Page 11 of Taken by the Ripper (Time for Monsters #9)

T

hey arrived at half past noon. Full and vibrant with a sweet aroma that managed to quell the stench of sickness and pain of the infirmary.

Clara stared wide-eyed at the bouquet of flowers resting within a vase on the drawing room table, the pinks, yellows, and reds a stark contrast to the white and light blue of the room around her and Norma.

She remained several steps away from the flowers, almost as if she were to touch them, she might catch a case of poison ivy and break out in hives.

“You’re sure they’re for me?” she breathed.

Not once in her life had she ever received flowers.

The only bouquets to grace this household were the ones Mazie collected from admirers.

Which were often innumerable. It was any wonder Mazie hadn’t chosen a husband yet.

But now Clara suspected she was holding out for someone foreign. Someone like…

Claude La Cour.

“‘ For Clara ,’” Norma read. “‘ A thank you for yesterday. All my adoration, Claude. ’” A sly grin pulled up on Norma’s lips as she fanned her face with the small note card. “Flowers and informally using your given name? I think he’s attempting to court you.”

“ Attempting is the right word here.” Still, she stared slack-jawed at the bouquet, still in disbelief.

She was too old for this. Too old to be swept away in the throes of courtship and passion.

Too old for men searching for a young bride to give them plenty of babies and to be chained to the oven for the majority of the day.

Men didn’t give Clara flowers. Ever. What was the detective trying to do? What did he want from her that she could possibly give?

She didn’t trust him. Not for a single second. First yesterday and now today? She was beginning to grow highly suspicious of his intentions.

“Is anyone there?” a man shouted from the direction of the infirmary. “Help! Please help.”

Clara spun around and rushed down the hallway and into the infirmary only to find one of her long-term patients stumbling out of one of the isolated infirmary rooms with his hand against the wall guiding him forward. His gaze was distant, confirming her fears.

He’d gone blind.

“Mr. Harvey,” she said as she took his hand and squeezed. “I’m Nurse Thompson. Allow me to guide you back to your room, and I can answer any questions you might have.”

Instead of following when she tugged lightly on his hand, he broke down in tears, his opposite hand covering his eyes. “Why can’t I see? Why is my sight gone?”

She released a long breath and gave him a look of sympathy that he couldn’t see. “You contracted scarlet fever. You were in bed for a long time. But the fever spread. It’s lucky you are alive.”

“But my sight is gone!”

“I’m sorry. I did everything I could to cure you. But sometimes—”

“You did this to me!” he screamed, wrenching his hand away. “You made me blind. This is your fault.”

“Now, sir, please calm down, and we can discuss your options in another room—”

“I’m blind because of you! How could you do this to me?”

The patient moved so quickly, Clara found no time to dodge when he struck out with his fist. She cried out in alarm and instinctively flinched with her hands braced in front of her face.

But rather than the man’s fist making contact, someone caught the blow with his own hand and twisted until the patient’s arm was bent precariously behind his back.

Her eyes shot wide open in shock to find Detective La Cour standing before her, protecting her from the threat.

“Now, why on God’s green earth would you strike a woman?” he asked the patient in a low, threatening tone.

Something between a stutter and a pained whimper escaped Mr. Harvey’s mouth. “She did this to me. It’s her fault.”

The detective twisted a little harder until Mr. Harvey yielded by hanging his head.

“Up to thirty percent of people die after contracting scarlet fever. It’s not uncommon to go blind should you survive.

But do you know what’s not curable? Your conscience if you strike a woman.

” He shoved the man forward and scowled.

“You look well enough to walk on your own. I think you can find your own way home from here.”

Clara could do nothing other than watch in shock as her patient stumbled away as if he had a predator on his heels. He ran into the wall a couple of times and then a door frame. But he did manage to leave the house on his own.

“You discharged a patient without my permission?” Clara hissed the moment La Cour turned back to her. “This is my infirmary. You had no right!”

His defensive scowl stared back at her as he crossed his arms over his chest. “And I should have just let him hit you? Should he have stayed, he may have tried to strike you again.”

“It wouldn’t have been the first time.”

His eyes widened with shock. “He’s done it before?”

With a shake of her head, she sighed and fixed the strand of hair that had come loose from its pins.

“Unfortunately, people who work in the medical field occasionally get hit by their patients. And with the added lack of respect for a woman providing care, it has happened to me more than it had my father. It happens, Detective. That still doesn’t mean you had any right to discharge my patient for me. ”

“I had no right?” Despite hunching over his cane, he still towered over her.

But his presence wasn’t threatening. Rather, it was…

comforting. “I work on the police force, and right now, I am an extension of the Whitechapel authorities while I’m here.

As such, I have every right to escort a threat off the premises. ”

They glared at one another, each silently battling for the upper hand in their argument. She refused to budge. Then again, he seemed determined to be just as stubborn as she.

“Would you like some tea?” she asked angrily.

“Yes, thank you,” he replied in a curt tone.

The glare continued until she finally conceded with a huff. Infuriating man! She’d had the situation handled. Mostly.

She led him back toward the drawing room…

…but then stopped short when she found the glass vase shattered across the ground and flower stems and petals strewn about as if a gust of fierce wind had ripped through the window and destroyed the bouquet.

Her pulse slowed. Shock slowly dissipated into defeat. An ache beat hard against her chest. And no matter how hard she tried to tear her gaze away, she couldn’t stop it from roaming over the crumpled petals, the broken stems, the shards of glass.

Behind her, the detective made a tsking noise with his mouth. “Hmm… It seems as if my gift was ill-received.”

The first flowers she had ever been gifted from a man, and it was strewn all over the floor. For some reason, despite La Cour’s intentions, the sight created a pang of disappointment in her chest, enough for her eyes to water with unexplainable grief.

Her gaze darted toward the flicker of blue moving in the corner in time to find Mazie staring at her with hatred burning in her eyes and green and yellow stains on her fingers. The sister she knew had never been cruel. But this?

This was unimaginably cruel, especially after everything she’d sacrificed for Mazie and Norma.

Clara averted her gaze moments before Mazie slipped out of the room. The detective didn’t seem to notice the quick exchange, and she wanted to keep it from him as well.

To hide the tears pooling in her eyes, she knelt to the ground and gingerly picked up each mutilated stem and petal and placed it into a nearby basket.

“I-I-I must have knocked the vase over when I heard my patient scream,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“There is no need to apologize, I assure you.” To her shock, he also knelt beside her despite favoring one leg and helped her clean up the mess.

The corner of his mouth twitched, and she braced herself for whatever wit was about to escape.

“Are you positive you don’t own a puppy? This mess is quite thorough.”

“I’m sure,” she replied with a laugh, turning her head to dab at her tears without him noticing.

“Do you like dogs?”

She shrugged, still attempting to hide her smile with a turned head. “My father always said that a dog had no place in a hospital. It would be great company, however.”

More tears pricked her eyes, and she internally berated herself for her lack of composure. She was lonely. Had been for a long time. A canine companion would be nice to help quell that loneliness.

The soft press of a handkerchief in her palm startled her, and her gaze involuntarily snapped toward La Cour, but he was already on the opposite end of the table with her basket picking up shards of glass. Not once did he glance her way, almost as if giving her privacy.

Gratitude swelled within her chest as she dabbed at her eyes with his handkerchief.

So much had happened in the past several weeks that it was difficult to maintain that composure she so desperately wanted.

Death. Vampires. A ghoul. A sister who hated her.

Almost getting struck by a patient. It was a lot to take in.

When her tears finally dried, she cleared her throat. “Did…did you ever figure out what that monster was?” she asked nonchalantly. “Jack the Ripper, I mean.”

He frowned as he placed the filled basket on the table between them.

“I don’t know. I’ve even provided the evidence to my colleagues, and they haven’t seen anything quite like it.

” A small grimace pulled on the skin around his eyes as he pushed himself from the ground and sat in one of the armchairs.

“I believe we are looking at a creature that hasn’t existed in a long time.

Decades—perhaps even centuries. We don’t have much information in our files.

I will need to get closer. Gather more evidence.

” He paused as if contemplating. “I need to see this creature myself to figure out what it is.”

“No!” she cried, thinking of how the ghoul had protected her, how he had spoken to her softly and touched her with such tenderness.

But when La Cour lifted an eyebrow, she backtracked, “If it’s a creature that hasn’t existed in a long time, one that is fast enough and smart enough to evade the authorities, perhaps you shouldn’t get involved. ”

The statement didn’t have its intended effect, not when the detective’s mouth lifted in a smirk, and he leaned forward on his cane to pierce her with an intense, knowing stare.

“You care about my well-being, Miss Thompson? Well, perhaps my flowers were well-received.”

She returned his smirk with a scowl. “Except for the part where they lay mangled in a basket. You still have not told me the truth. What do you want from me?”

His eyes sparked with a burning fire filled with amusement and perhaps a bit of excitement. “Not easy to woo, hmm? I can’t resist a challenge.”

“There is nothing to challenge. Now why are you here? The vampire-bite patient still hasn’t woken. You may check on him, if you’d like.”

“Yes, I would like to. We’ll have to adhere to decorum later.”

“Mmhmm. The decorum of tea, which you may or may not drink depending on your mood.”

“Yes.” He grinned. “That one.”

This time, she allowed him to lead, as he seemed to know his way around already. His slight limp drew her attention as they ventured down the hallway, and curiosity got the best of her.

“How did you hurt your leg?” she asked hesitantly, not knowing whether it was a sensitive subject.

He frowned. “An assignment gone wrong, I believe.”

“You don’t know for sure?”

For a moment, it was almost as if his soul left his body the way he stared forward with a tortured expression. As if he were somewhere other than the present. “I do not wish to speak of it.”

“Very well.”

Despite how the detective seemed to enjoy the sound of his own voice, he certainly was quite a mystery. A leg injury from an assignment gone wrong. A kiss with a demon that she suspected wasn’t actually from a demon . She wasn’t entirely sure what to believe about him.

When they stepped into the infirmary, the heavy scent of metal startled her eyes wide open. She rushed toward the vampire-bite patient and threw open his privacy curtain.

The man was ripped open and covered in his own blood. His eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling, hardly discernible against the flecks of red on his face.

She didn’t need to take his pulse to know he was dead.

“I don’t understand!” she gasped. “I checked on him this morning! He was still alive a couple hours ago.” When she remembered he was a detective working on the Whitechapel police force, she spun toward La Cour.

“I didn’t do this, I swear! I have alibis.

My sisters and patients can surely confirm my whereabouts. And…”

Her words trailed off when he bent at the waist. He clutched his stomach with one hand while the other clamped over his mouth. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Pardon? You’re supposed to be a detective. How can you not stand the sight of a little blood?”

“A little?” he squeaked. “This is more than just a little. Besides, I must first mentally prepare myself beforehand. I am not currently prepared.”

Before she managed another word, he stumbled toward the waste bin resting against the wall and vomited inside.

Perhaps her first instinct should have been to comfort him and provide him with medicine to help quell his queasiness, but she couldn’t help but stare in shock.

For someone who dealt with scenarios such as this on an ongoing basis, he was certainly overreacting.

“Who could have done this?” she murmured, turning from him entirely to examine what was left of the patient.

This time, it was messy unlike the other Jack the Ripper killings.

Messy and uncontrolled. Directionless. Had the ghoul done this?

But the victim was a man and not a woman, so it couldn’t be true.

Could it?

Detective La Cour approached with a handkerchief covering his mouth, his face a pale shade of green. After a moment, he shook his head. “This wasn’t done by the Ripper. This was something else.”