He studied my placement of the tokens on the board, memorizing it, learning everything over again from scratch. “Montgomery’s first question was about the family I must have lost,” he said. “The grief.” He rolled the dice, a little too hard. His reaction told me I should have had more sympathy, like Montgomery.
I blinked, unsure of myself. I hadn’t meant to be cold. “I’m sorry. Your family … were they with you on the Viola?”
“No,” he said, surprisingly flat. “I was traveling alone. My father’s a general on tour abroad now. The rest of my family is at Chesney Wold—our estate. Probably entertaining dull relatives and glad to be rid of me.”
His tone was so cavalier as he scratched his scar with a jagged nail and studied the board. Something felt a little too forced. There was almost a harsh, layered tone that spoke of pain and anger and made me suspect he wasn’t being entirely honest. “But you said—”
He shrugged. “I thought it strange you were more interested in the details of my survival than the dozens who died on that ship.” He started to move his tokens, and I should have thought about how heartless I must have seemed, but instead all I could focus on was how badly he was playing backgammon.
He slid a token slowly around the points. “Montgomery told me you’re to be reunited with your father. A doctor of some sort,” he said.
“That’s right.”
He picked up the token, running his finger over the rough-hewn wood. “It’s odd, don’t you think, for a wealthy doctor to want to live in such a remote place? It makes one wonder.”
I caught the undercurrent in his voice, and it intrigued me. Whatever he was insinuating wasn’t good, and it was awfully bold to speak it aloud. Maybe there was more to him than a sea-mad castaway who’d never worked a day in his life.
I picked up the dice. “What do you mean?”
“What would make a man give everything up to come out here?”
I shook the dice and spilled them out across the deck. “I could ask you the same thing, Mr. Prince. What made you leave England if all your family is there?”
His jaw twitched again. “You’ve come to find your father. I’ve come to get away from mine.” Once more, that subtle layer of anger laced his voice.
“Why? What did he do?” I moved my tokens like an afterthought.
He paused. “He didn’t do anything. I did.” And then he shook the dice and threw them, abruptly, as if he’d said too much. A three and a six. He started moving the token in the wrong direction.
“Captain Claggan isn’t exactly pleased I’m here,” he added, and the change in subject caught me by surprise. “Did you know he came with that first mate of his, last night after Montgomery was asleep, and dragged me to the rail? He was going to throw me over until I told him I had relatives in Australia who would pay dearly for my safe return.”
My hand was frozen in midair. The game suddenly didn’t seem to matter anymore. “Did you tell Montgomery? He won’t let the captain get away with that.” I shifted on the rough floorboards. “Just the same, it’s lucky about your relatives.”
He gave me a guarded look, though something like amusement peeked through. “I don’t know anyone in Australia. I just made that up. I sought passage on the first ship I could from London, regardless of its destination. The Viola just happened to be it.”
“So what happens when you get to Australia and he finds out there are no wealthy relatives?” Once we were gone, without Balthazar and bribery and guns, Edward Prince would be on his own.
His fingers drummed on the wooden board. The last ray of sun slipped below the horizon, casting half of his bruised face in shadows. “I don’t know.”
A cry from the crow’s nest made me drop the token in my hand. The castaway and I exchanged a breathless glance.
“Land ho!” the watchman called.
NIGHT FELL QUICKLY THAT day, obscuring the land the scout had spotted. The sailors sent Edward back to the galley and me to my quarters and told us to stay there. But obedience wasn’t one of my virtues. I found Montgomery on the quarterdeck speaking in hushed voices with Balthazar below the glowing mast light. The captain and first mate stood by the gunwale with a lantern held above the sea charts.
I leaned over the rail and studied the black horizon. Moonlight reflected on the waves like scales of some dark dragon. I couldn’t tell where the night ended and the sea began. Between them, somewhere, was my father.
Montgomery caught sight of me and rushed over, a spark of energy to his movements. I’d forgotten that this place was his home. He pointed to the horizon. “It’s volcanic. Do you see the plume?”
My mind scanned the horizon for dark shapes, but my eyes found nothing to settle on. Then I discerned a faint line, like a column of smoke, rising to the stars.
“I see it. It looks so far away.”
“A league and a half maybe. There’s a sandbar around the harbor, so we’re here for the night. We’ll dock in the morning.”
“What about Edward?”
The boyish excitement on Montgomery’s face faded. He studied the cold sea. “What about him?”
The edge in his voice made me hesitate. “We can’t just leave him here. You said yourself—”
“He can’t come with us.” He cursed under his breath and leaned on the rail. “I shouldn’t have said anything before. It’s impossible.”
“But why? It isn’t safe here. There’s no doctor, and the only reason the captain hasn’t thrown him overboard is because he thinks he can ransom him once they reach Brisbane, which is a lie.”
“You don’t understand. It isn’t safe on the island either.”
I looked back at the island. The plume of volcanic smoke snaked toward the dark sky like tendrils escaping a gentleman’s pipe. My eyes found a single light, halfway up the hill, the only sign of civilization.
“Not safe?”
Montgomery took my shoulder and turned me away from the island. His face softened. “There’s no room, I mean. We’ve one extra bedroom, which you’ll have. He’ll have no place to stay, and there are wild animals in the jungle. Besides, your father is a very private man. He’d be furious if I brought a stranger.”
I traced the wood grain on the rail. Would Father consider me a stranger? No, of course not. I was his only family, the little girl who used to crawl onto his lap with a dusty volume and beg him to read theories of how birds were once great, lumbering lizards. But then why had he never once sent a letter? Why did I have to learn he was alive from a bloodstained diagram at a late-night vivisection?
“He’s my father,” I said. “He’ll listen to me. He’ll understand it’s safer for Edward to stay on the island. It’s just until the next ship comes.”
“It crosses his wishes, Juliet.”
I leaned against the rail, studying his worn clothes, his scuffed boots. “You keep saying you’re no longer his servant, but you don’t act like it. You can think for yourself, you know.”
Montgomery’s jaw tensed, but he didn’t argue. I knew I’d hurt him, but I didn’t know how to take it back, because it was true. He strode away, bristling. The sudden solitude made the thoughts in my head louder. I wanted to go back to that moment when Montgomery and I stood on the deck, hands interlaced, as he told me he’d thought about me often. But a shift had occurred, slight but significant enough that things weren’t exactly the same between us. I leaned on the rail and measured the moonlit distance between me and the island.
THE NEXT MORNING, I was packed before dawn, though maddeningly, because of the tides, we couldn’t dock for hours. While I waited, I dressed in new white summer clothes that I’d bought with Lucy’s money before we left. The startling clean whiteness hurt my eyes. The rest of my things—my medication, the worn books, even an old hard-bristled brush of Mrs. Bell’s—I tucked away in the carpetbag. I left out Father’s copy of Longman’s Anatomical Reference, flipping anxiously through the black-and-white drawings. The book of a scientist. A madman, too, perhaps.
> Either way, I was about to find out.
When I climbed above deck, I was distracted by a flurry of activity. The mizzen boom was rigged to unload the cargo and cages. A handful of sailors dragged the panther’s cage toward a hook bigger than my head. But what stole my attention was the mountainous green island looming off the port side, big as a kingdom, with a column of wispy gray smoke coming from its highest point. After weeks of water as vast as the known world, the island seemed unreal. A soft line of sand touched the sea, edged by a cluster of palms waving in the breeze. The palms gave way to a wild tangle of jungle, packed as tight as stitching with vines and the canopies of trees I couldn’t identify. I wondered what lay under that green curtain, waiting for me.
Edward watched the island as well from the forecastle deck, until he caught sight of me. He touched his forehead, an old-fashioned gesture one used when greeting a lady. I’d have to dissuade him of that notion someday.
He came down the steps, wincing slightly from his bruises. “Montgomery said I may come to the island until the next supply ship passes,” he said. “I suppose I have you to thank for that.”
Surprised, I stood a little straighter. Montgomery had changed his mind—my jab about acting like a servant must have struck a sensitive nerve. As guilty as I felt, I couldn’t help but smile that he’d finally made his own decision. “Are you going to come, then?”
“If my choices are between spending more time with Captain Claggan or with you, it’s an easy decision.” He brushed a dark strand of hair back from his face, not taking his eyes off the ocean. My stomach tightened at the compliment, unexpectedly. I wasn’t used to getting compliments from gentlemen. I picked lightly at my dry lips, realizing this meant I’d be spending a lot more time with Edward Prince. Scarred, clever, sea-mad Edward Prince. Who was surprisingly bad at backgammon.
His fingers drummed on the rail. “Montgomery didn’t seem entirely happy about it, though.”
I cleared my throat. “He’s worried what my father will think. He shouldn’t; he’s not a servant anymore.”
“A servant?” Edward interrupted. His hand fell away from his face.
“Montgomery was our scullery maid’s son. He used to work in the stables. Didn’t he tell you?”
“I was under the impression that you were traveling together.… Sharing a cabin …” His eyes slid to me, asking a question without asking.
There was no breeze to cool my burning face. “He’s my escort,” I said quickly. “That’s all.” I would have liked to say more to prove otherwise, but the evidence was against me. We had spent the night in the same room, more than once. And I couldn’t pretend the idea had never crossed my mind.
“Well, I’m not sorry to hear that. I’m glad you’re not spoken for.” He paused. “I like getting to know you, Miss Moreau.”
I kept silent, watching the island, though inside I was a mess of confusion. I wondered if I should acknowledge his comment. He was probably a perfectly nice young man. But I’d seen too much of what men were capable of to trust a stranger. And there was something unsettling about him. He had even said himself that he was running from something he’d done. It must have been serious if he had to flee England. I glanced at him askance, wondering what the wealthy son of a general had to run from.
Edward matched my silence, too reserved to say what else was really on his mind. But then again, so was I.
The Curitiba sailed toward a natural inlet that opened like a yawning mouth. From the farthest point, a narrow dock extended toward us, beyond the breakers, longer than any dock I’d ever seen. Waves washed over it, threatening to swallow the whole structure. At the edge, next to a bobbing launch, stood a small party of figures. They began to take shape as the Curitiba drifted closer.
There were three men as large as brutes, larger even than Balthazar. They had the same odd hunch to their shoulders as Balthazar, and their heads seemed set too low on their necks. I wondered what had made all the natives so disfigured. It was as though God had started here before he made man.
One of the hunched men shuffled to the edge of the dock and crouched on his haunches like a beast. As he moved away, I saw another man behind him, this one of regular size, with a straight back and spindly limbs. He wore a white linen suit and shoes so polished the sunlight reflecting off them made me squint. A parasol shaded his face from the sun and my eyes, but my heart would recognize him anywhere.
As I stared, the parasol slid back and the man’s eyes met mine.
I gasped.
He was my father, and yet he wasn’t. The face was the same, as was his stiff posture, but his once carefully groomed dark hair flew wild and gray like a swarm of wasps about his head. What unnerved me most was the peculiar way he calmly stared back at me, unflinching, as if he’d known I was coming.
As if he’d been waiting for me.
ELEVEN
I DUCKED BEHIND THE bulwarks where I couldn’t be seen. Edward dropped beside me. I tried to calm the sudden rush of blood to my head. I don’t know what instinct drove me to hide after I’d come so far to find my father. I just had to get away from those watching eyes. I was imagining things, I told myself. He couldn’t have known I was coming. A girl in a white dress was an odd sight on any ship, worth a curious look.
Edward frowned. “Your father, I assume.”
I rubbed my tired eyes and nodded. Paranoia had crept into that part of my brain usually reserved for reason. “Yes. I suppose I didn’t give him much of a greeting.”
He gave me a hand to pull me to my feet, and now I felt silly for my reaction. “It’s natural to be nervous.” Instead of letting go, though, he pulled me closer. “And I still think it’s odd for a gentleman to live out here alone. Be careful, Miss Moreau. I don’t want you to be hurt.”
I pulled my hand back defensively, wiping it on my dress. “I’m capable of taking care of myself.”
Montgomery had given me a similar warning. They might think me helpless, but they had no idea that for a poor girl on her own, the streets of London were filled with far more dangers than a tropical island.
I glanced at Edward. “And please call me Juliet. I’m not a lady.”
“Drop anchor!” the captain bellowed. I braced myself as the anchor found bottom with a lurch. The launch was so full it could take only one passenger at a time, so Montgomery went first with the rabbits, claiming he needed to oversee the unloading from the dock, though I think he really wanted a chance to warn Father about Edward and me and to spare us Father’s unpredictable first reaction.
Father hated surprises. That much I remembered.
My lace collar itched as we watched Montgomery’s launch fight against the tide to reach the dock. One of the hulking men lifted the rabbit hutch as easily as a flake of hay. Father helped Montgomery out, giving him a friendly slap on the back. Montgomery was gesturing toward the ship, and Father spun the parasol lazily. Suddenly it stopped. I again had the feeling that, even at such a distance, he could peer deep into my mind.
Then it was my turn to go ashore. Because I was small, they decided I could squeeze in on Balthazar’s trip. A sailor with a twitching eye leaned in as he helped me into the launch. “Good luck,” he said.
Once in the water, it took Balthazar half the time it had taken Montgomery to row ashore. I wiped my sweating palms on my skirt, wishing they would stop shaking. I told myself it was the deficiency. Even with the daily injections, I still sometimes felt weak.
We reached the solid reality of the dock. Father stood there, silent, in his crisp linen suit. I couldn’t bring myself to look up from my feet and meet his gaze.
Balthazar clambered out and helped me onto the dock with a meaty hand. Even on firm land, I felt dizzy. Montgomery leaned in as if to whisper something quick and urgent, but sharp footsteps interrupted us.
Father.
He used the folded parasol as a cane, tapping the end slowly and deliberately against the weathered boards. Thick eyebrows hooded his dark, penetrating eyes. A
few days’ beard clung to his jaw, as it used to when his work so consumed him that he didn’t emerge from the laboratory for days. He was gaunt, as though all the excess muscle and fat from his youth had been spent and what remained was only the hardened core.
“Get your paws off my daughter, boy.” He poked the parasol’s end at Montgomery’s chest. His mouth pursed. “Your hands are dirty.”
My gut clenched, worried. Montgomery held his hands up, stepping back. But then he grinned. Father laughed. It was a joke, I realized. My stomach unknotted. Father was smiling. Laughing. The tension in the air broke like a dam. My lungs exhaled a lifetime’s worth of worry, and I rushed into his arms.
He stiffened briefly but then wrapped an arm around my back. “Juliet. Daughter.”
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 had 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.”
The Madman's Daughter (Madman's Daughter - Trilogy) Page 8
