A Corruption of Blood

by Ambrose Parry

  He stood before them, bristling, his hands balled into fists by his side.

  ‘And do not speak of patronage or currying favour,’ he continued, ‘nor saddle up your high horse to look down on me. Perhaps you should ask your future father-in-law, Dr Todd, what principles he has swallowed to retain that same patronage.’

  He leaned in, eye to eye with Raven.

  ‘You should ask him what he knows about the night Lady Douglas died.’

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  hey made their way back down Fleshmarket Close, the rain making streams of the gutters, washing away the worst of the filth from the narrow passageway. As a consequence, the overwhelming smell of urine that usually pervaded the place was mercifully absent.

  ‘Do you really think Mansfield did it?’ Sarah asked, clearly sceptical of the notion herself.

  ‘Probably not,’ Raven conceded. ‘I think Dymock is right when he said that Mansfield was searching for the letters when I saw him. It is less of an assumption than murder.’

  ‘The explanation that makes the fewest assumptions is usually the correct one,’ Sarah said. ‘So said William of Ockham. That applies to murder as well as to medicine.’

  Raven knew she was right. Gideon was still the most likely culprit. He wondered again if it was his obligation to Eugenie that had him chasing phantoms. Though Mansfield had a motive, that alone was not enough, and the case against Teddy was thinner still. As for the staff at Crossford House being involved, there was nothing to support it save the butler’s over-exuberant clearing away of a supper tray in the interest of protecting his colleagues.

  ‘What now?’ he asked. ‘Home to Queen Street?’

  ‘Or perhaps we could take a little detour. I have a notion where else I could make some enquiries in my search for Christina’s baby.’

  ‘Where might that be?’

  ‘You’re not going to like it.’

  He looked at her and smiled. ‘Now I really am intrigued. Tell me.’

  ‘Well, as Christina refuses to tell me any more than she already has, it occurred to me that Lizzie came to us via the Lock Hospital too. I asked her what she knew about her colleague and their previous shared profession.’

  ‘You are a brave woman, Sarah Fisher. I would never be so courageous as to broach such a subject with Lizzie. What did she tell you?’

  ‘She refers to Christina as “Teardrop”.’

  Raven laughed. ‘She’s the soul of warmth and tenderness, that girl. I am constantly surprised when I remember that she was a prostitute. She must have put the fear of God into her clients.’

  ‘Maybe there are those who like that.’

  ‘No doubt. I’d sooner bed her than fight her, I know that much.’

  ‘I suspect there’d be little difference between the two.’

  This caused Raven to laugh again. Really laugh. He could not recall doing so for some time.

  ‘Lizzie said Christina did not work on the street, as she had herself. She plied her trade at an establishment called the House of Melbourne. It caters for refined tastes, apparently, and Christina with her exotic looks was a good fit.’

  ‘There is something Continental about her features,’ Raven agreed.

  ‘According to Lizzie, Christina’s mother was from Leith. She said it as though that was of significance, but I must confess I failed to grasp it.’

  ‘She was implying that Christina’s father was a sailor from foreign climes. One who did not tarry long.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Anyway, that’s where I plan to go next.’

  ‘Leith?’

  ‘No. The House of Melbourne.’

  ‘Are you quite sure you wish to set foot in such a place?’

  ‘Why do you ask? Do you think me too fragile? That sal volatile will be required?’

  He saw the intensity of her expression, ready to leap upon what he might say next.

  ‘I doubt that the salts will be necessary,’ he answered. ‘You’re about as likely to faint as I am.’

  She smiled but Raven tensed, suddenly aware of footsteps behind. He turned just in time to see a figure bearing down on them, a neckerchief pulled up around his face and a hat worn low over his forehead. Only his eyes were visible. There was a glint of silver against the swirling black of his coat. He was gripping a bayonet.

  That flash of awareness in Raven saved him. He ducked and shifted just in time. Almost just in time. The thrust at his back would likely have penetrated to his chest. Instead it glanced off his shoulder. As he dodged and spun, the assailant’s momentum took him forward, past them. The man tripped and skidded on the wet stone, unbalanced by his thrust, but he was soon righted again, coming at Raven once more. He could see the bayonet clearly, its edges finely sharpened as it tapered to a deadly point.

  This time Raven had a moment to prepare. Putting himself between the attacker and Sarah, he rapidly hauled off his jacket and wrapped it around his right arm. As the man lunged and thrust again, he used the garment as a shield to deflect the blow, though it proved a more porous shield than he would have liked.

  With his left hand he grabbed for the hilt. Pain was beginning to sting somewhere around his shoulder and his forearm, but he knew he could not afford to let go. It was one hand wrestling against his opponent’s two, but with so much of his efforts fixed upon retaining his weapon, the man was leaving himself unguarded in other ways. Not a practised fighter, Raven sensed.

  Without releasing his grip on the weapon, Raven turned and raked a heel down his attacker’s shin, crunching into his instep with all of his weight.

  The man grunted, suppressing a howl of agony. His grip loosened and his weapon clattered to the ground. The instant he realised the fight was lost, he hobbled away as fast as his injured foot would allow him, his descent hastened by his tumbling down the stairs at the end of the passageway.

  Raven was about to pursue but was stayed by Sarah gripping his hand.

  ‘I should go after him! I can catch him.’

  She pointed out that he was bleeding from wounds on his shoulder and forearm, angry red blotches blossoming with frightening rapidity on the sleeve of his shirt. Sarah was visibly shaking but seemed primarily focused on him.

  ‘We need to get you back to Queen Street.’

  He nodded his assent and they made their way down the stairs together, each leaning on the other for support.

  ‘Do you think this has anything to do with Mansfield and the accusations we made?’ she asked.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘You had just pressed his brother-in-law on the matter, and now we are attacked. Almost as soon as we leave his office an attempt is made on your life.’

  ‘It would surely take a little time to organise such a thing. Unless Dymock keeps a man in a back room just waiting for such an instruction. Anyway, I don’t think you can assume he was trying to kill me.’

  ‘What do you think he meant to do with the bayonet? Cut you for a stone?’

  ‘No. What I meant was, how do you know he wasn’t trying to kill you?’

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  ngus drove them back to Queen Street with all haste, leaping down from his seat to assist Sarah in getting Raven to the door. This was over the latter’s protestations.

  ‘It’s nothing serious,’ Raven insisted.

  ‘The state of the seat would indicate otherwise,’ Angus responded.

  ‘Vinegar will prevent it leaving a stain,’ Sarah told him, opening the front door.

  ‘Is that a nurse’s tip?’ he asked.

  ‘No, a housemaid’s.’

  There was an echo about the hall, the house unusually quiet. All the family were from home, the whereabouts of the staff unknown. Sarah led Raven towards the stairs.

  ‘What about the consulting room?’

  ‘You will be more comfortable in your own bed,’ she said. ‘I’ll fetch what I need. You will have to rest for a while once I’m done.’

  Raven scoffed. ‘I’m not that badly injured.’

/>   ‘You’ve already bled quite a bit.’

  She tried to help him up the stairs.

  ‘It looks worse than it feels,’ he insisted.

  Sarah was not convinced. He had developed a distinct pallor on the journey back and his hand as it gripped the banister was smeared with blood.

  He made it to the bedroom where he collapsed onto the bed. Sarah left him there as she ran downstairs again to amass all that she required to deal with his wounds: lint, dressings, sutures.

  She returned to find him exactly where she had left him. He had not moved an inch and his eyes were closed.

  ‘Will?’

  He opened one eye. ‘Still here,’ he said, and smiled.

  She wrestled him out of his coat and bloodied shirt, Raven groaning as she pulled the latter over his head. She realised she was being a little rough in her haste to see what she was dealing with, how badly he was wounded.

  The laceration on the forearm was deeper than the other. She started with that. She cleaned it carefully then stitched it neatly, relaxing a little as the edges came together and the bleeding stopped.

  ‘If you keep this up, you’re going to start looking like a patchwork quilt,’ she said.

  She expected him to laugh, or smile at least, but when she looked up he was staring at her with an intensity that made her feel suddenly weak.

  She placed a lint dressing on his forearm and applied a bandage, aware of her own breathing in the silence. Short, shallow, rapid.

  Then she began to clean the wound on his shoulder. It was superficial, little cause for concern, but in order to stitch it her head had to come close to his. She became unsettlingly conscious of his physical presence: the heat emanating from his body, the smell of him, the sight of his bare chest. She had to force herself to concentrate, and to blot out his stoic grimaces each time her needle penetrated the skin.

  Sarah remembered the day she first met him. He had turned up at Queen Street looking like he had just been in a fight – which of course he had. He had fresh stitches on his face, his cheek swollen and bruised around them. Sarah had insisted he take a bath and had drawn one for him. She had helped to wash his hair. He had been embarrassed by his nakedness, something she had found amusing at the time. She had been attracted to him even then. She was still attracted to him, perhaps more than ever.

  Sarah stitched the wound, aware of a very slight tremor in her hands. She finished, laid a piece of lint over it and looked up. He was still staring.

  Their heads were mere inches apart, his lips close to hers.

  She should have pulled back. Should have moved away, tidied up, busied herself with some small task. She leaned in further and kissed him.

  She knew she should not. She knew it was wrong. But mostly she knew she wanted this, and would not be denied.

  All other thoughts left her head.

  THIRTY-NINE

  arah dressed quickly, suddenly ashamed as their nakedness had been transformed from a source of comfort and pleasure to something altogether more troubling.

  ‘There is no need to leave,’ Raven said.

  She looked at the carriage clock sitting on the table by Raven’s bed. It was only two o’clock in the afternoon, which seemed impossible. Going to see Dymock, the attack in Fleshmarket Close: these things felt like they had happened a week ago rather than that same morning.

  ‘Someone could return any moment. We can’t be found together like this.’

  Raven lay back, stretching his good arm. ‘If I had known what you meant by resting, I would not have raised any objection.’

  ‘Don’t joke about it,’ Sarah said. ‘What just happened was unforgivable.’

  ‘I can think of harder things to forgive.’

  ‘I had no right to do that.’

  ‘We both did it.’

  Sarah ignored him. She was disinclined to allow Raven to share responsibility for what had happened. She was the one at fault.

  ‘I feel as though I have stolen something: not only from you but from Eugenie.’

  His hand found hers and squeezed. ‘You have taken nothing from me, Sarah. Nothing that I did not wish to give. We have to face the fact that there is something between us, and always has been. I thought my relationship with Eugenie might drive it out, but the latest evidence would indicate otherwise.’

  Sarah pulled her hand away. ‘Why would you wish to drive it out? Am I still not good enough for you? Even now?’

  Raven sat up. He was still bare-chested, which was distracting to say the least. She tossed a clean shirt at him, but he made no move to put it on.

  ‘You are too good for me, Sarah. That is the issue: all that you are, and all that you can be.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She sat down on the bed. When he took her hand again, she did not withdraw it.

  ‘After Archie died, I began to harbour hopes for us,’ he said. ‘I wanted to wait until it was appropriate, but in time I intended to ask you to be my partner, in work and in marriage. I was planning to set up in practice on my own and have you work beside me as my assistant.’

  ‘But you told me none of this.’

  ‘I would have, but then you expressed your intention to travel, to seek out Elizabeth Blackwell, to explore the possibility that you might study medicine.’

  Sarah bit her lip. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I wanted you to be with me, to stay with me, but it would have been selfish, and love cannot be selfish. I loved you too much to stand in your way.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘I have seen you laid low, but I know you are capable of getting up again.’ He squeezed her hand once more. ‘I have never known anyone so bloody-minded. Or so capable. There will be obstacles in your way but nothing that you cannot overcome. It is true that you do not have all of the advantages Elizabeth Blackwell enjoyed, but you are clever and you are resourceful. It will be harder for you, but I have no doubt that you can do it.’

  ‘How did you know? About Elizabeth Blackwell, what she said to me?’

  He smiled at her. ‘I pieced it together.’

  ‘And what about me? Don’t I have any say in all of this?’

  ‘You know how marriage can smother a woman’s ambition. You have said so yourself. I cannot ask you to give it up for me.’

  ‘But what if I want to?’

  ‘I don’t think that you do, and I would not be the one to hold you back. You would resent me for it.’

  It was an uncomfortable truth. She did not like it, but she knew that he was right. Sarah loved him because of what he saw in her. What he made her see in herself. He had been prepared to sacrifice the life they could have had so that she might have the chance of a better one. Of rising higher.

  She knew Will Raven. These were not idle words and his had not been actions lightly undertaken.

  ‘And what about you? Is Eugenie the partner that you seek?’

  He suddenly looked less assured.

  ‘I thought so once but I am no longer so certain.’

  ‘Because of what we have just done? You must forgive yourself, for I was the one who put temptation in your way. The past does not matter if Eugenie is your future.’

  ‘That’s just it. I am not so sure any more.’

  ‘Of your love for her?’

  ‘Of hers for me. I fear she loves Gideon.’

  ‘Gideon?’

  ‘I worry that is why she has asked me to intervene on his behalf. Wilson said he was sent to Tobago because of his involvement with an unsuitable young woman. Dr Todd believes the worst of Gideon, and I think that is why.’

  ‘But Gideon had returned before she chose to marry you.’

  ‘Yes, but what if they were forbidden to each other? Was I her second choice because she could not have Gideon?’

  ‘She can still care for him. She doesn’t want to believe he murdered his father, and nor does she want him to meet the rope. But that doesn’t mean she sees her future with anyone but you.’

 
; Sarah wondered at herself, defending her rival for Raven’s affections.

  ‘But while he is around,’ Raven said, ‘there will always be the question. That is what has me doubting my own judgment over the Ainsley Douglas murder. If I help exonerate Gideon, and we are married, will her mind still turn to him, with thoughts of what could have been? If I fail to save him, will she wonder whether I gave it my all? Will she blame me if he should hang?’

  ‘If you marry her, will you still love me?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you love Eugenie and be a good husband to her while retaining that love for me?’

  ‘I would endeavour to do so. My love for you and my love for her are not the same.’

  ‘Then why would you not believe she can do that too? Marriage is never perfect, Will. God knows I can attest to that. But it’s what you can share, the life you can offer each other and the love you can give that truly matters. If you both have people you love but cannot be with, then at least you should understand each other. It will be a marriage of equals in that respect.’

  Sarah got up from the bed.

  ‘You should go to her. Talk to her. She will listen.’

  ‘What about you?’

  Sarah reached for her coat.

  ‘Appropriately, having just conducted myself as a jezebel, I am bound for a whorehouse.’

  FORTY

  s he strode along Queen Street, Raven was grateful that the rain had abated, for he had seldom been so much in want of air. Then again, he would have gone out in a storm if it helped make sense of what had just happened.

  Once outside and in motion, he was surprised by the clarity of his thoughts. He had expected to feel more confused than ever after what had transpired, but there had been something cathartic not only about what they had done, but the conversation that followed.

  It had pained him to tell Sarah she should pursue ambitions that would take her away from him, but in saying it he was bound by a commitment that lifted the strains of indecision and conflict. Having told her what he had, he could not go back on it, though a part of him might dearly wish to.