Temptations of Anna Jacobs

Also by Robyn DeHart

The Secrets of Mia Danvers

The Temptations of Anna Jacobs

A Dangerous Liaisons Novel

Robyn DeHart

INTERMIX BOOKS, NEW YORK

To
the Anna in my life: My sweet goddaughter, you are more precious than you know and I love your little bones.

To my kiddos, M and Z, you have certainly turned my life upside down, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Thank you for your patience and unconditional love while I figure out this whole motherhood thing. Someday maybe I’ll get it right.

And as always to my love, Paul, your support seems never-ending no matter how many times you come home to find that I haven’t yet showered and the kids have watched entirely too much television, and that we’re having eggs again for dinner. Love you.

INT
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THE TEMPTATIONS OF ANNA JACOBS

An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author

PUBLISHING HISTORY

InterMix eBook edition / April 2014

Copyright © 2014 by Robyn DeHart.

Excerpt from
The Secrets of Mia Danvers
copyright © 2013 by Robyn DeHart.

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eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-62337-4

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

While writing is a solitary profession, thankfully no book is written completely alone. To my critique partner extraordinaire, Emily McKay, for fielding too many emails and phone calls to count and always assuring me that it’s better than I think it is.

To my mom, Hattie Mae, with whom I share this writing bug and love of stories, you are the best and I love being on this writing journey with you.

To my brainstorming peeps, Anne, Shane and Margo, you save me more times than you realize. And you’re also just some of my favorite people in the world so thanks for everything.

To the ladies in my reverse book club, I love our dinners where we eat and drink and gripe about our books and talk about why we love our books. Y’all are the very best co-workers a girl could have.

And finally to my editor, Kerry, who believed in this series and shared my vision to bring Jack the Ripper to the pages of a historical romance. And to my agent, Kevan. You’re just the bomb in every way possible!

London 1889

Andrew Foster sat in what he fondly referred to as “the hole” and waited. It was all he could do. Sit, wait and listen. The other inmates fought and wailed and hurled curses at one another. It was a wretched existence.

The metal gates a few cells down from his opened and then closed with a heavy slam, and he heard voices. It was dark in his pit; although torches spit and sparked on the walls outside his bars, they offered no real solace from the black surrounding him. After all those years of heavy drinking, it would have been easier if he had finished the job and drunk himself to death. It would have at least saved him from this wretched fate.

Of course it was the damn drink that had put him here in the first place and made him feel so piss-poor. The retching had stopped, but he still suffered from the tremors.

Footsteps sounded and then his own gate rattled.

“Drew.”

The voice belonged to Simon Jacobs. The lead investigator on the Jack the Ripper case, the series of crimes that had landed Drew in this small piece of hell. Still Drew was thankful for the visit. So far the man came once a day, to check in with him and give him reports of the goings-on in London. Drew knew it was to prevent him from succumbing to the darkness. Simon didn’t believe Drew guilty; he’d merely been doing his job. Drew wasn’t a fool, though. He knew this wouldn’t last forever. Eventually Simon would stop visiting. No one would come to see him and then he would rot in here alone with the rest of London’s criminals.

He inhaled sharply and was pleased to smell something other than the filth surrounding him. “Simon,” Drew said. “Smells as if it might rain.”

“Indeed, dark clouds have been rolling in and collecting all day.” There was a pause as Simon got close to the bars. “I need to speak with you. It is of great importance.”

Drew stepped forward. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said with a shrug.

Simon looked over his shoulder, then gripped two of the bars. “I know you didn’t do this. I know you’re not the killer we seek. And we’ve had a situation. One that will prove your innocence to everyone else.”

Drew’s heart thundered in response. Did he dare hope he would be released from this prison? “What happened?” Drew asked.

“Another attack—another victim—but this time she survived. That is what will keep you in here a little longer.” Simon shook his head. “There are those who believe this wasn’t the same man. But I know it was.”

Drew nodded. “So I might get out. Someday.” Hope crumbled from him and fell to the dirt floor beneath his bare feet.

“You will get out. And when you do, I will need your help.” Simon paused and again looked behind him. “I know you don’t owe me anything, as I’m the one who brought you here. But I think you’re in a unique position to assist in this investigation.”

Drew narrowed in on Simon’s features. The man was sincere and earnest, Drew could plainly see that. “What are you asking, Simon?”

“How would you like to do some work for me? Secret work,” Simon said. “For whatever reason, the Ripper used you to take the fall for his crimes.”

“You believe he framed me?” Drew asked. He had suspected the same thing. The evidence had been too convenient and he’d been too bloody drunk to offer an alternative explanation.

Simon nodded. “He enjoys toying with people. He especially enjoys toying with the police. What better way than to send us off investigating the wrong man? But I believe because he picked you, you were obviously in the same places he was, at least part of the time. Perhaps you even know him. You could be quite useful in this investigation.”

“So essentially you want me to become a spy for you? For the Yard?” It was an appealing offer. Frankly Drew was feeling ready to unmask the real killer and get the hell out of this place.

“I do. I know this is a lot to consider, so I shall give you time. I merely wanted to speak with you first, before you were released.”

Drew shook his head. “I don’t need any time,” he said. There was nothing to consider. If he got out of here, he was going after the bastard who had put him there—might as well have official resources and make some coin while he was at it.

“I should hope you would reconsider—”

“I’ll do it,” Drew said, interrupting Simon.

“Oh. Excellent.” Simon tapped a finger on the bars. “In the meantime, I shall work on getting you released.”

“You do that. The food in here is terrible.”

Anna Jacobs closed her textbook and stifled a yawn. “Simon, I do believe I’ve had enough. For tonight, that is.”

Her older brother looked up from his notes. “When is your examination?”

“Not for a few weeks still.” She gathered her books in a tidy pile, then stood. “But I do like to be prepared.”

“Indeed. Come along, then, I shall walk you home.” Simon carried her books and they stepped out into the cool evening air. The streets were relatively empty, save for a carriage now and again. People were either abed or attending one of the evening’s balls.

“Do you think you’re any closer to indentifying him?” Anna asked. Simon was the lead investigator on the Jack the Ripper murders. Recently he’d come close to catching him, but the villain had got away.

“I have a few more leads to investigate, but the chief superintendent is losing patience with me,” Simon said.

“Well, that is ridiculous. They certainly weren’t handling the investigation any better without you.”

A ruckus broke out in the alleyway adjacent them. Simon shoved Anna’s books at her. “Stay here,” he barked.

Then he ran in the direction of the commotion. As best she could tell three men had pinned a fourth on the ground and were taking turns kicking and hitting him. Poor creature.

Simon yelled and the men scattered, leaving the one on the ground alone.

Anna set her books aside and ran to aid her brother.

“Christ, Drew, is that you?” Simon asked. He looked up at his sister. “Anna, help me get him into the house. You can tend his wounds while I find some constables to round up the perpetrators.”

Anna helped pull the bleeding man to his feet, then together they hauled him up the stairs of Simon’s front stoop. Two footmen came to their assistance. Simon barked out instructions, then turned and ran back to the alleyway. The servants helped her bring the injured man into Simon’s study and laid him gently onto the settee. Anna gave them a list of items she’d need to care for the wounds; once they were off gathering the materials, she turned her attention to the man.

His eyes were closed, but his brow furrowed and the muscle in his jaw ticked as he clenched his teeth. He was, quite obviously, in a lot of pain. Her nerves hitched in her throat, but she swallowed hard against them. She was to be a physician. She could manage this man’s injuries.

“Sir, can you hear me?” she said.

He grunted in response.

“Excellent. Can you tell me your name?”

Just then the footmen returned with her supplies and then looked to her for further instructions. “I shall need you to remove his shirt so that I can access the damage done to his torso.”

The men went about doing as she instructed. She removed her brother’s brandy decanter and set it on his desk, then used the tray to organize the items she’d requested.

“Drew Foster,” the man rasped.

Anna stopped cold. “Did you say Drew Foster, as in the younger brother of the Duke of Carrington? The one recently imprisoned for the Jack the Ripper murders?” she asked.

“One and the same,” he said, then released a hoarse cough.

“My lady, he’s bleeding pretty steadily here,” one of the footmen said.

“Hold his shirt to the wound to staunch the bleeding.” She wrestled open one of the windows and poured brandy on her hands to clean them before carrying the tray back over to him. Drew Foster. She knew him by reputation only. Knew that he was a drunk and a lecher, and kept wretched company if he was in the same place as Jack the Ripper on more than one occasion. While many still believed him guilty of the crimes, her brother believed Drew innocent. She didn’t have to approve of Drew Foster, but she would agree with her brother’s assessment of his guilt.

Carrying the tray back to where her patient lay, she set it down on the occasional table nearby and assessed the damage. His face had taken a pounding, one eye was swollen shut and abrasions marked up his cheeks and forehead. Bruises were already forming on his torso, but she couldn’t help noticing the tight muscles of his abdomen, muscles that were artfully carved. He was too thin, no doubt from his stint in prison, but he still cut a fine figure. Good heavens, what was the matter with her? She was not to assess his physique, but rather tend his wounds. She took the shirt from the footman and lifted it off the wound. “This will need to be stitched up.”

“Find my valet, girl,” Foster said through his teeth. “I’ll not have a woman such as yourself treat my injuries.”

“I hardly think you are in a position to make such demands,” she retorted, then she poured a liberal amount of the brandy on his wound.

He flinched and swore, making no concessions for her feminine ears.

She returned in kind by being none too gentle as she inserted the needle into the flesh of his upper side. “I suppose along with your other charming qualities, you’re one of those numskulls who believes the only stitching a woman should do is at her needlepoint table.”

“I didn’t precisely say that. Ow!”

He didn’t have to. She was used to people’s attitudes about her attending medical school. “Who were those men who attacked you?” she asked, ignoring his yelp of pain.

“How the devil should I know?” His green eyes pinned her. “What kind of woman are you, walking about the streets after dark?”

“I’ll have you know I am perfectly respectable—”

“Not if you’re attending that school for women doctors. Ow!”

She tied off the stitch and put a salve on his wound. “You have a decidedly backward attitude, Mr. Foster,” Anna retorted. “Society needs as many qualified doctors as—”

He held up a hand. “Spare me the lecture, Miss Jacobs. I’ve endured about as much as I can stand for one evening.”

Anna knew it was pointless to try to enlighten anyone so small-minded. If only there were more men in the world like her brother, society would have fewer ills.

“You are badly bruised, Mr. Foster,” she said, examining the rest of his injuries. “Lie still another moment. This will most assuredly be a blackened eye.” She ran a finger along the sensitive skin already bruising beneath his eyebrow. He winced.

Just because he was churlish did not mean she wouldn’t treat him to the best of her ability. She took a bottle of liniment from her bag and poured a dollop onto the palm of her hand, then began to rub it gently across his abdomen, where the worst of the bruising appeared to be.

“I hardly think that is necessary,” he grumbled.

“I can stop, but you will hurt worse in the morning without it.” She paused, her hands merely resting on his taut stomach. She was already having to concentrate doubly on his injuries so that she wouldn’t focus on the play of his muscles beneath her palms.

“Do what you must,” he said.

She worked quickly, doing her best to finish so she could remove herself from Drew Foster’s presence. He was precisely as she’d imagined him: boorish, crude, not to mention narrow-minded.

A moment later she finished and Simon returned. “Anna, I shall have a footman escort you home. I have other matters to attend to.”

“Very well.” She moved the tray back to the shelf and returned Simon’s brandy to its appropriate position, then she gathered the rest of the materials.

The two men whispered back and forth.

“You’re certain you won’t change your mind,” Simon said tightly.

“Absolutely not,” Drew responded.

The footman came to retrieve Anna, and she missed whatever Simon and Drew were discussing. Drew nodded curtly in her direction, but didn’t even thank her for her services. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. Why would he express gratitude when he questioned her very abilities?

***

Three days l
ater

“Annabelle Ja
cobs, honestly,” Lady Wickersham said as she stepped near her daughter in the parlor. Her features scrunched as she surveyed her daughter’s work. “You are supposed to be doing embroidery.”

Anna looked up at her mother and gave her mother a deceptively sweet smile. She had hoped her mother would not notice precisely what she was doing. “Yes, but I must practice my sutures; it is far more important than embroidery. There are hordes of women in London who can embroider. So should the need arise when it is paramount that I have something embroidered, I suspect I could find someone to do it for me.”

Her mother tilted her head to the heavens and uttered a silent prayer. “You are deliberately missing the point and you very well know it, young lady.”

“Yes, I do.” Of course she knew that. She’d “practiced” her skill quite recently on the most maddening scoundrel in all of London. But in light of her sutures on Lord Carrington and how crooked they were, she also knew that she needed more practice. Granted, she’d been flustered working on a patient who was not interested in her medical assistance, but still she should be able to hold the needle steady. “But I also know we have had this conversation quite readily over the last few years, and I am not budging on this.”

“Well, for heaven’s sake, Annabelle, if you’re going to be stitching up someone’s arm, you must pay attention to your work. You certainly don’t want to leave them with an unattractive, jagged scar because you can’t make your stitches even.”

Lord Carrington and her mother might think her medical studies foolish at best, and inappropriate at worst, but Anna had no intention of giving them up just to suit some antiquated notion of what a woman could or should do. She frowned down at her most recent stitch, then pulled the thread out to try again. “I shall graduate from medical school regardless of how you feel about it. And Father agreed with me.” She tilted the fabric toward her mother, who, in turn, examined it and nodded.

“Better.” Her mother crossed the room to stand by the window furthest from Anna, as if being near her at the moment would contaminate her mother’s genteel sensibilities. “Your father could simply not say no to you, God rest his soul,” she said with a shake of her head, smiling wistfully. “The man didn’t have a disciplinary bone in his body. And I suspect the only reason he thought it a good idea to send you to medical school was because you might meet a nice doctor and settle down and marry. As all ladies of good breeding should do.”

If only she had met a man who respected her for her intelligence, she might have been willing to marry. It was all too easy to imagine intimate caresses from a man she loved and admired, someone with tawny hair and sultry green eyes, a lean and muscular build. She squeaked when she realized who her mind had just conjured.

“What’s the matter?” her mother asked.

“Nothing. I merely stabbed myself with the needle.” She put her finger in her mouth to further the charade. No, no, that was all wrong, to imagine a man who looked like Drew Foster, when she most certainly did not want to fall in love with someone like him.

Anna shook off her inappropriate thoughts and held up her hand. “Mother, please let us not do this again. I might have married had someone asked. I did things your way for two years. I was properly introduced into Society and I was polite and personable, yet no gentleman would have me. You know it as well as I know it.” They had been the most boring and humiliating years of her life. She’d seen all of her friends marry and start families and she could have counted on both hands the number of times she’d waltzed. “I realize it is difficult for you. But I fully intend to be a doctor and I should like it very much if at some point you would decide to be proud of my aspirations.”

Her mother came over and sat on the chair adjacent hers and put her hand upon Anna’s knee. “I never said I wasn’t proud, my dear. I am merely considering your future. I shall not be here forever, and then what will happen to you?”

“I shall be able to care for myself; that is part of my motivation for becoming a doctor. I shall be able to be financially solvent. But should my plans not work, you know I can always turn to Harry, Elizabeth or Simon. I shall never be alone. I have family, and they love me,” Anna said.

“Well, of course they do. Everyone loves you.”

“Everyone but the eligible men in London,” Anna said. Simon always told her it was because she was far too intelligent for most men; she intimidated them. But her mother had argued it was Anna’s opinionated ways, and Anna suspected that in this one thing, her mother was probably right.

“I’ve told you a hundred times no one likes to be told they’re wrong, least of all men. You must learn to control your tongue in front of people,” her mother said, and Anna recalled her conversation with Drew Foster. Was she to keep her opinions to herself when speaking with such a boor? Was she supposed to allow untruths and misconceptions to go unchecked?

Lady Wickersham waved her hand dismissively. “I am not trying to fight with you, my dear, I am merely concerned. You cannot think to live here with Harry and Veronica forever.”

“I haven’t heard them complaining,” Anna said.

“That is exactly what I am talking about!” her mother said with exasperation. “A well-bred young lady would politely agree with her mother and not offer any sort of retort, no matter how true it might be.”

Anna sighed. She did not want to hurt her mother—ever. But Lady Wickersham just did not understand her need to accomplish something on her own. To be more than some self-important man’s quiet, innocuous,
agreeable
wife.

Her mother released a sigh and gave Anna a pointed look. “Of course Harry and Veronica have not complained. They are far too polite to do so.”

“Not to mention they’ve been in Portsmouth for the past two months,” Anna said under her breath.

“Still you cannot abuse their hospitality simply because they are family.” Apparently, her mother had heard. “You must consider your future.”

It was on her tongue to inquire if her mother intended to live the rest of her days with her brother and his wife, but Anna kept the question to herself. Her mother had been the Viscountess Wickersham until Anna’s father had died and left the title to his eldest son, Harry, and his wife, Veronica. Now with two children married off, she spent the majority of her time occupied in the futile attempt to marry off Anna.