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

by Megan Shepherd

  The squeal and groan of metal continued. I wanted to cover my ears, but my hands were immobile. Edward came back into view. The bone saw was gone. His hands were covered in blood. I frowned, trying to deduce its source. Had he cut me? I mentally inspected my feet, my legs, my chest, my arms. I didn’t feel pain. But I didn’t feel anything else, either, except the strangling chains.

  His fingers wrapped around something next to my head. He pulled with straining forearms. Sweat poured off his forehead. The rim of something metal came into the edge of my sight. The sharp edge sliced into his fingers, breaking the skin. The blood on his hands was his own, I realized.

  The more he peeled back the metal, the more I could move my head. At last I twisted so I could see. He’d cut off a metal bonnet with a copper flower and a ribbon of steel and then peeled it back with his bare hands.

  Very peculiar.

  Edward moved to my chest. Another squeal of metal. Straining muscles. Blood dripping onto the table. I could breathe at last. Air rushed into my body, waking my senses. I sat up, shaking off the cold detachment, breathing in lungful after lungful of air. I nearly cried when I saw what he’d freed me from. A metal corset, and below that a metal skirt, already peeled back. There’d never been any chains, I realized. What held me down was a metalwork dress. And Edward, with a butcher’s saw and bloody hands, had painstakingly undressed me.

  Beneath the steel dress I was naked, and I covered myself with my hands, still trembling with the feeling of air and freedom and something else, earthy and corporeal. It was as if I’d woken from a harsh London night into an Italian painting, where the world was lush and warm and passionate.

  I swung my legs off the table. Sweat and blood dripped off Edward’s brow. His hands were latticed with cuts. He didn’t look at my naked body, but instead he inspected my face. He brushed my hair back, studying my features, his eyes dark and unreadable.

  Without the restriction of the clothing, I was filled with a constellation of sensations. I was aware of the smell of cologne mixed with his blood, the rough feel of his trouser fabric grazing against my legs, the desire that seeped from the cuts in his hands, staining the floor.

  He slid a hand behind my waist, his fingers like ice. My bare skin was flush against his bloodstained clothes. His hand brushed through my hair.

  He pressed his lips to mine.

  Coldness flooded into me like a splash of springwater on a winter morning. I gasped with the sensation, feeling suddenly painfully hungry.

  I kissed him back, breathless, wanting so much more.

  FOURTEEN

  I WOKE BURNING WITH sweat. The dream was still fresh in my mind, so fresh I touched my lips with shaking fingertips. I told myself I’d had the dream because of the almost kiss with Montgomery. It had nothing to do with Edward. And now it was daylight, at least midmorning. Mottled sunlight and the distant sound of waves filtered between the bars on my window.

  I’d slept through dinner and all night. I might have slept for days, for all I knew. I wiped my damp palms on the bedcovers. When had I crawled under the sheets? I was wearing a nightdress I didn’t recognize, something expensive with lace at the collar. But when I’d fallen asleep, I’d still been wearing my dressing gown.

  Someone had undressed me.

  I pushed back the sheets as if they were on fire. The memory of the dream flooded back, making me dizzy. Edward’s hands on my naked body. The crisscross of cuts on his hands from peeling back the metal dress. Had Edward undressed me? Was that why I’d dreamed of him?

  No, surely not. He was a gentleman and so shy he’d barely look at me. But then who? Had one of Father’s beastly servants removed my clothes? The thought made the fibers of my stomach shrink.

  I threw open Mother’s trunk, looking for something plain, and found a simple blue dress. I unlaced the unfamiliar nightdress hurriedly, but a breeze from the window made me pause.

  Whispering. The rising and falling cadence of words, carried on the wind, spoken in a language other than human.

  I drifted to the window, watching the trees. Beyond the jungle the sea stretched forever. There were no curtains, making me feel suddenly exposed in only the half-unlaced nightdress.

  I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror. My arms and face were tan. The meager food and harsh weather on the Curitiba had stolen the softness from my face. I slipped the nightdress off my shoulder, turning to see my back in the mirror.

  The puckered flesh of a scar I’d carried since I was an infant ran the full length of my spine. When I was a child, Mother dressed me only in high-collared shirts to keep it hidden. She said it reminded her of my difficult birth and deformed back. My father’s gifted hands had put it right, but not even he could operate without leaving scars.

  Mother was long gone, but not her spirit. Keep it covered, she seemed to whisper. I hurried out of the nightdress and into a chemise, then pulled the blue dress over my head and pulled the collar high around my neck. I’d have to skip a corset. Mine was filthy, and Mother’s were so old-fashioned that I couldn’t lace any of them without assistance. Without it I felt strangely light, and I touched my ribs, thinking of the metal dress in my dream.

  Someone knocked at the door. I squeezed the strange latch, expecting Father or Montgomery or one of the natives.

  But it was Edward.

  “Oh.” The one word was all I could manage. Seeing him brought back the dream with a powerful rush. I bunched my hands in the soft fabric of my skirt to remind myself I was dressed. This wasn’t a dream. He wasn’t some shifting specter. I closed my eyes and leaned in the doorway, dizzy.

  “Juliet? Are you well?” Concern crinkled the skin around his eyes. He took my arm and led me to the desk. He poured water from a pitcher into a glass. “Sit down. Have some water.”

  I took the glass with shaking fingers.

  “I came to see if you were awake. You’ve been asleep nearly eighteen hours.”

  “My carpetbag. In the corner. Bring it here, please.”

  He picked up the ragged thing and set it on the desk without question. I dug through it for the embossed wooden box that held my medication. I opened it and removed one of the glass vials and the syringe. He raised his eyebrows, curious.

  “It’s a chronic illness,” I said. “A glycogen deficiency. I have to take a daily injection or … I get dizzy.” I left out the part about the coma. Edward had his secrets. I could keep a few of my own.

  “I’ve never heard of that.”

  I set the tip of the needle against the vial’s opening. “It’s rare.”

  He watched, fascinated, as I punctured the vial lid and drew in twenty-five milligrams of the treatment. My hands knew the movement by habit, but I’d never injected myself with someone watching.

  I concentrated on the syringe. When it was full, I set it aside and unbuttoned my shirt cuff, rolling it slightly past my inner elbow. Edward shifted closer. I cleared my throat, the dream still too fresh.

  I pressed the tip of the needle to my elbow, above the ghostly blue vein just below the skin. I slid it past the surface, barely flinching, and pierced the vein. My thumb depressed the plunger, and the treatment melted into my blood. I let out a sigh.

  Edward watched from the corner of his eye. I withdrew the needle, wiped it carefully, and put it back in the box.

  The sunlight flickered over the walls. Clouds were forming.

  “You spoke with Father yesterday,” I said. “What did he say?”

  The flecks in Edward’s eyes glowed. He didn’t answer.

  “Did he apologize for nearly drowning you, at least?”

  His gaze drifted, cataloging every item in my room. “He strikes me as the sort who’s never apologized for anything.”

  “You are perceptive.”

  “We worked out a bit of an … arrangement. I don’t think he has any intention of murdering me in my sleep, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  I rolled down my sleeve and fastened the button. The treatment was alr
eady making me clearheaded. I peered at Edward, the flesh-and-blood young man in my room, not the dream specter. Whatever he and Father had spoken of, he wasn’t going to tell me.

  “Well, I’m sorry. If I’d known that’s how he would react—”

  “Don’t. It’s hardly your fault.”

  I ran my fingers around the worn box edge. “I suppose you’re going to tell me your suspicions were right. That only a madman would live out here.”

  He leaned closer. “It’s not just him, Juliet. They carry an arsenal just to step outside. What are they so afraid of?”

  I drummed my fingers on the box nervously. Remembering how in my dream the light from the swinging kerosene lamp lit his face as his hands traced over my naked skin.

  “Did you undress me last night?” I asked bluntly.

  He couldn’t hide his surprise. He ran his hand over the tangled hair on the back of his neck. “Undress you?”

  I squeezed the box, feeling foolish, like I had tested a theory too early. “Never mind,” I said quickly.

  “Why would you think …?”

  “I woke up in a nightdress I didn’t put on.”

  For a moment his eyes searched mine, trying to peer into my head. Studying the sound of our silence. His lips parted, asking a question without ever saying a word.

  Would you want me to undress you?

  He’d hinted at his interest, but how could he expect me to think about such things at a time like this, when I’d just met my father after years apart? And there was Montgomery to consider, and that near kiss, and Edward didn’t even begin to know me. If he knew some of the things I had done, the dark things I sometimes thought, he’d change his mind.

  “I didn’t undress you,” he said, and the silence that came next was heavy between us.

  Breath slipped from my lips, pressed by some invisible force. A connection was growing between us, pulsating between us, in time with the beating of my heart. That might not be my last dream about Edward Prince, I realized. And the next one might not be unwelcome.

  FIFTEEN

  WE LEFT MY ROOM and found Father and Montgomery in the main building. The entire ground floor was one large, high-ceilinged room with wide shutters angled to let in air but keep out the sun. A dinner table sat behind a seating area with a fireplace and stone mantel. A simple staircase led to a second-floor landing with two shut doors, and another door on the ground floor that might have led to the kitchen.

  The furnishings were an eclectic mix of fine but threadbare Rococo-style furniture and a few crudely handmade wooden chairs and tables. In the corner was a piano, its black wood dented and one leg broken, but polished to a high gleam. A sigh slipped from my lips. A breath of elegance whispered here that I hadn’t expected to find.

  Montgomery looked up from cleaning a rifle on the table. He jumped to his feet, wiping his hands on a rag. Just seeing him made me blush, remembering the near kiss in my room that had caused me to unwittingly transform him to Edward in my dream.

  But maybe I’d been misinterpreting. Maybe Montgomery had just been caught up in the dizzying memories of the past, and it hadn’t meant anything more. I’d been the one practically throwing myself against him, after all. The ways of men and women were such a puzzle. And I could barely decipher my own feelings, let alone anyone else’s.

  Father put down his book and looked me over. “Ah, you’re wearing one of Evelyn’s dresses. She didn’t like it, I seem to recall. Too plain. Come sit and have a cup of tea. You’ve missed breakfast by a few hours, I’m afraid.”

  My feet stumbled into the room on his order. A strange sensation overcame me, as though I were stepping into a memory. Something about the placement of the furniture perhaps. Or the smell of Father’s tobacco. Something from long ago that had sunk into that delicate space between the conscious and subconscious.

  I rested my fingertips on the back of the sofa, trying to remember. The feel of the worn velvet evoked shadows of a memory. I stared at my fingers. Had I seen that sofa before?

  The memory almost surfaced, but one of the island natives entered, frightening it away. Dressed in a loose cotton shirt and old blue military trousers, he carried a tea tray and sandwiches. I tried not to stare. Balthazar and the little boy were abnormally hairy, but this man hadn’t a hair on him. Instead, his scalp was covered with lumpy, flesh-colored skin like scales. He was thin, normal height, with nervous eyes, and whereas the others lumbered with their strange legs, he slunk about. He set the tray on the coffee table too abruptly, rattling the cups. He tugged at the cuffs of his shirt, where I saw that the scaly affliction continued to his fingertips.

  “Ah, thank you, Puck.” Father smiled.

  The man’s shifty eyes looked me over, like he’d never seen a woman before. For all I knew, maybe he hadn’t. He slunk off toward a back room, and I let out an exhale.

  A clock on the mantel ticked loudly. Tick, tick, tick. Like the pulsing of my veins. “Where did you get this sofa, Father?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you remember. You were so young.” At my questioning look, he motioned to it. “It’s from the house on Belgrave Square.”

  Belgrave Square. Now I remembered. The sofa, the green chair, the writing desk by the window. This had been our furniture. The same sofa I used to nap on as a little girl. A tear in the fabric ran along the seam. I slid a finger over it, as if by magic I could sew it shut. “Everything was auctioned off years ago. How did you find it?”

  “It’s Montgomery’s doing,” he said, pouring a cup of tea. “A chair is a chair, if you ask me, but he wanted them. And he’s a knack for finding things.” He waved a hand toward the bookshelf by the window. “He’s collected quite a variety of trinkets from our former life. You’ll remember some of them, no doubt. But first, sit down. You’re making me nervous, hovering about. You too, Prince. We’re going to have to find some use for you, you know.”

  I glanced at Edward. He settled slowly into one of the worn leather chairs, and I took the sofa. Father poured me a cup of tea. “How are you feeling? You’ve been diligent about your injections, I hope.”

  “Yes. I feel well. Although …” I took a sip of tea, wishing it would soothe my trembling voice. “I woke in a nightdress that wasn’t mine. I wondered if someone else had been in my room.” I spied Montgomery from the corner of my eye. If not Edward, then maybe …?

  Father dismissed it with a wave. “Oh, that was Alice. She found the nightdress in your mother’s trunk. Ah, speak of the devil.” His gaze hovered in a space behind my left ear. “Come meet our guests, Alice.”

  A shiver tickled the back of my neck. Had there been another person in the room behind me, and I hadn’t noticed? And another woman, on this island full of men? I twisted to look.

  A girl, two or three years younger than me, stood in the shadows at the rear of the room. I started. There wasn’t a single twist to her joints or hunch to her back. Her frame was small but perfectly proportioned. I realized that after being surrounded by the natives’ lilting gaits and protruding jaws, it was her ordinariness that struck me as odd.

  “Don’t be shy,” Father said. “This is my daughter. You’ve heard Montgomery and me speak of her. Come introduce yourself.”

  The girl stepped hesitantly out of the shadows, her chest rising and falling quickly. She was pretty in a natural way, though not entirely without deformity. Her upper lip split and curled to the base of her nose. A harelip. She hid her mouth behind her fingers as she gave me an almost imperceptible nod. She needn’t have felt so self-conscious. A harelip might have caused her great distress in England but was a minor blemish compared to the islanders’ deformities.

  “Pleased to meet you, miss,” she said, so softly I could barely make it out. Her eyes were wide as marbles. Her gaze darted to Montgomery, as if seeking reassurance.

  Father waved absently toward Edward. “And of course you met Mr. Prince last night.”

  She studied the floorboards with those big eyes and didn’t utt
er a word. I imagined she’d never met a fine young gentleman before. With his loose hair and dirty boots, Montgomery hardly counted as one.

  “Now, Alice, won’t you see if Balthazar needs help with the animals?”

  She ducked her head and slipped across the room. She paused at the door to speak to Montgomery. They exchanged a few words I couldn’t hear. Then he laid a hand on her shoulder and smiled.

  I quickly looked away, feeling as if I had observed something I shouldn’t. I realized that I was new to the island, but Montgomery wasn’t. This was his home. He’d likely known Alice for years.

  “And you, Montgomery, see if Puck and the others have the cargo stowed. I don’t want the rats getting into it like last time.”

  Obediently, Montgomery went to the door, where a canvas jacket hung on a peg. A light rain had begun to fall outside. He slipped the jacket on before going outside. It jabbed me like a thorn in the side that he was so quick to do Father’s bidding when he wasn’t a servant anymore. I stood up and went to the bookshelf to find the trinkets Montgomery had collected.

  The top row was filled with books that I vaguely remembered from my childhood. Agrippa, Paracelsus, Albertus Magnus. Shakespeare’s full collection, bound in green with gold embossment. Troilus and Cressida, Edward III, Twelfth Night. I traced the gold lettering with my fingers, trying to remember the stories Father had read. On the next shelf were more books, a glass bottle, and a tin of pipe tobacco. I unscrewed the lid and inhaled deeply. “You used to smoke this back in London. Your professor friend brought it to you from the Caribbean.”

  “Quite right. Professor von Stein. Now that was a man who knew his way around a bottle of brandy. Brandy and a cigar at the Café du Lac, overlooking London Bridge. It didn’t come much better.”

  I didn’t tell him that Professor von Stein had been the one who’d found me employment at King’s College after his banishment. Nor that the professor, like all of Father’s previous colleagues, had renounced his friendship and slandered him as a monster to any who would listen.