by Coleen Kwan
Dedication
To Dad. I miss you every day.
Chapter One
Through the long hours of the night London pitched and groaned, a restless creature in uneasy slumber. A thousand fires flickered across its twitching back. Over rivers and hills it sprawled, swallowing up quiet fields and meadows, an insatiable protean organism powered by a life of its own. To the north, the edge of the city lapped up against ancient hamlets, preparing to overtake them one by one. And just a few miles past, surrounded by winter fields lying fallow, sat a crumbling manor house, its lichened facade bravely and futilely facing the city’s inevitable onslaught. Tonight its peace was broken by a rider galloping up the drive, his horse all afroth, a limp figure clasped in front of him. They slithered to a halt outside the stout oaken door. Still carrying his load, the rider dismounted awkwardly and ran towards the house.
Julian Darke battered his shoulder against the oak door. His arms were fully occupied with the comatose woman, and he dared not set her down. In his agitation he had some strange notion she would disintegrate if he loosened his hold.
“Figgs! Open up,” he bellowed, his lungs burning with the effort. Despite the frigidness of the night, sweat poured down his back, soaking into his shirt and britches. He kicked at the front door with his scuffed boots and cursed like a tar.
On the other side of the oak, heavy feet shuffled, then a key rattled in the lock, and the door finally groaned open. Julian barged in, shoving aside the lumbering manservant.
“Call my father,” Julian ordered. “Rouse him if you must. Quick, man. Don’t just gawp there. Can’t you see this is a dire emergency?”
Not pausing in his stride, he moved down the dimly lit hallway. His shoulder muscles twinged under the weight of the woman in his arms. She couldn’t have weighed much, but he’d held her debilitated form steady on his mount for what had felt like hours, and his limbs shrilled for respite. Not yet, not yet. The peril had not yet passed.
He kicked open the door to his father’s examination room. Despite the darkness he trod surefooted to the table in the centre of the room, where he gingerly lowered his burden onto the surface. Not the faintest sound issued from the bundle of cloak that was the woman he’d carried home. His throat tightened. Surely she hadn’t perished just when he’d brought her to safety?
“Julian? What’s going on?”
He turned to see his father entering the room. Despite the lateness of the hour, Elijah Darke was still fully dressed in suit and waistcoat, reading spectacles perched on the end of his nose, an unlit pipe in his hand.
“This woman needs our help.” Julian gestured towards the figure lying on the table. “She’s gravely injured. She needs both our expertise.”
Pocketing his pipe, Elijah approached the table and turned on the twin lamps suspended above the examining table. Julian let out a small sigh of relief. In a crisis, his father was always clear-headed. He would act first and ask questions later.
“What have we here?” Elijah lifted the stained cloak covering the woman. He froze. “God in heaven! Her face—”
Julian nodded grimly. He had seen her face earlier on and, after a cursory examination, had instinctively hidden it with her cloak.
“Good grief, son, you’re injured too!” His father’s face whitened as he stared at Julian. “You’re covered with blood.” He moved towards Julian and hauled open the lapels of his rumpled coat.
“A few scratches only. Most of the blood is hers.” Impatient, Julian tore off his bloodied coat and dropped it to the floor. “It’s nothing, Father, nothing compared to her wounds.”
His father made a testy growl. “Your injuries need proper seeing to.”
“Later.”
“You cannot assist me in that state. At the very least wash your hands.” Elijah divested himself of his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and scrubbed his hands at a washstand.
Julian hurriedly followed suit, flung on one of his father’s clean aprons and within moments was back at the table. His father had peeled the cloak back from the woman’s body and was bending over her.
“Well?” Julian asked.
His father grunted. “See for yourself.”
For some reason, instead of staring rudely at her exposed face, he found himself reaching for the hood of the cloak and smoothing it back from the woman’s head. A handful of brown curls tumbled out, incongruously bright and clean and fresh against the oozing mess staining everything else. The tang of spilt blood hit the back of his throat, like the taste of pennies. He swallowed hard, aware of his roiling innards. Why was the smell of blood unmanning him like this? Since he was old enough to walk, he’d assisted his father. He had lanced boils, drained suppurating wounds, stitched up gaping cuts, all with nary a wince. And he was a qualified doctor too. He’d dissected corpses, amputated arms and legs, trepanned a number of patients. In all these years he’d never suffered a queasy turn, and yet now his stomach threatened to unman him. Why now? Why did this woman affect him so?
She was a stranger to him; he’d never laid eyes on her before this evening. It must simply be his body protesting, sapped of energy after the tribulations he’d faced tonight. He willed his nerves to steady as he took a proper look at the woman.
Under the harsh, hissing light, the white of her face was crisscrossed with deep gashes, like a peach haphazardly sliced open. Mercifully both eyes appeared intact and unharmed. Congealing blood spattered the front of her dress, the pattern of the faded cotton submerged beneath the sticky mess. A swelling contusion on her right temple indicated the heavy blow which had rendered her insensate.
Elijah lifted up one of the woman’s hands. “What happened here?” His voice was rough with disbelief.
Julian could only shake his head at the bloodied stumps, all that was left of the middle and ring fingers. He had bound his handkerchief as best he could around the hand, but there had been considerable loss of blood, and the fingers had been crudely removed, leaving behind a messy lump of flesh.
“Can we save her hand?” he asked.
“We shall do our best.”
Using a sharp pair of scissors, Elijah began to cut off the woman’s dress in order to complete his examination. As the shears tore through the thin material, the woman moaned. It was no more than a murmur, but it seemed the most blood-curdling sound Julian had ever heard. She squirmed, her flailing arms almost knocking the scissors from Elijah’s hand.
“Hold her down, son,” Elijah barked.
Julian obeyed, but the instant he pressed down on the woman’s shoulders, her eyelids flew open. Two green eyes stared up at him, frozen in a moment of sheer terror. With the glaring lights overhead, he must appear like a dark silhouette looming over her, Julian surmised. And then every thought fled from him as she started to shriek and thrash her limbs, struggling with all her might to free herself.
Elijah exclaimed as the scissors were knocked flying from his grasp.
“Hush now, hush. You’re safe—” Julian tried to comfort the woman, but she only fought harder, her strength surprising him.
She thinks I am her attacker, that monster assaulting her with his knife. The realisation was enough to make him lift his hands away from her. She tried to sit up, but before she could move Elijah darted in and covered her nose and mouth with his chloroform pad. Her muffled screams continued, her eyes above the pad bulging with horror, but moments later her eyelids drooped, and she collapsed back on the table.
Julian smeared the back of his arm across his clammy brow. Silent and shaken, he helped his father remove the remnants of the woman’s dress. Underneath the workaday cotton twill, she wore a chemise and drawers, white and freshly laundered. Over them, a cream-coloured boned corset. Against such neatness, the crimson splashes on her underc
lothes stood out in stark contrast. Elijah snipped away the layers of fabric then examined the patient more closely.
“A number of stab wounds to her shoulders and upper chest,” he said in his dry physician’s voice. “One perilously close to the carotid artery, but nothing as bad as her face and hand. What a frenzied attack. It’s a miracle she survived.”
Julian stood in a daze, the woman’s terrified cries still echoing in his head. The sight of her naked chest stirred not the slightest concupiscence in him, although she had a fine figure, her arms nicely muscled, her breasts high and round and crowned by brown-pink nipples, her stomach smooth and taut. Such a healthy young woman had no business lying on this operating table.
“Julian?” His father’s voice broke through his milling thoughts. “I’ll do what I can for her hand, but first you will have to attend to her face.”
Julian drew in a deep breath. He ought to have anticipated this. In the past few months, his father’s shaking palsy had become more pronounced, and he would not be able to perform the handiwork required on the woman’s face as dexterously as Julian could.
“Very well.” Julian clenched his jaw. A tot of brandy would do wonders for his nerves. On the other hand, he needed all his wits about him if he was to operate on a lady’s face.
He swabbed the raw flesh as gently as he could, glad she was unconscious to the bite of carbolic acid. Cleaned of its sticky red mask, her face emerged, a pale creamy fruit split open. Her nose was small and narrow, her mouth generously curved, her eyebrows arched like delicate moth wings. Thick russet curls framed her neck. She wore no cosmetics or artificial enhancements, no ornaments or ribbons in her hair, two tiny gold earrings her only adornments. Beneath the horrible knife wounds scoring both cheeks, he could yet discern her beauty and natural freshness. It was up to him to repair the desecration of her face. He turned to the tray of instruments and selected a needle. His hand was not quite steady; it took him several attempts to thread the needle. He shut his eyes and fought to clear his mind. Forget what happened earlier. Forget everything except the task at hand.
He opened his eyes and began to stitch.
Some time later—he knew not how much time had passed but his back was aching and his knees were trembling with exhaustion—he dropped his needle for the last time on the tray and heaved a deep sigh.
“Good job, son.” His father clapped him on the shoulder.
Lifting his head, he saw that his father had cleaned the woman’s hand and sutured up the stumps of her fingers.
“I’ve seldom seen such savagery directed at a woman.” Elijah rumbled in disgust as he finished winding a bandage around the woman’s palm. “What kind of monster did this?”
“A ruthless one. He would have killed her if I hadn’t happened along.”
By mutual consent, they both switched their attention to the remaining wounds on the woman’s chest. While his father took care of the neck wound, Julian focussed on the cuts to her left shoulder. Now that he’d worked on her face, her nakedness started to distract and disturb him in ways new to him. Given his age, looks and disposition, he’d had his fair share of paramours and seen plenty of naked female bodies, but this was different. This woman roused strange, uncomfortable feelings in him. He clamped his jaw tight, dismayed by his reactions. The poor woman was his patient. He shouldn’t take prurient pleasure in her nakedness, especially when she was in such a vulnerable state. He bent over his task and tried in vain to block out the image of her firm, round breast so tantalisingly close to his fingers.
“And where did you just ‘happen along’?” Elijah asked abruptly.
Julian blinked. “A deserted dock near the Isle of Dogs,” he answered cautiously, knowing full well what would happen next.
“I see.” A heavy frown creased Elijah’s forehead as he continued to disinfect the woman’s neck. “So, you just happened to be passing a deserted dock near the Isle of Dogs late at night and miles away from home, and you just happened to come across a beast doing unspeakable things to a defenceless woman. Is that it?”
“Father, I—”
“Do you know this woman? Tell me the truth, Julian.”
“No! I’ve never seen her before tonight. I swear.”
“And her attacker?”
“I would recognise him again anywhere. He was unusually big and ungainly, with pockmarks around his eyes.” Julian paused. “I don’t know who he is, but I know who he works for.”
His father expelled a sigh heavy with resignation. “Let me guess. He works for Thaddeus Ormond, and you know this because you’ve been haranguing Sir Thaddeus. Yet again.”
“I’ve not been haranguing Ormond. He refuses to receive me,” Julian protested, bitterness tingeing his voice. “But if I’d not been following him, this poor creature would be dead.”
“How is she connected with Sir Thaddeus?”
“I don’t know. All I can tell you is that I followed Ormond when he left his house this evening.” His plan had been to accost Ormond in public, because he could no longer gain access to him at his Mayfair townhouse, having already been thrown out by Ormond’s sneering footmen. But for the moment he preferred to keep this detail from his father.
“I followed him to a rather mean street near Spitalfields,” Julian continued. “He stopped outside a shabby house and this woman emerged. She appeared quite willing to get into his carriage. I followed them for some while. They came to a halt at a deserted spot, and the woman seemed to fall from the carriage as if she’d been pushed out. Then, a large ruffian suddenly approached and dragged her away. Ormond made no attempt to help her. In fact, he stuck his head out and watched on as the animal threw her into another waiting carriage and sped off. I followed the vehicle, but lost it when we approached the Thames. By the time I found it, the woman was struggling with her attacker. She fought valiantly, but he hit her over the head. She fell to the ground, and no doubt he was going to finish her off before dumping her in the river when I came to her rescue and beat him off.”
“Hmpf.” Elijah grunted. He dressed the last of the woman’s injuries, then wound a bandage around her head to protect the stitches. He beckoned Julian to help him fold a clean sheet around their patient’s body. “That’s all you and I can do for her at present. We’ll let Figgs and Mrs. Tibbet put her to bed upstairs.”
“No, I can carry her up myself—”
“You’ll do no such thing. I must see to your injuries.”
“They’re nothing but scratches. I’ll see to them later myself.”
Elijah’s face turned puce. “I know you’re a strapping lad of four and twenty, but you’re not too old for a good old-fashioned beating if you disobey me.”
Elijah had never so much as raised a finger against Julian. The idea of him administering a beating was ludicrous, but not the slightest bit amusing. Julian sank down in a chair. “Very well, Father,” he said with unusual meekness.
His father summoned the servants and gave them instructions. Figgs gathered up the cocooned woman and left with the housekeeper trotting behind.
“Take off your shirt,” Elijah ordered Julian when they were alone.
Julian silently obeyed. The shirt peeled off reluctantly, sticking to the congealed blood oozing from his cuts. His father grimaced before he set about cleaning and dressing the wounds.
“So you managed to beat off a large assailant armed with a knife?” Elijah said after a few minutes, his tone remaining stiff.
Julian nodded tiredly. Now that the immediate crisis had passed, exhaustion threatened to swamp him, and he was glad to be seated. “Sparring with Gareth has its uses.”
“Indeed, but you were lucky. The man had a sharp knife and a savage temper. Any one of these cuts you sustained could have been fatal.” He jabbed at Julian’s chest with his acid-soaked cleaning pad.
Julian winced. “He was big and vicious, but he fought without discipline. He’ll be nursing a few bruised ribs tonight. I only wish I could have held the cur captive and
forced him to—argh!” He flinched as carbolic acid soaked into a deep cut. “Do have a care with that, Father.”
“You wouldn’t wish to suffer blood poisoning, would you?” Elijah rubbed the pad even harder across an open gash, the merest tremble in his jaw betraying his emotion. “For God’s sake, Julian. When will you leave off this mad pursuit of Ormond?”
Julian gritted his teeth. Carbolic acid he could take, but the raw appeal in his father’s voice was infinitely harder to withstand.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I know I am privileged to call you my father. I know I am being ungrateful and misguided and foolish. I know all these things but…but for the life of me I cannot relinquish my search, not when I’m so close to the truth.”
His father uttered a deep sigh that seemed weighted with decades of melancholy. He screwed shut the bottle of carbolic acid, his hands shaking infinitesimally. At sixty, he was still a handsome, active man, but tonight the creases in his face were sharply accentuated, and he looked every one of his years.
“What is the truth? All I know is that I found you on my doorstep twenty-four years ago, and throughout those years you have been my true son, my only son. That is all I know, and that is all that matters to me. I wish it were so for you too.”
The simplicity of these quiet words pierced him. Elijah was right. They were father and son in everything but blood. That’s what mattered, that should be enough. It was enough. He didn’t want any other father but Elijah. But…but…rational reasoning was no match for illogical yearning. Who was he? Where did he come from? Why was he abandoned? All questions Thaddeus Ormond knew the answers to, he was convinced.
“I only wish to talk to Ormond,” Julian said.
Shaking his head, Elijah wound bandage tape around Julian’s chest. He remained silent, but his grim expression spoke volumes. Finally he said gruffly, “Sir Thaddeus is an arrogant nobody puffed up on his lineage and not much else. Do you honestly wish to be associated with such a family, regardless of how illustrious their pedigree might be?”
Why did Elijah always have to sound so right? And why did that merely make him more stubborn?