The Winter Garden Page 14

  “Yes,” Kitty snapped as she swatted at his hand, “he knows it all, and he loves me anyway. You soiled my reputation, but your brother is willing to make it right, which is better than anything you did.”

  “Any soiling of your reputation was done by you, Kitty, not me. You are the weak one. You couldn’t resist,” he dropped his voice as his body brushed hers, “but you enjoyed every moment of it until you got caught.”

  Her hazel eyes glowed with rage. “I hate you. You ruined my life.”

  “You hate me?” The devil feigned surprise with his carefully cultured mask of innocence. “I should hate you. I am the one who was thrown over for my own brother. You could not bear to leave the family, but you could not stand to be with the one who couldn’t bring you prestige.”

  “That is not why I am marrying Alexander. I love him. You would not understand that, Alastair. You will never understand what love actually means. Your brother treats me like a lady and not a harlot.”

  The anger climbed up his veins as he loomed over her, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. “You are worse than a harlot, Kitty. Harlots know what they are. You pretend to be a lady, a future marchioness, but you are selling yourself for a title. You chose my brother,” he spat as his fingers contracted near the trigger of the brass and leather gauntlet, “because he is the first born, the only one who matters. I was merely a means to have him come in and rescue you.”

  The young woman’s breast trembled as the words fought their way to the surface. No matter what he was, man or devil, he would not speak to her that way. “I didn’t leave you for money. I left because you nearly drove me mad! Your constant talking and touching made me sick. You are the one who sent me to the doctors, you drove me to starvation! Six months with you made me pray for death, and your brother was willing to do what was right when you wouldn’t! Alexander isn’t a coward.”

  His jaw clenched and his lip curled into a sneer as she stared up at him in defiance.

  “He isn’t a freak like you!”

  “Good bye, Kitty,” Alastair hissed as he plunged the metal fangs at the end of his fingers into the woman’s fragile throat.

  Her eyes widened as he squeezed the trigger, flooding her frail body with current. The prismatic brew under his ribs glowed as Kitty Waters’ body buckled and struggled to break free from unseen binds. When her hazel eyes rolled back in their sockets, the machine pulled the last of the energy from her body and deposited it into the confines of a quartz jar. With a final convulsion, her head fell back and all that held her standing was the bed frame and the three metal tines skewered into her neck. Alastair pivoted the woman’s body until it was resting on top of the bed and carefully dislodged the needles from her flesh. A minute trickle of blood escaped the wounds but stopped before it reached her pillow. As he slung her legs onto the bed, he noticed the purple gem on her ring finger. He yanked it from her boney finger, leaving pinpricks of blood on her hand from each of his metal nails. Taking the vase of flowers from her bedside table, he threw the thick porcelain to the floor with a clatter and waited at the window. Below him voices murmured and moved up the stairs, so he lit a cigarette and slid open the pane.

  “Miss Waters! Miss Waters, is everything all right?” When the maid didn’t receive an answer, she cracked open the door. Her eyes fell upon the beast at the window, looming over her mistress like an incubus. A fog of smoke leaked from his lips and nose as his blazing eyes met hers. Finally, her gaze travelled to her Miss Waters, who lay crumpled on the bedcovers with her silk robe and hair fanned around her. A scream rose from her throat, and the creature slipped out and bounded down London’s streets, disappearing into the misty gloom.

  Chapter Nineteen:

  Murder in Mayfair

  It had been a very peculiar week for Immanuel Winter. Not only had he entered into a relationship with a man whom he could trust and maybe even love, but he received an apology from Emmeline Jardine, which he was fairly certain was the first nice thing she willingly said to him since they arrived at Wimpole Street. Now, he was being roused in the middle of the night by Dr. Hawthorne to accompany him somewhere, but he was too drowsy at the time to remember where. He rubbed his eyes and laid his head against the shadowy interior of the steamer. The brim of his top hat dug into the back of his head and fell over his eyes. When did he put that on? He ran his hand down the front of his jacket and waistcoat to confirm he was actually dressed, and thankfully, he was. Sitting beside him was Dr. Hawthorne with his Gladstone bag at his feet and a leather-bound ledger on his lap. Behind his glasses, his mind had retreated to its laboratorial recesses and begun playing out scenarios from the little he gleaned from the driver who came knocking at two in the morning.

  Indistinguishable houses blurred past the deadened portion of Immanuel’s vision. As they rounded another corner, one house stood alight. Six black and grey police steamers huddled outside the cream bricked building with its red door and eye-like windows, which seemed to blink through their iron lashes as someone paced within. A growing throng of men lingered outside the door, clambering for information and straining to peer through the slits between the lower most drapes despite the late hour. A stalwart constable stood guard at the door, jutting his potbelly to block any reporters who dared to intrude upon the professionals inside, but when James’s head poked from the cab, the policeman’s eyes brightened and he allowed the doctor and his companion passage. The shabby reporters crushed against them, crying for information, and tried to follow the two men into the empty foyer. While the constable shoved the men back with a wave of his nightstick, Immanuel and doctor darted inside.

  The gilded and marble foyer stood desolate, but the faint creaks and cries from above hinted at the presence of the men who had come from the Scotland Yard steamers. As Immanuel followed Dr. Hawthorne up the steps, voices permeated the layers of plaster and paneling. The door to a darkened parlor stood open, revealing a woman lying prone on a divan. An equine-featured gentleman with red-rimmed, hooded eyes held her hand between his as she mumbled under sedated breaths. Immanuel averted his gaze. It was not his place to intrude upon these people in their hour of grief. How was Dr. Hawthorne able to barge right in and mount the steps as if he lived there?

  Even if he could not see the constabulary, he could hear their authoritative tones as they interrogated those left in the house. Only when they reached the uppermost floor did Immanuel spot the lumbering drones of Scotland Yard bumbling through the townhouse. They buzzed in and out of empty rooms and milled in the halls to exchange information and instructions, but upon seeing the funereal figure, silence fell over the men as they parted to allow him passage. Death had entered, instinctively drawn toward the solitary door at the end of the hall.

  Immanuel shifted uncomfortably under the men’s dark, probing gazes at his back. Could they see the sins he committed written on his soul? There was a fugitive in their midst, a foreigner with whom they could never empathize. He was guilty and rightly so, though not justly. How could he be punished so severely for something beyond his control? The crime had been sanctified by men centuries ago who lacked empathy and sought only to dominate and demoralize the supposed heathens. No, they could not dominate him anymore. Men like Lord Rose, whose cruelty knew no bounds, would never control him again. His need for and desire to express his love was no concern of those who had ever only cultivated hate. They would think him foolish for repeating what nearly sent him to prison in Germany, but Adam was worth it and so was he.

  As James Hawthorne stepped out of his line of vision, Immanuel froze. Nestled between the four great oaken trunks was a maiden. Her chestnut curls cascaded across the pillow and spilled over the lace collar of her gauzy gown and silk robe, which lay torn open at her sides. A few detectives stared out into the pluvial blackness of the balcony while others quietly scratched information into pads of paper, oblivious to the woman with her eyes shut in repose and her limbs lax against the coverlet. A lump formed in Immanuel’s throat as his eyes roam
ed over her scratched hands and ashen lips. There had been bodies at Oxford or beneath thirty-six Wimpole Street, but they had always existed in a marmoreal vacuum. This woman was the daughter of the people only a floor below who clung to each other in inexpressible grief. Only a few hours ago, she had a life of her own, and this room with its vanity, tapestried canopy bed, and shattered porcelain vase of amaryllises had been hers. In her bedroom, she was still someone.

  “You have a helper now, Dr. Hawthorne?” one of the detectives in a dark suit asked, his mustache and muttonchops wriggling with each grumbled word.

  “For now. Inspector Kemp, Immanuel Winter.”

  Immanuel was about to proffer his hand when he realized the detective had not even looked up from the shards of porcelain on the damp rug.

  The coroner stepped over the scattered flowers and leaned close to the inspector as his eyes traveled over the other men in the room. Their uniforms were too pressed, too clean for everyday wear. “Why are the queen’s men here masquerading as police?”

  “Ever since Jack the Ripper, the queen likes to investigate the murder of any woman if the killer is not obvious,” Inspector Kemp murmured.

  “So who was she?”

  “Her name was Katherine Waters, daughter of Sir Roland Waters, fiancée of the Marquess of Montagu. She was found dead by her maid about two hours ago. The maid has been blubbering on about Spring-heeled Jack since we got here. Do you think you could give her a sedative before you leave?”

  The doctor glanced up to see Immanuel jotting down every word. “Spring-heeled Jack? Why would she bring that up?”

  “Apparently, the suspect was wearing a mask, breathed smoke, jumped from the balcony, and bounded down the street with preternatural agility. Hysteria, I say.”

  James stepped closer to the woman’s bedside and carefully turned her stiffening neck, brushing back her mane of curls to reveal a triad of pricks only an inch from her carotid artery. The very edges of the wounds were singed and pinkened, but the blood that dripped from them was negligible. Whatever killed her had caused that wound. The doctor didn’t want to inspect her body under her night clothes with all the officers around, so he took each of her limbs in turn and inspected them. All were thin but unblemished save for her left hand, which had five straight lacerations, four on the proximal edge of her palm and one slightly longer one on the distal edge.

  Dr. Hawthorne stared down at the pale void on her left ring finger. “Kemp, where is her engagement ring?”

  “What ring?”

  “Precisely. Look, there is nothing on either hand. The murderer must have pulled it off. That would explain the wound pattern on her hand.”

  “Robbery?” Inspector Kemp scoffed as he propped open the dead woman’s jewelry box on the vanity. “Why would they leave all this behind and take the ring? This whole thing makes no sense. He kills her and steals her ring but leaves her jewelry. He rips open her dressing gown but doesn’t go any further. Then, he breaks the vase and waits to be seen when he could have escaped without notice. I just don’t understand. All I know is, I don’t want another Ripper, James, and if this Spring-heeled Jack nonsense gets to the press, we will have mass hysteria again. Do you have any idea how she was killed? It doesn’t look nearly as gruesome as Ripper. Probably a lover.”

  Dr. Hawthorne shook his head. “I will need to get her back to the lab for further—”

  “Where is she?” an unseen baritone boomed through the hall. “Where is Katherine? Let me see her! Unhand me!”

  Two stout constables tried to hold the enraged man back as he hurtled into the room, shaking the smaller officer from his arm as if he was a child. Immanuel’s breath quickened at the sight of the man’s face, but it subsided as his gaze traveled to his once golden hair that had faded to a dull brass and his light brown eyes flecked with orange that were shaped exactly like his brother’s. The gentleman was nearly a decade older than Alastair Rose and slighter but lacked none of his strength as he ripped his elbow from the remaining guard’s grasp and leveled it at his face.

  “Lord Montagu, Katherine Waters is dead,” James Hawthorne said as he gingerly laid her arms across her stomach.

  Kemp and the other investigators turned to the Coroner to the Queen at his abrupt tone. Lord Montagu froze as his mouth fell open and his eyes moved past the detectives to Katherine’s lifeless form. It was true; his fiancée was dead.

  “Oh, God, Katherine,” he moaned as his hand migrated toward his mouth but dropped as he stepped toward the bed.

  Kemp edged to block his path but James raised his hand to stop him. The marquess moved blindly to Katherine’s side as he stared down at her graceful limbs and porcelain skin. Even in death, she was beautiful. As he knelt at her side and touched the cold flesh of her cheek, his legs gave way, and he folded to the floor beside the nightstand.

  He shook his head, never taking his eyes from her pale lips. “How could this happen? She was only three-and-twenty. How could she die? What did she die of? She was not ill at dinner.”

  “She was murdered, Lord Montagu.”

  When the nobleman’s head whipped around to meet Dr. Hawthorne’s gaze with blazing eyes, Immanuel instinctively took a step back. “Murdered? By whom?”

  “We do not know yet, sir. Did Miss Waters have any enemies?”

  “No,” he replied as the fire died in his eyes upon seeing her again, “none. Everyone loved her. She was an angel, my angel.” He drew in a ragged breath at the holes torn into her throat and the scratches across her hand before bellowing, “Find who did it! Find who did it or I will!”

  Inspector Kemp pushed past the doctor. “Sir, we are trying to do that, but we are going to need your full cooperation—”

  “I know who did it.” Standing in the on the threshold was Miss Waters’ maid with a flushed face and pained eyes. She crinkled and wrung her handkerchief between her water-chapped hands as every man’s gaze fell upon her. “It was Spring-heeled Jack, sir. I saw him with my own eyes. You all think me hysterical, but I saw him. Spring-heeled Jack killed Miss Waters, Lord Montagu. I know it was him. Please, please believe me.”

  “I told you, you should have given her a sedative,” Kemp whispered into James’s ear.

  ***

  Immanuel let out a slow, deep breath as he kept his eyes locked on the tin ceiling of the basement laboratory. With each exhalation and swallow, he was able to temporarily stave off the caustic bile threatening to surge from his throat. Katherine Waters lay on the doctor’s table exposed, but he didn’t want to look at her. After seeing her in her room surrounded by her tapestried bed and pink silk robe, he couldn’t bear to watch her be sliced open and her organs heaped onto a scale like offal at a butcher’s. To avoid witnessing her defilement, he kept her pale form in the filmy portion of his vision as he scribbled down the measurements and observations called out by Dr. Hawthorne.

  James hesitated when his assistant’s face turned green before returning to an unnatural pallor. “Immanuel, could you lend me a hand? I need you to hold her head steady while I inspect the wound.”

  Refusing to let the doctor know the extent of his nausea, Immanuel laid the ledger down and put his hand on the dead woman’s forehead. Her icy flesh melded with his palm, but no vision of her room or murderer invaded his eyes. Immanuel removed his hand as if readjusting its position and touched her again while clearing his mind, yet the images refused to flow. How odd, he thought as the doctor probed and measured the minute holes on the curve of her neck. What was it about Miss Waters that set her apart from the walrus or the dignitary? Could it be because she was a woman? Until now, he had avoided peering at her naked flesh as he had never seen a woman’s body before except in statues and paintings at the Neues Museum or drawings in textbooks. He let his gaze run over the shallow mounds of her breasts, avoiding the scalpel-hewn cleft as he took in her graceful arms and flat, if not concave, belly. Was this how Adam felt when he saw a woman? He felt nothing, except pity for her untimely loss and the suffer
ing of her parents.

  “Do you know what killed her, Dr. Hawthorne?”

  He pushed on the cords of her neck near the wound with his thumb. “The injury on her hand is post-mortem while the neck wound is peri-mortem. There are no obvious signs of internal damage. We will not know for certain until I have run the toxicology analyses, but I think she was electrocuted.” When the younger man raised a blonde brow in confusion, he continued, “Wounds from electricity often leave burns where the current entered, and each of the three cuts are surrounded by a ring of slightly singed skin. The muscles around it are also prematurely in rigor, which is common in electrocutions. Whoever killed Miss Waters had some sort of device that dispatched enough of a current to stop her heart.”

  Immanuel swallowed hard. “What could do that?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest, but I am sure Scotland Yard will figure it out in due time.” He stepped back and sighed. “As soon as you have written down my findings, I would like you to type up the report, so I can send it off to Inspector Kemp as soon as possible.”

  With a nod, he abandoned his station at Miss Waters’ head and wrote down the coroner’s tentative conclusion. Never was he so happy to escape the Hawthornes’ cellar. As he mounted the last of the steps and threw open the door in the kitchen, Immanuel froze. His eyes met the dark gaze of Emmeline Jardine as she nibbled at a piece of toast while the morning newspaper sat propped against the salt shaker.

  “Is Katherine Waters down there?” she asked, never taking her eyes off him.

  Immanuel bit the inside of his lip as the words refused to come.

  “Well? Is she?”