Monstrous Design

by Kat Dunn

  ‘Excuse me.’

  Hennie sighed. ‘Do you think we should prepare some clothes for mourning?’

  Phil paused her playing. ‘Don’t think about it, Hen…’

  Through the door, Camille watched Al intercept Lord Harford. She gave it a moment, then put down her sewing.

  ‘I’m afraid I must retire for a while. All this talk of death…’

  She let the spectre of the Revolution fill the silence, the horrors she had been witness to.

  ‘Oh, of course, how awful of us not to think—’

  Camille rose and cut her off. ‘Not at all. I only need a little rest.’ Heart racing, she forced herself to remain sombre as she left the room. She bobbed a curtsey to Lord Harford as she passed him and Al in the hallway. ’Good morning, my lord.’

  ‘Good morning, Camille.’ She felt his eyes follow her as she climbed the stairs. When she reached the top, she tucked herself out of sight and listened as Al picked up their conversation.

  ‘… Lady Harford did seem insistent on discussing the matter again. It seems she has agreed a neat price for fresh tongue…’

  Lord Harford huffed in irritation. ‘I have told her more than once that we cannot host all the home counties, however fine the tongue.’

  Al shrugged. ‘I am only the messenger. I believe she is in her dressing room.’

  Lord Harford glanced towards his wife’s rooms on the ground floor. ‘Oh, very well.’ He waved the footman carrying his dispatch box up.

  His study was at the top of the staircase, and his dispatch boxes were delivered immediately to it whenever he returned home. Camille had monitored his comings and goings, the box always trailing him like a prize held ever out of reach. As War Minister, he was privy to the most up to date intelligence on the situation in France – which had to include a player like the duc.

  The footman reached the top of the stairs and turned towards the study. From her hiding place, Camille watched him in her hand mirror. When he came close enough she pulled a bottle of smelling salts from her pocket and uncorked it; the smell overpowered her for a moment and she felt her eyes water.

  Barrelling around the corner, she collided directly with the footman as he unlocked Lord Harford’s study. The bottle shattered, coating his uniform with the foul-smelling liquid, and the dispatch box burst open on the floor in a flurry of papers.

  ‘Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry!’ Camille tried to dab away the salts and only managed to rub them in further.

  The footman’s face twisted in disgust as the smell hit him. ‘I apologise, Miss du Bugue. I wasn’t looking where I was going.’

  Camille almost felt bad; she didn’t want to see him fired or disciplined. It wasn’t his fault he stood in between her and what she wanted.

  ‘Oh dear, I hope it doesn’t stain.’ He was starting to look green as the awful smell engulfed them both. She used her handkerchief to cover her mouth. ‘It is quite a unique scent, isn’t it?’

  He took her hint. ‘I will change immediately. After I deliver his lordship’s papers—’

  He looked at the mess of documents scattered around their feet.

  ‘Don’t be silly. I’ll pick these up – they’re to be delivered to Lord Harford’s study, correct?’

  ‘Yes, my lady, but—’

  ‘This is my fault; I will fix it. Off you go.’ She shooed him away and started to gather the papers. Reluctantly, he left, looking not far off throwing up.

  On her knees, Camille ignored the lingering smell and rifled through the documents, scanning them for anything of interest. Most were dull: reports from underlings, accounts, projections of department expenditure, requests for new military uniforms, disciplinary hearings – then something caught her eye.

  Robespierre’s name. The words: Trial. Accusations. Collapse.

  At that moment, two voices echoed in the hall below. Without thinking, she stuffed the papers down the front of her dress.

  ‘Camille! What on earth are you doing up there?’

  Lady Harford had come into view at the bottom of the stairs, pushed in her Bath chair by Lord Harford.

  ‘Oh – I – er—’

  Lord Harford had caught sight of the dispatch box and was up the stairs two at a time.

  ‘What are you doing with that?’ he snapped. He pulled the papers away from her. ‘Where’s Watson?’

  ‘Is that your footman? I’m so sorry, I spilled my smelling salts on him and he had to change – I was trying to tidy these away and put them in your study for you.’

  ‘You are not to go into my study under any circumstances.’ He rammed the papers into the case and slammed it shut.

  ‘I’m sorry. I was trying to help.’ She let fear come into her voice, a tremor into her hands. She was a traumatised girl, trying to be a good house guest. She wasn’t a threat.

  Before he could speak, Lady Harford called from the bottom of the stairs. ‘My dear Camille, come and sit with me. I have some wedding preparations I want to discuss. We’re having the tongue, William, I won’t have penny-pinching over our only son’s wedding.’

  Lord Harford softened, turning to his wife. ‘Very well, then. Tongue it is.’

  ‘Now, say thank you to Camille for trying to help.’

  He tucked the case under his arm and muttered a gruff thanks before shutting himself in his study and locking the door.

  Camille sagged, half in relief, half in frustration. She’d found something promising – but at the cost of arousing Lord Harford’s suspicions quite thoroughly.

  She was running out of time.

  And there was still so much left to do.

  4

  A Gin Palace Near the Rookery

  The gin palace was an abundance of gilt and glass and velvet, towering mirrors behind the bar, rambling shelves of bottles lining them, and not an inch of floor space free. James set two glasses and a bottle on the sticky table in front of Olympe, who was hunched inside a veiled bonnet they had snatched off the display outside a pawnshop.

  He knew the palace from drinking with other medical students – they had ventured into the edges of the Rookery now and again when they were feeling cocky – but this time he had avoided the gentlemen’s entrance and taken Olympe in through the working man’s door. Frosted glass partitions split the room by class of patron, extending even over the bar, so that the wealthy didn’t have to catch sight of the unwashed masses when ordering their seventh drink.

  After running a zigzag path through the slum, Olympe had signalled to the pub and they had entered. They would be hard to spot in such a chaotic crowd, and almost impossible to sneak up on, so they had hunkered down among the raucous noise, the smell of anchovies and oysters and straw strewn across the piss-stained floor, the whirl of perfume mixing with sweat and tallow grease. He’d worried Olympe would look out of place but she fitted in well; she wasn’t the only eccentrically dressed person in her shabby silk outfit.

  James poured a measure of gin and knocked it back. He didn’t know if it would steady his nerves or make them a hundred times worse, but it was worth a try. Olympe ignored her cup. She focused on her bare hand, held in front of her, a faint blue cloud of sparks washing over her palms like a rising tide.

  ‘My powers didn’t work on him. Did you see?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘What’s wrong with me?’

  He reached across the table and held her hands tightly. A crackle stung his skin. ‘Nothing is wrong with you,’ he said firmly.

  ‘You know him?’

  James took a breath. ‘I do.’ Still holding her hands, he told her about the research he and Edward had been helping Wickham with. How the three of them had agreed James would go to Paris, looking for the rumoured electrical creature the duc had created – but when he found Olympe, he had thought to steal the scientific discovery for himself. He left out the part about so desperately, pathetically, wanting his father’s approval.

  Then he told her about the accident, and Wickham’s insistence on tr
ying his new theory – how it had worked, snatching Edward back through the veil between their world and the next. Somewhere along the way, he started crying. The shock of seeing his friend nearly die had shaken him to his bones. This was no game they played. This was life and death.

  Olympe listened in silence, the storm clouds of her skin roiling dangerously.

  ‘So perhaps he is like me now: human, but not in the same way as rest of you. I would be curious to speak to him again. Don’t worry,’ she added at James’s horrified look, ‘I believe you that your tutor is dangerous, but you said Edward was a friend. He must be frightened by what has happened to him. Perhaps we can make him an ally.’

  James shook his head. ‘You don’t know him. He won’t forgive me quickly.’

  Olympe poured another measure of gin into James’s glass and pushed it into his hands.

  ‘Well, then. It’s time to take me to Camille.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘James. You’ve made a lot of enemies, and you have no one on your side. You can run, but then what? Wickham will still find out what you did. You need help. You need Camille.’

  He clenched his jaw, battling with himself. Then he knocked back the second gin and nodded. ‘Fine. We go to Camille. But if we get the chance to show your abilities to my father…’ The gin cut a burning line down his throat.

  ‘Camille first. Father second.’

  James sank his head into his hands. ‘I’m such an idiot. I had everything lined up, I swear I did, and now it’s collapsing, like the bloody Spanish Armada, swept out to sea the moment before victory.’

  She patted his hand. ‘At least you acknowledge you’re an idiot.’

  Decision made, they ordered a plate of bread, whelks and samphire in place of the lunch James had set out to get when Edward had found them.

  ‘Do you still mean to go back to Paris?’ asked James. ‘Even though the duc and Comtois are there?’

  Olympe narrowed her eyes as she fished a whelk from its shell with a pin. ‘Is this you trying to persuade me to stay?’

  ‘No. Only, I wonder why I do the things I do, when they turn out to be so stupid or dangerous. I wondered if other people have better reasons for their choices.’

  She chewed thoughtfully. ‘We never know how our choices will turn out before we make them; we will always grieve the path untaken. But to not choose, to take no path at all? Then we would end up grieving everything.’

  Food finished, they edged out of the gin palace, watching corners and alley mouths for any sign of pursuit, and set off for Bedford Square and Camille. James led them down the mews that connected the backs of the grand houses, where horses were stabled and coal deliveries arrived.

  At number 6, they hopped the fence and sneaked into the stables. Only two horses were there at the moment, whickering in their stalls.

  James hovered in the entrance. ‘I’m sorry I can’t get you into the house – there are too many servants; there’s no way you’d go unnoticed.’

  Olympe raised her hand to a horse’s nose, letting it snuffle and lick. ‘That’s okay. I’ll be all right here.’

  ‘Hallo – there you are!’ He slammed the door and spun around. Hennie was wrapped in a decorative shawl and a smart satin evening dress.

  ‘Don’t sneak up on people,’ he snapped. ‘It’s rude.’

  ‘Well? How’s Edward?’

  He startled, then quickly smoothed his hair from his face. Of course, the last time Hennie had seen him he’d been taking Edward to the operating theatre. It flashed through his mind again – cold skin, crackle of electricity, blood under his nails.

  ‘Edward is – he’s recovering.’

  Her face lit up. ‘You did it? Oh, I knew you would!’ His sister flung her arms around him in a tight hug. ‘Can we go and visit him? Was it awful? When I heard that crunching noise—’

  ‘Give it a rest, Hen.’

  ‘Oh, fine. You never tell me anything.’ She folded her arms, pouted. ‘I hope you haven’t forgotten we’re to go to the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens tonight.’

  ‘Right. Yes. Pleasure Gardens.’

  ‘We’re off in an hour. Don’t be late, or Maman will never forgive you.’

  Hennie went back inside and James returned to the stables, heart racing.

  Olympe wasn’t where he’d left her. But there was only one way in and out. She had to be here.

  He passed the stalls, steps muffled by the straw scattered across the packed earth floor. The smell of horse and manure was strong, and familiar; he’d spent enough early mornings helping muck out when he was younger. His father had insisted a gentleman should know how every part of his estate was run, from the stables to the groundskeepers to the accounts to the tenants. James had liked spending time with the horses more than learning how to fill out a ledger, and his father had never let him forget it.

  He found Olympe in an empty stall at the far end of the stables, crouched over something black and feathery. A dead bird. Leaning over it like a child inspecting an insect, she prodded it with one finger, sending a pulse of electricity into its body. A flash of blue sparks and the smell of burned feathers – and nothing more.

  ‘Olympe?’ His voice was just above a whisper. ‘What are you doing?’

  She sent another burst of power into it, the blue static lighting her face and the dark hollows of her eyes.

  ‘An experiment.’

  ‘An experiment to find out … what exactly?’

  Turning to him, he could see the spark of curiosity on her face.

  ‘To find out if I can do it too. If I can bring something back to life like Edward.’

  ‘I’m … not sure that’s how it works.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I … never mind. Something’s come up – I’m supposed to go out with my family tonight, and they’re starting to get suspicious of me avoiding them all the time so I can’t say no. Camille is going too, so I can try and talk to her about … the situation.’

  ‘Go, James. I’m not helpless.’

  She flapped him away and hunched over the bird again. A jolt of electricity pumped through it. The power seemed to rise from her skin in a fog, before clustering at her fingertip and pulsing out.

  ‘No,’ he said softly. ‘No, you’re really not.’

  He slid away, the image of the dead bird fixed in his mind.

  It was hard to tell in the shadows, but it looked as though its wing had twitched.

  5

  A Carriage on the Rue St-Jacques

  ‘You’ve been keeping secrets,’ said Guil. ‘And I want to know why.’ Hostility radiated from him, and he kept his hands tightly curled around the leather strap.

  ‘No, I haven’t. I told you this was my plan.’

  ‘Ada, don’t,’ he said, pained. ‘I have been frightened for you. I came to make amends this morning but your father said you’d gone out already, “tutoring”. I had to quiz the damn coach driver to find out where you were and when he told me the Faubourg Saint Jacques—’ He cut himself off.

  In profile against the window, he looked like the portrait of a general. Strong furrowed brow, square jaw, the firm line of his full lips. She sank back into the carriage seat, pinching the bridge of her nose. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right.’

  ‘Am I not a part of this job any more?’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘And yet you make decisions without me.’

  ‘I know, but I—’

  ‘Thought you knew better?’

  Ada hated the way he looked at her, the tone in his voice as though she was a disobedient child. ‘It was my risk to take.’

  ‘It is not just your risk. What if something happened to you?’

  ‘If something happened to me it would hardly be your fault.’

  ‘How did you feel after I was hurt in the theatre?’ he said quietly. ‘That it was nothing to do with you?’

  ‘All right. Fine. I felt guilty.’

  ‘You are avoiding me because you know you are in
the wrong.’

  ‘No, actually, I don’t think I’m in the wrong. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you my decision, but this is my life, Guil. You don’t get a say in how I run it.’

  ‘You know if Camille was here she wouldn’t support this. Do you really think you can do this on your own?’

  The giddy high she’d felt leaving the duc’s study had vanished. For a moment, she’d felt competent. Useful. Respected.

  Guil had reminded her that wasn’t true.

  ‘Camille isn’t here, is she? She dropped all of us to go chasing after James. I am not her lapdog. I can do this, Guil. Trust me.’

  Ada wanted to kick the door open and rage her way through the streets. She knew she was guilty on all counts, and yet it hit home so much harder than she’d expected. What she felt was more than guilt – it was shame. Because maybe, in her heart of hearts, she enjoyed what she was doing. The life the duc was offering her was far closer to what she wanted than their struggling existence as the Bataillon des Morts, always at risk, always hiding, eating stale bread and freezing under the eaves come winter. There’d been Camille as reward, and the freedom of escaping her father’s house, of course.

  But was it her future?

  No.

  The future she wanted wasn’t something her father could offer. Or Camille. She wanted to learn, to discover, to be in the room where it happened when the world was split open, its secrets splayed out like she was God and every mystery was a puzzle to be solved.

  Maybe this was more than just a plan to her.

  And that knowledge made her squirm.

  They fell into silence, staring out of opposite windows as the carriage crawled through the crowded streets around the river’s edge, then across the Pont Notre-Dame towards the Right Bank. At a lull in traffic, Ada leaned out of the window to change their direction – instead of the Marais and home, the Palais d’Égalité. They were due to see the solider Léon had informed them about; she’d planned to meet Guil there, explain to him what she’d done. It wasn’t supposed to go like this.