Her Dark Curiosity (40 page)

FORTY-FOUR

W
E LEFT
I
NSPECTOR
N
EWCASTLE’S
body smoldering in the shadows. The copper armor still glowed a deep red and smelled of burned flesh, an odor I wished to live my entire life without smelling again. By the time we returned to the smoking room, Balthazar was sitting upright with a makeshift bandage across his chest. He smiled when he saw me. I stumbled to my knees next to him.

“You saved my life,” I said.

“You’re so small,” he said. “One bullet would kill you.”

Love for this big man hitched in my throat as Montgomery patted him on the shoulder. “His pulse is strong. I’ve never known a man who could take a bullet to the chest and walk away from it. What do you say, my friend, can you stand?” With our help Balthazar lumbered to his feet, wheezing only slightly.

I led them as fast as Balthazar could hobble through the maze of hallways to an exterior door. Snow blew in, making wind eddies in the hallway corners, replacing the cramped miasma of singed flesh.

The empty carriage waited in the alley, tethered to horses that stamped impatiently in the cold. We helped Balthazar into the back, and Lucy and I climbed in with him as Montgomery mounted the driver’s seat and cracked the whip. The steady rumble of horse hooves was eerily soothing, and by the time we reached the professor’s brownstone, my wild determination had drained away and left me with the cold horror of what we’d done.

What
I’d
done.

Outside the carriage, church bells rang midnight.
Christmas is over,
I thought.
A supposed day of joy.
At the university I’d felt such an arrogant swell of pride to know I’d defeated Newcastle and Hastings and Lessing, and that the rest of the King’s Men would scatter. Such pride sickened me now.

Elizabeth was waiting for us anxiously when we arrived. Sharkey came running down the stairs, tail low as he wound circles between our feet while we helped Balthazar shuffle into the dining room. Elizabeth had already cleared the table and set out her medical supplies, anticipating we might need them, and now directed us while trying to keep Sharkey from tripping us with his frantic whining. I laid a hand on Balthazar’s swollen shoulder, wishing I knew how to give him my thanks. All I had were words, and words were poor payment for a saved life.

His big fingers drifted to his shirt’s nape, where he fumbled with the small buttons.

“Let me help you,” I said, undoing the buttons. He groaned in pain as I slid the shirt off his hunched shoulders. I tried to look away to protect his modesty, but I couldn’t help glancing at the bullet wound.

My stomach lurched. The wound was bad enough—it certainly would have killed me—but it was his deformities that stole my breath. His ribcage was swollen on one side, shrunken on the other, his shoulders lopsided but powerful, dark hair covering every inch of skin. These deformities weren’t the results of an injury—they were the results of Father playing God.

I closed my eyes, his shirt clutched tight in my hand.

Never again.

Montgomery came from the kitchen with some fresh bandages, and I stepped back to give him room. He pulled away the rest of Balthazar’s shirt, examining the wound, not flinching at the deformities. “I don’t know how are you still standing, my friend. You must have the strength of an ox.”

While Montgomery stitched him up, I stared out the window, too stunned to think. I could still feel Dr. Hastings’s hand on my ankle. See Isambard Lessing’s eyes gouged out. Smell Newcastle’s flesh burning. Mrs. Bell’s cleaning crew would find them in the morning. I could imagine the thin cleaning girl frozen in the doorway at the sight of such carnage. The police would eventually find the laboratory on the subbasement level. Even though we’d destroyed the journals, it would be easy enough for the police to deduce that the King’s Club had been practicing illegal scientific experimentation. The newspapers would love the scandal. The entire
city
would love it. And with Newcastle dead, no one would ever know of our hand in it.

I vaguely heard Elizabeth and Lucy talking, though in my exhaustion their voices were only bits of words like
carriage
and
manor
and one repeated only in hushed tones:
murder.

They were talking about me. They were talking about fleeing the city. Another word found its way to my ear.

Edward.

I looked down at my hands, still coated with chemical residue and blood. Some of it was Newcastle’s. Some was the creatures’. Some belonged to Balthazar.

My gaze turned to the cellar door.

We both know any creature of my father’s is fated to die,
I had said in the laboratory, about the water tank creatures. But did that mean Edward, too?

I felt Lucy’s hands on me, followed by a warm cloth wiping my face and hands. “They’ll soon find that scene in the smoking room and raise the alarm. You have to leave, Juliet.”

“I want you to go to my estate in Scotland,” Elizabeth said. “It’s listed under a cousin’s name who resides on the Continent, so they won’t be able to trace it back to either of us. I’ll ride with you tonight just as far as Derby to make sure you leave the city without trouble, then we’ll part ways and I’ll return here to do what I can to cover our tracks. I’ll meet you at the manor in a fortnight.”

Her words were a distant echo. I kept staring at that cellar door, thinking of the boy chained below. He had few days left before the Beast consumed his humanity. Not much time.

“You must leave tonight,” Elizabeth insisted. “You’ll have to change clothes. It’s a three-day journey, if the weather holds.”

My eyes shifted to Montgomery, then to the little dog curled by the cellar door, tail thumping, knowing his master was trapped below. For a few seconds we all stared at the cellar door, each alone with our secret fears and thoughts.

“Elizabeth was right before,” Montgomery said at last, though hesitation filled his voice. “The humane thing to do would be to kill him mercifully.”

Lucy let out a sob.

I grabbed Montgomery’s arm, pulling him to the window where we could speak privately. “How can you say all this after learning of your connection to him? You’ve wanted a family for so long. A brother. I know it isn’t the same, but—”

“That
is
why I’m doing this,” he answered in a whisper. “I’d feel no regret killing an enemy; only a brother I could bear to put out of his misery mercifully, given the alternative of watching him turn into a monster.”

“You aren’t thinking through this. We still have a few days; there’s still time to work on a cure. There must be ways to synthetically replicate the effects of malaria in the bloodstream. Elizabeth will have medical supplies at her estate.” I squeezed his hand. “Don’t give up on him, not after what we’ve learned.”

It was as much for Montgomery’s soul that I pleaded. If Montgomery did this—killed the closest thing he had to a brother, after killing all the island’s beast-men—that kind little boy I’d once known might be gone for good.

“I don’t know what else to do.” His voice broke. He had just stitched up his best friend, and now we were debating the fate of a young man who shared his own blood.

I eased my grip.

“We can give him the rest of the valerian all in one dose,” I said. “And sedate him if the Beast starts to emerge. We’ll bind his hands as a precaution. The professor had an old set of shackles in the closet upstairs.”

He sighed, and I knew I had won him over.

When we told the others our plan, Elizabeth looked apprehensive, but she didn’t argue. Lucy wrung her hands in relief.

Montgomery rubbed his forehead as he turned to me. “Balthazar won’t be able to drive the carriage the entire time, not with his wounds. I’ll need to be up front some of the time. When I am, you must keep a pistol aimed at Edward every second of the trip.”

I nodded. My head was racing with the thoughts of draughts, serums, elixirs I would try. What I felt for Edward wasn’t love, not like with Montgomery. But in a way Edward was even dearer to me, because he and I weren’t so different at heart.

“I’m coming too,” Lucy said.

My head jerked to her. “You can’t. You’ve a life here.”

“A life? My father was one of those men. He knew what they were doing, and he supported it. You wouldn’t go home after that, so you can’t tell me
I
should.” She was standing very close to the cellar door, throwing it little glances, and I had a feeling her decision had as much to do with the boy in the cellar as anything else.

I turned to Montgomery for help, but to my surprise he just wiped his tired face with a cloth. “You know better than anyone what it is to have an immoral father,” he said to me. “Let her come.”

The room still felt unnaturally cold, or maybe it was the chill in my blood. I looked at each of them, settling last on Montgomery. My heart clenched. Even if I turned out to be a terrible wife, he would still love me, always forgive me, always be the boy who had pushed a sullen little girl around in a wheelbarrow to make her smile. There was good in each of them, good still in this harsh world, and it blew a small bit of warmth into my limbs.

“Tonight, then,” I said. “All of us.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

FORTY-FIVE

M
ONTGOMERY GAVE THE HORSES
fresh feed and water before the journey, work that was second nature to him. Lucy packed as many extra blankets and coats as she could find. Had she always had this practical side to her, and I’d never noticed? It wasn’t until everything was packed, the horses’ harnesses checked one last time, that I slipped down the basement steps to the cellar with shackles in hand.

Edward was awake, in his human state, though his muscles twitched under his skin like eels beneath water. He fingered his pocket watch anxiously, running his nails along the seam as though he would open it, but he never did. He wouldn’t meet my gaze.

“We’re leaving, Edward.” His gave no indication of having heard, and I felt for the syringe of valerian in my pocket. “You don’t have to worry about the King’s Club any longer. We made certain that the entire city will know what they’ve done, once the police . . .” I cleared my throat. “Once the police find the bodies.”

His head jerked up at this. “What did you do?” he asked.

I hesitated. “It doesn’t matter, but the police might trace it to us, so we’re headed north to Elizabeth’s estate. We’re taking you with us.”

He laughed, cold and harsh. “Ah, Juliet, you’d best leave me here.”

My hands curled against the bars. “You wouldn’t have abandoned me, and I’m not going to abandon you.”

He didn’t answer, and I unchained the door and cracked it open. He’d used all his strength to fight against the Beast these final few days, and it showed in the sag of his limbs and the lines of his face. I didn’t dare step closer, not yet.

He shook his head. “It will be over for me soon. The Beast will take me over completely, and he’ll do terrible things. You’d do better to kill me now.”

“Don’t give up, Edward, please.” I stepped forward hesitantly and reached out a hand to touch his shoulder, but his eyes went to my silver ring. For a painfully silent moment, the ring was the loudest thing in the room.

“Lucy told me about the engagement,” he said at last, bitterly. “I suppose congratulations are in order.”

“You always knew I loved him. I never lied about that.”

“Yes, but it isn’t
you
he loves in return. It’s the idea of you. A fantasy.”

“How is that any different with you? You claim to have fallen in love with me from a photograph. But I’m not a fantasy, Edward—I can be heartless and cold and stubborn, just like my father. Montgomery will come to accept that, in time.” I swallowed, covering the ring with my other hand. “Lucy adores you. She knows what you are and still loves you. If you’d only spare a thought for her . . .”

“Has Montgomery told you the truth yet?”

The secrets.
In all the chaos, it had been easy to disregard what Edward told me about Montgomery keeping secrets. With the engagement, I had assumed everything was right between him and me, or at least would be once we were out of London. But now a thorn of doubt dug itself into my palm.

Edward coughed a humorless laugh. “He hasn’t. I didn’t think so, or else you wouldn’t be so quick to marry him.” He leaned closer, jaw set hard. “Ask him about when he left the island.”

I felt caught between desperate curiosity and fear. “If you know something,” I started, “then you must tell me—”

“Juliet?” Elizabeth’s worried voice, coming from the top of the stairs, interrupted me. “Are you down there alone with him?”

My fist tightened over the shackles. I leaned out of the cellar door and called up to her, “There’s no cause for alarm. He has control of himself for the moment.”

Elizabeth stood at the top of the stairs, musket in hand, silhouetted by the kitchen light. “I have something for you.” She started down the stairs and I climbed up to meet her halfway, where she extended me a sealed letter. “Since I’m only going with you tonight as far as Derby, I’ve written you a letter of introduction to Mrs. McKittrick, the housekeeper, and explained I’ll be joining you in a few weeks. I should warn you, it’s a large manor, quite remote. There’s a village five miles away, but it can be difficult to reach when the moors flood. The servants are all a bit out of practice with polite society. You’ll find some of them rather strange, I think.”

“I’ll be quite at home then.” I tucked the sealed letter into my bodice. “I’ll bring Edward up in a few moments.”

She nodded, and I returned to the cellar. Edward was being strangely quiet. A small metal object gleamed on the ground next to his hand.

I crouched down to pick up the pocket watch he was always fiddling with, open now, only where the clockwork should have been was only empty space.