The Ripper Affair

Chapter Twenty-Five Beyond Your Ken

“I am no donkey, sir.” Philip Pico bridled, as Alice took his gloves and hat with a sniff.

The other maid, Bridget of the slightly lame left leg and the engaging gapped-tooth smile, took Clare’s, and he held his peace until they had both vanished into the depths of 34½ Brooke Street. “You bear a suspicious resemblance to a stubborn ass. And yet it is me saddled with you.”

“Keep him in one piece, she said. Welladay, I will, sir.”

“Oh? And what else did she say?”

“Naught that would interest you.”

“Oh, I think it would. Did she mention your predecessor?”

“The one you were in love with, sir? No. She said nothing to me about him.”

Clare halted, and the heat in his cheeks was new and unwelcome. “His name was Ludovico, and I was not in love with him. Mentaths do not—”

“Good evening, gentlemen.” A rustle of black silk, a breath of smoky sorcery laced with spiced-pear perfume, and Emma Bannon halted on the stairs, eyeing them both with arch amusement. “A drink before dinner?”

“Rid me of this encumbrance, madam,” Clare managed, stiffly. “This is insupportable!”

“Oh?” One eyebrow, elegantly arched. “Philip?”

“About to go slumming with the detective inspector, he was.” The bratling straightened his sleeves much as a gentleman would, and matched Clare glare for glare. “And on such short acquaintance. I thought it best we come home for dinner.”

“It is not slumming, it is searching for clews! And, had you not rudely objected, Philip, we would have had Aberline here for questioning during dinner, and added his considerable talents to our—”

“Inspector Aberline is not welcome at my table, Clare.” Very softly. “Philip, you did well. Go and dress for dinner, if you please. Mr Clare and I have a few matters to settle.”

“Oh, I shall say we do.” Clare straightened as the youth made that same abortive gesture–as if to tug his forelock–and made for the safety of the stairs. He passed Miss Bannon, giving her as wide a berth as possible, and Clare almost did not note that she did not bother to twitch her skirts back as if he suffered something contagious.

As she always had with Ludovico. Did this young annoyance have Valentinelli’s room as well?

Why, Clare asked himself, should he care?

Miss Bannon rested one hand on the banister, the curve of her wrist just delicate enough to make a man think of snapping it.

The idea was a dash of icy water, and Clare inhaled, tensing fruitlessly. He had spent the entire afternoon sifting through papers holding bloodless information about singularly bloody acts, and they had not nettled him one whit. Now, just a few moments in Miss Bannon’s company, and he was boiling.

This is Feeling. It is illogical. It did not help that the murders Aberline had so painstakingly gathered were clearly not the work of the current madman–except for two, and those two offered frustratingly little in the way of fresh insight.

“Do go on.” She was maddeningly calm, but her fingers were tense. A girl who could snap a word that immobilised a grown man, and yet she appeared so fragile.

Clare had seen this woman perform illogical miracles, and they had left no mark on her youthful face. Was this what the churches of the world, both Popish and Englene, meant when they raved of Woman’s diabolical nature?

He gathered what he could of his dignity. It was a thin cloak indeed. “I am not a pet, nor am I your ward.”

“I agree.” She nodded once, her dark curls swinging. “Were you one, I would cosset you, and were you the other I would not allow you to step forth into the dangers outside for a good long while. You are not well, Clare, and this affair, I am beginning to think, is beyond your ken.”

For a moment he could not quite believe his ears. “I am perfectly well.” He was aware of the lie even as he spoke it. “I have endured a succession of shocks to my faculties, true. And I had some… difficulty… with the notion of… but dash it all, Emma, this case is fascinating, and work is the best cure for a completely natural… loss.”

“Except you do not consider your loss natural at all, sir, on either account. This is a matter best left to sorcery. I have discovered much today, and it quite disturbs me.”

He could have fastened on that little tidbit, but the tide of Anger had him now. “So, I am to be set upon a shelf? I think not. Aberline and I do get on very well, and he is the best man to investigate—”

“He is a slightly useful tool, nothing more, and will serve to distract my quarry quite handily with his bumbling about.” Her tone cooled, and the movement on the stairs above her was Mikal, a gleam in darkness. “You would do well to be cautious of the good inspector, Archibald. If he may do me a disservice through you, he shall no doubt try.”

“And what did you do to earn such treatment from a gentleman?” Unjustified, perhaps, but the way she rocked slightly back onto her heels, paling a shade or two–though she was already much whiter than her wont, almost drained-looking–made a certain hot bubble rise under his breastbone.

No trace of paleness in her tone, however. “I saved a somewhat-soiled innocent from his clutches, and consequently he bears me a grudge. It nettles a certain type of petty man to be denied something by a woman.”

Did she mean it as a return cut? Clare’s head had begun to pound as he struggled to lower his voice. “What baseness you attribute to a gentleman who—”

Her chin lifted, and her eyes were flashing dangerously now. “On what do you build your assessment of his good character, mentath? Let me hear your logic.”

“I would grant you a full explanation, if I could be certain of your understanding it.” Was he actually sneering? Clare had the exquisitely odd sensation of falling into a hole, watching himself from its bottom as his face twisted and took on a rather ugly cast.

“Likewise, sir.” A dot of crimson had appeared on each soft cheek, yet she was iron-straight. “You are relieved of the need to give any further attention to this matter. Do try to stay out of trouble while I attend to the Crown’s business.”

With that, she swept down the stairs, turning so sharply at the foot her skirt flared and almost touched his knee.

Mikal drifted in her wake, but her pace was such that he had no time to do anything but glower in Clare’s general direction, the flame in the Shield’s yellow irises waking.

She goes to her study, instead of to the drawing room. Angry? Perhaps. Nettled? Hurt?

What on earth had possessed him? A mentath did not behave so. Nor did a proper gentleman.

He found he was wringing his hands, and forced himself to stop. To let them hang loosely, fingers throbbing and the appendages afire because he had driven his nails deep into palmflesh. His shoulders loosened, and he cast about for something, anything, to distract his aching head.

Nothing was to be found. He made it to the stairs before sinking down, dropping said tender head into his hands, elbows on knees, and there he stayed until Philip Pico found him an hour later, to bring him to the dining room, where Miss Bannon–and Mikal–were both absent during a long, exquisite, and tortuously silent dinner.