Lord Ruthven's Bride (4 page)

Lady Denton looked from Annabelle to him, then Lena, clearly confused.

“It is my fault,” Lena said. “I insisted we go to the arboretum. Annabelle is wearing nothing but thin slippers.” Lena looked at Annabelle. “Do you think Lady Montagu will be terribly angry with me?”

Annabelle blinked, then started at the discomfort of the gun digging deeper into her flesh. “No, of course not,” she managed. “It is more my fault than yours. I did say I wanted to see that glorious maple tree located deeper amid the trees.”

“We were growing a bit concerned,” said Lady Denton, slowly. “You are not looking well, Lady Annabelle.”

“Then I had better get Lady Annabelle to her carriage,” Lord Harley quickly put in.

“I suppose that would be best,” Miss Morgan said.

Something in the girl’s voice snagged Annabelle’s attention. Sadness? Wistfulness? 

“You do not look well,” she added, and Annabelle thought perhaps she had misread her.

Lord Harley started forward and Annabelle jolted into motion with Lena keeping pace to her left. The ladies walked beside her. Annabelle caught a sideways glance Miss Morgan cast at Lord Harley and recognized the longing of a woman toward her lover. So she hadn’t misread the girl. She had a tenderness for the earl. Shock reverberated through Annabelle. Lord Harley was a married man, and Miss Morgan but a maid at seventeen. Or was she still a maid?

“Did you win your card game, Miss Morgan?”

Lena’s question jarred Annabelle from her thoughts.

“What?” Miss Morgan said.

“The card game,” Lena said. “Did you win?”

“Oh, yes.”

They rounded the large bushes and came to the covered walkway.

Miss Morgan slowed with the obvious intent of allowing Annabelle and Lena to go first, but Lord Harley said, “Go ahead, ladies. I will help Lady Annabelle.”

The ladies went first. Lena glanced at the earl and Annabelle read the worry in her eyes. He jerked his head in a motion for Lena to go. Her eyes narrowed, but she obeyed and the earl led Annabelle through the walkway behind her. Lena’s mind raced. With the women ahead, could she try to break free? He would shoot her, but the other ladies would have a chance. Lena had nerve. Miss Morgan and Lady Denton would freeze. Their best escape opportunity would come when they reached the mansion. The male servants there would come to the ladies’ aid once Annabelle made a break for freedom.

They neared the cardroom balcony when Lord Harley said, “Miss Morgan, it is best we not alarm your mother.  I will take Lady Annabelle and Miss Summerfield through the side servants’ entrance.”

Everyone stopped.

“Perhaps we should call for a doctor,” Miss Morgan said.

The desperation in the girl’s voice caught Annabelle’s attention.

“Very kind of you,” Lord Harley said. “But I feel certain Lady Annabelle’s mother would prefer she returned home. Miss Summerfield.” He started left and Lena followed.

The crestfallen look on Miss Morgan’s face as he left them wrenched Annabelle’s heart. Miss Morgan was in love with Lord Harley. 

The earl took them to the side entrance and Annabelle realized he was more familiar with the grounds that he should have been. Had he used this entrance to sneak into the mansion to visit Miss Morgan? If the girl’s expression when they’d left her was any indication, Annabelle felt sure he had.

They passed through the gate and onto the street.

“You are doing very well,” he said.

“Sheep to the slaughter,” Lena muttered, but Annabelle didn’t miss the small tremor in her voice.

Annabelle scanned the street. The sun shone high in its zenith. This time of day, few carriages traveled the streets of this quiet neighborhood, and only a lone carriage sat parked on the street corner to the right. If Annabelle forced Lord Harley to shoot her, he could easily pull out the other gun and shoot Lena before anyone could stop him. It was likely there would be no witnesses and he could claim someone waylaid them. With no one to contradict his story, he would go free.

He hurried them to the curb and Annabelle realized he intended to force them into his carriage, not hers. She tensed in readiness to break free, but her knees weakened at the click of the hammer being pulled back on his pistol. Her head whirled. The press of the hard metal into her side felt unreal, like a dream and, for an instant, she expected to wake up. The driver shifted to jump from his perch.

“Stay where you are, Brice,” Lord Harley said, and yanked open the door.

He pushed Annabelle forward. She grasped the handle and pulled herself inside.

“Miss Summerfield,” he said.

Her gaze flicked to the bulge in his coat.

“Get inside,” he ordered.

She grasped the handle and stepped into the carriage, settling herself on the seat beside Anabelle.

He shook his head. “Lady Annabelle, move to the other seat.”

She exchanged a glance with Lena.

“Now,” he snapped.

Annabelle did as ordered.

He called to the driver, “We are to meet William,” then leapt inside, slammed the door shut, and slid into the seat beside her. Her grabbed her arm and jammed the pistol into her belly. “Pray we do not so much as hit a hole.”

Two blocks from Baron Morgan’s home, James left the rented hackney and strolled up the block despite the urge to hurry. He had arrived at his townhouse an hour after leaving Fenton Hall to find a message awaiting him from his man Nathan Benning. The words still seared his memory.

Ruthven,

Lady Annabelle and her cousin have arrived at Miss Morgan’s home. I have seen no sign of Lord Harley, but I will await word from you, or follow if the ladies leave.

Benning

James’s blood heated. Lady Annabelle attending a party at Miss Lydia Morgan’s home was no coincidence. The little fool. She would get herself and Miss Summerfield killed—perhaps even Miss Morgan.

He turned the corner and covertly scanned the street. Seven coaches lined the street in front of the baron’s house. The only other vehicle in the vicinity was Mr. Benning’s modest coach parked on the cross street half a block down. He suddenly wished he had shed his jacket. The March sun beat down upon him with unusual intensity. James crossed the street and strolled until he reached the coach, then quickly stepped inside. Benning shifted his attention from the opposite window and met James’s gaze.

James settled in the seat, and said, “What have ye to report?”

“A tea party, given the hour and the ladies’ attire, my lord.”

“Quit addressing me as ‘my lord.’” James scooted to the side of the carriage beside Benning and drew the curtains aside an inch to peer out at the house. Still quiet.

“What could possibly have made her suspect Harley?” he said.

“Ye think she suspects?”

“It is too much of a coincidence that I found her poking around Harley’s study, and the very next day she attends a party at Miss Morgan’s home.”

“Coincidence is a far more likely than the possibility she suspects Lord Harley of murder,” Benning replied. “Lord Calloway didn’t mention that Lady Julia knew Lady Annabelle.”

“It’s the men a father pays attention to in his daughter’s life,” James said, “not her myriad of female acquaintances.” James tensed as Lord Harley emerging from the servants’ entrance to the baron’s home.

“By God, he is with Lady Annabelle and Miss Summerfield,” Benning muttered.

Harley held Lady Annabelle hugged close to his side while Miss Summerfield walked alongside her. Harley’s right hand remained hidden inside his coat. James went cold. The earl held a gun pointed at Lady Annabelle. They reached a carriage and James grasped the door handle of his coach as they stepped out of view.

Benning grabbed his arm. “Dinna’ be a fool, Waterson. Charge the carriage now and you will get at least one of the women shot.”

He hesitated.

“With the driver up top, he cannot shoot them inside his carriage,” Benning said.

“He can damn well strangle them,” James ground out.

“The one will not sit quietly by and wait her turn while he strangles the other. We will follow and stop him when he reaches his destination.”

Benning was right, he realized with horror. As long as Harley stood close enough to jam a pistol into Lady Annabelle’s ribs, they wouldn’t be able to prevent him from shooting her.

You will not be able to stop him
, his mind asserted.

His heart began to beat fast and he propelled back in time eight years to the day he’d last seen his tutor’s daughter alive. He’d been in India for six months on business and the weather, he would never forget the weather, it had been an unusually mild day. Kari brushed past him on her way out the door as he entered the house. Why hadn’t he delayed her departure with a question, with some pleasantry? A moment or two might have made all the difference. The memories flashed one after another. The messenger that arrived breathless late that afternoon with the news. Her father’s face. Her body—His heart raced faster.

“Waterson.”

All along it had been Lewis Malloch who—

“James.”

Benning’s sharp voice snapped him back to the present. He slumped back onto the cushion, allowing his hand to drop to his side.

Benning opened the door a crack and called in a low voice to the driver, “Follow that carriage, Michael. Keep a discreet distance, but do not lose them.” He closed the door as the vehicle jolted into motion and looked at James. “It has been some time since your last lapse.”

Benning was too proper a gentleman to call James’s ‘lapses’ what they really were: paralyzing fear.

James took a slow, deep breath. His heart still galloped, but if he controlled his breathing, his heart would slow. Benning was right. It had been nine months since his last episode. Even seeing the bodies of the women who had been mutilated by the Inverness Butcher hadn’t triggered an episode. In fact, he hadn’t suffered this badly since the first two years after Kari’s death. He’d hoped this weakness was behind him. He didn’t always know what trigged the response. This time, however, he understood all too well. If Lady Annabelle and Miss Summerfield were harmed, it would be his fault.

“If the Chief Magistrate does no’ arrest Harley, I will kill the earl myself.” That would eliminate this particular trigger.

“The fact Harley kidnapped the ladies is enough to throw him in prison,” Benning said. “Lord Montagu will no’ let his daughter and niece’s kidnapping go unpunished. Once Harley stops, we will intervene.”

James nodded. Come what may, he wouldn’t allow Harley to harm them. He didn’t want to think about Lady Montagu mourning her daughter and niece as did the families of the genteel ladies who Harley had murdered. All four families wondered whether their loved ones had taken their own lives. Lady Evans’ mother had yet to leave her home because of guilt, believing she’d overlooked her daughter’s despair. She kept her surviving daughter so close that the girl lived nearly the same reclusive life her mother now lived. If James could present proof that Harley was their murderer, then that would relieve some of the guilt that haunted the families. He understood what it was to live with guilt. He had his own guilt to live with, and he’d seen what guilt did to Kari’s father.

“Where can he possibly take the ladies?” James looked at Benning. “By God, can it be he’s taking them to his lair?”

“I am still unconvinced he has a lair,” Benning said.

“He has a lair. His need to kill is great. He must have a safe haven where he can execute and relive the murders and plan anew.”

“It sounds as if you have finally formed a hypothesis as to why he killed the four women,” Benning said.

“Not four,” James said. “Nine.”

“Nine?” Benning blurted.

James met his gaze squarely. “Lord Harley is the Inverness Butcher.”

Surprise flicked in Benning’s eyes and a moment of silence passed before he said, “It has been two months since the Butcher last struck. It is possible he has moved on or is dead.”

“He is not dead. He is in that carriage.”

“None of Harley’s victims were killed with the same violence as the Butcher’s victims,” Benning said.

“You do no’ call being thrown from a balcony violent?” James demanded. “What of being forced to drink laudanum and then being drowned? If that isn’t violent, what is?”

“The heat of the moment,” Benning replied. “The way those prostitutes were mutilated indicates a cooler head, planning. What makes you think Harley is the Butcher?”

James peered out the window as they slowed. Up ahead, Harley’s carriage waited for another vehicle to cross the intersection, then started forward again.

“For each murdered prostitute, the following month a lady of gentle breeding has been murdered,” he said. “The murders are within twenty-nine days of each other. Beth Rose, the first prostitute murdered, was killed in August of last year. Lady Phillips was murdered in September. Then the second prostitute, Lynn Williams, in October, and Miss Evans in November.”

“Jane MacPhee was murdered in December and Lady Julia in January,” Benning said.

“Thus far, Madeline Hunter is the most recent victim of the Butcher, murdered last month,” James said. “It is plain that there is a connection.”

His jaw clenched. Madeline Hunter had been killed with slow, precise slices that filleted her tender body—just as Kari had been mutilated. This time, he allowed the memory to return in a controlled wave. Dark hair and large brown eyes that drove mad the men to whom her pimp sold her. Her pimp, Lewis Malloch, a business associate James had introduced to her father.

Kari sacrificed her dream of a husband and children to feed her sisters and to ease the long hours her father slaved teaching mathematics and science for pennies. She earned more in a day on the streets than he did in a month. When her father was called upon to identify her body and learned she’d died selling her body, he denounced her. A hard right to the jaw administered by a close friend saved James from putting a bullet through his head.

James dedicated the next month to finding her killer. The trail ended at Lewis Malloch’s door. If James hadn’t killed Malloch, he would have thought Malloch had left India to terrorize the women of Inverness. But Malloch was dead. Another fiend stalked the streets of Inverness in both the best and worst parts of Town.

“The newspaper reports did no’ do the mutilations justice,” he said.

“You saw the bodies?” Benning demanded.

Harley’s carriage made a left turn at the corner up ahead.

“All but Beth Rose,” James replied. 

“Who hired you to investigate their murders?”

James shook his head. “No one cares enough to give prostitutes a true burial. I simply took a personal interest.”

“I do not see that this is enough to implicate Harley in the murders of the prostitutes,” Benning said.

“It is an exact pattern,” James insisted. “The murders are so extremely different, as if someone went to great pains to ensure there was no connection. Did you know that Harley’s father sired a girl off a prostitute?”

“He is no’ the first nobleman to visit prostitutes.”

James glimpsed loch Ness to the right. “He’s turning east. Is it possible he is taking the women to his home?” He snapped his gaze onto Benning. “The dowager cottage is half a mile from the mansion.”

Understanding lit Benning’s eyes. “No wonder the cottage has remained empty all these months.”

James nodded. “What better place to commit murder?”