The beautiful primrose yellow silk dress that Hannah had worn to the ball was hung over the top of her dressing screen. She couldn’t bear to shut it away in her wardrobe just yet. She rose and as she dressed in a grey striped cotton dress, she touched the silk gown with a fingertip. What would it be like to wear such fine dresses every day?
Discarding the whimsical thought, she tied a tough canvas apron around her waist to protect her clothes while she assisted her father. It didn’t matter whether it were man or mouse that secreted bodily fluids, they proved equally stubborn to lift from her clothing. She was too practically minded to be careless with her dresses, and it wasn’t as though anyone apart from her parents or the staff would see the ugly apron.
Today was a rare occasion—they would perform an autopsy on a woman who had died from her Affliction, who, moreover, was actually dead and not sipping tea in a parlour in London. Although the Afflicted among the ton appeared lifeless with their dull complexions and lack of pulse, they still shopped in Bond Street and rode in Rotten Row, unlike this poor woman, who lay still and lifeless on the table.
“Who was she?” Hannah asked as she laid out her father’s equipment: scalpels for flesh, a small hand saw for bone. An instrument to help crank open the chest cavity was lined up next to metal bowls waiting to receive internal organs.
Hannah pondered the deceased’s life and what path she had walked that had brought her in the end to Sir Hugh’s stone table. It was unusual for someone to fall victim at such a late date. No new infections had occurred since the initial outbreak two years ago. The original plague had burned through the upper echelons over a period of a few weeks and then subsided.
Investigation and her father’s tireless work had uncovered the source of the infection—a very expensive face powder used to whiten the complexion. That was why it only affected a handful of men and no one from the lower classes. Constant blotting of the ladies’ faces allowed the disease to seep into their skin. Or had they inhaled it with the fine powder?
While they had identified the means by which some members of the ton had been infected, exactly how it worked and what dark magic animated the dead were questions her parents still strove to answer.
“In life, she was a woman who earned her way as a maid in the employ of a woman of the demimonde. Then she happened upon a container of contaminated powder.” Sir Hugh eyed the equipment arrayed on the tray and picked up his favourite scalpel.
“I thought they had all been destroyed.” Hannah folded the sheet down to the woman’s waist, so her torso was exposed to the overhead lamps—candles with mirrors behind them to amplify the light they provided.
Once the connection had been made to the cause of the plague, the contaminated powder had been gathered up and burned, along with the two people responsible for selling the magical poison. Only the samples held by her father were spared. Those were kept locked in a safe. He wanted to discern what within the fine substance stilled the heart, yet kept the limbs and mind animated.
Sir Hugh looked up at his daughter and narrowed his gaze, as though trying to determine how much to say. “It would appear a gentleman purchased the powder as a gift for the courtesan two years ago. It sat unopened on her dressing table all this time, among numerous other gifts from her admirers. Eventually she moved rooms and in the tidy-up, the container was given to this lass, her loyal maid.”
“A gift that was no gift at all, but a death sentence. But why did she die completely? Why has she not remained ambulatory?” The question worried at Hannah’s mind. Why had the plague taken a different course in this woman? The Afflicted sickened and their pulses stopped, but they continued to go about their daily tasks.
“That is what we must try to discern. From what I understand, she continued to function for six months after her heart stilled. Then, last week, she simply fell down and didn’t rise again. Perhaps the curse is altered by the age of the powder?” Sir Hugh sliced through the skin of the woman’s torso with his scalpel and Hannah helped to peel it back, revealing the layer of muscle underneath.
“How did she feed? Perhaps this was a result of starvation?” Hannah asked.
“That is a possibility. Her former employer found her a new situation in the home of another Afflicted. She was fed in lieu of wages, but given the price of ‘pickled cauliflower,’ I suspect she teetered on the edge of starvation.” Sir Hugh put down the scalpel and picked up a pair of long-handled shears, to snip the ribs.
A rap at the door drew their attention. The maid, Mary, hardly ever ventured down to the basement. The staff preferred to stay clear of the place where death was asked to surrender her secrets. Hannah let go of the piece of flesh and wiped her hands on the apron before opening the door.
The maid kept her eyes fixed on Hannah’s face, not daring to look farther into the examination room. “Gentleman here to see you, miss.”
“Oh, not now,” her father grumbled. He hated to be interrupted at his work.
The maid poked her head in a fraction. “Not you, sir—he’s here to see Miss Hannah.”
“Me?” Mary must have slipped and hit her head. What gentleman would call on her?
Mary’s brown eyes widened. “Oh, yes, miss. Asked most specifically for Miss Hannah Miles.”
Hannah glanced back at her father. He shrugged and then waved his shears, as though a gentleman caller were an everyday occurrence in their household. “Off you go, Hannah. Don’t keep the gentleman waiting.”
She took the stairs slowly while her mind raced, trying to determine who the caller could be. She had no gentlemen acquaintances. Perhaps it was a tradesman who wanted to discuss some household business? By the time she reached the parlour door on the first floor, she had convinced herself she would find the butcher within, wanting to discuss what cuts of meat the family would require next week.
Instead, she found the wraith.
Cloaked in black and midnight blue once again, he stood looking out the window at the front garden. He turned upon hearing her intake of breath. His nostrils flared as though she brought a distasteful aroma into the room. Or perhaps he didn’t approve of the rural view out the window? His black gaze fixed her to the spot.
“Viscount Wycliff.” She stared back, etiquette fled her mind in the moment of surprise. Under his glare she found even her ability to blink had deserted her, and she scrambled to think why he could be calling. No one from London society ever ventured voluntarily so far into the rural landscape—except for Elizabeth, on what she called her expeditions.
“Miss Miles.” He bowed.
The act reminded her to drop a brief curtsey and gave her a chance to moisten her dry lips and gather her rampant thoughts.
He gestured to her apron. “I did not mean to interrupt your work.”
Looking down, Hannah found a bloody smear where she had wiped her hands after handling the dead woman’s flesh. No wonder he looked ready to snarl at her. What well-bred woman would greet a visitor in a bloodstained apron? For once she wished for her usual invisible state, so she could escape his piercing regard. “I do apologise, Lord Wycliff. I am assisting my father with a delicate procedure.”
Her father had probably cracked the woman’s ribs apart by now and would need help in weighing and assessing her internal organs. What information would they yield? Never before had one of the Afflicted been given to Sir Miles’s autopsy table for study. They made do with rats and mice, or asked her mother to detail her experiences. Only when Hannah looked up did she realise the viscount was talking.
What had he been saying? “I’m so sorry, my lord, could you repeat that?”
His gaze narrowed and he blew out a sigh. It would appear he had little patience with women, particularly those who weren’t paying attention. “I said, I require your assistance with the investigation of the murder committed last night. Lord and Lady Loburn will only entrust the guest list to you, and it has been suggested your assistance would settle some of the concerns of those involved.”
“Oh.” How odd. Why would Lord Loburn involve her?
He tapped one finger against the top hat in his hands. “I am investigating the matter and must ascertain which women in attendance last night are Afflicted. They must be interviewed about their movements during the ball.” He continued to stare at her, as though he were a hawk deciding whether or not to pounce on the mouse.
“Oh.”
Now he arched an eyebrow. He probably suspected her of being dim-witted.
She must expand her responses to more than a single syllable. “What manner of assistance do you require from me to…allay the concerns of those involved?”
“My superior at the Ministry and Lady Loburn both believe that propriety would be better served if you were present during the interviews. Although I completely understand if such unpleasantness is too much for you to bear.” His voice dropped to a murmur. His hypnotic stare likewise lowered and released her from its grip.
Propriety aside, a murder investigation was no place for a gently bred woman. But if a woman was required to stand beside her noble kind, who better than one with another woman’s blood staining her apron?
Hannah had her own reasons for wanting to discover the identity of the killer. The person responsible had placed a permanent stain on Lizzie’s night. That was unforgivable. All the talk should have been of Lizzie’s grand engagement, how ravishing she looked, and the magical surprise. Instead, tongues would wag about the horrific murder, and her mother and the marquess worked through the night to ensure the newspapers kept silent on that particular topic.
Not to mention the fact that her father would want to study a rogue Afflicted. What had driven the Afflicted to such hunger that she’d broken open a man’s skull with two hundred other people in the house? Would the desperation be curbed now that the offender had fed, or would she strike again in such a manner?
Hannah wiped her hands on her apron again, deliberately drawing Wycliff’s gaze to the bloodstain. “I think I am strong enough to sit through a few interviews. I can fetch the list this afternoon, once I have finished my work in the laboratory.”
He nodded and ground his jaw. An uncomfortable silence stretched between them, before he shoved his top hat onto his head, indicating he was leaving. “I will call again this evening, if that is permissible? I am most keen to further my investigation.”
“Of course.” Hannah made a note to remember to change clothes before he returned, and most definitely to wash her hands.
The maid showed their visitor out and Hannah returned to her father, trying to bring order to the turmoil Wycliff’s presence wrought in her mind. She pushed through the heavy steel door to find her father well progressed in his grim task. The ribs were pulled open, like doors to a devotional cabinet that revealed the secret scene within.
Hannah peered at the empty stomach cavity. People were muted watercolours inside. “It was Viscount Wycliff. He has asked for my assistance in the murder enquiry.”
Sir Hugh frowned. “Odd chap, that one. But the person must be caught, especially if it is an Afflicted with a taste for footmen.”
Which exactly summed up another of Hannah’s reasons for agreeing to assist, even though her mind screamed a warning at having anything to do with the brooding man. The monster responsible must be stopped.
It was one thing for the Afflicted to find nourishment in the minds of the deceased, where the families of the latter were fully compensated for the organ removed, but it was another thing entirely to pluck the thoughts and feelings from the still living. Not to mention that such an act of violence passed on the Affliction to a new host, a fact they strove to keep a secret from all but the highest levels within Parliament and the military.
“Lord Wycliff does seem to dwell under a rather dark cloud.” The viscount carried a foul mood with him, as though he raged at the world. And yet his piercing eyes triggered something deep inside Hannah. A warning that she should heed, mingled with a compulsion that meant she could not stay away from him.
Sir Hugh removed the woman’s liver and waited while Hannah fetched a bowl to receive the organ. “War changes men. Some for the better. Others, like Wycliff, become angry at the change thrust upon them.”
“How did it change him?” What a strange thing to say. What metamorphosis had the viscount undergone? Or did some men see such horrors that they could never forget?
“A campaign on the Peninsula had a particularly ugly end. His entire regiment was slaughtered and, as the officer, he was held accountable. He was also the only survivor. Many thought he should have died with his soldiers. He took it hard.”
Hannah took a breath, about to ask more questions, when her father fixed his warm gaze on her. “The exact details are his story to tell or not, Hannah. Do not think to go prying into other people’s business.”
He tapped the bowl containing the liver, reminding her that another would soon be needed. Hannah swallowed her questions, placed the bowl on the table, and fetched the next one.
“But that is exactly what I will be doing in aiding him—prying into the business of others.” What questions would he ask, and who would he unmask as Afflicted? Many speculated on who was or wasn’t Afflicted as though it were a ghoulish parlour game. Some were known, but others hid in plain sight. Should they suffer the consequences of being unmasked?
Sir Hugh cut the blood vessels that held the kidneys in place. “You will be prying for entirely different reasons, Hannah. One would be to satisfy that curious mind of yours. The other is to bring a murderer to justice, and perhaps advance our knowledge about what drove the poor sufferer of this plague to take such tragic actions when we have not had any incidents for two years now.”
There was one problem with curiosity—only feeding that hunger would settle it down. Hannah’s questions about Lord Wycliff would not be so easily dismissed. Her finding out the man harboured some tragic history might make suffering his boorish company a little more bearable. Like the brooding hero of a gothic novel who bore terrible scars on his soul. Hannah would just need to construct a tolerable plot around him.
Father and daughter worked side by side all morning, until the woman on the table looked hollow. Her organs were arrayed in bowls after being weighed and measured. Next they would be preserved in alcohol for further study and analysis.
“Shall we look at her heart now? I saved it for last.” Her father had the look of an excited child.
“Of course.” Hannah handed him the rib cracker.
He opened the chest cavity further, exposing the last organ. Hannah gasped and held a hand to her mouth. The sweet odour of putrefaction overwhelmed them as the surrounding caul was pulled free. The heart was no lovely deep red thing, but green and rotten. The outer edges had turned black as it decayed in the woman’s chest.
Sir Hugh hummed to himself as he worked. “How curious. None of the other internal organs show any sign of decay, consistent with the woman’s dying just yesterday. Yet by the heart, one would think she died some time ago, when the original disease struck her down.”
Rotten to the core, Hannah thought. Were all the Afflicted like this on the inside?
Sir Hugh looked up, as though he had heard her thoughts. “Don’t tell your mother. No point in distressing her.”