Reckless Wager: A Whitechapel Wagers Novel Page 5

He huffed a sigh and closed his eyes a moment before he spoke again.

  “She saw you return to Moreton Terrace at an ungodly hour last night. Well past dark, Mrs. Guthrie.”

  “Ah.” Mrs. Norton was far more observant than Kate had ever given her credit for, and apparently the woman stayed up late.

  “Have I no right to beg an explanation? To some it might appear…unseemly.”

  “Unseemly.” Kate’s jaw ached as she spoke through clenched teeth. He had yet to present her with a second proposal of marriage, and yet she could already sense his judgment and displeasure.

  But how could she expect anything else? No man would be pleased to learn his potential wife-to-be had returned home unaccompanied in the wee hours of the night.

  “I am merely concerned, my dear. For your reputation.”

  It was the first time he’d ever used a term of endearment and it rang hollow, thoroughly at odds with his grim expression and stiff posture.

  “I assure you it was nothing untoward, Mr. Thruble. I was… I was attending to a young woman in need.” It was not a lie. The whole truth could come later.

  “What young woman?”

  Kate forced herself to meet his gaze. “I cannot say more. I’m sorry. I can only assure you I did nothing to tarnish my reputation.”

  Hadn’t she? Her lips tingled and burned, reminding her of the first kiss she’d experienced in ten years. But the kiss itself meant nothing. Benjamin Quinn had been tipsy. He’d called out for another woman.

  No one ever needed to know she’d kissed a drunken detective, though she doubted she'd ever forget. Shame at her actions weighed on her mind, as tenaciously as her ridiculous curiosity about the desolation she’d seen Detective Quinn's gaze. What haunted the man?

  Another man’s gaze bore into her now. Mr. Thrumble stared at Kate as if the truth of her actions might be written somewhere on her face. He approached, taking two steps across the sitting room floor, almost as if he wished to intimidate her with his proximity and stern expression.

  He tapped his walking stick on the carpet as he stood before her.

  “I really must insist that you explain yourself, Mrs. Guthrie. It won’t do for a lady to be deposited at her doorstep in the dark of night by a hired cab. Did your brother know of your attendance on this woman? Why did he not send you in his carriage?”

  Kate took a step away from him. She had no fear of his harsh tone or disdainful gaze. It was the judgment in his voice that repelled her. Guilt had assailed her from the moment she woke—guilt over not returning to tend to Rose, for wasting precious moments of her last night at the clinic by dallying with a drunken detective. Mr. Thrumble’s accusative stare fueled her self-reproach.

  “My brother and I have discussed the matter just this morning.” The answer did nothing to satisfy him if the arch of his black brow was any indication.

  Kate had tired of his questions, tired of prevaricating. She’d never been one for fibs, but the notion of laying the whole matter of her work in Whitechapel out for him to dissect and judge was out of the question if she meant to visit Rose and return in time for their afternoon luncheon.

  “Mr. Thrumble, I do appreciate your concern, but you’ve called unexpectedly, and I do have an appointment this morning. Would you excuse me?”

  “Well.” He huffed the word, arching his eyebrows and rearing back as if she’d shocked him. He tapped his walking stick again and seemed to gather his wits. “Very well, Mrs. Guthrie. I shall see you for our luncheon appointment.”

  Kate walked him to the door, handing him his hat and gloves from the side table.

  “I do hope you’ll take his carriage this time.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Your brother’s carriage. It’s only proper, Mrs. Guthrie. And I do hope you have a care for propriety.”

  His judgment and displeasure rang clear in his gaze, in every word he spoke. And she wasn’t even his wife. And despite her attempts to convince herself, to rally practical reasons and justifications for accepting his expected proposal, she wasn’t certain she wished to be his wife—or any man’s wife ever again.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Ben rubbed a fist against his eyes. He blinked at the gritty irritation, uncertain whether it was due to his night of over imbibing or the noxious fog that infested Whitechapel and seemed disinclined to ease. Though decidedly unpleasant, the fetid air had done nothing to thin the early morning street sellers crowding the pavement long before daybreak to peddle their wares. Fresh fruit and vegetables were scarce from the countryside in the winter months, but there was always something to sell.

  His stomach rumbled when he heard the call of the pie man, but Ben knew better than to take food. He’d managed only a bit of tea before dressing and departing after dawn. It was essential he speak with Rose before her tale of encountering the Ripper began to change or fade. His failure to question her when she’d asked for him by name, to offer Mrs. Guthrie the aid she’d come seeking, beat at his brain along with the relentless tattoo of a night’s overindulgence. Ben knew it more likely Rose had got on the wrong side of a customer or her procurer, if she had such a man dominating her life. Each time he’d encountered Rose on the streets of Whitechapel, she’d been bruised, though not defeated. Most often, she shot him a crooked smile and had been eager to get on her way.

  Standing a moment before the Fieldgate Street clinic, he struggled to imagine Mrs. Guthrie in such a setting, but he didn’t struggle to remember the woman herself. Opening his eyes at dawn, a moment of uncertainty made him doubt he’d truly encountered Kate—he liked thinking of her by that familiar name—at all. Perhaps it had been an unusually pleasant dream. But as he’d reached to retrieve his discarded neck cloth on the floor near the bed, he fancied he could still smell her fresh lavender scent imprinted on his clothes. He’d licked his lips and convinced himself her sweet flavor still lingered there too.

  Then the guilt and embarrassment had set in. He’d no right to touch her. Only a bloody fool would have touched her as he had. Kissed her. Damnation. So much for his vow to forswear women and all such nonsense.

  He chafed his hands together, warming them against the brisk December breeze and licked his lips again—giving in to the desire to capture one last taste of Mrs. Guthrie before facing Rose’s story of the Ripper. Time to unravel the girl’s fiction from fact. He could manage Rose, but what if Mrs. Guthrie volunteered at the clinic this morning? He wasn’t sure he could face her. Would any apology suffice for the liberty he’d taken?

  “You’ve missed her. Too late, Detective.”

  A hardy dark-haired woman stood in the doorway of the building, a hand planted at each amply-formed hip. He couldn’t recall ever meeting her before, but she clearly knew who he was.

  “Alice Cole.” She seemed to be a mindreader as well as a woman with a memory far sharper than his own. “Don’t you remember the thefts here at the clinic? You came to investigate. That was months ago. And you were almost too late to do much good then as well.” Her teasing tone belied the flash of steel Ben saw in her gaze.

  Miss Alice Cole was formidable and he had no doubt her assessment was correct. Detection took time, far too long sometimes, as the Ripper investigation illustrated. Yet her saucy accusation sparked Ben’s first smile of the morning, perhaps the only one he’d bestow all day. Though he might spare another for Mrs. Guthrie.

  “Come in with you then. Don’t want you catching your death. Not sure I’d have a bed for you if you did.” She relented, eased her rigid posture, and bestowed a slight grin before turning to stride inside the clinic. Holding the door open, she waved him into the warm, clean main room.

  It all came back to him at that moment. Supplies had been stolen from the clinic over the of a month. Reliant on volunteer funds to purchase the medical supplies they needed, the clinic’s administrators—chiefly Miss Cole—couldn’t afford the crimes to continue. The case had stumped an earlier investigator, and when Ben took it over, it’d taken several weeks to suss o
ut the culprit. A volunteer, a well-to-do young woman who’d donated some of the supplies herself, had turned out to be the thief. Ben could only fathom the girl yearned for attention or that the impulse to steal was part of her nature. She’d certainly had no need for the items she took. In the end, her wealthy father offered the clinic a sum that more than compensated for their loss, and the young woman never saw justice for her crimes. For all Ben knew, she would be pinching a fine piece of silverware at some grand dame’s luncheon later in the day.

  “I remember you, Miss Cole. Forgive my oversight a moment ago. I trust there’s been no more filching of clinic supplies since the departure of Miss Duttworth?” The girl’s name came to him too. Perhaps I am fit to be a detective after all.

  “Not at all, Sergeant Quinn. And I thank you for your concern.”

  She mocked his accent and pattern of speech when she spoke. Ben was used to the mild form of ridicule. While living in Whitechapel and hunting the Ripper, he’d attempted to take on the East End London accent, to blend in as much as possible with those who lived in the crowded district. But his years of elocution lessons still seeped in now and then—especially when he was speaking to a woman. Wouldn’t Father be pleased?

  “Tea, Detective?”

  Her question was simple, mundane, and far safer than the quagmire of thoughts that led to his family, and his unbendable, unapproachable father.

  The warmth of the clinic made him wish to warm himself on the inside too. He decided to risk another cup of tea on his unsettled stomach.

  “Yes, thank you, Miss Cole.”

  “Such a formal gentleman you are, for a policeman. I wager you didn’t start your days in Whitechapel, sir.”

  “No.” Ben offered no more, and he would not, could not, despite how Miss Cole’s dark eyes bored into him, as if searching out all his secrets. The woman might fare better as a detective than he had.

  When he said no more, Miss Cole exhaled a sigh and lifted a chipped cup full of tea as dark and thick as the Thames out to him. Steam billowed up, and that proved enough to lure him.

  “Thank you, Miss Cole. Might I speak with Rose? I understand she brought herself to the clinic last evening?”

  “Did you not hear me say you’d missed her?”

  Ben had been so tangled in thoughts of Mrs. Guthrie he’d assumed Alice Cole referred to her, and he’d known a moment of relief. If he faced her again in the bright light of day, he feared every desire she sparked in him would be plain and pathetic on his face. Somewhere in the autumn months, the months of the Ripper’s rampage, Ben had begun to lose his ability to hide his emotions, to mask his true intentions—an essential skill for any detective. He suspected it was part of why Ainsworth had suspended him from the force. That and the way he’d taken his fists to the man he believed to be the Ripper.

  Miss Cole’s voice drew him again, halting him on the well-trod path of self-recrimination.

  “I left late last night for a bit of kip and returned just after dawn this morning. The girl must have slipped out during those few hours. I’ve asked Rebecca. She was the nurse on night duty, but she says she never saw Rose leave. Was surprised as myself to find her cot empty this morning.”

  “You’re certain Rose left on her own? Was she sound enough to do so?”

  Alice Cole’s eyes widened, as if she’d never considered that some menace might be the cause of Rose’s hasty departure.

  “Her throat was bleeding, a cut. Not deep, mind you. And someone had taken fists to her. But she could walk. I don’t think… No. Surely there was no violence here. Rebecca would have heard it.”

  “Is Rebecca here? May I speak to her?”

  Alice Cole wrapped her arms around herself as if to stifle a chill, though the iron stove in the corner of the clinic gave off a blessedly steady heat. The nurse shook her head before speaking.

  “No, I sent her on her way after coming in.”

  “And Mrs. Guthrie? I understand she spoke to Rose last night.” He enjoyed mentioning her name far too much, and the image it evoked of her storm gray eyes. And he had doubts the woman who had come to his rooms was married. What husband would allow his wife to wander Whitechapel at night?

  “Kate? Yes, she found you last night, didn’t she? Said you were…” The nurse ducked her head and then glanced up at him with a knowing grin before continuing. “She said you were unwell last evening and could not come to speak with Rose.”

  Ben turned his gaze from Miss Cole’s watchful eyes. He shifted his stance and willed the roiling in this stomach to ease. Guilt over his actions the night before settled there, joining the familiar ache of shame over his other failures—losing Anne to his best friend, his inability to catch the Ripper, and his estrangement from his family. And now there was the matter of a drunken kiss.

  Ben could only imagine how Kate had described his inebriated condition to Miss Cole. What else had she revealed? From Miss Cole’s blank expression, he guessed Mrs. Guthrie had revealed nothing of their kiss.

  “I am sorry about that, Miss Cole.”

  “You needn’t apologize to me, Detective. Rose was asleep when Mrs. Guthrie returned, and I wouldn’t have wished to wake her, even if you’d come along.”

  “Do you know where I can find her?”

  Miss Cole stared off into the distance before meeting his eyes again.

  “I know how she earns her keep, but I couldn’t tell you which doss house she frequents or if she lodges at a certain address. Perhaps she said something to Mrs. Guthrie. Would you like her address?”

  “Mrs. Guthrie’s address?”

  He took a guess where she might live. Clean, neat, a street of whitewashed fashionable houses, no doubt. As for Mr. Guthrie, if there was such a man, he was clearly a fool, too busy with business or society to realize his lovely wife spent her nights in one of London’s darkest corners. He knew the type. Far too well. His father had driven Mother—all of them—to distraction with his neglect.

  “Yes, I have it here in my desk.”

  Miss Cole reached to open her desk drawer, but Ben lifted a hand to stop her.

  “No, that’s quite all right.” Mrs. Guthrie’s address was the way of temptation, a distraction he did not need. And she could hardly help him find Rose. “I’ll have better luck looking for Rose in Whitechapel. I’ll stop in and speak to Mrs. Guthrie here at the clinic. When will she return?”

  Alice Cole turned away from him and busied herself with organizing linens on a shelf near her office. Apparently she’d given him enough of her time.

  “She won’t be returning to the clinic, Detective. Our Mrs. Guthrie is to be married, and I take it her new husband will not approve of her work at the clinic.”

  Ben had taken a blow to the gut during his skirmish with the Penhurst and never imagined news of Katherine Guthrie’s marriage—a woman he barely knew—could have a similar breath-stealing effect.

  “She’s a widow.” A widow on the cusp of a second marriage.

  “Yes.”

  Miss Cole eyed him suspiciously, as if he’d revealed too much and given himself away. When one of her dark eyebrows arched and he read smug satisfaction in her expression, Ben knew it was time to leave.

  “Thank you for the tea, Miss Cole. I’ll be on my way and start the search for Rose.”

  The nurse took the cup from him before Ben turned toward the door. It was time to put the blonde widow aside and focus on finding Rose, though he suspected he’d have better luck encountering her after nightfall.

  As he reached the door of the clinic and abandoned its warmth for the thick morning fog, Miss Cole’s mocking tone sounded at his back.

  “She’s a lovely woman, our Mrs. Guthrie.”

  Curse Miss Cole’s inquisitive gaze. Curse his foolish thoughts about a woman he had no business holding in his mind, let alone in his arms. And curse the blasted scent of lavender that seemed to follow him. He’d spent less than an hour with the woman. It should be easy enough to forget her.

  “
Pardon me, sir.”

  A soft, warm figure brushed against him and then came into focus. Her gray eyes matched the shade of the winter sky.

  “Mrs. Guthrie.”

  “Detective Sergeant Quinn.”

  He wasn’t aware he had reached out to steady her until her gloved hand met his own. She no doubt meant to detach his hold on her arm, but she stilled when their gazes locked. Awareness crackled between them, and Ben felt a pulse of sensation race from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. He shivered but it had nothing to do with the winter chill.

  She pulled away, looking down to straighten her gloves and smooth her dress, as if any task was preferable to meeting his eyes.

  “Mrs. Guthrie, I do apologize—”

  “You’ve spoken to Rose?”

  Mrs. Guthrie would not look at him. She glanced toward the clinic, then behind her, and finally at the pavement below as she spoke.

  “I’m afraid not. She left the clinic last night. No one seems to know why. Or where she might have gone.”

  The news earned him a glance.

  “You must find her. If she truly encountered the Ripper, it will mean he’s at it again. It will mean he’s not finished. There will be more victims.”

  Though Ben doubted Rose’s claim of being attacked by the same fiend who’d murdered five women over the autumn months, Mrs. Guthrie voiced his deepest fear. He agonized over the Met’s inability to catch the killer. If the Ripper was back at it, there would be no peace until the man was found. Suspension or no suspension, Ben remained on the hunt and would be until the monster was stopped.

  “I am well aware of what it means, Mrs. Guthrie. Thank you for your insight. If you’ll excuse me, I must begin my search for Rose. Perhaps you should return to your fiancé.”

  He left her, moving his feet one after the other, until the hum of awareness began to ease. Until he could look ahead and see the crowded streets of Whitechapel instead of her cool gray eyes. Finally, after several long strides, he remembered his purpose. Find Rose. Question her. Find the Ripper.

  Ben took a deep breath, letting the cold air chill him through, tasting the rusty flavor of the fog on his tongue.