Chapter 31
There was no getting past this. Her life was over.
This was the truth that had filled Gabriella’s every thought since she’d realized the woman she kept on stabbing no longer breathed.
Yes, it was the other woman who’d made the first move. And yes, she was surely the murderess they’d been chasing. But how was Gabriella any better when the woman had been unarmed? She’d not been thinking clearly, she’d just reacted with fear.
She couldn’t even recall how she’d ended up with a weapon or what sort of weapon she’d used. A knife, she supposed, for it had gone straight through flesh and tissue. Over and over.
Her body still trembled. Would it ever stop doing so?
The thought evaporated when someone settled into the spot beside her and pulled the carriage door shut. Peter. He drew her against him without a word, offering comfort and support in the aftermath.
Even though she knew she ought to refrain, she selfishly settled against his sturdy frame.
Whatever future she’d hoped to have with him had become unachievable.
Even if she managed to avoid prison, or worse, there was no ignoring the atrocity she had committed this evening.
That woman had needlessly died at her hands.
She could still feel the blood staining her fingers.
No amount of soap would ever wash it away.
As it was, Gabriella feared she wouldn’t be able to live with what she’d done. Supposing Peter would be able to was more impossible.
And even if he said he could, she wouldn’t want that for either of them.
Tonight changed everything. She had become a monster. Unworthy of his respect and certainly undeserving of love.
“I’ll explain the situation to your father,” he murmured, his fingertips brushing away the tears that slid down her cheek.
Her father. Oh God. His career could end over this. She tried to breathe and realized she was breathing too much, too fast. It felt like her heart might explode.
“Easy does it,” Peter soothed. “You’re safe, Gabriella. I’ve got you. Just relax.”
She followed the gentle flow of his voice until her pulse slowed and her breaths settled into an easier rhythm. The carriage rumbled onward, turning this way and that while rattling over uneven stones.
“I thought she was going to kill me,” Gabriella confessed.
“I know you did.”
“Except she couldn’t have.” How easy it would be to lie in order to save herself, only her conscience wouldn’t allow it. No matter what it might cost her.
“You don’t know that,” Peter said. “That woman murdered three men in brutal ways. She was calculating. Dangerous.”
“She was unarmed.”
“What?”
There it was, the shock, the dismay, the thing that would forever taint her in his eyes. “She came toward me, raised her arm and I…I thought she had a weapon, but she didn’t.”
“How do you know she didn’t drop it while you struggled?” Peter asked.
“How do you know we struggled?”
“The broken vase in the foyer and the mess both of your hair is in.”
Gabriella blinked. Yes. There had been a struggle. That was how they’d ended up in the parlor. But first, they’d had a conversation. She tried to think, to focus her mind on what had been said.
“I know who she is and why she did it.” Clarity swept through her. She turned to Peter, who quietly stared back at her through the darkness. “Her name is Sally Finch. Her brother—”
“Hold on,” Peter said with a frown. “Do you not mean Sally Jones?”
Gabriella shook her head slowly while recalling the list of names Peter at interviewed at Moorland House. “No, I do not. According to what she told me, her brother was Howard Finch, the soldier who took his own life.”
“She gave me a false name,” Peter murmured, a stricken look filling his eyes. “When I met her at Moorland House I failed to make the connection between her and the men who’d been killed. All because I had the wrong name. Had she told me it was Finch, I’d have…”
He muttered a curse, and dropped his face into his hands. Gabriella sympathized. Sally’s deception had been so simple, Peter would not only feel like a fool but blame himself for Kipling’s death.
“You’re not the only one who missed the clue,” she murmured.
“But I am the one in charge. I should have figured it out. If I’d only gone with you to Kipling’s lodgings instead of helping Croft, I would have recognized Sally Finch and—”
“We did the best we could with the information we had.” And as a result, she now had blood on her hands. The reminder carved a hole in her stomach and filled it with lead. She squeezed her eyes shut and did what she could to focus on breathing.
“Gabriella?” Peter’s voice was filled with concern.
“Finch served in the army with Warren, Orwell, and Kipling,” she muttered, forcing the rest of the details past her lips, “but something happened to him at Waterloo.”
“War tends to leave its mark on people.”
“It wasn’t the war. It was them. They left him to die when they should have helped him.
” Finch’s brothers in arms had been scared, she realized, but was that any excuse for abandoning him?
“Only he didn’t die. He survived, but lying on that battlefield, wounded, for several days before help arrived, allowed his wounds to fester.
When he eventually returned to England, he did so without his legs.
His sister visited him at the hospital here.
Until he managed to take his own life, exactly as his record described. ”
“She was avenging her brother then.”
A coward’s death for the coward you are.
“And chose to die by my hand rather than face the inevitable.” Except, in doing so, she’d damned Gabriella. “I’m sorry. I’m so terribly sorry, Peter. I—”
“It’s all right.”
“How can you say that?” Her eyes were burning from all the tears and her throat felt raw. “None of this is all right.”
“I will do whatever I have to in order to make sure you’re safe.”
An impossible promise to make and for what? Once he had a chance to think this through, he’d surely realize that he was better off without her.
Emotionally exhausted, she slumped against the squabs and said no more as the carriage continued toward their destination.
It wasn’t long before it drew to a halt. Peter opened the door and alighted, then offered his hand to help her down. She climbed from the carriage and paused. Her gaze slid over the building before her. This wasn’t Bow Street or home. This was Number 5 Portman Square.
She turned to Peter. “Why are we here?”
“Because if there’s anyone who can help you navigate what lies ahead, it’s Mr. Croft.”
“No.” When Peter took her arm and attempted to lead her toward the front door, she dug in her heals. “The man is a known criminal.”
“He certainly walks a delicate line,” Peter agreed. “However, he has never been proven guilty of any actual crime. Besides killing Benjamin Lawrence. A situation not entirely dissimilar to the one in which you now find yourself.”
She clenched her jaw. “I don’t like him.”
“Neither do I for the most part. That doesn’t mean he’s not your best hope at the moment.”
“He’s untrustworthy.” She shook her head, hating the idea of having to fall on Mr. Croft’s mercy. Worse, of owing him anything.
“Most people are,” Peter said. “At least Mr. Croft has a code of honor he sticks to. If he says he’ll help you, I believe he will.”
She still didn’t like it one bit. Croft’s highhanded manner grated on her every nerve. While he’d never been disrespectful toward her personally, she detested the way in which he’d condescended to Peter in the past.
The chief constable’s job was far from easy. He had her utmost respect. More than that, he had her heart, so if he insisted she seek Croft’s advice, she would.
Even though it felt like her stomach had been carved out, she raised her chin. “Very well.”
They crossed the wet pavement together. What had been a slow drizzle when they’d left Shoe Lane had since ceased. The wind, too, had died leaving everything still and glassy beneath the gaslights.
Gabriella continued to tremble. She couldn’t seem to stop.
While she’d managed to find the wherewithal to speak, her body could not forget what she’d been through this evening.
It seemed to protest every breath she took, every heartbeat pushing blood through her veins.
She would pay for what she had done. Of this she had no doubt.
Clasping her hands together, she tried to hold them still, only to fail.
Peter fisted his hand and knocked. It took a while before the door opened.
Mr. Croft’s butler swept his blunt gaze over their faces. “Yes?”
“I realize our coming here at this late hour is less than ideal,” Peter said. “Especially after this evening’s events. We wouldn’t have done so unless it was absolutely necessary. It’s vital I speak with Croft.”
The butler pulled the door wider without saying a word, and stepped back so they could enter. It wasn’t until he’d shut the door behind them that he said, “As you can probably imagine, Mr. Croft is tending his wife. I’ll see if he’ll agree to meet with you but I cannot promise anything.”
“Tell him there’s been another murder and that the villain is dead by Miss Hastings’s hand.”
Gabriella shrank from the butler’s penetrating gaze, her attention dropping to the tips of his shoes. Hugging herself, she tried to keep her mind blank, to avoid letting the ghastly memories from the last few hours fill her head.
“I’ll see what I can do,” said the butler. “Please feel free to wait in the parlor.”
Light pressure at Gabriella’s right elbow alerted her to the press of Peter’s hand as he tried to guide her. She turned beneath his touch and placed one foot in front of the other. Careful and deliberate even as images flashed through her mind.
Sally Finch moving slowly toward her. You should not be here.
Gabriella retreating. Neither should you.
A slow smile that made everything fall into place. The open window had been a decoy. Lewis and Anderson had fallen for it. But they had left Gabriella behind.