Her Dark Curiosity (The Madman’s Daughter #2)(63)
Author: Megan Shepherd

“Balthazar’s a good man. He’s no risk to you, I promise,” I said.

“And the man in the cellar?”

My silence was its own answer. She raised an eyebrow as she reached for a log for the fireplace. Montgomery protested and offered to build it for her, but she shot him a withering look.

“I’m quite capable of stacking firewood, Mr. James,” she said, striking a match. “Now, I shall dismiss Mary and Ellis for the rest of the week. I think it best, given the fact you’ve kidnapped someone.” She dusted her soot-blackened hands, then took her seat in a leather wingtip chair. “Which one of you would like to explain to me what’s truly going on?”

Montgomery and I exchanged a glance. He shifted uncomfortably, never having been at ease around Elizabeth. “Tell her as much as you see fit,” he said to me. “I should check on Edward, anyway.” He kissed my cheek before leaving us alone. I knew I should speak, but there were too many things to say, and not enough words to convey them.

From somewhere outside came the sound of harness bells as a carriage passed, and my head jerked toward the window. Such merriment didn’t belong in this room, not now, with the conversation we faced.

In the end, Elizabeth spoke first. “My father—the professor’s brother—enjoyed taxidermy. A foul hobby, for sure, but as a girl I idolized him. So I’d plug my nose against the smell and help him with the pelts. I know the difference between animal fur and human hair, Juliet, and your friend upstairs falls into the former category.”

I swallowed. “Yes. I know.”

Her voice dropped low, like the hearth’s warmest flames. “He’s one of your father’s experiments, isn’t he? You found your father on that island, and he hadn’t stopped his work at all.”

To hear it spoken aloud made it true all over again. My secret was out, but perhaps this was for the best. I’d regretted not telling the professor everything. I couldn’t bear to have Elizabeth’s death on my conscious, too. “I thought you would think it impossible.”

Elizabeth reclined into the wingtip chair. “Unfortunately, I am all too familiar with the strange things in this world. I told you my family had skeletons in our closet, but I’m afraid it’s more than just our illegitimate lineage. Our ancestors were half mad, and not all of them scrupulous. I’ve read accounts of their travels, and it’s chilling.” She leaned so close to the fire that I was surprised it didn’t burn her face. “All along I suspected your father might succeed, which is why I turned him in.”

Suddenly the small fire seemed to throw off far too much heat. I was on my feet without thinking. “You started the rumors?”

“Yes.”

“I thought the professor had turned him in.”

“The professor was the one to alert the police, yes,” she said calmly. “But I was the one to start the rumors. You forget that I was friends with your mother. She was a sweet woman, but none too bright. She hadn’t a clue what he was doing down there in the laboratory, but I figured it out rather quickly.” She paused. “I apologize for what happened to you and your mother—it wasn’t my intention that you would be left without resources.”

I chewed on a broken fingernail, thinking. For so many years I thought I’d hated the men who had brought scandal upon my family, and yet all along it had been this one woman, who wasn’t so different from me, who had betrayed him for the good of the world.

The same reason I’d helped kill him.

I went to the window. It was still dark of night, and the street below was quiet save the wind ruffling the garlands. A light turned on in a downstairs window across the street, and I caught a glimpse of a man in a stocking cap heating milk on the stove. My stomach rumbled with more than just hunger.

“Before my father’s blade, Balthazar began life as a bear and a dog,” I said.

“And now you call him a man?” she asked.

Next door, the kitchen light extinguished. “I call him a friend,” I said.

“And the young man downstairs? Is he a friend as well?”

“He was, once. Now I can’t say what he is. Father developed a new procedure to change a creature’s composition on a cellular level. He created Edward from a collection of animal parts and human blood, but the results were unpredictable. Edward is a man, but he’s also a monster. It lives within his skin, quite literally.” I paused. “He’s the Wolf of Whitechapel.”

Elizabeth sat straight up, eyes aflame. “The professor’s murderer? Is that why you’ve brought him here, instead of to the police?” Her voice dropped. “Do you intend to murder him as some sort of revenge?”

I bit my lip. “I’ll not deny he’s a murderer. He admits to killing many of the Wolf’s victims, but he claims he didn’t kill the professor. It sounds mad, but I’m tempted to believe him.”

The wind whistled down the chimney and made the fire flicker, and she didn’t take her keen eyes off of me.

“We can’t turn him over to the police,” I continued. “There’s an organization searching for him, and their plans are worse than anything Father ever imagined. They want to use him to create more creatures like him, which we think are destined for France’s Ministry of Defense. I can only imagine what the military would want with those things. They’re vicious, Elizabeth. Bloodthirsty.”

Her eyes flickered in that cold way that told me nothing. “What organization?” she asked.

“They’re called the King’s Club. You’ve heard of them, I’m sure—the professor was a member, though briefly. They want to continue my father’s experimentations, and they’ve already begun. We found a laboratory.”

She leaned back, thinking. “The King’s Club, involved in all this . . .”

“I know it’s difficult to believe,” I said.

“Oh, I never said that,” she said dryly. “I never trusted a single one of those men, and neither did the professor, which is precisely why he left their ranks. Do you recall hearing about the cholera epidemic of 1854?”

I nodded, thinking back to the royal decree framed in the King’s Club’s smoking room. “The King’s Men were involved in stopping it, if I recall,” I said. “Part of their charitable work.”

Elizabeth let out a harsh burst of air. “Charitable work? I hardly think so. If anyone benefited from the epidemic, it was the King’s Men’s own bank accounts. The city invested in a new system of waterworks and sewers for the city, and their companies produced all the granite and piping for that project. And I know for a fact that one of their members was a doctor of epidemiology.”