Capturing the Devil (Stalking Jack the Ripper, #4)

by Kerri Maniscalco

When I was adventuring between the pages of a book, I wasn’t sad over things I was missing outside.

“Thank you for the shoes, Thomas.” I looked at the stack of boxes, teetering precariously close to the edge of the settee now. He caught my stare and nudged them back to safety. “All of them. It was very sweet. And highly unnecessary.”

“Your happiness is always necessary to me.”

“We’ll find new ways of navigating the world together, Wadsworth. If you can no longer wear heels, we’ll design flats you adore. If you ever find those no longer work, I’ll have a wheeled chair made and bejeweled to your liking. Anything at all in the universe you need, we will make it so. And if you’d prefer to do it on yo...

“Mostly?” He considered that. “Unless it’s vastly inappropriate. Then I’l...

“Shall we see about solving another gruesome murder, my love?”

The world needed to be better. And if it wasn’t possible for it to be better, we, its inhabitants, needed to do better.

My beloved brother had one more secret he’d been keeping. And it changed everything I thought I knew.

There were two of them.

my heart was close to breaking. Again. How many times would this case haunt me? How many secrets did my brother keep?

Jack the Ripper hadn’t committed his crimes alone. His reign of terror was not yet complete. That thought ripped the rest of my heart from my chest. Jack the Ripper was alive.

Jack the Ripper was two depraved, twisted men acting as one. And I knew—I knew with every molecule of my body that he’d been with us on the Etruria.

“Nathaniel killed Emma, but he was never Jack the Ripper, Thomas. He was the man who made Jack the Ripper. Or perhaps befriended him.”

I bent my head, kissing the inked area above his heart. With or without the rose tattoo as a permanent marking, Thomas Cresswell was mine.

“Wadsworth, meet Sir Isaac Mewton. Sir Isaac Mewton, this is that special human I told you about. You’ll be nice to her or there won’t be any more belly rubs in your future.”

Uncle grunted. “I knew pairing the two of you together would be trouble.”

“Meeting that annoying student in your laboratory last autumn turned out to be one of the best chance encounters of my life.”

After he’d gone, my father laughed, shaking his head. “My dear girl. If you believe it was a chance encounter, you have much to learn. Especially about your uncle.”

“You must be mistaken. The night I met Thomas, he’d come uninvited.”

“Sweet daughter of mine. Jonathan’s more apt at reading people than Thomas is. He knew long before that boy ever walked into that laboratory that the two of you had the potential to change the world together. Know this—he took Thomas on as an apprentice because he is and always has been the Wadsworth who believed love could bridge the barrier between life and death. If you think me a romantic old fool, my brother is twice as much on both counts.”

We needn’t complete each other; we complemented each other. He and I were whole on our own, which made us so much stronger when combined than two symbolic halves coming together to create one. Our bond had double the strength. Nothing could tear it apart. And after tomorrow, nothing would.

There was power in choice. And I’d choose Thomas in each and every lifetime, if such things were possible.

“Your nightgown is lovely, but your mind is what attracts and captivates me.”

“Nothing in life comes with a guarantee, Wadsworth.” Thomas took a deep breath. “Outside forces will always be out of your control. One thing you can control is how you choose to live. If you wake up fearful of every bad thing that might happen, you miss out on the good. Death will come for us all one day. Worrying about tomorrow only accomplishes ruining today.”

“Love is immortal. Death can neither touch nor steal it. Especially when it’s true.

“Have you no faith in my mighty brain? Of course I’ve worked out an equation only for us.” Thomas smiled. “My love for you will be a constant in a sea of unknown variables. We may fight or be cross with each other, but our love will never fade or wilt. Trust in that. Trust in us. Forget the future. Forget worry. The only thing that terrifies me is the possibility of living with regret. I don’t ever want to wake and wonder what life could have been like with you in it. I don’t ever want to regret holding myself back from loving you as fully and openly as possible.”

“Part of growing older means letting go. You can’t move forward if you never take those first few steps onto new ground. Now’s the time to be brave, Daughter. Walking into the future means trusting in yourself even when you can’t see around the bend. As long as you’re certain this is what you want, all will be well.”

How silly of me to believe in happy endings when I lived and breathed in darkness.

“You fight. You fight for what you want. You do not wallow or surrender. The lesson is not in lying down and allowing yourself to be stabbed, child. It’s in pushing yourself up and battling back.” Her eyes flashed. “You fell down. So? Will you stay there, weeping over skinned knees? Or will you brush off your skirts, adjust your hair, and carry on? Do not relinquish your grasp on hope. It’s one of the best weapons anyone possesses.”

“My granddaughter will inherit all my property once I’m gone, boy. She may not hold the title of marchioness, but her dowry could purchase your father’s precious title a thousand times over. I simply requested Her Majesty’s blessing on your engagement. To my granddaughter.”

“I long to live in a world where equal treatment is not something in need of commending.”

“You make my dark heart sing, Wadsworth.”

We were already damned to Hell; it was silly to not at least enjoy our descent.

He and I were two pieces of our own private puzzle—we fit together perfectly. If that made us wicked, wanton things, so be it. I gladly accepted my fate.

The devil was a monster, but I would become his nightmare.