The Apothecary's Curse

by Barbara Barnett

  “I do not know, my lord. I always try to use the sharpest blades; I do not wish to torture, but merely study this one’s unique regenerative properties. I am, after all, a scientist, not a sadist.”

  “But are you not curious? Can you know for certain, for example, that a dull blade would not be more humane?”

  Gaelan looked from Handley to Braithwaite in terror; the question was ridiculous, but he knew Handley would embrace the idea as soon as he heard the gold coins clink in his greedy fist.

  Handley retrieved a knife from a cloth wrapper, and Gaelan flinched. It was old and rusted, filthy with blood and dried gore—probably his own. He sucked in a breath, waiting for the blade’s disease-ridden teeth to bite into him. What would it be this time? His arm? The soft tissue of his neck? His leg—the challenge of tough muscle and sinew? He would not scream. He would not give them the satisfaction of hearing him keen and beg for mercy.

  “Look at that, Lord Braithwaite! See?” Handley sniveled. “The man barely flinches—truly astonishing.” No miracle there—the magic of Handley’s special morphine preparation numbed him from all but the vaguest awareness.

  Then even the dimmest recognition of his surroundings had mercifully dissipated into a sieve of nothingness, and long before the blade had sliced through his quadriceps muscle and down to the femur. And now he had only to live through the aftermath.

  Gaelan removed his hand from the wound; the bleeding had stopped. However his physiology repaired itself—he’d never understood it—seemed quite backward to him. The wound was nearly closed, yet the pain in his leg would endure for days as the muscle and other tissues slowly regenerated.

  If only he would go mad, lose his mind, then he would no longer possess the capacity to care. But his accursed mind remained sharp; there would be no reprieve. Each session, Handley stole a bit more of Gaelan’s humanity, small nibbles of his soul, one bite at a time—the snake eating not its own tail, but consuming one humble apothecary. And as he stared ahead into the abyss that had become his home, Gaelan knew that somewhere, Simon Bell was laughing.

  The midafternoon July sunshine flooded into the haze of Bailey’s Pub. Simon Bell sat alone, contemplating the way the light sparkled like small stars in the amber of his ale. It was a diversion between pints number three and four. In November, it would be five years since Sophie’s passing, and Bailey’s was now home and hearth—away from the denunciation of ancestral portraits, the compassionate tongue-clucking of James, his mother’s (and Mrs. McRory’s) incessant doting.

  Simon looked through the plate glass, shielding his eyes against the glare of the sun. He’d counted the months by progress on the railway trestle just across the street. Nearly done now, it was an apiary of activity, a Tower of Babel in the midst of London.

  The steady clank of iron mallet upon iron spike, the dull thud of timber falling into place, the spit and spark as metal melted and melded into a filigree crisscross of iron and wood.

  He felt it before he heard it: a deep rumble that shook the pub like an earthquake. His ale shivered in the confines of its glass. Then, an otherworldly shriek—a horrifying, thunderous keening like a thousand demons arising as one from the graveyard, the grinding of metal upon metal.

  Hands on his ears to stifle the horrifying clamor, Simon gawked through the window as a cascade of metal and wood bent and twisted before him as it bowed to the cobblestones below. The trestle bobbed and swayed at an absurd angle just above the pavement—at once sickening and fantastical. Then the entire street seemed to freeze in place as onlookers took in the scene in stunned silence until all at once, everyone began moving again, descending upon the maelstrom.

  His pint abandoned, Simon joined the gentlemen and workers, ruffians and merchants, boys and men racing to pull the injured from beneath the gargantuan iron structure before it collapsed entirely. He wandered toward the heart of the wreckage, wading through the dead and maimed. Limbs without bodies emerged from beneath the rubble, askew and unnatural.

  He had just pulled to safety a third man, examining him for signs of life, when another low rumble moaned through Simon’s bones as the trestle shuddered once again, an iron dragon spewing green and orange sparks. And then, just above him, the entire structure gave way. From somewhere in the distance came the terrible snap and crush of bone, the tearing of flesh, Simon only vaguely aware it was his.

  Just as Simon uttered a final entreaty for a quick end, the universe complied and there was nothing but blackness—no pain, no feeling at all. Sophie’s voice called out to him, seeking him in the darkness.

  But he could not reach out to her. Frantic, he shouted for her as she faded into the distance.

  No! Wait! I’m here, darling. I’m coming; wait for me!

  But she was gone.

  LONDON, 1842

  CHAPTER 23

  Light. The sensation warm on his skin, too bright, orange flares behind his eyelids. Simon squinted into the glare, daring himself to look, expectant, ready for the acknowledgement of his death. But before him stood neither angels nor his beloved Sophie, but James’s anxious countenance. Inexplicably, Simon was not dead.

  “Simon?”

  Testy. James’s voice was definitely testy, ready to pounce upon Simon’s first word. He’d not the stomach for it, not yet.

  James was saying something, and Simon strained to hear, but his voice was drowned out by the thundering tons of wooden beams he yet heard in his ears. Then sleep pulled him under again.

  Lacerating pain finally woke him as that moment beneath the trestle returned, obscuring all else from his vision. Glass and metal and wood splinters, gargantuan matchsticks slicing through him like fresh-churned butter. The burn of sparks and the sweet, sticky odor of spilled creosote robbed him of breath. He gagged on it, forcing himself upright—not a good idea.

  Simon glanced about him, seeing not the wreckage of the collapsed trestle, but his own bedroom and James standing over him.

  “Simon! Thank God! We thought we’d lost you!”

  Simon allowed himself to sink back into the pillows, a sigh escaping his lips. Nothing made a whit of sense.

  “You might have been killed, you know.”

  Simon remained mute as his faculties returned. He was not especially inclined to hear James’s inevitable discourse on self-destructiveness. “I was attempting to help. I—”

  “The constable said you ran into danger recklessly over and over again, as if you cared not a fig for your own life.”

  Simon rallied; James’s hectoring was adequate incentive. “To some, that might sound rather heroic. You make it sound as if it was a death wish—”

  “Am I wrong, then? It would not be the first time these past four years you have tried to do yourself harm.”

  James sat heavily in the bedside rocking chair, his top hat placed on the table. Simon had no good retort, but he resented James’s constant interference . . . had done since Sophie died.

  James removed a handkerchief from his breast pocket, dabbing sweat from his bald pate. “Your mother—everyone, dear boy—was worried sick days on end. It is miraculous that you recovered. Beyond. You’ve nary a scratch left upon you. How is that possible?”

  Simon shook his head slowly. “Bad luck, perchance,” he replied sourly.

  James glared, fingers nervously drumming his ample thighs. He leaned forward, his voice a menacing whisper. “Now, I’ll have none of that! Careful, my dear cousin, or you’ll end up one of Francis Handley’s guinea pigs, eh!”

  Still dazed, wrapped in a laudanum fog, Simon could not conjure a face to that name. “Who?”

  “Handley . . . Bedlam’s mad doctor, of course! Tell me you’ve never heard of him! Perhaps your head is yet addled. A regular sideshow he has going there, with his ‘anatomic experimentation.’ But all quite discreet, and only for the most affluent men of a certain character. Of course, I’ve no patience for that balderdash, and if I had a say, I’d put a stop to the entire thing. Gives medicine a bad name.”
/>   A flash of memory grazed the periphery of Simon’s thoughts, so real, he flinched at the image: a rusty iron beam falling toward him. He blinked, and it vanished, leaving him pale and shaking. He sucked in a breath, letting it out slowly.

  “Are you all right, Simon?”

  “Yes. I . . .” The full weight of events began to bear down. He should be dead. “How many died, James?” Simon asked weakly.

  James gazed at the floor a long while.

  “How many?”

  James looked up, and his eyes were red and moist, bearing the truth. “Twenty-seven were pulled from beneath the trestle. All but you, dead.”

  A long silence hung between them. Simon knew that no matter what he might say, James would assume it was intentional, that Simon meant more to do himself harm than to rescue men from a crumbling construction site. And that was a lie, wasn’t it?

  “It has been nearly five years, Simon! Five years! Six suicide attempts you’ve made, and I won’t even mention that you’ve given up your medical practice entirely to drink yourself to an early grave. You do realize that you risk being sent again to the sanatorium?”

  Simon sickened at the thought. Three times Lady Elizabeth had shipped him away to Peck’s Seaside Sanatorium in Blackpool, where he spent weeks at a time to “regain his health,” entombed in an opium cocoon.

  “Well, you have mentioned it, and I aver, as always, it is none of your bloody business, nor my mother’s. You are my cousin, not my keeper.”

  “I am your physician, and I’ve made a promise to Lady Elizabeth to look after you—”

  “My God, James! Will you listen to yourself? I am five and thirty. I do not need you to look after me! Please go. My head throbs, and my body feels—”

  “You’ve barely a scratch on you, cousin. And you are damned lucky. How you managed to escape with nary . . .” James shook his head, regarding him with confusion etched in his expression. “Quite astonishing.”

  “I ask you, please leave me be.”

  James started to go, but stopped, and, instead, dragged a heavy chair to Simon’s bedside. “So, you’ve really not heard of Francis Handley and his amazing indestructible man?” James chuckled. “Perhaps the tale will improve your spirits with its outlandishness, especially where it concerns your buffoon of a brother-in-law. Really, my dear cousin! It’s all the talk of London medical society. That puffed-up mad doctor believes himself to be some sort of Charles Darwin. Better than Darwin! The very idea . . . and with a human subject!”

  “To speak true, James, I’ve no idea what you are talking about. Enlighten me, would you? Especially if it might brighten my mood.” Simon sat up, and the room swam. He sank back into the down pillows.

  “And what does my esteemed brother-in-law have to do with Bedlam? Braithwaite is a ridiculous coxcomb, marquess or not, and still I cannot believe my sister married him. I do not care how large his fortune, or how many tenants reside on his estate. Doubtless, whatever he’s gotten himself involved with is without value to me or anyone else. But do go on. Amuse me, cousin!”

  “Well, to hear Lord Braithwaite tell it, Handley has locked up in his chamber of horrors a man whose wounds magically disappear—in moments, mind you!” James laughed loudly. “No matter what is done to him—no matter what! Again, ’tis only a story, and you know with whom it originates, but apparently,” James said, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “this Bedlam inmate was transported from Newgate several years back. And . . . and that Lord Braithwaite has paid Handley a handsome fortune to discover the wretch’s trick.”

  “Ha! An indestructible man! You have indeed lifted my spirits, cousin.” Simon shook his head in disbelief, dissolving into peals of laughter.

  “Mind you, don’t laugh so hard you relapse into unconsciousness, Simon!” James shrugged. “Of course, I believe not a quarter of what he has to say about anything. But your recovery, Simon, never mind Handley’s so-called discovery, is truly a medical phenomenon—and genuine, not the tale of an ignoramus with far too much gold to waste on trifles.”

  “Far too much gold to waste on my sister, who evidently quite likes trifles. She must, or she would never have married the fool!”

  “Well, cousin, now I have seen you are finally back with the living, I must be off. I shall stop by tomorrow.” James shook his head, regarding his cousin a last time from the threshold. “I daresay, you must not have been as badly injured as you appeared; the lacerations are healed, and however broken your body seemed to me, it must have been mere sprains and contusions. Quite amazing.”

  Simon paid heed to James’s heavy footfalls on the stairs. He gasped as before him the memory again unfolded: the deafening crash of iron, the trestle hurtling toward him, an out-of-control coach. He shivered, wondering if ever he would be free of it.

  CHAPTER 24

  A week later and Simon felt right enough for a short stroll. He walked the path in Regent’s Park, glimpsing with envy couples arm in arm, children at play—a world apart from his gloom. The flowers in full bloom would have five years ago brought a smile to his face as he listened to Sophie recite genus and species while waxing rhapsodic on color and perfume, but they now only served to further dishearten him.

  Weary from the walk, he sat on a bench and took a long draught from the flask hidden beneath his frock coat. It failed to extinguish the depression, as did the second, and the third, but then she appeared, a vision. Dressed as she had been then, Boxing Day 1836, the last time he knew joy. . . .

  Sophie’s sapphire gown had cascaded behind her, velvet and satin butterfly wings lending her flight as she’d glided down the thick burgundy carpet of their winding staircase and into his embrace. Her hair done up, captured in a diamond tiara, she looked every bit the fairy queen. It was her birthday, and Simon had promised her the opera—La Donna del Lago.

  “John will bring round the cabriolet in no more than fifteen minutes, Simon, so make haste and wash the hospital from your skin; you stink of it. Your clothes are laid out for you.”

  He leaned in to kiss her.

  “No, Simon!” She laughed, slapping his hand away. “After you’ve changed! I shall not miss a moment of this night, and if I do, I shall never forgive you.”

  Simon brought his hand to his heart in feigned pain. “You wound me, you cruel, cruel lass.”

  “I will not soften. Now go!” She giggled.

  He bounded down the stairs ten minutes later, letting Sophie perfect the knot of his cravat. “Better.” She smiled, pecking him on the cheek and handing him his hat and cloak. “Lavender and rosewater are so much more pleasing than the scent of sickness and death, my love. Much better! You may now kiss me properly.”

  And later, drenched in the sweet romance of Sir Walter Scott and fine champagne, Simon undid the pins that held up Sophie’s hair, allowing it to fall through his fingers and down her back in long, dark tendrils. “Brush it for me, Simon! You do such a fine job with your physician’s hands.”

  “Your wish, my love, is mine to indulge.” Every stroke of the soft bristles through her thick curls aroused within him the desire to take her immediately. His other hand followed its own course down the back of her neck, her shoulders, and lower still. Simon delighted as her pupils darkened with a need matching his own, until the brush was forgotten on the floor along with their clothing and they fell upon each other. It was many hours until they slept, quenched and content in each other’s embrace.

  Morning spilled light into the bedchamber. Simon awoke first, and propping up his head, he watched the sunbeams dance over her naked curves. He replayed the night and its ecstasies as he traced the beams with his finger—a game—hovering inches from her—not touching, but so very close. Would it awaken her? Would she sense his near touch by some preternatural connection that required no direct contact? He tested the theory . . . and his ebbing resolve not to touch her. He was riveted to the deft movement of his fingers so very close to her skin.

  Sophie stirred, and he pulled back, wai
ting to see if she might yet be asleep; he was enjoying this far too much to wake her. If she awoke, she would certainly draw the bedcovers close about her.

  “Simon? Whatever are you doing?”

  He had the decency to be embarrassed. “Nothing, my love, go back to sleep,” he whispered close into her ear. But now he was not so certain he wanted her back to slumber. Rather . . . he paused, flicking his tongue around the shell of her ear.

  “Simon!” She was now fully awakened and turned into his arms. “You say you wish me to fall back asleep, yet you seduce me, you pirate!”

  “Pirate?”

  “You plunder from me my well-earned sleep, and you steal from me my maidenhead. If that not be a pirate, sir—!”

  Ah, he thought. She has her own game in mind. “And what of you?” he protested. “You lie there, bedcovers askew, and not a thread of clothing to hide your curves. And, incidentally, you’ve not had possession of your maidenhead since I stole it from you ten years past. You, my love, are the seducer, not I!”

  “Indeed? Then let me at my work, sir!” She climbed astride him—her lustiness, he’d long ago learned, matched her wit and intelligence. She rode him as she rode her white steed, not ladylike at all, but full astride and relentless. But he was ready for her and rampant as if he hadn’t had her for weeks, not hours.

  “My love, slow down, I beg of you. I shall not last—”

  “Shush!” she called out, dipping her head to capture his mouth, his tongue, biting hard on his lower lip as she dissolved into wave after wave, gripping ever harder until he followed her over the brink, spent.

  Sophie rolled to her side, tucking her head into the crook of Simon’s neck, nipping at him still, surely leaving her mark just beneath his jaw. “I love you, my darling Sophia, with all my soul, as I have from the day I first beheld you.”