why did you come here?” Her voice was a raspy whisper.

Darcie got to her feet, hitched her chair closer, and then sat by her sister. She smoothed the crumpled sheet of newsprint and pointed to the article about the Whitechapel murders. “I had a terrible thought that it might be Sally. Your Sally.”

“My Sally,” Abigail echoed, her tone unutterably sad. “My Sally. He killed her. So much blood—” She broke off, shaking her head.

Darcie’s heart constricted at the confirmation of her worst fears. Of course, she had known as soon as Abigail herself opened the door rather than one of the girls or a maid. But hearing her sister affirm that the dead girl was Sally, the same Sally that she and Damien had treated only days ago, was terrible.

“I'm so sorry for your loss, Abigail,” she murmured, her voice catching.

Her sister jerked her head up and stared at her, her blue eyes puffy and red from crying, dulled by her grief.

“You really mean that, don't you? You
are
sorry for my loss!” She was quiet for a moment, studying Darcie's face. “You have changed. Years ago, you wouldn't have given Sally any notice. You would have twitched your skirt aside lest it be soiled by touching her.”

Darcie chose not to take offense at her sister's words. The statement was nothing but the truth. “Yes, of course you are right.” Taking Abigail's hand between her own, she squeezed gently. “You, too, would have twitched your skirt aside. But that was a long time ago. You have changed. I have changed. Life has buffeted us to and fro, like leaves caught in the wind. But we have survived, and that must count for something.”

Abigail cleared her throat. “It does count for something,” she said fiercely. With an awkward jolt, she surged to her feet and cleared away the whiskey bottle and glass. “Enough of this.”

She moved across the kitchen and put the water on to boil. “Would you like tea?”

Darcie smiled despite the sadness that still hung in the room.

“Yes, I'd like tea.”

Abigail nodded and set about preparing a pot and two cups. She moved like an old woman, or someone who was terribly battered and bruised. Darcie's heart went out to her sister. She knew the grief that she, herself, felt at Sally's death, and she could only imagine the greater intensity of Abigail's sense of loss.

Silence reigned as Abigail tended to her small chore. At length, she carried the pot and cups to the table, and then sat down once more to pour.

“Sugar?” she asked, in the same polite tone they had used in their mother's parlor.

“Yes, thank you.”

“And milk?”

Darcie nodded. “Please.”

They sipped in silence.

“You've come to ask me about him.”

“Yes.” There was no point in pretending otherwise. Darcie put her cup onto the tabletop. Abigail had provided no saucer. “Abigail, when you first sent me to Dr. Cole, you warned me about him, warned me to stay out of his secrets, out of his work...”

“But you didn't listen, did you?” Abigail challenged. “You couldn't just take it for what it was. A decent wage and a roof over your head. You had to climb into his life.”

“I didn't mean—”

Abigail cut her off with a sharp slash of her hand. “We never mean for it to happen, Darcie girl. It just does. I never meant for things to end this way. I thought he loved me...thought he'd marry me.... Instead, he made me into this.” She made a choked sound. “And I let him.”

“Damien?” Darcie asked in horror. Surely the man who had seduced her sister then left her to fend for herself was not Damien Cole.