BLURB:
When
Maximillian Wilder joins the notorious body snatchers known as the London
Supply Company, the last thing on his mind is love. He’s worried about
Madeline, his vanished half sister, who was last seen in the company of Jack
Hurtsill, the gang’s conscienceless leader. Raiding graveyards, stealing
corpses, and selling them to medical colleges as dissection material is dirty
work, but he has to gain Jack’s trust. He’s determined to find out what
happened to Madeline—and to bring Jack to justice if she was murdered for the
coin her body could bring.
Beautiful,
spirited Abigail Hale, daughter of the surgeon at Aldersgate School of
Medicine, detests the challenging, hard-bargaining Max. But she must procure
the necessary specimens if she is to save the college and her father’s career.
She believes she is going to be successful—until Jack double-crosses her. Then
she’s swept into a plot of danger and intrigue, one where Max must intervene
and protect her, no matter the risk to his plan . . . or his heart.
Excerpt:
“Make that fifteen.” A deep voice interrupted, and for the
first time, Abigail looked directly at the man standing to the side and
slightly behind Big Jack. His clothes bore as much dirt and his face as much
beard growth as the rest of the group, but he was different. Not only was he
significantly taller, he carried himself with a certain…authority.
How had she not noticed him before?
She’d been doing her best to block him and the others from
her consciousness, she reminded herself.
Her gaze locked with an intense pair of sea-green eyes.
“Why, that’s highway robbery! My father has never paid a resurrectionist more
than nine guineas, six shillings. I’ve got it all in a book, right here.” She
tapped the top of the desk to convince him.
When he smiled, his teeth looked clean and mostly straight,
another detail that set him apart from his companions. “Evidently, you’re not a
pupil of economics, or not a very good one, Miss Hale. Short supply, high
demand, prices go up. Sometimes significantly. Fifteen guineas. No less.”
Those short, clipped sentences bore no Cockney accent and
revealed a definite culture to his voice, causing Abigail to wonder if she had
been dealing with the wrong man all along. She couldn’t imagine this stranger
taking orders from anyone, much less the likes of Jack Hurtsill.
“Blimey, Max,” one of the other men muttered.
Drawing herself up to her fullest height, which was at least
ten inches shy of this Max’s six feet something, Abigail clung tenaciously to
her composure. “At this point, I would rather you take your ‘large’ and go.”
Surely, there had to be other resurrection men she could contact; she hadn’t
gone through all the names she heard muttered about the halls of the college
and St. Bart’s Hospital next door. “I have seen naught but the head, and that
small sample revealed a nasty wound.”
“There’s not a mark on the rest of him,” Max responded
coolly. “We offered to show you, but you refused.”
Abigail had no intention of letting this body-snatcher tempt
her into dumping the body out onto the rug as she had almost let them do
before. “Mr. Hurtsill—I mean, Big Jack, here, was about to say ten guineas. I
will go that high.”
“I’m afraid it’s not high enough,” Max countered.
“You’re a fast study, mate.” Jack slapped him on the back
but didn’t interfere. Instead, he turned a challenging smile on Abigail and
waited for her response.
“Then go,” she said, shooing them away. “Take Mr. Whoever He
Is and leave. I will not let you rob me. Not if I can help it.”
“And what if you can’t?” Insolence lit the eyes of the man
identified as Max. “Perhaps we should wait here for your father. No doubt he
will have better sense of what a corpse is worth at the present time, although
I doubt he would want us loitering about the place. What’s it been…eighteen
months or so since those two surgeons were prosecuted for receiving and
dissecting stolen bodies? With a possible knighthood on the horizon, and such a
close tie to Sir Astley Cooper—the sergeant surgeon of the late king himself,
no less—it would be quite unfortunate if your father were to be found dealing
with the likes of us, wouldn’t you say?”
Abigail’s jaw dropped at the not-so-subtle threat. Perhaps
she had underestimated these sack ’em up men. This man, anyway. “If what you
have brought is worth so much Mr.…Max, is it?”
He gave her a mocking bow and added his last name, as if to
prove he feared nothing from her. “Wilder. Maximillian Wilder at your service,
Miss.”
About the Author
New York
Times & USA Today Bestselling Author Brenda Novak is the author of more
than fifty books. A four-time Rita nominee, she has won many awards, including
the National Reader’s Choice, the Bookseller’s Best, the Book Buyer’s Best, the
Daphne, and the Holt Medallion. She also runs an annual on-line auction for
diabetes research every May at www.brendanovak.com (her youngest son has this
disease). To date, she’s raised over $2 million. For more about Brenda, please
visit www.brendanovak.com.
Follow me on
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Brenda_Novak
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