Chapter 29
And she had to admit that she was a little bit nervous how that tulip would react to her meeting with Bear.
The relief that rushed through her was almost embarrassing when she returned home and learned that Alec hadn’t yet arrived.
She had every right to pursue the investigation as she saw fit.
And how many criminals had she pumped for information in the twenty-first century?
If Alec didn’t understand that . . . well, she’d deal with it.
And she’d have to deal with it. The servants clearly already knew about her errand. She could see it in Wakely’s face, although he’d never question her about her decision to send Coachman John home without her. But that didn’t mean they didn’t talk.
Needing a jolt of caffeine to shake off the afternoon slump, Kendra ordered coffee for the library. Ten minutes later, she was drinking it while she considered the Metamorphosis Club.
Metamorphosis meant change, transformation.
Its members believed that science and medicine needed to evolve.
Most were satisfied to keep their ideas to the theoretical realm, gathering to puff on cigars, drink brandy, and discuss possibilities.
What if at least one member wasn’t content to simply talk about what could be done?
It wasn’t too much of a stretch to think they’d transformed talk into real-life research, using human beings as guinea pigs.
She knew what it was like to be a guinea pig.
She took a swallow of coffee and forced herself to consider Clarice. She hadn’t been snatched off the streets. She’d volunteered for the experimental treatment. Why wouldn’t she? People trusted doctors. And she had a fatal disease. What did she have to lose?
Nothing, except her life.
Syphilis would eventually kill her, but a person could live with the disease for years, even decades. The killer had robbed her of that time.
The killer . . . or killers? Kendra had to consider the possibility that more than one member of the Metamorphosis Club was involved.
“Once again, I find my wife in fierce concentration.”
Kendra didn’t exactly jump, but she certainly started and spun around to find her husband walking toward her.
“You remind me of Duke when he’s in his laboratory,” Alec went on, taking the cup out of her hand and stealing a sip. “Care to tell me what you did this afternoon?”
Kendra searched his face, but it was unreadable. “You first. What was the business venture that His Grace wanted you to look at?”
He didn’t answer immediately as he strolled to the sideboard. “Intriguing,” he finally said, topping off her cup with fresh coffee from the pot. “Mr. Ronalds has a new invention that uses iron wire to conduct electrical signals. He actually managed to send a signal eight miles away.”
“Wow. A whole eight miles?”
He grinned, handing her the coffee cup. “Minx. Whilst such technologies seem archaic to you, I can assure you, it is quite innovative. Mr. Ronalds is trying to drum up support for his invention, especially after Mr. Barrows dismissed it as frivolous.”
“I see. Who is Mr. Barrows?”
“Second Secretary of the Admiralty. Mr. Ronalds believes we can free ourselves from pen, paper, and post by sending communications electrically instead.”
“Morse code,” Kendra murmured, and then her eyes widened. “Are you talking about Sir Francis Ronalds?”
Alec studied her. “Fascinating. He hasn’t been knighted—yet, apparently. You’ve heard of him then? In your America?”
“Well, he’s not exactly a household name,” she admitted. “I took a few engineering courses when I was at Princeton, and there was a debate over whether Sir Francis Ronalds should be considered the first electrical engineer.”
She sucked in a breath, suddenly feeling unsteady, and moved to the desk to set down her cup. “It’s so weird. Sometimes I feel like I’m living two lives,” she whispered, “one overlapping the other.”
Alec came to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “No,” he said when their eyes met. “You’re living one life, Kendra. This life, with me. The other is just memories.”
“Memories of things to come.”
He rubbed her shoulders. “I can understand how your unique experience may be distracting at times.”
She laughed, but there was no amusement in the sound. “It’s damn distracting. You just viewed an experiment that will eventually lead to technologies that I use—I once used—in my daily life. It’s . . .”
“Weird,” he finished for her.
For some reason that made her laugh, and this time the laughter was genuine. “Yes. It is. And it’s very short-sighted of your Mr. Barrows to reject it. I wonder how much more advanced the world would have been if England had financed the project?”
“Based on what little you’ve told me about the innovations in your America, I’d say civilization hasn’t suffered unduly by having to wait. My uncle is interested in investing in Mr. Ronalds’ invention.”
She bit her lip with worry. “Don’t do it because of what I just told you. As far as I know, this experiment will fail and his investors will lose all their money until he finally strikes it rich decades from now.”
“All investments are a gamble, Kendra. There was no guarantee when Duke and I invested in Richard Trevithick’s steam engine or countless canal projects in the last decade that they’d be successful.
” He smiled at her. “Don’t worry, sweetheart.
We shan’t be punting on the River Thames anytime soon.
Most of our investments are in our estates, the land, from which we derive a steady profit—although this summer has been so cold that the harvest has been bloody miserable.
” He skimmed his fingers down her arms in one, long caress.
“Now, if you tell me that they’ve invented a machine to control the weather . . .”
She gave a quick laugh. “Not in my time. Nothing like the weather to make human beings feel powerless.”
“Very true.” He released her to pour himself a brandy at the sideboard, then glanced at her over his shoulder, one dark eyebrow lifting. “Well, I’ve told you how I spent my afternoon. Do you want to tell me why you disappeared after the postmortem, only to return home in a hired hackney?”
She hunched her shoulders in a defensive posture. “Wakely’s a tattletale.”
“Actually, Ramsey told me. Was it your intent to keep it a secret from me?”
She blew out a breath. “No.”
“Well, then . . .”
“You know that you married a woman who is smart and capable and very good at her job, right?”
“I count my blessings for it every day.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Do I hear sarcasm?”
“Are you stalling?”
“Okay, okay. I went to talk to Bear.” Despite her best efforts, the words came out in a rush. She kept her gaze on Alec’s impassive face. “He might hear talk on the street about the disappearances of actresses or sex workers. Or if there’s buzz about someone claiming to have a cure for syphilis.”
“Bear,” was all he said, without any inflection.
“I need information, Alec.” She gestured to the slate board. “I can’t afford to turn down any resource, and Bear is a valuable one.”
“He’s a bloody criminal.”
“Well, yeah. I’ve dealt with criminals before, you know. It’s standard procedure. Work with a smaller fish to catch the bigger fish.”
“Bear is the bigger fish.”
“If my goal was to take down his criminal enterprise, yeah, he would be. But I’m not interested in him or what he does. I’m looking for a murderer, Alec. And I need answers.”
“Why do you think that man can provide you with answers?”
She took a moment to consider her answer. “Your world has a class system—”
He paused in taking a sip of his brandy. “And yours doesn’t?”
“It absolutely does. But people can move more easily between the classes. Here, it’s more rigid, and I need to be able to go to every level, to question everyone.
Bear knows what’s happening on the street, in the rookeries and flash houses.
He knows things that you or the Duke won’t hear in your clubs, and that I can’t learn from Lady St. James or even Lady Harrington. ”
She walked over to him and captured his free hand, lacing their fingers together as she met his eyes. “I’ve dealt with a lot of Bears in my life, Alec. You need to trust me to do my job, to be able to handle myself.”
She waited for what seemed like an eternity. She couldn’t read his expression.
“I do trust you,” he finally said.
“Good.”
“I also think that Mr. Kelly could have spoken to Bear. You didn’t have to do it.”
“Alec—”
“And you don’t trust me.”
She jerked back. “That’s crazy! Of course, I trust you.”
“You don’t, otherwise you would have confided in me what you planned to do. Instead, you snuck away from the anatomy school and sent Coachman John home without giving him an explanation.”
She said nothing for a beat, then, “Point taken. But it’s not because I don’t trust you.
I didn’t trust your coachman to take me where I needed to go.
I didn’t want the argument. But I promise you that I didn’t do it with the intention of hiding it from you.
” She searched his eyes. “Do you believe me?”
He brought their laced hands up and brushed a kiss along her knuckles. “I believe you.” He gave her a crooked smile. “I always knew that marriage to a woman from the future wasn’t going to be easy.”
Kendra slowly released her breath. Marriage, she decided, was a mysterious landscape, with continually shifting boundaries.
He said, “Promise me, though, that in the future, you will use our carriage, not a public hackney, when you go about town. No sense spending money on public transportation when you’ve a perfectly good carriage at your disposal.”
She gave him a pointed look. “And a coachman with a blunderbuss at his disposal.”
“Does he? Why, yes, I believe he does.”
Kendra laughed, then sobered instantly, fixing her gaze on his. “Are we good?”
“We’re better than good, my love.” He leaned down and kissed her. “By the by, the inquest is tomorrow morning at nine. As I discovered the body, I’ll need to testify.”
“We discovered the body.”
“Yes, but since we were together, you aren’t required to attend. The magistrate is no doubt protecting your ladylike sensibilities.” He grinned at her and gave her another kiss, slower this time. She tasted the brandy on his tongue.
“He doesn’t realize you are a ferocious creature,” he added when he released her.
Her chin jerked up. “I’m going.”
“I had no reason to think otherwise. Did you learn anything from the postmortem?”
Maybe because she’d expected more of an argument, she had to take a moment to recalibrate. “Thornton’s and Jenny’s throats were cut using a scalpel.”
He threw her a startled look. “Well, that certainly supports your hypothesis that a physician or surgeon is responsible. Unless that’s the fiend’s intention.”
Kendra had to grin. “You’ve got a very suspicious mind, my lord. I like it.”
He chuckled. “But you don’t believe the fiend was trying to deceive authorities?”
“No. There were no hesitation marks. Who uses a scalpel with such comfort, such confidence and ease, that they can slice through flesh and muscle on the first try?”
“I imagine that’s a rhetorical question, but I’ll say it—a surgeon.”
“Oh, yeah.”
Kendra ran through her theory that they were dealing with a rogue doctor—or doctors. When she was done, Alec eyed her over the rim of his glass. “You believe we’re dealing with more than one killer?”
“Not necessarily,” she said slowly. “I’m talking about the experiments. Dr. Thornton knew about them, or suspected. It’s not difficult to believe that a few like-minded individuals decided to work together in their research.”
“Good God. You could be talking about the entire club.”
“I think we’re dealing with two people, maybe three. I don’t see many more than that.”
“Why?”
She smiled. “To quote Benjamin Franklin, ‘Three can keep a secret if two are dead.’ People talk. It’s human nature. The more people involved, the more likely that word would’ve gotten out, especially if they’re excited about their research.”
He shook his head. “You say research like it didn’t involve killing a young woman. Maybe more women, seeing as Isabella Russo has disappeared.”
“Whatever happened to Clarice—or Isabella—I don’t think they considered it murder. Exitus acta probat—any death is justified by the end result of what they’re hoping to accomplish.”
But how, Kendra wondered, could they think draining Clarice of all her blood would save her? Even quack doctors in this century had to know that a human couldn’t live without blood for any length of time. Unless . . .
“Was it supposed to be a transfusion of some kind?” Kendra asked aloud. She locked eyes with Alec.
“If so, they forgot to replace it,” Alec said dryly.
“The Metamorphosis Club is meeting tonight at Sir Preston’s,” she told him. “They’ll be honoring Dr. Thornton, raising a toast in his memory. Hopefully we’ll be able to figure out more from that.”
And she knew deep in her gut that there would be one member lifting his glass to honor the man that he’d murdered.