“You won’t be,” Hazel said. “You’ll be doing it with me. I have plenty of old boots lying around, and I’ve gotten very comfortable in my brother’s trousers. I’m not sure how much help I’ll be with regards to digging, but as a lookout, I’m unmatched, I assure you.”
Jack’s head spun with everything she had just said. “Wait,” he repeated. “Wait, wait. No. If the guards catch us, they’ll think I’ve kidnapped you. They’ll think I’m taking liberties with some—some daughter of a—whatever your dad is.”
“Captain of the Royal Navy. It’s actually my mother with the title, the daughter—now sister, I suppose—of a viscount.”
Jack groaned.
“Well, pishposh to that,” Hazel said. “I’ll be dressed as a man.”
“Oh, will you now? I’m sure that will be very convincing.”
“More than you know. And anyhow, we won’t be caught.”
“We can’t do this.”
“We certainly can. I need a body. You need the money from a body, but more immediately, you need a partner to assist you in your resurrection. And here I am. Have you identified a body? One with the fever?”
Jack nodded reluctantly. He had scoped out the burial in the cemetery of Saint Dwynwen’s, outside Edinburgh’s city center. It was a body with no family, just two assistants from Saint Anthony’s, the poorhouse hospital, dropping the body off wrapped in a sheet, and a priest to murmur a few prayers and bury it in a cheap wooden box. There wasn’t even a headstone, just a simple wooden cross. Jack had overheard the priest murmur sadly to the groundskeeper as he shook his head: the fever had come fast for him.
“It’s dangerous,” Jack said. “Not just the risk of getting caught. People catch the fever from bodies all the time.”
“I had it already,” Hazel said simply. “You?”
Jack shrugged. “Been doing this long enough and haven’t got it. Something lucky in my blood, I suppose.”
“Well, then it’s settled,” Hazel said. “You and I will dig for the body together.”
“See, that’s the problem with wealthy people. You just assume you can do anything you want, whenever you want, and everything will just somehow work out for you!”
By this point, Hazel had reached Hawthornden’s heavy wooden front door. She turned back to Jack before entering. “Well, sometimes you can just do things. Who gave you permission to be digging up bodies from graves in the first place?”
“Nobody!” Jack spat. “It’s a crime! That’s the whole point of it.”
“And now it’s a crime that we’re going to do together.”
Jack could only laugh, and Hazel smiled back at him.
Their eyes met, and Hazel blushed. “Well,” she said. “You should get some sleep. There are guest rooms if you…” She gestured to the castle behind her.
Jack shook his head. He couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to stay as a guest in one of these grand houses. He doubted even his exhaustion would allow him to sleep in such strange surroundings.
“The guesthouse out front is empty, too, at the end of the drive, if you prefer.”
“Nah, I best be headed home to my own bed for a spell.”
“Well, then. Meet back here at midnight?” Hazel asked.
“Wear dark clothes,” Jack warned in answer.
“I’m not a fool, Jack Currer, no matter what you might think of me.”
“Oh, I assure you, Miss Sinnett, I’ve taken you for a lot of things, but a fool was never one of them.”
22
JACK WAS ALREADY WAITING OUTSIDE WHEN Hazel came out. He was leaning against the low stone wall built a century ago to contain the sheep, using his long fingers to peel an orange and then tossing the pulpy rind onto the grass. When he saw her approach, he gave a low whistle. “Well, look who made it,” he said, scanning her from top to bottom.
Hazel did a mocking little curtsy. She was wearing George’s trousers and shirt, but on her feet she had an uncomfortable pair of dirty boots that had belonged to Charles. None of George’s shoes seemed suitable for a jaunt to a graveyard, and Charles had been more than happy to trade his workman’s boots for a pair of George’s leather riding ones.
The familiar flutter returned to Hazel’s chest when she saw Jack lounging there, as if he were reclining in a boat on the Thames. Only the flicker of his fingers as he finished peeling the orange revealed his nervousness.