Her Dark Curiosity. Megan Shepherd

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СКАЧАТЬ in his arms. Seeing him act so gentle with the little mutt stirred something inside me.

      For months I’d thought Edward was dead, though that hadn’t kept my mind from straying back to him. Edward had been a friend, possibly even something more, before I’d learned the terrible truth about the monster inside him. I think I would have felt more outrage if he hadn’t died. But in death I had absolved him of his crimes, blaming my father instead for having created him, and I had absolved myself of blame, too, for not seeing through his lies earlier. But here he was, very much alive, responsible for a string of violent murders, and yet also very much just a boy learning what it meant to be human. Almost all he knew of the world he’d learned from books; the sights and smells of the city – even something as common as a street dog – must be a revelation to him.

      I turned the lock and pushed open the door. This place was more than a workshop; it was my retreat from fine china and straight-backed chairs and weak tasteless tea. I liked coming here alone, where I could hide from the world, tucked under the patchwork quilt. I had worried that by bringing Edward here, that precious balance would be upset. But as I watched him rubbing Sharkey’s head and leaning against the rough wood of the stairwell, he seemed to fit so naturally.

      ‘Come inside,’ I said softly. ‘No one knows about this place. You’ll be well hidden here.’

      It took a lot for me to say that – to invite a murderer into my one private space. But in a twist of fate, watching him shift the dog from one arm to the other and brush back a loose strand of hair, I felt strangely safe with him.

      Safe with a murderer. With Edward. Perhaps this was how madness started.

      Sharkey jumped out of his arms and curled up by the bricks around the woodstove. Edward came in hesitantly, scratching the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable in a lady’s room. I lit the lamp and nodded toward the woodstove. ‘Will you light the fire? I’ll put the kettle on.’

      He bent to swing open the iron grate and add wood to the stove. While his back was turned, I chewed on a fingernail and tried not to steal glances at his frame, so much stronger than I’d remembered. Having him here triggered so many memories. A sun-scarred castaway on the Curitiba’s deck, clutching a crumpled photograph. A boy holding me close in a cave behind a waterfall. The one person in addition to me who wasn’t afraid to stand up to my father, when even Montgomery wouldn’t.

      My left rib started to ache at the painful memories. Montgomery had the strength of a horse, and yet he’d been powerless in front of my father. I remembered being a little girl and listening through the laboratory keyhole as Father taught Montgomery how the circulatory system worked. It had hurt then, too, that Father was closer to a servant boy than to his own daughter. Perhaps I shouldn’t have blamed Montgomery. He’d had no other family; his father was a Dutch sailor he’d never known, his mother died when he was barely five, no siblings, no other servants his age. Of course he’d fallen under the spell of Father’s charms; any child that lonely would crave a connection wherever he could get it.

      And yet I offered him love, I thought blackly. I chose him, but he didn’t choose me.

      Edward closed the grate and rubbed his hands together in front of the fire with a boyish grin. I didn’t even consider trying to smile back. My heart was too shaken.

      ‘Where did you get those clothes?’ I asked. ‘They aren’t cheap, and neither is that gold pocket watch.’

      He came to the cabinet, where the lantern tossed pools of light over his face. ‘The Beast keeps a room at a brothel in Soho – I wake there sometimes. He steals clothes and things from the wealthy patrons, always finds men close to my size … very thoughtful of the Beast.’ The hints of a smile played on his mouth.

      ‘This isn’t a joking matter.’

      He swallowed. ‘I’m 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 СКАЧАТЬ