The Anatomist's Wife

by Anna Lee Huber

  Gage glanced back at me, but I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

  “I asked him why he would be so proud of that fact.” The baron’s eyes flitted toward me uncomfortably. “Thought maybe he had a lovely bit o’ muslin on the side and his wife was indifferent to it. But then he said something about her being a scary good surgeon if only she’d been born a male. Said she had the keenest eye. And that either she had more steel in her spine than the average surgical student or she actually enjoyed the sight of death.”

  My stomach cramped painfully at the comment. I suspected that if I hadn’t already emptied my stomach all over the chapel cellar floor, I would have vomited.

  “Are you saying that Sir Anthony actually admitted to you that his wife took part in his dissections?” Gage asked incredulously.

  Lord Westlock’s gaze darted to mine and then back to Gage. “Well, I didn’t take him seriously at the time. He was rather deep in his cups. I thought maybe he was speaking in metaphors.”

  Gage’s hardened gaze searched mine out, and I struggled to meet it. I couldn’t believe Sir Anthony had actually bragged about the emotional detachment and stoicism he had forced upon me. Hadn’t he seen the torment beneath my feigned reserve? Or had he just not cared? A familiar ache started in my chest upon realizing I already knew it was the latter. He hadn’t cared. He had been selfish and cruel, and as long as he got what he wanted from me, that was all that mattered. It was no wonder I’d buried myself in my art. It was all that kept me sane.

  I glared at Gage, daring him to believe the damning character reference Lord Westlock had relayed about me. He certainly wouldn’t be the first to believe the worst of me, and I was sure he wouldn’t be the last.

  My head pounded furiously, and I dropped my gaze, too distracted by the pain to continue this ridiculous standoff. If Gage was stupid enough to take my late husband’s words as fact, then he was an even bigger fool than I had initially believed.

  I heard him shift and sigh in annoyance. “So you’re telling me you had nothing to do with Lady Godwin’s murder?” he asked, continuing his questioning of Lord Westlock. “You weren’t following us to hinder my investigation?”

  The baron’s eyes widened in horror. “No! I would never . . .” he spluttered. “Why, I was with Lord Darlington in the billiards room after dinner, when the body was found. You can ask him.”

  Gage slowly lowered his gun. “You can be certain I will.”

  Lord Westlock huffed in indignation, but his ire was tempered by the wariness in his gaze. He was clearly aware that Gage held all the power in their current situation.

  Gage’s eyes crinkled in concern as he knelt down beside where I slumped against the wall, but there was also a wintriness that had not been there before we left the chapel. I closed my eyes and allowed him to lightly touch the back of my head, trying not to feel betrayed by the evidence of his renewed suspicion of me.

  “Well, you definitely have a sizable lump, but you were right. I don’t think it’s bleeding. It appears you have a hard head, Lady Darby. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by that.”

  I blinked open my eyes to see his grim smile.

  “Do you think you can walk?”

  “Yes.”

  He helped me to my feet and wrapped an arm around my waist for support. I would have pulled away if I thought I could have made it on my own. Then he tucked his pistol back into his waistband and reached for the lantern. “Lord Westlock, if you please.” Gage nodded down the hall, indicating that the baron should walk in front of us.

  Lord Westlock climbed to his feet, cradling his left arm in front of him. “What were you two doing in the chapel at this hour of night anyway?”

  I stiffened, wondering what Gage would tell him.

  He narrowed his eyes and his voice turned hard. “Lord Cromarty explained that I would be conducting an inquiry. My methods are my own.”

  “But surely the other guests would not approve of Lady Darby assisting you.”

  “Then they don’t need to know she’s assisting me, do they?” The dangerous look in Gage’s eye, though it wasn’t focused on me, was enough to make the breath stutter in my chest. It appeared to have the same effect on Lord Westlock, who swallowed and nodded.

  “Then, if you would.” Gage nodded in front of us once again, urging the baron to move forward.

  I leaned against Gage’s frame as we slowly made our way back toward the main hall block of the castle. My thoughts were still a bit scattered from the blow, and now they were stunned by Mr. Gage’s unexpected defense. I realized his shielding of my involvement probably had far more to do with protecting his investigation than me, but it astounded me nonetheless. It had been so long since anyone but my family had shielded me from even the smallest hurts that I had learned not to expect it. Maybe Lord Westlock’s words had not done as much harm as I’d worried.

  Gairloch was silent except for the shuffle of our footfalls and the creak of the lantern. It was our only source of light until we rounded the corner of the central corridor. There, candles had been set into stone recesses spaced evenly down the hall and up the grand staircase. When we reached the stairs, Gage paused so that I could gather up my skirts, an action that seemed to take considerably more effort than usual. Lord Westlock had nearly reached the first landing before he realized we were not behind him. He turned in query.

  “Go to bed,” Gage told him with the same hard look in his eye. “And keep tonight’s events to yourself. Should I hear you’ve revealed my or Lady Darby’s actions, I shall be forced to charge you with impeding my investigation.”

  Lord Westlock nodded and turned to scurry up the stairs like a rat escaping to his hole.

  “Can you really do that?” I questioned Gage.

  He supported my arm as we took the first step. “No. But I can ask Lord Cromarty to confine him to his room for the duration of his stay if he continues to get in the way.”

  I figured that would be a terrible enough threat for a man like Lord Westlock, who greatly enjoyed hunting, shooting, riding, and any number of other outdoor pursuits.

  Climbing the stairs turned out to be more difficult than I anticipated. By the time we reached the first landing, I needed to pause to regain control of my faculties. My head was throbbing harder, and I had begun to feel dizzy and, consequently, nauseated. Gage seemed to be aware of this without my having to tell him, for he patiently waited for me to signal that I was ready to continue.

  I took a deep breath and swallowed. “All right.”

  I could feel I was leaning more and more on him with each step, depending on his strength to make it to the top. When we reached the second landing, I sensed he wanted to offer further assistance, but I refused to even contemplate being carried. He had already done more than enough for me that night, including caring for me when I became sick in the cellar and rescuing me from an attacker. My pride would not allow him to carry me as well. Not if there was even a slight chance I could make it on my own. Marshaling my determination, I ascended the third flight and directed him toward my room with only a small wobble in my voice.

  We moved slowly, though I felt the need to rush until we reached the family wing. There I could relax, knowing the only people who might catch us in the hallway together at such a late hour were my sister and her husband, and Philip’s aunt and cousins. Gage opened the door for me when we reached my room and escorted me inside. I had sent my maid Lucy to bed hours before, but I figured I could manage without her, even with an aching head.

  “Thank you,” I said, turning to bid him good night. However, he had already followed me inside and closed the door behind him. “What are you doing?” I asked in puzzlement. “You can’t be in here.”

  “Someone needs to examine that wound more closely,” he proclaimed, moving toward the fire. “And someone ne
eds to sit with you for a time to ensure your injury is not more serious than it seems.” He bent to stoke the flames in the fireplace higher. “As I see it, you have three options. You can ring for your maid and I shall give her instructions on what to look for, you can wake your sister, or you can allow me to assist you.”

  I scowled, disliking the autocratic tone of his voice almost more than the words coming out of his mouth. I certainly wasn’t going to wake Alana. My sister had enough to worry about without my adding to it. If I rang for Lucy, it would only wake Alana’s maid as well, and it was only a matter of time before my sister showed up at my door. Not to mention the issue of the entire staff knowing I had been attacked, and that Mr. Gage had been in my room. I sighed, realizing I really only had one option.

  “Fine,” I huffed, sitting in one of the deep blue chairs positioned before the hearth. I winced, having sat too quickly and jarred my head.

  Gage moved to stand behind me, and I felt my scalp prickle as he reached up to touch my head. I breathed in deeply and held myself very still. Something snagged on a tendril of my hair, and I realized he was pulling hairpins from the loose bun fastened at the back of my head just below the bump.

  “I can’t see the wound properly with all this hair in the way,” he complained. “Help me take out these pins.”

  I could almost imagine him frowning down at the coil of my deep chestnut tresses. I reached back to assist him, bumping his hand. He pulled back, but not before I felt the rough calluses on his palm. I wondered where he’d gotten them. Most gentlemen’s hands were smoother than my own, as mine were chapped from the paint, linseed oil, and turpentine I used to create my artwork.

  “Talented as I am, it will probably go faster if I just let you do it,” he jested in a tight voice, taking a step back from the chair to give me space to work.

  My skin flushed at the reminder that what I was doing was normally associated with a far more carnal activity than examining a wound. The only men who had ever seen my hair down were my husband, father, brother, and perhaps Philip. I wasn’t certain how I felt adding Mr. Gage to that list.

  He, on the other hand, had probably seen more women with their hair cascading to their waists than I would like to count. I wondered if he favored a particular color, or whether blondes, brunettes, and redheads all held equal appeal. Then I wanted to shake my head at the ridiculous thought. What did it matter to me how many women he had seen in their undress or what color their hair was?

  I removed the last pin and allowed the rope of my hair to fall, untwisting as it went. Setting the last pin aside, I reached back to spread my hair out so that Gage could part it wherever he wished to see the bump on my scalp. I sat very still, with my hands folded in my lap, waiting for him to begin his examination. When several moments ticked by without him moving forward, I wondered if perhaps he was not paying attention.

  “Mr. Gage?”

  He shuffled and cleared his throat. “Mmm . . . yes.” His hands touched my head, and I closed my eyes, feeling oddly giddy from the tingle across my scalp and down my neck. My head still throbbed in time to my heartbeat, but it had dulled since I sat down. His fingers slid through my hair and probed the bump gently. I began to feel rather light-headed, so I blinked open my eyes, thinking it might be better to focus on something other than the glide of his fingers.

  My bedchamber was large, but not so large that it was difficult to heat. When I had been given my pick of the vacant chambers upon my arrival at Gairloch Castle, I had chosen this room for two specific reasons. First, for its location at the front of the house facing the steely waters of the loch. It boasted a rather deep window seat where I could read, sketch, or simply sit in quiet contemplation while I enjoyed the view. And secondly, for the rich palette of blues decorating the room. Cobalt linens and canopy swathed the bed. Cerulean drapes flanked the windows. Pale powder blue, periwinkle, and slate blue crisscrossed the rugs, and navy blue upholstered the chairs.

  I had always been rather partial to blue. Maybe because it was the color of my mother’s eyes, as well as mine, my brother’s, and my sister’s. My father also boasted blue eyes, but they were more the shade of a stormy loch than the bright lapis lazuli that graced the rest of us. More than one suitor had written poems to Alana’s eyes during her two seasons in London, including Philip. I, on the other hand, had declined my father’s offer to have a season, content with an arranged marriage of his making so that I might spend the time painting instead. To be completely honest, I had preferred to remain single, but my father would have none of that. Sir Anthony had not been inclined to literary pursuits, and consequently the only words ever written about my eyes had been by a stranger in a scandal rag, calling them “witch bright.”

  I sighed, wondering why I was thinking about such a thing. Perhaps the blow to my head had addled my wits more than I realized.

  “I’m almost finished,” Gage said, misinterpreting my sigh. He circled around my chair and leaned down toward me, holding a candle. “Look into my eyes,” he instructed, as he moved the candle left and right before my field of vision.

  He had blue eyes as well—the pale blue of a winter sky the morning after a snowstorm, almost piercing in their clarity. I would have preferred Mr. Gage’s eyes to be brown or green or even hazel.

  “I didn’t see any abrasions, just a rather unfortunate bump,” he informed me, setting the candle back on the mantel above the fireplace. “I would say you were lucky, but sometimes the pressure that builds up inside the head after such a blow can cause serious problems when there is no opening to release it.”

  I laid my head gingerly back against the cushioned seat. “Was that supposed to be reassuring? Because I found it far from comforting.”

  “It was the simple truth. You seem the type of person who expects honesty, and you seem hardy enough to take it.”

  From his tone of voice, I wasn’t certain he considered these complimentary traits.

  “Besides,” he added, settling into the navy-blue chair across from me. “I need you to understand why I will be forcing you to make conversation with me for the next hour.” He glanced at the clock on the mantel.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Is that really necessary?” All I wanted was to crawl into bed and go to sleep, preferably sooner rather than later, and without this annoying man watching over me.

  “I’m afraid so.” He relaxed back into his chair, linked his hands over his stomach, and smiled. It was a rather mischievous grin, which lit his pale eyes too intensely, and I knew I was not going to like whatever he said next. “So tell me about your life, Lady Darby. It seems to have been an interesting one.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Mr. Gage’s smile, and the carefully constructed veneer of indifference he projected, instantly set me on edge, though I knew better than to show it. I was certain Gage thought his intense interest in my answer was well hidden, but the width and whiteness of his smile, rather like a wolf staring at its next meal, coupled with the gleam in his eyes, set the alarm bells ringing in my already pounding skull. Perhaps it was my survival instinct, sharpened and honed from my encounters with inquiry agents and Bow Street Runners a year before, or my natural wariness of the motivation of strangers—all I knew was that I would be foolish to share anything of a sensitive nature with this man.

  Struggling to keep the clamor of my nerves from registering on my face, I frowned and lifted my eyes to the ceiling. I hoped he would attribute my expression to the mild twinge of discomfort my head still caused me. “My life is only interesting to those who have not lived it,” I replied mildly.

  “Come now,” he cajoled, still wearing that smile. “You can’t tell me you found your existence so dull.”

  I closed my eyes, deciding it would be easier to hide the irritation and ever-present fear such questioning caused me. “I never said my life had been dull, only uninteresting. They’
re not the same thing.”

  “True. But I still find it difficult to believe that spending any amount of time as an anatomist’s assistant could be uninteresting. You must have seen some quite appalling things.” His voice was pitched low and sympathetic, like a barrister commiserating with a victim on the witness stand. He was not overtly sly, and I realized it might not even be evident to anyone else, but it vibrated through me like a wrong chord struck by a pianist. He was good, very good. I wondered if he used the same tone on the women he wished to coax into his bed.

  “Do you know what I find interesting?” I blinked open my eyes, angry he was trying to wheedle me like the witless society ladies. “How all of the ladies find you so charming. I’m afraid I do not see it.”

  His eyes twinkled with amusement. “You noticed the women find me charming?”

  “How could I not?” I scoffed. “They twitter like magpies whenever you so much as bow over their hands. It rather puts me off my appetite.”

  “So you didn’t twitter when I bowed over your hand?” The question was phrased as a jest, but I could see the disbelief in his eyes. The arrogant man simply couldn’t believe that a female could be unaffected by him.

  I lifted my eyebrows. “You never bowed over my hand, Mr. Gage.”

  A puzzled look entered his eyes. “Of course I have,” he protested, even as doubt softened his voice and insistence.

  I started to shake my head, but then remembered my injury. “I’m afraid I’ve never had the pleasure,” I drawled sarcastically. “But I assure you that if I had, I never would have twittered.”

  My words succeeded in wiping the smile from his face, replacing it with a look of curious contemplation. “I suppose you’re not the type of female who would twitter.”

  I smiled tightly, surprised by how it hurt to be reminded yet again of how different I was from others. It was an absurd reaction considering the fact that I had been the one to point out I would never twitter in the first place, nor did I actually want to be like all the vapid ladies populating polite society, but it hollowed me out inside all the same. “No,” I finally replied before making an attempt to lighten the conversation. “How exactly does one twitter?”