A Cold Legacy (20 page)

W
E THREW ON CLOTHES
and raced through the dark hallways toward the sound of the screaming. I nearly slipped on the stairs before Montgomery caught me with quick instincts. Smoke. Screams. It was still night out, but just barely. What had happened? Had lightning struck the house?

We reached the foyer and spun, trying to find the source of the screams. Footsteps came from the kitchen, where Lily appeared straining under a bucket of water, still dressed in her nightclothes, her eyes glassy with fear.

“It's the south tower, miss!” she cried.

The laboratory
. We raced up the stairs, but a door flung open, startling us. Moira stumbled out of Hensley's bedroom with smoke billowing behind her. She leaned against the wall, coughing.

“What's happened?” I said.

She let out a wail, and a terrible dread twisted inside me. Hensley's bedroom. The secret room of rats that I'd
told him about last night.

No, no, no
. . .

“Is anyone hurt?” Montgomery asked, but I just squeezed my eyes closed. I'd have done anything not to face that room, afraid of what we'd find, and my own role in it.

Moira cried harder. “It's the mistress,” she choked. “And Hensley too . . .”

I opened my eyes and took a shaky breath. We pushed into Hensley's chambers, and I froze.

I had expected a raging fire. Charred furniture. Every scrap destroyed.

But everything was exactly as I'd last seen it, untouched by flame, save the smoke stains on the ceiling. They came from the secret room where Elizabeth kept Hensley's rats. The door was cracked open.

“There.” My voice was faint, as I pointed toward the secret room. “In there.”

Montgomery threw open the door. His face went white. “My God.” He tried to block the sight from me. “It must have been an accident. I'm so sorry. Tonight, of all nights . . .”

My head started spinning. Everything felt surreal. “Let me through,” I said, though my own voice sounded distant. “I need to see.”

“You shouldn't,” he said, but it was too late, as I pushed past him. My breath caught, as the lingering smell of smoke hung in the air. The fire had died out. The rats' cage was completely burned—as were the two human bodies in the center of the room.

They were charred beyond recognition, and yet there
was no mistaking them. A woman and a little boy. Elizabeth and Hensley.

Both dead.

My stomach clenched. I doubled over and emptied my stomach onto the floor, again and again. The smoke came from them. Loose rats crawled through their ash—their flesh and blood. I coughed and gagged, but couldn't get the taste of smoke from my throat.

“Murdered,” Montgomery murmured, and then went rigid. “It must be Radcliffe. He must be here!” He ran to the door. “Moira, fetch Balthazar. Sound the alarm. Radcliffe has found us—”

“No.” I interrupted him. “No, it wasn't Radcliffe.”

My eyes fell on another small body in the ashes, this one charred but not burned. One of the white rats. A terrible certainty grew as I knelt down and recognized the wounds on its side, made from the procedure to reanimate it.

This was the rat I'd brought back. I had only just told Hensley about it. I had thought the reanimated rat was harmless, and perhaps it was.

But Hensley wasn't.

“Jack Serra would have alerted us if Radcliffe knew our location,” I whispered, eyes still squeezed tight. I forced myself to stand straight. “It wasn't an accident, either. Hensley did it.” Moira let out a strangled gasp. “He killed her—look at the way her neck is broken. The same way he strangled the rats.” Guilt flooded me so hard I could barely stand. I'd been so desperate when I'd told Hensley the truth about the rats. I should have known better after he'd killed
the Beast, and after those bruises on Elizabeth's wrist. He must have flown into a rage and killed her, then killed himself when he realized what he'd done.

I sank to my knees, burying my face in my hands. Montgomery stared at the bodies with wide eyes, the idea horrifying. I sank against the wall as a harsh, mad laugh bubbled out of me. “History did repeat itself,” I coughed. “A cursed wedding night. Oh God, just like Victor Frankenstein's.”

Montgomery's brow wrinkled, but before I could explain, Lucy crashed through the doorway in her nightclothes, Balthazar right behind her.

“I smelled smoke . . . ,” she said, and then froze.

Balthazar took one look at the rats crawling around the charred bodies and wrapped her in his arms, squeezed her tight.

“Don't let her see,” I said. “Take her away from here, Balthazar.”

Lucy sobbed as Balthazar carried her back toward the stairs. Lily came in with the bucket of water but let it fall when she saw the scene. Frigid water soaked into my slippers.

“Oh God,” she whispered, and sank onto Hensley's bed.

I took a shaky step closer to the charred bodies, nothing more than ash and bone now. As I knelt, my skirt brushed Elizabeth's leg, which fell away into black ash. I pulled my hand back, afraid of crumbling their charred bodies any more.

“She gave us everything,” I said.

“She did,” Montgomery agreed. “She gave
you
everything. Which means you're the mistress of Ballentyne now.” He looked back at Hensley's bedroom, where McKenna held two girls pressed into her skirt to spare them the awful sight. “They'll be looking to you now for guidance.”

I looked at him helplessly. “Me, guide them?” I dropped my voice to a hushed whisper. “I practically killed their mistress with my own hands, Montgomery. Last night I told Hensley about the rats. That's what threw him into a rage.”

He hesitated for a moment, but then shook his head and smoothed down my hair to calm me. “He was unpredictable. He'd hurt her before. There's no telling what might have set him off, today or a month from now. All that matters now is the room full of girls who need you.”

I looked back through the doorway. Moira let out another sob and McKenna pulled her close, rubbing her back. Over the girl's shoulder, the old housekeeper's wrinkled eyes met mine. Waiting for me. Waiting for my leadership.

I stood, fighting the urge to dust the black ash from my hands and my dress. Outside, dawn was breaking.

“Moira, Lily, take the little girls back to their bedrooms,” I said, barely recognizing the sound of my own voice.

“And the ashes, miss?” McKenna asked quietly.

I looked at the wet ash on my hands. I wouldn't ask McKenna to clean up the ashes of her own beloved mistress. “Fetch me a pail,” I said. “I'll handle it.”

McKenna raised an eyebrow but muttered something to one of the younger girls, who scampered off to fetch a
pail. The rest of them, wiping their eyes, hurried away with fearful energy. After a few minutes, only Montgomery and I remained.

“I can't do this,” I whispered. “Elizabeth was their leader. The staff obeyed her. She knew everything about this house and how to run it and keep it safe. I can't do it on my own.”

“You're not on your own,” he said.

I paced, feeling the warning swell of panic as the truth of this situation crashed down upon me. “They loved her. They would do anything for her. She gave them
hands
, Montgomery. Hands and feet and eyes and organs. What can I give them?”

“They didn't love her because she was a brilliant surgeon. They loved her because she was kind and generous and strong.” He came forward, rubbing my arms. “Just like you are. She made you her heir for a reason, Juliet. She trusted you, and so will they.”

“Trusted me?” I said. “She shouldn't have. I'll only make a mess of everything, like I did before.”

“That's not true.” I leaned into him, closing my eyes, wishing we weren't standing in their very ashes. The weight of this burden placed on my shoulders was crushing. I wasn't sure I even wanted to be the heir of Ballentyne, and now I was its mistress.

A metal clang came from the door, and when I looked up, a pail rested there with a brush, but the girl had left. I drew a little of Elizabeth's spirit into my lungs, picked up the pail, and knelt in the ashes. Montgomery joined me. Together,
we spent the morning erasing all evidence that Elizabeth and Hensley had ever existed. We carried the ashes outside, where we cast them to the wind. We'd have to have a funeral soon—the staff would want to say their good-byes. But I couldn't bear to go through a proper ceremony just yet. Not so soon after the professor's death. Not after Edward's.

Not after my father's.

From the edge of the moors, beneath the midday sun, Ballentyne looked like one of the ancient castles of legends. It was a sanctuary, not just for me but for the girls, who had all come seeking Elizabeth's healing skills. If more came, would I take up her scalpel and continue her work?

I glanced out of the corner of my eye at Montgomery. Secrets had caused this tragedy: Elizabeth keeping the rats secret from Hensley. Me keeping Edward secret from Montgomery. We were married now, and I was tired of secrets.

“There's something I must tell you. It's part of the reason Hensley was so upset. It's about Edward, and something I've done—”

“Hold on.” His attention was focused on the tree-lined road cutting through the moors. “Someone's coming.”

My head jerked toward the road. A single rider on a thin old horse emerged from the trees, approaching the manor slowly. Alarm overcame me. A stranger, now? Was it a girl seeking healing—or one of Radcliffe's spies?

“Come on,” I said, resolving to tell him about Edward as soon as I could, as we hurried toward the stranger. He wore a heavy cloak that obscured his face. He stopped the horse as we ran down the road.

Montgomery flexed his hands. I realized we had no pistols, no knives. Whoever he was, he'd arrived at the moment we were at our most vulnerable.

“Show yourself,” Montgomery ordered.

The man slowly pulled his hood back. I tensed my hands as well, ready to fight if necessary, or run back to the manor to sound the alarm. But as soon as I saw his dark skin and darker eyes, I relaxed.

“Jack Serra,” I said. “I was afraid you were one of Radcliffe's men.” As relieved as I was to see a familiar face, worry stirred. Elizabeth had sent Jack to spy on Radcliffe and report back. What if he'd come to tell us that Radcliffe had discovered our location?

Montgomery was strangely tense at my side, staring with uneasiness at Jack Serra, and I remembered that they'd never met when the carnival troupe had come before.

“It's all right,” I said. “He's the spy Elizabeth sent to London. A friend.”

“I know damn well who he is.” Montgomery's expression shifted to one of complete distrust. I wrapped my arms across my chest, feeling suddenly very cold, and took a step away from Jack. Had I been wrong to trust him? Had I made a terrible mistake in telling him so much about us all?

Jack Serra's face hitched back in a cryptic smile. “Montgomery. Hello.”

Montgomery didn't blink. “What are you doing here, Ajax?”

A
JAX
?

The name conjured the image of Father's island. The last time I'd seen Ajax—Jaguar, he'd called himself then—he was nearly regressed into a jungle cat, walking on all fours, covered in thick yellow and black fur, unable to speak.

Jack Serra was
Ajax
—one of my father's creations?

Thunder cracked in distant skies as rain fell on the moors. Montgomery reached for his pistol.

“You won't be needing that, brother,” Ajax said. “I've come to help, not to harm.” He whistled behind him, and the rest of his carnival troupe appeared from amid the trees, some on horses, some on foot, all wearing heavy cloaks that hid their satin performing clothes. I recognized the old man among them who I'd mistakenly thought was their leader, as well as the belching old woman. “As has my troupe. You're going to need us.”

A door slammed in the courtyard. Lucy came out with Balthazar behind her, hurrying toward the commotion.

I couldn't tear my eyes off the bones and planes of his face. I felt a fool for not recognizing him earlier, but how would I have known what he looked like in his fully developed state? Montgomery had never said that when Ajax had been a man, he'd had black skin and a mysterious smile. Montgomery had only ever said that he was one of Moreau's best creations, able to pass for a human nearly as well as Edward.

Now that I looked at Jack more closely, it all made sense. That strange feeling I'd had that I knew him and that he knew me. He
did
know me, and it had nothing to do with premonitions and fortune-telling. We had spoken together on the island. He had led me through the jungle to safety. He had looked into my eyes and silently begged me to open the locked laboratory door so he could kill my father.

Jack glanced at me as if sensing my thoughts. His brown eyes flashed with gold flecks and my breath caught. His eyes hadn't changed.

Lucy and Balthazar reached us. “The fortune-teller,” she said in surprise, and then caught sight of the rest of his troupe. “You've all come back.”

Montgomery frowned. “Fortune-teller?”

I leaned in to explain. “He's been posing as a fortune-teller. He and his troupe were at the inn on the road to Inverness, and they performed at the Twelfth Night festival.” I turned to Jack Serra. “Why did you hide yourself from Montgomery all those times?”

“He would have recognized me. As it happened, I had my own business to attend to first, and it required anonymity.” His eyes settled on Balthazar. “Balthazar knew who I
was, but you know your place in the pack, don't you, brother? I told him to keep my identity secret, and he had no choice but to obey.”

I glanced at Balthazar, who was hanging his head guiltily. It seemed I wasn't the only one taking advantage of Balthazar's animal nature.

Clouds had rolled in; the rain started to fall, though no one moved.

“I don't understand,” Lucy said, her eyes trained on Jack. “You mean you're a . . . a creation? Like Balthazar? And Edward?”

“Indeed I am, Miss Radcliffe.”

“Who brought you back to your human form?” she asked.

“I did,” Montgomery answered, to my surprise. “After you left the island, Juliet, it was chaos. The beast-men went feral, and Edward's other half had escaped. I needed help, so I went to Ajax. I begged him to let me restore him to human form to help me hunt for Edward. He agreed, and we left the island together. He, Balthazar, and I.” He swallowed, and a look of both hurt and distrust crossed his face. “But Ajax disappeared in the deserts of southern Morocco. We didn't hear any word of him since then, until this moment.” He met Jack's eyes. “I trusted you with my life, yet you abandoned us.”

“I've always been a friend to you,” Ajax said. “But not a servant. I obey only myself.”

“Why come back, then?” Montgomery asked. “If it's the human experience you're after, you could be in France, or Australia, or you could have stayed in the desert.”

Jack pointed straight at me. “I'm here because of her.”

All eyes turned to me and I shifted nervously, wiping the rain off of my face.

“The doctor's daughter,” Jack continued. “I made it my mission to end the doctor's work, but his ruthlessness found a home in her. I needed to be certain she chose a different path in life.”

My lips parted. The fortunes, those cryptic words about my father and my fate—they were all part of a calculated plan to learn if I was as cruel-hearted as my father. I winced, pressing a hand over the charm he had given me.

“And what if I do choose my father's path?” I asked hotly. “Would you kill me like you killed him?”

“Yes.” The directness of his answer was like a slap in the face. Montgomery drew his pistol and I took a quick step back, but then Jack's eyes softened. “But you aren't like him. I learned that the day you came to my tent in the fields. It wasn't your own fate you were most worried about, but that of your sick friend. Henri Moreau never once cared about anyone but himself. He turned to darkness for his own selfish reasons. You were drawn to the darkness, but that wasn't what made up your mind. It was the hope of saving a friend's life.” He paused. “You can be ruthless, pretty girl, but not cruel. Determined, but not mad.”

“So you've decided not to kill me, and to help me instead?”

He nodded. “It seemed a fair trade.”

Montgomery muttered a curse as I stared at Jack blankly. Should I be furious that he'd lied to me, judged me,
and nearly murdered me? Or should I be thankful that he'd changed his mind?

It was all too incredible just to believe he was even
here
, amid his ragtag group in stained satin clothes and heavy cloaks. A new worry twisted my gut. “The rest of your troupe. Are they my father's creations, too?”

The thin man with the potbelly gut cackled, and the old woman let out a snort.

Jack smiled. “No, but we are all misfits on the edge of the world, and that is enough to bring us together.”

I pressed a hand against my head. I was still reeling from Elizabeth's sudden death, and from the fact that I still hadn't told Montgomery about Edward hiding in the attic, and from the fact that Ajax had nearly killed me.

“Why return now?” Montgomery asked.

“To help you, as I said. Elizabeth asked me to locate John Radcliffe and determine if he was a threat. My troupe has been following him over half the country as he's searched for you. He's been paying off the police. Working both with them and behind their backs.” His troupe's faces grew serious, as did his own. “You're going to need our help, Miss Moreau. He has learned your location, and as we speak he's on his way with two dozen paid soldiers.”

The air vanished from my lungs. Lucy let out a gasp.

“That's impossible,” Montgomery said. “Elizabeth kept the manor's location secret, and he didn't follow us. I made certain of that.”

Jack signaled to the old woman, who took a rumpled piece of paper out of her pocket and handed it to Montgomery.

“It's a letter, written to Mrs. Margaret Radcliffe,” Jack explained. “John Radcliffe's wife. It was delivered a week ago.” He paused. “Written by Radcliffe's daughter. It gives away the location of this manor.”

Radcliffe's
daughter
?

We all whirled on Lucy, and her lips fell open in shock. She took a step backward. “No! I would never do that!”

“It has your signature,” Montgomery said, holding up the letter like an accusation.

“I
did
write a letter,” she said, looking pale. “That part is true. After that article Papa wrote in the newspaper about how sick with grief he and Mama were, I couldn't bear to let her worry about me. I wrote a letter to her explaining that I was safe. I sent it from Quick, but I didn't include a return address, I promise. I certainly didn't say we were hiding in northern Scotland!”

Jack glanced at the old woman. “Genevieve posed as a wealthy dowager and was invited to their home. She was able to sneak away and found the letter in Mr. Radcliffe's study. In it, Miss Radcliffe references an obscure type of heather that only grows near Quick. Radcliffe was able to use this information to locate Ballentyne in the tax records and draw a link to Elizabeth von Stein's family.”

Lucy stifled a gasp. “Oh God, Juliet, you have to believe me. I was just telling Mama how pretty the moors were. I didn't want her to worry about me. I would never have revealed our location, not in a million years.”

“I believe you,” I said quietly. “But it doesn't change the fact that he knows.” I turned to Jack. “Where is he now?”

“When we left them, they were preparing to leave Inverness. I took the liberty of opening the levees between here and the village to flood the road behind us. That will slow them down, but not for long. The moors will drain soon enough, or they'll find some way past the floodwaters. You haven't much time, Miss Moreau. Where is Elizabeth von Stein?”

A silence fell over our small group.

“She died,” Montgomery answered at last. “Last night. There was a fire in the southern tower. Hensley is gone as well. Juliet's the mistress now.”

No emotion showed on Jack's face. He was as unflinching about death as Valentina had been on our first night here, telling me about the vagrants' bodies in the cellar. Was he just used to death? Or was he one of that particular rare breed of person, like my father, who felt so little, one wondered if they felt anything at all?

“I hope you have a plan, Miss Moreau,” Jack said. “Radcliffe is heavily armed, and he's planning on storming Ballentyne and killing anyone who gets in his way.”

“All this effort, just in the name of retribution?” I asked in a faint voice.

“If it's retribution, then he is determined to get it, and a bloody one at that. Either you can flee, or you can stay and make a stand. We shall help you in whichever course you choose. I advise you to give both options careful thought, but think quickly. He could be here as soon as the day after tomorrow.”

T
HAT NIGHT, AFTER
J
ACK
and his troupe made camp in the lower fields, Lucy found me sitting on the manor's cold front steps,
huddled in a tartan blanket, staring at the deep puddles collecting in the courtyard since Jack had broken the levees. She sat beside me and pulled the corner of the tartan around her own shoulders, too.

“I can't apologize enough,” she said. “I feel awful for writing that stupid letter. I didn't think any harm would come of it.”

“I know, Lucy.”

“And now Papa's on his way here. It feels like something out of a nightmare. I keep clinging to some desperate hope he's just worried about me, but I know that you must be right. He probably put that article in the newspaper hoping I'd come across it and contact them. It wouldn't be the first time he's taken advantage of my affections for my mother.”

I wrapped an arm around the small of her back. If there was one thing I understood, it was manipulative fathers.

“What will we do?” she whispered. “Shall we stay here and take our chances, or flee?”

The night was too quiet, as though it also waited for my answer. My first impulse had been to flee. We could keep heading north, hoping the cold and desolation would dissuade Radcliffe, or we could try to find a new place to hide. But I had no other contacts in Scotland except for Elizabeth, and I dared not trust anyone else with our secrets. The possibilities had been eating away at me like a snake consuming its own tail, pointless and never-ending.

“We could flee,” I said, taking my time to think it through, “but that would only buy us a few more weeks at most. Without the safety of Ballentyne we'd be vulnerable
on the road, with no place to go but inns and abandoned barns. It wouldn't be long before someone recognized me from the poster, or else saw Balthazar and started asking questions. Besides, I fear what might happen to the servants if your father arrives and finds us missing. He might torture them to see where we've gone.”

She was very quiet. “So we stay?”

I took another deep breath. Staying went against everything that came naturally to me. On my father's island, when I'd discovered the terrible crimes he was committing in his laboratory, I had run. After I'd maimed Dr. Hastings and the police had come after me, I'd run, too. It seemed no matter what danger I faced, my instinct was to flee, and yet fleeing hadn't solved any of those problems. They'd all come back, one by one, to haunt me.

There was no escaping one's fate.

“I don't think we have much of a choice,” I said, tightening my fingers in the blanket, and with it my resolve. “I've been running for so long—from the police and from my father and now from yours. If it's ever going to end, then I think we must face it, and I think it must be here, where we at least have a fighting chance.” I pulled the tartan closer. “I'll have to talk it through with Montgomery and McKenna to make certain they agree. I don't know if the staff will trust me like they did Elizabeth. And I can't imagine telling them tomorrow—just one day after her death—that an army is bearing down on us, and I expect them to stay and fight.” I shook my head. “I can't ask that of them.”

“You saved them from the Beast. They'll remember that.”

“I didn't save them. Hensley stopped the Beast, and now we don't even have him.” I sighed, burying my head in my hands. “As unpredictable as he was, Hensley would have been a great asset. Your father would never suspect a child of such unnatural strength.”

Lucy rubbed my back, pulling the tartan tighter around both of us.

“Hensley wasn't the only one with extraordinary strength,” she said softly, and our eyes met in the twilight. “I think it's time we told everyone about Edward.”