The Madman's Daughter (Madman's Daughter - Trilogy)

by Megan Shepherd

  “She’s persistent, for sure,” Montgomery said lightly.

  Father pointed the parasol at the jungle wilderness. “You won’t find many of the comforts of London here.”

  I almost laughed. Dr. Hastings’s wandering hands were hardly a comfort. I wondered if I should tell him that my other options had been fleeing London or standing outside the Blue Boar Inn in a stained dress.

  But none of that mattered now. “I don’t need comforts,” I said, meaning it.

  He nodded, considering this. I bit the inside of my cheek to ground myself. He was alive. I wasn’t alone anymore. I twisted my fists in my skirt’s soft cotton, not sure how to deal with the tangled feelings pushing around inside me.

  Father squeezed my shoulder. “This isn’t a holiday retreat, you understand. We grow our own food. See to our own safety. It’s not a place for young ladies.” He pursed his lips. “But we’ll find some use for you.”

  I nodded. He was being rational. Still, I tried not to show my disappointment that his thoughts immediately turned to how I could be of use.

  The splash of oars sounded behind us. The launch had returned with Edward. Suddenly I was forgotten. Father’s eyes narrowed. His knuckles were white on the parasol’s delicate handle. He looked at Edward with the intense stare of a surgeon.

  Edward climbed out, brushing off his trousers. His gaze held steady on my father, as if he sensed the battle he was about to face. Maybe I hadn’t taken Montgomery seriously enough when he’d said Father didn’t allow strangers. The way Father looked at Edward wasn’t just suspicion—it was an unsettling, intense dislike that made me hesitate.

  “Father, this is Edward Prince,” I said. “He was a castaway. I told him he would be welcome here until a ship can take him home. He’s been ill. Montgomery saved his life.”

  Father’s eyes shifted to Montgomery and back to Edward. “Can’t speak for yourself, eh, boy? Prince, was it?”

  Edward stood tall. “I was a passenger on the Viola before the hull breached. I ended up on the Curitiba by chance.”

  “Chance? Is that so? And why should I let you set foot on my island?”

  I threw Montgomery a look. This was beyond mere inhospitality. Isolation had driven Father to paranoia, I realized. Maybe worse. A seed of doubt planted itself deep in my brain.

  “I’d be grateful if I could wait here until a ship comes,” Edward said, slowly. “I’ll be no trouble, I assure you.”

  Father’s eyes glowed like embers. Like a storm, the tension in the air returned, crackling like lightning. “Well, Mr. Prince, I’m afraid you’re wrong. You’d be nothing but trouble, you see.” And he jabbed the parasol at Edward’s chest.

  Edward stumbled back, losing his footing, and fell into the churning harbor with a splash that drenched my white dress.

  TWELVE

  “EDWARD!” I STUMBLED FORWARD, but it was too late. I collapsed, wincing as my knees slammed into the hard dock. My fingers curled around the warped boards as I watched him sputter to the surface.

  “Take my hand!” I reached as far as I dared, but the distance was too great. Edward slapped at the water uselessly, trying to pull himself up through the unsolid waves. He opened his mouth to shout, but I never heard what he said. He slipped under the surface.

  My fingernails dug half-moon trenches into the rotten wood. The dark shape that was Edward hovered just under the glassy surface, like an apparition. I kept thinking I had seen it wrong. It had been an accident. And yet I’d seen Father push him.

  I pressed my palms against the dock and stumbled to my feet. Father calmly adjusted the rumpled cuffs of his shirt. “Have you lost your mind?” I shouted. “He’s not well. He’ll drown!”

  Edward surfaced again, sputtering as he breached the water, only to sink again. Father watched as patiently as if he were waiting for a frog to die in a chloroform-filled jar. A wave of anger rolled up my throat.

  Beside him, Montgomery’s face was slack and uncertain.

  “You can swim,” I said to him. A desperate request, and he looked at me with hesitation. I understood then. He didn’t want to cross Father, not even to save Edward. Here, he wasn’t the strong, capable man I’d seen on the ship. He was just a boy.

  “Please, Montgomery,” I said. He swallowed hard and lurched toward the water. But Father swung the parasol in a swift, graceful arc that blocked his path.

  Montgomery’s boots skidded on the dock, as if the parasol had been a six-foot iron fence and not just a few bits of wood and lace. His eyes met mine. Everything felt wrong, so wrong. He should have been apprenticing himself to some craftsman back in England, meeting girls after church. Instead he was a slave to a madman’s whims.

  With a growl, I lunged at the parasol and wrestled the flimsy thing from my father’s hand. To my surprise, he surrendered it easily with an amused chuckle that made me shiver. I knelt at the edge of the dock and held it out to Edward. His fingers grazed at the handle, but he was too far away. The last thing I saw before he slipped under was the gold glint of his eyes, fixated on Father.

  “To hell with it,” Montgomery muttered. He dived into the water.

  For a painfully long moment I was alone with my father. The late-afternoon sun crept over the dock, casting long shadows. I was afraid to look behind me. I’d come so far, only to find that the rumors must be true—only a monster would patiently watch a man drown. What had happened to the father I remembered, the father who sneaked me chocolates when Mother wasn’t looking, whose warm tweed coats blanketed me when I fell asleep on the sofa? Were those memories nothing more than fantasies?

  I realized I had no idea who the man in the white linen suit was. Fear slipped out of me in little gasps, the only sound except the slap of the waves against the piles. Farther down the dock, the hulking islanders loaded cargo into a horse-drawn wagon. They might as well have been in a different world, though they were only paces from us.

  Montgomery surfaced at last with his arm circling Edward’s waist, shattering the awful spell. I threw aside the parasol and reached out to help him as he paddled to the dock.

  “Hold on to him while I climb up,” Montgomery said. I clutched Edward around the shoulders while Montgomery pulled himself up; then he dragged Edward out of the water and onto the dock. I leaned over Edward, touching him cautiously, afraid the episode would bring back terrible memories of his shipwreck.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  He leaned to the side and coughed, and then his hand found mine. He squeezed the life out of it. “Juliet … you looked even more beautiful when I thought I was dying.”

  I stared at his hand holding mine, not sure how to answer. Thank you?

  Father offered no assistance. “You should have let him drown,” he observed.

  Montgomery only tore at the laces of his dripping boots, trying to get the heavy things off. His knuckles were white. He might have been raised to never question one’s master—but I hadn’t.

  I snatched the parasol and thrust it at Father’s own chest, not hard enough to push him, just hard enough to show my anger. “How could you?” I cried. An amused look played on his face.

  I raised the parasol to jab him again, but he grabbed it and wrenched it from my hands. The lace tore and the handle splintered. “Calm down,” he said. The smile was gone, along with his patience.

  I heard a watery choking behind me. Edward leaned over the dock, coughing out more seawater. Father grabbed my chin and turned my eyes to meet his. “He doesn’t belong here, Juliet. He isn’t one of us.”

  I jerked out of his grasp. “Then maybe I don’t belong here either!”

  My chest rose and fell quickly with troubled breath. I ached to rip off the corset. The starched lace collar of the white dress scratched at my neck, and I cursed myself for being such a fool that I ever wanted to impress a man I barely knew, father or not.

  The sound of wood striking wood made us all turn. A sailor was back in the launch with more trunks. The second launch follo
wed with the caged panther, which hissed and let out a high-pitched, eerie growl.

  Father picked up the parasol. He opened it, observed the shredded and soiled white lace, and then folded it back carefully. The three hulking islanders approached in their odd, lumbering gait and secured the launches. Their startlingly fair eyes threw nervous glances at my father, their master. I could barely stand to look at them. Balthazar’s deformities were unfortunate, but these brutes were the things of nightmares.

  Father turned to Edward. “Mr. Prince, is it?” His lips pursed. “It seems my daughter has an interest in your welfare. As I have an interest in hers, I suppose you may stay with us.” He pointed the tip of the parasol at the waves. “Though I would advise you to learn to swim.”

  He muttered a command to the islanders and then smoothed his wild gray hair. “Come, Juliet. Balthazar will stay and see to the unloading.” He extended his hand to me.

  I stared at Father’s waiting palm. It was surprisingly small, with a pink glow and soft, delicate curves. It was the hand of a gentleman, unused to wielding any tool larger than a surgeon’s scalpel.

  I hesitated, still unsure of what I’d seen.

  His lips twitched in that calculating way of his that made my own feel dry. Then he laughed. “You thought I’d really hurt the boy.” He clapped his hands together. “Juliet, you’ll have to forgive me. I am aware my sense of humor veers toward the black. I only wanted to put the fear of God in him, to show him who runs this island.” He tilted his head at Edward, whose head was bowed, shoulders slumped as he wiped the seawater off his face. “You see, it worked.”

  I glanced at Montgomery, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. He was suddenly a servant again in front of my father. He finished unlacing his boots and kicked them off. Water seeped out and dripped between the wooden slats of the dock.

  Dark clouds began forming overhead. Tension cracked in the air like lightning. Father’s hand still waited for mine. His black eyes drew me to him like an anchor to sea. I placed my hand in his, cautiously. His fingers closed around mine with surprising strength.

  “Come along, Prince,” he called. “Or are we going to have to drag you?”

  I glanced over my shoulder to see Montgomery help Edward to his feet. Edward took a few shaky steps, waving Montgomery away. Montgomery picked up the rabbit hutch by its crossbeams, and they followed us down the dock.

  Father placed my hand in the crook of his elbow, like a gentleman. We walked toward the waiting wagon as casually as a couple strolling down the Strand. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought we were just a father and daughter enjoying a warm breeze on a sunny day. But my head was swimming. It was all I could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

  My head throbbed as if my skullcap was fitted too tight. I stumbled as the end of the dock gave way to sand. The beach stretched the length of the cove, fringed with palms just like in a tropical painting, except for the heavy thunderclouds overhead that cast shadows in the dark places between the trees. The wagon waited, hitched to a huge draft horse with golden hair falling in its eyes. The islanders had already loaded two steamer trunks and some bundles into the back.

  “After you, my dear,” Father said. He opened the wagon gate. Edward and I climbed in, and Montgomery loaded the hutch behind us. He started to say something, but Father interrupted. “We haven’t all day, Montgomery.”

  Montgomery straightened. He brushed his hair out of his face with one hand, and the hutch slipped. I jumped up to catch a corner before it tumbled out of the wagon.

  “Careful,” Father said. “If one of those rabbits gets loose, it’ll mean hell for us.”

  The muscles in Montgomery’s neck flexed. He slammed the gate closed.

  I sat back down on a trunk next to Edward. Sand caked his feet and trousers up to his knees. I tried to think of something to say, but words couldn’t make up for Father’s actions. Edward’s face was blank, but his hands were shaking slightly. God, if he’d been suffering from sea madness before, this certainly wouldn’t make him any saner.

  “Maybe you can go back,” I whispered. “Captain Claggan might still take you to Australia.”

  His eyes slid to mine. “I don’t want to go back.”

  A question formed on my lips, but Edward looked away. Folded his arms, tight. I pushed away the voices that wondered if it had anything to do with what he’d said on the ship—that he was glad I wasn’t spoken for.

  Montgomery climbed into the driver’s seat. Father drew a pistol from his jacket and passed it to him. My throat tightened at the sudden gleam of metal. Montgomery casually tucked it into his belt as though this was their daily routine. But why would they need pistols?

  Montgomery took the reins. We moved forward in jerks until the wheels found solid ground and then rumbled over uneven earth and vegetation. I watched the Curitiba looming off the coast. I had a sudden urge to jump from the wagon and swim back to it. But I hadn’t ever learned to swim. And I hated Captain Claggan and his stinking ship. But at least I knew what to expect from it, which was more than I could say for the island. I dared a glance at my father. I had so many questions, but they had all tumbled in an unsettling direction when he’d pushed Edward.

  Presently, we picked up speed as the path became more substantial, and the jungle soon swallowed our last view of the beach. Entering the jungle was like going into a hothouse—the humidity increased even though the canopy blocked out all but dappled late-afternoon sunlight. The broad leaves of unnamed plants formed a tunnel around us, slapping the sides of the jerking wagon and making us duck every few seconds.

  “This is a biological outpost,” Father said over his shoulder, as though we were all suddenly old friends. “Montgomery and I have spent years cataloging every specimen on the island. Extraordinary diversity.” I glanced at Edward, wondering what thoughts must be going through his mind, but he’d retreated somewhere within himself.

  The wagon hit a rut and I bounced off the trunk, catching myself before I collided with the hutch of rabbits. I came nose to nose with a dirty white rabbit, which reminded me far too much of another rabbit, worlds away now, in an operating theater in London.

  “You’re stuck with us for some time, Prince,” Father continued. “It’s a rare thing indeed when a ship passes our way. A year or more.”

  The rabbit twitched its nose ceaselessly. The dim-witted little animal didn’t even know it had come all the way from England to end up with a scalpel through its belly. My finger rested on the latch—all I would have to do was squeeze my finger to free the rabbit.

  As if he could sense my thoughts, Edward placed his hand over mine and shook his head.

  The path grew gradually wider. We rode for an hour, maybe longer. The sun was sinking low behind darkening thunderclouds, throwing shadows among the trees. I was usually a good judge of passing time, but my mind had wound down like a clock. Thunder rumbled overhead. Odd sounds whispered through the branches, though I told myself it must be the trills of unfamiliar insects. At last, Edward pointed ahead.

  A stone compound loomed in a clearing. The terracotta-tiled buildings were all arranged within a circular wall gated by two heavy wooden doors. The single bastion of civilization on an untamed island.

  “This used to be a Spanish fort,” Father said over his shoulder. “It was in ruins when I found it. The missionaries slept in it like dogs. And they called themselves civilized.” He snorted.

  “Missionaries?” I asked.

  “Anglicans, come to proselytize,” he mumbled, but his attention was on the compound. From within came a steady hammering and the smell of woodsmoke. Despite the tremble in my hands, I told myself this was not a place to be feared. Montgomery lived here, and so did my father. There was nothing within those walls that would hurt me. In fact, the danger was outside, in the jungle, where Montgomery had to carry a pistol.

  So why was I so nervous?

  Ten yards from the compound, Montgomery stopped the horse. A door slammed from w
ithin, making me jump, and a boy appeared, running in a strange skipping manner toward us. He took hold of the horse’s bridle while Montgomery climbed down and ruffled the boy’s hair. I couldn’t help but stare. The child’s jaw protruded at an odd angle below a nearly nonexistent nose. A dark, fine hair covered his bare arms. A shiver ran over my skin. It was as if my father had stumbled upon some collection of natives whom the theory of evolution—were Mr. Darwin to be believed—had skipped by.

  Another face peered out from a side door I hadn’t noticed. I caught only a glimpse of a bald head and a flash of white shirt. Father climbed down from the wagon as nimbly as an insect and went over to speak to the man.

  Montgomery opened the back of the wagon, his sea-soaked boots laced together and slung over one shoulder. The silver butt of the pistol in his belt reflected the dark roiling of the sky. I stumbled as I tried to climb down. Montgomery’s hands caught me around the waist and lingered, stealing my breath.

  “Are you all right?” he whispered. I glanced at the stark compound walls. Father had already disappeared within, and we were alone with Edward and the child.

  “It’s the deficiency,” I said. “After so long on the ship, without proper food …”

  He didn’t look convinced. His hands tightened on my waist. I’d told Edward there was nothing between Montgomery and me, and yet I couldn’t deny the way I floated inside when he touched me. It was more than that—I trusted him, and I didn’t trust anyone.

  “Don’t be afraid of the doctor,” Montgomery said. “He’s spent so long on the island that he sometimes forgets the proper way to act. But he’d never hurt you.”

  “And Edward?” I asked. Hearing his name, Edward climbed out of the wagon. Montgomery let his hands fall to his sides. My waist still felt the ghost of their touch.

  “You’re owed an apology, for sure,” he said to Edward. “He’s protective of his work and wasn’t expecting a stranger. I am sorry.”