Mirror, page 12
She almost asked him if it shocked him, but she knew it did. It shocked everyone; she was used to it.
“I was just going home,” she said.
A small worried frown marred his handsome face. “Perhaps I could escort you?”
She certainly didn’t need an escort, but the question was, did she want one?
He was being gallant, and it suited him. Looking up at the earnestness in his expression, saying yes was the least she could do. It was no bother to let him.
“That’s very kind of you.”
He gave her that wonderful smile of his and his green eyes sparked with pleasure.
No bother at all.
He’d seen her reflection as she tried to sneak away. The room was, after all, covered with mirrors. But Leroux had already known she was there. He smelled the smoke from a lamp as soon as he opened his office door. And he smelled her. Young and fresh and afraid. It had taken all of his willpower to remain on the other side of the door, knowing she was just a heartbeat away. But patience had served him well over the last few years. He’d cultivated that skill along with so many others.
His clerk prattled on about something inconsequential as he watched her try to leave his shop unnoticed. He recognized her almost immediately.
When will they learn that I see everything?
She was the girl from the street, the one with the sword. The Blaze.
Fate, that had so often been cruel to him, had given him a boon. She was a problem that had to be removed, and here she’d nearly fallen into his lap.
As soon as she’d left he hurried over to the door she’d just gone through and listened.
“Miss Schäfer! I’d say we need to stop running into each other like this, but I find I rather enjoy it.”
Schäfer? I know that name, but from where?
Dismissing his clerk, he walked back to his office and lit the lamp. It was still warm.
What had she been up to? He slowly scanned the room and then walked over to his desk. His ledger was out of the drawer and open to the page for mirrors.
He skimmed the entries, but he knew before his eyes fell upon the entry.
Dr. Victor Schäfer, Harley Street.
Fate had been generous today, indeed.
Chapter Twelve
Victor straightened the stack of papers on his desk with a sigh and tried to concentrate. He’d been rereading his correspondence with Dr. Cameron to try to distract himself from the thoughts that plagued him so.
When they’d learned Leroux’s identity the other day from the fellow at the Pantechnicon, he made a few inquiries. One if his contacts had gotten back to him today. What he’d learned about Leroux didn’t exactly put him at ease.
And then to come home and find Artemis gone. How many times before he’d done that, only to feel a slight prickle of worry. But that had been before. Now that prickle was a knife’s blade, each and every time. Had she gone to the park or was she fighting for her life?
So much uncertainty was anathema to Victor. He far preferred things to be neat and orderly, but life seldom was.
With another sigh he put down the papers. He’d read the last paragraph three times and was simply too restless to concentrate. He pushed himself away from his desk to walk about the room. Perhaps movement would quell his disquiet.
That led him to his final and most worrying concern to date—Artemis.
He’d always given Artemis her freedom. He believed it was the right thing to do, not just because she would become the Blaze and would need the confidence and experience that came with such responsibility, but because she was twice as bright as most men he’d met and had a good head on her shoulders. Why should she be treated as incapable when she was anything but? She was sensible.
For the most part, a voice inside him added.
She had become more reckless since coming into her powers, he had to admit. She was always pushing things, but she’d taken that proclivity to an entirely new level now. That seemed only natural, though. She’d been given a tremendous gift; it was logical that she’d feel empowered to find its limits.
And what are those limits? And what happens when she finds them?
That thought bedeviled his every waking moment.
What sort of father encouraged his daughter to do such things? To risk her life on a regular basis? She was only sixteen, for God’s sake.
The depth of that dilemma vexed him. She was the Blaze, and he’d come to terms with that.
Have you really, old man?
The answer was simple. No, of course he hadn’t. He never would. But that didn’t change the fact that she was the Blaze and that it was his duty to guide her.
He stared down at his hands. Send her toward danger with one hand and protect her with the other. It was impossible.
He clenched his hands and was returning to his desk when he looked out the window and saw her coming up the front steps of the house. The small worry that always clenched around his heart when she was away from him loosened, only to tighten again with a new surge of emotion when he realized she was not alone.
Liam Parker was escorting her up the steps.
What the bloody hell does he think he’s doing?
Victor thought he’d already made his feelings on this topic quite clear. Artemis was sixteen years old, too young for suitors, and far too young for a nineteen-year-old man like Parker.
He watched them through the window with growing agitation. Finally, Artemis said her goodbyes, and Parker bowed before walking back down the front steps. At least he had the good sense not to try to come inside.
Victor gritted his teeth as he watched the young man disappear down the street and heard the front door open as Artemis came inside.
“Father, are you home?” she called out from the entryway.
“In here.”
Artemis breezed into his study, the picture of contentment. His already peevish mood grew only more so.
Forcing a calm to his voice he didn’t feel, he pretended to study the letter from Dr. Cameron.
“You went out,” he said, hoping she would confess her time spent with Parker without prodding.
“I read the books you left,” she said, clearly hoping to head off what she expected as the coming lecture.
“Did you?” he asked, not looking up from his reading.
He heard her fall heavily into the chair across from his desk.
“And I’m well rested,” she said, once again incorrectly assuming the reason for his pique. “I heal quickly, you know?”
So, she wasn’t going to admit it without prompting. “And what did you do with yourself while I was gone?”
She sat up a little straighter in her chair, and he prepared for her confession. He would be firm but understanding.
“I went to the Pantechnicon.”
He blinked. That had not been what he’d been expecting to hear. “You did?”
“I wanted to get a look at the list of who bought the mirrors. So, I might have sneaked into the mirror shop.”
Victor groaned. “Broke into, you mean?”
She held up her thumb and index finger. “Only a little.”
Victor leaned back in his chair, weary. It could have been worse. “At least Leroux wasn’t there.”
Artemis grimaced as she did when she was delivering news she knew he wouldn’t like, which was nearly all he heard these days. “Actually, he was.”
“Artemis—”
“He didn’t see me, and I learned something very interesting.”
Despite his frustration, Victor had to admit he was intrigued. “And that was?”
“We’ve been wondering why he’s done this, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I think I know. Or I have a theory.”
“Are you going to share it any time soon?” he asked.
She glowered at him, but it was good-natured. “Since you asked so nicely. I found a photograph in his office. Of him and a woman. It looked like an engagement photo or something. And you won’t believe who the woman was.”
Victor’s playful irritation was becoming genuine. Thankfully, Artemis didn’t hold her secret for long.
“It was Helen Quill.”
That was unexpected. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
Curious. He knew that the Quills hadn’t been married for long, but had she been engaged previously? To Leroux?
“It’s got to be more than coincidence that he had a picture of the two of them on his desk and that she has one of the mirrors,” Artemis said, speaking his thoughts out loud. “Don’t you think?”
He agreed, and it was worrisome. Of all of the motivations for a man to have, love and hate were the two most powerful. In this case, he might have both. They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but in Victor’s experience men were far more combustible and unpredictable when it came to matters of a broken heart.
He leaned forward and fixed on her with a firm look. “We already know this man is dangerous, and until we learn more, I’d prefer you completely avoid being around him or places he might be. I know your inclination is to seek him out and stop him,” he said.
He hoped she was truly paying attention to what he was about to say. “But we mustn’t until we have a better understanding of what we’re up against. You understand? We mustn’t rush ahead without a plan.”
It was clear from her expression that this was precisely what she wanted to do—rush headlong into the fray and let her instincts and powers carry the day.
“Let me see what I can learn this afternoon,” he said.
“You heard back from Mister Slade?”
“Yes.”
Mortimer Slade was a patient of his almost seven years ago. He’d suffered a tragic accident at the timber wharf near Vauxhall and nearly lost his leg. While the doctor managed to save the leg, it was unnaturally crooked now, but that seemed to suit Slade.
Like so many of the doctor’s patients, he was unable to pay for services rendered and offered out in trade. Unfortunately, Slade was a part-time stevedore and full-time thief. He did, however, have a reputation for ferreting out hard to find information. Victor assumed his illegal activities involved petty blackmail and the like and had eschewed his offer of services. Until now. When they’d learned that Leroux lived somewhere in Vauxhall, Victor reached out to the man and asked him to learn, surreptitiously, what he could about Leroux. Slade presented him with the man’s address the next day.
“‘E’s out most days,” Slade said. “If you want I could inquire further, perhaps more intimate like?”
Victor wasn’t sure what that meant, but he declined the offer and told Slade his books were considered balanced.
Slade gave a gritty half-laugh, showing off the gap in his teeth. “Not ‘ardly. You need me again, you just call old Slade.”
“Mister Slade was most accommodating. He’s given us Leroux’s address in Vauxhall.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Artemis said as she stood.
He eyed her steadily and she sank back into her chair. “What did I just say?”
She heaved a sigh and did everything but roll her eyes. “To stay away from him.”
“Precisely.”
“But I’m the Blaze,” she protested.
“Are you? I hadn’t heard.” She made a face and he continued, “The fewer people who know that the better. Besides, a girl like you in a place like Vauxhall ….”
“I’ve been in worse.”
“That’s hardly a comfort, but that’s not what I mean. The people we’ll need to talk to will feel more at ease speaking without a young lady present.”
Her answering sigh said she obviously didn’t like that, but that she recognized the wisdom in it.
“We?” she asked suddenly. “You said we.”
“I thought to bring Tommy with me. He’s proven himself quite helpful.”
Artemis pondered that. “That’s a good idea.”
“I was bound to have one eventually,” he said with a wry smile.
“Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea.”
Victor looked up at the dilapidated tenement where Leroux lived. He and Tommy had spent the better part of the afternoon finding out next to nothing. Oh, the locals had been willing to talk, about football, the pub, and the evil boss man down at the docks, but not about their neighbor. It seemed an unspoken code that one didn’t give that sort of information away. Victor had offered a few bob here and there to loosen that particular stricture to no end. They’d happily taken his money and told him exactly what they’d told him before.
“‘E keeps to ‘imself.”
His pockets lighter and his frustration greater, Victor glared up at the first-floor room they knew to be Leroux’s. Tommy suggested they try to sneak in. It would be easy enough, he assured Victor. But what if Leroux had returned from the Pantechnicon and was home? Or what if he didn’t live alone?
No, they couldn’t risk trying to break in, but he was going to be damned if he was going to leave here without gaining something. He stared at the first-floor window of the corner room of the row house. The street was crowded and busy. Every street here was.
“What’s around back, do you think?” he asked Tommy, who grinned impudently in response.
The boy had been of help. The fact that they’d learned nothing so far in the way of helpful information wasn’t his fault. He’d done as Victor asked and did his best to pry information out of people who might as well have been steel traps.
Tommy jerked his head to the side and Victor followed him through the filthy street around to the back of the building. The side street that led to the back was a dead end so it was thankfully rather deserted. If Victor was going to do what he thought he might, he’d prefer that no one saw.
At the back of the row house was a series of small enclosed shared backyards, although no one spent any time in them other than to hang laundry or go to the privy.
Once again, Victor was thankful for the invention of the water closet. Aside from the stench, which was considerable, living in such proximity to the cesspool that sat beneath the little wooden privy shed was a constant danger. Sickness and disease thrived in the putrescence, and he had to put his hand over his mouth to keep from gagging as they stood on the other side of the rickety wooden fence that bordered the side street.
Victor reached to push the gate open, but it didn’t move. He could just make out the latch on the inside. How on earth did the night soil man get in to clean the cesspool?
Victor glared at the obstacle, about to tell Tommy that perhaps they’d best return home, when Tommy pulled a small leather pouch from his jacket pocket.
“Not a problem,” he assured him.
Curious now, Victor watched as the boy unraveled a length of fishing wire with a fair-sized hook on the end.
“Do much fishing around here, do you?” Victor asked.
With a practiced ease that made him wonder what Tommy had been up to before he took over for his father as their driver, the boy eased the hook over the gate, caught the latch and opened it.
“And Bob’s your uncle,” Tommy said, holding the gate for Victor. “You know, I had an Uncle Bob. Real name was Aloysius. Can you imagine going through life as an Aloysius?”
Despite knowing he shouldn’t, that it didn’t matter, and they had more important things to focus on, Victor couldn’t help but ask, “Why on earth didn’t they call him Al?”
Tommy laughed lightly, surprised by the thought. “That woulda made more sense, wouldn’t it?”
Tommy shrugged and moved into the yard. Victor could only shake his head.
The yard, such as it was, was little more than a twenty foot square of dirt. And other things he preferred not to contemplate.
The back door was closed, and as far as they’d been able to glean, the downstairs neighbors were not at home. Victor looked up toward the first-floor window. It was probably twelve feet or so off the ground. Looking around quickly, he saw no ladder, and that meant only one thing.
Tommy had already come to the conclusion that Victor had reluctantly landed upon and stood next to the brick building, ready with his hands laced together into a stirrup.
The boy was nearly as tall as he was at six feet, but he’d yet to fill out to the bulk of a man. Victor had to have at least two stone on the boy. And that meant one thing.
He tapped Tommy on the shoulder and gestured for him to stand up. “You go up.”
“Me?”
“Do you really think you can lift me up there?”
Tommy gave the window another look and then eyed Victor, appraising him so that Victor self-consciously sucked in his stomach. Not that he really needed to.
“Come on,” Victor said, lacing his fingers together as Tommy had done.
Tommy wiped the thick glops of mud from his shoes as best he could and then braced his hands on Victor’s shoulders.
He’s heavier than he looks, Victor thought as the boy stepped in the cradle of his hands. With a grunt, he stood and Tommy grabbed onto the lower ledge, pulling himself up enough to put one foot on Victor’s shoulder. Victor’s eyes began to water.
That is definitely not all mud on his shoes.
Finally, Tommy had both feet on Victor’s shoulders and pulled himself up to the window ledge to peer inside.
Victor looked up in silent question, but Tommy held a finger to his lips.
Victor grunted under his weight but tried to do it quietly.
After what seemed like an hour but was probably only minutes, Tommy’s left foot gently nudged Victor in the face. He glared up at him but Tommy motioned to help him down.
As much as his back would allow, Victor eased Tommy down until the boy slid off and landed much more gracefully than he would have imagined him capable of.
The boy’s face was pale and he was wide-eyed as he looked back up at the window.
“What did you see?” Victor asked in a hushed voice. “Was Leroux there?”
Tommy shook his head and moved toward the gate. Frustrated with his silence and confused by his reaction, Victor stalked after him. It wasn’t until they’d reached the front of the house that Victor took hold of Tommy’s arm.
