Heart of Perdition

by Selah March

  Like a waltz in a minor key.

  He shook his head to rid himself of fancies. “However do you keep up with the news from London?”

  “Oh, our intrepid dirigible pilots bring us reports from the world at least once a month in good weather, although I sometimes doubt their accuracy.”

  “Do you? Why?”

  Miss Shaw inclined her head. “We’ve heard the queen has been replaced by a mechanical waxwork, and the heir to the throne is syphilitic and of less than average intelligence. Can you verify these rumors?”

  James answered the twinkle in her eye with a smile of his own. “I must defer to Dr. Colgrave on the matter, as I don’t get out as much as I’d like.”

  She laughed—no silly, girlish giggle, but a deep, provocative chuckle that sounded too large for her trim figure—and James’ heart gave a great, twisting heave. He pressed his fist against his breastbone and reached for his water glass.

  “Do what you can to avoid my daughter… Do not observe her too closely, nor converse with her at length. She’ll be the death of you, otherwise.”

  The echo of Aurelius Shaw’s words reverberated in James’ head, drowning out the irregular thud and lurch of his heart. He sipped his water and coaxed himself to breathe at a slower pace.

  Superstitious tripe. I’ll not let myself be governed by the ravings of a dying man.

  “Are you unwell, my lord? Shall I have one of the servants see you to your room?”

  He looked up to see his hostess regarding him with what appeared to be genuine concern. He forced the frown from his brow. “Quite the contrary, Miss Shaw. Indeed, I look forward to exploring more of this grand and unusual house before I retire for the night.”

  * * *

  An hour later, James stood before the library windows, his breathing steady and his heart quiet for the moment. The eastern sky had darkened to the color of ripe plums, and smoke rose in dusty blue plumes from the peat fires that heated the villagers’ homes.

  Colgrave had begged off further entertainment at the close of the meal, pleading exhaustion and headache. James left the doctor in the clearly capable hands of the housekeeper, and allowed his hostess to propel his wheelchair as far as the drawing room, which was dominated by a grand piano of uncertain age.

  “Do you play, Miss Shaw?”

  “No, my lord,” was her abrupt answer, but James knew a lie when he heard one. He chose not to press the point.

  They moved to the library, which proved to be twice as large as any room he’d seen so far in this great, gloomy house. Its shelves were stuffed with all manner of books, scrolls, crumbling newspapers, pamphlets and atlases—a jumble so confused and out of order that it made his fingers itch to put it right.

  A gust of wind brought a musical tinkle to his ear.

  “Are those bells I hear?” he asked without turning from the window.

  “Wind chimes, my lord. They are made of brass, which—like salt and iron—is said to have the power to both drive away evil and constrain its influence. My father had the chimes hung at every corner of the house for just that purpose.”

  James noted the matter-of-factness in her tone, as if such things were commonplace topics of conversation all the world over.

  More superstition. And what better place for it than this house, protruding as it does from a hillside like a mausoleum?

  “I understand the ancient Vikings called these isles Ultima Thule—the end of the world.”

  “Yes. A fitting name, don’t you think?”

  “Indeed. One wonders why your father chose to make his home here.” When his hostess did not respond, James continued. “I fear I’ve been remiss in not offering my condolences. Your father was a fascinating man. The world of technology and invention has suffered an acute loss with his passing.”

  He turned away from the window to find Miss Shaw standing before the fireplace, regarding him with a blank expression. Lifting his gaze to the mantel above her, he spied what appeared to be a clock draped in a length of black muslin. He could hear its muffled ticking from beneath the fabric. An unfamiliar mourning custom, perhaps?

  Odd. So many things about this house and this daughter of Aurelius Shaw’s are so very…odd.

  “My lord, please don’t think me rude, but—”

  “You wish to know why I am here.”

  “Yes,” she said simply, and clasped her hands behind her back, mimicking a pose James had seen her father strike a hundred times. “Your visit, while not unwelcome, has surprised us. We see so few Londoners beyond the occasional group of tourists.”

  James gripped the arms of his wheelchair, lowered himself into it and swung about to fully face Miss Shaw. “I shall not insult your intelligence by blithering on about some nonexistent desire to see the isles of St. Kilda. Indeed…may I state my purpose in the bluntest of terms?”

  “I do wish you would.”

  James drew a deep breath. “I have traveled so far, at great inconvenience and in a shameful breach of the sanctity of your mourning period, in order to beg a favor—a very great favor, in fact. One that may save my life, if your father was correct in his hypothesis.”

  Miss Shaw stared at him, her eyes so dark as to appear black at this distance. “I do not comprehend your meaning.”

  But this was another lie. She showed it in the fidgety way she shifted her weight from one foot to the other and back again, and in how her pink tongue darted out to moisten the pretty bow of her mouth.

  “I have in my possession a copy of your father’s last will and testament,” James continued. “As I’m sure you know, you are his sole heir.”

  “So I’ve been informed, although I must admit to no understanding of what this means in practical terms.”

  Was that a tremor in her voice? He’d thus far seen no show of grief from this strangely self-possessed young woman…save, of course, for the black crepe adorning her frock and her lack of jewelry or other ornamentation. But was she truly so stoical?

  “It means you own this house, including the hidden room adjacent to your father’s laboratory and its entire contents.”

  Here James paused to watch Miss Shaw’s face. Yes, there it was—the telltale pallor, the tightening of the lips.

  She knows about the artifact. Now let us see what we shall see.

  “The favor is simply this—allow me to search this chamber for a certain object, and to take this same object away with me. As I’ve said, it may save my life.”

  Her small, white hands still clasped behind her back, Miss Shaw began to pace before the hearth. Again James was put strongly in mind of her father. Again his heart gave a lurch in his chest as he watched her and pondered the strange and poignant attraction he’d begun to feel for her heart-shaped face and tiny, black-clad form.

  If I were a whole and healthy man, what might I risk to make her mine?

  Finally, she stopped and faced him. “I will not pretend ignorance of this object you seek, but I will be so bold as to caution you in the strongest terms to avoid it.”

  “Why is that, Miss Shaw?”

  “Because the object is cursed, my lord, and the proof of it stands before you now, begging you to leave this house of damnation and never return.”

  Chapter Four

  She could not bring herself to be surprised when Lord Falmouth disdained to believe her.

  “Yes, your father spoke of a curse attached to the artifact. I assumed his statements arose from the wanderings of a dying mind.”

  “On the contrary, I assure you the curse is very real, along with the evil that generates it.”

  “You surprise me, Miss Shaw. After all, we are on the cusp of the twentieth century.” His smile was charming enough to eradicate the resolve of a lesser woman. He must practice that one in the mirror.

  “I’m well aware of the date, my lord. Your point?”

  The smile faded, replaced by an expression of defiant determination. “My point is that I am a student of science and technology. Your father’s n
otes have led me to believe the artifact in question may end my quest to repair the defect in my heart, but I have no interest in this so-called curse. I abhor superstition.”

  “And if I could convince you the curse is not mere superstition?”

  Falmouth sat back in his wheelchair and smiled again, this time with more smug superiority and considerably less charm. “You have my permission to try.”

  She’d expected no less—not from a man trapped in a body that betrayed his strength of will with every wheezing, broken breath. Not from one who might have been startlingly handsome if not for the sickly cast of his skin, and the gaunt contour of his face. Not from one so plainly in love with life, and just as plainly losing his grasp on it, inch by agonizing inch.

  Oh, Father, why did you send him here? Had you never any conscience, any sense of right and wrong, even to the very end? And how am I to persuade him to leave empty-handed when you’ve poisoned his mind with hope?

  No matter. She had to make the effort, if only to redeem her father’s sin.

  “Allow me to acquaint you with the facts of my existence, my lord.” She planted her feet on the floorboards before the hearth, too aware of the hateful, muffled ticking of the clock above her head. “Perhaps it will surprise you to know that every mortal creature who has ever felt the even slightest attachment to me has died a horrible death.”

  Falmouth stared at her for a long moment. “You speak of your poor mother, I suppose.”

  “She was the first, but certainly not the last.” Elspeth moved to a wing-backed chair and perched on the edge of its seat. “Did my father tell you how my mother died? Did he tell you how her heart burst inside her ribcage, and she bled from every orifice?”

  Falmouth winced, undoubtedly unaccustomed to hearing such a vulgar turn of phrase from a woman of Elspeth’s station and upbringing. Inwardly, she claimed the small victory and continued.

  “Some years ago, my father sat across from me at tea one hot, dry afternoon in a café in Athens and told me the story of my birth, and why I was not meant to live like other young women.”

  “Miss Shaw—”

  “He told me of my mother, and then of the first wet nurse he’d employed immediately after her death. Her name was Afet. She lived with us four days. On the fifth day, she was found dead in her bed, her body black and swollen from multiple stings of a horned viper.”

  “Miss Shaw, please!”

  “The second nurse lasted nearly three months. I understand her own newborn infant was sickly, and I imagine she had neither the time nor the inclination to form an attachment to me. But the other child died.”

  “And?” Falmouth’s tone was reluctant, as if he asked the question in spite of himself.

  “A week later, there was a mishap with an oil lamp. I will spare you the gruesome details.”

  “I beg you, Miss Shaw, to spare me the entirety of this madness, for you shan’t convince me—”

  “My lord,” Elspeth rejoined in her sharpest tone, “you have already given your permission, and I cannot allow you to retract it till I’ve had my say.”

  Falmouth pressed his lips into a thin line and, with a gesture of one elegant hand, bade her continue.

  So Elspeth told him of her father’s two further attempts at employing nurses, and how each ended in fatality. She told him of how her father took over her care entirely, and how they traveled the length and breadth of Europe and Asia, a solitary man and his small daughter, till the day they made the acquaintance of a young Viennese widow by the name of Mrs. Olga von Schmeltung.

  Her father had thought to marry again. A wife, a mother for his child—why should something so elemental be beyond his reach? Mrs. von Schmeltung lacked any sort of fortune, but possessed both beauty and sweetness, and was not adverse to the idea of a stepdaughter. Yet her father avoided introducing the six-year-old Elspeth to his fiancée…avoided it so long, in fact, that the good woman began to suspect the girl was either deformed, or had some obvious defect of intelligence or character.

  And so Aurelius Shaw had banished his apprehensions and brought them together, woman and child. Elspeth, who had no memory of her doomed nurses, clung to the lady shamelessly from the moment of their meeting.

  “She carried the scent of roses in her hair, and when she read me fairy stories, I believed her to be an angel sent down from heaven to care for me.” Elspeth paused and cleared her throat. “She was just eight and twenty—no older than I am now. When she died, I saw the fear in my father’s eyes. Fear and hatred for what I was. For what I am.”

  The fire had burned down to embers, and the shadows in the corners of the room pooled like brackish water. Lord Falmouth sat erect in his wheelchair, the lamplight filtering through the mellow gold of his curls and casting one side of his face into darkness. The dark circles beneath his blue eyes resembled thumbprints pressed into clay.

  “You are formulating a response, are you not, my lord?” she asked him. “You seek out the weak spots in my story—the places where logic does not hang together.”

  His eyes narrowed, but he did not answer, plainly ready to wait till she’d finished her tale before offering his arguments.

  But I won’t finish it. Not completely. That wound is still too fresh, and I’ll not be forced to relive it unless I must.

  Instead, she folded her shaking hands in her lap and goaded him. “You will say a mother dead in childbirth, a few foreign nursemaids who met untimely ends, a prospective stepmother drowned in her own bathtub—”

  “Really? In her bathtub?” he repeated, as if this, of all things, were the most improbable.

  “You will call these occurrences tragedies, and commiserate with our very bad luck. Then you will ask if I’ve ever kept a pet.”

  “Have you, Miss Shaw?” He sounded eager, and she knew she might as well have pulled the thought directly from his mind. “Have you ever kept a pet?”

  Elspeth shook her head. “There was a mongrel spotted dog that came ’round to our villa in Rome, begging for scraps. I would meet him at the kitchen door with the remains of my breakfast, and after just a few days of this treatment, his tail would wag when he saw me.”

  “And what became of him?”

  She sighed. “One day, he simply wasn’t there. I consider it a blessing that I never knew his fate.”

  “But hardly conclusive proof of his death.”

  “Perhaps not. And now you will point out the greatest flaw in my tale of woe—the long and varied life of my father.”

  Falmouth nodded. “Even you must admit it a rather conspicuous chink in your armor.”

  “Only if one assumes my father harbored even the slightest bit of affection for me.”

  “Oh, come now, Miss Shaw—”

  “Did he speak of me warmly, my lord? Did he call my name on his deathbed, or ask that you send me word of his fond regard?”

  Falmouth shifted in his chair, his discomfort plain in the scowl on his brow. “He left you everything. This house, all his money and belongings. He might have willed it to the Institute for Technological Advancement, or any of the other great organizations of scientific minds.”

  Elspeth shrugged. “Aurelius Shaw was a man of science, but he was first a creature of duty. He would not fail to ensure a lifetime of security and comfort for his only offspring.”

  “And you?” Falmouth asked, his bright eyes pinning her to her chair. “Are you a creature of duty, as well?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because it was your father’s dying wish that I travel to this island to find the artifact of which I’ve spoken. His dying wish, Miss Shaw.”

  The killing blow. Father was too clever by half, and this earl of Falmouth is a match for him. He has known me a handful of hours, and already he has taken accurate measure of my nature.

  Elspeth held his gaze. A clot of ashes fell onto the hearth with a soft thud. On the mantel, the clock tolled the hour.

  “Do you cheat at cards, my lord?”

  He
gaped at her. “What an extraordinary question.”

  She waited, for now that he’d defeated her, she had nothing but time and patience at her disposal.

  After a moment, he smiled. It was neither the charming grin, nor the condescending smirk, but something altogether different and perhaps even genuine. “I have been known to be creative when dealing a hand of cribbage.”

  Elspeth nodded, unsurprised. “You and my father must have got on famously.”

  She rose and moved to the door, only to turn again and address her guest in a tone she hoped would brook no argument. “You will allow me to assist you with the stairs to the laboratory, my lord, for I’m sorry to say this house is not equipped with a lift.”

  She exited the library, followed by the sound of Lord Falmouth’s laughter, and the rude expulsion of air as he engaged the engine of his wheelchair.

  Chapter Five

  Miss Shaw refused to allow him to hunt for the entrance to her father’s hidden room.

  “As Father made a point of papering over the entire western wall and then lining it with the heaviest and most cumbersome pieces in his collection, I can only assume we’ll find the door there,” she told him. “You will only harm yourself in attempting to assist in the search, my lord. Please, indulge me in this matter, if in no other.”

  Guilt made him comply. Using her father’s deathbed wish against her had left a sour taste in his mouth, so he sat quietly on a stool in the corner and watched as four of the household’s mechanical servants carried the largest crates to the other side of the room.

  The laboratory was as jumbled as the library. Containers of all kinds stood cheek-by-jowl with fantastical equipment James could not hope to name. The air was murky with dust when Miss Shaw dismissed the servants and began moving the smaller pieces. After several moments, James broke the strained silence with a question.

  “You have not shared your entire tale of woe, as you call it. There is more, is there not?”

  Miss Shaw froze in the act of transferring an outsized microscope from one marble counter to another. “What difference could it possibly make now? You refuse to be persuaded.”