Excerpt from
from Chapter 2
It took a moment for Vicky to grasp that last word. “Murders?”
She shook her head, confused. Then immediately terrified. “Who has been
murdered?”
Someone in the Royal Family? Certainly, if the Queen had been
assassinated, she’d have been informed by her son’s ministers immediately. Lord
knew there had been more attempts on Victoria’s life than most of her subjects
were aware. Thankfully, none had succeeded. The little Queen seemed invincible.
Vicky reached out, took her niece by the hands and pulled her
closer so that she could look her directly in the eyes. “Maud, is this one of
your silly pranks?”
“No, oh no, not at all, Aunt Vicky! I’m so sorry. I thought you
would have heard.”
“Come then.” She guided the girl over to the wine-colored velvet
chaise by the window and sat her down. Standing over her, Vicky gazed down at
her sternly. “I think you had better explain.”
Sophie stepped up beside her mother, taffeta underskirts swishing
as whisper soft as her voice. “Mama, I’ve read about them in the newspapers.
They’re called the Whitechapel murders, and they’re truly horrible. She’s not
making it up.”
In truth, Vicky hadn’t read a newspaper in months. What was the
point when there was nothing she could do about either local or world events?
She was as powerless as her seamstress, cook, or even … loyal Agathe.
Maud slipped a gray parchment envelope from the satin reticule
looped around her thin wrist then seemed unsure what to do with it, and so left
it in her lap. “I guess I’d better just start at the beginning.”
“Excellent,” Vicky said.
Maud took a deep breath. “There have been two most shocking
murders recently in London. Sophie’s right, both in Whitechapel.”
Violence in any large city was not uncommon. Vicky knew, as well
as anyone who had lived in London, how dangerous the East End was. The district
was little more than a mass of crude tenements built over cesspools.
Overcrowded. Filthy and disease-ridden. Occupied by the poorest of the city’s
poor. Even the Metropolitan Police, whose jurisdiction it was, ventured into
neighborhoods like Huxton, Whitechapel, and Spittlefields only in numbers and,
it was said, fully armed. She’d never even set foot in those horrid streets.
She was sure her parents’ coachmen took care to avoid the area entirely.
“Go on,” Vicky said when Maud hesitated then sat down beside
her.
“Women
have been threatened or attacked with a blade before. But most recently, on
separate occasions, two were brutally stabbed to death in the street.” Maud’s
sweet face paled and she stared down at the paper rectangle beneath her
nervously twitching fingertips. “Actually, not so much stabbed, so they say, as
mutilated.”
“I read the bodies were disemboweled,” Sophie added helpfully.
“Turned inside out, their organs taken from—”
Vicky silenced her daughter with a wintry glare. “I shall have a
word with your tutors regarding your reading materials, missy.”
“Mama,” Sophie groaned, “everyone has heard about
these ghastly murders.” She turned to her cousin. “But I really don’t see what
the fuss is about. The victims, they’re just dirty old whores.”
“Sophie!”
“Sorry, I should have said ‘prostitutes.’”
“That wasn’t why I objected to what you said,” Vicky snapped.
Ever since her sister Louise, now the Duchess of Argyll, had
protested against the cruel laws that kept women dependent upon the good will
of men for shelter and support—as females were unable to own property or
businesses, or to even take on decently paying jobs like men—Vicky herself had
become more protective of women’s rights on the Continent. It was said that
thousands of females wandered London’s streets—destitute and unable to support
themselves. Once there, they had only one way to delay starvation or put a roof
over their heads.
Vicky shuddered to think of their desperation. She couldn’t
imagine being forced to let a strange man access her body, to do with her as he
willed! She turned to her daughter.
“Sophie, these women can’t be blamed for what they’ve been
reduced to. It’s not their choice to be poor or to have to sell their—” She
pressed her lips together, unable to say more in front of the two princesses.
Sophie was a tender seventeen years old, Maud just eighteen. Both were so
impressionable, sheltered, vulnerable.
“You mean, they have sex with men for money?” Maud’s eyes
suddenly sparkled with mischief.
Sophie clapped a hand over her mouth and giggled.
“That is quite enough of that language, Maud
dear.” Vicky looked down at the envelope still resting in her niece’s lap. “Is
that a letter for me? Something to do with these disgusting events?”
“No, it’s—” Instead of completing her thought, Maud turned the
envelope over and uncoiled the thin red string securing its flap. She pulled
out a sheaf of newspaper clippings. “I thought you might want to see these
reports of the murders, in case you didn’t believe what I came here to tell
you.”
Vicky looked down at the ink-smudged newspaper clippings. Some
were from The Star, others from the more respectable Observer or The
Times. But all included chilling sketches and photographs. When Sophie
reached for them, Vicky cast her daughter a warning look. “These aren’t for a
young girl’s eyes.”
“But Maud has seen them. I don’t see why I c—”
“Hush.” Vicky flipped through the half-dozen articles, catching
a word here, a phrase there. There was even a coroner’s photograph of the first
victim. Undoubtedly the only photograph ever taken of the poor soul. The
black-and-white image was no less horrifying for showing only the woman’s face
and shoulders. Whatever the police surgeon had done to clean her up, it was
still obvious she’d been cruelly beaten and slashed.
“Maud, I’ll have a word with your mother about this … this
collection of yours. These are totally
inappropriate for a young lady.” She
scooped the horrid images into her lap, intending to toss them into the flames
in the fireplace.
“But I had to show you, so you’d understand.”
“Understand what?” Vicky’s fingertips flew to her temples. She
was fast on her way to a raging headache. Violence, in word or deed, was one
thing she had never tolerated in her home. Suddenly, she felt as if evil was
seeping from between the very stones in the castle walls around them, poisoning
the air, stripping away what remained of her family’s dignity. Why wouldn’t the
world leave her alone with her grief? Why bring more tragedy to her doorstep?
“You need to understand what the awful reporters are saying.
That’s why I’ve come to you.” Maud reached out and snatched back one of the
clippings before Vicky could stop her. She waved the obscene image of the
whore’s corpse in front of her. “They have theories. All sorts of mean, ugly
theories about the killer. They say he likes to do this to
women. They say he’ll kill again and again if not stopped.”
Vicky sighed. So? What did her family have to do with murder
investigations? “I assume Scotland Yard or the local police are after him,
whoever he is.”
“That’s just it. If we don’t do something soon, people,
including the police, will believe those awful newspaper articles, and we’ll be
blamed.”
Vicky scowled at the girl. “Oh Maud, please. That’s outrageous.
What do you mean by we?”
“Us, the Royal Family.”
“Such nonsense!” Vicky shot to her feet, snatched the photograph
back from her niece and tossed all of the clippings straight into the fire. She
watched the papers crackle, glow orange, curl into black ash. Then she turned a
chastising glare on both young women to let them know they weren’t to expose
themselves to such filth again. “Maud, there is no possible reason why any
person with sense would seriously suspect a member of our family of having
anything to do with—”
“But there is,” Maud whispered as tears bloomed in
her pretty eyes. “That’s why I had to come and ask for your help. Please—” she
sank down onto her knees, her skirt billowing around her on the floor,
desperation making her voice break at odd moments. “Please, Aunt Vicky. You
must come back with me to London and help us. My brother is in so much
trouble.”
Reveiw - I love historical fiction. I learn a little about a time gone by and enjoy a great story at the same time. In this case my love of crime and mystery are combined with my love of historical fiction. Any tale that includes Jack the Ripper is added to my list. Mary Hart Perry weaves a tale of Royalty, family , and Murder together in this story about The Empress Fredrick Returning to England after the Death of her husband to try to clear her family of the stain of being thought to be hiding Jack the Ripper.
This is a great read and I would recommend it to anyone who likes Jack the ripper, mystery, or historical fiction.
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