The Bride of Devil's Acre (20 page)

They were quiet on the ride home, the hack passing through yet another part of Devil’s Acre she’d never seen before. Staring out the hack, Jacqueline realized that her husband controlled a considerable amount of real estate.

The area they were passing through was older than what she’d visited so far. The buildings here were worn down and faded, and several of the businesses appeared closed.
 

Turning the corner, the hack rolled down a deserted street, the only movement a broken and faded sign swinging precariously from a single chain.
 

Jacqueline shuddered. An image flashed behind her eyes, that of a faded anvil and hammer swinging gently in drifting fog.

“Stop the carriage,” Jacqueline ordered, grabbing Moose’s arm. “Driver, stop!” she called, when the man didn’t act fast enough.

The hack rocked to a halt.
 

“Everything all right?” the driver called, turning to look back at his fare.
 

“What is it?” Moose asked. “Are you OK?” Lady J had gone pale, and the hand on his arm shook.

“Wait here.” Jacqueline climbed out of the carriage on legs that threatened to buckled.
 

“Lady J?” Moose watched Devil’s wife get out of the hack. She paused on the sidewalk and stood staring back down the street. He leaned out the window trying to see what she was after.
 

Jacqueline stared up at the sign for the Anvil & Hammer. The paint was faded, but the image had been carved into the wood and remained long after the business had closed.
 

The last time she’d seen that sign, it had been late at night, and dark. A heavy fog had descended, and she’d been afraid, so terrified she could taste the fear in her mouth. But she would never forget that moment when her hood had slipped and the dim light from the street lamp had filled her vision.
 

The image of the street as it had been back then was forever etched in her mind.
 

“I think we best be getting back,” Moose called, holding out his hand. “Please.”

Jacqueline tore her gaze away from the sign. Moose was watching her, his face pleading with her. Information started trickling in. There had been three, maybe four of them that night, their voices low and nearly indistinct. But other things stood out, things like an Irish lilt and one man’s size.
 

Jacqueline turned and walked away.
 

“Lady J!” Moose called out, jumping out of the hack and hurrying after Devil’s wife. “Wait.”

“No.” Jacqueline ignored the big man jogging towards her, rounding the iron fence and propelling herself down the stairs. Too late. She remembered how narrow the stairs had been; her feet slipped, and she stumbled to the bottom.
 

Grasping at the wall, Jacqueline paused. Heart pounding, she looked around. From this point on, everything had been about sound and smell. Taking a deep breath, she caught the strong scent of earth and the warm aroma of oak.
 

Picking up her skirts, Jacqueline hurried down a narrow corridor, at the end of which was a door.
Please let it be unlocked!
Grabbing the handle, Jacqueline wrenched the knob, unaware of the small whimper she let out when the door opened.

Another corridor and several wrong turns later, Jacqueline pushed through a final door and burst into a small room. Gagging at the overpowering smell of oak, Jacqueline pressed the back of her hand to her nose and eyed the wall lined with barrels. Beneath her feet, packed earth muffled her steps as she crossed the room.

“Lady J, please come away.” Moose had caught up with her, dogging her heels and begging her to return to the hack.

“I was here,” Jacqueline whispered, circling the small room. “This is where they brought me, where
you
brought me.”

Jacqueline looked back at Moose. He remained at the door, his sad eyes watching her. She didn’t need to see his face to know she was right.
 

Jacqueline turned her back on him.

The rope was there, one end still tied to the pole planted in the center of the room. The other end had been cut, the bloody pieces scattered across the dirt floor.
 

Jacqueline rubbed at the rough scars on her wrists as her mind whirled with questions about that night. Who else had been there? Who was the man that raped her? Surely, her husband would know the man’s identity.

Devil
.

“Nothing happens in Devil’s Acre without my husband knowing about it,” Jacqueline said.

Moose didn’t know if Lady J was talking to him, or trying to work something out for herself.

“Why?” Jacqueline turned.

Moose shook his head. “It’s not for me to say.”

“Of course not,” Jacqueline said. She started towards the door. “You just do what you’re told.”

A flash of white caught Jacqueline’s eye, sidetracking her across the room. Bending down, she pulled a wad of lace out from between two oak barrels. Stiff with dried blood and saliva, the delicate lace had once been ivory.
 

She no longer owned the dress it belonged to. Her father had ordered it burned and all evidence of his daughter’s misfortune destroyed.

Turning on her heels, Jacqueline shoved the evidence into her pocket, brushing past Moose and heading up to the street.
 

Jacqueline wanted answers, and it would seem there was one man who had them all. Her husband.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Are you sure it’s Carver?” Finn asked, incredulous.

“You tell me,” Devil demanded. They were standing in his office at Purgatory, Mary’s body on its way to Andrew. “What the hell did you do with his body?”

“Threw it in the Thames.”

“And you’re sure he was dead?”

“Well, I didn’t check, if that’s what you’re asking, but the man’s throat was slit.”

Devil frowned. Maybe he was wrong. “Is it possible the symbols mean something? Maybe Carver was a member of a cult…”

“You mean we could be talking about more than one man with a thing for carving up women?” It was not a comforting thought.

“I prefer one, even if it means Carver is alive.”

“I still don’t…” Finn trailed off before breaking into a string of curses.

“What?”

“Stubs. That bastard, Stubs.”

Devil’s eyes narrowed.

“If there was a chance Carver was still alive, Stubs would have been the one to help him out.”

“What do we—”

The door to Devil’s office was thrown open, bouncing off the wall with a bang as his wife stormed in.

“
You
bastard
,” Jacqueline hissed, throwing the bloody gag and a piece of rope on her husband’s desk. She’d had the hack take her to Purgatory. It was a safe bet her husband would be there dealing with whatever problem delivered Finn to their doorstep that morning.
 

On the way there, she’d worked through the likely scenarios and came to only one possible conclusion. Her husband had her kidnapped, left her to be raped, and then dropped her on her father’s doorstep.
 

Only one questions remained.
 

“Why?”

Devil tore his eyes away from the proof littering his desk and faced his wife. She was trembling with rage, her hands fisted at her side.
 

Devil didn’t bother trying to deny it. “I needed your father’s vote.”

Jacqueline blinked, the answer forcing her back a step. “His vote?”

Devil heaved a sigh, his eyes darting past Jacqueline to where Finn and Moose stood watching. “Can you give me and my wife a minute?”

“Stay,” Jacqueline ordered. “They were there that night. They might as well be here for this as well.”

“I would prefer we discuss this in private.”
 

“I don’t care what you would prefer,” Jacqueline snapped.

Devil’s eyes narrowed dangerously, but he let it go. “Queen Victoria has proposed the reformation of St. Giles. A bill went before the House of Lords that would have funded the measure, and eventually displaced thousands of residents of St. Giles. There is only once place for them to go; Devil’s Acre.”

“So you decided to kidnap me and blackmail my father for his vote?”

“Do you know what would happen to Devil’s Acre if that many people came here looking for work, for a place to live? Devil’s Acre doesn’t have those kinds of resources. It might not be much, but mothers don’t sell their babies for gin, and people don’t kill each other over rotten scraps of food.”

“No, you just kidnap and rape—”
 

“Rape?” Moose looked back and forth between Lady J and his boss.

“To get what you want,” Jacqueline finished, ignoring Moose’s surprise outburst.

“I never intended for you to get hurt,” Devil said, his voice fierce.

“To hell with your intentions!” Jacqueline hissed. “You ruined my life!”

“I’m trying to make it up to you!”

Jacqueline blinked. “What did you say?”

“I never meant for you to get hurt, but it was my fault. That’s why I married you.” Devil held out his hands, asking her to understand. “It was the only way I could think of to make amends.”

Jacqueline was silent for a long moment, considering. “You married me out of guilt, and pity.” Somehow, that was so much worse than a marriage based on a business arrangement. “You never needed my name,” Jacqueline choked on a sob. What an idiot she had been! “Which would make sense, considering it’s no longer worth anything.”

“Jac—” Devil watched his wife start to curl in on herself, the rage leaving her body.

“Don’t.” Jacqueline held out her hand, silencing Devil. She didn’t want to hear anymore. She needed to get out of there, away from this man who had destroyed her life, not once, but twice. “Just, don’t.”

“Where are you going?” Devil asked, watching his wife leave. Somewhere in the vicinity of his heart, his chest ached with the need to reach out to her. What she said was true. He had married her out of guilt, but that wasn’t why he loved her.
 

“Home.”
 

Staring straight ahead, Jacqueline concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, not stopping until she reached the door. “What was his name?”

“What?”

“The man who raped me. I know it wasn’t you…”

Devil hesitated. “Carver.”

Jacqueline laughed. One hand braced against the door, she let the sound bubble over until she was bent over, clutching her stomach.
 

Devil didn’t like the slightly hysterical sound of his wife’s laughter, and he took a step toward her. The sound cut off abruptly.
 

Wiping the tears from her eyes, Jacqueline stood up and straightened her shoulders. “Appropriate, don’t you think?”

“Jac -”

“Good-bye, Devil.”

“Aren’t you going to tell her Carver may still be alive?” Finn asked, watching the door close.

“No.” Devil moved behind his desk. “Moose—”

“What happened to Lady J?”

Devil sighed, fingering the bit of rope still on his desk. He’d forgotten that Moose hadn’t gone back to the room with him and Finn that night.
 

“Did Carver hurt her?”
 

In all their years together, he’d never heard that tone before. “Yes, he did.”

“Where is he now?”

“I slit his throat.” Moose stared at him, and Devil had the distinct impression that his sins against his wife were being weighed against that one, single statement.

Moose nodded, once.
 

“Follow her,” Devil said, tipping his head towards the door. “Make sure she’s safe, but don’t let her see you.”

Finn waited until Moose was gone. “What’s next?”

“Find Stubs. Bring him to me.” Devil needed to know if Carver was still alive. And if he was? Well, Devil would have to correct that mistake. He wouldn’t be able to begin to repair things with his wife until he could give her at least that much.
 

And this time, he’d have Carver’s head.
 

“Not here.” Jacqueline looked up at the house she shared with Devil and shuddered.
 

“I thought you said you wanted to go home?” the driver asked.

“This isn’t home.”

“Where’s home then?”

God, did she even have one?

Jacqueline couldn’t bring herself to get out of the hack and walk back into the life she’d started to build inside the house she shared with Devil. Was it only yesterday they’d made love for the first time? And just this morning when her husband taught her how to defend herself?

Jacqueline’s bark of laughter startled the driver.

Everything about her marriage was a farce, a carefully created delusion designed to appease one man’s guilt.

Where did that leave her? Alone, and with no place left to go. Jacqueline refused to consider going back to her father. There would be no escaping Lord John a second time. The failure of her marriage was all the proof he would need to hold on to her forever, and that was
if
he deemed her worthy enough to welcome back.

Jacqueline couldn’t go to Catherine, and she didn’t know anyone in Devil’s Acre. She’d lost everything.

Jacqueline turned her face from the house. This wasn’t home, but somewhere in her heart she knew it could have been.

“Drive.”

“Where we going?” the driver turned back to the horses.

There was maybe one man Jacqueline could turn to. “Grosvenor Square.”
 

Carver fingered the stitches on his neck. The doctor had been drunk, and the stitches were sloppy and uneven, but the man had managed to sew Carver up before he bled to death.
 

Too bad the doctor couldn’t say the same for himself.

The stitches itched and pulled at his skin. Studying himself in the mirror for the first time, Carver had traced the ragged wound from ear to ear. He liked it, he decided. The scar warned off most men, and it terrified the whores.

Carver smiled. He’d been busy since his resurrection, and he had no plans to stop anytime soon. Not until he got to Devil and took everything the bastard held dear. The man had tried to kill him, slitting his throat and tossing him in the Thames like trash.