Czytaj książkę: «A Cold Legacy»

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Megan Shepherd

About the Publisher

1

The last travelers’ inn on the road from Inverness was no place to die.

Freezing rain lashed the windowpanes as I huddled over a warm bowl of soup in a corner of the inn’s ground-floor tavern. Across the table, Montgomery rubbed a scar on his arm and stared out the window, scanning the muddy road for signs that we were being pursued. In the upstairs room just over our heads, locked away from the other patrons, Edward lay dying.

I rested my hands on Montgomery’s anxious ones. “We’re safe here. No one would come after us this far north.”

Beneath the worn canvas shirt and the pistol strapped to his side was the young man I’d agreed to marry. His silver ring circled my finger, scuffed and dented after our escape from London. For the past three days, Lucy, Edward, and I had huddled in the back of the carriage while Montgomery and Balthazar had driven us through snow and rain without complaint, north to Elizabeth von Stein’s estate, Ballentyne Manor, where we hoped to hide.

I threaded my fingers through Montgomery’s. My hands were cold, as always. His were warm and solid. They belonged to a surgeon, not a servant, but I suppose it didn’t matter anymore. Now, like me, he was simply a fugitive.

He turned back to the window. “I keep thinking the police will find us.”

“We didn’t leave any evidence for them to trace. Besides, Elizabeth stayed behind to make certain they don’t suspect us. They’ve no reason to tie us to the … the deaths.”

Deaths. Murders is what I should have said. Just days ago, in the King’s College’s basement laboratories, we had brought to life five of Father’s water-tank creatures that had then slaughtered the most dangerous members of the King’s Club. I could still picture the blood seeping from a gash on Dr. Hastings’s neck.

Montgomery and I hadn’t yet spoken of what had happened at King’s College, though I knew the violence of it bothered him deeply. It had been terrible, but necessary—a fact we didn’t quite seem to agree on.

“We were very thorough,” I added in a dry voice.

A dark look crossed his face. He started to answer, but the sound of laughter drowned out his voice.

Annoyed, I turned to the inn’s fireplace, where a dozen red-faced men and women in gaudy satin clothes swapped stories and pints of beer. They were part of a traveling carnival troupe following the winter fair circuit, and were the only patrons sharing the inn with us. A scraggly-haired woman finished telling a ghost story with a loud belch, and the others roared with laughter.

I didn’t realize how tensely I was holding my muscles until Montgomery leaned in. “Ignore them,” he said.

“It’s nonsense,” I muttered. “Telling ghost stories. There’s enough in this world that’s frightening. Only the ignorant would scare themselves on purpose.”

Overhead, a floorboard creaked and I sat straighter, watching the ceiling, wondering how Edward was doing. Days had passed, and yet I hadn’t come to terms with the fact that he’d poisoned himself. He had tried to end his life before—misguided attempts to kill the monster inside him—but the Beast had always been too strong. It hadn’t been until the very end, when Edward and the Beast had nearly melded into one, that he’d been able to force arsenic down his own throat. He’d have been dead in hours if Montgomery hadn’t stolen drugs from a chemist’s shop outside of Liverpool to counterbalance the worst of the poison’s effects. It wasn’t a cure, but it was a chance.

Now, overcome by delirium and fever, he was caught somewhere between life and death, between being Edward and being the Beast. Lucy was up there now, tending to him at his bedside, while Balthazar stood guard outside the door.

The floorboards stopped shifting, and I relaxed. I leaned forward, letting my hair screen my face, and toyed with the ring on my finger.

“Ignorant, are we, lass?”

I tossed back my hair to see the speaker—a thin man with a potbelly gut that stretched his cheap green satin tunic. The leader of the troupe, I assumed. The room had gone silent, save the sounds of the fire popping and the barmaid cleaning glasses. None of his troupe was laughing now.

“It was a private conversation,” I explained. “You shouldn’t have listened in if you didn’t want to hear what we had to say.”

The thin man’s eyebrows shot up in surprise that a young woman would speak to him so boldly. He dragged his wooden stool next to mine, leaning in so close that I could smell the sour beer on his breath. “You’ve a fine accent. City folk, are you? If you’re smart, you’ll turn back.” He dropped his voice to a theatrical hush. “Strange things happen this far north. Flashes of colored light. Pools of black water. They say half the women smell of witchcraft.”

He was trying to frighten me, and it wasn’t working. “It’s probably the smell of soap,” I said. “I don’t suppose you’d recognize that particular odor.”

The barmaid snickered.

Montgomery’s hand tightened over mine. “The last thing we need is to draw attention to ourselves,” he whispered in my ear.

He was right. I started to turn away, but the thin man grabbed my stool with surprising strength and dragged me over until my face was only inches from his. “If you’ve a better ghost story, then by all means, lass, tell us.”

Montgomery let out a sigh.

I narrowed my eyes. I should go upstairs. I should leave it be. But my nerves were agitated, and my patience was a prickly monster. If this man thought I didn’t have my own horrors to tell, he was wrong.

I started to open my mouth. I could tell him about a madman banished to an island who twisted animals until they spoke and walked on two legs. Or a murderer stalking the streets of London who left behind white flowers tinged with blood. Or I could go upstairs and unlock Edward’s door and let the Beast’s six-inch claws show these carnival performers what real terror was.

“We’ve had a long journey,” Montgomery answered for me. “Our nerves are frayed. We didn’t mean to offend.” His words had a finality to them that sent the man grumbling back to the fireplace, where the old woman let out another belch.

“I could have handled it on my own,” I said.

He raised an eyebrow. “By dumping your soup in his lap, most likely, and starting a brawl. I told you, we need to remain unnoticed. Now I should check on the horses while there’s still a bit of daylight. Eat that soup before it goes cold. You need it.”

He pulled his oilskin jacket over his shirt and disappeared into the freezing rain. Alone at the table, ignoring the din from the carnival troupe, I watched the steam rise from my soup while I calculated the distance to Ballentyne Manor. We’d been riding for three days, but the rain and snow and a broken strut had slowed us, so it might be another full day before we arrived. Not much time to keep Edward’s fever stabilized until we could find a cure.

Footsteps approached, and a man sank into the seat that Montgomery had vacated. I jerked out of my calculations, frowning. He wore the same gaudy green tunic as the rest of the carnival troupe, but I hadn’t seen him earlier. I certainly would have remembered if I had. His skin and hair were brown, marking him as a foreigner from Africa or the Americas. I narrowed my eyes.

“I already told your leader that you won’t get any stories out of me,” I said.

“It isn’t a story I want.” His voice was deep and raspy, with traces of a faraway accent. “It’s you, pretty girl.”

I raised my eyebrow, ready to fulfill Montgomery’s fears and dump the soup in the man’s lap, but he only set a deck of fortune-telling cards on the table.

“Or rather, it’s your fortune.”

I rolled my eyes. I suppose to him I must look the perfect gullible victim: a young girl dressed in wealthy clothes far from home. “I think you meant it’s my coins you want, but I’m sorry to say I don’t believe in fortune-telling. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” I started to stand.

His mouth quirked in a smile. He flipped over the top card. I tried not to look at the symbol it displayed, but my curiosity won.

The Fool. It depicted a man on a journey, bag slung over one shoulder with a dog following at his heels.

I paused. The dog looked a bit like my little black mutt, Sharkey, and I was on a journey, though logic told me it wouldn’t be difficult to infer that a girl at a travelers’ inn was on a voyage. “Why did you choose that card?”

“I didn’t choose it. It chose you.”

I rolled my eyes again. “Does anyone actually fall for such dramatics? They certainly don’t work on me.” I turned to go. I should check on Edward and relieve Lucy and Balthazar of their watch. It would be a long day of travel tomorrow, and we’d all need our sleep.

“You claim not to believe in fortunes,” the man said, hand hovering over the next card. “Yet you are intrigued, are you not? Come, pretty girl. One more card.” Though I knew it was a trick, my feet didn’t move. I jerked my head toward the deck begrudgingly.

“Go ahead, then. One more.”

He flipped the card. The Emperor, an arrogant-looking man with white hair and a foppish crown. “Your thoughts are consumed with a man,” the fortune-teller said. “A lover? A brother?” He studied me. “No, a father.”

I sank back into the chair, every sense alert. The fire crackled while the carnival folk whispered among themselves. I could feel my own heart beating. I knew it was nonsense, but suddenly I was very curious to know what else the fortune-teller might say.

Amusement flickered over his features. “Ask me the question that is on your mind. Then you can judge for yourself if fortunes are real.”

I swallowed, glancing around the room almost guiltily. I didn’t believe any of it, of course. Science had long ago disproved fortune-telling. And yet I slid a coin across the table, dropped my voice, and tried to pretend I wasn’t desperate to know what he would say. “Yes, it’s about my father. I want to know …”

But I couldn’t continue. Memories of Father were a hand around my throat, silencing me. The fortune-teller’s gold-flecked eyes met mine, and the rest of the room dimmed. “He has some hold over you, does he not? A hold you wish broken, but it isn’t that easy. A child can never escape her father.”

His words struck too close to my heart, and I swallowed and looked away. “I can. He’s dead.”

The fortune-teller didn’t blink. “Death, in these cases, doesn’t matter.”

For a moment, his words held me in a rapt silence. I thought of my father: his affection for science, his ability to focus so completely on the task at hand, his ambiguous morality, his madness. All traits I’d seen glimmers of in myself. I pictured myself at his age: a gray-haired scientist, brilliant and terrible, just like him.

One of the carnival folk let out a shrill laugh by the fireplace, and I blinked. The room came back into focus, along with my logic.

“I know how this works,” I said a little too fast. “You aren’t psychic at all. You’re just good at reading people’s appearances and mannerisms. You know it’s highly likely that a girl my age would have a problem with some sort of man, so you throw out the obvious possibilities and gauge my reaction. Then you let me form my own conclusions. You’ve nothing to tell me except generalities that could apply to anyone.”

I stood, rather satisfied with myself. I couldn’t deny, however, that there was a tiny part of me that had almost wanted to believe. In a world of science, a little magic would have been welcome.

“Keep the coin,” I said more softly, and turned to go.

“Silver and gold are not the only coin,” he said softly. “Virtue too passes current all over the world.”

A shiver ran through me. Instantly I was a little girl again, sitting in my father’s lap as he read heavy volumes from his library. Euripides, I remembered, in the worn leather binding. I had tried to sound out the words when I’d been just learning to read, but Father had grown impatient and finished the phrase for me.

“Silver and gold are not the only coin,” he had read. “Virtue too passes current all over the world.”

It had been one of Father’s favorite sayings.

I clenched my jaw. “Why did you use that phrase, in particular?”

My question was interrupted by frantic footsteps on the stairs. The barmaid and the carnival folk all turned as Lucy came stumbling breathlessly down the steps. Ever since we’d left London, a glassy dullness had settled over her eyes. She’d learned her father was a terrible man, financing my father’s criminal research and plotting with the King’s Club to bring his science to fruition. On top of it all, she’d found out the boy she loved was a monster. When he’d poisoned himself, she’d been inconsolable.

Her eyes locked to mine, the dullness in them replaced by a wildness that made my heart beat faster.

“Juliet,” she said. “Come quickly. It’s Edward—the fever is breaking.”

2

I pulled Lucy into the stairwell, out of earshot.

“He sat up,” she breathed. “He looked straight at me and said my name. I saw it.”

Edward had been delirious for three straight days, mumbling nonsense and thrashing in his chains. The promise—and danger—of him returning to health shot through me like a jolt of electricity. “Fetch Montgomery. He’s in the stable. Hurry.”

She dashed down the hallway. I climbed the stairs two at a time, tripping over my skirt, and threw open the door to Edward’s room. It was a small room, with a single rope bed and old wooden dresser. Inside, a hulking man inclined over where Edward lay. To anyone else the giant would have looked a monster with his misshapen shoulders and hairy face, but to me he was like family.

“Balthazar,” I said. “Is it true? Is Edward lucid?”

“I can’t rightly say, miss.” His big fingers knit together in hesitation. “He’s delirious now, that’s for certain. If he had a moment of clarity, I didn’t see it.”

I sat on the bed next to Edward, reaching out to touch his sweat-soaked forehead. “Edward,” I whispered. “Can you hear me?”

There had been a time when Edward cared for me deeply, and I hoped that the sound of my voice might reach through his delirium. But his only response was to jerk his head away as though my touch burned him. Thick metal chains twisted around his torso and locked his hands together—a safeguard. Edward and the Beast had been a step away from melding completely in those last moments in London, and now that we’d counterbalanced the poison, we weren’t certain who—or rather what—we’d find when the fever broke. Would one half overpower the other completely? Or would they meld into a sort of hybrid personality? Either way, Montgomery had insisted on leaving the chains securely fastened, and I hadn’t argued. After all, I wasn’t convinced it was truly Edward who had been in love with me as much as it had been the Beast. Though perhaps obsessed was the better word. To a deadly degree.

“Then you didn’t see him sit up and speak?” I asked.

Balthazar’s lips folded in indecision. He’d developed a sweet protective instinct for Lucy, but he also wasn’t one to lie. “No, miss,” he admitted. “I was just outside the door. I think Miss Lucy … she might have wanted it badly enough to imagine it.”

Bitter disappointment twisted my heart. Of course. We all wanted Edward back so badly that it was easy to hope for miracles. This was the boy who had come back to the island to protect me, who’d understood both my dark and light sides. The only other person who had ever stood in my leaky London attic with a mangy dog and threadbare quilt and wanted nothing more out of life.

My hand hovered a few inches above Edward’s shoulder. His eyes were closed, his face still as death. I felt his pulse; it was raging fast. The idea of him calmly sitting up and speaking seemed impossible. I didn’t blame Lucy for imagining it, though—only moments ago I’d been nearly desperate enough to believe the words of a fortune-teller.

Lucy stumbled through the doorway with Montgomery behind her, medical bag in hand. He sank to his knees and checked Edward’s vital signs with the well-practiced skill of a surgeon.

“Well?” Lucy asked anxiously.

Montgomery set down his stethoscope. He wiped a hand over his face, but not before I saw the flicker of sadness there. The two men had once been at odds, but that had changed since Edward had sacrificed himself for us. Breaking the code in Father’s journals had revealed that Edward had been made with Montgomery’s own blood. Now he was the closest thing Montgomery had to a brother, in spirit and in flesh. “He’s still deep in the fever. His temperature is high, but it hasn’t broken.”

“He sat up,” Lucy insisted. “He looked right at me, and it was Edward, I swear. It wasn’t that monster.”

The rest of us stood awkwardly, none of us willing to tell her what we were all thinking—that stress and sleepless nights were making her imagine things.

“I know you care for him,” I said softly. “We all do. But we need to be prepared for any eventuality. The Beast was incredibly strong. The chances of Edward overpowering him aren’t high.”

Lucy dragged a hand through her dark curls. Her eyes were bleary with exhaustion and just a touch of madness. “I swear, Juliet. I saw it. I saw him.”

I touched her shoulder gently as Montgomery packed away his medical bag. “Come to bed, Lucy. You need rest. Let Montgomery watch over Edward for a while.”

She started to object again but broke into a frustrated sob, and I led her across the hall to the room we shared. We climbed onto the straw mattress that made my skin itch even through the layers of my dress. Through the thin walls, I heard Montgomery pacing in the room next to ours, exchanging low words with Balthazar as they discussed how much longer Edward could survive the fever. My body was heavy with worry and sleep, and with the lingering words of the fortune-teller.

I pulled the blanket tighter as the wind whistled outside. Lucy fell asleep quickly, exhausted. I watched the faint light play on her face as she slept through nightmares. The blanket had slipped from around her shoulders, replaced by a mantle of gooseflesh. I tucked the covers around her neck. In that space between awake and asleep, fears turned over in my head.

Would we wake to find a cadaver wrapped in chains? Or would the Beast win, and Edward be lost to us forever?

The thoughts worked my insides the way a baker kneads tough bread. Father had won in life; now he was winning in death, too. He’d created Edward and now he was the arbiter of his destruction. I sank deeper into sleep, anger and worry tangling with the uneasy feeling from my meeting with the fortune-teller. Mind reading was impossible, I knew that. But then again, many things I had once thought impossible were real—split personalities, talking animals, even the possibility of bringing back the dead.

My mind turned back to the conversation I’d had with Elizabeth in the carriage from London before she left us at Derby. I had whispered to her, low and secretive: But that’s not the end, is it? Death, I mean. She had looked at me fearfully as she understood that I had pieced together her dark family history, which she and the professor had only alluded to. Their ancestry from Switzerland, fleeing persecution, changing their name.

What was their name? I had pressed.

Frankenstein, she’d admitted at last.

MY EYES SHOT OPEN, searching the darkness for a sense of place. A scratchy mattress below me. A single window, filled with fog. I’d slept and dreamed of impossible things.

In that carriage ride leaving London, Elizabeth had revealed that her family was descended from Victor Frank-enstein, the brilliant doctor of century-old legends, but she’d insisted that his science had been forgotten and his journals lost. There was no way to replicate his procedures to bring the dead back to life.

I let out a breath I didn’t even know I’d been holding and climbed out of bed, still wearing my wrinkled lavender dress. I twisted the knob silently and slipped into the hall to look for Montgomery.

This far north the days were shorter, eaten on both ends by darkness, but now early-morning light streamed through the hallway windows. Balthazar slept on the floor outside Edward’s room, keeping watch, with my little dog, Sharkey, curled against his chest. I stepped over them carefully and tiptoed to the door of Montgomery’s room. When I cracked it open, I found the bed empty.

Voices came from the dining room downstairs along with the smell of freshly baked scones and coffee. My stomach reminded me that I hadn’t eaten more than a bite of soup the night before. I descended the stairs, stepped into the dining room, and froze.

Four British police officers faced the bar with their backs to me, speaking with the barmaid from last night. I went rigid. A single creaking board might alert them to my presence.

“Two girls under the age of eighteen traveling with a twenty-year-old servant, a large deformed man, and possibly a young gentleman,” an officer said.

I didn’t dare move a step. The barmaid’s eyes flickered to mine just long enough for me to read the warning written in them. It was us they were after and she knew it.

“You’re certain they came this way, are you?” she asked.

“Clean out your ears, woman. I said we aren’t certain of anything. The dispatch said they haven’t been spotted since fleeing London, so all the major thoroughfares are being checked as a precaution. Train stations and the ports to the Continent and the Americas as well.”

His fellow officer picked at the broken edge of the bar, bored. “I can’t imagine they’d have left London for these parts. Not even criminals would want to hide out in muddy bogs filled with sheep’s dung.”

The barmaid narrowed her eyes. Relations had never been easy between the English and the Scottish, and these officers were as English as weak tea. I could practically see her face burning redder with anger as another one of the officers riffled through the ledgers on the counter.

She flipped a bar towel at him. “You can’t go poking about through there.”

“Keep that rag to yourself,” the officer snarled. Tension crackled between them. With my breath held, I took a single step backward.

“Well?” the lead investigator pressed. “Have you seen anyone matching their description or haven’t you? We’ve other work to do.”

The barmaid glanced at me again, chewing the inside of her cheek. The woman had no loyalty to us. We were just as English as the officers. One word from her and we’d be thrown into the back of their police carriage and dragged to London to face trial for murder.

Once more, the image of Dr. Hastings’s scratched-out eyes flashed in my head.

I took another step backward and the floorboard squeaked. Before the officers could think to look, the barmaid slammed her rag on the bar and said, “If they passed this way, I haven’t seen ’em.”

Relief flooded me, but it was short-lived. As she noisily pulled out some tankards, someone seized me from behind and dragged me into the side hallway. My heart shot to my throat as I lurched for the knife stashed in my boot until I recognized Montgomery’s smell—hay and candle wax. My shoulders eased.

“They’re looking for us,” I whispered.

“I know. I’ve readied the carriage and hidden it behind the barn. Balthazar and I will get Edward. Fetch Lucy and bring our bags to the back as quickly as you can.”

I dashed up the back stairs with fast, quiet steps. I had scoffed at Montgomery the previous night when he set the horses to pasture and hid the carriage behind the barn. His preparations didn’t seem quite so overly cautious now.

I woke Lucy, who gasped awake, and helped her struggle into her dress.

“How did they find us?” she whispered in a fearful hush.

“They haven’t found us, not yet. They’re checking all the major roads. We’ll have to stick to back roads from now on. It’ll slow us down, but we dare not risk anything else.” Together we loaded our meager belongings into carpetbags and carried them down the back steps silent as mice, with Sharkey tucked under my arm. Day was just breaking over the eastern moors, which were shrouded in a thick silver fog. If we could disappear into that fog while the police were distracted, we would have a chance.

Behind the inn, the horses stamped at the hardened earth, blowing jets of warm steam into the cold morning air as Montgomery harnessed them. “I’ve put Edward inside the carriage. I don’t need to tell you how fragile his condition is. Balthazar will ride inside with you—his appearance is too distinctive, and we don’t need anyone paying extra attention to us.”

I opened the door to the carriage, where Edward lay flat on the bench-seat, moaning incomprehensibly. His eyes were closed, the chains still wrapped tight. I climbed in, pulling Lucy with me. Balthazar lumbered in behind her and held Sharkey in his lap. Quietly as he could, Montgomery drove the horses to the road, letting their soft steps get lost in the mist, until we were so swallowed up in the fog that I could no longer see the inn. He cracked the whip, and the horses bolted.

I grabbed the window for balance. Lucy sat next to Edward, his head in her lap, her fingers trailing through his sweat-soaked hair as she muttered sweet reassurances to him that he would come through the fever and be eating cinnamon cake again in no time. I didn’t have the heart to tell her he likely couldn’t hear her, nor would he remember anything she said. Balthazar soon nodded off. The man was able to sleep through anything.

I pushed aside the gauzy curtain every few minutes to make certain we weren’t being followed. After an hour, then two, I began to relax. The fog burned off as the morning stretched into midday, but the heather was endless, a sea of rolling red hills and frozen earth, beautiful in its desolation, hypnotic in its monotony. Twice we passed small hamlets, nothing more than clusters of stone cottages with smoke rising from mossy chimneys; once a farmer, wizened and bent, riding a donkey down the dirt road.

Other than that, there was nothing but the moors, the storm clouds building to the north, and the ceaseless pounding of my heart.

3

The afternoon turned dark as the storm grew. A sudden clap of thunder shook the carriage, making me jump. The first drops of freezing rain fell against the glass. I thought of Montgomery alone outside, hunched in his oilskin coat against the wind and the rain.

A flash of lightning lit up the dark clouds. I peered through the window, looking for bobbing lanterns on the horizon that would mean the police carriage was following us, but there was nothing.

Thunder clapped close enough to wake Lucy with a shudder. Her eyes met mine.

“Just a storm,” I said softly.

Balthazar reached over and patted her hand, his dark paw engulfing her delicate fingers. There had been a time when Lucy had been terrified of the hulking man, but now she squeezed his hand in return and reached over to straighten his shirt collar, which had gone askew.

“Will the staff at Ballentyne be afraid of me?” he asked her.

She laughed. “Everyone is afraid of you at first sight. You look a walking terror.” She brushed dust off his threadbare coat tenderly. “But once they get to know you, they’ll adore you just as I do.”

When I turned back to the window I saw lights ahead of us, unmoving. Another hamlet. No, larger than that. A village. After only a handful of signs of life for the past few days, the prospect of a village, tiny and crumbling though it must be, still made me anxious. Lucy’s brow was knit, too.

“Surely they wouldn’t have a police outpost in such a small place, would they?” She laid a protective hand on Edward’s chest. His lips moved, but no sound came out.

“I can’t imagine they would,” I said hesitantly. “Anyway, I’m positive they’ll give up the search after a few more days.”

It felt like a hollow promise, and the hard look Lucy gave me confirmed it.

As we rode closer the lights took shape—candles in windows, lanterns hung outside doors. The village was nothing more than a few intersecting dirt roads, but after the desolation of the moors, it whispered of civilization.

Montgomery stopped the horses outside a tavern. He came to the carriage door, opening it just a crack to keep the rain from drenching us. “I’m going to ask for directions. We can’t be far now.”

We watched him saunter over the muddy street as though he didn’t even feel the bite of freezing rain. A face appeared in the tavern window. The door opened and he spoke to a woman for a few moments, then stomped back through the mud. “This village is called Quick,” he told us. “The manor’s only five miles from here.”

“Did you hear that?” Lucy murmured to Edward, still stroking his hair. “We’re almost there. Just hold on. Everything will be all right once we arrive.”

Montgomery’s eyes shifted to me. Neither of us wanted to remind Lucy that the prospect of Edward’s fever breaking—and the Beast’s reappearance—was almost more frightening than the fever itself. Delirious, he was less of a threat.

“Let’s go then,” I whispered to Montgomery. “And quickly.”

He closed the door and in another moment we were moving again, passing through the rest of Quick. Then all too soon the village was nothing but fading lights. The storm grew and the road became rougher, and all the while Edward’s eyes rolled back and forth beneath shuttered lids.

Thunder struck close by, and Lucy shrieked. Montgomery whipped the horses harder, pulling us along the uneven road impossibly fast, trying to outrun the storm. I twisted in the seat to look out the back window at the pelting rain. A stone fence ran alongside us.

“We must be getting close,” I said.

“Not soon enough,” Lucy breathed. “We’re going to crash if he keeps driving like this!”

The road widened, straightening, letting us travel even faster. Lightning struck close by, blinding me. The horses bolted. Lucy screamed and covered her eyes, but I couldn’t tear mine away. The lightning had struck an enormous oak tree, twisted from centuries of wind. The oak took flame, blazing despite the rain. A smoking gash ran down the trunk—the lightning’s death mark. I watched until the rain put out most of the flames, but it still smoldered, billowing hot ash into the night.

The horses pawed the earth, and I grabbed the window to steady myself. At this wild speed, just hitting a single rock at the wrong angle would send the carriage shattering to the ground. It was madness to go so fast. Couldn’t Montgomery calm the horses?

Just when I feared the carriage would careen out of control, it stopped short, throwing me against the opposite wall. I tangled in Lucy’s limbs as the chains around Edward’s body clinked. Balthazar grunted, jerking awake at last. We scrambled in the bottom of the carriage until the door flew open.

Montgomery stood in the pelting rain. I feared he’d say we’d broken another strut or the horses had gone lame or we’d have to spend the night in the harsh storm.

But then I saw the lights behind him, and the night took shape into a turreted stone manor with bright lamps blazing in the windows and gargoyles on the roof vomiting rain into a stone courtyard.

Montgomery’s eyes met mine beneath the low brim of his hat.

“We’ve arrived,” he said.

THE IRON KNOCKER WAS freezing beneath my bare palm, but I pounded it again and again. Lucy huddled by my side, blanket hooded over her head, rain streaking down both our faces. In the courtyard Montgomery held the horses to keep them from bolting again. Balthazar remained in the carriage with Edward and Sharkey, hidden from view. It was one thing for strangers to arrive in the middle of a storm: quite another if they had a monster, a delirious patient wrapped in chains, and a scruffy black dog with them.

At last, the door creaked open. Knowing I must look a mess, I brushed the rain off my face and fumbled for the letter of introduction pressed safely within my dress’s folds. Elizabeth had told me her housekeeper’s name, Mrs. McKenna, and I expected to see a severe woman with a tight gray bun. Instead, a startlingly beautiful young woman with clover-honey skin and loose dark hair stared at us. If rain-soaked strangers arriving unannounced after dark surprised her, she didn’t show it.

“I’m sorry to arrive without notice,” I called over the pounding rain. “Elizabeth von Stein sent us. I’m her ward.”

The young woman didn’t open the door a crack wider. No expression crossed her face save one of mild suspicion. Her dress was old-fashioned and puritanical in style, covering her body from feet to chin. She wore white gloves, though whether for religious reasons or because of the cold, I wasn’t sure.

Lucy gave me a questioning look, and I knew what she was thinking. The young woman, with her black hair and dark complexion, looked to be Romany. What was a Roma doing this far into Scotland, and dressed like a Puritan?

“May we come in?” I asked at the woman’s sullen silence.

Her eyes flickered to Montgomery in the courtyard, and her hand went to the old-fashioned high collar around her neck, fumbling with the upper button. “Elizabeth’s ward?” she asked in a flat voice. “Elizabeth has no ward.”

“Her uncle, Professor von Stein, was my guardian, but he passed away recently and Elizabeth took me in. I’ve the papers to prove it.” I glanced back at the carriage. “We’d be obliged if we could stable the horses in the barn during the storm.”

The woman begrudgingly jerked her chin toward the eastern side of the house. Montgomery led the horses off, leaving us alone. She opened the door wider for us to enter, then shut it with a groan of hinges. I jumped at the sound. Lucy’s eyes were wide as she stood in the center of the grand foyer, dripping rainwater onto the stone floor. The foyer was Gothic in style, ancient by the look of it. Fading tapestries collected dust on the walls. An imposing stone staircase led to an upper landing, where a chandelier flickered and dimmed. It was surprisingly bright. With a start, I realized the light wasn’t coming from a flame—how on earth did Elizabeth have electricity all the way out here?

The young Romany woman stepped forward, her shoes scuffing on the floor.

I raised a frozen hand to my hair, pushing the soaked locks out of my face. “My name is Juliet Moreau, and this is Lucy Radcliffe. Let me show you the letter of introduction from Elizabeth …”

I tried to unfasten my buttons to pull out the damp letter, but my fingers were too numb. The fire in the main hall wasn’t enough to chase away the chill. As I fumbled with my many layers of clothing, a clock ticked from some unseen room, highlighting the silence. I glanced at Lucy. I hadn’t expected such a sullen welcome to Ballentyne, and for Lucy’s part, she looked ready to run back outside and take her chances with the storm.

Another door slammed from deep within the manor and I whirled to the entryway. The Romany woman turned slowly to a back corner, where low male voices and heavy footsteps approached.

Montgomery and Balthazar entered, hands clasped behind their necks like prisoners of war. A gray-haired manservant with a thin face like a starved fox followed, pointing a rifle at the backs of their heads.

“Wait!” I cried. “We’re friends of Elizabeth!”

The manservant ignored me. “I found two pistols on ’em and this rifle. They’ve a man wrapped in chains in the carriage. A prisoner, most like. We should alert someone in Quick to telegram the police.”

My heart fluttered wildly.

“He’s not a prisoner!” My words were sharp enough to shock them. The man cocked his head toward me and I saw he was missing his left ear; there was only a jagged scar in its place. Lucy shrank closer to me.

“His name is Edward Prince and he’s gravely ill,” I continued. “We’ve only chained him so he doesn’t harm himself in his delirium. He isn’t a threat and neither are we, so you can lower that rifle and drop this talk about sending for the police.” I tore at my damp layers until I found Elizabeth’s letter and thrust it at the young woman. “It’s from Elizabeth. It says—”

“I can read,” she said coldly, opening the letter.

Lucy clung to my side. She was normally so much bolder than I, but she was mistress of the tearoom and salon. Here, in this last bastion of civilization before the upper wilds of Scotland, was the first time I’d ever seen her rendered speechless.

The woman finished the letter and exchanged a glance with the manservant. “It is as they say it is,” she said. I’d expected the letter to ease her suspicions, but if anything, her voice sounded even colder than before. Regardless, he lowered the rifle.

Montgomery took off his hat and wiped his wet hair back. “Balthazar, fetch Edward and our trunks, if you’d be so good.” Balthazar shuddered like a wet dog and turned to go. Thunder crashed outside and the chandelier dimmed, plunging the foyer into low light before the howling wind let up and the chandelier flickered back to full power.

“My name is Valentina,” the woman said curtly. “I’m second in charge after the housekeeper. This is Carlyle, the gamekeeper. We aren’t used to Elizabeth sending guests, certainly not wards.”

“Yes, well, here we are dripping all over your floors,” I said with an uneasy laugh. “Is there a place we might dry off and warm ourselves? I think we’re all nearly frozen through.” I couldn’t stop shivering, and it wasn’t just on account of the cold.

Valentina nodded toward the roaring grand fireplace. “Wait here. I’ll tell McKenna you’ve arrived.” She exchanged another glance with Carlyle, who followed her out of the foyer.

We were left alone in the silent hall. Watery old portraits hung high above our heads, looking down on us with eyes that seemed all too real. My skin rippled as if the house had eyes and ears, and all were trained on us.

At last Lucy broke her silence to stomp off toward the fire. “Would it kill them to offer us a towel?” she hissed under her breath. “Some tea? You’d think we were lepers.”

I was glad, at least, that she’d found her voice again. We huddled around the fireplace, holding our hands toward the flame. Montgomery hung his oilskin coat on a hook by the fire.

“Elizabeth warned me they were out of practice with polite society,” I offered.

Lucy scoffed. Behind her, a faded threadbare boar loomed in the heavy tapestry. “Out of practice? More like they were both raised by wolves. I can’t imagine, if Elizabeth were here, she’d tolerate their behavior. A rifle to Montgomery’s head!”

I rubbed my hands together in front of the fire and thought of the first time I’d met Elizabeth. She’d dragged me through a kitchen window and dumped me on a hard stone floor. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised by our reception after all.

“Well, we are imposing on their goodwill,” I said. “I’m just grateful to be out of that carriage. Besides, Elizabeth should arrive in a few days—”

A door slammed again and Valentina returned, though without any sort of towel or blanket for us to dry ourselves. If she noticed that we were all soaked to the bone and shivering, it only seemed to give her perverse satisfaction. “Carlyle will help your associate unload the carriage and carry the sick gentleman upstairs. McKenna said to bring you down to meet the rest of the staff. You’ve arrived at an unfortunate time. We’re in the middle of a funeral.”

Lucy’s face went white. “Who died?”

Valentina’s mouth quirked, the first flicker of emotion we’d seen other than sullenness. “The last group of strangers who came to this door.”

I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.

“Follow me,” she said. “The ground is frozen until spring thaw. We can’t bury our bodies until then, so we hold our funerals inside.”

I hesitated. “Inside? But where?”

Valentina met my eyes, and I realized that I wasn’t certain that I wanted to know where, exactly, the bodies were kept. Nor that Ballentyne Manor was anything like the safe haven I’d expected.

“You’ll see for yourself. I hope for your sake—if you truly are the mistress’s ward—you have as strong a constitution as she does, Miss Moreau.”

4

Valentina led the way down the damp cellar stairs with a candle in one hand, despite the line of electric lights running alongside us.

“Best not to rely on the electricity,” she explained over her shoulder. “The lights have gone out on me too many times when I’m down here alone, and it’s blacker than the devil.”

The farther we descended, the colder the air grew. My breath fogged in the dim lights. No wonder they stored the bodies here—the temperature and sulfuric gases released from the bogs would preserve them in near perfect condition until the spring thaw, and the stone walls would keep away the vermin.

Montgomery was close behind me, but Lucy trailed at a distance, holding her hem high so as not to drag it on the slick stones of the spiral staircase. At last we reached the bottom, where the distant sound of a droning voice came from a room ahead that glowed faintly in the electric lights.

“It was the plague,” Valentina said.

“Plague?” Lucy asked.

“The ones that died. The plague killed them. Beggars following the winter fair circuit. Several women and children among them, too.”

She spoke casually enough, as though dead children were as common as the sheep dotting the landscape. Lucy gasped, but Valentina’s straightforward attitude didn’t bother me. Back in London, it was all high tea and polished silver. Very refined, very polite. At least these people, sullen though they were, didn’t deny the dangers around them.

Lucy lifted her skirts higher, as if the plague might be lurking in the damp stone underfoot, and Valentina smirked. We followed her through an open doorway into a chamber where a dozen or so servants, most of them young girls, gathered around a brass cross set on an altar.

“A chapel?” Lucy whispered to me. “In the cellar?”

I nodded. I’d heard about places like this. In such cold climates, when going outside was nearly impossible half the year, old households had built chapels indoors. Parts of this one, crumbled as it was, looked as though it dated back practically to the Middle Ages.

A few of the girls looked up when we slipped in, curiosity making them fidget. None were dressed as puritanically as Valentina, though all their clothes were rather dour and old-fashioned. It was a stark contrast to their bright eyes and red cheeks. Clearly they hadn’t known or cared about any of the deceased, because I caught a few excited whispers exchanged about Lucy’s and my elegant dresses, and Montgomery’s handsome looks.

Valentina shushed them and they snapped back to attention.

At the head of the room stood an older woman with a red braid shot through with white hairs, who wore a pair of men’s tweed trousers tucked into thick rubber boots. She was reading a few somber verses from a leather-bound volume in a heavy Scottish accent. She hadn’t yet noticed our presence.

On closer inspection, I realized all the servants were women, most of them barely more than children. Where was the rest of the male staff, besides the old gamekeeper?

Montgomery stood just in the doorway, as though it would be trespassing to go any farther. When I met his eyes, he was frowning.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

He leaned down to whisper in my ear. “The bodies. I didn’t expect so many of them.”

The servant girls shifted, and I caught sight of the bodies he was talking about. A dozen of them were laid out on stone benches and the floor, covered with white sheets. My stomach knotted, reminding me of the King’s College autopsy room, where Edward’s victims had been laid out the same way. Dr. Hastings and the others I’d killed would have been laid there as well, after the massacre. Their wives and children would have come to identify the corpses. I suddenly felt sick.

Lucy drew in a breath and crossed herself.

“Don’t worry,” Montgomery whispered to her. “The germs will be long gone by now. There’s no danger of us catching it.”

Valentina walked among the servant girls, stepping unceremoniously over one of the bodies, and whispered to the older woman, whose eyes shot to us as she said a few final words. As soon as the brief service had concluded, the red-haired woman motioned for us to follow her into the hallway.

“Goodness me,” she said, pressing a hand to her chest. “Strangers during such a storm? And to arrive during these poor souls’ funeral—you must never have suffered such shock. Look at you, frozen through and through. You must be starved.”

The woman had a motherly way about her that made me feel safe even standing among the dead, and an enormous weight shifted off my shoulders. At least someone was giving us a warm reception.

“Are you Mrs. McKenna?” I asked.

“I am, my dear. My family has helped the von Steins with the management of this household for generations; you’re in good hands, I promise, and if the mistress has sent you, then you’re more than welcome here.” She turned back toward the chapel. “Lily, Moira, you girls go make up the rooms on the second floor for our guests.”

Two of the older girls skipped off into the hallway, more than glad to escape the dreary funeral. Mrs. McKenna first took my hands, then Lucy’s, and even Montgomery’s big ones, rubbing them and tsking at the cold as if we were children. “Come with me, little mice. We shall get you warmed.”

I cast one final look back at the bodies. Mrs. McKenna pressed a hand against my shoulder, turning me away from the sight. “Aye, a shame. They took shelter here a fortnight ago—I could hardly turn them away, not with so many children among them. And the mistress would have wanted it. But they brought with them the plague, and it took all of them overnight. I doubt they have any relations who will be coming by to collect the bodies.”

“None of your staff caught the plague?” I asked, as we made our way back up the spiral stairs with Valentina wordlessly trailing behind us.

“No, thank heavens. The vagrants slept in the lambing barn while they were here. I had Carlyle burn it as a precaution, though in these parts, at this time of year, it’s too cold for diseases to spread easily in a house like this. We keep it well cleaned.”

Her knowledge of biology impressed me, but no more so than Valentina’s ability to read. It was rare for servants to be highly educated, especially in such rural parts.

We entered the kitchen, a cavernous room with a roaring fire and a pair of geese roasting on the spit. My stomach lurched with hunger. A thin girl attended to the roast, chewing her nail as she regarded us with round eyes. Mrs. McKenna opened a tin and handed Lucy, Montgomery, and me each a crusty scone.

“That’ll tide you over till supper. Let’s get you settled now, and tomorrow I’ll show you the manor and grounds, if the storm lets up. There are times it gets so bad the levees fail and the road to Quick floods for days. We can be completely cut off. Our own little island, of sorts.” She handed me the candelabrum from the table. “Take this. The electricity will likely go out if the wind continues. Follow Valentina—she’ll show you to your rooms. I’ll make sure my girls take care of your sickly friend. A fever, is that right?” She shook her head in sympathy. “How awful. We shall put him in a room with a fireplace to keep him warm.”

“That would be lovely—” Lucy began.

“No,” Montgomery interrupted. “No fire. No sharp objects either. And make sure the room has a strong lock. We’ll attend to him ourselves, not your girls.”

Mrs. McKenna’s eyebrows raised, and she exchanged a look with Valentina, but like any good servant, she didn’t probe. “No fire, then. And an extra lock on the door.” She paused. “Might I see that letter of introduction?”

I handed it to her, and she read Elizabeth’s letter, then looked up with a startled expression. Her gaze shifted between Montgomery and me.

“Engaged?” she asked.

Behind her, the thin little girl at the goose spit gasped.

“Yes,” I said, worried. “Is … is it a problem?” With their high-collared dresses and sleeves down to their wrists, they might be religious types who wouldn’t approve of Montgomery and me traveling together unwed.

“No, no, little mouse,” Mrs. McKenna said. She glanced at the thin girl at the spit, who now wore a bright smile that seemed out of place in the gloomy manor. “It’s only that, with the exception of old Carlyle, you’ve walked into a house of women. We haven’t had much occasion to celebrate things like engagements, not in a long time. The girls would so adore helping to arrange a wedding. Perhaps in the spring, after thaw, or midsummer when the flowers are in bloom. It’ll cheer them up so, especially after a harsh winter.”

I smiled. “We’d love their help. And spring sounds perfect.” The warm scone in my stomach, Montgomery at my side, girls tittering over wedding plans: it was starting to feel more like a home, and I told myself that the unsettled feeling I’d had when I first arrived was just nerves from the road.

I squeezed Montgomery’s hand, but the troubled look he gave me said he wasn’t nearly as reassured as I was.

“THERE ARE THREE FLOORS, not including the basement,” Valentina said as she led us up the stairs, with Balthazar trailing behind carrying our three carpetbags over one shoulder. Two of the littlest servant girls walked alongside him with fresh linens in their arms, staring up at him. One had a limp that made her walk nearly as slowly as he did. Far from frightened, they seemed utterly transfixed by him.

“That doesn’t include the towers,” Valentina continued. “There’s one in the southern wing and one in the north. The north tower is the biggest. It’s where the mistress’s observatory is. I’m the only one with a key to it, on account of the delicate equipment. She’s taught me how to use most of the telescopes and refractors and star charts. In turn, I’m teaching the older girls. Education is often overlooked in female children; I’m determined to make sure the girls here have good heads on their shoulders.” She cast me a cold gaze. “Between McKenna and me, we manage quite well during Elizabeth’s absences. Though we’re all eager for her return, of course.”

The stairs creaked as we made our way to the second floor, which Valentina explained was mostly comprised of guest bedrooms and a library they used for breakfast. The regular servants’ rooms were on the third floor, and she and McKenna each had one of the larger corner rooms in the attic. Carlyle slept in an apartment above the barn.

She passed me a set of keys with her gloved hand. “One for your bedroom, and one for that of your ill friend. You’re welcome in any portion of the house that isn’t locked. Those are the observatory and the mistress’s private chambers.”

“And my dog?”

“Carlyle put him in the barn. There are plenty of rats for him to catch.”

Lucy gaped. “He’s supposed to eat rats?”

Valentina appraised Lucy’s fine city clothes with a withering look. “I didn’t realize he was canine royalty. Would he care for a feather bed and silver bowl, perhaps?”

Lucy drew in a sharp breath. I could practically see smoke coming from her ears. I doubt she’d ever been spoken to so boldly, by a maid or anyone else. I wrapped my arm around hers and held her back. “Rats will be fine,” I said.

Valentina smiled thinly and continued up the stairs.

We reached the landing, where a long hallway stretched into darkness broken only by flickering electric lights. Heavy curtains flanked the windows, with old portraits hanging between them.

“The Ballentyne family,” Valentina said, motioning to the portraits. “That one is the mistress’s great-grandfather. And that woman is her great-aunt.”

“But I thought the Franken—I mean, the von Stein family—owned the manor,” I said.

“Victor Frankenstein, you mean? You needn’t be so secretive, Miss Moreau. Elizabeth trusts us completely; she’s told us all about her family’s history. The Ballentynes were the original owners of the manor. The first Lord Ballentyne built it in 1663 overtop the ruins of previous structures. He was something of an eccentric. Went mad, they say.”

Montgomery stopped to give Balthazar time to catch up to us. The two little girls were hanging by his side, hiding smiles behind their hands. The one with the limp skipped ahead to Valentina and tugged on her skirt. Valentina bent down to hear the girl’s whisper.

“The girls say your quiet associate—Mr. Balthazar, is it?—belongs here.” She pointed a gloved finger at a small portrait beneath a flickering electric lamp. “They say he’s the spirit of Igor Zagoskin.” The portrait portrayed a large man in an old-fashioned suit, stooped with a hunchback, face covered by a hairy beard. Balthazar blinked at the painting in surprise. The resemblance was striking.

“Who is that man?” Montgomery asked.

“One of Lord Ballentyne’s most trusted servants, back in the 1660s. He was rumored to be a smart man, strong as an ox. He helped Ballentyne in his astronomical research.”

Balthazar blinked a few more times in surprise, then grinned at the girl with the limp. “Thank you, little miss. I like the look of him. I shall hope to carry on in his tradition.”

“Your room is through here, Miss Moreau.” Valentina opened a door into a bedroom that emitted the smell of mustiness and decades of disuse, but inside I found it freshly tidied. Balthazar set my bag on the soft carpet. Valentina handed me a smaller key.

“What’s this one for?” I asked. The bedroom door had only one lock.

“A welcome present from McKenna.” She smirked. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out soon enough. Mad Lord Ballentyne was full of surprises when he built this house.”

The little girl with the limp giggled, and Valentina shushed her and swept her out of the room, leaving me alone while she showed the others to their rooms down the hall.

I went to the window, where I could make out little in the dark rain. Lightning crackled, revealing a sudden flash of ghostly white. I jumped back in surprise. It looked like enormous white sheets, spinning impossibly fast, and I threw a hand over my heart before the whirling shapes made sense.

A windmill.

At least now I knew the source of Elizabeth’s electricity. Glowing lights flickered from the other exterior windows on this wing. I wondered which room was Montgomery’s, and Lucy’s, and which room they’d put Edward in earlier. Sorrow washed through me at the thought of him. If only Lucy’s premonitions were right, and the fever would break and he’d be himself again, miraculously cured of the Beast.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t nearly as optimistic as Lucy. Sometimes things didn’t work out for the best. The King’s Club massacre, for one. It had been a messy, cruel solution, even if it had saved us.

Would I take it back, if I could?

The answer eluded me, and I started to pull the drapes closed over the window, tired of the same guilty thoughts circling in my head, only to find that the curtains spanned a wider section of the wall that hid a secret door. The small key Valentina had given me was a perfect fit, and I swung it open.

I let out a soft sound of surprise when I found a second bedroom that was like a mirror to my own—except for the young man standing by the wardrobe in the process of undressing. Montgomery turned at the sound of the door. His suspenders hung by his side, his blond hair loose and still damp from the rain.

“Adjoining bedrooms,” I explained, holding up the key. “This must be the welcome present Mrs. McKenna meant for us. How scandalous. I guess the household isn’t as puritanical as their clothes make them seem.” I tried to keep my voice light. Since fleeing London we’d barely spoken, and I didn’t want our new life here to begin in sullenness. But he came to the doorway and rubbed his chin, distracted.