Her Dark Curiosity. Megan Shepherd

sorry – I don’t mean to make light of it. I’ve been staying in the Beast’s room and selling the stolen goods. I know it’s hardly proper, but a brothel’s good cover – I don’t know where else to go. People tend to overlook the screaming when I transform …’

      I shuddered at the thought. ‘You can’t go back there,’ I said. ‘Sooner or later one of the patrons will report the thefts, and if Scotland Yard comes to investigate and catches you, it’ll be all over the newspapers, and not long before Father’s mystery colleague gets his hands on you.’ I nodded toward the bed, looking away before my cheeks warmed. ‘You can stay here.’

      He nodded, and silence fell around us. He took out his pocket watch, toying with it just to fill the quiet. He wandered to the worktable, where I’d left the laboratory equipment in perfect order, the boiler and beakers and glass vials arranged in descending order of height. It wasn’t a vial he reached for, though, but one of the grafted rosebushes. I’d bound a single white rose to a bush of red, and he touched it as gently as a caress.

      ‘You made these?’

      I didn’t answer, afraid he’d point out how similar the grafting and splicing was to Father’s work, and how the placement of my laboratory equipment mirrored Father’s exactly.

      ‘Yes,’ I said at last.

      ‘They’re beautiful.’

      A surge of pride swelled in my heart. The kettle started whistling, and I nearly tripped over the dog to fetch it, along with my single mug. I poured a cup and handed it to him, trying not to think about his compliment. ‘I’m not used to guests here. I’ve only the one cup.’

      ‘Much obliged,’ he said, taking the tea, and only then acknowledged the medical equipment. ‘And all of this?’

      ‘I have to have it,’ I said quickly. ‘The serum I take is failing. Father designed it for me when I was a baby, and as I get older, it’s less effective. I’m trying to cure myself, just like you are.’ I let my hand fall over a crystal beaker. ‘That’s why I offered to help you.’

      ‘Have you had any success?’

      ‘Not yet,’ I said, though my voice caught as my eyes fell on the cupboard shelf. A book glowed there in the faint lantern light. It was one of many books I kept on anatomy, and botany, and philosophy, but this one was special. It stood out like a temptation, or maybe an accusation.

      It was my father’s journal.

      I’d found it the day after Montgomery set me adrift from the island. He must have stowed it in the dinghy along with the water and food and other supplies. For a while, I had resisted opening it. And yet once I discovered that Father’s serum was failing me, the temptation to look had been too strong. I had opened that leather cover and read his notes – some scrawled, most in his painstakingly precise handwriting. I’d flipped through the pages, desperate for some clues about how to cure myself. And yet the journal hadn’t proven anything, half of it little more than lines of nonsense words and numbers strung together.

      I touched the journal delicately, but didn’t dare pull it out. ‘Father made most of his notations in here, before he transferred everything to the files he kept in his laboratory. There’s a formula for my serum, and the one he used on the islanders, and I’ve been trying to adapt it to my current situation.’ I let my hand fall away from the book. ‘No luck so far. Much of what he says in there is nonsense, anyway. He must have used a personal shorthand when he was writing in a hurry, and I haven’t been able to make sense of it.’

      Edward’s eyes didn’t leave the journal. When he spoke, his voice held a quiet sort of hope. ‘Does it say anything about me? He used cellular traits from human blood to make me. I never found out whose blood it was.’

      His fingers were still flipping the pocket watch over nervously, and I understood. To Edward it wasn’t just blood in a test tube. That human blood was his only tie to another person – to a family, in a sense.

      I shook my head. ‘It doesn’t say. I’m sorry.’

      He turned to the chemistry set, looking through my beakers and vials of supplies. Science, math, literature – these were the things Edward was comfortable with, things easily learned from a book. He made a good show at social interaction, using lines and scenes from obscure plays no one knew, but I didn’t think it ever came naturally to him.

      ‘We can figure it out together,’ I said softly. ‘We’ll cure both of us. It’ll just take time.’

      ‘Time is something I don’t have much of, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘The longer I’m with the Beast, the more alike we become. I can feel him bleeding into me, trying to take over. I can still delay the transformations, but I’m not sure for how much longer. He could only hold his form minutes at first, a half hour at most. Now he can hold it for two hours.’ His eyes met mine over the flickering burner flame, and again I thought about how much darker they looked. ‘In another month, maybe less, I’m afraid he’ll take over completely.’

      My lips parted. This was why he seemed bigger to me, and darker, and stronger. The Beast was melding with him. ‘Edward …’

      ‘I can’t let it get to that, Juliet. He’ll terrorize everything. If he would let me take my own life, I would. I’ve tried a dozen times, but he prevents me.’ He paused. ‘Montgomery nearly killed me, once.’ He looked away from the flame. ‘You shouldn’t have stopped him.’

      ‘Don’t say that,’ I whispered.

      His flickering eyes found mine. ‘You know it’s the only possible end for me. I was never meant to exist.’

      ‘But you do exist, Edward. We’ll find the missing ingredient, and we’ll get rid of the Beast.’ I realized how desperate my voice sounded. Desperate for him, or desperate for me, now that I had someone in my life who shared my secrets?

      ‘Juliet …,’ he muttered, and brushed the back of his hand against my cheek.

      Warmth bloomed where he touched me. For an instant I leaned into it, as starved for human contact as he was, and wicked temptations whispered in my head before I could twist away in shock at my own response. I was lonely, that was all, especially for someone I could talk to freely.

      He killed Alice, I reminded myself, thinking of my father’s sweet young maid. He could kill you, if you get too close.

      ‘How did you survive the fire?’ I asked, as though we could pretend that touch had never happened.

      ‘The Beast is strong. He heals fast. I came to and was able to crawl out before the barn collapsed, and then I salvaged what I could from the house. The letters, for one.’

      ‘I want to see these letters.’

      He nodded. ‘I’ll go back to the brothel and collect them. I must return anyway for the chains I use to bind myself and some changes of clothes.’

      I chewed on a fingernail, pacing. ‘I want to help you, Edward, truly, but not if …’ I swallowed, thinking of those drained bodies. ‘Not if you keep killing people.’

      ‘I’ll fetch the chains in the morning. He’s weaker early in the day. If he has the choice, he prefers to emerge at nighttime.’

      ‘And tonight? Can you promise me no one else will die tonight?’

      A flash of Annie Benton’s face, Sir Danvers Carew, the red-haired thief girl.

      Edward went to my worktable and searched through the vials, coming back with a heavy dose of sedative. ‘Give me this, then,’ he said.

      ‘That much could kill you.’

      ‘You underestimate how strong I’ve gotten. It’s only for one night. Tomorrow I’ll have the chains.’ He held it out to me, and I took it hesitantly. I’d gotten it from a veterinarian who had told me it was used to sedate animals for transportation. If it would stop a lion, it would stop Edward.

      ‘Give