Ripped (35 page)

“Your lordship.” Toby stepped forward, cutting Katie off. “Let me make this clear, sir. Miss Katherine is blameless. It is I who—”

“Of course the girl is blameless, you fatheaded Lothario!” the Duke roared.

Toby strode forward, his shadow rising over his head as he moved in front of the firelight, passing the Duke, and momentarily blotting out his scowling face. Stepping over the threshold into the connecting bedchamber, Toby turned and shot Katie a warning glance.
I
'
ll handle this. Don
'
t interfere!

Katie gave a slight nod and watched as the Duke snatched up his cane and clumped across the floor, following Toby into the next room. When he banged the door shut, the bolt hit with such force, it swung back open several inches with a shuddering thud.

“Bah!” the Duke exploded, swiping at the door with his cane, but missing the mark by inches.

With the door slightly ajar, Toby stood in front of the fireplace while the Duke shouted every expletive known to mankind and several known only to the devil himself—or so it seemed to Toby. The ribbon of light shining from the half-closed door had a flicker of a shadow to it. Toby felt sure Katie was eavesdropping.
The lass didn
'
t have it in her to follow instructions
.

“So, m'boy?” the Duke roared, finally ending his tirade. “What in blazes do you have to say for yourself, eh? Where's my grandson, and what's the girl babbling on about a matter of life and death? Speak up, you infernal, ungrateful fathead —”

“Sir,” said Toby. “Let me explain.” Knowing the value of not saying too much, Toby was brief and to the point, laying out the facts of the evening, including the two murders, from beginning to end. He gave an account of finding Dark Annie's eviscerated body, without being overly graphic; he explained about taking the pillow with the teeth marks that had smothered Georgie Cross; and he calmly put forth his theory about Major Brown.

Toby had expected the Duke to look as startled as if the bust of Caesar Augustus on the mantel had burst out singing. But when the Duke finally looked at Toby, his pallid face showed no surprise. He merely steepled his fingers with a look of deep concentration and began chewing on his moustache whiskers.

Katie, unable to bear the silence another moment, had managed to further nudge open the door and was peeking into the room. The Duke's bedchamber was very dim, awash in the yellow-blue light of gas lamps. The sputtering light fluttered and shrank and sparked off the ornate mirror behind the bust of Caesar above the stone fireplace; it threw long shadows across the four-poster bed in the corner. A smell of old books, old leather, old paint, and stale cigar smoke hung in the yellow-blue gloom.

So engrossed was Katie in looking about the room—her grandmother's bedroom in the twenty-first century—that when the Duke swiveled his head around, she let out a sharp cry of surprise. She could have sworn the Duke was grinning at her. But a second later, Katie thought she could see it for the angry grimace that it was.

“Come in! Come in!” he said testily, waving her into the room. “Why not invite the entire Queen's cavalry while we're at it? Take a seat. Take a seat.” His tone was gruff, but Katie detected the slightest softening in his coal-grey eyes as he motioned for them to pull up chairs, then settled himself into a thronelike wing chair by the fire. Adjusting his eyeglasses, he peered first at Katie, then turned his attention to Toby.

“You've got it wrong, son. Stay still and listen!” he barked out. “We've got to work fast. I'd bet my bottom dollar that everything you say about Major Brown is true, but he
won
'
t
try to pin this on Pinker. Burn me if I'm wrong. It will be
Collin
!
”

“Collin?” Katie gasped. She looked at the Duke closely and caught the strange expression on his face. Not contemptuous, not bitter, not worried, but a mixture of all three. With his back ramrod straight, arms out, and fingers grasping the ends of the chair arms, Sir Godfrey had the imperious look of a king about to hold court.

“Sir?” Toby leaned forward. “Major Brown wouldn't dare risk implicating Collin,
not
if he has any true feelings for Lady Beatrix. He—”

“Don't say a word, lad. Not one word. Just listen! I've been expecting something like this. But the magnitude, the depth, the cunning . . .
damn his eyes
,” the Duke said almost admiringly. “Major Brown is clever. He'll go after Collin like a pitbull after a rat. Has to, don't you see? It's the fastest way for the blighter to achieve his purpose—getting me to consent to his marrying Beatrix. And when he points his finger at Collin with all the might of Scotland Yard behind him . . . what am I to do, eh? It's the perfect blackmailer's ploy. And believe me, Major Brown has used blackmail tactics for me in the past.”

The Duke hoisted his feet onto a leather footstool. “Right now, Toby, I want you to find Collin. Oh, I know his penchant for tavern wenches. Just find him. Do not let him out of your sight for a minute. He spits, you spit. He sleeps, you sleep. You'll be my eyes and ears. Any funds you need, lad—the carriage, a stable boy or two to back you up—it's yours. I'll give you further instructions in the morning. I'm forming a bit of a wild plan, don't you see?” He stared thoughtfully into the fire. “This could be a fiasco . . . or we can turn it to our advantage. Major Brown will rue the day he thought to outfox me!”

Katie felt something hot rise in her throat. The hands of the wall clock pointed to half-past four, but instead of ticking, Katie heard only the thumping of her heart.

“Now, then, leave me to my thoughts,” grunted the Duke, clasping his fingers around the middle of his cane and raising it as if aiming down the muzzle of a long-barreled musket, one eye winking open, while the other remained shut. “There's more to this rat's tail than meets the eye.” He made as if to shoot the bust of Caesar off the mantel. “But apart from all else”—he aimed the cane at the ceiling as if to pick off a pheasant—“I need to keep my grandson safe. My bloodline has lasted six hundred years.”
Thwack . . . thwack . . . thwack
. He pretended to hit imaginary targets. “I have a duty to insure future generations make it into the next century. So implicating Collin in a scandal of this magnitude”—he jabbed his cane toward his feet, propped up on the footstool—“is out of the question. And Major Brown knows it.”

Katie wanted to shout:
There will be generations of redheaded Twyfords running around.
Her mind flashed on an image of Aunt Pru with her photo albums full of baby Collin, toddler Collin, schoolboy Collin, teenage Collin. Then she thought about the present Collin dying in a peat bog a year from now
after
he and Prudence got married and had a baby. She opened her mouth to say something, but Toby shot her a warning look.

“Off with you, then,” the Duke dismissed them, entwining his fingers around the head of the cane. “I have some ruminating to do. This doddering old warhorse still has some fight left in him.”

As they were leaving, Katie glanced over her shoulder. A murky, predawn light had seeped into the room, mingling with the sputtering gas light slanting across the Duke's face, which held not a tortured expression, but a menacing, almost gleeful one.

From far away came the muffled crow of a rooster. Closing the door behind them, Toby and Katie heard the Duke's cane tap-tapping loudly against the leather footstool. Then they heard what sounded like laughter.

Chapter Forty-one

Tighten Your Corset say the Bells of West Dorset

A
n
nie Chapman was murdered
by Jack the Ripper on the evening of September 8, 1888.

The next morning, September 9, the weather outside Katie's bedroom window was crisp and clear with a tingling freshness in the air, compared to the rain and gloom of the night before.

Agnes, the ladies' maid, wearing a starched black dress and white apron, marched across the squeaky floorboards of Katie's room, flung open the curtains, and heaved up the window. Leaning over the sill, she drew in a long breath. The air smelled of newly washed laundry.

“Fine morning, miss,” Agnes said cheerfully, swiveling round and peering down at Katie lying in the four-poster bed, the covers pulled up to her chin. “Feeling poorly are we, miss?”

Blinking sleep from her eyes, Katie tried to rise up on her elbows.
Was
she feeling poorly? She couldn't tell. Mornings were not Katie's best time of day. Back home she needed a Starbucks Frappuccino to wake up. Then she remembered Annie Chapman and sat bolt upright.

She blinked at Agnes, then glanced around the room trying to forget that she hadn't been able to save Dark Annie. She tried to focus on the small details of the room in order not to think about it. This bedroom was hers for the duration of her visit with the Duke, Beatrix had told her when she first arrived. It was called the “Floral Room.” There was a dressing table painted in tulips in the corner, and between the windows stood a wardrobe with a long, beveled, floral mirror. Against the right-hand wall was a massive mahogany chest of drawers, carved with large clusters of flowers, and a marble-topped washstand. The room's festive wallpaper was embossed with giant scarlet poppies, bordered with even larger purple lupines and blood-red delphiniums. Even the bedspread had a floral theme, matching the curtains at the windows, embroidered with crimson roses the size of cabbages. The whole garden-on-steroids effect was garish and a little creepy, Katie thought, like some genetically engineered fluke.

“Miss?” Agnes gave a bobbing curtsy. “Lady Beatrix says you must be feeling poorly on account of you haven't come down for breakfast.” Agnes bustled over to the mahogany chest, fiddled around with the contents of a silver tray, and handed Katie a steaming cup of hot chocolate on a delicate china plate.

“Been here thrice to check on you, miss. You've been fast o' sleep like a stone at the bottom of a dark well.”

Katie brought the cup of hot cocoa to her lips, grateful for the semi-bitter taste, which had taken her several mornings to get used to. Cocoa was considered a restorative here, and since Katie had trouble waking up most mornings, unsweetened cocoa was Agnes's answer. That, or a cup of beef tea.

Agnes was a cheerful, plump girl in her midtwenties with a face like a scone—or, at least, that's how Collin referred to her. “Old Scone Face.” Agnes had been in service at Twyford Manor since she was eleven. At first Katie had felt guilty that so many people in this century were servants, but Agnes seemed overjoyed with her newly exalted status of ladies' maid. She was over the moon with her new uniform and with the fact that Lady Beatrix had taken it upon herself to train her properly. Agnes was illiterate and had been abandoned at the age of seven. She might have ended up far worse off, Katie reasoned.

Katie tugged her mind away from such thoughts. She wasn't here to change the class system.
I
'
m here to save Lady Beatrix from being murdered
.
I couldn
'
t save Dark Annie, but maybe I can save Lady Beatrix
.

She took another sip of the bitter cocoa, frothy on top with thick cream, and once again tried to tug her thoughts away from murder. She didn't want to think about Jack the Ripper. There was plenty of time for that later. Right now Katie just wanted to sip the hot chocolate and forget about death and dying.

She leaned back against the silken sheets. The coverlet, fluffy as air, felt like satin against her skin. And though she hated being waited on by servants, the best thing about living here was that she never had to do the dishes or any other chores. Twyford Manor was chock-full of scullery maids, upstairs maids, downstairs maids, tweenie maids, ladies' maids, footmen. The list went on and on. Katie had only to sneeze, and a bevy of servants scurried around her like flies to honey bringing her foot-warming pans, stoking the fire, drawing her bath, helping her get dressed,
bringing her hot chocolate in bed!

Katie doubted the Ritz-Carlton in London would be this service-oriented, though the Ritz hadn't been built yet. She didn't even have to put toothpaste on her toothbrush. It was all done for her.

Toothpaste.

Katie inwardly groaned. “Paste” was the operative word. Brushing her teeth in this century was an ordeal. The “paste” was actually finely ground powder. Agnes would open a tin of cream of tartar tooth powder, tap a portion into an earthenware bowl, sprinkle in water, salt, and
chalk,
and stir it into a gritty paste. She'd spackle it onto a toothbrush made of swine bristles with a cow-bone handle, and stand there while Katie brushed and spit into a porcelain urn. Next, Agnes would hand Katie a glass of water mixed with baking soda and parsley to rinse with. The bristle-brush toothbrush was stiff enough to take the enamel off her teeth, and the paste gunk tasted like modeling clay before it hardens—
and was more abrasive
. Katie yearned for the creamy smooth texture of Crest Gel with its minty-cinnamon taste. And her favorite soft toothbrush angled to fit comfortably into her mouth.

She brought the hot cocoa to her lips and made a vow that she would never again complain about using dental floss. Yesterday Agnes had caught Katie using sewing thread to floss her teeth after she'd eaten roast duck. Agnes had looked aghast and proceeded to wrench the thread from Katie's clenched fingers, whispering that proper young ladies did
not
put sewing implements into their mouths. “Only heathens would stoop so low, miss!” Agnes had gently scolded.

Having finished the hot chocolate, Katie threw off the covers and squared her shoulders in anticipation of the next ordeal.

Getting dressed
.

Half an hour later she was properly corseted, hooked, squeezed, and fastened into an elaborate morning gown with lace appliqués and puffy, leg-of-mutton sleeves. She made her way downstairs to breakfast feeling as if she were carrying lead weights on her hips, thighs, and petticoated legs. If she fell into a river, she would drown from the weight of the excess fabric, most of which covered the skirt's bustle. To Katie, it defied logic to wear a coiled contraption, called a bustle, over her butt—the result of which was a hump projecting from her posterior that continued in a fanlike sweep to the floor.

The dining room at Twyford Manor, though accessed through the same oak door as the one in Grandma Cleaves's condo, was larger and far grander. It was typical of a Victorian dining room, or at least what Katie imagined a Victorian dining room would be. Down the center of a Turkish rug stretched a long, heavy mahogany dining table, with a massive, matching sideboard polished to a purplish shine. Baronial dining chairs skirted the long table. On the walls hung dozens of hunting-with-the-hounds oil paintings. Most of them showed dead rabbits hanging from the mouths of spotted retrievers.

Entering fully into the dining room, Katie was surprised to see Major Brown and Reverend Pinker at the sideboard scooping up heaping portions of poached eggs, roasted tomatoes, kippers, bacon, and sausage onto their plates. Katie wasn't surprised by the amount of food piled pyramid-style on the mahogany sideboard. Breakfasts at Twyford Manor were as elaborate as the all-you-can-eat buffets at fancy restaurants.
More elaborate
, if you counted the intricate flower arrangements spilling down the center of the table, the ornate silver cutlery, the heavy serving pieces and lacy linens.

No, it wasn't the sumptuous food that surprised her. It was seeing Major Brown and Reverend Pinker loading up their plates as if they hadn't a care in the world.
As if last night had never happened!

Katie stared hard at Major Brown as he moved along the sideboard inspecting the over-laden food platters. If there was anything weighing heavily upon his mind—
such as murder
—Katie couldn't detect it. He was groomed to a spit and polish in his horse guard's uniform. From his shiny boots to his clipped, waxed moustache, he appeared to be the picture of a dashing man paying court to his fiancée. There was even a twinkle in his heavy-lidded eyes, a swagger as he moved to take a seat at the table. Noticing Katie, he called out a cheerful greeting.

“Miss Lennox!” He bowed slightly. “You're looking exceedingly pretty this morning. I trust you slept well?”

“Yes, indeedy,” Reverend Pinker chimed in. “You look radiant, my dear Katherine. Fit as a fiddle, as we say at the parish church.” Pinker looked longingly at Katie and licked his lips.

Katie wanted to barf.

He
'
s so creepy
, she thought. What kind of minister looks at a teenage girl with . . . well, lust in his eyes? Katie didn't know which man was more repulsive to her, Major Brown with his slick, smug demeanor, or Reverend H. P. Pinker, with his smarmy fawning.

Moving to the sideboard, Katie reached for a slice of toast from the silver toast rack and spooned gooseberry jam and a dollop of bright yellow, wobbly butter, resembling an egg yolk, onto her plate. Then she took a seat next to Lady Beatrix at the dining table. At the other end, Reverend Pinker plucked a rose from the centerpiece and handed it gallantly down the table to her.

“A rose for a rose,” he said with a heavy nasal intonation as three pairs of eyes turned to her. Everyone laughed except for Katie.

Ignoring Pinker's ardent ogling, Katie nibbled at her toast triangle smeared with egg-yolk butter and gooseberry jam, but stopped when she heard a loud voice calling out from the doorway:

“
Greetings!
There you are, Lady Bug!” The accent was distinctly American.

“Haven't forgotten our sitting today, have you, Lady B?” demanded a chin-bearded man in an overly hearty voice. And as he strolled forward into the dining room, the French beret angled on his head flapped up and down like a giant pancake. Covering him to the knees was a blousy, paint-speckled artist's smock, and tied round the smock's ruffled collar was what looked like an op-art cravat. But psychedelic scarves wouldn't be in vogue for another century.

“James!” Lady Beatrix laughed, hailing him with her raised hand. “Of course, I haven't forgotten! The easel is all set up in the morning room. Now remember . . . mum's the word if my grandfather puts in an appearance.” She pressed her fingers against her lips and smiled warmly at him.

“Come,” she continued, beckoning. “Join us. The blood pudding is divine! Now, let's see . . . you know Major Brown and the Reverend Pinker, of course. But have you met our American houseguest, Miss Katherine Lennox? Katie, this is Mr. James Whistler.”

The man with the goatee and floppy beret strode closer, hand outstretched, beaming at Katie. “A compatriot? By golly, you don't say! Where do you hail from, Miss Lennox? Don't tell me. Let me guess.” He squinted his eyes at her, nodded, and declared with confidence: “You're from New York or Philadelphia, am I right? No?” He raised an eyebrow and stroked his pointy chin beard. “Surely not Hartford—
no one of note, save my good friend Samuel Clemens, hails from Hartford
—hmmm . . . Boston, then! That's the ticket. Has to be. A beauty such as you can only have been whelped in New England. Charmed. Delighted.
Enchant
é
!”
He snatched up Katie's hand, which still held the half-eaten toast, raised it to his lips, smooched loudly, and sank into the chair to her right.

“Darned if I don't insist—
insist
—on painting you next,” Whistler pronounced flamboyantly. He leaned in close to her ear and whispered conspiratorially, “Don't tell a soul, but I'm from Massachusetts myself. I'll heartily deny it if you breathe a word. Puritanical hypocrites and philistines all—present company excluded, of course.”

Katie felt her eyes grow wide. So this was Whistler?
The
James Abbott McNeill Whistler!

“It's a p-pleasure to meet you, sir,” Katie stammered, blinking at him. Had he painted his famous mother yet? And why hadn't she known he was an American? From Massachusetts. Somehow Katie had thought that James Whistler was British.

“Confound it!” Whistler roared in an accent that sounded as if he'd stepped off a southern plantation, and not from New England. “Confound it, I say! Have you read the newspapers? Lookie here—” He scratched his pointed little beard, tugged on the mop of brown curls spilling out from under his beret, and unfurled the newspaper curled under his arm.