Darke London
Uncanny Chronicles, Book 1
Uncanny Chronicles, Book 1
Coleen Kwan
Genre: historical/supernatural
Publisher: Samhain
ISBN: 978-1-61921-557-3
ASIN: B00C870WDS
Number of pages: 157
Word Count: 50,000
Cover Artist: Kanaxa
Book
Description:
The only way to save her life is to resurrect the
dead…
Julian Darke was only a newborn when he was abandoned
on the doorstep of a gentleman doctor. Though raised with love, he is driven to
discover his true origins.
Convinced Sir Thaddeus Ormond knows something,
Julian shadows him one night—and is shocked to see a young woman thrown from
Ormond’s carriage and accosted by a thug. Julian manages to save her life, but
not her face and hands from horrific injuries.
Nellie Barchester doesn’t recognize the scarred,
disfigured stranger in the mirror. Though the gifted doctor and engineer has
done his best to repair the damage, scars ravage her body, and chill her soul
with the realization that her own husband may have plotted her death.
Julian’s tenderness is a balm to her soul, and
Nellie is drawn to the edge of passion by a man not repelled by her deformities.
But as their pursuit of the truth draws them into London’s underbelly, they
cross the path of a ruthless enemy who will stop at nothing to fulfill his
schemes.
Warning: Can
a brilliant but troubled doctor find happiness with a woman scarred both inside
and out? A hint of the supernatural plus a night of passion spice up this
Uncanny Chronicle.
Through the
long hours of the night London pitched and groaned, a restless creature in
uneasy slumber. A thousand fires flickered across its twitching back. Over
rivers and hills it sprawled, swallowing up quiet fields and meadows, an
insatiable protean organism powered by a life of its own. To the north, the
edge of the city lapped up against ancient hamlets, preparing to overtake them
one by one. And just a few miles past, surrounded by winter fields lying
fallow, sat a crumbling manor house, its lichened facade bravely and futilely
facing the city’s inevitable onslaught. Tonight its peace was broken by a rider
galloping up the drive, his horse all afroth, a limp figure clasped in front of
him. They slithered to a halt outside the stout oaken door. Still carrying his
load, the rider dismounted awkwardly and ran towards the house.
Julian Darke
battered his shoulder against the oak door. His arms were fully occupied with
the comatose woman, and he dared not set her down. In his agitation he had some
strange notion she would disintegrate if he loosened his hold.
“Figgs! Open
up,” he bellowed, his lungs burning with the effort. Despite the frigidness of
the night, sweat poured down his back, soaking into his shirt and britches. He
kicked at the front door with his scuffed boots and cursed like a tar.
On the other
side of the oak, heavy feet shuffled, then a key rattled in the lock, and the
door finally groaned open. Julian barged in, shoving aside the lumbering
manservant.
“Call my
father,” Julian ordered. “Rouse him if you must. Quick, man. Don’t just gawp
there. Can’t you see this is a dire emergency?”
Not pausing in
his stride, he moved down the dimly lit hallway. His shoulder muscles twinged
under the weight of the woman in his arms. She couldn’t have weighed much, but
he’d held her debilitated form steady on his mount for what had felt like
hours, and his limbs shrilled for respite. Not yet, not yet. The peril
had not yet passed.
He kicked open
the door to his father’s examination room. Despite the darkness he trod
surefooted to the table in the centre of the room, where he gingerly lowered
his burden onto the surface. Not the faintest sound issued from the bundle of
cloak that was the woman he’d carried home. His throat tightened. Surely she
hadn’t perished just when he’d brought her to safety?
“Julian?
What’s going on?”
He turned to
see his father entering the room. Despite the lateness of the hour, Elijah
Darke was still fully dressed in suit and waistcoat, reading spectacles perched
on the end of his nose, an unlit pipe in his hand.
“This woman
needs our help.” Julian gestured towards the figure lying on the table. “She’s
gravely injured. She needs both our expertise.”
Pocketing his
pipe, Elijah approached the table and turned on the twin lamps suspended above
the examining table. Julian let out a small sigh of relief. In a crisis, his
father was always clear-headed. He would act first and ask questions later.
“What have we
here?” Elijah lifted the stained cloak covering the woman. He froze. “God in
heaven! Her face—”
Julian nodded
grimly. He had seen her face earlier on and, after a cursory examination, had
instinctively hidden it with her cloak.
“Good grief,
son, you’re injured too!” His father’s face whitened as he stared at Julian.
“You’re covered with blood.” He moved towards Julian and hauled open the lapels
of his rumpled coat.
“A few
scratches only. Most of the blood is hers.” Impatient, Julian tore off his
bloodied coat and dropped it to the floor. “It’s nothing, Father, nothing
compared to her wounds.”
His father
made a testy growl. “Your injuries need proper seeing to.”
“Later.”
“You cannot
assist me in that state. At the very least wash your hands.” Elijah divested
himself of his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and scrubbed his hands at a
washstand.
Julian
hurriedly followed suit, flung on one of his father’s clean aprons and within
moments was back at the table. His father had peeled the cloak back from the
woman’s body and was bending over her.
“Well?” Julian
asked.
His father
grunted. “See for yourself.”
For some
reason, instead of staring rudely at her exposed face, he found himself
reaching for the hood of the cloak and smoothing it back from the woman’s head.
A handful of brown curls tumbled out, incongruously bright and clean and fresh
against the oozing mess staining everything else. The tang of spilt blood hit
the back of his throat, like the taste of pennies. He swallowed hard, aware of
his roiling innards. Why was the smell of blood unmanning him like this? Since
he was old enough to walk, he’d assisted his father. He had lanced boils,
drained suppurating wounds, stitched up gaping cuts, all with nary a wince. And
he was a qualified doctor too. He’d dissected corpses, amputated arms and legs,
trepanned a number of patients. In all these years he’d never suffered a queasy
turn, and yet now his stomach threatened to unman him. Why now? Why did this
woman affect him so?
She was a
stranger to him; he’d never laid eyes on her before this evening. It must
simply be his body protesting, sapped of energy after the tribulations he’d
faced tonight. He willed his nerves to steady as he took a proper look at the
woman.
Under the
harsh, hissing light, the white of her face was crisscrossed with deep gashes,
like a peach haphazardly sliced open. Mercifully both eyes appeared intact and
unharmed. Congealing blood spattered the front of her dress, the pattern of the
faded cotton submerged beneath the sticky mess. A swelling contusion on her
right temple indicated the heavy blow which had rendered her insensate.
Elijah lifted
up one of the woman’s hands. “What happened here?” His voice was rough with
disbelief.
Julian could
only shake his head at the bloodied stumps, all that was left of the middle and
ring fingers. He had bound his handkerchief as best he could around the hand,
but there had been considerable loss of blood, and the fingers had been crudely
removed, leaving behind a messy lump of flesh.
“Can we save
her hand?” he asked.
“We shall do
our best.”
Using a sharp
pair of scissors, Elijah began to cut off the woman’s dress in order to
complete his examination. As the shears tore through the thin material, the
woman moaned. It was no more than a murmur, but it seemed the most
blood-curdling sound Julian had ever heard. She squirmed, her flailing arms
almost knocking the scissors from Elijah’s hand.
“Hold her
down, son,” Elijah barked.
Julian obeyed,
but the instant he pressed down on the woman’s shoulders, her eyelids flew
open. Two green eyes stared up at him, frozen in a moment of sheer terror. With
the glaring lights overhead, he must appear like a dark silhouette looming over
her, Julian surmised. And then every thought fled from him as she started to
shriek and thrash her limbs, struggling with all her might to free herself.
About the Author:
Coleen Kwan has
been a bookworm all her life. At school English was her favorite subject, but
for some reason she decided on a career in IT. After many years of programming,
she wondered what else there was in life — and discovered writing. She loves
writing contemporary romance and steampunk romance.
Coleen lives in
Sydney, Australia with her partner and two children. When she isn’t writing she
enjoys avoiding housework, eating chocolate, and watching The Office.
Website: www.coleenkwan.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/ColeenKwan
Facebook: www.facebook.com/coleenkwan.authorpage
No comments:
Post a Comment
I love getting comments, and I also try to always return the favor! Thanks for stopping by!