“Ummm, I’ll be outside with the carriage…uh…waiting,” Felix stammered awkwardly and then was gone.
Caroline placed the tray down upon the table. “I brought him a cup as well. Please call him back so we can all take tea,” she said kindly.
Val came towards her and took her hands in his. “Miss Derry. Please have a seat.”
Caroline sank into the sofa as he suggested. “You don’t want tea?”
He sat next to her and cleared his throat. “It can wait. I need to speak to you.”
“Of course. More questions?” She smiled.
Val was overcome with the strongest urge to take her into his arms. Not for pleasure, but to stem the intense pain that he knew was coming. He couldn’t stop it and it tore at him. He wanted to protect her. He wanted to protect her from the world and the dangerous place it was, and he knew he could not. Not only could he not protect her, but he was going to deliver the horrific news to her.
He began to speak. “I need to leave now. I’m going to contact your father at the college. I need him to come with me…“ he stopped speaking as Caroline was looking at him intently. Innocently.
“You need my Father? I’ll have the footman send for him.” She said willingly.
“Miss Derry. I’ll go to the college myself to fetch him.”
“If you wish. Is it something serious? Do you need his medical opinion or help?” She asked.
“I need him to come with me to the morgue.”
Caroline nodded. “I understand. I can send word. You need his professional help.”
Val sighed deeply and took her hand in his, squeezing it gently. She looked down at his hand entwined with hers and then up into his handsome face.
“Inspector,” she asked him.
“Caroline.” He said her name as almost a caress and it was jolting and very intimate. “Oh god, Caroline.”
He couldn’t stop himself. He was only human. He didn’t want to say the next words. He would give anything not to say them.
“What is it? You’re frightening me.”
“They’ve found a body in Hyde Park. The description matches Irene.”
???
Caroline shuddered at the pungent smell of ammonia and blinked in the afternoon light.
“She’s come ‘round,” Cook said, taking the smelling salts she had used to revive Caroline and leaving the room.
Caroline blinked several times. She felt ill and uneasy and someone was touching her hand. It was the Inspector. Valentine Pierce.
“I’m sorry. I seem to have fainted. That’s never happened to me.” She shook her head.
His face was concerned and full of an unread emotion that she couldn’t place. “Miss Derry.”
She felt her head spin and then remembered. “It’s not her Inspector. I know it’s not. She’s not dead. I would know it.”
He was silent for a moment. “I don’t know anything for certain. All I know is what I was told. We have several missing persons. It happens in a city this size.”
“Yes.” Caroline tried to make herself sound brighter but she failed.
She felt at her throat
and realized several buttons had been unbuttoned.