“A fallen one, maybe,” I said.
Montgomery watched us from across the room in his worn riding trousers and loose linen shirt. He’d washed his hands and face but little else. He wasn’t a gentleman like Edward. He belonged in the wild.
“Please take a seat,” Father said, pulling out my chair. “I’m afraid Montgomery and I have grown lax in our manners. Now that we’ve guests, it’s time we remind ourselves that we’re not animals.”
Montgomery sat down across from me, fidgeting with the silverware. I wondered if he often thought about that moment when our lips had been so close. If so, he’d said nothing. Could that attraction have been only my imagination?
Alice came in and filled our wineglasses, followed by Balthazar with a soup bowl. She kept her head to the side and wouldn’t look at anyone but Montgomery. She positively turned white when she had to serve Edward, with his fine suit and elegant manners.
For a while we ate in silence. I think the sudden sophistication and elegant attire took us all by surprise, and we didn’t quite know what to do with ourselves. The clock ticked away the seconds on the mantel. I stole glances at my father, wondering about what he’d meant when he’d said I should get to know Edward better. Wondering what had made Balthazar and Puck interrupt the picnic with so many guns.
“Well, Prince, it seems you are now somewhat familiar with us. We have the disadvantage, however, of knowing next to nothing about you.” Father tapped absently against the base of his wineglass and slid me a look. “Juliet, in particular, is curious about you.”
I studied the curve of my spoon in detail. Wished Father didn’t have to be so obvious about whatever plans he was making for Edward and me.
“You come from a good family, I assume?” Father asked him.
“My father is a general.”
“A high post. Strange you would turn your back on him.”
My soup spoon paused halfway to my mouth. I was intrigued by Edward’s story, even without Father pushing me toward him. Edward had given me only glimmers. I had never directly asked him what had made him leave England in such a rush, but then again, he’d never asked me to lay bare my history so he could dissect it, either. It felt like an unspoken agreement. He could have his secrets and I could have mine. Though it didn’t make me any less curious.
Edward rubbed the silk napkin between his fingers, clearing his throat. I absently wondered what his hands would feel like against my skin. Strong, yet smooth. Like they had in my dream. The spoon slipped from my fingers into the bowl with an embarrassing clatter.
“We didn’t agree on many things,” Edward said.
“Still, one must obey one’s father, don’t you agree?” Father ran his middle finger along the rim of his wineglass. It hummed with a shrill and unnerving pitch.
“There comes a point when one must make one’s own decisions. Live one’s own life.”
The hum of the wineglass grew louder and louder. And then, suddenly, he stopped. “I hope for your sake, Mr. Prince, that your father comes to forgive you. I, for one, am glad to have an obedient child,” he said, giving me a tight smile.
He was waiting for me to smile back. Obediently. I’d seen him work his spell on my mother, his colleagues, his students. He had a way of swaying people’s emotions like a hypnotist. I so badly wanted to believe that everything was fine on the island. And that pushing Edward off the dock had been a joke, nothing more. But the thing was, I wasn’t swayed by my emotions. I was analytical. Logical.
I was like him.
I sat straighter, toying with my napkin. “Why did you never send any letters?” I asked. “Or come back to see me?”
The room went silent except for the tick tick tick of the mantel clock.
His face shifted almost imperceptibly. He set down his steak knife. “I wish I could have, of course. But I can never return to England. There’s the small matter of a warrant for my arrest.”
“But it’s unfounded, isn’t it? You’re innocent of the things they accused you of.” My voice was harder than it should have been. Not exactly obedient. “Aren’t you?”
His fingers drummed on the wineglass. “It seems perhaps my daughter shares your questioning mind after all, Mr. Prince.” His voice was tightly controlled. He took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. “The last thing the justice system is, is just,” he said. A bitterness stained his eyes, but I realized it wasn’t my question that had him angry but the memory of false accusations. “My academic rivals schemed to slander me so they could steal my work. Unfortunately, they succeeded.”
“But if it’s not true—”
“It isn’t about truth, Juliet. It’s about what people want to believe.” He rubbed his brow. “You’re young. You haven’t experienced how unjust the world can be.” He sighed. “You’re upset I didn’t bring you with me. You’ve every right. I thought it was no life for a child, running, hiding out on an island a hundred miles from anything.”
He was right in that at least. It wasn’t a good life for a child. And yet he’d taken Montgomery.
Father leaned forward. He took my hand across the table. The hypnotist was gone, and he seemed only tired and old and lonely. “I was wrong, Juliet.” His long fingers consumed my small hands. “Now, what do you say to putting the past behind us?”
Puck hovered behind him, a dusty champagne bottle in his hands to celebrate our elegant meal. His scaly fingers unwrapped the foil, hesitating to pull the cork until I spoke. Father’s eyes crackled with the promise of a life together, of a family again.
Alice handed me a champagne flute. The rim was chipped. Like my soup bowl and my brandy glass and all the beautiful, expensive dishware. Everything had a chip or crack. Nothing here was perfect, but it still worked.
I met Father’s gaze and nodded. Behind him, Puck popped the cork.
AFTER SUPPER, A COMFORTABLE silence settled over the room. The ticking of the clock seemed not nearly so harsh, and I rather enjoyed the small reminder of civilization.
Father smoked a cigar as he used to do, his gaze settling on the dark night beyond the compound walls. “Yes,” he reflected, “it’s good to have you here. A father should know his daughter. I’m starting to not even mind you so much, Prince.”
Edward didn’t laugh.
Father sent a small cloud of rich, earthy smoke toward the high ceiling. “Why don’t you play us a tune on the piano?” he asked me. “It’s been a long time since we’ve heard proper music, though Balthazar attempts a melody every now and then.”
Montgomery looked up from the table where he’d been rubbing a crack in the surface, no doubt thinking of how to fix it. I remembered on the ship he’d said he wanted to hear me play again. My heartstrings tightened.
“Of course.” I stood, hoping I looked more confident than I felt. We all retired to the sitting area. Montgomery leaned against the doorjamb, keeping his distance. The piano bench beckoned, and I sat on it hesitantly, as if afraid it might bite. I hadn’t played in years, and I vaguely wondered if I could rescind my agreement until I’d had time to practice.
I played a C-major chord.
“It’s out of tune, I’m afraid,” I said.
“For the life of me, I can’t tell,” Montgomery said. I shot him a look over my shoulder. He wasn’t helping.
I ran my fingers lightly over the keys. They were worn, so unlike the perfectly crafted piano we’d had on Belgrave Square. I’d taken lessons every week from a piano tutor. Mother said I would one day play for suitors, then my husband, and then teach my own children. But after Father left, the piano was the first thing sold.
There was a Chopin piece she used to play. Dissonant, with an odd melody like wind in the night. It was haunting, and it seemed suited to the island. I closed my eyes and laid my fingers on the keys, trying to remember the feel of the music. I played the first chord, adjusting for the stiffness of the keys. Humidity and grime made the strings stick and the wood warp, but it was music nonetheless, and for this piece,
somehow it fitted. And then the feeling came back to me, sitting next to my mother on the bench, watching her long fingers on the keys. Like a bird in an unlocked cage, music flew out of me.
I had forgotten what I loved about the piano. The precision of the notes and the mathematical intricacy of the notes and measures. It was like a complicated equation that you work out with your heart instead of pencil and paper. I concentrated on the keys, letting my mind clear. I played and played until the final bar, where I let the chord ring until the last trace of sound faded. My fingers slipped off the keys. Then I opened my eyes.
To my surprise, Alice and Balthazar and Puck stood around the table, halfway through clearing the dishes, with the queerest expressions on their faces. Tears glistened in Balthazar’s eyes. I realized they might never have heard proper music before.
Father stood and brought his hands together, slowly, and then the others took up the clapping as well. The room suddenly felt warmer. I’d finally done something to please him.
They all rushed me—Edward and Alice and the servants. They had so many questions. What was the piece, and where had I learned it? Would I play more? Would I teach Alice? I was used to being overlooked as just another maid. Their attention was overwhelming.
I caught Montgomery’s eye. He smiled at me like we shared some secret. And then I remembered why that piece out of all of them had come back to me. It had been his favorite. I’d found him at the bench one day, when we were children. His wax and polish brush were forgotten on the floor. I sat beside him and put his hands over mine so he could feel the movements of my fingers pressing the keys. I started to play a Vivaldi, but he shook his head. Not this one, he’d said. He’d wanted to play the one that sounded wrong.
The Chopin.
Montgomery looked away. He busied himself with a splinter in the doorframe.
“Lovely. Simply lovely.” Father gave a tight-lipped smile. Next to him, Balthazar brushed aside a tear. I suddenly felt crowded, as though they were pressing in. The rush of emotions was too much, drowning me. I slouched on the piano bench, desperate for a breath of air.
“Are you well?” Father asked. Suddenly the smile was gone, replaced by a physician’s cold determination. He felt my forehead.
“I’m just a little dizzy.”
But I might as well have been a cold body on the dissection table. He felt my wrist for my pulse, then pushed up my sleeve. The syringe’s pinprick flashed, red against the pale skin of my inner elbow. Redder than it should have been. Swollen.
“What’s this?” he barked.
“Just a small infection. From the ship.”
“Have you been taking your treatment?” His lips pursed. “You haven’t missed a day, have you?”
I pressed my other hand to my forehead. Suddenly every sound in the room was magnified. Alice clearing the table. Edward’s quick breaths. The scaly man whispering to Balthazar.
“I’m fine!” I cried. I wrenched my arm back. “I’m fine. I just need some rest.”
Father glanced at the clock above the mantel. “Midnight. I’ve kept you up.”
“It’s all right, I’m just tired,” I said. I tried to stand, but my legs were weak.
“Someone help her to her room,” Father said.
Edward and Montgomery were suddenly both by my side, each taking an arm.
My face burned as I looked between them. Two boys, two sets of hands on my wrists. One rough and calloused, the other strong yet smooth. My emotions knotted tighter, threatening to cut off my circulation.
“You take her, Prince,” Father said. There was an odd tone to his voice that made me think of how he wanted me to get to know Edward better. Edward seemed pleased enough to escort me, but Montgomery squeezed my wrist harder. Not wanting to let Edward have me.
“Father, won’t you take me?” I asked, trying to keep things peaceful. “Like old times.”
Father grunted but helped me stand. I leaned on his arm, overpowered by the chemical smell coming off his jacket. Had he been in the laboratory before supper? I hadn’t noticed the smell earlier. I looked closer. Three thick black hairs glistened on his collar. I realized I hadn’t seen the panther or the monkey or any of the animals since arriving.
What had he done with them?
Father escorted me into the courtyard, where the night air cooled my cheeks. The chickens were gone, roosting in some cool, dark corner. The footfalls of our shoes echoed through the portico, the only sound of humanity among the trilling, whispering jungle sounds.
Maybe I should have felt out of place so distant from the noisy streets of London. But there was a serenity here, as though I had crossed the threshold into a place both familiar and novel. This gray-haired man wasn’t a stranger. He was my father.
He stopped outside my door and patted my hand—the one with Mother’s ring—as if the scandal had never happened. And it hadn’t, I reminded myself. It had just been rumors.
“I hope you don’t regret coming,” he said. “I don’t know what you thought you would find, but I realize an old Spanish fort and an old wrinkled man are probably a disappointment.”
“I’m not disappointed.” I laid my hand on top of his, squeezing before turning to my room and the odd door latch.
“Oh, and Juliet,” he said. I turned back. Half of his face was thrown in deep shadow, while the whites of his teeth gleamed in the distant lights from the salon. “I’ll be working in the laboratory late tonight. I’ve a good start on the new specimens. Don’t be alarmed if you’re awoken. The animals—they scream, you know. An unfortunate effect of vivisection. It keeps the whole household up.”
For a breath, the world seemed to freeze. And then the clouds rolled again, the wind howled again. I realized that he had charmed me, just like he charmed everyone. I’d thought I was so clever. I thought I could see past his manipulations. But I’d heard only what I wanted to.
He’d never said the accusations were untrue. Just unfair.
EIGHTEEN
THE NOISES STARTED SOMETIME in the night, during the hour when the moon was at its highest. Not screams, exactly. More like moans. Howls. Sounds I couldn’t put a name to. I lay in bed, wide awake, staring at the odd shapes the moonlight threw against the whitewashed walls. I couldn’t tell what type of creature he was working on in that blood-red, windowless laboratory. I’d heard the panther make all types of howls and cries on the ship, but nothing like what came from that building.
Whatever it was, it was large.
Tears pooled in the hollows of my eyes. I wiped them away angrily. All I could think was that I’d gotten what I wanted—answers. Why should I be surprised? Hadn’t I suspected the rumors were true, somewhere deep in the creases of my mind? And what about all the other strange things happening—the islander dying, Balthazar showing up at the picnic with rifles? Father had lied to me about everything.
The angrier I got, the more thorny memories began to surface, like drowned bodies rising to the water’s edge. I remembered his voice calling to Crusoe, Here, boy, there’s a good dog, and the laboratory door locking shut with a quick, dull click. I remember how the servants’ eyes were bloodshot and sunken on the mornings after he’d operated. The screaming kept them awake, too. But none of us ever spoke of it. Least of all Montgomery.
Thinking of Montgomery made my hands twist at the sheets. He’d spent almost half his life on the island. He must have known of my father’s guilt. Why hadn’t he told me? And then I remembered how he’d tried to talk me out of coming. He’d warned me without putting it into so many words. But I’d insisted. I’d said I’d have to sell myself on the streets if he didn’t take me with him.
But was this any better? This terrible, anguished truth?
A painful bellow tore through the night. I kicked the sheets off, sweat pouring down my neck. Was it the sheepdog? I didn’t know any creature that could make such an ungodly sound. As the screams dragged on, haunting my every breath, my mind started to wander to darker and darker places. Wondering
what would cause an animal to scream like that. Imagining the beast spread out, shackled down, dotted lines traced on its skin in black ink. And why? What purpose did Father have for such wanton cruelty? He was beyond dissecting for knowledge’s sake. He already knew every corpuscle, every bend of nerve. No, he wasn’t studying. He had to be working on something new. Something different.
My mind searched for an answer among the moonlight splashes on the walls. Whatever experiment he was working on, it had begun in his laboratory on Belgrave Square when I was a child. Over the years he withdrew inside himself more, working later and later hours. Even when he was with us, his eyes would stray to the door, as if half his mind was always tethered to that laboratory. Whatever it was—his new discovery—it had consumed him enough to abandon everything else in his life. It was more important than his reputation, his wife, even his daughter.
It was this idea that drew me out of bed. After years of wondering what science he’d unlocked in that damp basement, a science that he loved even more than he loved me, I had a chance to see it. My feet swung into a pair of house shoes as though they had a mind of their own. The need to know pulled me like a puppet, commanding me to dress quickly, to open the door, to find out what my father was working on that had brought him to the edge of madness.
A single lantern hung in the courtyard, swinging softly in the breeze. It threw the light at odd angles, making shadows lengthen and then disappear. A faint glow came from beneath the laboratory door.
I waited until the lantern light dimmed, then darted around the portico, past the servants’ bunkhouse and the barn to the laboratory, where I pressed my back to the tin wall. The thrill of finally learning Father’s secrets took little bites out of me, making me feel savage. The screaming had stopped, but my head pounded, clouding my senses. A low, mournful sob began from within, then grew into an earsplitting wail. I dug my palms against my ears.
This was madness. This curiosity inside me was unnatural. It had pushed me further from my mother, further from reason and rules and logic. But there were times I still couldn’t resist it.
The Madman's Daughter (Madman's Daughter - Trilogy) Page 13
