Chapter 27
Tilly spent an hour in her office at The Iris, going over things she’d neglected. If she was leaving London, she would have to hire another staff member to do this. Someone she could rely on to pay bills and order what was needed with Margaret’s help.
The thought saddened her. She’d put so much into this place. It was a culmination of hope and determination from her and others. The idea had formed when she’d received the Pavlov money and grew into something wonderful. A sanctuary for women of all walks of life who needed it.
“How can I turn my back on that because of one man?” Tilly whispered.
“The knitting club are in today, Miss Wilson,” Ruby said from the doorway. “Will I have some tea ordered for them before I dust the entranceway?”
“Yes, please, Ruby.”
The girl hesitated.
“Is something wrong?”
“No. I just wanted to thank you again. Coming here to The Iris Club has changed my life. I can never thank you enough for that.”
“You are welcome, and we are the lucky ones to have both you and Barnaby with us.”
Ruby smiled. She looked so much happier and healthier now. It was wonderful to see.
Tilly rose twenty minutes later and went upstairs to take tea with the knitting group. Passing a smaller parlor, she saw it held a handful of women playing cards. Another held three reading quietly.
I helped create this, she thought. It hit her then with startling clarity.
She could not walk away from here. Tilly would leave society and devote herself to The Iris.
This would be her sole focus. The decision felt like the right one, and the tight coil of anxiety in the pit of her stomach eased slightly.
Of course there was Ambrose to consider, but she could avoid him if she took pains to ensure she went nowhere he would be.
“A gentleman has called at the door, and is asking to speak with you, Miss Wilson,” Margaret said.
Ambrose?
“Did he give his name?”
“He did not.” Margaret’s mouth formed a hard line of disapproval. Clearly, she was unhappy another man was on their doorstep.
Ambrose would have given his name had it been him calling. Tilly stomped down the tug of despair in her chest that she would no longer spend time in his company. The man I now know I love.
“I shall go and see what he wants, Margaret, and you check that everyone has everything they need.”
She hurried past Ruby, who was busy dusting with Barnaby at her side, to the front door and found Mr. Howard there.
“Forgive me for coming to your club, Miss Wilson, but I called at your home to see if you would like to go driving, as you were unable to at our prearranged time, and was informed you were here.”
It was evident to Tilly that she needed to make her intentions known to him. She was not interested in another marriage proposal, if that was what he was thinking.
“Will you take a walk with me, Mr. Howard?”
His hopeful smile made her feel terrible, but she had to do this. It was best for both of them.
Tilly collected her cloak and gloves from her office.
“I will not be gone long, Ruby, and then I will return to take more tea with the knitting club.”
“I shall ensure it is kept warm,” she said, bobbing a curtsy.
Mr. Howard held out his arm, and she placed her fingers on his sleeve as they started walking.
“Are you feeling better now, Miss Wilson?”
“I am, thank you, Mr. Howard.”
“My name is Nile. I would be honored if you would use it.”
“I’m afraid I cannot,” Tilly said. She then took a deep breath and released it slowly. “It would be wrong of me to continue allowing you to believe there may one day be something between us, sir, as there cannot.”
He didn’t look at her, but she was staring at his side profile and watched as his mouth formed a hard line. “You are proving very hard to control, Miss Wilson.”
“I beg your pardon? No man controls me.”
She tried to pull away, but as she did, he said, “Do not move, or I will shoot the first person who appears before us.”
“What?”
She hadn’t noticed that his hand was tucked inside his jacket, but she saw it now, and the outline of the gun it held.
“Wh-what are you doing?”
“You have left me no choice but to make this move today. So we are going to take those stairs down, and I do not want you to make a sound, Miss Wilson. Just follow my lead. Remember I will shoot someone if you do not, and their death will be on your hands.”
She looked around desperately for help and saw a mother and child coming her way, laughing. Behind them were others. An elder man with a cane, and another man, younger, with a woman. Tilly would not have their deaths on her hands.
“I will do as you say.”
She went first down the stairs, and he followed.
“To the door now, Miss Wilson.”
She saw the entrance, now cleared of crates, and the two men standing on either side of it. Neither looked at her as they approached.
“Open it and enter,” Mr. Howard ordered.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Come now, Miss Wilson. Surely that fertile brain has worked out what is afoot. Perhaps you are not the intelligent woman I thought you were after all.”
“You are part of whatever has been going on down there,” Tilly said as the realization dawned on her.
“Well done. Open the door.”
She did, fumbling with the latch. Then they were inside, and he was shutting the door behind her and locking it.
“You will not outsmart me this time. We are finishing this now, today, and then you will cause us no more trouble.”
She was pushed in the spine, which sent her stumbling forward.
“Marrying you was the last resort if the abduction did not succeed. Of course, we would have disposed of you after we’d used you for our needs, but you escaped. So I went back to the original plan. Marry you and inherit The Iris. But today you destroyed that plan, too, so I must destroy you.”
“You are mad. You cannot hope to get away with this!” Tilly said, horrified. “It is daylight outside, and my club is full of women who will miss me if I do not return. You have little hope of succeeding with whatever nefarious plans you have.”
“You have forced my hand, so we will get this done with before anyone misses you. I assure you, I excel at disposing of people without a trace, Miss Wilson.”
The words sent a chill down her spine.
“If Malvern had not died and his wife found that he was still paying the lease on an empty building, I would not have had to resort to such drastic measures. Then you took up the lease, and one of our entrances was shut. When we realized that door we’d just entered was locked, we knew we had to act, as someone was on to us. ”
She was nudged into the room and found herself facing four cloaked men. All wore masks, so Tilly could not identify them.
“You are the person behind The Iris Club, so with you gone, we shall have no problem getting the others to leave, Miss Wilson. Then your club will once again be ours.”
“Surely there are other places you could have gone?”
The cloaked men were unmoving, just standing there silently, eyes forward, almost as if they were in a trance. Evil, Tilly thought. It was all around her.
“This is where Fraternitas Sanguinis Crucis was formed. It is where we belong.”
“Under a pair of men’s and women’s clubs?”
“It is our sacred home, and no woman will change that,” he snapped, no longer the man she’d known, which she now knew had been a facade the whole time.
“Hierophant, Magnus, Adeptus, Philosophus, and Zelator, I presume,” Tilly said, looking at the men. Her knees were shaking so hard, she had to clench them together to stay upright.
“You read our grimoire entries, Miss Wilson. I’m disappointed, as no woman has ever done so. We do not allow the weaker sex to taint what we are or what we have.”
“Weaker sex,” she rasped, as fear choked her. “You are not serious?”
He gripped the back of her neck and squeezed. The pain was instant and dropped her to her knees.
“Who else has been down here? Think very carefully before you lie to me, as you will pay with pain,” Mr. Howard said.
“Many,” she whispered when he released the pressure. “Plus, a detective who is looking into your order. Even now they could be in The Iris Club, about to descend upon you.”
“You lie!” He pushed her sideways so she fell to the hard floor. “No one is coming.”
Tilly was getting sick of men abusing and abducting her. She may be scared, and not have the upper hand, but she wouldn’t stay silent while this man did what he wished to her. She pushed herself back to her feet and turned to glare at Howard as anger gave her strength.
“Am I to be some kind of sacrifice to your weak and pathetic gods? There’s no doubt that you and your four little friends can harm me, but I will always be stronger of mind and a great deal more intelligent.”
Think, Tilly, she told herself. Ruby knew she was out walking with Mr. Howard. She would find her—or alert someone who could do so.
The men in robes remained perfectly still at her words.
“The gods will punish you for your blasphemy this day, Miss Wilson,” Howard hissed.
“You have no gods,” she scoffed. “You have only costumes and candlelight and a great deal of self-importance. You are all pathetic to hide behind your robes and cult.”
Howard’s jaw tightened. He crossed to a low table she had not noticed before—it was draped in dark cloth, and upon it lay some objects. A curved blade, a clay bowl, and a length of cord, knotted at intervals.
“You will be silent now,” Howard said. “The time for conversation has passed.”
“Has it? I find I am rather warming to the subject. Do none of you fit into society, so you needed to create your own? Weak-kneed, small men with nothing to recommend themselves to women, so you resorted to taking them against their will?”
The tallest of the robed men spoke then, his tone low and deliberate. “She is afraid and covering it with bravado. Do not let her provoke you, Hierophant.” It was possible that voice belonged to someone who had frequented the society gatherings she had over the years, Tilly realized.
So, Howard was the Hierophant. She filed that away, although she could not imagine what use it would be to her here in this room. The door was locked, and Tilly knew her chances of survival were not good.
“I am not afraid of cowards. People will come for me when I do not return to The Iris, which is a women-only club. A club you will never be able to close because they will fight you every step of the way,” Tilly declared.
“We will, because once you are gone, we will continue to destroy it, slowly if need be. By the end of the year, The Iris Club will be no more,” Howard said, his voice rising with anger. “And no one will look for you, Miss Wilson. At least not until we are finished with you.”
Tilly forced herself to laugh even as his words sent another chill down her spine.
“The club will not close. Women are stronger than men, you see, and they will even now be gathering to decide what is to be done to rescue me. They will enter through the secret door and find you—destroy you and your little band of pathetic men.”
“Bring her forward!” Howard snapped.
Two of the robed figures moved toward her. Tilly stepped back until she felt the door against her spine. “Do not touch me!”
They didn’t stop. She drove her elbow sharply into the nearest man’s ribs as he reached for her and was gratified to hear him grunt with pain, but the second man caught her by both arms before she could do anything else, and she was dragged forward, the heels of her boots scraping across the stone floor.
They forced her into a chair that had not been in the room when she’d last entered it, and her hands were bound to the wooden arms.
“Now,” Howard said, straightening his cuffs as if he was merely chatting with his peers, “you will tell me the name of the detective and all those who know about this room.”
“I will not.”
“You will, and we will deal with them, as we have others.” He crouched before her, bringing their faces level.
The man she had known in drawing rooms, who had complimented her dress and laughed at her observations over dinner, was gone.
What looked at her now was something colder and evil.
“You will tell me, Miss Wilson, because the pain I am about to inflict on you will be unbearable if you do not.”
“I-I am telling you nothing,” Tilly said, terrified.
Being in that crate had scared her, but this—this was much worse. She was in the hands of a madman and his accomplices.
He smiled at that. It frightened her more than his anger had. He held out his arms, and one of the men brought forward a robe.
“You can’t dress yourself, Mr. Howard?” Tilly mocked him.
“You are remarkable,” he said quietly after he’d put his mask on. His eyes now gazed cold and hard through the small holes. “It is a genuine pity I cannot marry you. We would have had an enjoyable time together before I killed you.”