Dreadful Desires

Copyright © 2023 by Lucy Lark All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, events, and incidents are either created by the author or used fictitiously. Cover design: Lucy Lark Edited by: D. D. Line Warning! This book contains content that might be troubling to some readers, including but not limited to depictions of violent murder, death, post-mortem examinations, vivid imagery, stalking, violence, sex scenes, issues around sexual consent, bullying, abuse (physical, mental, emotional, verbal and sexual), deprivation of personal autonomy, adult language (including slurs), and descriptions of medical procedures. It also fictionalises real-life people, including Jack the Ripper, his victims, and people involved with that investigation. Please be mindful of these and other possible triggers, and seek assistance if needed. For Danni. Contents Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Coming soon Prologue 1 July, 1888 Long, elegant strokes scrawled across the available space on an already cramped piece of paper. Words upon words slithered into the margins; information pouring from a hand that struggled to keep pace with a brain processing ideas at a much faster rate. A warm glow filled a large room which looked more like a museum than an office. A tidy black leather doctor’s bag sat faithfully by the foot of the desk like a loyal retriever, while a human skeleton was wired together and hung from a frame in the far corner. On the walls, amidst a battalion of shelves filled with specimen jars, was a large family portrait. A dark-haired and bespectacled man stood proudly behind his seated wife, whose serene countenance provided a perfect backdrop for those of the children on either side of her. A young boy was to the woman’s right, his hair ruffled charmingly in a way that matched the childish mischief in his blue eyes. On the woman’s left was a tall girl of about fifteen, her pale hand on her mother’s shoulder. Her face was more like her mother’s but held a distinct air of dissatisfaction that set her apart from the rest of her happy-looking family. A large and expensively appointed desk chiefly occupied the room, sitting squarely beneath the portrait. The man sitting behind it worked industriously with his pen, almost as though he had stepped out of the painting above and left his wife and children in the past to dedicate himself to this most singular pursuit. When he had finished the line that had captured him, he stood abruptly. Quick, purposeful steps conveyed him to a bureau, where he opened a cigar box. Removing the cigars, he revealed within a secret compartment housing nine small vials of dark liquid. He held one up to the lamp on the side of the bureau and then another, as though comparing the slightly green tinge of one to the reddish-black hue of another. The man pinched the stopper of the second between his fingertips and was about to uncork it when he thought better of it. He replaced the vial carefully and closed the cigar box, causing a flurry of movement to his left. A large darkly mottled tarantula scuttled beneath the substrate in its glass enclosure, hiding away as the man hastily returned to his desk. Then he did something else peculiar. He peeled back the rug at his feet and shoved the journal he had been writing in into an iron safe cast into the floor before quickly covering it again. Directly thereafter, the man went back to the supposedly calm demeanor of moments ago—this time opening a file on his desk marked with nothing other than ‘Mrs. Hawke.’ Several medical diagrams met his shrewd gaze, but he looked past them, searching for the page of detailed notes deeper in the file. Although his work recaptured his attention, there was a stiffness about his shoulders, betraying the fact all was not well. His eyes were wide behind those same wire-framed spectacles he wore in the painting, and although there were undoubtedly more lines on his face as the years advanced, he was still just as sharp beneath the veneer of his age. Silence drowned the room, save for the ticking of the clock on the mantle and the indomitable autumn rain pattering against the outside of his windowpanes. The man seemed to listen for something else, with all the casual concern of a dog trying to sniff out something unusual on the wind. After a heartbeat or two, he shuffled his papers. “You may as well come out,” he said, his tone deceptively bored sounding. He continued to peruse his notes as though he had been waiting for the intrusion all evening. “I know you’re there.” As though the invitation was all he required, a man stepped out of the shadows in the corner of the room. His broad shoulders denoted a person who was bulkier than the man behind the desk, but not taller. Stout. Suave. Savage. “Good evening, Professor Nightingale.” This new voice was highly polished, with all the rounded vowels of aristocracy present and accounted for. For all that he was an educated man from an upper middle-class family, the man at the desk sounded like a common dockworker by comparison. “Is it?” Nightingale replied, taking his time to look up from his paperwork and give the mysterious interloper any real acknowledgement. Suppressed amusement tinted the other man’s voice. “I suppose