The Anatomist's Wife Page 19

  “There’s no one here. If someone broke into your studio, they’re long gone now.”

  I moved to carefully light one of the covered lanterns set on the tables near the door. My hands still shook from my fright. “What do you mean if?”

  He reached for the lantern on the opposing table and began to light it as well.

  “Be careful with that,” I snapped.

  He looked up at me and nodded. “Are you certain you locked up the last time you were here?”

  “Yes,” I stated emphatically, angry that he would question me on this. “As I told you, I always lock the door when I leave, even if it’s only for a moment.” I picked up the canvas he had managed to both kick and step through. Fortunately, it was only the background of a portrait I had started months ago and never returned to. I tossed the ruined canvas to the side and knelt to examine the other canvases leaning against the wall near it.

  “Who else has a key to this room?”

  “Mrs. MacLean.”

  “No one else?”

  “No,” I replied testily. “No one else has cause to possess a key.”

  “Perhaps Mrs. MacLean had the room cleaned and forgot to lock up.”

  I stood to look back at Gage, who was picking up various jars from the shelves storing my pigments and examining them. “I don’t allow anyone to clean this room.” He glanced back at me. “If it needs tidying, I do it myself.”

  He looked back at the jar of deep red madder in his hands and set it carefully back on the shelf. “These pigments are that poisonous?”

  “Some of them, yes,” I replied, moving toward him. “It’s the fumes. They are the most toxic while I am mixing them. That’s why I wear gloves and do it outside.” I reached out to pick up a bottle. “Once the linseed oil is added in the right increments to make the paint, it stabilizes into something that is much less harmful. However, I still do not want my nieces and nephew stumbling upon it and ingesting it.” He nodded his understanding. “I’m much more worried about the maids knocking over a bottle of turpentine and setting the entire castle ablaze.”

  He grimaced. “Yes. I suppose that would be bad.”

  I raised my eyebrows at his understatement, and he smiled more genuinely. Uncomfortable with the softness in his eyes and the memory of his arm around me as he guided me into the castle, I turned away to face the rest of the room.

  Breathing deeply, I inhaled the familiar, comforting scents of my studio. Fumes that to someone who was not an artist choked and burned the delicate hairs of the nose, welcomed me like a favorite, four-course dinner. For cooks, the smell of herbs and fresh ingredients made their noses tingle and their mouths salivate. For an artist, the scents of linseed oil and turpentine awakened the mind, making it stretch and search for a brush and canvas. After a difficult day, it was like coming home to a loved one. It grounded me like nothing else ever could.

  My studio was housed in one of the turret rooms, so the stone walls were rounded. Large windows alternated with stone columns on most of the wall surface because the turret projected out of the corner of the east block of the castle. At my request, Philip had also installed a skylight at a southeast angle on the slanted roof to provide me with more light. It was by far the best art studio I had ever occupied, even with the small amount of Highland sun I contended with in winter. At my childhood homes and Sir Anthony’s London town house, I had made do with the conservatory or a small bedroom.

  “Can you tell if anything is missing?” Gage asked.

  I turned toward my finished canvases first. It seemed likely that if anyone wanted to take something from this room, it would be a painting they could sell, not a raw pigment anyone could purchase in Edinburgh, London, and at least another dozen places in Britain. Apparently, he had the same idea, for he stood over my shoulder, studying each painting as I sorted carefully through the canvases propped against the wall underneath the southern-facing windows out of the reach of the sun’s rays. As much as I needed light to create my portraits, so the finished paintings needed to be protected from it to keep the pigments from fading. They all seemed to be accounted for, so I moved to examine the works in progress, currently propped on my three easels, and left Gage to continue studying the finished images.

  I sighed in relief as I flipped the canvas cover back over the portrait I had begun of the children and Philip’s dogs lying together in a pile. None of the objects worth monetary value were missing. Canvases, linen, pigments, brushes, and other supplies could be replaced. Of course, some of those items were quite expensive—like the set of brushes that had been specifically weighted for my hands—and new canvases took time to treat. I frowned and moved to sort through my equipment, grateful I had taken inventory only the day before.

  “Lady Darby.”

  Gage’s voice sounded funny behind me, and I hesitated a second before turning, somehow knowing I was not going to like whatever had tightened his voice.

  His face looked pained. “Do you know what this is?” He held up a crumpled white apron that looked as if it had been smeared in carmine paint. If not for the discoveries over the past few days, I might not have recognized it immediately for what it was, but visions of Lady Godwin flashed through my mind and I knew exactly what stained the fabric.

  I gasped and clutched the edge of the table behind me. “Where did you find that?”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Against the wall behind these paintings.”

  I could feel the blood drain from my face. “That’s not mine. I . . . I don’t know how it got there.” My voice was thin and reedy to my ears. I shook my head in denial. “Please, Gage. You have to believe me,” I pleaded. “That’s not mine. S-someone must be trying to blame me.”

  He crossed the room toward me, still holding the apron in front of him. I shrank away from him, my eyes darting back and forth between him and the blood-splattered fabric. His face was controlled and pale. What was he thinking? Did he believe me, or did he think me culpable of such crimes? Was he going to have me locked in my room? If he did, I would be as good as dead. I would never be able to find the actual killer and prove my innocence. The procurator fiscal would pronounce me guilty and see me hanged, or thrown into an asylum where I would wish for death.

  I gasped for air, wondering if I could run, if I should run. Or would that be the final nail in the coffin, so to speak, for Gage? Would he see that as an admission of my guilt?

  My arms strained against the table to hold me up as my legs threatened to give way.

  He stopped a few feet away from me and stared down at me so intently that I felt his gaze to the depths of my soul. I couldn’t look away, even if I had wanted to. I just couldn’t break eye contact with the man who held my future in his hands. With every ounce of my being, I silently begged for him to understand. Begged for him to trust me.

  “Gage, please. It’s not mine,” I pleaded again.

  His pale eyes softened, and the corner of his mouth creased. “All right, Kiera,” he murmured, shaking his head almost in bewilderment. “Maybe I’m crazy, but I believe you.”

  I crumpled to the floor as the breath I had been holding left me in a shuddering sigh. He believed me. I almost couldn’t trust it. No one beyond my family ever believed me. I cradled my head against my knees and trembled in relief, smothering the sound of my sobs.

  “Hey.” Gage placed his hand gently on my shoulder as he sank down beside me.

  “Thank you,” I gasped between tremulous breaths. “Thank you.”

  He smiled sadly at me.

  I sniffed, swiping at my nose and eyes with the palm of my hand. He handed me his handkerchief and I took it, as mine was already sodden from my tears at Lady Godwin’s baby’s grave.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, hearing the husky timbre of my voice. “I don’t normally cry s
o much. In fact, I don’t think I’ve wept so many tears in years.”

  “Did you cry at your husband’s funeral?” he asked evenly. Too evenly.

  I hesitated for a moment. “No,” I finally confessed. I had often wondered what that said about me. I wondered what Gage would think of my admission. I looked up to find him studying my profile. His gaze was soft, like a caress. My breath fluttered inside my chest and my skin grew warm. I turned away.

  “Now will you please tell me what happened to you after your husband died?” he queried gently. I stiffened. “I told you that I believe you are innocent, and I do. But I need to understand, Kiera. I need to know what all these people are accusing you of.”

  It was the third time he had called me by my given name, but for some reason it affected me differently this time. Perhaps it was because of the warm inflection of his voice or the proximity of his mouth to my ear. Or the fact that he actually believed in me. All I knew was that the sound thrummed through me as if a hand had brushed down my spine.

  He was right. He deserved an explanation. Not because I wanted him to keep my name out of the investigation when he spoke to the official from Inverness, not because I wanted to prove my innocence once and for all, but because he trusted me. He believed in my honesty and goodness, and because he was willing to do so, I owed him the truth. And, astoundingly, I realized I wanted him to know.

  “Everything is as Philip told you,” I began, staring at the mauve skirts of my gown. “Sir Anthony was a renowned anatomist and a friend of my father’s, who arranged our marriage. None of us realized why exactly Sir Anthony was interested in me. I suppose my father assumed it was my appearance and normally quiet disposition. At the time, I hadn’t cared whom I married so long as he promised to allow me to continue painting.” I plucked at the dove-gray piping down my skirt. “Of course, Sir Anthony neglected to tell me until we were wed that there was a provision to his promise.”

  “He wouldn’t let you paint unless you assisted him with his anatomy book?” he guessed.

  I nodded. “I . . . I don’t know if you can understand, but . . . my artwork is everything to me.” I blinked up at him. “If I were not able to paint, well, it would be like perdition. Like . . . losing part of my soul.” He did not speak, but the compassion in his eyes told me he grasped what I was trying to say. I turned back to my skirts as the flush in my cheeks cooled. “I did not want to help my husband with his anatomical sketches, but I didn’t want to lose my painting privileges,” I almost spat the word, “even more.”

  I took a deep breath and forced myself to remember. “The first dissection was like a living nightmare. The rancid smells, the shush and pop of his instruments slicing into flesh and spreading open the chest cavity, the welling blood and bulging organs. I vomited less than a minute into the procedure. Sir Anthony told me that now that my stomach was empty, it wouldn’t happen again, and the next time I would remember not to eat anything beforehand.” I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice as I recalled his pompous tone when he talked down to me where I knelt on the floor of his examining room while my body still shook from stomach contractions. “Each time he would slice into the man on his dissection table, I thought I would faint. And the idea that I might collapse on top of the corpse, or that Sir Anthony might reach out to catch me with his blood-smeared hands, made me want to run screaming from the room.”

  I paused and sucked in a steadying breath, feeling light-headed just from the memories. Gage reached out to rub a hand over my back in comfort. His touch reminded me I was no longer in the past, but grounded firmly in the present. I leaned closer to him, wanting to feel the warmth of his leg against mine.

  “I don’t know how exactly I made it through that first time. But I will never forget Frederick Oliver.” I looked up into Gage’s questioning eyes. “That was the name of the man on the dissection table. Sir Anthony did not have names for all of the subjects he examined, or at least he didn’t tell them to me, but I did know the name of the first. Frederick Oliver was not particularly attractive or healthy, but seeing him as a man still helped me somehow. I . . . I tried to imagine him as a subject for one of my portraits. A very odd and . . . disconcerting subject.” Gage’s eyes crinkled into a smile. “He wasn’t the first disconcerting subject I’d had, after all,” I tried to explain. “I had painted a portrait of Lord and Lady Acklen a year before, and Lord Acklen had the most disquieting way of looking at me while I worked.”

  His eyes hardened at the mention of Acklen’s name. “I can well imagine,” he muttered dryly. “Acklen is a scoundrel of the highest order.”

  “Oh,” I replied, suddenly seeing that strange experience in a different light. “I wonder if that explains why he kept trying to convince me to paint some fellow named John Thomas.” Gage sounded as if he were choking. “I told him I probably could, but I would have to meet him first.”

  “I hope you had a male escort with you during those sessions?” He seemed angry for some reason.

  “My father always insisted that my brother accompany me to their house. And Lady Acklen was, of course, present, since she was also in the portrait.”

  Gage nodded in satisfaction, and I blinked at him quizzically. “Go on.”

  I swallowed, thinking back to where I’d stopped.

  “How long did you sketch for Sir Anthony?” he asked, helping me.

  “On and off for almost three years. There were weeks when Sir Anthony insisted on dissecting one part or another each and every day, and then two months would go by when we did nothing.”

  “Did he autopsy a new body every day?” he questioned in shock.

  “No. He used the same body for several days, up to a week, until the body began to decompose too quickly.” I cringed, remembering how the stench increased with each passing day the corpse spent on Sir Anthony’s table.

  “Where did the bodies come from?”

  I shook my head sharply. “I honestly do not know. I did not want to. Perhaps that was wrong of me, but I’m not certain I could have handled knowing. What would I have done with the information anyway? A magistrate would never have listened to me, and if Sir Anthony had discovered I tried to tell someone . . .” I shivered. “It was better to keep quiet.” I rubbed my fingers over my amethyst necklace. “I did see two men come to the servants’ door one night, but I didn’t stay to see what they wanted. I told the magistrate that.”

  “I thought you didn’t go to a magistrate?”

  “Not then. Later.”

  “So you had nothing to do with the requisition of the bodies as Mr. Fitzpatrick claimed.”

  “Correct. I did not go wandering through the streets at night ‘searching for victims.’ Nor did I ‘seduce men to their early graves,’” I retorted, repeating just a few of the charges leveled at me. “If Sir Anthony performed a human vivisection, I was never present for it,” I added, thinking back on Mr. Fitzpatrick’s words that day in the library. “I would not have been able to handle that.” The blood drained from my face at the thought of someone being forced to endure being dissected alive. I shook my head hard.

  “And you don’t have to tell me you’re not a cannibal.” Gage rubbed my back again. “I already know that.”

  I nodded and swallowed.

  “So how did Sir Anthony die? And what happened afterward?”

  “An apoplexy,” I explained. “At least, that’s what his physician said. I was not there when it happened, and I had no reason to doubt the man.” I tilted my head to the side. “In light of everything, I’m glad I wasn’t there. Otherwise, I’m afraid I might have been blamed for his demise as well.” I shook my head. “He was buried, and I prepared to move into my brother’s house because I knew Sir Anthony’s town house was to go to his cousin. Then, during the reading of his will, his friend Dr. Mayer was given the finished pages of his anatomy textbook an
d asked to see that the project was finished. My name was not attached to the manuscript, so I assumed I was finally free of it. No one but Sir Anthony and an old assistant of his, who lived in Edinburgh at the time the will was read, knew that I had anything to do with the book.” I sighed. “Sadly, I was wrong.

  “Of course, I was aware that my husband could not sketch with much skill, but I had no idea that his colleagues often mocked him for it. Dr. Mayer instantly suspected my involvement, but I didn’t know that until he and a few more of Sir Anthony’s friends stopped by for a not-so-friendly chat a few days later.” I pulled my knees up to my chest and hugged them. I felt like I was facing their inquisition once again, having names and epithets hurled my way. “I didn’t know that I should have kept my mouth shut. Instead, I tried to make them understand. But they treated me like I was some sort of monstrosity.”

  I shook my head. “I’ve always been aware of society’s double standard when it comes to women. Ladies are expected to look the other way while gentlemen indulge in affairs and other amoral behavior, but ladies must remain virtuous and above reproach. And, apparently, while a man may take part in a dissection without censure, the thought of a woman doing so is so beyond the pale as to be a criminal atrocity.”

  Gage’s fingers brushed across the skin of my neck as he rubbed my upper back in comfort. “Were Sir Anthony’s colleagues the ones who notified the magistrate?”

  I nodded. “They sent two Bow Street Runners for me the next day. Fortunately, I had the foresight to move to my brother’s house the evening before, and my brother insisted on taking me to the Magistrates’ Court in his carriage. He also sent word to Philip, who was in town.” I sat up straighter so that I could look at him. “Trevor and Philip were able to convince the magistrate to have my case thrown out on the grounds that I had been following my husband’s orders and they had no proof to say otherwise. But the damage was done. Everyone in the courtroom heard the charges leveled against me. By the time we left, the streets had filled with people jeering me and calling me a witch and a murderer. They threw things at the carriage and camped outside my brother’s door until I left London.”