The Anatomist's Wife (3 page)

Mr. Gage appeared just behind my brother-in-law’s shoulder, and his gaze immediately
searched out mine. I resisted the urge to scowl at him, knowing my displeasure would
only fuel his obvious suspicion.

“Kiera, why dinna you take a seat,” Philip suggested, pulling my eyes away from Mr.
Gage’s pale blue ones. Philip’s brogue had deepened, as I’d noticed it often did when
he was tired. Like most aristocratic Scots, his accent had been educated out of him,
until he sounded like any upper-class Englishman. But on nights like the one when
Alana had nursed their son, Malcolm, through a dangerous fever while Philip and I
sat up waiting for news, by morning his accent was as thick as any Highlander’s.

I thought about arguing, but seeing my brother-in-law’s obvious fatigue and the warm
regard with which he looked upon me, I decided to obey. Things could not be so bad
if he still viewed me in such a manner. Philip might have a seat in the House of Lords,
but he could never be duplicitous. Unlike Mr. Gage. From all I’d witnessed, deceit
and charm seemed the hallmarks of his trade.

“In any case, whether they like it or not, I’ve delivered my instructions.” Philip
propped one leg up on the corner of his desk and scraped a hand down his face, bristling
over the stubble beginning to show there. “Now let’s hope they can remain calm and
keep their heads about them until the procurator fiscal from Inverness arrives.” He
sounded doubtful that was possible.

“Speaking of which, do you know where Lady Godwin’s family lives?” he asked his wife.
“I dinna think I’ve ever heard the lady speak of her kin. I sent a letter to be posted
to Lord Godwin with the servants riding for Inverness, but who knows how long it’ll
take to reach him in India.”

She tilted her head in thought. “She asked me to send a footman to meet the mail coach
in Drumchork this morning with a letter for her sister.”

I glanced at Alana in curious surprise. Lady Godwin must have been quite eager for
that letter to reach her sister if she’d asked Alana to send a footman especially
to meet the mail coach.

“I believe the girl lives in . . . Shropshire?” She shook her head in frustration.
“Perhaps the footman will remember the letter’s exact direction.”

“’Tis no matter.” Philip shrugged. “I’m sure one of the other guests will know if
the footman can’t recall. Mr. Gage can ask them about it.”

“Ah, yes, I heard you say you’ve asked Mr. Gage to begin an inquiry of his own into
the matter.” Alana examined the man before us with the same curiosity I felt. “Have
you conducted many inquiries, Mr. Gage?” Her tone was laced with light curiosity,
but I knew my sister nursed the same skepticism I did.

I pressed my hands against my thighs, rumpling the fine Parisian-blue muslin between
my fingers, grateful she had voiced the same question I had been struggling not to
ask.

Mr. Gage, meanwhile, appeared perfectly at ease in his dark evening clothes, leaning
against the wall near the window, his arms crossed over his chest. “I have assisted
my father many times.”

Alana glanced at me. We both knew what that meant.

Mr. Gage’s face twisted subtly in irritation before smoothing out. “I assure you,
I am more than capable of handling this investigation. You ladies have nothing to
worry about.”

I was not fast enough to suppress my snort and was forced to raise my hand to my mouth
and cough to try to cover it. Mr. Gage was not fooled, for his brow darkened.

“Are you all right?” Philip asked, raising a single eyebrow in chastisement.

“Of course,” I replied, glancing at Alana, who was studying the red and white floral
pattern on her goldenrod skirts intensely. I suspected she was trying not to laugh.

“Good. Because I have a favor to ask of you.”

My eyes jumped back to my brother-in-law. My back stiffened when I saw his troubled
frown. Whatever the favor was, Philip did not like asking it.

I swallowed carefully before nodding for him to continue.

“I’ve asked Mr. Gage to conduct the investigation, but I would like you to assist
him.”

My eyes widened.

“What?” Mr. Gage exclaimed, straightening from his practiced slouch.

Alana reacted no better. “Are you daft?”

“Now wait.” Philip raised his hands. “Hear me out.”

I kept my lips firmly shut, trying to suppress the quaking I felt in my stomach as
I waited for his next expected words. Alana’s mouth was also taut, but more from anger
than fear.

Philip sighed. “No matter how tragic the circumstances, Kiera does have experience
with this sort of thing.”

“Philip!” Alana scolded.

“I’m not forcing her to do it, Alana. I’m simply askin’,” he argued. “The local surgeon
passed less than a month ago, and they’ve yet to replace him. Otherwise, I would’ve
sent word for him to come. While Gage has often assisted his father, he has little
experience with murder.” He gestured absently toward the man, who scowled. “If we’re
gonna be trapped here for four days or more with all o’ these guests, and likely our
murderer, I’d like to make every effort to catch him in case there’s a chance he intends
to strike again.”

I suppressed a shiver, straining to keep my reaction from the others’ notice. Would
the killer attack someone else? I blinked slowly, remembering the gruesome sight of
Lady Godwin’s body. What kind of madman did we have on our hands?

Alana pressed her palms to her stomach and shook her head in bewilderment. “I . . .
I hadn’t thought of that. I heard you say as much to the others, but . . .” Her troubled
gaze lifted to her husband. “Are the children safe?” She suddenly looked frantic.
Nothing could disturb my sister so except concern for her children.

“Darlin’, they’re fine,” he said, bending closer to look into my sister’s face. “I
promise you they’re safe, Alana. I placed two footmen outside the nursery door and
instructed them and the nursemaids that no one outside of our family is allowed near
them without my express permission.”

Alana nodded, still looking shaken.

I reached over to take her hand. “I saw them just a little over two hours ago,” I
tried to reassure her. “They were being put to bed, and they all appeared to be fine.”

“I . . . I should have checked on them,” she stammered. “I was just so overwhelmed
by the guests . . . and their questions.” She shook her head. “I should have looked
in on them.”

“Stop that!” Philip took her face between his hands and stroked her cheekbones with
his thumbs. “Our guests drove me to distraction just in the space o’ the ten minutes
it took to deliver my instructions. You’ve been dealin’ with them for over three hours.
O’ course, you were overwhelmed.”

“Yes, but Kiera thought to check on the children,” she said.

I squeezed her hand and smiled sadly. “Because I was hiding.” Alana knew I would never
willingly associate with the guests, especially after the accusations flung at me
in the garden and again in the parlor, so I didn’t bother to apologize for not assisting
her. Perhaps I failed her in that regard, but my sister knew my shortcomings, and
understood them.

She squeezed my hand in return before taking a deep breath.

“All right?” Philip asked, staring lovingly into Alana’s eyes. She nodded, and he
leaned forward to drop a kiss on the top of her head.

I glanced up at Mr. Gage. He was leaning against the wall once again, albeit less
casually than before. His jaw was dusted with stubble, but the hairs were so light
I could barely see them. I imagined they were as blond as the hairs on his head. He
was an attractive man—my artist’s eye had to give him that—but the way he presented
himself, his smug certainty that he was the most handsome man in the room, rankled
me more than I wanted to admit. I had met good-looking men before, and most of them
had been as aware of it as Mr. Gage, but they had always amused me more than irritated
me.

“Now,” Philip said, bringing us back to the matter at hand. “Kiera, I was askin’ if
you would assist Mr. Gage.” I watched his Adam’s apple bob, and I knew he was forcing
out the next words. “Particularly with examining the body.”

I stared at him silently, uncertain how I was going to, or whether I even should,
honor his request. I had been finished with dissections and corpses the moment Sir
Anthony died, and been grateful for it.

“Forgive me,” Mr. Gage interjected with polite severity. “But I fail to comprehend
this request.” He gestured to me. “Why on earth would you want your sister-in-law
to help me with such a matter?”

I studied him warily. Did he truly not know?

Philip seemed just as taken aback, for it took him a moment to reply. “Gage, what
do you know about Lady Darby?”

Mr. Gage glanced at me, almost in puzzlement. “Not much. I inferred there was some
sort of scandal following her husband’s death. Some of the guests seem quite mistrustful
of her. I gather many of them actually believe she should be our prime suspect.”

His gaze bored into mine, but I refused to be intimidated. He had told me nothing
I didn’t already know, didn’t already suspect. I stared back at him and gave him nothing.
Not anger or shock or fear. I understood inquiry agents and their games, and I was
not interested in playing.

Philip cleared his throat, and I finally broke eye contact to look at him. He was
asking my permission to speak. I shrugged. Gage could hear the facts, but I doubted
he would decide to believe me innocent unless it served him.

“Lady Darby is the wife of the late Sir Anthony Darby, a great anatomist and surgeon
in his day. He even attended to the health of the royal family.”

Mr. Gage took in this information with a nod.

“At the time of Sir Anthony’s death, he was working on a human anatomy textbook, a
sort of . . . definitive reference for fellow surgeons and medical students. When
he embarked upon the project some three years earlier, he realized he would need an
illustrator, an artist to depict the images.” Philip glanced up at me nervously, but
I did not move my eyes from the stone in the hearth I was staring at. “Sir Anthony
was rather frugal with his money.”

“He was a miser,” Alana stated angrily.

“Yes, well, he decided he would rather not pay an illustrator for his work if he did
not have to. So he married one.”

I did not look up to see how Mr. Gage had taken this bit of information.

“My sister and our father were not made aware of his plans prior to the wedding,”
Alana told him. “I think if Papa had known what Sir Anthony was about, he would have
shot him in a rather crucial part of
his
anatomy.”

Philip coughed. “When Sir Anthony died, and one of his colleagues uncovered the finished
pages of the book, the man raised an outcry against it. Apparently, many of Sir Anthony’s
fellow surgeons and physicians knew he rather famously couldn’t sketch, especially
not with the amount of skill the anatomical drawings showed. It didn’t take long for
them to figure out who actually created them. Lady Darby is quite well-known for her
portraits.”

I could feel all of their eyes on me, and it took everything in me not to clutch my
stomach where it roiled. I would never forget the looks of disgust on Sir Anthony’s
friends’ and colleagues’ faces as they accused me of unnatural tendencies and dragged
me before a magistrate. Or the horrible names and epithets hurled at me in public
and in the papers. The butcher’s wife. The sawbones’ siren. The people were still
frantic over the recent trial of Burke and Hare in Edinburgh, and terrified that grave
robbers turned murderers were also working in London, smothering their prey and delivering
them to local surgeons for dissection. I was all too easy a target for their pent-up
fears. High society had been particularly vicious, revealing their own fright over
the resurrectionists, as well as their horror at discovering a gentlewoman involved
in such grisly work as dissections. No one had understood. No one had even tried.
Without Philip’s and my own brother’s intervention, I was certain I would be locked
away in Bethlem Royal Hospital or worse.

“I assure you, the magistrate cleared Kiera of all wrongdoing,” Philip told Mr. Gage.

The room fell silent as Mr. Gage digested this information. I was simply thankful
for another moment to collect myself. It did not matter that it happened over a year
ago, it still rattled me to recall any of it. Alana reached out to take my hand, and
I squeezed hers in return, to reassure her, but I still did not move otherwise.

“So Lady Darby witnessed numerous dissections years ago,” Mr. Gage remarked as if
he were restating someone’s testimony. “And sketched them. How do you know that she
even understands them? Perhaps she was just drawing what she saw. How do you know
she can even contribute anything to an autopsy?”

I laughed inside, bitterly. As if I could ever forget.

I looked straight into Mr. Gage’s eyes. “I have never held a knife, but I can tell
you where to make the cuts, how the intestines turn, what color the liver should be—in
my sleep.”

Mr. Gage did not flinch from the rawness of my words, but held my gaze steadily. He
blinked only once and seemed to come to some understanding, for he nodded slowly,
just a single bob of his head. I felt some of the tension drain out of me.

“Will you do it?” Philip asked.

I looked at my sister. Alana was always so strong, so competent, so sure of herself.
And she protected me like a fierce warrior maiden. Like one of her children.

She tried to look strong now, but I could see the fear in her eyes. I knew she would
never ask this of me, would never expect it of me, but I had to do it. For her. For
Malcolm, and Philipa, and little baby Greer. A murderer had invaded my sister’s home,
and I wasn’t about to let him harm my sister’s family any more than he already had.

“I’ll do it,” I said softly.

My sister squeezed my hand again where she held it. A silent tear slid down her cheek,
and I knew I had said the right thing.