Dreaming of You (The Gamblers #2)(46)

Derek met her gaze without blinking. “Now I take no pleasure in death. But at the time I had quite a fascination for it.”

Troubled by the admission, Sara reminded herself that as a child he had lived in an underworld of crime and sin, brought up in brothels, flash houses, and the streets of the rookery. But still she found it difficult to accept the image of him cheering as a man strangled at the end of a rope. “What did you think, as you watched them being hanged?” she asked.

“I considered myself lucky. At least I wasn’t up there. I was hungry, and didn’t own so much as a piss pot…but at least there was no rope around my neck.”

“And that made you feel better about your situation?”

“I had no ‘situation,’ Miss Fielding. I fought, cheated, stole for everything: the food I ate, the gin I drank…for women, sometimes.”

Sara colored slightly. “What about honest labor? You worked sometimes. Worthy told me you did.”

“Labor, yes. Honest?” He shook his head and snorted in bitter amusement. “You’d rather not know.”

Sara was quiet for a moment. “I would,” she said suddenly. “I would like to know.”

“More material for your research?”

“No, it’s not that at all.” Impulsively she touched his arm. “Please. You must believe I would never betray a private confidence.”

Derek stared at the place on his sleeve she had touched, even after her hand was withdrawn. He crossed his long legs and kept his eyes on the ground. A heavy swath of black hair spilled over his forehead. “I was a climbing boy until I got too big. Some of the chimneys were only two or three bricks wide. I was small for a boy of six, but one day I couldn’t squeeze myself through the flue.” A reminiscent smile crossed his face. “You don’t know what hell is until you’ve been stuck in a chimney.”

“How did they get you out?” she asked, horrified.

“They lit a bundle of hay underneath me. I tore half my hide off, scrambling up that chimney.” He laughed shortly. “After that I worked on the docks, loading crates and boxes. Sometimes I skinned and gutted fish, or shoveled manure and hauled it from stableyards to the wharf. I never knew what a bath was.” Sliding a glance at her, he grinned at her expression. “Stank until even the flies wouldn’t come near me.”

“Oh, my,” she said faintly.

“Sometimes I mudlarked—stole cargo from the waterside, sold it under the table to crooked merchants. I wasn’t much different from the other lads in the rookery. All of us did what was necessary to survive. But there was one…Jem was his name…a scrawny boy with a face like a monkey. One day I noticed he was doing better than the rest. He had a thick coat to wear, food to fill his belly with, even a wench on his arm now and again. I went up to him and asked where he was getting his money.” His face changed, becoming coarse and hard, all trace of handsomeness wiped away. “Jem told me. On his advice, I decided to try my hand at the resurrection business.”

“You…joined a church?” Sara asked, bewildered.

Derek gave her a startled look and then began to choke with laughter. When she asked what was the matter, he actually doubled over, gasping for breath. “No, no…” After dragging a sleeve over his eyes, he was finally able to control himself. “I was a bone-grubber,” he explained.

“I don’t understand—”

“A grave-robber. I dug up corpses from cemeteries and sold them to medical students.” A peculiar smile crossed his lips. “You’re surprised, aren’t you? And revolted.”

“I…” Sara tried to sort through her scattered thoughts. “I can’t say I f-find the thought very pleasant.”

“No. It was far from a pleasant business. But I’m a very good thief, Miss Fielding. Jem used to say I could steal the twinkle from the devil’s eye. I was a good resurrection man—efficient, dependable. I averaged three a night.”

“Three what?”

“Bodies. By law, surgeons and medical students can only use the corpses of convicted felons. But there’s never enough to go around. So they paid me to go to burial grounds near hospitals and asylums and bring them the newest corpses I could find. The surgeons always called them ‘specimens.’ ”

“How long did this go on?” Sara asked with a horrified shiver.

“Almost two years—until I began to look like the corpses I stole. Pale, scrawny, like walking death. I slept during the day and only went out at night. I never worked when the moon was full. Too much light. There was always a danger of being shot by groundskeepers, who naturally didn’t look kindly on the business. When I couldn’t go about my work, I would sit in a corner of the local tavern and drink as much as my belly would hold, and try to forget about what I’d been doing. I was a superstitious sort. Having disturbed many an eternal rest, I began to think I was being haunted.”

He spoke in a flat voice, as if he were talking about something that had no connection with him. Sara noticed that his color was high. Embarrassment, self-disgust, anger…She could only guess at the emotions that stirred within him. Why was he confessing such personal and unspeakable things to her?

“I think I was dead inside,” he said. “Or at least only half-human. But the money kept me going back, until I had a nightmare that put a stop to it all. I never set foot near another graveyard after that.”