The Madmans Daughter

by Megan Shepherd

Page 13

  Author: Megan Shepherd

  I buried my face in his suit and breathed in his scent. Apricot preserves and faint traces of formaldehyde, just as I remembered. The flood of memories almost choked me. Having a father again after so many years left me shaken.

  He held me at arm’s length, searching my face. Looking for the little girl he left behind, perhaps. His eyes had that calculating look that had so unnerved his students, but to me it was just his way.

  I’d missed it.

  “Look at you,” he said. “You should be looking for a husband, not some wrinkled old man. ”

  My head spun. I’d imagined meeting him again so many times that it was hard to believe it was happening. I’d come all this way to find out which man he was—the madman or the misunderstood genius—but already I could see that it wouldn’t be so simple. This was a living person, not some theory I’d decided to test. Had I really thought I could just show up and ask if the rumors had been true? I could barely form words to speak at all.

  “I had to come,” I stuttered. The dock, the waves, the hulking men—they were all spinning. “I thought you were dead. ”

  “Hell hasn’t claimed me yet,” he said. He took my chin, tilting my head to both sides. “You look like your mother, but you must take after me in spirit. Montgomery said you practically held a knife to his throat to come here. ”

  “She’s persistent, for sure,” Montgomery said lightly.

  Father pointed the parasol at the jungle wilderness. “You won’t find many of the comforts of London here. ”

  I almost laughed. Dr. Hastings’s wandering hands were hardly a comfort. I wondered if I should tell him that my other options had been fleeing London or standing outside the Blue Boar Inn in a stained dress.

  But none of that mattered now. “I don’t need comforts,” I said, meaning it.

  He nodded, considering this. I bit the inside of my cheek to ground myself. He was alive. I wasn’t alone anymore. I twisted my fists in my skirt’s soft cotton, not sure how to deal with the tangled feelings pushing around inside me.

  Father squeezed my shoulder. “This isn’t a holiday retreat, you understand. We grow our own food. See to our own safety. It’s not a place for young ladies. ” He pursed his lips. “But we’ll find some use for you. ”

  I nodded. He was being rational. Still, I tried not to show my disappointment that his thoughts immediately turned to how I could be of use.

  The splash of oars sounded behind us. The launch had returned with Edward. Suddenly I was forgotten. Father’s eyes narrowed. His knuckles were white on the parasol’s delicate handle. He looked at Edward with the intense stare of a surgeon.

  Edward climbed out, brushing off his trousers. His gaze held steady on my father, as if he sensed the battle he was about to face. Maybe I hadn’t taken Montgomery seriously enough when he said Father didn’t allow strangers. The way Father looked at Edward wasn’t just suspicion—it was an unsettling, intense dislike that made me hesitate.

  “Father, this is Edward Prince,” I said. “He was a castaway. I told him he would be welcome here until a ship can take him home. He’s been ill. Montgomery saved his life. ”

  Father’s eyes shifted to Montgomery and back to Edward. “Can’t speak for yourself, eh, boy? Prince, was it?”

  Edward stood tall. “I was a passenger on the Viola before the hull breached. I ended up on the Curitiba by chance. ”

  “Chance? Is that so? And why should I let you set foot on my island?”

  I threw Montgomery a look. This was beyond mere inhospitality. Isolation had driven Father to paranoia, I realized. Maybe worse. A seed of doubt planted itself deep in my brain.

  “I’d be grateful if I could wait here until a ship comes,” Edward said, slowly. “I’ll be no trouble, I assure you. ”

  Father’s eyes glowed like embers. Like a storm, the tension in the air returned, crackling like lightning. “Well, Mr. Prince, I’m afraid you’re wrong. You’d be nothing but trouble, you see. ” And he jabbed the parasol at Edward’s chest.

  Edward stumbled back, losing his footing, and fell into the churning harbor with a splash that drenched my white dress.

  Twelve

  “EDWARD!” I STUMBLED FORWARD, but it was too late. I collapsed, wincing as my knees slammed into the hard dock. My fingers curled around the warped boards as I watched him sputter to the surface.

  “Take my hand!” I reached as far as I dared, but the distance was too great. Edward slapped at the water uselessly, trying to pull himself up through the unsolid waves. He opened his mouth to shout, but I never heard what he said. He slipped under the surface.

  My fingernails dug half-moon trenches into the rotten wood. The dark shape that was Edward hovered just under the glassy surface, like an apparition. I kept thinking I had seen it wrong. It had been an accident. And yet I’d seen Father push him.

  I dug my palms against the dock and stumbled to my feet. Father calmly adjusted the rumpled cuffs of his shirt. “Have you lost your mind?” I shouted. “He’s not well. He’ll drown!”

  Edward surfaced again, sputtering as he breached the water, only to sink again. Father watched as patiently as if he were waiting for a frog to die in a chloroform-filled jar. A wave of anger rolled up my throat.

  Beside him, Montgomery’s face was slack and uncertain.

  “You can swim,” I said to him. A desperate request, and he looked at me with hesitation. I understood then. He didn’t want to cross Father, not even to save Edward. Here, he wasn’t the strong, capable man I’d seen on the ship. He was just a boy.

  “Please, Montgomery,” I said. He swallowed hard and lurched toward the water. But Father swung the parasol in a swift, graceful arc that blocked his path.

  Montgomery’s boots skidded on the dock, as if the parasol had been a six-foot iron fence and not just a few bits of wood and lace. His eyes met mine. Everything felt wrong, so wrong. He should have been apprenticing himself to some craftsman back in England, meeting girls after church. Instead he was a slave to some madman’s whims.

  With a growl, I lunged at the parasol and wrestled the flimsy thing from my father’s hand. To my surprise, he surrendered it easily with an amused chuckle that made me shiver. I knelt at the edge of the dock and held it out to Edward. His fingers grazed at the handle, but he was too far away. The last thing I saw before he slipped under was the gold glint of his eyes, fixated on Father.

  “To hell with it,” Montgomery muttered. He dived into the water.

  For a painfully long moment I was alone with my father. The late-afternoon sun crept over the dock, casting long shadows. I was afraid to look behind me. I’d come so far, only to find that the rumors must be true—only a monster would patiently watch a man drown. What happened to the father I remembered, the father who sneaked me chocolates when Mother wasn’t looking, whose warm tweed coats blanketed me when I fell asleep on the sofa? Were those memories nothing more than fantasies?

  I realized I had no idea who the man in the white linen suit was. Fear slipped out of me in little gasps, the only sound except the slap of the waves against the piles. Farther down the dock, the hulking islanders loaded cargo into a horse-drawn wagon. They might as well have been in a different world, though they were only paces from us.

  Montgomery surfaced at last with his arm circling Edward’s waist, shattering the awful spell. I threw aside the broken parasol and reached out to help him as he paddled to the dock.

  “Hold on to him while I climb up,” Montgomery said. I clutched Edward around the shoulders while Montgomery pulled himself up; then he dragged Edward out of the water and onto the dock. I leaned over Edward, touching him cautiously, afraid the episode would bring back terrible memories of his shipwreck.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  He leaned to the side and coughed, and then his hand found mine. He squeezed the life out of it. “Juliet . . . you looked
even more beautiful when I thought I was dying. ”

  I stared at his hand holding mine, not sure how to answer. Thank you?

  Father offered no assistance. “You should have let him drown,” he observed.

  Montgomery only tore at the laces of his dripping boots, trying to get the heavy things off. His knuckles were white. He’d been raised to never question one’s master—but I hadn’t.

  I snatched the broken parasol and thrust it at Father’s own chest, not hard enough to push him, just hard enough to show my anger. “How could you?” I cried. An amused look played on his face.

  I raised the parasol to jab him again, but he grabbed it and wrenched it from my hands. “Calm down,” he said. The smile was gone, along with his patience.

  I heard a watery choking behind me. Edward leaned over the dock, coughing out more seawater. Father grabbed my chin and turned my eyes to meet his. “He doesn’t belong here, Juliet. He isn’t one of us. ”

  I jerked out of his grasp. “Then maybe I don’t belong here either!”

  My chest rose and fell quickly with troubled breath. I ached to rip off the corset. The starched lace collar of the white dress scratched at my neck, and I cursed myself for being such a fool that I ever wanted to impress a man I barely knew, father or not.

  The sound of wood striking wood made us all turn. A sailor was back in the launch with more trunks. The second launch followed with the caged panther, which hissed and let out a high-pitched, eerie growl.

  Father picked up the parasol. He opened it, observed the shredded and soiled white lace, and then folded it back carefully. The three hulking islanders approached in their odd, lumbering gait and secured the launches. Their startlingly fair eyes threw nervous glances at my father, their master. I could barely stand to look at them. Balthasar’s deformities were unfortunate, but these brutes were the things of nightmares.

  Father turned to Edward. “Mr. Prince, is it?” His lips pursed. “It seems my daughter has an interest in your welfare. As I have an interest in hers, I suppose you may stay with us. ” He pointed the tip of the parasol at the waves. “Though I would advise you to learn to swim. ”

  He muttered a command to the islanders, and then smoothed his wild gray hair. “Come, Juliet. Balthasar will stay and see to the unloading. ” He extended his hand to me.

  I stared at Father’s waiting palm. It was surprisingly small, with a pink glow and soft, delicate curves. It was the hand of a gentleman, unused to wielding any tool larger than a surgeon’s scalpel.

  I hesitated, still unsure of what I’d seen.

  His lips twitched in that calculating way of his that made my own feel dry. Then he laughed. “You thought I’d really hurt the boy. ” He clapped his hands together. “Juliet, you’ll have to forgive me. I am aware my sense of humor veers toward the black. I only wanted to put the fear of God in him, to show him who runs this island. ” He tilted his head at Edward, whose head was bowed, shoulders slumped as he wiped the seawater off his face. “You see, it worked. ”

  I glanced at Montgomery, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. He was suddenly a servant again in front of my father. He finished unlacing his boots and kicked them off. Water seeped out and dripped through the wooden slats of the dock.

  Dark clouds began forming overhead. Tension cracked in the air like lightning. Father’s hand still waited for mine. His black eyes drew me to him like an anchor to sea. I placed my hand in his, cautiously. His fingers closed around mine with surprising strength.

  “Come along, Prince,” he called. “Or are we going to have to drag you?”

  I glanced over my shoulder to see Montgomery help Edward to his feet. Edward took a few shaky steps, waving Montgomery away. Montgomery picked up the rabbit hutch by its crossbeams, and they followed us down the dock.

  Father placed my hand in the crook of his elbow, like a gentleman. We walked toward the waiting wagon as casually as a couple strolling down the Strand. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought we were just a father and daughter enjoying a warm breeze on a sunny day. But my head was swimming. It was all I could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other.