I frowned. “Misunderstood?”
He advanced again. “The electricity between us is palpable, Miss Kelly. Surely you feel it, too.”
I took a step behind my chair, needing something between us. “You forget yourself, Mr. Maybrick. I’m a lady.”
“And I’m a gentleman. Clearly we belong together.”
I stared at him, stunned. “I don’t know what you mean.”
He stopped on the other side of the chair, a smile tilting up one edge of his mouth. “From the moment we met, I knew that you were meant to be mine. I’ve been waiting, biding my time, but I can wait no longer.”
“We’ve hardly spoken,” I said. “And we’ve only seen each other twice.”
“Once is all it takes.” He started to round the chair, and I left my spot to move toward the door. “Unless your reticence is because of Mr. Baird,” he said. “If that’s the case, we can remedy that problem.”
“I believe it’s time you leave, sir,” I said, trying to keep my voice level.
He stared at me, his jaw tight. “A thousand women would love to be in your shoes.”
I stared back, frustrated at his behavior. “I’d gladly hand my shoes over to anyone who asks.”
His scowl turned to surprise and then an arrogant and condescending smile. “I always get what I want.”
“Why in the world would you want me?”
“Your family is Freemason royalty, Miss Kelly.”
I frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means that your great-grandfather brought Freemasonry to England, and your family name is greatly revered. I intend to benefit from that connection, and your parents have already agreed to the match.”
I lifted my chin. “Then my parents—and you—greatly underestimate me, Mr. Maybrick, because I will never marry you.”
And with that, I left the parlor, intent on speaking to Catherine Eddowes’s ex-husband.
Mile End was not far from Whitechapel, but the living conditions were a little better. It was home to working-class and lower-class groups of people, mostly immigrants and migrants. I had left home without a word to Mother and hired a cab not far from Wilton Crescent.
When the cab pulled up to a tenement on Bow Road in Mile End, I was still shaking from my encounter with Mr. Maybrick. I couldn’t believe my parents would agree to a betrothal without speaking to me—but then again, there were a lot of things they had never told me.
I stared at the run-down building of Mile End with more trepidation than I anticipated. I had promised Austen I wouldn’t go to Whitechapel, but was this any better? I was going to approach a man whom I’d never met, on a street I wasn’t familiar with, at the height of the Jack the Ripper scare.
But I’d come this far, and I was still angry enough from my visit with Mr. Maybrick to charge ahead.
“Will you wait?” I asked the cab driver, a kind older man with a posy in his hat band. I had just enough money to pay for my fare back to Wilton Crescent.
“Indeed I will, miss,” he said as he glanced at the building, worry in the lines of his face. “Be careful.”
I nodded, checked the address I’d found in 1938 for Thomas Conway, and then walked down a passageway toward the back of the building to number 5.
Dirty children played in the muddy courtyard while a woman hung wash on a line. Trash was piled up against a wall, and a rotting animal that looked like it might have been a rat lay beside it, filling the air with putrid odors.
I placed my gloved hand under my nose, trying not to gag as I knocked on number 5.
There was a shuffling noise and then the door opened. A middle-aged woman with deep wrinkles and glossy eyes stared at me.
“What do you want?” she asked abruptly in a Cockney accent. “We don’t take no charity.”
I swallowed my nerves and said, “I’m looking for Mr. Thomas Conway.”
