He could not possibly refuse.

The inmates stood around the sofa like a cl.u.s.ter of restless, buzzing bees, their hushed voices droning in fragmented, nonsensical whispers. Ian gave them a disgusted, cursory look, seeing them in a glance.

Andrew, the disturbed eighteen-year-old man who routinely tried to kill himself; Johann, a disowned aristocrat dying from syphilis; Lara, a fifteen-year-old r.e.t.a.r.ded girl with the mind of a child; a middle-aged woman who thought she was Queen Victoria; and Dotty, a seventy-year-old former Civil War spy who only spoke in whispers and codes and spent her days hidden in a broom closet, talking to invisible allies.

The bland gray wool of their winter wardrobe created an impenetrable barrier around the woman who lay in their midst.

His step slowed. He felt an instant's unwillingness to enter their ranks. When they were apart from him, when

19.

he was closeted in his hidden room, he could tell himself they didn't exist. But here, now, he was faced with the truth of their sorry lives, and it filled him with the same sinking sense of despair as always.

The irony of it wrought a bitter smile. Once he had been feted by society's upper echelon; now he lived among that very society's rejects in the house of lost and d.a.m.ned souls.

"Get out of the way." He hissed, striding forward.

There was a sharp, collective indrawn breath. He's here. The words floated through the darkened room, carried by several hushed voices. People moved instantly, parted like the Red Sea before their Moses.

Ian tried to ignore their upturned faces, and the reverence in their eyes. He wished they wouldn't look at him at all. For years he'd taught them not to touch him, never to touch him, but still they looked at him with that naked, blatant adoration, as if he were the G.o.d he once believed himself to be.

He walked around the sofa and knelt beside the body stretched out on the white brocade. She lay corpselike and still, her hair a tangled, matted heap, a strand of kelp twined around her throat. Blood trickled from both ears and from her left nostril, leaving a streak of bright red against the already bruising flesh of her cheek. He couldn't make out her face; it was bluish, battered, sc.r.a.ped beyond recognition.

He couldn't tell if she was fifteen or fifty beneath the bruises.

Maeve appeared beside him in an instant, offering the expensive leather bag he hadn't used for years.

"Does she have a pulse?" he asked.

There was no answer.

He looked up sharply. "Mother, you brought me here. Do as I say. I need you to be my hands."

Maeve inched toward him and bent down. Then she did the unthinkable-she touched him. Images blasted through his brain in a miasma of pain and sorrow and

20.

regret; he saw her standing, alone and willowy, at his father's grave site, felt the devastating emptiness of her life. His headache came back, blinded him for a heartbeat to everything except his mother's despair.

"You have hands, Ian. Healing hands." She drew back, leaving him shaken and confused. The medical bag thunked to the floor beside him. "Use them." And then she was gone, melted back into the crazy people who had become her family.

Ian let out a shuddering breath and glanced up. The inmates stared at him in frank, breathless antic.i.p.ation.

He wanted to bolt suddenly, to simply run.

You need to help her, Ian.

"I need a drink," he whispered, staring down at the pathetic shaking of his hands. He hadn't voluntarily touched anyone in so long. It was too b.l.o.o.d.y painful. What if he relived her accident? One touch, and he could be thrown into her agony, and still be no closer to saving her life. And what if she died while he was touching her? The thought of that pain blistering through his own psyche made him feel physically ill.

"Ian?" his mother prompted him.

Ian steeled himself, trying to blank out his mind, preparing for the pain. When his hands stopped shaking and his breathing normalized, he reached for the woman again.

The inmates gasped softly. He felt their circle tighten around him.

It was a meaningless touch, that first one. A nothing little trailing of his fingertip along the b.l.o.o.d.y curve of her throat. A test.

Nothing came to him.

Ian's heartbeat sped up. Something was wrong. He had touched her-briefly, yes, but that never mattered before-and he'd felt nothing.

Hope slipped through a crack in his armor, weakening him. He tried to fight it, but it was too strong. In

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sudden, blinding clarity he thought: Maybe for once it won't happen.

He tried to bury the unrealistic prayer beneath a mountain of cold rationality. It always happened.

"Ian, is she alive?"

He heard his mother's voice, but it seemed to come from a million miles away. His heart was hammering in his chest. Sweat had broken out along his brow. He wiped the beaded moisture and swallowed hard.

Barely breathing, he took hold of her wrist. His fingers curled around the slim, pale flesh. He felt the lightning-quick shiver of her pulse, the cool softness of her skin.

And nothing else. He knew nothing about her except that she was alive. At the realization, he felt a shameful stinging in his eyes.

"Ian?" Maeve prompted.

"She's alive."

"Will she die?"

"I don't know." With those words, the old power, the old strength of purpose, overwhelmed him, sweeping aside the isolation of the past six years. Finally, a person-a woman-whose mind was closed to him.

A mystery. Sweet Jesus above, a mystery.

He sat upright. "Prepare a bed on the second floor. Get boiling water and alcohol." He looked up. No one moved.

"Now."

The inmates scattered like insects.

Seconds later, Maeve reappeared and handed him a gla.s.s of scotch. Ian stared at it for a second before he realized that he'd asked for alcohol.

Queen Victoria was right behind his mother with a teapot. "Does milord have a cup?"

And boiling water.

He forced back a shout of frustration. "Andrew!" he hollered.

The reed-thin, sallow-faced youth stepped from the shadows, his eyes wide. "Y-Yes, sir?" "Can you a.s.sist me?"

The young man swallowed convulsively. "I'd be honored, sir."

Ian looked pointedly at the man's wrists, still bound in white bandages from last month's suicide attempt.

"Can I trust you with a knife?"

"He never tries the same death effort twice," Johann drawled from his place beside Maeve. "He might actually succeed if he did."

Andrew winced. "You can trust me, Dr. Carrick."

"Good. Here's what I need: lots and lots of bandages, several sharp knives."

When Andrew turned and ran from the room, Ian surged to his feet and started barking orders like the doctor he'd once been. "Johann, get Edith and bring her here. Tell her I need willow bark and paraffin and laudanum. Mother, I need several bottles of alcohol. Not a drink. Bottles."

Maeve smiled brightly. "Yes, son."

"Victoria ..."

The old lady rapped him on the nose with her fan. "That's Your Highness to you."

He gritted his teeth. "Your Highness, bring me some sheets and a bucket of ice from the icehouse."

She frowned, looked worriedly to her left. "My footman-"

"Now!"

The queen blanched and ran for the icehouse.

Ian ignored little Lara and hurried back to the sofa. Taking the unconscious woman in his arms, he looked down at her, wondering fleetingly what she looked like beneath the broken, battered skin.

He eased the kelp away from her throat and let the slimy strand fall to the floor.

"Fight with me, princess."

23 She didn't move, barely breathed, but she was still alive, and there was a chance he could save her. A chance. He felt a rush of adrenaline. Just like the old days.

Chapter Two.

Ian rammed a dusty bottle of carbolic acid underneath his arm and raced to his bookcase, pulling out one long-unused volume after another. He scanned the texts quickly for any help, but there was precious little written about head injuries. When he had all that he could find, he ran downstairs to the woman's bedchamber. Maeve, Queen Victoria, and Andrew were all there, breathing heavily, their arms heaped with supplies. Weak light from a bedside lantern splashed the trio, cast their elongated shadows on the white plaster walls. Queen Victoria sighed. "This ice is deuced heavy. I say-" "Drop it and get more, Your Highness. You, too, Mother. We're going to need a lot of ice and more clean sheets. More!" Andrew moved forward, his scrawny arms piled with pale, grayish white linen and a single knife that glinted silver in the weak light. "I-I got the sheets from the laundry room. I didn't see any bandages specifically-" "Good. Start ripping them in two-inch strips. But first, wash your hands in soap and water and then rinse in this carbolic acid. Don't let the sheets. .h.i.t the floor. Put them on the bed." Ian surged to the door and stuck his head out, hollering into the dark hallway. "Soap! I need soap, d.a.m.n it, and hurry." 24 25 Within seconds, Lara appeared in the open doorway, holding a rough bar of ash soap. Ian snagged it from her pudgy fingers and started washing his hands, rinsing them in the stinging carbolic acid before he returned to the woman's bedside. Kneeling, he looked down at her. He heard the rapid, uneven tenor of his own breathing in the quiet of the room; it lent this moment a strange, almost surreal feeling, as if he were somehow detached from the drama, watching it. Behind him, he heard Andrew thrust the knife into taut linen, heard the methodic rip-hiss of the fabric being rent in strips. The bedside lamp flickered, the yellow-red flame spitting and writhing inside the smoky globe. The woman lay as still as death. He pressed forward on his knees and slipped his hand beneath her head. He tensed instinctively, waiting for the onslaught of images. But again there was nothing. The touch was so d.a.m.ned normal that he wanted to cry. His fingers moved gently along her sc.r.a.ped flesh, through her blood-and-seaweed-matted hair, to the hairline crack at the base of her skull. He tested, probed, cataloged her injuries the way he'd done so often at New York Hospital, talking quietly to himself. "Left occipital cerebral contusion. Enlarged right front cerebral contusion. Basilar skull fracture, just above spinal column." He drew back, shaking his head. "Jesus, she was lucky.. .." Footsteps thundered up the staircase and burst into the bedchamber. Ian turned slightly as Edith slid into the room, her arms loaded with sheets and fabric and bottles. "I'm here, Doctor," she wheezed. "What c'n I do?" "Get Maeve and Victoria up here with the ice. We're going to have to pack her in it. We've got to keep her head cold." "But the poor wee thing'll catch pneumonia-" 26 "Don't question me, Edith." "Sorry, Doctor." Edith swallowed hard and raced from the room. Ian turned back to his patient, blotting the blood from her nostrils. He was so engrossed in the task that he barely heard Andrew come up behind him. "The bandages are done, Doctor. Are you going to operate?" He wanted to. Sweet Jesus, he wanted to hold a scalpel as he'd done so many times, wanted to feel the energy pulse through him, the confidence, the unbelievable arrogance that came from his skill. He wanted-once more-to be G.o.d. But he couldn't, not this time. "I can't, Andrew. The surgery is too advanced; besides, she'd die of infection. This d.a.m.ned carbolic acid isn't perfect. All I can do is try to relieve the pressure on her brain-hopefully she'll keep bleeding from her nose and ears. That, and keep her cold. She's going to have to win this battle on her own." For the next hour, Ian worked like a demon to save her life. He shaved, cut, bandaged, and wrapped until his fingers were shaking from fatigue and slick with her blood. Finally, he'd done all that he could do. Throwing everyone but Maeve out of the room, he slumped forward on the stool beside her bed, cradling his face in b.l.o.o.d.y hands. The woman lay stretched out before him, her arms pressed close to her body, her head layered in bandages. Blood was everywhere; on his hands, his clothes, the floor, the bed. A three-inch layer of crushed ice covered her whole body, caught the lamplight and gave her the shimmering look of an illusion. More ice was her pillow, the clear peaks stained pink with her blood. Half of her face was covered in b.l.o.o.d.y bandages; the other half was a bloated, indistinguishable mound of purple bruising, her one eye stretched beyond recognition. He'd shaved a triangular section at the back of her 27 head and brought the rest of her hair forward, tying it in two twisted, matted tails that trailed along her arms. He should have shaved her whole head, but he hadn't had the time, and it probably wouldn't matter anyway. She was so d.a.m.ned weak. Her pulse was sporadic and shallow, her breathing almost nonexistent. Her teeth weren't even chattering, for G.o.d's sake, though she lay in a bed of broken ice. "Don't die," he whispered, hearing the scratchy desperation of his plea and not caring at all. He knew he was being selfish in his wish to save her-he'd always been selfish in his need to perform miracles. But he needed her, this broken patient whom he could touch and heal, needed her as he'd never imagined needing anyone. She could save him, give him back his profession, his reason for living. She could be his first true patient in years. "Will she live?" Maeve's quietly spoken question invaded his thoughts. With a tired sigh, he looked at his patient through his objective clinician's eyes. The horrible swelling on her brain had abated a little, helped by the stream of blood that even now trickled from her left nostril. He'd bathed her head in carbolic acid and covered it in a layer of waterproof silk, then added precisely eight layers of carbo-lized linen bandages and finished with two layers of soaked gutta-percha. The whole stinking ma.s.s had been coated in liquid resin and paraffin and encased in two more layers of waxed taffeta. Her swollen, bruised head looked like a cracked gray croquet ball shoved atop a rag doll's body. He'd followed Joseph Lister's technique to the letter, but still there was precious little hope that she would recover. "I've done all I can, Mother." Maeve kneeled beside him, her hands coiled in her lap, her red hair tied in a loose cl.u.s.ter of curls at the base of her neck. Her body moved in a ceaseless back

28.

and-forth motion, her fingers gripping a small, tattered sc.r.a.p of old satin. The ribbon she hadn't released in fifteen years. A tawdry sc.r.a.p of her wedding veil. Her eyes lacked the clarity they'd held earlier. He recognized the signs; his mother was slipping back into her delusional state of mania.

He sighed again, ran a hand through his hair. "Go get Edith, Mother. Tell her to bring up the man."

Maeve stopped rocking for a second and stared blankly at him. "What man?"

"The lobsterman who brought the woman here." "Oh, him. I gave the poor old man a cup of coffee and sent him on his way."

Ian was so stunned, it took him a moment to respond. Slowly, steeling himself not to explode, he pushed the words out. "You got his name, I a.s.sume?"

She heard the anger in his voice and started rocking again, faster, not looking at him. "Of course I did."

"What is it?" "What's what?"

"His name, Mother. What's the man's name?" "Who?"

Ian controlled an explosion by sheer force of will. "The man who brought her here."

"Oh, that. I can't remember now."

"Jesus .. ."