Her Dark Curiosity (The Madman’s Daughter #2)(18)
Author: Megan Shepherd

I swallowed. “Edward . . .”

He pulled back on his shirt and rolled down the sleeves. “I’m showing you because I want you to understand the lengths I’ll go to in order to cure myself. I don’t want to hurt anyone else, you least of all. I was as surprised as you were when you walked into Lucy’s parlor today. I knew you two were very close, but if I had known you were coming by, I’d never have gone today.”

“What are you doing with her?” I asked. “You shouldn’t ever have introduced yourself to her. And now she’s practically ready to run away with you—what kind of madness is this?”

“An act, nothing more,” he said, taking an uncertain step toward me. “She’s a fine young woman, but I’m only posing as her suitor to get closer to her father. Juliet, I couldn’t ever love anyone besides—”

“Stop,” I said, throwing up a hand. “Please, Edward, don’t.” I took a deep breath. “Why do want to get close to Mr. Radcliffe?”

He nodded. “It’s part of the plan to cure myself. I have letters that I took from your father’s laboratory before it burned. They contain correspondence with a former colleague of his, going back years to when he was first banished. All that time on the island, he maintained contact with someone, trading the secrets to his work in exchange for funding and supplies.”

His words gave me pause. All those years when I’d thought Father dead, he was corresponding with someone back in London? I sank against the rough bark of a palm tree to steady myself. I’d once asked Father why he never wrote to me. He’d alluded to the fact that there was a warrant on him, and letters would have alerted the police to his whereabouts. And yet it seemed he hadn’t hesitated to write to colleagues when it suited him.

I started to put everything together. “The letters were to Mr. Radcliffe? Lucy’s father was his correspondent? But he isn’t a scientist. Their money came from rail, and now he’s doing something with the automobile industry, shipping engines all over Europe—”

Edward was quick to shake his head. “I don’t know for sure if it’s him. The letters aren’t signed; whoever his colleague was, Moreau wished to keep it secret. The correspondent called himself a King’s Man, nothing more. So I’ve been investigating all the members of the King’s Club, starting with those closest to your father, such as Radcliffe. He’s a hard man to get close to, so . . .”

“The King’s Club is wrapped up in this?” My mind ticked back to the grainy old photograph hanging in the hallways of King’s College. Father’s young face had seemed so hopeful then, brimming with ambition. I tried to remember the other faces. Hastings had been there, and Isambard Lessing . . . the rest of the names bled together in my head.

“So you used Lucy. Never mind that you would only end up breaking her heart, assuming you didn’t first rip it out of her chest.” I knew my words were laced with acid, but he didn’t flinch. “Did you at least discover anything about her father?”

He shook his head. “Not yet. There are at least a dozen King’s Men who fit the profile.” A shadow passed through the golden flecks in his eyes. “Including your guardian.”

My hand fell away from my collar. The professor? Words raced up my throat, ready to deny it, but they never made it to my lips. Doubts started to pull them back down—the professor had been in the photograph, standing right next to my father, of all places—but I gritted my teeth and ignored my doubts. “The professor was the one who turned Father in. He’d never support his work.”

But Edward didn’t answer, and my blood went cold. Only the day before yesterday the professor had told me about how he’d met Father in the King’s Club. He’d prodded me for information, asked me to talk about my time on the island. I thought he’d just been concerned. . . .

I shook my head fiercely. “No, I don’t believe it. It’s someone else. But it doesn’t matter—whoever Father’s secret colleague is, you can’t contact him. It’s too dangerous.”

“I haven’t a choice. If he knows Moreau’s work, he might know how to cure me.”

“He’ll use you! On the island Montgomery and I swore we wouldn’t let any of my father’s research leave, in case the wrong people were to get a hold of it. That’s the entire reason I destroyed his laboratory, the reason I wouldn’t let Balthazar come back with me . . . the reason I helped kill my own father!”

My desperate words filled the artificial jungle around us, and I clenched my jaw as if I could take them back.

“I’m flesh and blood, not a diagram in a lab notebook,” Edward said. “How could they possibly use me?”

“It wouldn’t be impossible for someone with the right training. I saw a hybridized Bourgogne lily the other day and knew exactly what stock it had come from. If I’d been able to dissect it and further examine its various parts, I’d be able to tell even more.” My voice fell to a whisper. “They could do the same to you, Edward. Cut you open and see how Father made you, and then recreate it. Think of what that would mean. How many animals would die on their operating tables. Humans, too, probably. And in the end, an army of beast-men not contained on a single small island.”

His hand touched the scar under his eye absently, and then fell away. “What other choice do I have? As long as the Beast is a part of me, he’ll keep killing. That blood is on my hands too, Juliet. I’ve no one else to help me.”

A thousand emotions warred in my chest. Some told me to run, some told me our goals were the same—finding a cure—and that we could help each other. Some told me to leave him to his fate. But it was my fate too, now. I’d played a hand in my own father’s murder to keep this from happening. And I wasn’t a fool. If Father’s colleague had Edward, it would only be a matter of time before they found out I, too, was one of Father’s experiments. If I wasn’t careful, it might be me strapped to an operating table one day.

I cursed under my breath, wondering if I was making a huge mistake.

“Then I’ll help you myself.”

ELEVEN

EDWARD AND I STOOD on the landing of my lodging house in Shoreditch while I fumbled with the key. Sharkey had been waiting outside the front door, hidden in the bushes, having escaped Joyce again and come here, where he knew I’d give him whatever meat scraps I had left over from my experiments. I’d introduced the dog to Edward and he’d carried Sharkey up the stairs in his arms. Seeing him act so gentle with the little mutt stirred something inside me.