Anatomy: A Love Story(42)

“Hello, hello, all,” Bernard said in a voice effortfully deep. “Yes, hello. My father, the viscount, and my mother, the viscountess, and I wish to thank you all for joining us at our little get-together. The annual ball is a tradition that I so greatly enjoy and one that I hope will continue for years to come. My apologies for interrupting the festivities, but I have a little announcement to make. The lovely Miss Sinnett and I are engaged. Or at least, we are but a moment away. Hazel, my dear, will you marry me?”

Hazel’s vision became a tunnel, dark and fuzzy at the edges. A ringing echoed through her ears, and her tongue turned to sand in her mouth.

All eyes in the room turned and found Hazel, and the smiles of the crowd grew wolflike. Hazel’s dress was suddenly unbearably hot, so itchy at her neck and her sleeves that she felt hives rising beneath the fabric. The room was quiet but for the tinkle of champagne glasses. They were waiting for her to say something, to give her answer.

Unable to manage anything else, Hazel lifted the sides of her mouth into what might have been a deranged half smile.

“Aha!” Bernard shouted.

The applause sounded like gunfire. Hazel deflected the well-wishes and pats on her hand. She found that she had trouble breathing in her dress. Maybe it wasn’t the dress; maybe it was the room, the house, her life. The black at the edges of her vision was growing, and the syllables on her tongue sounded thick and heavy as she tried to tell somebody that she needed to leave.

“Poor thing must need something to eat!”

“Must’ve had too much champagne! Har har!”

“Get the poor dear to bed.”

“Heaven knows she won’t get much rest once it’s her wedding bed!”

Some gentle soul guided Hazel back to her carriage. “Please give Bernard my apologies,” she heard herself mumble to whoever it was, before her driver cracked the whip over the horses. The carriage lurched forward, taking Hazel back to the safety of Hawthornden. But she knew safety was temporary. Her future was coming for her even as she was riding away from it, pulled by four horses, as quickly as she could.





21




IN HER NEW MAKESHIFT LABORATORY, HAZEL had cleared the table, prepared a blank page of her notepad, and replaced all the candles with fresh tapers in anticipation of Jack Currer coming to make another delivery that morning at ten o’clock. She was in a foul mood. The events of the Almonts’ Ball kept replaying themselves in her brain, no matter how much Hazel tried to push those thoughts away and focus on the impending examination. The examination needed all her time and attention. The Bernard situation could wait.

But with Jack Currer coming, Hazel found her mind was too restless to study. By half past ten, Hazel had resharpened all her quills and laid them flat on the table, shortest to longest.

By eleven o’clock, most of the candles had burned down to waxen stumps. Finally, just before the bell rang noon, Hazel heard a knock on the door to the dungeon. “Finally,” she murmured to herself. “Come in! It’s unlocked.”

The door creaked inward, revealing a sliver of overcast gray sky and Jack, alone. “There you are. Is the body out front? Broken wheelbarrow, I suppose. Marvelous, just marvelous. If we need an extra pair of hands to carry the body, I can go get Charles, but I’d prefer if we just handled it ourselves.”

Jack didn’t look up from the earthen floor.

“What?”

“There’s no body. I didn’t go last night.”

“Sorry?”

Jack’s shoulders lifted to his ears. He looked as though he would rather be anywhere but there. Hazel noticed the deep purple shadows beneath his eyes. “There’s no body,” he said again, simply.

Hazel’s eyebrows knitted together, but she forced herself to remain composed. “When will I be able to expect the body, then? One with the fever.”

“There ain’t going to be any more bodies.” He looked away and showed a heavy bruise across his left cheek.

Before she could think better of it, Hazel strode forward and lifted Jack’s face in her hands. Jack’s hair was particularly lank and dull, and his eyes were flat.

His work as a resurrection man kept him up nights often; he was accustomed to going hours without sleep. But the previous night had been different. The exhaustion had started in his soul and crept outward. He had counted the seconds until sunrise from his paillasse in the risers at Le Grand Leon, willing his eyes to shut, not being able to force them to stay that way.

Jack jerked his chin away from Hazel’s hands and shrugged his jacket higher onto his shoulders.

“I don’t understand,” Hazel said resolutely. “I paid you in advance. You’ve only given me one body. If I’m to cure the fever—let alone pass the Physician’s Examination—I’m going to need at least several—”

“Well, you can find yourself another resurrection man, then, can’t you now.”

Hazel gave a barking laugh. “It’s not as if you advertise in the evening newspapers.”

Jack didn’t smile. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, and I have your money back here if you want it.” From deep in his pocket, he pulled out some coins, gave them a cursory glance, and then dropped them onto the wooden table, where Hazel had been expecting a corpse. “But I can’t get you any more bodies, at least not until—” Jack didn’t know how he was supposed to finish that sentence.