Her Dark Curiosity

by Megan Shepherd

  I glanced at him sidelong. His body was here, but was his heart?

  My feet slowed when the brownstone came into sight. Every light was blazing, which made it stand out unnaturally from its neighbors. I scanned the grounds, looking for Sharkey, hoping he’d returned after I’d lost him, but he was nowhere to be found. Montgomery’s serum had helped, and I ran the rest of the way and pounded with the brass horse­head knocker.

  The door flew open, with Elizabeth’s worried face filling the space. At the sight of me she let out a strangled cry of relief and pulled me into her arms. I heard shuffling footsteps on the stairs and saw the professor descending, a dark red dressing gown over his pajamas.

  “Thank god you’re home,” he said. “Elizabeth told me what happened at the Radcliffes’. We feared you’d dis­appeared in the panic and we’d never find you again.”

  His big hands kneaded my shoulder, as his eyes searched mine from behind his wire-rim spectacles.

  “I’m quite all right, just a bit shaken,” I said. “And I’m relieved to see you made it back safely, Elizabeth.”

  “I scoured every inch of the ballroom looking for you. I found Lucy, and she told me a young gentleman had practically dragged you to safety.” Her eyes slid to Montgomery, taking him in with an analytical stare. “I assume we have you to thank for this, young man.”

  “This is an old friend,” I said. “He is—”

  “Montgomery James,” he introduced himself with a cordial nod, and then took my hand in his own, which hardly seemed proper, and pulled me next to him so he could wrap one arm around my shoulders.

  “I’m Juliet’s fiancé.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  HIS HAND TIGHTENED OVER my shoulders. If I looked surprised by his words, it was nothing compared to the shock on the professor’s and Elizabeth’s faces.

  The professor made as if to speak, but no words came out. Elizabeth’s beautiful blue eyes scoured every inch of our hand-holding, my muddy dress, Montgomery’s loose hair. Both of their mouths were folded hard, their deep-set eyes peering at us like a pair of birds from the cuckoo clock.

  “It seems this evening’s surprises just keep coming,” she said. “Perhaps you should come inside, Mr. James.”

  “There is one other thing,” Montgomery said, and looked over his shoulder to where Balthazar stood half hidden in the shadows. The moonlight had a way of highlighting the deformity of his back and darkening the shadows under his eyes, so he looked the very picture of a monster.

  “I have a friend with me,” Montgomery continued. “We’ve been traveling together for some time, and I’d be much obliged if he could warm himself by your fire.”

  As Balthazar lumbered up to join us on the front stoop, Elizabeth’s eyes went even wider. The professor seemed ready to slam the door in his face.

  “Good evening,” Balthazar said with his lopsided grin.

  The professor remained speechless. It was only after Elizabeth cleared her throat and mumbled something about good manners that he let us inside.

  Though the cuckoo clock sounded one in the morning, we soon found ourselves sitting in the library around a pot of tea Elizabeth had insisted on making. Montgomery sat next to me on the loveseat, his hand tightly around mine. He hadn’t let go for a moment since making the announcement.

  “Play along,” he’d whispered as we’d settled on the sofa. “I have my reasons.”

  The cuckoo clock ticked, and the steam rose from the pot. I think as shocked as they were by Montgomery’s announcement, it was Balthazar’s presence that had truly rendered them speechless. Now he sat awkwardly on a too-small stool near the fireplace, half cast in shadows, so quiet he might very well have fallen asleep.

  “Well. The tea.” Elizabeth broke the silence and stood to pour. She eyed Montgomery carefully. “You’ll imagine our surprise to see you, Mr. James. Juliet neglected to tell us you were in London, nor did she give us news of any engagement.” Her eyes slid to mine, and I shifted uncomfortably.

  “I’m afraid I worried what you’d say. Montgomery is the one who took me to Father’s island last year.”

  “A servant!” the professor said suddenly, but there was no disdain in his voice. “That’s where I recognize you from, yes, of course. You were a servant for the Moreau family.”

  Montgomery nodded.

  The professor settled back into his chair. “I recall you as a quiet boy. Loyal. Hardworking. Though I can’t say I approve of your proposing to my ward without first seeking my permission.”

  “I apologize for that, sir,” Montgomery said. “I proposed the moment I returned to London. I’m afraid in my haste Juliet’s opinion was the only one I could think of.”

  “Is this why you’ve been so cagey and slipping away?” Elizabeth said suddenly, twisting her head at me so that she nearly spilled the tea. Equal amounts admonishment and relief mixed in her voice. She had been so worried the night I’d climbed through the kitchen window. To know I was just meeting a secret fiancé must have come as a considerable relief.

  “Yes,” I lied. Now would have been the time to give Montgomery an adoring look, or playfully apologize for worrying them, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Acting the part of Montgomery’s sweetheart now, when I’d only just seen him again and still had the feel of Edward on my skin, was a role I wasn’t ready to play.

  It didn’t seem to matter. The others took my stiff reaction as nothing more than lingering tension from the masquerade, perhaps.

  “And what are your intentions, Mr. James?” the professor asked.

  “I have some medical skill. I’d like to apprentice myself to a doctor, perhaps in a rural village, and have Juliet join me there as my wife.”

  I glanced at him, wondering if this was the truth or just some story to appease the professor. Montgomery was normally so painfully easy to read, and yet none of his usual tells were showing, which left me feeling deeply curious and even a little suspicious. He’d broken my heart once; I wouldn’t give it so easily to him again.

  He’s keeping secrets from you, Edward had said.

  Montgomery glanced at me and smiled.

  The cuckoo clock sounded that another hour had passed, and Elizabeth glanced at the professor’s drooping eyelids. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. James, but you understand our shock at this news. I think we’d all like more sleep, and tomorrow you can explain more.”

  The professor roused himself. “Yes, and in the meantime, you and your companion—if he wakes from that chair—may sleep in the guest room on the third floor.”

  His words had an obvious edge to them, as his pointed stare went between the two of us. Engaged we might be, but not married yet. There would be at least one floor separating us until that day.

  We bade him and Elizabeth good night. She paused at my bedroom door, a candle in hand, as the others continued upstairs.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” she whispered.

  “I wasn’t certain you would approve of his former position, nor his association with my father.”

  “We were all associated with your father, Juliet. By that logic each of us is guilty.”

  I looked at my hands and nodded.

  “Do you love him?” she asked.

  I felt that pressure to play the part again. And yet as I struggled to sort out my feelings and provide Elizabeth with a satisfactory answer, I found it wasn’t that easy.

  “He’s a good man,” I said.

  I left out the hundreds of reasons why love between Montgomery and me wasn’t simple. How he’d abandoned me, and had helped my father, and how I’d made love with another man. I could still feel the tangle of all those things choking me like summer vines.

  She gave me a somewhat pitying smile. Elizabeth had never married, and I’d overheard her telling the professor that she thought marriage was a trap meant to keep women in the bedroom and kitchen. If she pitied me that fate, she didn’t know me very well. I couldn’t be a sweet, obedient wife if I wanted to.
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  She left, and without her presence the room took on a cavernous, lonely feel. I changed out of the stiff silk ball gown with the mud on the hem into a shift. I closed my eyes and listened for the sounds of the house settling. Everything was silent except for the wind pushing at the windows.

  I pulled on my house slippers and padded silently to the door. Montgomery’s room was on the same floor as the professor’s, but the old man slept as though in death, and I’d learned how to be silent on the island.

  I twisted the doorknob, ready to sneak out. To my surprise, Montgomery was already waiting on the other side. He’d beaten me to it.

  His eyes met mine, and they were the deep blue of a flame.

  “May I come in?” he asked.

  MONTGOMERY ADDED ANOTHER PIECE of wood to the small fireplace in my bedroom. I watched him working, remembering how he’d laid my fires for me when I was a little girl. He’d been so quiet back then. He was still quiet, and yet impossible not to notice. It wasn’t just how he’d grown into a powerful young man, but also a certain stillness to the air around him, as though even the fire springing to life in his hands knew he could be trusted.

  He brought the fire to a roar, spilling flickering light over the bedroom’s soft curtains and thick duvets bursting with goose-feather down. I wondered if I looked the same to him, against such an elegant backdrop, when he had fallen in love with me amid jungle vines and the crashing sea.

  “It was a rash decision,” he said. “But it was the best I could think of in the moment. If I’d shown up at your door after midnight, with your dress torn and muddied, they’d have thought me a villain at worst. If they’d allowed me time to explain I’d rescued you from the masquerade and escorted you home, I’d be a polite stranger, and they’d have thanked me profusely and dismissed me. Telling them we were engaged gives us the ability to be alone, to travel together, to explain why we sometimes sneak off just the two of us.”

  “I understand. It only came as a considerable shock. I haven’t seen you in months. For all I knew you were dead. And I’ve already lied enough to the professor, when he’s done nothing but show me kindness.”

  He tucked back a loose strand of blond hair. “Is it that far from the truth?” he asked quietly.

  I let the roaring fire fill the silence. On the island, I’d never wanted to be apart from him. But now there was a rift between us wide as the ocean I’d crossed, alone and wounded. He’d shown up at the masquerade amid the swirling masks and looked at me as if nothing had changed.

  But everything had changed.

  I’d shared a bed with Edward the night before. I’d made love to a murderer, while I’d blindly thought I was safe in his company. I’d been worse than a fool.

  “Why didn’t you come for me sooner?” My whispered words blended with the crackling of the fire.

  He settled on the bed next to me, amid the silk sheets and sea of pillows that were a million miles away from the sparse simplicity of the island where we’d fallen in love. Then he took my small hand in his much bigger one and ever so slowly brought it to his lips.

  My heart roared to life just like the fire. The memories of him pushing me away in that dinghy were still so tender, and I wasn’t certain I was ready for this again. Such deep wounds didn’t patch over in a day.

  “It was complicated,” he said, keeping his voice low. “When I followed Edward here, of course I thought of you. I wanted to come find you every day, and apologize for parting the way we did, and say that I’ve thought of you constantly.” His hand tightened around mine, not letting me drift away like that dinghy’s rope had so many months ago. “And yet every time I thought of a life together, there was too much in the way. At first it was the fate of the beast-men; if I had left them there alone, I would never have forgiven myself.”

  “The beast-men are gone now,” I whispered.

  “Yes, but now Edward stands between us. I want a simple life, Juliet. No monsters in our closets, no jumping at shadows. Before I could have that life with you, I wanted to resolve the question of Edward. Then I planned on finding you and having that life.” He’d moved quite close on the bed now, as my pounding heart was all too aware. He reached up and cupped my chin in his hand. “I never stopped loving you. I never will.”

  In the quiet intimacy of my bedroom, logic seemed to have left me. He’d wounded me so deeply, and yet he was still the young man I’d fallen in love with. Could I throw away a lifelong friendship over an old wound?

  “I missed you,” he muttered.

  His lips brushed against my cheek. I asked myself if I could forgive him so easily. But the answer was simple, as we sat on my satin duvet. Yes, yes, yes. I’d forgive him anything.

  I leaned in to him, and he kissed me. I had dreamed of seeing him again for so long that it hardly felt real. I pressed my lips to his again and again, dizzy in the moonlight streaming in from the high windows.

  “Juliet.” He whispered my name against my cheek like a caress. The feel of his warm skin woke me as if from a dream, as if I’d merely been sleepwalking through life since leaving the island.

  I pulled his head down, kissing him again. Not softly this time. My breath started coming fast, my pulse pounding. He returned the kiss just as passionately. I wanted to kiss him forever, never let him leave me again.

  His thumb found my shift’s neckline, running along the place where the fabric ended and skin began. As he trailed kisses down the length of my neck, he pulled the fabric over my shoulder, replacing it with his lips.

  I leaned back, hands coiled in his hair, thinking of how making love to Edward had been a mistake. I should have saved myself for Montgomery, the man I truly loved.

  What would he do if he found out?

  Montgomery stopped and sat abruptly. His gaze fell to the bare skin of my shoulder. I parted my lips, confused, and touched the tender place where he’d just kissed me.

  My fingers found the rough scratches from where the Beast had clawed me.

  “Where did you get those scratches?” he said. There was an odd inflection in his voice, and I remembered that he’d seen the Beast’s scratches on countless bodies. He knew exactly how the claws cut through skin, how far apart the spacing was. Of course he would recognize them.

  “Montgomery… ,” I said in a rush. I could feel the intimacy of the moment slipping out of my hands, and I grabbed his arm to keep it there.

  He pulled out of my grasp and stood, pacing by the fire. “You said you hadn’t seen Edward before tonight.”

  “Stop pacing, and I shall explain.”

  “You said you hadn’t seen him. You lied to me.”

  “I never actually said as much—you just assumed. I didn’t know how to tell you.”

  “He could have killed you!”

  “You think I don’t know that?” I snapped, standing to face him. I chewed on my lip, trying to focus my thoughts. “Of course I know he’s dangerous. I think about that every minute, every second! Each one of his victims died because of me—each one had wronged me. One was a girl I used to know from the boardinghouse, who stole Mother’s ring. One was a member of Parliament who beat Mother and me, many years ago. Another was the solicitor who commandeered our fortune on behalf of the courts. None of them angels, though none of them deserved death. I’ve been living in a prison of fear ever since Edward came back, so don’t you dare try to tell me I’m ignoring how dangerous he is.”

  My words ended short, and I took a few breaths. “But there’s good in him too, and it’s worth saving. He’s as desperate to stop the Beast as the rest of us. He’s trying to cure himself, and he asked for my help. Perhaps if you’d shown the same compassion—”

  “Compassion?” he hissed. “Why would you have sympathy for a monster?”

  “Because we’re not so different! I know what it means to be experimented on. I’m in need of a cure just as much as Edward. He and I were working together. We were making progress, until…” My hand went to the scratches on my shoulder. “I
t’s getting harder for him to control himself. The Beast gets stronger each day.”

  “You should have told me,” he said. He went to the windows, pushing aside the curtains to look down on the world below.

  “Well, I’m not the only one keeping secrets,” I said.

  His head jerked up, eyes fixed with the intensity of a hunter. “What do you mean?”

  “Edward said there are things you haven’t told me.”

  He crossed the room to stand beside me. “What did he tell you?” The quick, almost desperate quality to his movements proved Edward right. Montgomery was hiding something.

  “The letters, for one.”

  “I told you, I never read them. Moreau told me they were just business transactions. Funding for the supplies he needed.”

  “And you never thought that his financial backers expected something in return for their payments?”

  He ran a hand over his face. “I made mistakes, Juliet. I admired your father. I loved him. I didn’t question things that I should have. But it would be a mistake now to let Edward live.”

  “Just as it’s a mistake to let Balthazar live? Why an exception for one and not the other?” I snapped. He threw me an annoyed look, which I returned. “Balthazar’s a good creature, but so is Edward. You’ve just never understood him. Not like I do.”

  There was a tenderness to my voice I hadn’t intended, and it made Montgomery stop his prowling. “How is that? As a friend?” His eyes drifted to the bare skin of my shoulder. “Or as something more?”

  My jaw clenched. “Don’t you dare throw accusations.”

  But jealousy had gotten its fingers deep within him, and he wasn’t about to stop. “Did he tell you lies about how he loves you, how he’d do anything for you? Did he kiss you? Did you kiss him back?”

  Instinct brought my hand toward his face to slap him, never mind that he was dangerously close to the truth. But he caught my wrist before it made contact. His breath was coming fast; mine was faster.