Page 37 of A Murder in Trinity Lane (Rosalynd and Steele Mysteries #2)

Chapter

Thirty-Five

THE DEVIL IN WHITECHAPEL

T he hackney jerked to a stop. I couldn’t see where through the tightly drawn curtains. It had been over an hour since I’d left Grosvenor Square—long enough for the storm to die down, and for every worst possibility to twist itself into my mind.

Heart pounding, I waited for the door to open.

When it finally did, I found myself before a soot-stained building wedged between a boarded-up tannery and a crumbling warehouse. The rain had faded to mist, and the late afternoon light was already waning, casting long, gray shadows. The street glistened, silent and still.

Vale stepped out first and gestured for me to follow.

I hesitated but a second. I couldn’t afford to show fear.

As I climbed down, I took in the building—no sign, no windows at street level. Just a rusted iron door with a heavy bolt and a lingering scent of chemicals in the air.

My stomach turned. Steele had described a place like this the night before. I already knew what it was. Still, I turned to Vale. “What is this place?”

He smiled thinly. “Where I do my work.”

Behind me, the hackney rattled off into the mist, its wheels clattering against the wet cobblestones. Taking with it my last hope of salvation.

Vale unbolted the door with a sharp clank and led me inside. The hallway was narrow and damp, the air tinged with rust and chemical residue. Crates, equipment, and empty glass vials lined the walls. A single gaslight flickered from a bracket, casting long, monstrous shadows.

Just as Steele had described it.

Deeper in, he opened a second door.

Inside—tied to a wooden chair—sat Marie. Her eyes were wide with fear, her cheeks streaked with tears, a gag stuffed cruelly into her mouth. Her belly strained against the worn fabric of her dress.

I dropped to my knees at her side. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head, sobbing softly. Her wrists were bound tightly behind her. I reached for the cords?—

“Don’t,” Vale said sharply. “Not unless you want to see what happens when I lose my temper.”

I turned slowly to face him. “She’s eight months pregnant. You tied her to a chair and left her here crying. What kind of man does that?”

“A man with a purpose,” he said coolly.

“She’s no threat to you. Let her go,” I said, rising to my feet. “You have me. You don’t need her, too.”

“Oh, but I do,” he said, stepping closer. “She’s not walking out of here alive.”

My breath caught. “Why?”

His expression darkened. “Because she shouldn’t be allowed to bring another abomination into the world.”

“Is that what you think her babe is? An abomination?”

“Yes, and so is she. She’s filth,” he spat. “A blight. An imperfection in a world already drowning in them.”

“You mean because she doesn’t meet your twisted idea of purity?”

His smile was sharp, cold, unhinged. “You catch on fast.”

I stared at him. He seemed to be in a confessional mood. If I kept him talking, maybe he’d reveal more, maybe even everything.

“Is that why you killed Elsie?”

His gaze sharpened. The mask slipped.

“Of course it is. She got herself with child—my brother’s child. The Vale line tainted by a gutter rat who couldn’t keep her legs closed.”

I flinched at his words—and the hate behind them. He said it so casually. So easily.

Then the realization hit me. Elsie had already given birth. If he’d killed her, what would he do to her child? Would his obsession with purity allow him to live? “Elsie’s babe.” The words slipped out before I could stop them.

His mouth twisted into a mocking grin. “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll find the little bastard. And I’ll end his life just as I ended hers.”

A sick wave of horror crashed over me.

He was mad. Not angry— mad . His obsession with bloodlines, with control, with some grotesque vision of perfection, had rotted his mind from the inside out.

“You’re insane,” I whispered.

“I’m a visionary,” he said. “You just never understood. I thought you might. I thought you could be the one.”

Although I already knew from Harriet’s letter, I drew back a step, feigning confusion. “The one for what?”

“The one to carry forward the Vale name,” he said, almost tenderly. “To cleanse it. To make it whole again.”

“You’re deranged.”

“I would have made you my wife ,” he said, voice rising. “But you proved yourself false.”

“I never led you on.”

“You let me court you. You let me believe. But last night—” His eyes narrowed to slits. “I followed your hackney.”

My stomach turned to stone.

“You didn’t disembark at Rosehaven House,” he said, his voice curdling with rage. “You went to his house. Steele’s.” He spat out his name as though it were something vile. “You let him have his way with you.”

I didn’t honor that remark with an answer.

“You think I’d marry a woman who’s already soiled?” he hissed. “Spoiled goods. Just like the gutter rats at St. Agnes.”

I raised my chin. “You’re wrong about me. And Marie. And Elsie.”

He laughed, sharp and cruel. “You’re all the same in the end. Eager to spread your legs for a man.”

I glanced toward the door, gauging distance, speed, options. I could distract him. Or stall him. Until help arrived. Who was I fooling? No one knew where I was. We were on our own.

The silence stretched between us, while my heart pounded hard enough to rattle my ribs, while I considered what I needed to do.

He watched me, eyes gleaming, drunk on control. He thought he’d won. He thought I was helpless.

He was wrong.

He hadn’t searched me. My reticule still hung from my wrist. A distraction would work. And I knew just how to do it.

“You’re wrong about Steele,” I said defiantly. “He would never dishonor me.”

“You don’t know men.”

“Maybe so. But I know him. He’s honorable and true and honest. Everything you are not.”

“How dare you call me dishonorable?” He was practically foaming from the mouth, so angry was he.

“How could I not? You killed a woman. You’re holding another two hostage—one of whom is heavy with child.” I pointed to Marie, and his gaze bounced to her.

I plunged my hand inside my reticule, pulled out the pistol, and pointed it right at him. “What a sad, little man you are.”

His smile vanished. “Don’t.”

“Let us go. Now.”

He lunged.

As his arm knocked mine sideways, the pistol fired—the sound shattering the air like lightning splitting stone.

My ears rang. My hands trembled. For one terrible moment, I didn’t know who’d been hit.

But then his eyes rolled back, and he dropped face up like a stone. Blood bloomed across his thigh in a slow, horrible spread. He groaned—deep and guttural—clutching at the wound with both hands.

“You stupid little—” he rasped, eyes glassy with shock. “You’ve no idea what you’ve done.” Pain etched itself into every line of his face. He writhed once, stilled.

The door exploded open.

Steele and another man barreled into the room, weapons drawn.

“Rosalynd!” Steele’s voice rang out, his gaze locking onto me before flicking to the crumpled figure of Nathaniel Vale. In a breath, he assessed the scene—Vale bleeding but down, the pistol still clutched in my trembling hand.

In three long strides, he reached me and caught me by the shoulders. “Are you hurt?”

I shook my head, unable to speak, the shock catching hard in my throat.

His gaze dropped to the pistol. “May I?” he asked gently.

I nodded, and he eased it from my grasp, his touch warm and steady. As soon as it left my hand, my arm fell to my side like a marionette with its strings cut.

Steele removed the remaining bullet from the chamber and tucked both pistol and cartridge into his coat. And then he pulled me into a firm, breath-stealing embrace.

A movement in the corner caught my eye. Finch rushing to Marie. He pulled a blade from his pocket and sliced through her bonds in swift, practiced motions.

As Steele moved to kneel beside Vale, blood seeped slowly from a wound in the man’s thigh, darkening the floor beneath him.

“He’s unconscious,” Steele said, checking his pulse. “But it’s only a flesh wound.”

“Barely nicked in the leg, and the bloody blighter fainted?” Finch scoffed, tossing the rope aside. “Heart of a lion, that one.”

“Not everyone has your constitution,” Steele said dryly, then turned to me. “By the way—Rosalynd, meet Caleb Finch.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Finch. I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

“All good things, I hope.”

“She’s a lady,” Steele said with a grin. “Kept the worst to myself.” He glanced down at Vale again, the humor draining from his face. “He’ll live. Long enough to answer for what he’s done.”

The room suddenly tilted as the weight of the day crashed over me in a single, crushing wave. My knees went soft, the edges of my vision blurring.

“Here.” Steele caught me before I could slump to the floor and lowered me into a nearby chair.

“Water,” I murmured, my voice barely audible.

“Not the best idea, Lady Rosalynd,” Finch said, eyeing the room with distaste. “I wouldn’t trust a single drop in this place.” He reached into his coat and pulled out a flask. “Will whiskey do?”

Steele shot him a sideways glance. “I don’t suppose that’s from my private reserve?”

Finch gave a small, theatrical bow. “You wouldn’t want it to go to waste. Your Grace.”

Steele held out a hand. “Give it here.”

He uncapped the flask and brought it to my lips. I took a sip and promptly sputtered as the fiery liquid burned its way down.

“Better?”

“Much,” I rasped, once I could breathe again.

I glanced around the wreckage of the room. The air stank of blood, alcohol, and shattered glass. But it was over.

At last, it was over.

Steele gazed at me, eyes dark with something unreadable. “You could’ve been killed.”

“But I wasn’t.” I met his gaze, lifting my chin despite the tremble in my limbs. “I told you. I can defend myself.”

A beat passed.

“Where did you get the bullets?”

“Cosmos. Our father taught him to shoot when he was ten. He keeps an unloaded pistol in his office and a box of bullets locked in his desk.” I managed a small grin. “I have the key.”

The corner of Steele’s mouth twitched. “Of course you do.” But then his expression sobered. “You realize that bullet could just as easily have found you.”

“But it didn’t.”

“And thank God for that.” He looked at me a moment longer—something unspoken flickering behind his eyes—then stood and nodded to Finch. “Let’s get them both out of here. And get this bastard where he belongs—in jail.”

Common sense reasserted itself. “Shouldn’t we bind his wound first? He might bleed to death otherwise.”

He stood and crossed to Vale’s motionless body. For a long moment, he just stared down at him.

I watched as his jaw tightened, the muscle there ticking once. His hands curled at his sides, then flexed open again. The fire in his eyes had cooled to something harder. Not rage—judgment.

Here lay a man who had orchestrated pain without remorse. Who had killed. A man who had hunted the vulnerable like prey and cloaked it all in the trappings of respectability.

Steele's gaze drifted over Vale’s bloodied form, and something passed through his expression—something raw and haunted. Not pity. But the weight of knowing that even justice, when it came, could never truly make the scales right.

How much mercy did a man like that deserve? None.

I saw the moment that conclusion settled in his bones. When the indecision cleared, and duty took its place. His shoulders squared. His chin lifted.

Steele’s eyes met mine—cool now, resolute. “You’re right. We wouldn’t want him to miss his appointment with the gallows.”