“You are?” Could he see how much that meant to her? How much she’d needed to hear what he was finally ready to say? She found herself leaning toward him.
Instead of drawing closer to her, he rose and paced a bit away. “There was an oddity attached to a fire a few days ago, and I’m hopeful you can shed a little light on it.”
He meant to gab about a fire? Three years of waiting on the words she’d longed for, and he was leading off with gossip? Still, it was something. Andsomethingwas a heap more than she’d had in a long time.
“I don’t know a thing about fires,” she warned, angling back into her chair.
He shook his head. “It’s not about the fire itself but the people who died in it.” So many doctors grew cold to death and dying, speaking of it as if it mattered little. Not Baz. “No one can sort the mystery of what happened to them after they were buried.”
After they were buried.Her stomach dropped to her toes. “You suspect they were resurrected?”
“I’m certain they were, but I can’t sort out why. What use or value would two badly burned bodies be to a resurrectionist?”
She took a calming breath, though her tension didn’t ease. “Talkin’ about the family trade don’t give me pleasure. I ain’t proud to be a Kincaid.”
“I would never ask you to offerdetailedrecountings.” He turned to look at her. “I—I am merely hopeful that you might have some insights into possible motivation.”
Gemma swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. She hated that this was her heritage. “All resurrection men are motivated by the same thing: profit.”
“Money?”
“Usually. Sometimes it’s making or filling a debt. But most times, it’s boodle, brass. Money talks louder than most anything to a resurrectionist. And they don’t do anything out of charity.” If her no-good father had taught her anything, it was that resurrection men like him never plied their trade for selfless reasons.
Baz rubbed his thumb along the edge of his mustache, his forehead creased in thought. “Someone wanted to get possession of those bodies.”
“Or wanted to stopsomeone elsefrom snatching ’em.”
He nodded slowly. “But why?”
Gemma wrapped her arms around her middle, feeling herself shrinking into the chair. “This topic’s torture to me, Baz. Please don’t belabor it.”
He dipped his head. “My apologies. I forgot for a moment how abhorrent you find it all.” A hint of a smile tugged at his lips. “I’d also all but forgotten that you call me ‘Baz.’ No one else does. I’ve missed hearing it.”
A bit of relief washed over her. This was the ground she’d meant to be walking, not the slippery bog they’d traversed. “I’ve missed saying it.”
His eyes darted from her to the carpetbag on the floor, studying it for the length of a breath. “Are you between places?”
Am I between places?
“You’re welcome to stay here for a time if you need. The room you used is empty.”
The room you used.Not “your room.” The room she’dused. In a house she was welcome to stay infor a time. She wasn’t“between places”; she’d come home because he’d asked her to. He’d finally sent for her.
“I’ll tell Mrs. Simms however much you’d like,” Baz said quietly, retaking his chair. “At the moment, she knows only that you’re related to me in some way.”
“You ain’t told her that you’re married?”
He shrugged. “Ours isn’t a regular sort of marriage. And you’re not ever here. It was far simpler to not explain over and over again.”
“Have you told anyone at all that you’ve been churched?”
He sat a bit stiffer. “Very few people know that I am married.”
Did he not want to admit to it? She’d feared that for a long time. He’d no claim on a fine and fancy history. He hadn’t lords and ladies and respectable people in his family; leastwise, none he knew of. Butshewas the daughter of a notorious resurrection man, one of three who ruled the Kincaid family with a violent iron fist. Baz hadn’t ever said he was ashamed of being married to her. But not telling hardly a soul about her seemed to prove he was.
“Even after you sent word to me, you still didn’t tell Mrs. Simms?” Surely he’d have made some preparations for her return now that he was ready to make something more of their marriage. It was the requirement she’d set—they’dset—for him writing to her at long last.
“It seemed a lot of explaining ahead of a brief conversation,” he said. “If you need time to decide where you’re heading next, I’ll tell her whatever you’d like so you’ll feel comfortable here for however long it takes to sort your situation.”