The nobleman’s eyes stayed fixed on her. “Why?”
“Because her murderer has not yet come to justice, and he still believes he has gotten away with it.”
“Who is it?”
Shaking her head, Emmeline clenched her eyes shut and gripped the arms of the chair. Her voice trembled as she replied, “She will not say his name. She is too afraid of him... even now, but he was close to her. How much do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
Immanuel held his breath. While Emmeline’s artful reenactment of a séance held Lord Montagu under her spell, he didn’t seem aware of the young man’s presence beside her. She was doing so well, but now that she was at the critical juncture in the reading, he was thankful that the marquess was not watching his expression. Keeping his eyes locked on Emmeline, Immanuel recited the answers in his head hoping they were loud enough for her mind to catch.
A pearl slid between the medium’s fingers as she looped the chain around her thumb. “The man came in through the window and advanced on her. She does not know why he did it, but he had a— a vicious device. He sunk a claw into her neck, and electrocuted her with his machine. That is how she died. He didn’t do anything beyond that, but he took her ring. The purple ring is the key to finding him, and she knows where it is.” Emmeline resisted the urge to open her eyes. If she opened them, he would see through her. “The man keeps it in his bedroom, and you will find it under his bed. It is a canopy draped in red.”
“Can,” the marquess swallowed hard, “she give a clue as to who he is?”
For a second, Emmeline wasn’t certain what to say. She couldn’t be sure that Alastair and Katherine had been anything more than friends, and if she was wrong or insulted him, all they had done would be lost. But there had been a moment inscribed in her mind, when Lord Rose had shown his true self for an instant. It was fleeting, but she could never forget it. Licking her lip and opening her eyes, she met Lord Montagu’s hard gaze.
“He called her Kitty.”
***
“Do you think the guards will tell Aunt Eliza that we left together?” Emmeline asked as she hung up their cloaks and cast a sidelong glance out the foyer window at the plainclothes officer parked across the street.
“Probably not. They are here to make sure no one harms the prince consort, not to monitor whether we were chaperoned.”
“Thank Mr. Fenice for me next time you see him. Without his sister inviting my aunt and uncle out for dinner, we never would have been able to leave.” In the shadows of the parlor, the clock struck seven. “Do you want to see the body before they come home?”
Halfway up the stairs, Immanuel stopped. “Are you certain you want to? I don’t know what state it will be in.”
“I will have to see it soon anyway, and I want to see it now. I do not want to faint or vomit in front of the queen.”
“I cannot imagine you fainting or vomiting over anything.”
Emmeline’s lips curled into a smile as they made their way to the cellar door. “Do you mean it?”
“Of course.” Immanuel’s breath quickened at the sight of the timber walls. “You did very well with Lord Montagu.”
“Do you think he believed me? He did not mention his brother after. Maybe he suspects someone else.”
“Even if he does, he believed you. You should have seen the look on his face when you said ‘Kitty.’ He knew who you meant. That’s probably why he hurried us out. At least he wasn’t angry with us.”
Emmeline opened her mouth to speak, but her voice failed. Sitting in the center of the floor on a short, wheeled gurney was a bubbling tank. The emerald liquid churned and skittered across the skin of the man enclosed within the glass coffin. In the glare of the morgue’s electric lamps, the royal consort glowed an icy blue. The tall, robust man looked as if he had only died hours ago. Every dark hair was combed neatly across his balding pate, and his arms and stomach were plump yet not bloated like a corpse dredged from the river. Tiny beads of air rushed over and through the three holes on his neck.
Katherine Waters and Henrietta Wren’s lifeless bodies flashed before Immanuel’s eyes. Lord Rose hadn’t killed him, but his predecessor along with Emmeline’s grandfather had convinced the queen to murder her husband only to resurrect him later. A sharp bolt darted down his spine, contracting every muscle in his body at the thought of the machine flooding him with current. How could the queen have agreed to subject her husband to that sort of pain? When they concocted their scheme to conquer death and secure their legacies, did any of them know what he would go through? Somehow he doubted they cared.
“This is awful.”
Immanuel looked up, wondering if his thoughts slipped out against his will, but found Emmeline staring at the tank with wide eyes.
“Can you imagine spending thirty years in a jar? I spent thirty days in one room, and I thought I would go mad if I could not get out. If she knew what I saw when I touched Katherine’s jar, she would never have done this.”
“I don’t like it either, but what can we do?”
His eyes drifted to the generator humming behind the monarch’s head. He could rip the wire from the back and bring it all to an end, but Dr. Hawthorne would be the one to take the blame for it even if he confessed. The Hawthornes had been far too kind for him to do that. As he raised his gaze from the power supply, their eyes met. Nothing needed to be said. A plan was set, and if they could help it, Prince Albert would stay dead.
Breaking away from her owl eyes, Immanuel cleared his throat. “You probably shouldn’t see this. It is indecent.”
“You needn’t worry. My mother’s library had plenty of books with yellow covers, but we should go upstairs before they return.”
Without casting a glance back at the suspended monarch, Emmeline and Immanuel hurried up the steps. In the kitchen, Emmeline set to work making a pot of hyson tea while Immanuel filled two plates from what he found in the larder. Emmeline watched him as he hesitated with each selection, pausing to check whether it went with what he already chose. He was so careful and calculated yet guileless.
As she poured the hot water into a tea pot and brought it to the dining table, Immanuel placed a plate of bread, cheese, and leftover meat before her. Staring at the odds and ends, she couldn’t help but think of him on the night he was attacked. It was the first time she truly cared for him. She knew she had helped him out of the house on Mortimer Street half out of guilt and half from the fear that her mother’s ghost would terrorize her, yet he had rescued a stranger, asked her if she was hurt when he could barely speak, and tried to warn her about Lord Rose.
“Why are you nice to me?” Emmeline asked, her voice sharper than she intended.
“Because you were kind to me once when I really needed it. I don’t forget that sort of thing.”
She nodded. Of course, he would feel that way. “When all of this is over, what are you going to do?”
He took a sip of tea and shrugged. “Go back to Oxford and finish my studies, I suppose.”
“I mean, for the rest of your life. Are you going to stay with Mr. Fenice?”
Immanuel’s pulse quickened, but he tried to keep his face impassive.
“I have seen the way you look at each other, and I am envious. Don’t worry, I will keep it a secret. Do you love him?”
“I think I could.” Against his will, his lips curled into a smile. “After I finish my studies, I am hoping to take a position in town and rent a room from him since his sister is leaving.”
She sighed as she tore off a piece of bread and rolled it between her fingers. “That is all I want, you know. Aunt Eliza wants me to be a nurse or a teacher or even a medium, but what I really want is a family and for someone to love me.”
“But you have your aunt and uncle.”
“Yes, but Aunt Eliza isn’t blood and Uncle James could not be bothered. Most of my family could not be bothered with me. I want to love someone and have them love me back. My mother was the onl
y one who ever did that. I thought Lord Rose was my Prince Charming, but he is the farthest thing from it. At least if our plan works, I will only have to see him one more time.” Eying the vial’s chain peeking from the collar of his shirt, she asked, “Do you think they will kill him once he is caught?”
“I would not be surprised. Don’t you think he deserves it?”
“Yes, but I worry he would haunt me. He is the type to do that.”
Chapter Thirty-Five:
Forgiveness
As Immanuel slipped into this shirt, he was acutely aware of the pain in his half-healed ribs and the scabbed wound on his neck. Nothing would be the same; he could feel it in ever aching muscle and bone. All night he had stayed up, staring at the ceiling and turning the empty alchemical vial over in his hands. Now, the hour of the queen’s arrival was near, and all he wanted was to stay upstairs and hide, but with the charm hanging around his neck as it had for three years, the fear ebbed slightly.
Knotting his tie and buttoning his jacket, he crept into the hall only to find Emmeline already waiting outside his door. Rather than wearing her best dress, she had donned a subdued grey gown and swept her hair into a shell-like bundle at the back of her head, but near her collar was the enamel and pearl forget-me-nots.
“Are you ready?” she asked, running her eyes over his dark suit before coming to rest on the gold and silver vial.
Shrugging, he pulled the door shut behind him. “I guess we will find out if Lord Montagu suspected his brother. If Lord Rose shows up, we have failed.”
“Not necessarily. The police may not act immediately.”
“I know,” Immanuel dropped his voice, “but I am going back to Oxford in a few days, and I don’t want him running free. Even if he gets his land and money, he is not going to let me go. I know too much.”
Emmeline was about to speak when her aunt called for them to come down. At the bottom of the steps, Eliza ushered them into the cellar to wait for the queen and Lord Rose’s arrival. Two of the queen’s plain-clothed guards already stood at Prince Albert’s feet with their hands folded behind their backs. The body no longer floated in a vat of bubbling absinthe but in a bath that smelled of rain water. A tube ran from the prince consort’s wrist while another ran from his neck, below where the device left its mark three decades earlier. The blood exited his vein and ran through a series of tubes warmed by a steam bath to raise his body temperature and mimic his circulation before re-entering his body through his neck. Taking their places on either side of the monarch, Emmeline and Immanuel waited in silence for the Hawthornes to arrive. In less than a minute, the door at the top of the steps opened. Immanuel looked up, hoping it was the doctor coming down to say it had been called off, and met the flickering gaze of Alastair Rose. His heart sank at the realization that their plan hadn’t worked, but Emmeline caught his eye and tilted her head as if to remind him that Lord Rose couldn’t do anything in front of the guards.
The nobleman descended the steps with a crate tucked under his arm and a wry smile incised in his features. When he reached Emmeline’s side, he glared at Immanuel, trying to stare him down as he did on the porch the night he attacked.
Drawing in a deep breath, Immanuel smiled. There was nothing Lord Rose could do to him now. Yes, his memory terrified him and what happened in the basement in Mortimer Street irrevocably altered him, but Alastair Rose was a man and nothing more.
“Miss Jardine,” Alastair began as he turned from Immanuel and pulled the lung-like device out of its crate and placed it on the table, “remember your part in this. All you must do is assure Her Majesty that Prince Albert is all right and nothing more. Do you understand?”
Lord Rose flicked the switch that sent the machine humming to life. Emmeline ignored the urge to swallow hard and kept her eyes locked on Immanuel as the nobleman loomed beside her. He moved to grab her arm when the boards above their heads groaned with hurried steps. The door above opened, and the Hawthornes stepped inside. For days she had barely seen her aunt and uncle between preparing the body for reanimation and cleaning the house for the queen’s visit. Even if Eliza didn’t like the woman, she wouldn’t let her believe she wasn’t a fit wife with a messy house.
Before anyone could see them, Eliza tucked her chapped hands behind her back and announced, “The queen will be arriving in a moment, so please be on your best behavior.”
Emmeline knew the comment was meant for her, but she was too excited to be offended. It was still months until her coming out, yet she never thought she would meet the queen under such morbid circumstances. Somehow she had expected fanfare or pomp with her arrival, but instead the queen quietly descended the steps in mourning black, flanked by two plain guards. Everyone bowed or curtsied when the stout woman reached the bottom step and turned to face them. Under hooded lids, her sharp eyes fell upon her husband’s body in the vat, and for a second, Emmeline was certain, the queen’s eyes brightened with anticipation.
“Lord Rose, Dr. Hawthorne, who are your associates?” Queen Victoria asked, her penetrating gaze falling on Emmeline like lead.
“Please allow me to introduce, Emmeline Jardine, Your Majesty. She is one of England’s finest Spiritualist mediums. She is to be introduced into society in the spring.”
As Emmeline curtsied as fluidly and carefully as possible, her uncle added, “And this is Immanuel Winter. He will be acting as my assistant during the reanimation.”
“You are German?”
Immanuel looked up from his bow to find her eying his features, lingering on his mottled iris. “Yes, Your Majesty, from Berlin.”
Nodding, she motioned for one of the guards to come closer. In his hands was a black velvet bag as tall as a lamp and as round. The queen peeled the fabric away to reveal a quartz container identical to the one Lord Rose had in his lethal machine but inside was a sliver of green. When she drew near, it danced and flashed, condensing for a moment before dulling to a diffuse powder.
“Dr. Hawthorne, please remind me of how we shall proceed.”
Immanuel watched the doctor beside him. The man had been the first kind face he saw upon being freed, but within a few days, he seemed to age ten years. While Eliza came alive at the prospect of no longer being under the queen’s control, he sagged under the enormity of his task. He wasn’t doing his duty to the crown, he was fighting a war against a power he never signed up for, and it was taking its toll. The grey strands were no longer content at his temples but wove through his sideburns and across his forehead. From skipping meals to prepare the prince consort, his face was drawn and creased around his mouth and eyes, which had lost their vigor. It was killing him, yet he did it to save his niece and a stranger. What plagued Immanuel most was the thought that even going against his principles and reviving the monarch still wouldn’t stop Lord Rose.
“The body has been soaking in an emulsion for the past week to remove any foreign compounds left by the preservative. When we are ready, I will remove the circulation tubes, and Lord Rose will assemble his machine. In theory, his heart will restart when his soul and the current enter his body. After he awakes, I will deal with any immediate complications before he is transferred to the royal physicians.”
“Very good. Miss Jardine, please speak to my husband and tell him of what is to transpire.”
The guard stepped forward with the jar, holding it out for her to take. The idea of dashing it to the floor flashed through her mind, but being tried for treason wasn’t worth it. Taking a calming breath, Emmeline cleared her mind and held it close. Everything outside her vision darkened and the mechanical hum of her uncle’s machinery died away. In the gloom, a tall figure rose before her, as thin as if he was imprinted on lace. There was barely any color left in his cheeks or hair, but his tired eyes met hers without hesitation. The words floated between them in the void, not whispered or spoken but merely heard.
Let me go.
But why? She has waited thirty years to see you again.
I am not what I on
ce was, and I never will be.
Don’t you want to be with her?
For decades, I could have been, but without life, I have degraded. Tell her, if she loves me, she will let me go.
She will not believe me. What can I say for her to know it is you?
The broad face of the man entrapped in the tomb of glass and steel flickered before dissolving. Emmeline’s eyes burned as the basement came back into view and her ears filled with the chug of gears and hissing of tubes. All eyes were on her, waiting for her to play her part before the real action could begin.
“Well, did you tell him?”
“I couldn’t, Your Majesty. He told me that he wants you to let him go.” Keeping her eyes locked on the doleful light, she continued, “Thirty years in here has put too much strain on him. Coming back will not get you want you want. Nothing can. He is gone whether or not his body is whole and his soul is in your hands.” Emmeline handed the jar back to the guard and raised her gaze to meet the queen, who stared back mute. Her wide eyes glistened as her gloved hand reached to cover her gaping mouth. “I did not think you would believe me, so he told me that as he was dying, you whispered something in his ear.”
“And?” she asked, her voice tight with tears.
“Ein Kuss.”
“A kiss,” Immanuel echoed.
“Please, Your Majesty, he is suffering. Look, look at his soul. You can barely see it anymore,” Emmeline said before she could stop herself. “It wasn’t always like this. At first it was bright and strong, but look at what this has done to him. His body is not him. This is him.”
Alastair Rose glared at the girl beside him. How dare she. How dare she keep him from what he wanted. “Your Majesty, please ignore her. I am certain she is mis—”
“Silence!” the monarch snapped. Her eyes softened as she stepped forward and laid her hand on the glass coffin over her husband’s face. Taking the jar from her guard’s hand, Queen Victoria stared into the green patch as if willing it to condense. “Oh, Bertie, what have I done?”
The Winter Garden Page 26