The Anatomist's Wife

by Anna Lee Huber

  “They were frightened because of the Burke and Hare case in Edinburgh, afraid that people in London were also being murdered and sold to surgeons and medical schools by enterprising grave robbers.”

  “I know. But I assure you, understanding the reasoning behind their reactions does not make me feel better about it, especially since I’m innocent of the crimes they charged me with.”

  He grimaced sympathetically and rubbed the muscles of my neck and up into my hair. His touch made my skin tingle and helped the horrors of the past to fade into the background of my thoughts. I tilted my head so that it rested lightly on his shoulder, wanting to touch and be touched after all the dreadful events of the day.

  “What are you going to do?” I had been reluctant to ask it, but the question hovered on my lips and simply would not disappear.

  His hand stilled but did not lift from my neck, so I did not move my head. I could smell the dirt and sweat clinging to his clothes and skin.

  “Well,” he began in a low voice. “We now have several more pieces of evidence besides the scissors—a bloody apron and two shawls.”

  “What did the second shawl look like?”

  He glanced down at me in question.

  “I heard you describe the first—the one with the pink roses—but what of the second?”

  “It was woven with fine gold thread,” he replied, but did not elaborate.

  “Then it was likely Lady Godwin’s. She wore a gold shawl to dinner the night she was killed. I wondered about it when it did not turn up near her body. I’d planned to look for it in her rooms.”

  Gage contemplated this for a moment. “All right, so we have three pieces of evidence. One of which was found near the crime scene, one in the baby’s grave, and another that was placed in your studio. I suspect someone is trying to make you look guilty, Lady Darby.”

  I wished he would call me Kiera again. “Yes, and it’s no wonder why. Most of the guests at Gairloch already blame me.”

  His hand squeezed my neck in commiseration, and I felt the calluses on his palms scrape against my skin. I wondered again why he had such rough hands.

  “We need to figure out how someone was able to break in here. Perhaps they picked the lock. Did you notice whether there were any scrapes or scratches on the doorknob?”

  “I didn’t look.” I had been too shocked by it being open in the first place.

  “I’ll check on my way out.”

  I lifted my head to gaze up at him in curiosity. “Can you pick a lock?”

  He smiled and a devilish twinkle entered his eyes. “Well, now. I wouldn’t be a very good investigator if I couldn’t. But don’t go spreading that around about me.”

  “Is that why you have calluses on your palms?”

  He stilled as if I’d surprised him and began to lift his hand away from my neck. Then he stopped himself and rubbed his fingers across my nape. “No. That’s from fencing.”

  He must be quite a serious swordsman to develop such tough skin, and wield his weapon with both hands in order to raise such calluses on each. “Don’t you wear gloves?”

  He hesitated again, and I glanced up at him in curiosity. “Not often,” he finally replied. “I like to feel the sword against my skin. It gives me a better grip.”

  I tilted my head. “I think I understand.” He lifted his eyebrows as if to ask me to elaborate. “It’s like with a paintbrush. I need the hold and the angle to be just right, and I can’t correctly feel the pressure of the canvas or the texture of the paint already applied if I’m wearing gloves.”

  He smiled as if I’d said something amusing. “Yes. That’s exactly right.”

  I tried to smile back, but the muscles felt strange after all of the scowling and crying I had done.

  “Well.” He pushed himself hastily to his feet, and I suddenly got the impression he was eager to change the subject. “I would like to ask Mrs. MacLean about the scissors, shawl, and apron tomorrow.” He reached out a hand to help me up. “And see if her staff or any of the guests’ servants have reported any items missing. Then maybe we should start questioning the guests again.”

  I brushed the back of my skirt off. “Why not tonight?”

  He waited until I met his eye before answering. “Because people have a tendency to see things that aren’t there and give sensational answers when it’s dark outside.” He pointed up through the skylight. “Especially if there’s a full moon.”

  I stared up at the bright luminescent orb for a moment before turning back to him. “Do you know this from experience or is that superstition talking?”

  He twisted his lips. “It is unfortunately a well-known truism among sheriffs, constables, and military men that more trouble breaks out during a full moon than any other time of the month.”

  I lifted my eyebrows in skepticism but opted not to argue with him. I didn’t know that I agreed with his full-moon theory, but it was true in my case, at least, that I tended to be more easily frightened at night. I supposed this fell under the same scope of his explanation.

  “Are you retiring?”

  “No. I thought I would stay here awhile,” I replied, reluctant to return to my room. Sleep would not come easy for me tonight, and I knew I would spend at least half of it pacing up and down the length of my chamber, as I had the previous night.

  Gage’s expression darkened. “I really don’t think that is a good idea.”

  I frowned. “Why?”

  “Have you forgotten that someone recently broke into this room?”

  “Well . . .” I paused, trying to come up with an argument. “Did they pick the lock?”

  He arched an eyebrow at the irritable tone of my voice and then marched across the room to examine the doorknob. “It appears so. Unless you are particularly bad at sliding your key into the slot?” He glanced up at me in challenge.

  “Then they can pick the lock on my bedroom door just as easily.”

  He glared at me. “Yes. But someone can hear you if you scream in your bedchamber.”

  “I’ll prop a chair underneath the doorknob,” I offered weakly, realizing I was not going to win this argument, and uncertain I even wanted to. The prospect of traversing through the darkened corridors of the castle alone made my heart begin to race.

  “And then if you accidentally set a fire, you won’t be able to get out. No, Lady Darby. I am not leaving you here alone.”

  I sighed in feigned irritation, not wanting to appear that I had given in easily, and gathered up my sketchbook and the leather container holding my charcoal. If I was to be forced back to my bedchamber, then at least I could take some of my sketching materials with me. My eyes snagged on the bloody apron lying on the floor. “What are we going to do with that?”

  “I’ll take it,” he said, picking it up carefully in a spot that was not stained with red. He held it away from his body and glanced around the room. “Do you have something I might be able to carry it in?”

  I emptied out a small box that held old brushes and palette knives and handed it to him. He stuffed the apron inside, closed the lid, and then swiped his hand down his trousers. We each blew out a lamp. Then I waited patiently until the last ember on each wick died before following him through the door.

  “Oh, no,” I realized. “We still don’t have a key, and this door must be locked.”

  Gage looked down at me. “That important?”

  “Yes!”

  His answering smile told me he was getting far too much enjoyment from exasperating me. “Give me one of your hairpins.”

  I arched a brow at him curiously and extracted a pin from my hair. A heavy lock of hair tumbled down over my shoulder. He seemed momentarily distracted by the chestnut tresses. “Here,” I said, gesturing with the hairpin. He snatch
ed it from my hand and knelt in front of the door.

  I tried to watch what he was doing, but the light was too dim and his broad shoulders blocked most of my view.

  “There.” He stood and tugged soundly on the doorknob several times. “That should hold.” He handed me my hairpin, now twisted oddly. “Unless someone has a key or decides to pick it again.”

  I nodded, impressed by his speed. How often did Gage go about picking locks and locking them again? Of course, I knew nothing about locks. Perhaps it was much easier to bolt a door than unbolt it. I vowed to find out.

  “Now,” he declared. “If there are no further impediments, let’s get you back to your room.”

  I rolled my eyes at the familiar gleam in his eyes that told me he was pleased to have gotten his way. He clearly believed he had maneuvered me into returning to my bedchamber by overcoming all my faulty objections. I decided it was better not to correct him, and instead clung tighter to his arm as we passed through the dark corridors at the top of the castle where the lit wall sconces were few and far between.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The world was warm and hazy when I floated toward consciousness the next morning, and I lingered there, pulling at the threads of a dream I could not remember, yet I did not want to leave. It was cozy and happy and streamed with sunlight, and it billowed away from me like a kite whose owner has lost hold of its string. It bobbed and drifted, letting the wind carry it far away.

  I rolled to my side and instantly regretted it. Muscles in my back and neck wrenched in pain and something clattered to the floor. I blinked open my eyes to find myself staring at the cold hearth. I groaned. I had fallen asleep in my chair again. Which explained the kink in my neck and the numbness in my right arm where it was trapped beneath my body. I shook it, trying to force some blood back into the prickling extremity, and pushed myself up into a seated position with my left hand.

  A glance at the clock on the mantel told me it was barely seven. I could still climb into bed for a few more hours of sleep and no one would think it odd, but my sluggish mind was slowly catching up to me. The confrontation with Lady Westlock. The discovery of the baby’s grave. The bloody apron in my studio.

  I leaned forward to cradle my head in my hands and emitted another groan, though this one was far more despondent. There was still a murderer to be caught—one who was far too devious and clever. I had a sick feeling in my stomach that our investigation was not going to get any easier, or be any less emotionally fraught. There had been no suspicious letter slid under my door the night before, something I was both relieved and curious about. Had the sender decided to stop trying to frighten me, or had they simply lacked the opportunity? I wanted to believe they had ceased to worry about my threat to them, but I understood that to do so would be the height of foolishness. If anything, the lack of a letter made me even more anxious.

  I scrubbed my hands over my face and sat up. My sketchbook lay at my feet, and I realized I must have fallen asleep while drawing. Which explained the stripe of charcoal smeared across the mauve skirts of my gown. I sighed and bent to pick up the book. It flipped open to a picture of a woman and child seated in a garden, my imagining of the viscountess and her unborn daughter. Lady Godwin grinned at the child with a far more gentle and maternal smile than I’d ever seen her use in real life. The baby cooed back, lifting her pudgy arms toward her mother. It made me sad to think that this was the only meeting the pair would have, short of heaven.

  I sank back into my seat, studying the beautiful woman and her child. What had Lady Godwin planned to do with the baby? It sounded as if she intended to hide away at the home of Lady Stratford’s great-aunt until the birth, but what then? I had a hard time believing she intended to keep the little girl. Her husband’s return from India would have made that difficult. It seemed more likely the child would be given up for adoption, but to whom? Had the arrangements already been made?

  And what of the infant’s real father? Did he know about the child? We assumed so, since that was our best lead on a killer with motive to both kill Lady Godwin and destroy any evidence of the baby. But could we be on the wrong track? Perhaps someone else had reason to wish both Lady Godwin and her child dead. I didn’t know what that reason could be, but that made it no less a possibility. One that we had overlooked in favor of searching for the father.

  Too troubled to continue staring at my rendering of the deceased mother and child, I flipped the page only to gaze into Gage’s laughing eyes. I wanted to pretend that I had not spent half the night sketching images of him, but unfortunately I couldn’t. The proof rested in my hands. Four pages had been devoted to him—one of him sitting in the chair across the hearth from me, another of him at dinner, dressed in full evening kit, a third of him gazing out the skylight in my art studio, and the last of him shoveling dirt. His muscles seemed to ripple before my eyes under the fine lawn of his shirt as he lifted another heavy load of earth. I felt my cheeks heat at the evidence of the detail I had put into this last picture—the curve of his bottom as he bent, the flex of his upper arms. When had I had time to notice such things while my emotions were so jumbled with fear over what we would find?

  I slammed the sketchbook closed and tossed it on the table before rising. My back and ribs ached from too many hours constrained by a corset. I hobbled across the room to tug the bellpull, and then stripped myself of all my clothes except my chemise. My bones and muscles thanked me as I released them. I wrapped a blanket around me, flopped back on the counterpane, and massaged the skin that had been rubbed painfully by the boning of my corset.

  Lucy appeared not long after with my normal breakfast fare of chocolate and toast. My stomach growled loudly, reminding me I had forgone dinner the previous evening. I devoured the meal while I waited for my bath to be prepared. When I finally slid into the tub of warm water, it felt so good I thought I might decide to stay there the entire day. I scrubbed the charcoal from my fingers and the splotches I had smeared on my face and settled back in the water to relax.

  It was while I was contemplating the stains left behind on the washcloth and that last picture I had drawn of Gage shoveling dirt, which I could not seem to stop thinking about, that I realized I had seen something of importance in the maze the night we discovered Lady Godwin’s body. I had missed any facial expressions, but I had noticed the mud splattering the back of Mr. Fitzpatrick’s trousers.

  I sat up sharply.

  Mr. Fitzpatrick had given Gage an alibi, but was it completely sound? He could have murdered Lady Godwin, ditched the baby in the woods nearby, as we suspected, and then joined the men’s conversation about horses. Later he could have gone back to retrieve the child and bury her on the hill next to the creek.

  But what was his motive in doing such a thing if he was not the father?

  I frowned. Maybe Fitzpatrick had lied. Maybe he was the father. Or maybe he was jealous of the father.

  I began to scrub my body quickly. I didn’t know whether Mr. Fitzpatrick was capable of such a thing or not. But I definitely wanted to hear his explanation for how he managed to splatter mud halfway up the back of his leg in a dry, well-manicured garden.

  • • •

  “I’m not certain that’s much to go on, but it is a reason to question him again,” Gage told me after I relayed the information I remembered about Mr. Fitzpatrick. “And to actually check his alibi with Sir David and Mr. Abingdon.”

  I frowned at his unenthusiastic reaction. “Well, I didn’t say it was the key to the investigation,” I remarked crossly. “Did you speak with Mrs. MacLean?”

  He nodded and slouched deeper into the red chair he occupied in my brother-in-law’s study. “She’s going to ask the staff to see if anyone is missing an apron. Without any adornment, she thought it likely belonged to a servant.”

  I glanced at Philip where he sat behind his desk. Some pained emotion tight
ened his features.

  “We have another problem,” Gage said.

  I looked back and forth between the men as my heartbeat sped up. “What?”

  Gage nodded toward Philip, telling him to relay the news.

  “Alana knows about the baby,” he told me in a flat voice.

  “How?” I asked.

  “She saw me carrying the child to the chapel and demanded to know what was going on.”

  I pressed a hand to my mouth in thought. I could well imagine my sister demanding such information, but I was surprised he had given it to her. She must have pressured him hard to make him tell her. “Where is she now?”

  Philip turned to the side to look out the window. “She won’t come out of the nursery.”

  That seemed a natural response, and, overall, a fairly harmless one. Of course, she would want to be close to her children—to keep them safe. “I’ll try to talk to her,” I assured him. “But I don’t know that it will do much good. At least, not until this murderer is caught.”

  He nodded and continued to stare out at the courtyard beyond.

  My heart ached for his distress. He loved my sister so much. To see her so upset and not be able to do anything about it must be tearing him up inside. I rounded his desk to kneel by his chair.

  “She will be all right,” I murmured as I grabbed hold of his hand. He gazed back at me blankly. “She’s just frightened and needs to be with your children now. She knows they are all safe and secure together in the nursery because you made it so.” His eyes warmed a bit. “Once the killer is caught . . . And they will be caught, Philip. I promised her that, and I promise you. Then she will come out of this. She will.” I squeezed his hand determinedly.

  He stretched out his other hand to center a page on his desk. “Of course. You’re right,” he said quietly and then repeated it more confidently. “You’re right.” He lifted my hand to place a kiss on the back of it, and then helped me to my feet, already looking more like the self-assured man I was used to. He took a deep breath and moved around his desk toward the door. “I’ll send a servant to locate Mr. Fitzpatrick and have him meet you here,” he told Gage. “It will give you some privacy and a greater image of authority.”