An Artless Demise

by Anna Lee Huber

  “What is it?” I asked, setting the letter aside.

  “Have you read any of the newspapers today?”

  My gaze dipped to the copy of the Times he held in his hands. “No. Is it another article about Mr. Poole?”

  Mr. Poole had passed away two days prior, but not before making a full confession to Phineas Day with the Observer. This story had swiftly eclipsed that of the burkers Bishop and Williams, at least within the drawing rooms of Mayfair. Gage and I had already deduced much of Poole’s motivation, but we had not been aware of the number of other small reform measures the Earl of Redditch had told his secretary he would review and then dismissed out of hand, or the letters Poole had written on behalf of families of missing children he’d asked the earl to sign so that the newspapers might print them but the earl had disregarded. It was not justification for murder, but it did further explain the anger and grievances growing in his mind, particularly knowing what he did about the despicable behavior of his employer’s heir.

  Gage shook his head, but then hesitated to speak, as if he did not know how to utter the words.

  “Gage, you’re scaring me,” I said.

  He sighed heavily. “Here. You should just see it.”

  I took the paper from his hand, the pages already folded back to the article he wished me to see.

  The first thing that caught my eye was the skillfully rendered drawing of the intricate anatomy of a hand. I gasped, for I recognized it. I’d drawn it myself several years earlier for Sir Anthony’s anatomy textbook. “But how . . .” I stammered and then stopped, seeing the words printed beside it.

  My stomach dropped. It was an excerpt from Sir Anthony’s private journals dated June 28, 1827.

  It has been one year now since my wife has been under my tutelage, and I am pleased by her growth. Her sketches are exact in every way, just as I knew they would be, but her ability to control her weaker feminine emotions has exceeded my expectations. At first, I’d feared I’d made a mistake in wedding her, for she could not stomach the sight of a human corpse for longer than a few minutes. But with time and a firm hand, she has overcome that feebleness.

  In fact, she has shown a great deal of spirit I had not anticipated, but which excites me nonetheless. I should like to see what it would take to crush that, to grind it away, but that shall have to wait until my anatomy textbook is completed. As it is, when she angers me it takes everything in me not to snap one of her delicate little fingers she is so skillful in using. For I know how horrified she is by the possibility I should do so. Perhaps I will break one of the fingers in her left hand simply to see her reaction, and then mend it for her. If she shows the proper gratitude.

  I threw the paper to the floor, lest I be sick all over the rug. While I’d read, Gage had sat beside me, and he pulled me to him now. I closed my eyes, trying to quiet the tremors, trying to push the memories away. But I could hear Sir Anthony’s vile voice in my mind. I could feel his lips hovering just behind my ear, pouring their venom into me.

  I shook my head, trying desperately to dislodge him.

  Gage pulled me tighter, his warm voice crooning to me. “I’m here, Kiera. He’s dead. He can’t hurt you anymore, darling.” I let his words wash over me, bathing in their love and affection. They could not completely banish the memories of my first husband, but they could drown them out and drag them back down into the deep.

  “Who did this?” I demanded weakly. My voice gathered strength as I spoke. “Dr. Mayer? I thought he promised he’d relinquished them all. But I suppose now that the dissection of Bishop and Williams is over and he’s gotten what he wanted from the bargain, it doesn’t matter to him,” I remarked bitterly.

  “Maybe,” Gage murmured guardedly. “But I have to wonder, if he dislikes you so much, why he would share a passage that cannot help but elicit sympathy for you. There were far fewer complimentary entries, with far more details about your abilities and contributions to Sir Anthony’s work.”

  I looked up into his eyes, considering what he’d said. “But then why . . .” I broke off, as the truth struck me like a fist to the gut.

  From the cynical glint in Gage’s eyes, it was evident he’d already come to this conclusion. “I told you my father was ruthless.”

  “But this . . .” I stammered, unable to complete the thought.

  “He’s determined to sway the public in your favor.” His brow furrowed. “And he’ll use any means necessary to do it.”

  Fury burned through my veins. “How dare he! He had no right.”

  “I agree. But I’m afraid you won’t convince him of that.” One corner of his lip curled upward in apology. “You thought having my father as your enemy was difficult. Having him try to arrange your life for you might be worse.”

  I exhaled, sinking back against the cushions of the sofa and resting my hands over the swell of my abdomen. “Unfortunately, now that he’s read those journals, he also knows precisely what I’m capable of, and he won’t be above using it.”

  “Yes. That, too.”

  We sat silently side by side for a few minutes, our heads bent together.

  Then Gage lifted his hand and pointed to the letter beside me on the sofa. “Who’s that from?”

  “The duchess. She wrote to apologize for having to depart London so suddenly. Apparently, her daughter had urgent need of her at their home in Scotland. But she’s invited us to her Twelfth Night Party there. Says she hopes I can finish her portrait for her there as well.”

  Gage made a noncommittal noise. “Would you like to attend?”

  “Maybe.” An invitation to one of the Duchess of Bowmont’s house parties was highly coveted, and always rather notorious. I could only imagine one at Twelfth Night, with all its inherent masquerades and revels, would be especially so. “Their estate is not far from Blakelaw House.” My childhood home in the Borders region between Scotland and England. “We could spend the holidays there with Trevor, and attend my uncle and aunt Rutherford’s Hogmanay Ball, before traveling on to Sunlaws Castle.”

  “I like that suggestion,” Gage murmured, and then sighed. “I’m afraid London has grown tiresome at the moment.”

  I couldn’t have agreed more. I opened my mouth to tell him so when a movement under my hand made me still. It was very slight, almost imperceptible. But when it happened again, I reached for Gage’s hand, pressing it over the place on my abdomen.

  “What . . .” he began to ask, but I silenced him.

  Half a minute or more passed, and there was no further movement. I was about to shake my head and explain, when I felt it again, this time harder.

  Gage’s eyes lit with comprehension and wonder. “Is that . . . ?”

  “Yes.”

  The smile that transformed his face was one of such indescribable joy that a lump formed in my throat. The baby kicked two more times, each time making him beam even brighter. When the child settled, he leaned over to kiss me. “I’m certain I don’t say this enough, but you astound and amaze me.”

  My heart did a little flip. “No more than you do me.”

  The light in his eyes turned playful. “Perhaps we should put that on our calling cards. Astounding and amazing, at your service.”

  I giggled. “Yes, but then there would be no telling what sorts of inquiries would come our way.”

  “True.” He tipped me back on the sofa, hovering over me as his voice deepened. “And I believe I prefer to keep a large portion of that astounding and amazing to myself.”

  I lifted my hand with a flourish before jauntily declaring, “At your service.”

  His eyes glittered with laughter as he put that offer to good use.

  Later, I would wish I hadn’t jested so about our astonishing abilities. For it would require all of our considerable talents for detection and more to solve the crime that befell our hosts on Twelfth Night. And a healthy dos
e of good fortune for us to escape with our lives.

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  While all of the Lady Darby novels are based in historical fact, some rely more heavily on the historical record than others. The plot of An Artless Demise is profoundly indebted to actual history.

  When I first began writing the Lady Darby series, the plot of this novel was already percolating at the back of my mind. Given the backstory I’d fashioned for Kiera, and the fact that I knew the London Burkers were arrested in November 1831, I knew she just had to be present in London for the inquest and trial, and that there was no way she could pass through it unscathed. However, I did not realize how intriguing the entire inquest into the Italian Boy was until I dived deep down the rabbit hole researching it.

  It’s a fascinating case study, and extraordinarily revealing of the state of London and, indeed, all of Britain at this moment in history. All that I’ve included about the inquest, the trial, the execution, the resurrectionists and how they operated, the public’s reaction to the case, the life of Italian Boys, the Reform Bill, the Anatomy Bill, and the people involved with those circumstances are based on historical record. The bodysnatchers who blackmailed Kiera are also real historical figures. But the people and events surrounding the Mayfair murders are fictional, though polite society was not immune to the fear that burkers walked their streets.

  For anyone interested in learning more about the London Burkers, I highly recommend The Italian Boy by Sarah Wise, which is an intriguing and easily accessible read and was an invaluable resource for me.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Anna Lee Huber is the Daphne Award-winning author of the national bestselling Lady Darby Mysteries and the Verity Kent Mysteries. She is a summa cum laude graduate of Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she majored in music and minored in psychology. She currently resides with her family and is hard at work on her next novel.

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