“You may be intent on seeing my father hang, but I assure you, my lord, I shall prove you wrong. My father is innocent of these most heinous charges.” Hannah curled her gloved hands in her skirts to contain her anger, lest she shake a fist in his face.
How she wished she were a man, that she could strike him and call him out!
“And I assure you, Miss Miles, that I bear no malice toward Sir Hugh. Like you, I merely want to find the guilty party who is murdering, cutting apart, and then stitching back together citizens of London.” That black gaze bored through Hannah and stole her breath.
How dared he sound so reasonable.
“You had Papa arrested,” was all she managed to whisper. She bit her bottom lip to stop the tears that burned behind her eyes. He had had her father torn from their household. She would never forgive that.
He placed his hands behind his back and stiffened his posture. “Unfortunately, there is evidence that points to your father’s being the one experimenting in rejuvenating rotten Afflicted bodies, by sewing on healthy limbs.”
There were times that Hannah wished her mother used her magic with a little less discrimination, and would turn the viscount into a topiary figure, or a goldfish. Or any small, easily squashed creature.
She tried to marshal her thoughts that so often scattered before him as though he were an autumn wind. “You know that I assist my father. I can attest that he has not performed any such procedure here.”
Wycliff arched one eyebrow. “Exactly. He has not done such procedures here. Meaning he may have done them elsewhere. Your father admitted to discussing such a possibility with your mother, but we do not know how far they took that conversation. Did you also know that only two weeks ago your father destroyed a torso with a leg that was kicking out, but failed to inform us? It could have been more of Mr Barnes.”
Now Hannah was the one transformed into a goldfish. Her mouth opened and closed, but she couldn’t make words emerge. The viscount was mistaken. If her father had found more of Mr Barnes, he would have told her. Hot, angry tears filled her eyes. She hated this man because he made her doubt her parents, the two people she loved most in the world. With nothing more to say, Hannah fled across the hall, from the house, and to the escape offered by the waiting carriage.
The sun broke free of the clouds and shone down upon the city. Despite the growing warmth in the air, Hannah huddled into the standing collar of her spencer, the chill originating from the inside, rather than the outside. Through the carriage window, Newgate prison loomed grey and dull and sucked the life from the air around it. And no doubt stealing the lives of those within as well.
As she left the carriage and walked toward the first gate, the tingle of magic crept over her skin. This time it wasn’t the familiar tickle of her mother’s magic, but the nettle-like sting of the workings of another mage. Layers of magic ensured that those imprisoned stayed there and even aftermages with magic in their blood were unable to escape.
Hannah took the dim corridor to the turnkey’s room.
“Miss Hannah Miles to see Sir Hugh Miles,” Hannah said to the dour-looking man.
“What do you have there?” He pointed a pencil at the bundle in her arms.
Hannah held the bundle tighter to her chest. “An extra blanket, a few trinkets from home, and a meal to share. Surely you would not deny a man a few reminders of his family’s love for him?”
The guard narrowed his eyes and looked as though he might strip her of the package for her father. Then he blew out a sigh. “Let her through,” he yelled to a man stationed at a wide door made entirely of bars.
The next guard unlocked the door and swung it open to admit her. “This way, miss. I’ll take you to your father,” he said once he had locked the door behind her. “My brother owes his life to Sir Hugh. He saved him after a Frenchie blast took his lower leg off. We were ever so grateful to have him home and he still does fine work as a cobbler.”
“Many men owe my father a great debt. He was an excellent field surgeon.” She hoped the guard’s good opinion meant her father was better treated, just as he had ensured a higher level of treatment for soldiers under his care on the battlefield.
At least her mother had managed to secure a cell for him on the State side of the prison, where they paid for his food and lodging. Poorer prisoners were consigned to the Common side, where they had to fight the rats for scraps.
“Here we are, Miss Miles.” The guard stopped at a solid door with only a small barred square at face height. He drew out his chain of keys and selected one to fit to the lock. “I’ll give you one hour, then I’ll come back to fetch you.”
“Thank you,” Hannah murmured as she stepped inside.
“Hannah!” Sir Hugh jumped to his feet and held his arms wide.
Hannah dropped her parcel to the floor, ran to her father, and buried herself in his large and comforting embrace.
“Oh, Papa. Mother and I are ever so worried about you.” Tears moistened her eyes even though she had vowed not to cry in front of him. What if he were found guilty of murder and hanged? She screwed her eyelids tight to force the tears away.
Sir Hugh rubbed her back. “There, there, Hannah. Everything will be all right. I will be found innocent and you will prod the viscount in the direction of the true culprit.”
Hannah swallowed down all her doubts and reservations. To find the true murderer, she needed a full and honest discussion with her father, and she would at least feel warmer with her mother’s gift activated.
The cell did not look completely unbearable. There was a bed pushed against one wall under the high, barred window. A table and two chairs sat against another wall. It could have been a monk’s room in a monastery or a holding room in the Repository of Forgotten Things, except the latter building was far warmer and didn’t have moans and screams echoing around the halls.
Hannah slipped from her father’s embrace to fetch the parcel from the ground. “I brought a bundle from Mother. First, an extra blanket because she says your feet get cold at night.”
Sir Hugh huffed a laugh, took the folded blanket, and placed it on the foot of his bed.
“Next, I have some cold meat, cheese, and bread. Last, I have a glow mushroom to save on candles.” Hannah set the squat rounded object on the table and tapped the top. The mushroom emitted a soft yellow light. “This one also gives off warmth when you are seated near it.”
“It’s almost pleasant, is it not?” Sir Hugh pulled out a chair for Hannah and she sat. She emptied the basket of its contents and set them before her father.
For herself, she cut a small slice of cheese and nibbled on it while she considered how to begin. Viscount Wycliff had sown doubt in her mind and she needed to cut it down. “If I am to find the true murderer, I need you to tell me all you know, Papa. It is time you were truthful with me.”
“Truthful about what?” he asked as he cut a slice of bread and layered it with meat and cheese.
“Viscount Wycliff said you were known to be sewing healthy limbs onto the Afflicted to replace their rotten limbs. He further said there was a torso found with a kicking leg, which you concealed.” There—she had made the horrid allegations out loud. Let the viscount’s suspicions fester and rot in this place without infecting their home.
“Ah.” Her father took a large bite and chewed slowly.
Each grinding motion of his teeth increased Hannah’s agitation and a storm brewed in her stomach. “You mean his accusations are true?”
He swallowed the sandwich. “Somewhat, yes. After your mother and her friends were struck down and the other ladies dismembered by soldiers, I watched as their limbs attempted to reattach themselves. I wondered if an Afflicted body would accept a substitute limb. I discussed at length with Seraphina the possibility of attaching healthy legs to her.”
“Oh, Papa.” Hannah swallowed the lump of cheese and it almost stuck in her throat. She had thought her father devoted and determined, but never demented.
&nbs
p; “Do you know what I would do to make your mother whole again?” he whispered. “When you love someone, you will do whatever is in your power to make them healthy and happy.”
“Did you attempt such an operation?” Since her mother was still confined to her bath chair and had nothing below her knees, it was safe to assume that any attempted procedure had ultimately failed.
Her father cut more bread and layered meat and cheese between the slices. “Not on your mother, no. She refused. But there was an Afflicted who had lost an arm to rot, and she was eager to try the procedure. While it succeeded in part and she regained the use of a hand, it came with an…emotional toll.”
Hannah took a piece of bread to peck at while she stomached the news that her father had undertaken research without her. “What emotional toll did it take?”
“When we attached another person’s limb to her body, it came with more than mere flesh and bone. She said the hand gave her memories of things and people it had touched. Songs it had played on the piano. Flowers it had plucked from a meadow. She knew they were not her memories and she likened it to having a lodger in her body. At times the hand even seemed to obey the commands of a body that no longer possessed it.” Her father dropped his sandwich to the table and fell silent.
“But a limb cannot retain memories.” Or could it? Barnes the hand displayed independent thought without a body, no matter how often she told herself it was quite impossible.
“Do you know that, or do you merely hypothesise that it is impossible? Five years ago I would have thought it impossible that my dead wife would continue to live under my roof, and make me smile every day.” Hugh picked up the sandwich again and leaned back in his chair as though they talked over a late supper in their own dining room.
Hannah pondered the new information. “Science and magic still have so much to teach us. Let us continue on the assumption that a limb that retains life also retains memories in its muscles and nerves. Who then would create a being made from multiple donors? I can only imagine the distress of so many memories that are not your own. What a horrible price for immortality, if it comes with insanity.”
They ate in near silence, the cries and shouts of other inmates penetrating even the thick stone walls of the prison. Hannah imagined them as cobbled-together monsters, their minds overwhelmed with memories of lives they had never lived. The surgeon responsible needed to be stopped, if only she could find the clues to unveil him.
“Some men are so focused on the end result, Hannah, that they do not see the effects of the method or how it impacts others.” Sir Hugh poured water from a pitcher into two roughly made wooden cups.
Hannah took the offered water and stared at it suspiciously. Secrets left undisturbed could poison a family like a body in a well. “If the torso and leg were not your work, why did you send it to the crematorium and not tell Lord Wycliff?”
He drained his cup and lowered it to the table with a soft thud. “Because I thought it was the work of someone else whom I, rather foolishly, sought to protect.”
Hannah set aside her water untouched. She couldn’t eat or drink as new information kept coursing through her mind. She edged closer to the truth. “Who are you protecting, Papa?”
He dropped his head to his chest and was silent for several moments before he looked up at her again. “Peter Husom. There are ties between a student and his teacher that bring a sense of responsibility.”
“He was your student?” Hannah softened her tone. She could well understand her father feeling protective of a brilliant former student who had perhaps made the wrong choice.
Her father stood and paced the small square cell. “No. I was Doctor Husom’s student over thirty years ago. The man has not aged a day since I first entered his lecture room as an eager lad of sixteen.”
Hannah leaned back against the stone, needing its cool touch as her mind overheated. “Are you sure it is the same man? Perhaps he looks similar to his father.”
“It is the same man. I wondered at first, for he had been gone from the city for many years, but he said things that gave him away. He may fool others, but not the likes of you and I.” Hugh held up his finger and the light flashed over the mage-silver ring.
Apart from being a type of tracker and a way to signal Seraphina, the ring also conveyed a level of protection against certain spells. “Do you think he uses a glamour of some sort?”
Hugh rubbed the ring as he paced. “I believe so, to slightly obscure his features. I asked him about it directly once and he laughed and said the answer was in his name, if anyone looked closely enough.”
Hannah pondered what that meant. His name made it clear? Did it have something to do with being a doctor? “Do you believe he is some sort of Unnatural creature, that he has not aged?”
Her father shrugged. “Or he ages so slowly that the passage of thirty years has not touched him. I do not know. That is his secret.”
There were so many strands to this conversation that Hannah wished she had brought her notebook in which to write them all down. If Peter Husom were a type of immortal, why did he seek to create immortality? Or was he trying to make immortal companions? That led Hannah down a rabbit hole of pondering what he could be. The only sort of creature she knew to be resistant to ageing was a vampyre, and they didn’t need electricity to create more of their number.
She shook her head to clear all the voices and to focus on just one. “Let us start from the beginning. Who has the required knowledge and access to equipment to dismember bodies and sew together new ones? Not to mention some method of reanimation. It does seem the only possible candidate is Doctor Peter Husom.”
Hugh stopped pacing and peered out the small window in the door. “Galvanism seems the most likely method with which to bring a deceased person back to life. Not that his attempt worked during the meeting—we both saw that the effect was short-lived. You must also consider Reverend Jones.”
Hannah frowned. She had already discounted the reverend. “He is a man of the cloth, relying on the power of prayer.”
“A man of the cloth who originally trained as a surgeon. It was only after he graduated that he decided to pursue an ecclesiastic career. He has the required skill and we know he is devoted to proving that the Afflicted were created to show God’s hand at work.”
Hannah struggled to imagine the devout man committing murder. That aside, there was another name that Hannah had to mention. “There is also Lord Dunkeith.”
Her father turned and paced back. “Better to investigate and exclude him, I’d say. He has no medical training that I know of, although his family did employ an aftermage apothecary to tutor him.”
Resolve crept through Hannah. She would dig further into the movements of the other three men. She would not rest until she uncovered who had murdered Beth Warren and those who had been stitched to her. “Very well. I shall undertake my own enquiries, even if Lord Wycliff will not listen to reason.”
“There is one other thing, Hannah. Our situation is somewhat delicate. If I should fail to be cleared of this charge—” Hugh curled his large fingers around the back of the chair and faced his daughter.
She jumped to her feet and cleared away their meal. “No! Do not even consider such a possibility. I will find the culprit and you will be home before you know it.”
He walked around the table and stilled her hands. “Hannah. I cannot protect or provide for you and your mother, should anything happen to me. You know the law—the dead cannot inherit. What if you—”
Hannah threw her arms around his strong neck to silence his words. She didn’t want to contemplate the last unspoken truth that worried her father. Even when he was incarcerated, his concern was for her and her mother. She kissed his ruddy cheek. “We will free you. The alternative is not acceptable. Besides, Mother is a formidable mage. Do you think the spells attached to these walls would stop her from reclaiming you?”
Hugh laughed and hugged her tightly. “Your mother is indeed most formidable. I
f only you had seen her as a young woman. So many underestimated her and thought to use her as a puppet, and she showed them all.”
Hannah smiled. How she wished she had seen her mother when she had erupted upon a startled court. But she would have many years to sit by her father as he told the stories. She would make sure of it.
20
Wycliff prowled back and forth in his modest study, barely managing two full strides before he encountered the wall. He turned and took another two steps, only to be blocked by the opposite wall. He had never intended to see Sir Hugh Miles, the man who had opened his home to him, thrown into prison on a charge of murder.
Wycliff’s investigation sought to determine who had murdered Beth Warren, Nell Watts, and Tabitha Chant and then turned them into a patchwork woman. As he paced his confines, he raged at the magistrate, Ashburton, for issuing the warrant prematurely, before all the necessary evidence had been obtained.
How could he find a way through the mess created by the magistrate? He wanted the murderer brought to justice, but he had not intended to create an untenable situation for Lady Miles and her daughter. If Sir Hugh were hanged, they would be two women alone in the world and already burdened by Lady Miles’ deceased status. Honour demanded he put things right. Somehow.
To that end, he had the kernel of an idea. During his time in the household, he had come to appreciate Miss Miles’ quiet presence. He even somewhat enjoyed her occasional passionate outbursts that made her eyes sparkle with life. But there was another, deeper reason. He was lost on a strange sea, and he might have put in jeopardy the one place that offered him safe harbour.
How to broach the subject that had taken root in his mind? He settled on approaching Lady Miles in the first instance. If the mage decided to smite him where he stood for his impertinence and for having her husband arrested, at least he would have the satisfaction of having tried.
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