“Miss Sinnett,” the boy said, revealing his pointed canine teeth as he spoke. “Or was it Lady Sinnett? Either way, it seems we meet again.”
“Hazel is fine. And I’m sorry to say I can’t do you the honor of remembering your name, seeing as you never gave me one.”
The boy grinned and winked, although it might have just been him squinting against the setting sun that had managed to slip through the entryway of the close from High Street and illuminate them both in the pale yellow of late autumn’s final efforts at sunshine. “And you’re not going to. I don’t find myself cavorting with high society ladies like yourself too often, so it doesn’t strike me as an introduction one needs to make.”
“We’ve already met. Twice,” Hazel reasoned.
“Aye, but is it really meeting if I haven’t given ye a name?” he said, and this time he winked for real.
Hazel felt an unfamiliar warmth creep up from her navel to her chest, a terrible excitement that she had felt before only while setting up an experiment, still anticipating its results. It was the feeling of anticipation, of wanting to know what would happen next, combined with the sensation of having drunk a full glass of champagne on an empty stomach.
The boy extended his hand, and Hazel reached out to take it.
The moment their skin touched, the champagne bubbles in Hazel’s stomach foamed with frenetic energy. It was Galvanism, Galvini’s electric shocks—there was no other way to describe it—a current of lightning that flowed from his hand through hers and directly into her pounding heart.
“It’s lovely to meet ye again, Hazel Sinnett,” he said, shaking her hand. His own was so big that her hand all but disappeared in it.
From the mouth of the close, where it met High Street, a boy called out between cupped hands: “Oi! Currer! Quit flirting!” He looked older than the gray-eyed boy, but he was shorter and stockier, as if his body were a compact square of muscle. “You got the back pay, yeah? Just give me my half so I can head to the pub. I swear to God, Jack, don’t stiff me on this one, mate. Bailey already cut my credit at the Arms, and I need a drink something fierce now, I do.”
Jack groaned and pulled his hand from Hazel’s. “Dammit, Munro! I’ve got the money. Just head down to the pub now, and tell Bailey to put your first drink on my tab. Trot along, now!” Jack purposefully tried to avoid looking back at Hazel, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
Munro looked unconvinced, but he disappeared beyond the stone alley anyway. Jack watched him go, until he turned around to see Hazel standing in place with an eyebrow raised. “Jack … Currer, is it?”
Jack Currer, the gray-eyed boy, swept down into an exaggerated bow. “At your service.”
Hazel noted the dirt beneath his fingernails and mud encrusted on the bottom of his shoes. She eyed the plaque of the Anatomists’ Society and then looked back at Jack. “You’re a grave robber, aren’t you?”
Jack lifted from the bow with his own eyebrow cocked. “No,” he said. “No, no, no, no. Never a grave robber. Very careful about that. You see, if you don’t take anything but the body from the grave, they can’t get you on grave robbing.”
“So you’re a body snatcher, then.”
Jack checked over his shoulder to see if anyone nearby was listening. They were alone in the close, the door to the Anatomists’ Society firmly shut and the alley beside it empty. He leaned in. “I prefer ‘resurrection man.’ Makes it sound a bit more romantic, don’t you think?”
“So that’s how you knew the passage down to the surgical theater. You sell bodies to them, the physicians.”
“Sometimes.”
Hazel studied him even more closely now, top to bottom. He looked to be about her age, maybe a year older. His thin fingers twitched as they spoke. “And how much do you charge for something like that?” she asked. “A body.”
“That depends. Are you in the market for one?”
“That depends,” Hazel replied. “Do you make deliveries?”
4 November 1817
No. 2 Henry Street
Bath
Dear Hazel,
Your brother Percy has taken ill with a cold. He sniffles all day and spends half the night up with a cough. It is enough to make my poor heart weep. I take him to the hot springs twice a day, and the apothecary has given us laudanum drops to help him sleep. I beg of you to keep him in your prayers, and ask the Lord for a swift recovery. A dreadful cold!!!
—Your mother, Lady Lavinia Sinnett