The Madman’s Daughter. Megan Shepherd

      She held the bottle out to me. I wanted to tell her that sipping rum straight from a bottle wasn’t exactly showing class, but I’d only earn myself another jab.

      I glanced at Adam. I’d never been good at guessing people’s feelings. I had to study their reactions instead. And in this situation, it didn’t take much to conclude I wasn’t what these men wanted, despite Lucy’s insistence.

      But maybe I could pretend to be. Hesitantly, I took a sip.

      The blond boy tugged Lucy to the sofa next to him. ‘You must help us end a debate, Miss Radcliffe. Cecil says the human body contains 210 bones, and I say 211.’

      Lucy batted her pretty lashes. ‘Well, I’m sure I don’t know.’

      I sighed and leaned into the doorframe.

      The boy took her chin in his hand. ‘If you’ll be so good as to hold still, I’ll count, and we can find our answer.’ He touched a finger to her skull. ‘One.’ I rolled my eyes as the boy dropped his finger lower, to her shoulder bones. ‘Two. And three.’ His finger ran slowly, seductively, along her clavicle. ‘Four.’ Then his finger traced even lower, to the thin skin covering her breastbone. ‘Five,’ he said, so drawn out that I could smell the rum on his breath.

      I cleared my throat. The other boys watched, riveted, as the boy’s finger drifted lower and lower over Lucy’s neckline. Why not just skip the pretense and grab her breast? Lucy was no better, giggling like she was enjoying it. Exasperated, I slapped his pasty hand off her chest.

      The whole room went still.

      ‘Wait your turn, darling,’ the boy said, and they all laughed. He turned back to Lucy, holding up that ridiculous finger.

      ‘206,’ I said.

      This got their attention. Lucy took the bottle from my hand and fell back against the leather sofa with an exasperated sigh.

      ‘I beg your pardon?’ the boy said.

      ‘206,’ I repeated, feeling my cheeks warm. ‘There are 206 bones in the body. I would think, as a medical student, you would know that.’

      Lucy’s head shook at my hopelessness, but her lips cracked in a smile regardless. The blond boy’s mouth went slack.

      I continued before he could think. ‘If you doubt me, tell me how many bones are in the human hand.’ The boys took no offense at my remark. On the contrary, they seemed all the more drawn to me for it. Maybe I was the kind of girl they wanted, after all.

      Lucy’s only acknowledgment was an approving tip of the rum bottle in my direction.

      ‘I’ll take that wager,’ Adam interrupted, leveling his handsome green eyes at me.

      Lucy jumped up and wrapped her arm around my shoulders. ‘Oh, good! And what’s the wager, then? I’ll not have Juliet risk her reputation for less than a kiss.’

      I immediately turned red, but Adam only grinned. ‘My prize, if I am right, shall be a kiss. And if I am wrong—’

      ‘If you are wrong’ – I interjected, feeling reckless; I grabbed the rum from Lucy and tipped the bottle back, letting the liquid warmth chase away my insecurity – ‘you must call on me wearing a lady’s bonnet.’

      He walked around the sofa and took the bottle. The confidence in his step told me he didn’t intend to lose. He set the bottle on the side table and skimmed his forefinger tantalizingly along the delicate bones in the back of my hand. I parted my lips, curling my toes to keep from jerking my hand away. This wasn’t Dr Hastings, I told myself. Adam was hardly shoving his hand down my neckline. It was just an innocent touch.

      ‘Twenty-four,’ he said.

      I felt a triumphant swell. ‘Wrong. Twenty-seven.’ Lucy gave my leg a pinch and I remembered to smile. This was supposed to be flirtatious. Fun.

      Adam’s eyes danced devilishly. ‘And how would a girl know such things?’

      I straightened. ‘Whether I’m right or wrong has nothing to do with gender.’ I paused. ‘Also, I’m right.’

      Adam smirked. ‘Girls don’t study science.’

      My confidence faltered. I knew how many bones there were in the human hand because I was my father’s daughter. When I was a child, Father would give physiology lessons to our servant boy, Montgomery, to spite those who claimed the lower classes were incapable of learning. He considered women naturally deficient, however, so I would hide in the laboratory closet during lessons, and Montgomery would slip me books to study. But I could hardly tell these young men that. Every medical student knew the name Moreau. They would remember the scandal.

      Lucy jumped to my defense. ‘Juliet knows more than the lot of you. She works in the medical building. She’s probably spent more time around cadavers than you lily spirits.’

      I gritted my teeth, wishing she hadn’t told them. It was one thing to be a maid, another to clean the laboratory after their botched surgeries. But Adam arched an eyebrow, interested.

      ‘Is that so? Well then, I have a different wager for you, miss.’ His eyes danced with something more dangerous than a kiss. ‘I have a key to the college, and you must know your way around. Let’s find one of your skeletons and count for ourselves.’

      Glances darted among the other boys like sparks in a fire. They prodded one another, goading each other on in anticipation of the idea of a clandestine trip into the bowels of the medical building.

      Lucy gave me an impish shrug. ‘Why not?’

      I hesitated. I’d spent enough time in those dank halls. There was a darkness there that had worked its way into the hollow spaces between my bones. A darkness that clung to the hallways like my father’s shadow, smelling of formaldehyde and his favorite apricot preserves. Tonight was supposed to be about escaping the darkness – if not in the arms of a future husband, at least in a few lighthearted moments.

      I shook my head.

      But the boys had made up their minds, and there was no convincing them otherwise. ‘Are you trying to get out of a kiss?’ Adam teased.

      I didn’t respond. My desire for flirtation had evaporated at the mention of the university basements. But if Lucy didn’t balk at the idea of seeing a skeleton, surely I shouldn’t. I cleaned the cobwebs from their creaky bones every night. So what was holding me back?

      Lucy leaned in and whispered in my ear. ‘Adam wants to impress you with how brave he is, you idiot. Swoon when you see the skeleton and fall into his arms. Men love that sort of thing.’

      My stomach tightened. God, was this what normal girls did? Feign weakness? I could never imagine Mother, with all her strict morals, doing something so scandalous as slipping into forbidden hallways on a dare. But Father – he wouldn’t have hesitated. He would have been the one egging them on.

      Dash it. I snatched the rum and poured the last few swallows down my throat. The boys cheered. I ignored the queasy feeling in my stomach – not from the rum, but from the thought of those dark hallways we were soon to enter.

       TWO

      We bundled into our coats and slipped into the cold night, crossing the Strand toward the university’s brick archway. This late only a few lanterns shone in the upper windows. The boys passed a bottle around with hushed laughter at being on school grounds after hours. I wrapped my arm around Lucy’s and tried to join the mirth, but the warmth didn’t spread below my smile. For the boys, this taste of mild scandal was titillating. They’d never known real scandal or how it could tear a person apart.

      Adam led us to the side of the building, through a row of hedges to a small black door I’d used only once or twice. He unlocked it and held it open. Hesitation