Dark Desires by Eve Silver EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Eve Silver
- Language: English
- Genre:Â Historical Mysteries
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Hanbury Street
, carrying the stink of old blood and rotting entrails. Darcie
Finch shivered as chilled wisps curled like talons about her
slim frame, and she hastened her steps, her feet sliding
precariously on the wet cobblestones. Clutching her battered
leather folio against her side, she tried in vain to close her
senses to the stench.
The frightened lowing of cattle drifted on the rank air, carried from the
nearby abattoir. Come morning, the stones on the next block would glisten
wetly; not from mist and rain as they did tonight, but from a river of blood
flowing over them. Despite her attempts to block the sound, the piteous
noise intruded. Darcie dragged in a shaky breath, fighting the panic that
threatened to claw free of her breast.
Did she feel the same dull fear as
those poor beasts being herded to their doom, the same sense of the
inevitable horror to be meted out by unfeeling hands? She could not help
but compare their fate to hers, to the sorry lot she had chosen. But therein
lay the distinction. The animals had been condemned without benefit of
trial, born to the inevitable fate that awaited them—the slaughterhouse one
block over. Those poor dumb beasts had no choice.
Her breath left her in a hiss. As if she did.
Darcie gave herself a mental shake. There were always choices, and she had
made hers. Better to accept responsibility than to brandish her fist at the
fates, crying and wailing against the burdens that were hers to bear.
She moved her feet mechanically, her worn boots scraping along the
cobbled road as she rubbed her fingertips across the raised, puckered scar
that marred the skin of her left hand.
Destiny. Steppy had talked of destiny
as though it were an old friend, or perhaps a mortal enemy with an ancient
grudge. He always said that destiny brought all men to the same fate, a
shroud and a bed in the cold hard ground. She clutched her flat leather case
tighter against her chest as another thought struck her. A person might be
dug up from a fresh grave and find their final end on an anatomist’s table.
White-chapel was a favorite haunt of the ressurectionists—unscrupulous
men who plundered fresh graves and were whispered to hasten the dying on
their way.
Shrugging off the morbid thought, Darcie willed her exhausted body
onward. Tragic and pitiable was the life that lay ahead, but no worse than so
many young girls had faced before her. She sighed softly. Once she had
believed in dreams and fairy tales, had relied on a gossamer web woven of
privi-lege and fantasy.
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