Her Dark Curiosity (35 page)

“Yes, miss.” He faded into the shadows with surprising stealth. For a few moments Montgomery and I waited, watching from the ancient archway. Lucy sauntered along the sidewalk toward Lincoln Park, hardly suspecting a man was lying in wait for her behind the bushes.

I heard a muffled cry, followed by a rustling of branches. Montgomery and I darted to the far side of the churchyard just as they emerged from the snowy boughs. Balthazar’s fist pressed hard around her mouth, which she tore at with her fingernails. Her eyes were wide until she caught sight of me.

I waved Balthazar away. “That’s good work. You can let her go now.”

He stepped back and she gulped air, making angry little hisses. “Juliet, are you behind this abduction? My god—bravo, I suppose. I didn’t think you had it in you.” Her face fell. “I’ve been worried about you since the professor’s death. Such a tragedy . . .”

The mention of his death brought up a lump in my throat. “Thank you, truly. I’m sorry for abducting you like this, but I didn’t dare come to your house, and I needed to make certain no one was following you.” I bit my lip, dreading to tell her the rest. “I went to give my statement to Inspector Newcastle. I found a letter from the King’s Club in his office.”

Her lips parted. “The King’s Club? In
John’s
office?”

“I take it you didn’t know he was a member.”

She pressed a hand to her chest. “Of course I didn’t!”

“It gets worse. I found the professor’s spectacles in his desk, too.” I took a deep breath. “Edward didn’t kill the professor—Newcastle did, and framed Edward for it.”

Her face went even whiter. She slumped against the wall in shock. “Good lord, are you certain?”

“He admitted as much to me.”

“I always thought him strange—but a
murderer
? I suppose if my own father could be wrapped up in this, anyone could be.” Her jaw tightened, not pitying herself for a moment. “Did you abduct me to warn me of this?”

“Only in part. We have Father’s journal, which might help develop us a cure for Edward, but it’s written in code. The codex is hidden in the letters he sent your father. We need you to steal the letters.”

I glanced at Balthazar, who was sitting calmly on the crooked back steps of the church, nudging a sluggish moth with his big forefinger toward a sugar cube he’d taken from his vest pocket.

“Papa’s out of town for the rest of the week,” she said. “And Mother hasn’t gotten out of bed since the attack at the masquerade. Have your man flag us down a carriage, and I’ll have the letters for you in a half hour.”

L
UCY WAS TRUE TO
her word. We hadn’t waited in the cabriolet more than twenty minutes before she reappeared at her front door, walking briskly with a leather satchel tucked under one arm. As soon as she was safely in the carriage and Montgomery signaled to the driver to go, she let out a deep sigh and tossed the satchel to me.

“I daresay I’m not cut out for all this,” she said. “It’s one thing to sneak about when it’s for a gentlemen’s kiss, but letters from a madman, and my father caught up in all of it . . . and that bloody brain is still in the hatbox!”

She rested a hand on her forehead as though she might be faint.

“You’ve done incredibly well,” I said.

“You have no idea what it’s been like living in that house, knowing what Papa is doing. Thank god he’s gone for the week. I wouldn’t be able to face him without my stomach turning. Whatever you all are planning, I hope it resolves this. I suppose it will be prison for him, or banishment just like your father. Mother will be crushed.”

Balthazar leaned over and patted her hand reassuringly. The color rose to her cheeks at this kind gesture. She adjusted the cuffs of her dress and was silent for the rest of the trip.

We arrived at the professor’s around noon, and I knew something was wrong the moment we crossed the threshold. Elizabeth sat at the dining room table, polishing an ancient musket that must have been from the sixteenth century. A bottle of gin sat beside her along with a half-empty glass.

I paused in the doorway. “Why do you have that musket, Elizabeth?” I asked.

She looked at us with half-wild eyes, then glanced toward the kitchen, where from this angle I could just make out the cellar door, closed now, with the buffet table pushed against it.

“Did something happen while we were away?” I asked hesitantly.

A second after I spoke a crashing came from downstairs strong enough to shake the house. Lucy shrieked, and I grabbed the table to steady myself.

“He’s been making a din like that that all morning,” Elizabeth said, throwing back the rest of her gin. “Raising the dead with his prowling about. I went down there earlier to check. . . .” Her face drained of color, and she returned to cleaning the old musket with renewed vigor. “Well, see for yourself, but I’d advise you to take a pistol just in case. And you needn’t worry about Inspector Newcastle or the police. I gave them quite a story, and they’ll be halfway to Dublin by now looking for you. It’ll be at least a few days before they figure out the truth.”

I set down the satchel. “I hope that will be enough time. We found a way to solve a code that Father used in his journals, and it might help us cure Edward.”

Another loud crash sounded from downstairs, and Elizabeth started to refill her glass.

I glanced at Montgomery. “We’d better check on him.”

He gave a single nod, and told Balthazar to help Elizabeth. Balthazar took a seat across from her happily, pulling a rag from his vest pocket with a flourish.

“Stay here too, Lucy,” I said.

She shook her head violently. “I want to see him.”

Montgomery turned to her before I could speak. “Miss Radcliffe, I’ve spent the better part of a year tracking the Beast. It isn’t Edward down there now, I can assure you. His alternate personality won’t care that you had him over for a lovely tea at your home. To him you’ll be blood ready to be spilled. Nothing more.”

Lucy’s face paled, but she still stood tall. “I said I’m coming with you. I’m not afraid.”

Montgomery stared her down, until at last he sighed. “I did warn you, Miss Radcliffe.”

With straining muscles, he pulled the buffet away from the cellar door. Old townhouses like the professor’s had been built before gas lighting, so a system of makeshift pipes ran down the length of stairs, ending in a single gas bulb at the bottom. Its flame reflected on the heavy metal chains on the cellar door.

Footsteps sounded from within the cellar.
Tap-tap-tap.
A familiar sound that took me back to the island: claws on a stone floor.

“I’ll go first,” I said, though my voice came out thin. “He might go wild with rage again if he sees you, Montgomery. And Lucy, you stay back too.”

Hesitantly, I took a step onto the creaking stairs. Montgomery and Lucy followed a few steps behind, treading as quietly as they dared. Halfway down Lucy stumbled and landed on a creaky stair that squealed like a wounded animal.

The footsteps behind the cellar door froze. I was only one step away and could peer within the barred window if I stood on my tiptoes. I leaned closer, breath half frozen in the abnormal silence.

“Edward?” I whispered. “Are you still there?”

There was nothing but silence, and then the scraping sound of claws on the stone floor. I stood higher on tiptoe.

Suddenly a jerk of the rug at my feet hurled me to the floor with a painful
crack.
I cried out as gnarled fingers reached from the inch-wide gap under the door to grasp my feet, pulling me closer. Montgomery slammed his boot into the Beast’s hand, and I scrambled away.

A great howl came from within as the Beast hurled himself against the door, again and again, beating himself to a bloody mess.

Was Edward still in there somewhere, fighting against him?

“Lucy, fetch a candle,” I gasped.

Lucy raced up the stairs as Montgomery helped me to my feet. The Beast’s writhing made a terrible sound. I wanted to cover my ears. Lucy returned with one of the grand silver candlesticks from the dining room, but her fingers were shaking too much to light the match. I fumbled to do it while Montgomery rechecked the lock on the chains. I held the candle to the window, peering within.

A gasp came from my lips.

The Beast writhed on the floor, caught somewhere between man and creature in the midst of a transformation. He was doubled over in pain as claws slid into his bloody joints and then out again. His back buckled and strained as the two sides of him fought for control. In one instant he was the Beast, snarling and furious; in the next he was Edward, reaching out a hand toward me and trying to form words, and then back again.

“Montgomery, get a sedative!” I said. “And as much valerian as we have. He’s going to rip himself apart unless we stop him.”

Montgomery took the stairs two at a time, and I turned to Lucy, who was breathing so rapidly I thought she might burst.

“It’ll be all right,” I said.

“It won’t be!” she screamed. She threw her hands over her head and ran upstairs, tripping on her skirt, tears streaking down her cheeks.

I’d been a fool to let her down here. Hearing about it was one thing, but watching the transformation happen was another. Lucy had a crush on a different boy every week—why had I thought her love for Edward would stand up to seeing the truth of what he was?

Montgomery soon returned with a glass jar of chloroform and syringe of valerian. “We’ll have to be quick,” he said.

The growls from within the cellar came louder. Montgomery removed the chains from the door and handed me the syringe. “I’ll hold him. You go for the neck.”

I nodded, and he threw the door open.

The creature on the floor—Edward or the Beast, I knew not what to call it—was so tortured in its rapid transitions that it seemed hardly aware we were there. Montgomery threw himself upon it, pressing a chloroform-soaked rag to its mouth.

“Now, Juliet!” he cried.

I aimed for the neck, but the transformation made Edward’s body shift and twist. At last I threw myself upon him, plunging the needle deep. His body shook like a death rattle, then he slumped unconscious, smelling thickly of blood and fever sweat.

“He’ll be out for at least a few hours,” Montgomery said, wiping his brow. He helped me up and his hand lingered on my waist, as though afraid to let me go. When we made our way back to the kitchen, Lucy wasn’t there. I found her at last on the second floor landing, sitting on the top stair. She’d stopped crying, but the dazed look in her eye frightened me even more.

“Come into my room and let me clean your face,” I said, pulling her up gently. My bedroom fire had gone out, but the air still held its lingering warmth. I sat her on the bed, wiping the dried tears from her cheeks, petting her head as gently as if she were a frightened little creature like Sharkey.

“Shh now,” I soothed. “I know it’s terrible to see.”

She squeezed her eyes closed. “Oh, Juliet . . .”

“I won’t let him hurt you, I swear.”

“Hurt me?” she whispered. Her green eyes snapped to mine. “It isn’t me I’m worried about. It’s
him
who’s suffering. My god, to hear him cry out like that! He’s in such pain. I can’t bear it.”

The soothing words I was poised to say disappeared. I had assumed Lucy’s tears came from fear. I wasn’t sure how to understand what she was saying.

She was
crying for
him?

“Father’s science made him into that monster,” I said. “Montgomery and I are going to stop anyone from doing it ever again.”

She let out a frustrated breath. “Don’t you see, Juliet? Your father’s science isn’t the problem. Because of it Edward exists, and he has just as much humanity in him as any of us. You’ve had it all wrong. It’s just like what you said at the flower show: ‘It isn’t about the sharpness of the blade, but the hand that holds it.’ Science doesn’t do good or ill by itself—it’s the intention behind it. And your father’s intention to create Edward was good.” She stood up, brushing a hand over her dripping nose. “Blame your father for failing to rid Edward of his darkness, if you must. But don’t blame him for
creating
Edward. That wasn’t a mistake.”

I could only stare at her, lost for words.

So much of my life had been about rejecting Father’s work and castigating myself for my curiosity. And yet here was my best friend telling me that Edward’s existence was a gift. Could there be a grain of truth to that? Perhaps not entirely a gift—but not a curse, either?

I went to the window, struggling with my thoughts. I’d never allowed myself to fully think about it that way—science as neither good nor bad, merely a tool. Father had used it in cruel ways, for certain, but had he been wrong to explore its depths?

Or had he been a revolutionary?

“I need to go downstairs,” I said, filled with confusion. “I need to check on Montgomery.”

I stumbled from the room, thoughts churning. My feet caught on the oriental rug and I leaned on the doorframe leading into the dining room, where Balthazar and Elizabeth sat next to each other, heads close, the old musket forgotten as they poured over Father’s journals.