“I can draw him out, James,” I said. “If he wants me, he’ll be able to find me. At least this time I’ll be ready.”
“For what? Are you going to tackle him to the ground, then? Arrest him?”
“No. But the police can, if we have Inspector Merriken on our side.”
James looked at me for a long moment, then shook his head. “He’ll never go for it. Never.”
“He already has.”
“What are you talking about?”
“When I used the telephone in the hall to call my daily woman, I tracked down the inspector as well. I told him I had reason to believe the killer will come after me next. And that our best chance of success is to have me draw him out of London.”
“And he believed all of that? With no evidence?”
That had struck me as well. I hadn’t wanted to tell the inspector about my close brush with Ramona’s murderer, because he’d want to bring me into the Yard for questioning. “I think he has his own reasons for believing it. Certainly Ramona’s murder creates a pattern of dead spirit mediums, as you pointed out. He may know that Davies is missing as well.”
James’s expression had drawn tight; I could tell he didn’t like the plan. “So you’re to go to Kent tomorrow, and the police will follow you. That’s what the two of you cooked up?”
“He’s moving fast, James,” I said, meaning the killer. “If he’s going to get rid of me, he’ll move as quickly as he can. He’s proven he can kill with impunity when he can fade into the city crowds. In the country, he’ll be more visible, less able to hide.”
“He did a good job of killing with impunity in Kent, it seems to me.”
“Because the police didn’t expect him.” I put down my glass and walked toward him, my voice softening. “I’ll be fine. The inspector is going to call on the local police for extra men. All I have to do is take the train to Kent, then hire a motorcar. Inspector Merriken and his men will already be there, watching the roads—there are only so many roads one can take in that part of the country. The killer has evaded everyone so far, but he’s just a man. He has to transport himself somehow.”
He raised his gaze to me, still unconvinced. “And George Sutter. You think he won’t hear about this plan?”
“If he wants to send men from MI5, so much the better. I’m sure the inspector could use the help.”
I watched him wrestle with himself. He wanted nothing more than to accompany me to Kent, to guard me, to keep me safe. But his presence would be the ruin of the entire plan. “I’m coming with you,” he said finally. “I’ll go to Merriken first thing in the morning. I won’t get underfoot with his men, but I’m going to be there.” He sighed. “It doesn’t matter how safe you think you are. You’re going to be in danger, Ellie.”
“I know.” I stepped close, unable to stop myself. “I don’t care. I want to stop him. I have to. I’ve done nothing with my life for the past three years, and now I want to do what’s right, no matter the cost. I don’t care if he puts his hands around my neck and—”
“Stop it.”
I had reached the sofa, and I lightly hiked up the hem of my skirt and straddled him, sitting on his long, hard thighs. He smelled clean and pleasantly pungent, a man who had put in a long day. He did not move beneath me, but his gaze darkened and his expression went blank with careful control.
“But you won’t let that happen to me,” I said, my voice a whisper. “I know it. You won’t.”
His shoulders were tense under the palms of my hands, his skin hot through his shirt. He took a harsh breath and gripped my hips, his hands strong and surprising, and then he slowly let his palms slide upward to my waist, pulling at the fabric of my dress.
I leaned toward him and rubbed my cheek against the rasp of his, the sensation setting fire to everything inside me. I was wild in a way that had nothing to do with the wine and everything to do with being on a sofa with James Hawley, with the rain outside and the two of us the only people in the world. “I saw the way you looked at me,” I said to him. “The first night you met me. And when you saw me in Trafalgar Square.”
His hands twitched a little on my waist, then gripped me tighter. “I’ve been very patient.”
“I know.” I rubbed my cheek against him again.
His breath seemed to grow heavier. “What changed?”
“I grew up,” I said, knowing as I spoke the words that they were true.
His hands slid up my rib cage, his thumbs running along my torso and the undersides of my breasts, and I nearly gasped.
“You’re agreeable?” he said, his breath harsh in my ear.
“Yes.”
He put his hands to my face, as he had earlier that night, and looked into my eyes. The shadows played with his brows and his cheekbones, the fine line of his mouth, the column of his neck. He was staring at me with the intensity I recognized. “Do you see anything?” he asked, seeming to push the words from his throat. “When I touch you like this?”
It took a pathetic second for me to understand what he meant, and I shook my head. “No. Nothing.”
His gaze flickered, his thoughts dark behind his eyes. His thumbs moved across my cheekbones. “Whatever it is about you,” he said, “I’m damned if I know.”
“The feeling is mutual,” I breathed, and he pulled me in and kissed me.
In the bedroom, he unbuttoned my dress and let it slide to the floor. He knelt before me as I sat on the edge of the bed and unfastened my garters from my stockings. I looked down at his dark blond head and the bunched line of his shoulders, feeling his fingers moving between the fabric and my skin. I had never done this before, and he probably knew it. I was supposed to be afraid, and I was supposed to be ashamed, but somehow I couldn’t make myself feel either. All I knew was that I could have died that day without ever having felt this kind of pleasure, pure and so intense it was nearly painful. When he rolled down my stocking and pressed a kiss to the inside of my thigh, I couldn’t breathe.