Hannah laughed and petted the chicken’s head. “No one is going to eat her. Steam will help her pass the egg and so will a warm bath, if she will cooperate.”
At that moment Lord Wycliff pushed through the back door and trotted down the steps. He stopped at the bottom to frown at the chicken, before glancing to Hannah and her mother. “Lady Miles, Miss Miles.”
Hannah looked up at him and a spike of mischief burst into life inside her. “Timmy is practicing his gift on the chickens, my lord. Would you like him to take your hand and see what ails you?”
His dark eyes narrowed. “No. If you will excuse me, I have business in London.” He walked around the chickens and strode across the yard to the stables.
“Now, now, Hannah. It is my job to tease the viscount. You are supposed to be the gentle one,” her mother whispered under her breath.
They finished wrangling the chickens, all of whom showed no signs of illness. The egg bound hen was treated to a steam bath over a pot and then tucked up in a warm box to help her pass the obstacle. Seraphina took Timmy to the library to work on his reading and writing, leaving Hannah free for the afternoon. Not that she actually had free time, but another task to put her mind to—finalising Lizzie’s wedding arrangements.
Hannah washed and changed and was conveyed to Mayfair. But somewhere during the ride, the gaiety of the morning was washed away by more sombre thoughts.
At the Loburn house, she stared at her tea and wished the steam would form the answers she required. Hannah was supposed to be studying the floor plan for the ball. Instead, she fumed over the way the newspapers had latched onto the idea of her father’s being a murderous monster and wouldn’t let go. Her mother crafted rumours about the forthcoming wedding of Princess Charlotte to the impoverished Prince Leopold, but even that couldn’t distract the people from their gossip.
What Hannah needed to do was identify the person who was truly responsible. But who sought to create a new whole from disparate pieces? Her mind turned to three men, each with his own methods and each with his own reasons for wanting to create immortality.
Reverend Jones turned to prayer; Doctor Husom used galvanism; and Lord Dunkeith, with his aftermage gift, brewed potions. Could one of them be responsible for the monstrous crimes laid at her father’s door? Two of the three had no medical training. Could that explain the crude stitches that had bound Mr Barnes’s hand to the forearm of another? To Hannah, the irregular size and shape of the stitches was a clear indicator that her father could not possibly be culpable.
The three men she considered all frequented Chelsea and they all pursued the same dream. But none of them struck her as a deranged murderer. Not that her judgement was to be relied upon in such matters. While she had taken an instant dislike to Lady Gabriella Ridlington, she had never imagined the woman was helping her lover murder servants so they could scoop their still warm brains from their shattered skulls and consume them.
“Have you heard a word I just said, Hannah?” Lizzie tapped her on the arm.
Hannah shook her head. “I am sorry, my mind was elsewhere.”
“What on earth could occupy you more than arranging my wedding?” The tiniest frown marred the bride’s forehead.
Hannah had been called upon to help arrange the wedding, timed for the month after the royal wedding. Her task was to mark on a drawing of the ballroom where her mother would set enchantments for the wedding celebrations. But instead of true love, cake, and magical butterflies, Hannah’s mind was full of severed limbs and a creature hiding in the shadows waiting to snatch a victim. “Murder, dismemberment, and the Afflicted,” she confessed at last.
“How horrid! We shall institute a new rule that you are to leave such dreadful thoughts on the doorstep.” The table before them was piled high with short lengths of ribbon in varying hues of pink, cream, and green. Lizzie dropped a pink ribbon and picked up a lighter shade. She was determined to find the perfect colours to feature in all the decorations.
Hannah thought it somewhat like a general trying to decide on the exact shade of red for uniforms before sending out the infantry to be shot. Not that marriage was anything horrid. Lizzie would marry her duke and live out the fairy tale. Rather, it seemed such a trivial detail when everyone’s attention would be focused on the bride and groom themselves.
“Another investigation for Viscount Wycliff?” Lady Loburn asked. She examined the pages of a large illustrated volume of flowers.
The wedding would have enormous floral arrangements, if they could settle on which flowers to include. Then Lady Miles would make the seeds flourish and bloom in special containers, once they picked seeds upon which she might cast her spells.
“Yes. His investigation is tied to the Chelsea monster and the types of surgical procedures conducted on the discovered bodies. The viscount is trying to ascertain who is responsible.” The man’s image flitted through her mind. Even her most private moments were not spared his presence.
Lizzie dropped the ribbons, but due to their insubstantial weight, they fluttered to the table. “Mother, say something to Hannah. This talk is most disturbing.”
“Real life often is, my treasure. Surely there is a simple explanation? Do not student surgeons undertake such work?” Lady Loburn made a note on the sheet of paper next to the book.
“They do, but there are certain…peculiarities to this case that have prompted Lord Wycliff to investigate. It is possible someone trying to find a way to reverse the Afflicted’s condition might be responsible, but the newspapers seemed determined to see my father held accountable.” Hannah put down her tea and picked up a selection of ribbons to sort.
“Whatever your father is about, I am sure his motives are honest and well intentioned.” Lady Loburn put a green ribbon marker in the large volume.
Hannah glanced up. “You sound as though you believe the rumours.”
Lady Loburn pushed the book to one side and cleared a space for the ribbons Lizzie had selected. “I have known your mother all my life, and your father for over twenty-five years. I was by your mother’s side when she had to fight for her position at court—something that should rightly have been bestowed on her as a mage. There is only one thing I know for certain. Sir Hugh would do anything for your mother, such is his all-consuming love for her.”
“Father loves me, too,” Hannah whispered. A heavy lump settled in her stomach. Lady Loburn was right. Her father would do anything for his family. Oh, Papa, could it be true?
“Do you really think Sir Hugh would cut people up?” Lizzie’s eyes were wide and her delicate complexion even paler as she considered such an idea.
“Of course he does,” Lady Loburn scoffed. She rose and walked around the table to survey Hannah’s drawing. “That is what battlefield surgeons do, my child. Many men required amputations after a skirmish.”
Hannah picked up a pencil and drew an X at the base of the stairs on the plan. The first enchantment should envelop people as they descended to the ballroom. “Whatever surgeries Father might have performed, they do not make him capable of the monstrous things the newspapers claim. There are rumours of women abducted off the streets and most horribly murdered for their body parts. Men now patrol the night, intent on discovering the monster.”
She glanced at the floor plan and her mind split in two directions. Part of her calculated how far people should walk across the floor before enchantment number two was released. The rest of her mind worried at the allegations against her father like a terrier with a bone. “Father is not the only scientist in London with an interest in finding a cure for the Afflicted. Doctor Husom experiments with galvanism, which is a way of using electricity to animate limbs. Reverend Jones believes in the power of prayer, and Lord Dunkeith seeks an answer among potions and herbology.” Of the short list of suspects, Doctor Husom seemed the most likely. Hannah kept seeing the arm rise on a corpse, and the pieces framed by copper and hanging in his laboratory.
Lady Loburn tapped a spot on the drawing h
alfway out onto the floor, and Hannah drew another X for the second enchantment. “Ah! Charles and Diana, there is a sad tale. Such a tragedy for Lord Dunkeith,” Lizzie’s mother said.
“What tragedy?” Hannah thought the man a vision of happiness. Certainly he had everything laid at his feet—good looks, charm, wealth, and a title.
“Well, more accurately, the tragedy befell his fiancée.” The marchioness rummaged through the ribbons and selected a dark green that reminded Hannah of moss under a shady tree.
“I did not know he was engaged.” A creamy pink leapt out at Hannah, the perfect shade to complement the moss green in Lady Loburn’s hand.
Lady Loburn took the ribbon that Hannah offered and laid it next to the green. “He is not any longer. He and Lady Diana Morgan were quite the whirlwind courtship of their season. The two were in love as much as are Lizzie and her darling duke, and we all anticipated their wedding.”
“Lady Diana Morgan? I know that name.” Lizzie handed her mother a pin to secure the two pieces of ribbon together.
“She was one of the first to die in London from using the face powder.” Lady Loburn’s voice dropped in tone.
Now Hannah placed the name—one of the many Afflicted who existed in private, protected by their families. Her needs were met by Unwin and Alder and their monthly delivery of pickled cauliflower. “Oh. How sad. As one of the Afflicted, she could not marry. Did Lord Dunkeith set her aside?”
Lady Loburn dropped her hands to the table and a sigh came from her hawk-like frame. A wistful light appeared in her eyes. “Far from it. He was most determined to stand by her side. His family threatened to cut him off if he did not distance himself from her. Not only is she prohibited from marrying, but even if she did, she cannot fulfil her wifely duty of providing an heir. He was devastated. Apparently he still sends her flowers every week, made to resemble her wedding bouquet.”
The tragic image speared Hannah’s heart. Such devotion beyond even death. Imagine sending your beloved a wedding bouquet every week. “I now understand his determination to find a cure. If her heart can be restarted, they can resume their lives together.”
She had been to his home where he worked in the light and airy conservatory. Plants had draped the walls and hung from the ceiling. That had not been the workshop of a madman who dismembered bodies. How could a man who loved so completely even contemplate taking the life of another? No. She discarded the very idea.
More and more she wondered about the mysterious Doctor Husom. And who knew, perhaps there was a skeleton rattling in the depths of Reverend Jones’ closet.
“Now let us return to another fairy-tale love—Lizzie’s wedding. How many layers should the cake have?” Lady Loburn asked.
Lizzie erupted in joyful suggestions and while Hannah commented with her favourite colour of icing and decorations, her mind returned to the monster who laboured at night to dismember a woman and reattach limbs. Who was he? If only the figure would step from the shadows, she would know whom to accuse.
She prayed it wasn’t her father.
17
Wycliff had wanted to question Sir Hugh in private, without his daughter or wife present. Yet the large man proved slippery to catch. He evaded Wycliff’s questions by being called away suddenly to the Repository of Forgotten Things and did not return that night or the next day.
While he lay in wait for an opportune moment, Wycliff organised his notes about his investigation. On the sheet of paper bearing things to follow up, he noted Doctor Husom’s information about the kicking leg Sir Hugh had taken away. It had to be another part of Mr Barnes, but why had Sir Hugh not mentioned it?
Another matter of concern was the reports of missing women. Now that he had asked the Runners to keep their ears open, his pigeonhole at the Ministry was stuffed with slips of paper bearing names, descriptions, and last known whereabouts. Most might simply have moved to another area without a forwarding address. If even a few were possible donors of the limbs attached to Beth’s torso, the monster had a large appetite and had to be stopped.
With no other direction in his investigation to suggest who might have strangled and dismembered Beth Warren, Wycliff knew what he had to do to advance the case. He waited until full dark and the household had settled into sleep. Even the servants slumbered in their rooms tucked up under the roof. He crept from the Miles house on silent feet and headed across the road to the open fields.
He walked until he found a stand of trees that offered protection from any other nocturnal eyes in the area. He drew a deep breath and steadied his nerves, then let what lurked inside him…out.
The world around him changed and he stayed still among the trees while his vision adjusted. Night was now like day to him. Things unseen by human eyes were now revealed. Trees emitted a fine green mist as they exhaled. The edges of buildings were blurred, as though the lines of a drawing had been rubbed with a finger.
On silent feet, he loped across the field. Up ahead, a man wandered through the grass. He shook his head and wrung his hands as he muttered. As the man passed a hedge, the hawthorn branches brushed through his insubstantial form. Wycliff gave the figure a wide berth, so he didn’t attract the ghost’s attention.
In the few times he had let this form loose, he had learned one startling thing. The dead wandered the earth, unseen by the eyes of the living. Ghosts were made substantial—or at least of thicker stuff, like their equivalent of a pea-soup fog. What would he see if he encountered one of the Afflicted in the dark? Would they appear as a ghost or as one of the living?
He ran toward Chelsea and only slowed as the flickering lights behind windows stabbed through the haze. Wycliff kept to trees and hedges and let the shadows roll over him to hide him from sight.
The vigilante group was easy to avoid. The men were noisy and the lit torches they held aloft shone like small suns. He padded close enough to catch their words, in case they had discovered anything in their rounds.
“Ain’t right, cutting up Beth like that and then dumping her body in the field,” one said.
“We’ll catch him, then he’ll be the one gettin’ cut up,” another man replied.
“Strung up first, then cut up!” another jeered.
Idiots. Mob mentality very rarely resulted in justice. Evidence needed to be appraised with a calm, rational mind, not one soaked in alcohol and fear.
Wycliff left the men expounding upon what they would do if they caught the Chelsea monster and headed northeast, toward the crematorium. He paced the hedges and sniffed the air. The smell coming from the very brick wormed up his nostrils and burrowed into his mind. He shook his head, but the odour refused to budge.
He followed the hedge around the side of the building and peered through the wider gate for carts. Puffs erupted from the mounds that dotted the lawn. A grey rounded cloud escaped from one and drifted away. Were these the cremated dead? He wondered if he dared ask Lady Miles.
Not finding any clues, he let the smell drive him away and back across the fields. The pleasant aroma of damp earth drifted up with each foot he placed, and removed the acrid smell from inside his head.
For hours, he wandered around Chelsea and found nothing. A different kind of heat prickled along his back and warned of approaching dawn. He must head back to Westbourne Green. He veered northwest to cross through Brompton. The whimper caught his attention first and as he neared, it turned into ragged sobs.
Wycliff ducked behind a large copse of trees with shrubs and ferns growing around their feet. He dropped low to the ground and peered at the figure.
A woman with long, dark tangled hair held out her hands in front of her, stumbling blindly across the meadow as she wept. Her shape shimmered like moonlit water. She wore a dirty, torn shift that tugged at Wycliff’s memory. When she turned her face to the sky, the memory took sharp form.
Beth Warren.
Gossamer threads tore from her gown and ran behind her, where they attached to the shifts of two other forms. Both had long,
dark hair, like Beth. One scratched at her arms incessantly. The other clutched her belly and moaned.
Three women, bound together. A shiver ran over his form. Stitched together in death as their bodies had been in life. Here was the chance he needed, if he could elicit anything sensible from any of them. He emerged from his hiding place and approached the women slowly.
“Help me. I cannot find my way home,” Beth rasped on seeing him. When she turned, the other two women turned with her.
Another thing he had discovered was that the dead had no fear of him, as though on some instinctual level, they turned to him for help. Wycliff wondered what to tell her. She could no longer go home, but he wasn’t entirely certain what the alternative was for her or how to send her there.
“What happened to you, Beth?” he asked, projecting the question directly into her phantom mind.
“The doctor…the doctor said he would heal my cough, but my throat is ever so sore now.” She clawed at her neck.
Doctor Husom had said the woman had been strangled. Little wonder her throat was sore.
“He gave me some medicine for my cough, but it made me ever so sleepy.” She held out her arms and stared at her hands. “I don’t feel right. My arms and legs are numb and tingly.”
When her shift slipped down, a silvery line of stitching showed around her shoulder. If a body were dismembered and put back together, did the ghost retain its phantom limbs or the ones belonging to others that were sewn to their torso? Beth’s ghost possessed two legs and walked without the aid of a stick. The women behind her were likewise intact.
Perhaps death remedied what life had taken away.
“Who are the others, Beth?” He gestured with his head toward her companions in death.
“Nell and Tabitha are my sisters. We three are one,” she said.
He tucked the names away. He was certain that both were on his list of missing women, but he would need to consult his notes. “Did they see the doctor, too?”
Galvanism and Ghouls Page 15