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He really shouldn’t be surprised. Yet he was, seeing her pale, composed, as she set her fork aside, meeting his gaze calmly as she awaited his reply.
Why wasn’t she fleeing the room in horror?
He glanced at her, frowning. Maybe that was precisely what she had just done. It would explain her slightly frazzled appearance, the dishevelled hair, her pale complexion, the wide pupils brimming with fear. She must have somehow found the laboratory with his collection of body parts.
Her tense jawline and the way her knuckles turned white as she clasped her hands betrayed her terror. Gently, he set down his wineglass, careful not to startle her as one might with a frightened bird.
“Yes, well, naturally I dismember bodies and pickle their remains in jam jars,” he said dryly, crossing his arms. “A delightful pastime of mine. Haven’t you heard? I’m quite mad.”
She swallowed, her lips trembling. “I-I-I…”
“Some of those specimens were rather tricky to acquire,” he continued, as if discussing a rare stamp collection. “Believe it or not, fresh corpses aren’t exactly plentiful. Especially when it comes to the brains.” He took a sip from his wine. “And the eyes.”
Her face turned an unsettling shade of pale green. “W-where did you get those?”
“From dead people, of course. Where else?” He casually refilled her wineglass. “You look a little under the weather, Miss Hilversham. Pasty, even. A sip of wine might help.”
“No, thank you, I couldn’t possibly drink right now.” She sat bolt upright, eyes darting towards the door as though calculating her escape. He imagined she’d make a run for it the moment he blinked.
“Miss Hilversham.”
The silence stretched for a moment.
He leaned slightly forward. “You don’t in all honesty believe I kill people to pickle their body parts for entertainment, do you?”
“O-of course not.” Her reply was breathless and came just a little too quickly.
Heaven help him, she actually did believe it.
Seeing her panic, he relented. “It’s a pathological-anatomical collection. I inherited it from my mentor at the University of Edinburgh, who was one of the finest anatomists.”
He allowed that piece of information to sink in.
Her lips formed a small, soundless ‘O’, and he found himself unable to look away. They were like rose petals, soft and pink, the same hue as the roses climbing the walls of his estate. She snapped her mouth shut and ran her hand through her hair, shaking her head. “Of course.” She let out a long breath, the tension visibly leaving her body. “How foolish of me.” Her violet eyes, wide with fear only a moment ago, now met his, steady and composed. “You’ve been roasting me.”
Suppressing a grin, he admitted, “Yes. Only a little.”
“You’ve been collecting anatomical specimens for your studies. You’re a surgeon.”
“I am, indeed.”
She rubbed her brow, a little confused but clearly relieved. “That, of course, explains it.”
“There are not many such collections out there. Mine consists of nearly a hundred jars in total,” he continued. “Most of them are donations. Some from corpses of executed criminals, some from inmates in Bedlam. These are precious to a medical pupil and quite rare.”
“How…extraordinarily interesting. Your profession, that is.” She bent forward, staring at him, as if she was truly attempting to understand him. And her interest did not appear to be simulated.
He tucked his hands under his arms to resist the urge to brush away the stray lock of hair that had fallen across her face.
With a curt nod, he affirmed. “I’m a surgeon, yes. However, I see myself as being both a physician and a surgeon, though I doubt many of my peers would appreciate that conflation. I worked in Bedlam as a physician, studying the mind, and later in St Bartholomew’s Hospital, learning the body’s mysteries through surgery. I don’t merely study illness from a theoretical standpoint, I treat it with my own hands. I learned more about the human body than polite English society would care to know. While most in England see surgery as an ungentlemanly pastime, I know it to be the future of medicine. Ultimately, I’ve little patience for the fine distinctions society places on a man’s work. I am a man of science and do not care a whit for what society thinks.” He shrugged.
“This, undoubtedly, is why they call you mad,” she muttered, apparently unaware that she was voicing her thoughts out loud.
He grinned, delighted that she understood the heart of the matter so immediately. “Indeed, Miss Hilversham. Indeed.”
She tilted her head aside and studied him thoughtfully. “So, not a vampire nor werewolf. But just a normal surgeon. A pity, really.”
He bellowed a laugh. “Werewolf? Truly? It’s very unromantic of me to not be one, is it not? Admit that part of you would have enjoyed it if I transformed myself into some supernatural creature at night, howling at the moon.”
