He straightened, stepping back. “I shall be keeping a very close eye on you.”
Not for the first time, Kendra thought that, despite his elegant clothes, upper-class accent, lithe grace, and lineage, there was something dark, almost dangerous about the marquis. “That sounds almost like a threat,” she said.
He smiled grimly. “There is no almost about it, Miss Donovan.”
Kendra was relieved when they caught up with Rebecca and the Duke on the path leading to the icehouse. Aldridge was carrying Rebecca’s art supplies. The other woman had also put on an ankle-skimming dark brown velvet coat, Kendra noticed. The gaze Rebecca turned in their direction was frankly speculative, but she didn’t ask where they’d been.
“I’ve told Lady Rebecca if she has second thoughts about doing this, she may simply inform us,” Aldridge stated.
Rebecca merely smiled. Her amusement vanished, however, when they entered the icehouse. Good, thought Kendra. She didn’t want anyone involved who viewed this as some sort of novelty.
Propriety may have been tossed out the window, but the Duke and Alec still made sure that the nude body was covered to the neck with a coarse wool blanket before Lady Rebecca was allowed to enter.
Kendra immediately scanned Jane Doe. Dalton had closed her eyes, but otherwise hadn’t touched the head. Normally, the M.E. would make an incision and pull down the scalp and cut open the skull to remove the brain, which was then weighed and measured. But this was the early nineteenth century. Maybe that wasn’t part of the normal procedure. Or maybe Dalton had decided to forgo that part of the autopsy because it was clear that the girl hadn’t died from a brain injury. Whatever the reason, it was probably for the best; Kendra doubted Lady Rebecca would’ve been allowed into the room if the girl’s head had been sliced open like a tin can.
As Rebecca began setting up her art supplies, Kendra glanced around. Visiting morgues and viewing autopsies were all part of the job, but there was something really creepy about this room, with the cold seeping up from the stone floor, the dead animal carcasses hanging by hooks against the far wall, and the flickering light from the lanterns, staving off the perpetual gloom. The smell—dust and decay—seemed to have grown stronger.
She saw that Rebecca was also affected, but that might have had less to do with the atmosphere than it did with the corpse. For a long moment, Rebecca stared down at the dead girl, her expression solemn. Kendra thought she saw her shiver, but when she reached for the paper and pastels, her movements were brisk and sure.
Kendra didn’t know what to expect, whether she’d get an accurate likeness of the victim or not. It wasn’t as though Rebecca was a professional artist. Art was merely considered an appropriate activity for ladies of the era. At least she wouldn’t get a woman with three noses, as modernism wouldn’t take the art world by storm for several more decades. But Kendra was impressed with the woman’s absolute focus, her face pulled into lines of concentration as she worked, her tongue caught between her teeth. For the next ten minutes, the only sound in the room was the whispery movement of pastels against sketch paper.
“What color are her eyes?” Rebecca asked, without stopping, without looking up.
“Brown.”
She nodded, choosing a different pastel. Her fingers were smudged with color by the time she put the crayon down, and flipped her drawing tablet around to show them.
Kendra studied the portrait with an appreciation she hadn’t expected to feel. Not only had Rebecca captured the girl’s likeness, but she’d infused it with a liveliness that was obviously now absent. Maybe it was creative license, but Rebecca had added just the faintest smile to the Cupid’s bow mouth, a healthy tint of pink in the cheeks, a coquettish gleam in the eyes.
“You’re good. You’re very good.”
“Better than a death mask,” Aldridge added, and then looked over at Kendra. “You were right to insist upon this, Miss Donovan.”
“Do you really believe this will help?” Rebecca asked.
Kendra thought of what was said yesterday, that there were hundreds, if not thousands, of brothels in London—assuming the vic was even from a London brothel. She shrugged. “It can’t hurt.”
Gently Aldridge pulled the blanket up to cover Jane Doe’s face.
“What will happen to her now, Duke?” Rebecca asked.
“We shall have to bury her soon. We can’t keep her here forever.”
“A day or two at the most,” Alec agreed.
The Duke picked up Rebecca’s art supplies, and gestured toward the door. “Shall we?”
“You can go,” Kendra said. “I have one more thing I need to do.”
She was already turning to Rebecca so she didn’t see the humor that flashed in the Duke’s eyes. It wasn’t every day, Aldridge reflected, that he was dismissed by a servant.