“Henry, I don’t think humans are capable of fidelity.”
I laugh. “Utter nonsense. I assure you John Watson never strayed—neither on my mother, nor on Violet.”
I want her to stop talking. To reclaim her previous state of recklessness.
“We are just animals, Henry. Trying to continue our species. Trained to have more than one mate.”
My hands wind in her thick hair. “Anseranaie Cygnini.”
She stops, staring. “What?”
“Swans. Swan’s mate for life, Bella.”
Tears fill her eyes again and she smiles. The second time in two weeks. Miracles. Do. Occur.
I squeeze her hand. “I shall never stray, Bella. I’ve never wanted anyone or anything the way I want you. I cannot get you out of my head. Your smell. Your touch—please, Bella. Just say you’ll be mine. I don’t care if you marry me right now. I don’t care if it’s ten years.”
Her eyes change, lit with a new, acute fervor. Her lips trail to my ear. I vaguely register the moan, barely realizing it is mine. I whisper between breaths, “Well, please not ten years.”
She laughs quietly.
The door bursts open—slamming off the wall.
Father’s eyes widen in revelation. “Henry. I can’t leave the two of you alone for a moment.” His head hangs in disapproval, his foot tapping. “For goodness sake, make her decent.”
I right Arabella’s skirt, and help her to stand beside me.
“Father, I’m sorry. I know Arabella is not your choice. But it’s not your choice. I love her. It can’t be helped and isn’t something to be undone.”
Bella’s breathe sucks in with my confession.
Father’s eyes leap back and forth between us, and he sighs. “Holmes and I, have a most peculiar relationship. I…we…just…see the potential for problems between you.” His hands turn palm up, almost pleading.
“You hypocrite! How can you say that? You worked alongside him for years, foregoing marriage—”
“You are as close as a brother to him!” I insist. “Closer than his brother,” Bella murmurs.
He nods. “Yes, I am. And trying to imagine our inner workings, our struggles…molded into a male, female relationship….” He shakes his head. “It just seems impossible.”
Arabella steps away from me. Heat floods my face. She always obeys my father’s wishes more so than I.
Arabella whispers, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
Father’s head jerks up. His mouth opens and closes. He bites his lip and nods, in ascension. He stares at her, unmoving.
“John.” Their eyes lock and hold, almost an embrace.
They stare with more familiarity than I’ve ever recognized.
He, with an empathy I didn’t think possible. Her, with a longing? Perhaps for his approval?
“John, please.” Arabella’s voice breaks. “I love him. I know I have the Holmes disposition ... stubborn. Rigid.”
“Immovable,” my father corrects. “Like trying to re-route gravity.”
She smiles and nods, her lips now trembling like her voice. “I want Henry more than any experiment, or calculation. Do you believe me?”
Father’s eyes shoot around her room. To the black powder, her microscope, her inks and pens. The black stains on her delicate fingers.
“He makes me better than I am. Better than I ever thought I could be and I ... I love him.”
Anger darkens his features. “Blast it. I told Holmes it was unnatural. To have him raise you. You belonged with other girls, in school. And not another female in the house, save a housekeeper.”
Arabella pleads, “John, please…listen to me.”
Pain shoots through my nose, followed by a detonation of anger. I clench my hands and pray for willpower.
Do not intervene. This is about more than you.
A singular tear slides down her cheek.
I shuffle, trying, trying not to touch her.
“I-I did my best to fit in at school. You know I did. I just ... couldn’t. I have nothing in common with those girls. You know that. Uncle did the best he could.”
“Uncle?” I interject.
“Don’t call him that. You only say that when you’re angry, Arabella.”
“I don’t understand?”
“Shh!” They both hiss in tandem.
She is Mycroft’s daughter?
Images of Holmes’s more brilliant, more stoic, even more self-absorbed brother blast in my head.
I feel as if I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole, and nothing in my world is as I thought.
My heart suddenly beats with unexpected warmth towards Sherlock Holmes.
A new appreciation of him; that he, who was once compared to Babbage’s adding machine, was capable of selflessness after all.
“Arabella—he’s made indelible marks on your personality. I don’t know if they are compatible with matrimony. It surely wasn’t for him.”
Arabella’s eyes harden. “Fine. I wanted your approval, but do not need it.” She strides backward and firmly grasps my hand. “I am with Henry. You cannot stop us.”
A vein pulses on father’s forehead, and I tense, ready to step between them. I rise on the balls of my feet.
I nod, stepping closer to Bella. “I don’t want to disappoint you either, but I’m not leaving her.”
Father rolls his eyes, exhaling through his gritted teeth.
Bella’s voice is bitter. “What would you have had him do? When both my father and mother abandoned me? Send me to the orphanage or perhaps the workhouse? How very noble, Dr. Watson.”
I stare at father’s face; my stomach plummets to my boots. My father’s eyes glisten.
“No. I told him…to give you to me.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Vanished
Abner Farmhouse
Bella
Cymbals crash beside my head.
I shoot to sitting, my nightdress clinging to my skin from the sweat that bathes my heaving chest. I blink and shake my head as the strobe blinks through my open window.
“Thunder. It’s a storm you fool.” I rub the bleary from my eyes and slide to the window, stripping off the shift. I stare out across the barnyard toward the woods.
Toward the dig.
Something shifts near the barn—my heart thunders against my chest as if the storm has shifted from the sky to my soul.
I blink. “It cannot be,” I whisper to the dark.
The giant lumbers from the barn into the woods.
I spin, flying to the armoire, wrestling on my only pair of riding trousers. A blaze of intuition sparks as the magnifying monocle, across the room, fairly screams to be picked up.
I walk to the mantle and jam it into my pocket.
I grab my pack and a lantern and in moments I’m darting down the steps, out into the vertical wind.
My rational mind cautions, You should wake Henry.
“I shall never catch him then.” I run faster, breaking the tree-line.
I see the outline of his large back lumbering steadily toward the dig. He picks up the pace.
My boots slip in the mud and I stumble, snapping a fallen tree limb. The crack echoes through the wood.
He turns. He sees me.
“Blast it.”
The giant bolts, veering course, heading into an open pasture. I change direction, leaping fallen logs to give chase.
I am gaining on him.
He limps slightly. Rheumatism? Possibly caused by his—
My hair gusts up, my stomach plummets as I fall. The ground rushes up to meet my—
Pain. Darkness. My mind-pictures flicker and dim, flicker and dim, as I fight to pry my eyes open. Anger at my stupidity tries to surge but I wince as it escalates the pain in the back of my head.
I am in a pit. Surrounded by…something. The light of my lantern gutters.
/>
Through the hole above, tiny bits of starlight twinkle through.
A face appears to block the light.
The stars disappear, and a blackness as dark as death surrounds me as the panic begins.
###
Henry
A knock on the door rouses me and I squint at the weak fingers of sunlight crawling up my bed. I rub my eyes with the heel of my hand and stumble to the door.
Abner’s housekeeper glares, brandishing a small envelope. “This came for you yesterday, Mr. Watson.”
“Thank you, ever so much.”
Kill her with kindness, I will.
Her scowl deepens and I shut the door before I laugh.
I walk across the room to stare out the farmhouse window and begin pulling on my boots, my head full of Arabella. Dawn’s weak light filters through the window, chasing away night’s shadows.
I hurriedly throw on my shirt, I’ve overslept.
The trip back from the ship to the dig was uneventful and quiet, with she and I lost in our own thoughts. It was a similarly quiet eve for once, our goal being to rise at dawn and head back to the excavation site.
Father remained at the ship. He was keen to view the autopsy and promised to come when all was stable.
She said she loved me. Not to me, of course, to father. But it’s a start.
I’m filled with hope. Surely, the past few days’ events have solidified my devotion in her mind?
It may be years till she’ll marry me.
I take deep breaths as my eyes flit across the woods.
I find I don’t care. No one else will do.
Hoof-beats cut through the early morning stillness, and I stride across the room to the opposite window overlooking the turnaround in front of the farmhouse.
Father.
My heart lurches and crawls into my throat.
Something is terribly wrong.
There is so much to hold my father at the steamer; only a desperate turn would bring him here.
I hear fortune’s breathy chortle in my mind. It murmurs happiness is not my destiny.
I shake my head, beating back the dread and fly out into the hallway and grit my teeth as I pass Bella’s open door and hurtle down the stairs, two at a time to the kitchen.
I don’t hear her downstairs. Only the murmuring, anxious voices of a half-dozen men.
Father halts in the doorway. His blue eyes bore into me from beneath two grave brows.
Stygian stiffens and turns to face me. “Mr. Watson, Miss Holmes is missing.”
“What? How?”
My hands ball, as rage courses through my veins.
My father gives an almost imperceptible, cautioning nod.
My thoughts clear and return, curtailing the rage. This could mean her life. I must not let on I suspect him.
I address Stygian. “When was it discovered she was gone?”
“About one hour prior. Mr. Montgomery went up to rouse her, to avoid a repeat of her previous hysterics at being left behind. He found her bed empty.”
Stygian steps forward, black eyes narrowed. “When was the last time you saw her, Mr. Watson?”
I swallow. “Last night. We both turned in early.”
Stygian’s smile is icy; his black eyes like a reptile.
“What time, last night?” Stygian’s voice isn’t threatening, it’s almost cordial.
Which somehow makes him more frightening. He’s truly unhinged, relishing the cat and mouse.
I don’t answer, but don’t drop my gaze.
“It seems a hand saw you enter Miss Holmes’ room at a most inappropriate hour.” He smiles.
My mind whirls. Lie? Truth? Lie?
I was only there for a moment, to check on her.
“I was concerned for her safety. I went to her room and found it foolishly unlocked.”
“Is that so?”
Every eye in the room is adhered to my face. I think of father, and Holmes. I’ve seen them interrogated many times. I smooth my expression to what I hope is unreadable calm.
I nod. “Yes. I left her room around 3 a.m.”
A vein pops in Stygian’s forehead; the anger finally cracking through his carefully crafted façade.
“Then you are a suspect, Mr. Watson. I suggest you remain at the farm till Miss Holmes whereabouts are confirmed.”
I open my mouth to swear, but father shakes his head. I snap it shut and grind my teeth together.
Stygian motions to the men and six follow at a wave of his hand. He turns back before heading out into the morning air.
Stygian’s voice lowers. “I do hope for your sake, Mr. Watson, you are telling the truth, and your visit was not merely to slake your own lust.”
He steps outside. I lunge for the back of his jacket.
Father grabs my hands, pinning them at my sides. I struggle, but am astounded at his strength. He wrestles me into the parlor.
“Henry! Compose yourself. We must find Arabella.” His face is corpselike.
My mind is running again, along with my feet. I pace before him. I fight the buzz of panic, but it grows louder.
Father jabs his cane in front of my chest, halting my pacing.
“Henry. Stop. Think. Where would she go?”
I close my eyes, block my feelings, summon the facts.
I bound up the stairs toward her room, hearing father’s hurried, cane-step-step, behind me.
I wrench open her armoire as he arrives in the doorway.
For a moment, we’re completely quiet, both our eyes darting in assessment. Déjà vu flashes. It’s as if he’s present.
Holmes in pursuit. I can almost see the amber of his pipe, the smell as he tugs on it. And for once, I fervently wish him here.
I picture him in his study. I wonder if he senses it, like some intuitive bloodhound…knows she’s in danger?
I speak first, breaking the trance. “Her boots are gone.”
I know Arabella would never leave volitionally without the armed boots and the parasol.
“Yes, but she still could’ve been taken. They could’ve unknowingly forced her to put them on,” father suggests.
I duck my head inside the armoire, and bury my hands in Arabella’s clothes; the smell of her wafts through the air, distracting me.
“She dressed. She wore her black riding pants.” I sigh in almost relief.
“Here’s her nightdress.” Father lifts it with his cane. “If someone snatched her, they wouldn’t have given her time to dress.”
My eyes dart so quickly I’m dizzy; my hands rifling through the bottom of her closet.
“Her parasol is gone. That settles it. She left on her own accord.”
“Pardon?” Father feigns ignorance.
“You know precisely the parasol.”
He ignores my statement. “Where would she go, Henry?”
I fly past him, grasping his forearm as I pass.
“I think I know. Hurry, Father.”
We fly out the back door, in the opposite direction of Stygian’s search party.
###
We enter the wood’s mouth. Father is bent over, scrutinizing, doing his best to follow Arabella’s boot prints which occur every few feet in the mud.
Thunder rumbles overhead, and the tap, tap, tap of rain hits my hat. “Blast. We’ll lose the trail.”
“Hurry, Henry.”
I jog ahead, keeping well off her footprints, and slip on the new mud. I stumble and my hand shoots out and I right myself into a half-crouch.
I stare down at my hand, half-hidden in the grass.
My heart trips, halting like a gasp. Then surging quickly, catching its breath, its beat pounding fiercely in my ears.
My foot is dwarfed by a massive footprint. The same as the day Arabella and I saw the giant in the woods.
“Father!”
He hurries to my side, our eyes snaking along Arabella’s trail.
Father swallows. I squint my eyes, and see it too.
Her footprints becoming further apart. At the same time as the giant’s appear.
“She’s running.”
Father’s eyes leap over her prints and he nods.
I bolt along the trail, ruining half of it in my haste.
“Henry! Slow down.” I know he means more than my pace. He means my mind. Think.
I cannot. My legs and panicking heart are in control.
I fly, my long legs quickly leaving father behind. I automatically sweep the area, searching for danger and draw the pistol. Will it stop such a mountain of flesh?
At least I sincerely hope he’s flesh.
If a bullet doesn’t halt him, hand to hand will be a quick death for me.
My boots slide to a halt, skidding into the trail, ruining the prints. Holmes would mortally cane me.
I suck in a breath.
They are gone. No Arabella prints.
I run ahead. Nothing. No giant prints, either. Vanished.
###
Henry
I close my eyes, trying to think, to reason.
I stare back at the trail in the muddy ground.
Veering to the right, I encircle the spot where Arabella’s footprints disappear.
Further away, the giant’s singular trail reappears, heading toward the woods.
“He must be carrying her. Father!”
He arrives, only slightly out of breath. “What is it?”
I point with the pistol, and don’t need a word. He understands in a blink.
“I will head into the woods, after the giant’s trail. I’ll fire twice in the air if there’s trouble.”
Father hurries into the tree-line and disappears.
I begin to circle again, searching for anything that will prove me wrong.
I see it. A blot of red, halfway across the field.
My legs pump, but the world has slowed, spinning awkwardly on its axis, making my dash feel a crawl.
Panic-induced images flood my brain. Arabella spread-eagle on the ground, blood trickling from the side of her mouth.
I groan and grit my teeth and dash faster.
I arrive at the red splotch.
It’s her handkerchief. I bend and snatch it, turning it over in my hands.
Boneseeker Page 18
