Читать книгу A Cold Legacy - Megan Shepherd, Megan Shepherd - Страница 10

That night, I dreamed I was in the professor’s house on Dumbarton Street, in the cellar where we’d kept the Beast locked away. I descended the stairs slowly, listening for the tap-tap-tap of claws on the stone floor. When I faced the barred cellar door, though, no yellow eyes met mine. Tropical warmth and the smell of the sea came instead. I was back on Father’s island, ankle deep in the surf, watching the volcano’s plume ascend into a cloudless sky.

“You’re engaged to him,” a voice said from behind me. “Yet you know so little about him.”

The Beast emerged from among the palms. I’d only ever seen the Beast at night, or cast in shadows. In sunlight he looked more like Edward. Just an ordinary young man—except for his golden yellow eyes.

“Montgomery and I grew up together,” I said. “I know him better than anyone.”

“And yet he’s keeping secrets from you.” The Beast stopped a few feet away from me, smelling both sweet and bitter, like the blood-soaked plumeria flowers he’d left for me in London. “I warned you about his secrets once. You like to pretend that you didn’t hear, and yet here I am in your head, a voice you can’t escape.”

My head suddenly ached with splitting pain.

“Do you remember what I said?” he asked.

I pressed a hand to my temple.

Ask Montgomery about your father’s laboratory files on the island, he had said. About the ones you didn’t see.

MY EYES SHOT OPEN as I jerked upright. The smell of the professor’s root cellar hung around me like fog. I tried to stand but the memory choked me until I realized it was only the bedspread tangled around my limbs.

Scotland, I reminded myself. I’m in Scotland, not on the island.

I climbed out of bed and threw open the window for fresh night air. The rain had stopped, but the smell of bogs was heavy. No matter how many deep breaths I took, I couldn’t rid myself of that terrible dream.

I looked toward the door to Montgomery’s room. My fingers drifted to the thin silver ring on my finger, glinting in the candlelight.

My future husband.

Had I been wrong to disregard the Beast’s warning about him?

My stomach churned with worry. I didn’t want to return to an empty bed, frightening dreams, and thoughts of a fiancé who might be keeping secrets. I decided to find Edward’s room and verify with my own eyes that the Beast hadn’t returned.

I threw on an old dressing gown I found in the armoire. It was lacy and long, softly feminine yet old-fashioned. I lit the candelabrum and opened my door silently.

The hallway was quiet. Everyone else was sleeping soundly. I pressed the electric light button on the wall but nothing happened—the electricity must have gone off in the storm. I peered through the first keyhole I came to, at a room smaller than my own and considerably cozier. To my surprise, the bed was empty, the occupant curled on the warm hearthstones instead, his big hairy arms tucked under his heavy head, snoring softly. Balthazar. Sharkey slept in his arms, feet twitching as he chased dream rabbits. Balthazar must have snuck down to the barn to get him. The sweet scene warmed me as if I was curled by the hearth with them.

A floorboard squeaked down the hall, and I jerked upright, but it was nothing—just the manor settling. I shivered anyway as I peeked in the next keyhole. A half dozen candles burned on the table as though the room’s occupant feared the dark. A soft murmur came and the figure rolled over, flashing dark curls and a pale face not so different from my own.

Lucy.

There was only one guest bedroom left, so it had to belong to Edward. I peered through the keyhole. A candle on the side table flickered there, too. Edward lay still as a corpse on the bed, not even a blink or a flicker of breath to tell me he was alive. The chains wrapped around his arms and chest glinted in the candlelight.

I shuddered. The servants must think us mad to chain a young man we claimed was a friend, but if they knew the truth, they’d be even more fearful of us. I took out the key to his room, ready to open it.

Suddenly a face blocked the keyhole. A shriek ripped through me as I stumbled backward. An eye looked back from the other side of the keyhole. It was milky white, completely devoid of color.

It blinked.

I screamed.

MONTGOMERY WAS FIRST INTO the hallway. He spotted me and rushed to my side.

“What’s happened?” he asked, all tension from our fight put aside.

Another door slammed, then another, and footsteps sounded above our heads. I tried to steady my breath.

“A face,” I breathed. “There’s someone in Edward’s room.”

Uncertainty creased his forehead. He crossed to Edward’s door and rattled the knob. “Still locked. Only you and Valentina have a key.”

Lucy’s door opened across the hall. Her sleep-dazed face peeked through the crack. “Juliet? I thought I heard a scream.”

Mrs. McKenna appeared at the top of the stairs with Valentina right behind her, both in their loose-fitting sleep shirts. “Was that you who screamed, Miss Moreau?” Mrs. McKenna asked.

“I saw someone in Edward’s room. Blast it, I’m going in.”

I turned the key in the lock and opened the door. We all pressed inside. Edward lay on the bed, unconscious, with sweat dripping down his brow. My heart pounded as I searched the tall curtains. Montgomery threw open the armoire, and Lucy knelt to look under the bed. They both came up empty-handed.

Had it been only my imagination?

Mrs. McKenna watched me keenly. “This person you saw,” she said, throwing Valentina a wary glance. “Can you describe him or her?”

“I don’t know if was a man or a woman. I only saw the person’s eye looking at me through the keyhole. It was completely white, as though the iris had been drained of color.”

Mrs. McKenna shared another look with Valentina, this one substantially less mysterious. I felt as though I was missing something between these two.

“Do you know the person?” Montgomery asked.

“Oh, aye, we know him.” Mrs. McKenna’s mouth quirked with either annoyance or amusement, I couldn’t tell. She walked over to a fading oil painting in a gilded frame that stood as tall as her. To my surprise she swung it open on groaning hinges, reaching quickly into what must have been an alcove or tunnel behind the painting, and grabbed something that scrambled there.

I heard a tussle as the thing tried to get away, but then gave up with a curt little sigh and let the housekeeper pull it out.

No one was more shocked than I when her hand reemerged clutching a small child by his shirt collar’s high nape. He was a tiny thing, five years old perhaps, with a shock of dark hair and a scowl that rivaled even that of the old bartender from the inn on the main road. A live white rat perched on his shoulder—a tamed pet. Lucy made a face of disgust.

When Mrs. McKenna turned him toward the light, I saw his eyes. One was a deep brown, the other milky white.

“Is this your trespasser, miss?”

“Y … yes,” I stammered.

Mrs. McKenna let go of the boy’s shirt. “This is Master Hensley. He’s been missing since breakfast. He often disappears; he always comes back sooner or later, when he’s hungry. I should have thought to look in the walls.”

“Master Hensley?”

“Aye, Mistress Elizabeth’s son.” Mrs. McKenna gave me a strange look. “Didn’t she mention him?”

Something curdled my blood. I’d spent a month in London with Elizabeth, sharing all our secrets, practically becoming family, and not once had she mentioned having a son.

Why not?

The housekeeper gave him a firm pat on the back in the direction of Valentina. “To bed with you, child. Leave our guests alone, else they’ll think the house haunted.”

Valentina held out her hand, ungloved now that she was just in her dressing gown. Her hand was surprisingly small and white beneath her long sleeve, not at all the same complexion as the rest of her body. I wondered if the pigment in her skin had been bleached in some chemical accident. That would certainly explain why she wore gloves most of the time, when she hardly acted like a Puritan.

The little boy sauntered off with her into the hallway. He barely seemed like a child in those stiff clothes, with that scowling face—more like a little man made to live in a too-small body. His scuffed shoes and the dirt under his nails spoke of frequent disappearances like this one.

“I apologize for the disturbance,” Mrs. McKenna said, closing the painting. “It’s an old house, filled with these tunnels. Mad Lord Ballentyne is rumored to have built them to confuse spirits that might be wandering the halls, though I think it’s more likely it was to hide his distillery from the British authorities. No one uses the passages now, except Hensley. They’re quite dangerous. Loose nails and uneven bricks and a few traps Lord Ballentyne set in case he was being pursued. Tomorrow I’ll have Carlyle seal this painting with some nails, so you won’t need to worry about anyone intruding upon your friend’s slumber.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“As to the electricity, the girls will try their best to repair it tomorrow. Until then, you’ll find more candles in your closets. Let’s hope for no more disturbances this time, eh?”

I gave an uneasy nod. “Indeed.”

The servants returned to their rooms, and after a few minutes Montgomery did as well, leaving Lucy and me alone with Edward. She sank onto the bed next to him, brushing an errant strand of hair from his brow.

“He’s burning up,” she muttered. “All the excitement must have him worried.” Her hand dropped to the chain across his chest, toying with the lock almost as if she didn’t realize what she was doing, but I did—she wanted those chains off him so he could sit up and be his old self. But I wasn’t certain he was his old self, not anymore.

“Lucy,” I said softly, “he’s delirious. He doesn’t even know we’re here.”

She gave me an exasperated look. “I’m the one who’s been taking care of him since we left London, and I know his moods best. I swear he woke up in the traveler’s inn on the way here, no matter what you say …”

I’d stopped listening to her, shocked by what was happening on the bed. Before my very eyes, Edward blinked. For a moment I thought I’d imagined it. But then his eyes opened.

My lips parted in shock.

“Juliet, what’s the matter?” she asked, and then followed my gaze to the bed and gasped.

Edward blinked again, wincing in pain, lucid for the first time since he’d taken the poison. “Lucy,” his voice rasped.

“Edward!” She threw herself against him, running her hands through his sweat-soaked hair. “I knew you were better!”

I covered my mouth with my hand, hanging back by the door as though afraid to believe it. “Edward? Is it you?”

“Juliet.” He winced in pain. “Listen to me, both of you—” He coughed, the chains rattling, and he collapsed back on the bed, overtaken with the fever again. He looked so much like the skeletal castaway we’d found on the Curitiba that my heart started thumping painfully hard. Back then, he’d been just a step away from death. He looked even closer now.

“Edward, can you hear me?” Lucy said. “You’ve been delirious for days. Montgomery gave you something to help with the poison.”

I clamped a hand on her shoulder, holding her back. “Be careful, Lucy. We don’t know if it’s the Beast or Edward.”

“Of course it’s Edward!”

His eyelids fluttered and I pulled Lucy back farther, despite the chains and her insistence. “Listen to me,” he said. “I can’t fight him off any longer. This might be the last you hear from me.”

Lucy and I both gaped at him. She shook her head. “You’re recovering,” she pleaded. “You’ll be fine.”

His eyes shifted to her. “Lucy, don’t think I haven’t been aware of everything you’ve done for me, taking care of me all this time and believing in me. Your strength gave me strength, and it was enough to keep fighting him. But even so, I can’t fight forever.” He swallowed hard, as though his throat was bone dry. “There was a moment, a flash, when he and I were truly one. I could see all his memories because they were my memories too. I know everything he knows, all his secrets—and there were many. The Beast was doing his own research. His own experiments.”

His eyes shifted to mine. The tenderness in them was gone. If he still bore any love for me, it was hidden under his desperation. He needed me as a scientist now, not a former lover.

“What do you mean?” I asked, daring a step closer.

“The Beast had stolen research from the King’s Men that I never knew about. He discovered his own origin. When your father created me, he made a mistake. He used a portion of the brain from a diseased jackal. It was infected with a strain of rabies that combined with the malaria in Montgomery’s blood to form a hybrid disease located here …” He jerked his hand toward his head, as far as the chains would let him. “At the top of the spine. It’s called the reptile brain because it controls impulse and instinct. If it’s damaged, it can manifest in split personalities. It’s him, Juliet. The Beast. If you could somehow cut it out, replace it, or drain it of the ill humors, you’d cure me of him. The Beast knew it all along. He tried to hide the knowledge from the both of us.”

I couldn’t speak. My head spun with the flood of information Edward was giving me. Could the Beast really be nothing more than a symptom of a diseased brain? A foe I’d fought so hard against reduced to nothing more than a hybrid strain of rabies and a botched surgery?

Lucy spun to me, eyes wide. “Can it truly be done, Juliet?”

I knew little of diseased brains, but the books I’d read did support his theory. I’d heard of men who had suffered damage to the posterior lobe suddenly speaking with a foreign accent they’d never had before. One kindhearted man had been shot through the cortex and developed a violent new personality.

“I don’t know.” My voice faltered. “Maybe. Montgomery is a more gifted surgeon than me.” I glanced back toward the hallway, wondering what he would think of all this. Even though Edward was like a brother to him—biologically, at least—Montgomery wouldn’t hesitate to kill him if he was any sort of threat.

Edward coughed. His lips moved, but I couldn’t make out the sound.

“What is it, Edward?”

“Not letting me die …” He coughed again, and his voice hardened. “You’ll come to regret that.”

I jerked upright. That voice. It wasn’t Edward’s. It belonged to a creature with claws and glowing yellow eyes. “Lucy, get back!” I nearly wrenched her arm off as I dragged her away from the bed. “It’s the Beast—he’s there, too.”

She stared with eyes as wide as my own. Edward coughed once more, and then his head rolled back onto the pillow. Unconscious again. I stared at his waxy face. It might not look like the Beast’s, but I would know that voice anywhere.

Lucy tore away from me. “Edward?” She shook him. “Edward?” Her hand fell on the chain, her fingers fumbling with the lock.

“Stop!” I said, pulling her back. “You heard him—he can’t keep fighting the Beast forever. If you unlock those chains, we don’t know what you’ll be setting free.”

“We can’t just do nothing! We have to tell Montgomery!”

I paced at the foot of Edward’s bed, trying to figure out the best way to handle this.

“No. We’ll wait for Elizabeth to return. She’s studied surgery. She’ll know if there’s any truth to what he’s saying. We have to keep this secret, Lucy. If Montgomery thought we were still in danger from the Beast, he might do something drastic.”

She gaped. “Montgomery wouldn’t hurt Edward. They’re practically brothers!”

“He might not be Edward for much longer.” I finally convinced her to come out into the hall with me and locked Edward’s bedroom, testing the lock to make certain it held.

“Are you certain we can trust Elizabeth?” Lucy said. “She lied to us. She said she had no children, but there’s that little boy with the strange eyes.”

“Elizabeth has risked everything for us,” I said. “Even now she’s out there trying to keep the police off our trail. The professor trusted her, and that’s good enough for me. She’ll know what to do.”

Lucy let out a deep breath filled with reservations. “I hope you’re right.”

I gave her a long hug and reassured her again, then walked her to her room. Alone in the hallway, I pressed my ear against Edward’s door, listening to the sounds of him—or the Beast—breathing. My heart beat a little too fast. I tried to put Edward’s cryptic few words out of my head, along with the strangeness of this place—Elizabeth had warned me, after all, to be prepared for people out of touch with normal society. I reminded myself that we weren’t in danger here, and that this was also the safest place for Edward. Elizabeth had her reasons for keeping secrets from us. Despite Montgomery’s fears, the greater danger by far lay out there, beyond the moors.