Page 2 of Taken by the Ripper (Time for Monsters #9)

C

lara stood frozen in the doorway with a slack jaw and dumb expression as she took in what could not possibly be a real person standing before her.

It wasn’t just his striking appearance, but there was a presence about him that demanded attention.

It was almost like if she glanced away for a single moment, the shine of his aura would dim, and she’d miss the shooting star in the sky entirely.

“Ah-ah-ah,” she stuttered as she finally came back to her wits and stepped aside. “Come on in.”

Though, she had no idea why he’d decided to knock rather than walk in like most people did. And with Mazie clinging to his arm like a love-stricken puppy. The girl batted her eyelashes and stared at him with doe eyes the size of the moon. Judging by the man’s look of indifference…

He was accustomed to constant female attention.

“Would you like some tea?” she thought to ask after her manners caught up with her.

“Decorum demands I oblige.”

Again, Clara stood frozen to the spot. But this time from uncertainty.

Rather than meeting her eye, he scrutinized the room, missing no detail, his gaze lingering a little longer on the hallway leading to the hospital wing of the estate.

He leaned heavily on his cane while tapping his foot, Mazie all but forgotten where she spoke excitedly to him and hung on his arm like a primate desperate for attention.

Finally, she nodded and gestured down a second hallway. “This way. Most of the estate is occupied by patients, but there are rooms set aside for family and guests only.”

The prominent limp of each stride and the tap, tap, tap of his cane followed her as she led him down a hallway.

She felt his intense stare on her back as they entered the private drawing room overlooking what used to be a mesmerizing garden teeming with exotic plants and flowers.

Now everything was overgrown and unmanageable when the Thompson family no longer employed servants to manage the yard.

Several pots and a weed-filled garden with medicinal herbs gave her a small measure of comfort of what her yard used to look like.

But it was almost unrecognizable. Just like the rest of her life.

The detective took a seat beside one of the windows facing the herb garden, and she couldn’t help but notice he claimed one of the armchairs rather than the sofa as if to put space between Mazie and himself.

Laughter almost escaped her when Mazie scooted her own armchair closer anyway. Almost because the man’s presence continued to rattle her, even as she disappeared into the kitchen to prepare tea for her intimidating guest.

When she returned, she hated how the china rattled with her shaking hands as she placed a cup in front of him.

Which he didn’t even touch, let alone glance at. His gaze was fixed on the yard outside the window, a disapproving expression on his face. Or, perhaps, his face always looked like that. A hard man to please, it seemed.

“I apologize for the state of the property,” she said, picking up a teacup of her own.

But when her hands continued to rattle, and the porcelain clinked together, she abandoned the feat entirely.

“I am often so busy with nursing that I don’t have time to take care of the yard. It’s mostly my sisters’ task.”

“Then they don’t do a very good job of it, do they?”

Heat flamed in her cheeks, and she clasped her hands in her lap to hide the insistent trembling. Something about this man unsettled her. She wasn’t usually the cowering intimidated sort.

“Oh, come now,” Mazie giggled, flirtatiously touching his arm. “I have better things to do than weed and prune an overgrown garden. Like spend time with handsome gentlemen. Tell me more about yourself.”

Clara pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath to prevent herself from saying anything she might regret. After years of trying to raise her sisters into respectful young women, this was the fruits of her labor?

She diverted the topic back to the situation at hand. “Is there something I can help you with, Detective?”

“You’ve converted your home into a hospital,” he commented. “Has it always been this way?”

Shaking her head, she replied, “My father had his own practice elsewhere years ago. But I’ve since sold the building and now operate in our home.”

He tipped his head toward her, and for what seemed like the very first time, he glanced in her direction. “I am looking for the physician in charge.”

Her gaze immediately jumped to his injured leg, which earned her a scowl.

“It’s not for me,” he scoffed. “It’s for a case I am working on. Where is he?”

“If you need assistance, I am happy to provide.”

The man leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. Her breath faltered as his stare bore through her like searing sunlight baking desert sand. “I believe we have a grave misunderstanding, Miss Thompson. I do not seek the services of a simple nurse. I need a doctor.”

Her throat dried, making speaking difficult. “My father taught me everything he knew.”

“Then you are not a physician at all. I know your father has passed. Are there no other doctors present?”

“It’s just me. But I am fully capable of—”

“You see? The pause for tea was a tedious waste of my time. You could have told me this at the door.”

Finding patience for men like this may have permanently disrupted the health of her jaw when she found herself grinding her teeth in frustration. “Just because I can’t afford tuition for medical school does not make me any less of a doctor.”

“It actually does.” He touched his cane to the ground and stood, brushing down his coat. “I will continue my search elsewhere. Good day, Miss.”

Despite needing a cane to help him walk, he still moved with fluid grace, quickly disappearing from the room as if in a hurry to find that physician he was in desperate need for.

However, she only held back a snort. He’d be back.

Because unless he traveled to London, he wasn’t going to find anyone better than her in Whitechapel.

Not when the existing poverty made this city unappealing for those practicing.

“Oh, he’s so handsome!” Mazie sighed, hands clasped to her heart.

Clara stuck up her nose. “He’s rude and lacks good manners. I advise you to stay away from him lest his atrocious conduct rubs off on you.”

Before Mazie could reply, the bell over the door chimed as someone opened it and stumbled inside, crying in agony.

She took a deep breath to compose herself, ignoring the ache of exhaustion pulling on her eyelids as she strode out of the drawing room and toward the front door.

The doctoring never ended, and half the time, she was never paid.

In coin, at least. Occasionally, she’d receive a stale piece of bread or a jar of moldy jam.

But it was better than what others earned during these hard times.

She adopted her professional mask as she moved to greet the screaming patient. However, her mask melted, and her eyes shot wide open when a pale-faced man stumbled toward her with a hand held to his bleeding neck.

With a hand on his elbow, she rushed him into the infirmary wing and set him down on a cot before pulling a curtain forward for privacy. She snatched a pile of clean white cloths from the bedside table and moved his hand from his neck.

A gasp escaped her when she found two holes pierced through his flesh, profusely bleeding as if the wound had caught a vein.

Quickly, she pressed the cloth to his wound, and he cried out as if the touch pained him.

“What happened?” she demanded.

His expression contorted in a wince, his breathing shallow.

And when she placed her fingers against his wrist, she found his skin clammy and his pulse weak.

“I-I-I can’t remember much of what happened.

I was dallying with a woman in the alleyway late last night, and I woke up this morning covered in my own blood. Wh-wh-what if it was the R-r-ripper?”

Clara lifted the bloodied rags to examine the wound once again. Judging by how much it still bled, it was a miracle he wasn’t lying dead on the streets.

“I don’t think this was caused by the Ripper,” she answered honestly, replacing the bloodied rag with a clean one. She recalled the details in The Star of all three incidents thus far, and none matched two holes in the neck.

“Then what?”

“I don’t know.” A cruel, violent prank perhaps. But it was no murderer. Most likely.

“Do you know what happened to the woman? Could she have done this to you?”

The man shook his head, but the movement caused him to sway where he sat. Dizziness must have overcome him, as he melted onto the cot and squeezed his eyes shut. “She was a small, pretty thing. Called herself Lady Stride.”

Stride …

Shock coursed through her body, her patient momentarily forgotten as she jumped to her feet and rushed to grab The Star still lying on the table near the doorway.

Her gaze quickly scanned the first of the three periodicals.

When it didn’t hold the information she searched for, she tossed it down in favor of the next. Still nothing.

And then she glanced over the third, her gaze stopping suddenly on the name of the latest victim, Elizabeth Stride. Could she be one of the same?

“What did you say your name was again?” she murmured half to herself.

But when she returned to the infirmary to ask the man, he was passed out cold, his face paler than ever before. She checked his pulse and pressed her ear to her monaural stethoscope to listen to his lungs. He was still alive.

However, he’d lost a lot of blood. If he were to survive, he needed care and rest.

She placed a folded, square cloth against his neck and gently wrapped another cloth around to hold it in place. Because she couldn’t apply too much pressure to the wound without blocking his airway, she wasn’t certain he would recover.

But she would try to save him, nonetheless.

Just as soon as she finished cleaning the dried blood from the man’s skin, a woman walked in supporting what looked to be her ten-year-old daughter, a wadded cloth pressed to her arm. Likely something needing stitches.

Over the next several hours, she worked tirelessly suturing wounds, splinting bones, and administering medicine to the sick. Her younger sister, Norma, helped where she could. Despite a lack of love for the profession, Norma offered aid without complaint.

All while Mazie was out with friends doing who knew what? When Clara had been eighteen, she’d spent every waking moment at her father’s side learning the craft. At eighteen, Mazie had no sense of direction. Nor did she seem to care.

Clara muttered grumpily to herself as she cleaned her workspace as the sun descended behind the city, and darkness became an unwelcome companion filled with anticipation and dread.

Would any of her patients pass in the night?

Would someone barge in demanding medical attention when all she wanted was to sleep for more than a few hours at a time?

Would another patient sneak around the house, trying to find something to steal?

It wouldn’t be the first time and certainly not the last. Each of them slept with their doors locked in three places and with a weapon beneath their pillows just in case. But she made sure to keep their own side of the house locked to prevent wandering if possible.

After checking on all her overnight patients, she stood in the foyer with a lantern held in her hand. The flickering candlelight illuminated a still and quiet house aside from the occasional hacking cough and creaking cot.

No one called out in pain. No one demanded her attention.

All was quiet.

For a long moment, she gazed out the window into the darkness.

City lamps drew her attention to the world outside, away from what had felt like her prison for years.

Very rarely did she leave the house. Because when she left, people died.

Not only that, but she and her sisters relied on the money she made doing physician’s work.

Despite her longing to leave, to step into the world outside the hospital, she was stuck. Just like her father had been stuck and engrossed in his work until the day he’d died.

Shaking herself out of the past before she allowed it to consume her, she climbed the stairs to her room and slid all three locks into place.

She turned around.

And froze.

Darkness permeated the atmosphere from the open window. A light breeze brushed against the filmy curtains cascading toward the wooden floors like silky water. But what truly caught her attention…

Three gouge marks lay on either side of the sill as if an animal had dug its claws into the wood and dragged them along the frame.

Her gaze darted toward the wall nearest the window, and she spotted another three gouge marks in the leafy green wallpaper. Something or someone had been in here recently.

“Is anyone there?” she called out. Her shaking hands caused the candle flame to cast dancing shadows across the room, creating what seemed like dozens of monsters clawing their way through the dark corners.

She crossed the room and threw open her armoire. Nothing.

Next, she searched the closet, under her bed, and inspected the outside of the window for any sign of whoever had done this.

She didn’t quite know how, but she needed to protect her sisters from…

from…whatever this was. It had been in their house, which meant she needed to search the premises for more gouge marks.

Even if her heart trembled at the thought.

She nearly turned away from the window when she discovered something small and sharp sticking out of the corner of the sill, lodged between two pieces of wood. Pinching her fingers over the object, she wiggled it free and inspected it close to her face.

Small. Black. Pointed. With the faintest curve… And impeccably strong, as it didn’t break when she tried to bend it.

It was a claw. Or a fingernail. Or perhaps something in between. But she was certain this was what had caused the gouge marks.

“Ah!” She hissed through her teeth when the tip of the claw pierced her finger. Moments later, a screech echoed somewhere below, sending her heart leaping to her throat in fright.

She rushed to close the window, twisting the locks into place and sliding the curtains together before pulling her robe tighter over herself. Something had been in here. Or perhaps someone .

And by the look of it… She wasn’t even sure it was human.