Victoria Library – Hyde Park
She sat with trembles running the course of her spine, her hands twisted together on the mahogany desk in the middle of the grand artifice. She gawked at the cascading ceilings and tried to ignore the men and women that stared blankly at her from other tables. Ella was sure she looked pitiful, shaking from the cold in her mourning garb, settled in the middle of the fictional science aisle of the library. But one whisper in her ear from Frederick, as he slammed a pile of large books down in front of her, quieted all of her worries as she stared at him.
"This is everything I could find on th' subject."
She leaned towards him as he sat, confusion burning her tongue.
"You still haven't told me what this subject is."
He smiled briefly and opened the first text resting on top of the pile, written by a man named William Polidori and titled The Vampyre. He scanned through the aged pages with a wandering eye and fingertip as she watched. When he'd found what he had been after so diligently, Frederick turned his eyes back to Ella and brought the book closer to her, pointing at the line.
"Read here."
She did as she was asked, silently repeating the words of the text as though they were meant to prove something. "'There were no colour upon her cheek, not even upon her lip; yet there was stillness about her face that seemed almost as attaching as the life that once dwelt there. Upon her neck and breast was blood, and upon her throat were the marks of teeth having opened the vein—And to this, men pointed, crying, simultaneously struck with horror, "A Vampyre…'"
Ella turned her uncertain olive eyes to Frederick again. He was ready to give all the explanation she would ever need, at a cost of scaring her even more. He began somberly, drawing both of her hands into his, warming them at the touch. "Last night, after you left the courts, I was called t' oversee an incident in Cheapside." Her eyes grew cloudier when he confirmed, "On Swan Street, only yards from your home."
"What kind of an incident?"
"It was the murder o' a young girl. Josephine Scott. No more aged than you, Eloise."
The tears welled in her eyes as he prepared to brush them away.
"And wot' I came upon is what you've just read in this book." He gestured towards it with his dark eyes. "Her body was frigid, unscathed, unharmed save for a single mark. One bite on 'er neck."
Ella gulped back her horror. "I thought you said vampires weren't real."
He nodded, having known she would remember his hesitancy to believe.
"I admit. I am a man of solitary reasoning when it comes t' death, especially murder. I see it every day, an' every case has its origins, whether be it greed or envy or lust. There is no senseless killing without at least a sensible foundation, Ella."
"And yet you've found your answer in a gothic myth."
"A theory, yes. A possibility, although a strange one it may be. After seeing wot' I did of this girl last night, I can only stand to wonder further."
She understood, having had her first bout of curiosity days before. But knowing that the latest victim had been found within feet of her home, of the place where she laid down to rest at night, to dream without want or thought of being killed in the process, made Ella's eyes fill with pain and panic all over again. Frederick's feelings were not so dissimilar, and as he stroked her wet cheeks in the silence of the library's turning pages and flickering lamps, he knew what offer had to be made; the one he'd spent the day developing inwardly.
"I can't let you continue lodging in Cheapside. I can't Ella." Her eyes shifted up once more to his, comforted by the care she saw welling deep inside of the orbs framed by his boyish chestnut curls. "You're as likely to become prey as another girl of only half your attraction." She fell into his touch, smiling at the flattery. "I would gladly send you back to Paris, if that's where you want-"
"No," she whispered with a shake of her head in his hands. "I don't want to go to Paris."
"Then Bishopsgate perhaps? I'll find you a place to stay, nearer to me. I can keep an eye on you, protect you. You'll be safe in that part o' town."
She sighed halfheartedly. She had hoped he would offer something different, his own house perhaps. Without thinking or knowing how to think properly anymore, Ella herself found all cause to voice the opinion.
"Is it so well beyond decorum's sake then, that I cannot stay with you, Frederick?"
A tired grin crawled across his lips as he wiped one existing tear from the corner of her eye, and brushed a loose curl behind her ear. With nothing more to wonder about her, or become hopeful of or dream up for himself, he was left with only one reply.
"No, o' course it's not. For you see," he whispered. "That was to be my next offer, love."