Lady Killer

  Miles propped himself on one elbow. “So?”

  “It is as if the book were patterned after him. Or, to put it another way, as if he were patterned after the book.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I think he is not a vampire after all. I mean that it is too neat. I mean that he is a regular if somewhat evil man trying to cover his murders under the guise of being a fiend.” Miles was about to object when her eyes grew enormous and she rushed on. “And it makes sense of the gardenia and the guard dogs. My God, why didn’t I see this before?”

  “What?”

  “He kills his victims by poisoning them. He pricks them on the neck. And he uses the gardenias to cover up the smell of the poison.”

  “Poison does not smell,” Miles pointed out.

  “This one does. He is using ourali.”

  “Ourali? That stuff taken from New World savages? If someone were buying large quantities of ourali, I would have known about it.” Miles had made a slip, but Clio did not seem to notice.

  “He wasn’t buying it. He stole it,” Clio explained, remembering the apothecary Copperwith’s accusations against Toast, and her having to promise him ten pounds in order to spare the monkey’s ears. Then a strange smile crossed her face. “Not only that, you paid for it.”

  “What?” Miles asked, then waved it away. “Never mind. I do not want to know. Assuming what you said is true,” he went on in a voice that made it clear he was prepared to assume no such thing, “what does it have to do with my guard dogs?”

  “Experimentation. He was experimenting with different quantities of poison, different doses. You said it yourself. The first dogs did not die right away but slowly, over time. Whereas the last two were dead on the spot.”

  Miles frowned over this for a while. He shook his head. “But I saw him. I saw him with blood on his lips. I saw him with his mouth on that woman’s neck.”

  “That is why it has to be ourali,” Clio explained excitedly. “Because ourali can make you ill if you ingest it, but it is only lethal when used to prick someone. The savages use it to poison their spears and arrows.”

  “How do you—never mind,” Miles interrupted himself. “I am sure you read it in a book.” Clio nodded. “So you surmise that he actually does bite the woman he is killing? That he puts the ourali on his teeth and then sinks them into her neck.”

  “Not exactly. I suspect he attaches some sort of pointed device to his teeth first and puts the poison on that. Otherwise the marks would be different.”

  “Why would he bother to bite his victim if he was actually murdering her with poison? No man would do that.”

  “No sane man,” Clio pointed out. “In some ways, his not being a vampire makes his crimes worse.”

  Miles was pensive. “You said the other night that his being a fiend meant we did not have to look for a reason behind his killings. But if he is a man, we do. What could possibly be motivating him?”

  “I don’t know,” Clio said, shaking her head. “That is the one thing I cannot figure out.”

  Very shortly, she would have an opportunity to ask him.

  When the chambermaid went to Doctor LaForge’s room the next morning with his breakfast, she found it empty. “I knew something wasn’t wholesome,” she reported in her testimony to the Special Commissioner later. “T’was tidier than usual, and everything was all moved around. Looked like he was expecting a visitor. And I’ll tell you plain, I’m glad it wasn’t me.”

  Clio’s eyes snapped open. Her heart was thudding and it was daylight. It took her a moment to realize where she was, because she had left the bed and was standing in the middle of a clump of shrubbery. A clump which she saw was the only thing between her and plunging off the edge of the Dearbourn Hall. There were footsteps behind her and when she turned around Miles was standing there, his arms crossed over his chest.

  “You look marvelous in green,” he told her. “And I think you should always sport twigs in your hair. But if you wanted something to wear, you only needed to ask.” He reached toward her and wrapped her in his arms, the tightness of his embrace belying the lightness of his tone. “Are you all right, amore?”

  Clio nodded into his chest, and pressed her palms against his back. “I was dreaming. At home, I often walk in my sleep, but I have not done it since I have been here. I sleep better with you.”

  “I sleep better with you, too,” Miles returned, remembering the years of long nights that ended only in drunken oblivion. “What did you dream about?”

  “I don’t know exactly.” Clio closed her eyes and tried to summon back the images. They floated through her mind like ghosts. “Women. Flying around, calling to me. And they all had stains on their dresses. Like blood stains. But then the stains went away. I must have tried to follow them. It was nothing.”

  The sun shined down on them, warming their skin, and Clio took several deep breaths of Miles. Her hands were moving down his back, along his bottom, and she was just considering slipping one of them forward to caress the long shaft straining against her stomach when there was a knock, followed by a squeak, and the door that led back into the house opened slowly.

  Miles pushed Clio behind him as Corin stepped onto the terrace. “Sorry to bother you, my lord,” he said, his eyes looking everywhere but at the naked form of his master, “but you’ve got an appointment with your cousins and Sir Edwin and the lawyer to go over the settlement papers in half an hour.”

  From her vantage point, Clio saw every muscle in Miles’s body ripple.

  “Thank you, Corin,” Miles said. “I will be down shortly.”

  The door closed and Miles turned to Clio and she saw that his face had changed. Before he could speak she was pulling his lips over hers, demanding him.

  She would siphon his pain from him. She would show him it would be all right. She would be strong for him, for both of them. He had given her so many gifts, this was the least she could give him back. She pushed him down onto the terrace, warm now with the heat of the sun, and made love to him, milking the anger and hurt and tension from him.

  He wrapped his hands around her bottom and pulled her over him harder, as if he were trying to lose himself inside her body. He was wild and wanton with her, pressing into her, holding her with desperation and desire, with insatiable need. He felt he loved her more with each thrust, needed her more, possessed her more. And then, just before he was going to find his release, he took one of his hands and slid it onto her chest, between her breasts. “Mine” he whispered as he arched into her the final time, and Clio thought at first he was referring to the amethysts she still wore.

  Then she realized he had been feeling for her heart.

  When he was slightly recovered, she heard him whisper, “Thank you,” into her hair.

  She drew herself up on both elbows and looked down at him. “You are welcome. But I have to go now. I have things to do today and cannot waste all this time dallying.”

  “What things?” Miles looked puzzled. He did not want her doing anything or going anywhere. He wanted her to stay right where she was. Forever.

  “I do have a client, you know,” she told him, sliding away from him onto her side. “And a household to run.”

  “They don’t need you,” he said with solemnity that was only partially pretend.

  “Oh?”

  “No. Not like I do.”

  She brushed the hair off his forehead. “Miles, you are not even going to be here today,” she told him, struggling to keep the pain out of her voice. “I will come back tonight, amore.”

  Miles smiled at her. “I like it when you say that.”

  “I like it when you say it, too.” Something about the heat of the sun and his body and the deep blazing gold of his eyes all together broke through Clio’s reserves then. “Go on,” she urged him, helping him to stand and pointing him toward the door. “Corin is waiting for you.”

  He kissed her one last time on the lips, then disappeared down the stairs,
pausing twice to wave good-bye. “Do not go alone to any mysterious meetings in dank old churches,” he ordered when he turned the last time, and Clio nodded.

  Then she sat down in the middle of the terrace, hugged her knees to her chest, and sobbed.

  She had hoped all the sadness had drained from her then, but as she sat behind her desk at Which House four hours later with Toast curled comfortingly on top of her head, she felt a tear steal down her cheek. The monkey reached out to dry it with his little hand, letting it rest tenderly on her face for a moment. The gesture restored Clio to herself and she looked at the clock, saw that it was well after noon and therefore much past the nine-to-nine-thirty slot she had allotted days earlier for sobbing over the Viscount Dearbourn. She would have to discipline herself.

  But before she could undertake any rigorous punishment, Inigo entered and slid a picture onto her desk. It was almost identical to the drawing Mr. Pearl and Mr. Hakesly had delivered to her the previous day, the same face, rendered from a slightly different perspective. Inigo stood in front of the desk and jabbed a finger at it.

  “Yes, I see, but I do not recognize him.”

  Inigo sighed and rolled his eyes, then began jabbing his finger anew.

  “Should I recognize him?”

  He nodded vigorously, and jabbed his fingers a third time, now toward his throat.

  “He knows the vampire?”

  Inigo shook his head and stomped his foot, and had just embarked on the finger-jabbing pantomime again when Mr. Williams burst into the room.

  “Messenger from across the sea,” he proclaimed, then stepped aside and let a small woman scurry in.

  “Are you Clio Thornton?” the woman asked, marching straight up to the desk, leaning across it, and eyeing Clio at close range.

  Clio drew back slightly. “Yes. Can I help you.”

  The woman then squinted around the room. “Who’s he?” she demanded, waving her arm dramatically toward the bust of King Henry the Eighth that stood behind Clio’s desk.

  “No one,” Clio assured her. “I can guarantee that he will not repeat a word you say.”

  “Not me saying a word,” the woman replied, returning her squint to Clio. “It’s me tenant, Miss Kimberley. Wants to see you. Think it’s a bad idea, I do, but no one ever asks old Annie for her opinion.”

  “Is Miss Kimberley outside?” Clio coaxed.

  “An how would that be, seeing as how she’s sick in bed? Wants you to come to her, she do. And right away.” The woman leaned closer and Clio could see the pores in her nose. “Twixt you and me and that gen’lman over there,” she motioned toward Henry the Eighth again, “she’s not fitting to live another three hours.”

  A client who only had three hours to live was not an ideal client, Clio thought, but at least going to see Miss Kimberley would be a diversion from sobbing, wondering if Doctor LaForge had been found, and watching Inigo jab himself in the throat. Grabbing Toast’s leash, she followed Annie to Miss Kimberley’s bedside.

  Annie’s estimate turned out to be slightly pessimistic, although Clio could see the basis for it when she walked into the sick woman’s room half an hour later. It was a small room in the middle floor of an old and dilapidated looking boardinghouse. A smartly dressed young man was lounging against the door outside as they approached the house, but slipped away as they neared.

  “That’s Bad Harvey,” Annie told Clio in a loud whisper. “Thinks I can’t see him hanging about like that, but I know.”

  “Bad Harvey?” Clio inquired. At the beginning of a case, it was important to get as many facts as possible.

  “That’s what I said, isn’t it? He’s got a fancy for our Kimberley, but she’ll have none to do with him. He’s a bad’un.”

  “Hence the name,” Clio said, more to herself than to Annie.

  “Exactly,” the other replied, seriously. “Not that he’ll be able to give her much trouble, where she is going, if you know what I mean.”

  Clio did, especially when she glimpsed Miss Kimberley’s room. Heavy blankets had been tacked up over the windows, and the air was thick with the smell of an invalid. Toast, strangely subdued, dashed into a corner and curled up there. At first Clio did not see anyone lying on the narrow bed, but then Annie bent toward the pile of blankets and shouted, “I brought her like you asked, Miss Kimberley.”

  Delicate fingers pushed the blankets aside, revealing a thin, pale face with heavy lids and dark circles under the eyes. Clio could see that Kimberley was young, younger than herself, perhaps not even twenty. “Thank you so much for coming,” the girl whispered with an accent far more refined than her setting.

  “Of course,” Clio replied, moving toward the bed and seating herself on the edge. “Can I help you?”

  The fingers groped for something in the space between the bed and the wall, and brought up a rumpled piece of news sheet. As Kimberley extended it toward Clio, she saw a circle of bruises on the girl’s wrist. Instinctively, her eyes went to the girl’s neck, and she saw it was wrapped in a bandage.

  “The vampire,” Clio breathed, her voice almost as throaty as the girl’s. “You were attacked by the vampire and lived.”

  Kimberley nodded, crumpling the news sheet in her hand. “Yes. Barely. I awoke yesterday, but only today was I strong enough to speak. I remembered your advertisement and sent for you.” She coughed slightly, and Clio saw her lips were cracked and dry.

  “Can I get you some ale? Or some food? You must eat. Has a doctor seen you?”

  Kimberley shook her head and reached her hand out for Clio’s arm. “I must speak to you first,” she rasped. “You must find him.” Her eyes, glassy, burned into Clio’s, and Clio nodded. Her heart was pounding.

  “Can you tell me what happened?”

  Kimberley reached toward a cracked glass filled with something that smelled faintly of mint. The girl took a sip, gagged slightly, then swallowed. “I was coming home from work,” she began. “I was humming to myself, a song from home.” Her expression changed. “I just came from home two months ago, you see, and I still miss it.”

  “You are from Devonshire,” Clio stated rather than asked.

  Kimberley nodded. “I work for a dressmaker, a famous one. She sent me to drop off some dresses at a big fancy house, and the manservant there gave me a fine tip for promising not to tell anyone where I dropped off the dresses. So I was feeling happy, and I was singing. But all along I have this idea that there is someone following me. I turned to check but there was no one there. Finally I got home and closed my door and went to see if there was anyone waiting in the street, but there was not.”

  “And then, that night, the vampire came,” Clio said.

  “No,” Kimberley shook her head. “It was the next night. The night your advertisement appeared in the news sheet. I always like to read the news sheets, when I can, to see what all the fancy folk are doing,” Kimberley confided, and Clio saw a touch of color on her cheeks. “So, since that man had given me such a good tip, I decided to buy myself one. This one,” she held up the sheet, which she was still gripping in her hand. “I looked at every word on it, and then I blew out my candle and went to bed. The next thing I know, I wake up with the feeling that there is someone in my room. I looked over there,” she pointed toward the door, “and saw there was a man coming toward me.”

  Clio’s stomach tightened. “What did he do?”

  “He put a hand over my mouth so I couldn’t scream and he used the other one to hold my arms over my head like this,” she said, crossing her wrists. “And then—” she broke off, gulping hard. “Then he starts whispering to me.”

  “What did he whisper?” Clio heard herself ask. She felt as though she were listening from a great distance.

  “He told me that I was going to help him. That through him I was going to play a role in history. That he was going to make me a great lady. I was terrified, I tell you. I thought he was going to rob me of my virtue.”

  “Did he?” Clio forced herself to inq
uire.

  Kimberley shook her head miserably. “He told me to sing. To sing the song I had been singing the day before. The one from home. And so I did. I sang it to him, just like my mother used to sing it to me. ‘The first time I did see you dear,’ ” Kimberly began to sing in a terrible, throaty soprano.

  “I know the song,” Clio assured her, interrupting. Willing her to stop.

  “Then, just when I got to the last verse, he smiled at me. And that was when I saw them.”

  Clio waited for Kimberley to go on, but the girl said nothing. “Saw what?” Clio asked softly.

  “His tears. He was crying. He kissed me on the cheek and said everything would be fine. He put his hand on my neck and told me that my blood was pumping so hard, I must be scared, and I told him I was and he said I was a good girl. And then I felt something sharp on me and I tried to scream but I must have fainted. When I woke up, he was still leaning over me, sucking on my neck, and I opened my mouth to call out, but there was fabric in it and I couldn’t. And when he saw that I was awake, he looked almost scared, different than he had before, and he said, ‘Be a good girl.’ I tried to scream again, then, but I think he struck me because I cannot remember any more. When I woke up it was days later and he wasn’t here. But this was.” She pulled the bandage around her neck down slightly, and Clio saw the two familiar pricks.

  “What did he look like?” Clio asked.

  Kimberley bit her lip. “My mind is so jumbled. I do not really know.”

  “Did he have light hair or dark hair?”

  “Light. Light-ish dark hair. Or darkish light hair. I am not sure. I cannot really recall.” Kimberley made an effort to sit up, imploringly. “I was so afraid.”

  “Of course,” Clio said, soothingly, pressing her back into the pillows. “Do you recollect if he was tall or short?”

  “He seemed tall when he was coming toward me, but when he was leaning over me he seemed shorter.”

  “How did he smell?”

  Kimberley shuddered. “When he opened his mouth and smiled at me, it smelled horrible, like the smell of death. But after that it went away.”