The Anatomist's Wife Read online

  I wanted to argue with him, to flay him with guilt, utilize whatever tactic might force him to talk. But I could tell by his troubled gaze and his locked jaw that nothing would induce him to do so. Whatever his motivation had been, it had clearly been personal, and he was not ready to part with it, no matter the method employed.

  “Well, can you at least explain to me what you were doing three days ago?” I snapped. “You rode off with Mr. Fulmer before I had a chance to question him, which I assume was your intention in asking him to accompany you in the first place.” His eyes shifted guiltily. “And whatever happened to the footman you were pursuing? Did you find him?”

  He nodded. “Holed up in a farmer’s barn at the edge of the village with his sweetheart.” His brow lowered. “It took nearly the entire day to find the scoundrel.”

  I arched an eyebrow in irritation. “And?”

  “Our errant footman got the lass with child.”

  I blinked in surprise.

  “Apparently, when he heard from the other servants how Lady Godwin’s killer took the baby from her body and buried it in the woods, he panicked. Somehow, he decided the killer was after all expectant mothers and might attack his lover and child next.”

  “Oh, my,” I murmured, imagining the footman having to tell Gage all of this while under duress. The poor man had already been terrified, and I couldn’t imagine Gage had gone easy on him during questioning. “Is he all right?”

  “I should say so,” he replied indignantly, clearly reading the bent of my thoughts. “Cromarty is going to let him keep his position, even though the man behaved dishonorably and abandoned his post without warning. Provided, of course, that he marries this girl from the village. Rather a light punishment.”

  “So you didn’t eat dinner at Squire Renshaw’s?” I asked, and immediately wished I could recall the words. A flush rose in my cheeks.

  “No.” He studied me closely. “Is that where you thought I was?”

  “Well,” I hedged, not wanting him to realize the real motivation behind my question. “When you took so long to return, I just assumed that you had taken shelter somewhere from the rain. Mr. Renshaw’s home seemed the obvious choice.”

  Gage shifted a step closer to me, a smile lurking at the corners of this mouth. “I see. And Squire Renshaw’s daughters had nothing to do with your concern over such a thing?”

  I lifted my chin, fighting the fiery blush burning its way up into my cheeks. “Of course not.”

  His eyes sparkled. “Well, regardless, I will tell you that when we were introduced, I found them to be flighty and without charm.”

  I tried not to feel pleased by such a pronouncement, but I could not stop the surge of satisfaction warming my chest. “Really? Most of the gentlemen in the region seem to find them quite appealing.”

  He took another step closer to me, forcing me to look up to continue meeting his gaze. “Then most of the gentlemen in this region must be dunces.”

  He was close enough now that I could see the silver flecks in his pale blue eyes, and watch as the widening of his pupils swallowed them. I inhaled sharply, trying to clear the swirling in my head, but the spicy scent of his now-familiar cologne only made it worse. My gaze dropped to his lips and I swallowed, wanting him to kiss me, wanting to know if my memory of his warm mouth caressing mine as we floated in the icy water of the loch was really true.

  The jangle of a harness broke the silence around us, and I blinked. The coachman called out to the horses, scolding their impatience. I glanced to the open door and then back to Gage, who was still watching me with an expression that was as unreadable as it was intense.

  “I have to go.”

  My chest tightened, and the world around me seemed to darken. “I know.”

  I wanted to tell him to stay, to beg him not to leave. But I couldn’t. Not when I knew he would go anyway. That, no matter what I protested, he would choose to climb aboard that coach and journey to Edinburgh. And I would be left standing there watching the distance grow farther and farther between us. My pride couldn’t handle it.

  So I swallowed the words, though they stuck in my throat like a prayer left unsaid.

  “Well, then,” he murmured, and my stomach dipped. “I guess this is good-bye.”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  His eyes searched mine, asking for something I did not understand, for something I could not give. Then he leaned forward to kiss my cheek. The sensation was at once sweet and bitterly painful. I closed my eyes and leaned into the warmth of his body, pressing my cheek against the softness of his freshly shaven face. His hands reached out to grip my upper arms, steadying me, holding me in place so that I could not retreat. We lingered there in that loose embrace for a timeless moment, cheek to cheek, and I breathed in deeply the scent of him, trying to capture the memory of his husky voice, the musky mix of his sweat and cologne, the tickle of his breath in my ear. It swelled my heart until I thought it must burst. His callused fingers pressed into the skin of my arms, and then it was over.

  He stepped back and I opened my eyes to find his pale blue ones brilliant with longing. He lifted his hands from my body, leaving a chill in their wake and turned to go. The hollowness in my chest grew with each step he took away from me, until I feared there might be nothing left inside me but this sense of loss. He climbed into his carriage, and the door slammed behind him. The curtains twitched once as the coach made the turn and slowly rolled down the drive, picking up speed as it curved past the loch and around the bend toward the main road.

  A shaky breath shivered through me. He was gone.

  Blindly, I closed the door and retreated into the depths of the castle.

  In that moment, I think I honestly believed whatever had been between us was at an end. That whatever twist of fate that had brought us together had played itself out. And someday I would be able to look back on this and smile, and appreciate it for the turning point it had been in my life, the chance to redeem my reputation and break through the shell of fear I had wrapped myself in. To lay my shadows to rest. But, although nearly all of this would prove true, I was mistaken to think that fate was finished with us yet.

  For as it happened, trouble was brewing near Edinburgh, and it would once again bring Gage and me together, far sooner than either of us could have predicted, and with unexpected consequences.

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  The Anatomist’s Wife was crafted using many interesting historical facts and tidbits. I would like to share just a few of the most fascinating.

  Prior to the Anatomy Act of 1832, British medical schools had difficulty procuring cadavers for their anatomy classes, because only the bodies of executed criminals could be used for this purpose, which amounted to only about two to three bodies annually per school. This led to the practice of body-snatching, where recently buried bodies were stolen from their graves and sold to medical schools. It was a lucrative trade, and Burke and Hare, two laborers in Edinburgh, sought to take advantage of the practice. Rather than risk being caught while performing the difficult labor of disinterring bodies from the local cemeteries, they began inviting victims to their lodging house, plying them with alcohol, and smothering them to death. They then sold the bodies to the Surgeons’ Hall at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, namely to well-known anatomist and lecturer Dr. Robert Knox.

  Burke and Hare were caught in November of 1828, but not before they murdered sixteen people. The case lacked sufficient evidence, so Hare was convinced to testify against his partner, and escaped prosecution. Burke was hanged on January 28, 1829, and afterward his body was transported to the University of Edinburgh to be publicly dissected. His death mask, skeleton, and several articles made from his tanned skin, including a book cover, are on display at the university’s Surgeons’ Hall Museum. Dr. Knox escaped prosecution, but public o
pinion turned sharply against him for his part in providing incentive for the murders.

  Body snatchers, or resurrectionists, worked all over Great Britain. When security in cemeteries near the medical schools in London and Edinburgh became too tight, bodies robbed from other parts of Britain, and as far away as Ireland, were transported to the schools for use. After the trial of Burke and Hare, citizens in London and Edinburgh were panicked by the idea that similar enterprising criminals might be at work, murdering hapless citizens and selling their bodies to anatomists and medical schools. Medical schools were forced to pay closer attention to where their bodies were procured, and legislation reform became a necessity.

  Prior to 1858, there was no inexpensive, definitive anatomy textbook widely available to medical students. British anatomist Henry Gray and his colleague, surgeon and anatomical artist Henry Vandyke Carter, changed that with their now-famous book, Anatomy: Descriptive and Surgical, or as it is more commonly known, Gray’s Anatomy.

  Procurator fiscals are public prosecutors in Scotland, similar to a coroner, who investigate all sudden or suspicious deaths. The position originated as a legal office with financial (fiscal) responsibilities, namely collecting fines. Their duties evolved over time, so that by 1701, when the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act was passed, they were prosecutors on the Crown’s behalf. Since 1728, there have also been three types of verdicts for criminal trials in Scotland—proven, not proven, and not guilty. The “not proven” verdict has sometimes been referred to as the Scottish verdict or, colloquially in Scotland itself, as the “bastard verdict,” a term fashioned by Sir Walter Scott.

  Chasteberry, red raspberry leaf, and the garnet gemstone are, indeed, all supposed cures for barrenness, and are still utilized in some holistic and alternative-medicine remedies.

  Oil painting was an often dangerous undertaking, and more than one artist over the centuries accidentally poisoned themselves to death. Prior to the late nineteenth century, artists were forced to mix their pigments themselves, often from highly toxic raw ingredients made from assorted plants, gemstones, and minerals, and even the ground-up remains of dead humans. It was absolutely necessary for the mixing process to be done with a mortar and pestle while wearing gloves and with proper ventilation. Artists also had to be careful not to chew on their fingernails or brush handles to avoid unintentionally ingesting the remnants of the pigments. Some poisonous pigments include king’s yellow and red orpiment, which contain arsenic, and Naples yellow, which contains lead and antimony.

  John Spilsbury, a London engraver and mapmaker, created the first jigsaw puzzle in 1750 by affixing one of his maps to a sheet of hardwood and then cutting around the borders of the countries. This production resulted in an educational tool used to teach British children their geography, and until about 1820, jigsaw puzzles were used almost exclusively for this purpose. However, jigsaw puzzles were not known as such until the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, when the treadle saw, a type of jigsaw, began to be used to cut out the pieces. Until that time, jigsaw puzzles were known ironically, at least for Lady Darby, as dissections. I stumbled across this absurd bit of knowledge after I decided to give my heroine this hobby, and elected not to call the jigsaw puzzle by its early nineteenth century title to avoid confusion.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Anna Lee Huber is a summa cum laude graduate of Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she majored in music and minored in psychology. She currently resides in Indiana with her family and is hard at work on the next novel in the Lady Darby series. Visit her online at facebook.com/AuthorAnnaLeeHuber, twitter .com/AnnaLeeHuber, and at www.annaleehuber.com.