The large man who had come to fetch them nodded.“Just a few weeks.”
She gently pushed back a lank of wet hair from Mary Beth’s face.“Her mother was worried because she hadn’t heard from her.She asked me to find her and make sure she was all right.”A sob rose in her throat, and she couldn’t stop the strangled sound from escaping.“Lord, how am I going to tell her?”
“I will tell her family.She was my responsibility,” Mr.Reeves said.“Where does she live?”
“No, it’s mine.I told Mrs.Kelley I would find her.”
He gripped her elbow.“Lizzie, everyone who works at the Blue Angel is my responsibility.This is my world, and this happened outside my club.I will go tell her mother.You should go home.How did you get here?Do you have a carriage?”
Elizabeth stood frozen with guilt and grief, looking down at the dead woman.That’s strange.There was a long thin cut across her throat.It didn’t look as though it had bled like a knife wound would have.She frowned.“What would have caused this cut?”
“A blade?”Ben said.
“No, there would have been much more blood.And look here…it’s beginning to bruise.”
“She was strangled,” Mr.Reeves said, his voice grim.“With a garrote.”
Elizabeth looked up at him.“How do you know?”
“Because I have seen it before.”He sighed.“Come, let’s get your angel friend and get you home.No arguing.”He turned to his employee.“Send for Seaton’s boys.I want someone on every door, every corner around the club.And after the show, all the girls get escorted home.No one leaves alone, at least for tonight anyway.I’ll take her to her parents.”He looked expectantly down at Elizabeth.
She hadn’t even thought about getting her body back to her parents.Elizabeth sighed.“57 Southampton King.Three doors down from me.But shouldn’t we call the magistrate?Report the murder?”
Mr.Reeves’s lip curled in a sneer.“No one cares about girls being murdered on the east side.And I am certainly not bringing the magistrate to my hell.We take care of our own around here.”
Elizabeth glanced down again at poor Mary Beth Kelley.She knew Mr.Reeves was right.No one cared about the fate of dancing girls, or factory girls, or prostitutes.Crimes against these women never made the papers, never caused much public outrage.She fisted her hands at her sides.Well, she was outraged.
A strong hand gripped her elbow.She looked up at Mr.Reeves; his dark hair and even darker expression made him look like the king of the underworld, even without his devil’s mask on.In contrast, his voice was soft, the deep timbre soothing.“Come with me.I’ll have someone get you a hack to get home.”
Chapter Three
Sitting at thewriting desk in her bedroom, Elizabeth rubbed at her tired eyes and glanced down at the headline of the article she had crafted in the wee hours of that morning.Unable to sleep last night, she had risen from her rumpled sheets and sat down to work out her emotions on paper.Those emotions now screamed up at her in a single word.MURDER!
Running a fingertip across the bold, shocking word, she smiled grimly.She would choose a font at least three inches tall.She would tell all of London about the killing of an innocent woman.Mary Beth’s murder last night had been only one in a recent string of ghastly deaths.
Last night, as Elizabeth had looked through her notes from the past two months, she finally saw the connection.All the women killed had been attacked on the east side of town, all near their places of work.These killings had to be connected.More than that, these women deserved to have their deaths lamented.The public should be shocked and disheartened.Maybe the article would capture the attention of the magistrate finally.
She folded the penned article neatly and tucked it into a leather folio.Before she headed to meet her printer, she should say good morning to Robert.As she left her room, she stopped in front of her tall mirror.She tucked a rogue piece of hair back into her bun and straightened the watch fob pinned to her waist.Her practical navy dress was a far cry from the beautiful red silk gown, but she looked more like herself this morning, puffy, tired eyes and all.
She walked up the narrow stairs to the third floor and paused to lean against the doorjamb to watch her son play.He sat in the middle of the large round rug, surrounded by toy soldiers, cavalry, and cannons.
“Get set.Fire,” he bellowed.One small hand swept out a platoon of soldiers.“Ahhhh!”
She chuckled, and Robert’s head swung around.“Mama!”His dark hair fell over his forehead and into his eyes.She needed to make time to give him a haircut.
“Hello, my love.”She stepped into the room.“Who is winning?”
“The Greeks.Uncle Alex told me about how they are fighting the Turks for independence.And how we are helping with our navy.Because the British navy is the best in all the world.Uncle Alex knows lots of things about the military because he sits in the House of Lords.”Robert’s eyes shone with admiration.
Elizabeth ran a hand over Robert’s hair, pushing it off his face.She sighed a little.Uncle Alex had become such a hero to her son.It had been a year since the Duke of Hartwick had discovered her and Robert’s existence.She had kept her son’s parentage a secret to protect them.But Hartwick had been searching for answers to his brother’s untimely demise and found out about the two of them quite by accident.She didn’t know who had been more surprised that day when Robert had opened the front door to find the duke at their doorstep.Now, they all were the most unlikely kin.
She wasn’t always happy about how much the Duke of Hartwick wished to insert himself into their lives.But she did understand that Robert was starved for male role models.And, well, she supposed Hartwick was also starved for family.Why else would he allow that criminal half-brother of his to also be part of their ragtag family?
This past year hadn’t been all that bad.Hartwick’s wife made sure to pull him back from becoming too domineering and Lady Hartwick had become a good friend.Elizabeth usually avoided the aristocracy, preferring to write from afar about the fickle favors and betrayals of the ton in her weekly gossip page.But Hartwick and his lady were exceptions.Perhaps it was because they shared her basic mistrust of those in the ton.And, well, they were family, and the only people who had known and loved her son’s father as much as she had.
“Mama, do you want to play?”Robert tipped his head up to flash her a smile that reminded her so much of his father.
Those gray eyes, clear and bright with enthusiasm, made her heart ache with the thought that Robert would never know his namesake.Never get to listen to him chatter and watch him grow.She rubbed a small circle on her chest.Grief had a funny way of sneaking up on you, even after almost seven years.
