Her Dark Curiosity (16 page)

Before I could think, he was kissing me. It wasn’t Edward’s gentle, slow kisses from last night. Now the animal was coming out and it was passionate—no, famished—and it started to awake something in me, too, a wildness, a recklessness, but I shoved that part of me away as my heart pounded frantically back to life. This is what had fascinated me about him—monster and man sharing the same breath—and now it terrified me.

Well, I could be a monster, too.

I just needed a weapon.
The knife
. . . it was too far away. My gaze darted around the room for anything within arm’s reach that I could use. A jar of potassium powder sat on the table, and in my desperation I reached for it just as a terrible sound like bones sliding began. A sound I’d heard only once before, when the Beast had let loose its claws.

I didn’t dare look down. I shut my eyes as my hand closed over the potassium. I felt the tips of five sharp claws on my back, gentle at first, soon hard enough to tear my dress’s fabric and cut into my skin. I jerked, and his claws sliced into my shoulder with a sting of pain.

“You can fight it if you like,” he breathed. “It won’t change anything.” His kisses mixed with sharp pain from his claws, and I hurled the jar of potassium to the floor. The shatter of glass surprised him long enough for me to pull away and kick over the basin of water.

The instant the water hit the potassium powder, a chemical reaction began. The mixture hissed and sputtered, starting to gain heat. I braced my hands over my head just as the reaction exploded with a cloud of sparks and smoke.

He let out a furious growl as I pushed away from him. In the smoke it was impossible to see anything as I fumbled on the floor for the knife. I drove it into his side, pushing him back against my worktable.

Glass crashed as the Beast fell on my equipment. The sound of breaking tools mixed with his growls. Coughing, I fumbled along the floor until I found my boots, then called for Sharkey and threw the door open. Sharkey darted out ahead of me, racing down the stairs. I stumbled behind him, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end, certain the Beast was just a breath behind me.

We reached the lodging house’s front door and I shoved it open, breathing in great gulps of cold winter air. And then I was running, Sharkey at my heels. It was all a blur, just flashes mixed with the smell of chemical smoke. The falling snow. A crack of ice. Blazing lanterns and Christmas wreaths. And then suddenly Sharkey wasn’t there anymore, lost in the streets. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t look for him.

I disappeared into the city of smoke and steel, not once looking back.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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SEVENTEEN

I
MADE IT OVER
the garden trellis and back into my room only seconds before the cuckoo clock chimed seven in the morning. A minute later the floorboards overhead squeaked as the professor made his way down the stairs to the dining room on the first floor.

It was all I could do to strip off my bloody clothes, hide them under the bed, change into a fresh chemise, and crawl between the covers. I seemed to have forgotten how to speak, or stand, or do anything but sit amongst the hills of pillows with my knees clutched tightly against my chest.

My mind kept replaying Edward’s transformation into the Beast. The slow elongation of his pupils, the splitting of his knuckles to let his claws emerge. I pulled my collar down and touched the angry red scratches on my shoulder. All those nights together in my workshop, comforted by the presence of someone else who shared my secrets, amid the old wooden walls and the creaking woodstove. I had thought myself happy there.

I’d been a fool, and now I’d even lost Sharkey in the chaos.

A knock came at the door.

“Miss Juliet?” Mary’s voice called through the door. “A letter was just delivered for you in the morning post.”

“Slide it under the door,” I said in a hoarse voice.

There was a crinkle of paper as Mary did so. I waited for her footsteps to recede before pulling on a sweater to hide the cuts on my shoulder, and then I picked up the letter. It was sealed in wax still soft to the touch. I ripped the envelope open and drew out a single piece of paper, with but three words written upon them.

Please forgive me.

I crumpled the letter and threw it into the fire, watching the edges singe and curl inward. Edward wanted my forgiveness, but I wasn’t certain I could give it. Part of me wanted to blame everything on the Beast.
He
was the guilty one, not Edward. And yet hadn’t Edward said they were two sides of the same coin? The longer he lived, the more he and the Beast grew together.

I was certainly no physical match for the Beast. The only way I could stop him was to cure Edward of him—yet how could I even be in the same room with him again, after the Beast had nearly sliced me open?

And after what you and Edward did in that bed,
a voice whispered.

I slumped to the floor. I was alone again. I could tell the professor and Elizabeth, but they already thought my mind dangerously unstable. Without Edward, I had no one to trust.

Another knock sounded at the door some time later, this time Elizabeth. “Are you ill again, Juliet? Would you like tea brought up? You know, if you’ve changed your mind about the masquerade tonight, I can send a note canceling.”

The Radcliffe masquerade—it had been the last thing on my mind. What a terrible friend Lucy must think me, and she didn’t even know what I’d done last night with the young man she loved. I doubled over, bracing my head with my hands. Edward’s voice from this morning returned to me.

I won’t let anything, or anyone, come between us.

I sat up, a tickle of worry at my spine. I had assumed he meant the professor, or Montgomery, or maybe the memory of Father and the island, but what would he stop at? Or rather,
who
? Lucy was between us, after all. He knew how strong willed she was, that she’d do anything to protect me. Would he hurt her just to keep me to himself?

I brushed back my hair with my fingers, and then threw open the door. Elizabeth seemed surprised by my sudden energy, and she gave me a suspicious once-over.

“I haven’t changed my mind,” I said. “What time is it?”

Elizabeth glanced at the cuckoo clock. “Quarter past one.”

“I’ll get dressed at Lucy’s—my gown and mask are already there. Please have Ellis bring the carriage around at three.”

She bit the inside of her lip, looking as though she didn’t believe a word that came out of my mouth. Well, let her suspect something. Anything she imagined couldn’t possibly be worse than the truth.

“I’ll see you there tonight, then. The professor won’t come, not even with the promise of Radcliffe’s finest brandy.” She paused, with the hint of a smile. “It will be nice to have a bit of fun again.”

S
OME HOURS LATER
E
LLIS
let me off in front of Lucy’s house, where the iron gate hung wide open as though beckoning me in. A small fleet of workmen filled the front garden, sweeping the front walk and securing candles among the trees that would be lit later tonight when guests arrived. I didn’t want to get in their way, so I walked around back to the servants’ entrance, where I used to sneak into the house to visit Lucy before her parents approved of me. It felt strange turning that corner, seeing the hedges trampled with footprints and street salt and all manner of muck. A flash of my former life—a life I never wanted to return to.

A delivery wagon waited in the alleyway, the horses’ feet stamping impatiently. I could only imagine the extravagant purchases Lucy’s father must have made for the party—lace tablecloths woven with red and green threads, white pillar candles of every height, champagne by the case. I knocked on the servants’ door tentatively. It swung open to reveal Clara’s tired face. Her mouth hung open to scold, but when she recognized me her face lit up.

“Miss Juliet! Why didn’t you come to the front? Oh, never mind that. Hurry in, Miss Lucy’s been expecting you.” She waved me in and closed the door a little breathlessly as she wiped her hands on her apron. “Come quickly, I’ll take you upstairs before I’m missed. Goodness, you’ve no idea how many deliveries we’ve gotten today.”

We both jumped as someone shouted in the kitchen, followed by the honking of a goose and clatter of pans. Clara rushed me through the pantry and up a narrow set of stairs to the second floor, where I caught a glimpse of the sprawling ballroom with its enormous fir Christmas tree, a peek of polished floors, workmen on ladders, and housemaids carrying silver warming trays. Just as quick, we were climbing up to the third-floor bedrooms.

It was blessedly quieter here, with the soft carpet and empty hallways, and I started to feel calmer until a curse came from a room to our left.

“Oh, stuff it, and this blasted ribbon, too!”

I hid a smile. Only Lucy cursed like that and got away with it. Clara hurried me across the plush carpet runner to Lucy’s room and stuck her head through the doorway.

“Clara, I’ve had an awful time with these curls. Won’t you send Molly up?”

“Yes, miss. And Miss Juliet is here.”

I heard a commotion like metal dropping to the floor, and then Lucy’s disheveled head popped through the doorway. She was in her corset and a combination with lace trim, ribbons half-untied in her curled hair, her blue eyes wide and beautiful.

She grabbed me with something like a growl and pulled me into the room. “You devil! I’d started to think you weren’t coming.”

I caught myself against a dressing table that was littered with ribbons and brushes and an overturned tin of face powder. It looked like a wild animal had been set loose in her room.

She picked up a mask from the table, a delicate thing of black and soft purple, made to cover just the eyes, with shimmering green feathers along the side like a bird taking wing. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and she thrust it at me like a can of beans.

“Mother picked this one out. I detest it.” She flopped into the dresser chair, tossing the mask to the side. “It’s so boring. John will probably adore it.”

I bent down to right the overturned powder tin. All the makeup, and ribbons, and the vase of lilies on her desk didn’t fit with the words I’d come here to say. If only the masquerade wasn’t tonight, and she and I could dance and drink champagne and have one last night together, before I had to shatter her world with my confession.

But Edward was out there, and she needed to know the truth about the man she claimed to love.

While she hummed a sweet little song and admired herself in the mirror, I went to her bedroom door and closed it softly. An array of brushes and powders and rouges were laid out in front of her, as she debated which to apply first.

I took a deep breath. “Lucy . . .”

“If you don’t start getting ready, we’ll miss the masquerade all together.” She picked up a thick brush and started dusting powder on her cheeks. I remained by the door, not sure how to say the words warring in my throat. She threw me an exasperated glance and I crossed to her dresser, fiddling halfheartedly with a stick of rouge. The lilies on the table stole my attention. Flowers were subject to the laws of mathematics, a fact few people knew. You could see the repeating patterns if you looked hard enough. And I tried to look hard, but Lucy snapped her fingers.

She met my eyes in the mirror, giving me a questioning look. “Juliet, what’s going through your head?”

Her voice had a softer timber than normal. For everyone else she pitched her voice higher, exaggerating her words. But now, in the intimacy of the small room, she had dropped the act. The least I could do was show her the same courtesy.

I perched on the edge of the chair next to her. “Do you remember when you said we were like sisters, and we should tell each other everything?” She nodded slowly. “I lied to you about the island.”

Her eyes went wide. She didn’t speak right away; instead she set down the makeup brush and stood, then twisted the key in the door’s lock, before coming back and taking her seat again.

“I’ve always suspected it,” she whispered, though there was no trace of hurt in her voice. “You were gone a
year.
When you came back, showing up in that hospital looking thin as a twig and half crazed and utterly penniless, saying nothing more than you’d found your father and he’d died, I knew you weren’t telling me something.” She glanced at the door one final time. “Now tell me.”

I wouldn’t have thought it easy to reduce a year’s worth of life to a short, whispered conversation in the quiet of Lucy’s bedroom. But as soon as I told her about arriving on the island and discovering Father’s secrets, the story started to roll out of me. I told her about Montgomery, and how we’d loved each other but he’d stayed behind instead of returning with me. I told her about the beast-men, who had been so gentle and childlike at the beginning, and witnessing Father create them in his blood-red laboratory, and then how they’d regressed into monsters. She didn’t speak the entire time—her face was white, her voice stolen.

I was about to tell her the hardest part—Edward—but paused. She claimed to admire him. It wasn’t so easy to reveal that he was one of Father’s more gifted creations—as well as London’s most notorious mass murderer.

“There’s more, but . . .” I hesitated at her white face, fearing the news about Edward would shatter her. I swallowed and instead said, “Father was corresponding with someone here, one of the King’s Men. There are letters. . . .”

But my words died at the look on her face. She’d been deathly silent throughout my explanation, but now a deep red color came to her cheeks.

“Letters?” she whispered.
“Letters
? Oh God, Juliet.”

Before I could respond she pulled me into a tight, desperate embrace, her heart thumping nearly as fast as my own.

“I know it’s all hard to believe,” I said, squeezing her even harder.