by Viola Carr
But had it? She’d no proper proof the potion worked. She’d never conducted a second batch of experiments. She’d assumed that Lizzie’s hostility—her glee at taking over Eliza’s body—had been prompted by the potion. But Lizzie had hurled a vase at Reeve days before that arcane blue liquid had ever passed her lips.
Perhaps the potion hadn’t worked at all. Perhaps Eliza had brought it all on herself by shutting Lizzie out. She’d destroyed Moriarty Quick’s macabre journals along with everything else. Now, she’d never know—and that was for the best.
Her mood sobered. The full moon was fast approaching. What would Remy do? “Did you ever think about staying with them? The lycanthropes, I mean.”
“No.” An awkward half-smile. “Actually, yes. Once or twice. Mostly when I was missing you terribly and wallowing in self-pity. I soon got over it once I saw them in action.”
“But to find someone who understands you . . .”
“You understand me.” He kissed her hair. “You understand love and honor and self-sacrifice. Those people never will.”
She traced his cheek with one finger. “Is it over, with François? Did you get what you wanted?”
“No.” Candid, no hesitation.
She bit her lip. “Oh. Well—”
“You were right.” A shrug, white shirt shifting. “François betrayed me, and I hated him for it. I didn’t realize how much. But then I understood . . . François wanted revenge, too. On his sickness, on me for being well when he was dying. On the world for making him the man he was. But the world doesn’t make us, Eliza. We make us. We choose.” He fingered his amulet, and swiftly slipped the chain over his head and pressed it into her hands. “Take this.”
“What? No, I can’t.”
“Please. Take it. Don’t you see? La Bête offered François his heart’s desire, and it ruined him. Now he’s doing the same to me. A chance for you to be safe, for us to be together. All I must do is surrender and you’ll never need fear me again.”
Suddenly Eliza’s anxiety that Lizzie would interfere, that she’d somehow ruin things, seemed petty and false. “Remy—”
“I can’t just give up, Eliza.” He blinked fiercely on glittering lashes. “It’s an insult to my dead wife and to all the other people I’ve hurt. It’s the act of a coward, and if I did it, I’d no longer be the man you love.” A helpless shrug. “I’m so sorry.”
Slowly, she turned the stone in her fingers. Cold, smooth, unpleasant like a snake’s scales. It winked at her, a sly temptation. Keep me. Use me. Forget your troubles. You know you want to . . .
She’d imagined Remy would sacrifice their future for his mission. But it wasn’t for the mission. It was for everything he held dear. Honor, courage. Her love for him.
Resolute, she hurled the amulet into the fire. Smash! The stone shattered, releasing a curl of evil-smelling smoke. “So much for la Bête.”
Remy stared. “Eliza, think about this—”
“I have. Whatever your troubles, we face them together. I will never be afraid of you.” She watched it sink in, the incredulous shake of his head. Then she quirked a smile. “I’ve survived your mother, after all. Anything less than reckless optimism seems inappropriate.” She kissed him again, her heart lighter. But the prickling nerves she’d been suppressing all day were making merciless reappearance. “Enough, my darling. We need to talk.”
“Of course. The wedding.” He stretched back, a glory of mussed curls and bright eyes. “Well, my mother has finally admitted that it’s possible you didn’t burn your own house down purely to make her the butt of society gossip, so that’s good news. And I was thinking we ought to do Regent’s Park for the breakfast, so long as you don’t mind the rain. Oh, and should I write to your father? Now they’ve left off with the murder charges, I mean. I know you’re dreadfully modern but I never actually asked, and seeing as he keeps a battalion of well-armed thugs ready to thrash the lights out of all who vex him, I thought—”
“Remy?”
A raised eyebrow. “My sweet?”
“I can’t marry you.”
A long, abject silence. He let out a breath. “All right. Well—”
“I don’t mean I won’t. I mean, I do, but . . .” She sighed, and started again. “I want to be with you, Remy, more than I’ve wanted most things in my life. But marriage . . .” She trailed off. How to explain that she, too, sought the courage to be true to herself? He’d think her stubborn and selfish. Not to mention ridiculous.
“But marriage,” he prodded gently, “is an archaic institution designed to control women and glorify the patriarchy, while perpetuating the myths that women need protecting from themselves and men want women to be sexual and domestic servants with no identity or vocation of their own?”
She gulped a heady, hopeful laugh. Was she doomed forever to underestimate him? “Something like that.”
“You have my vote, madam. Go on.”
“Well, much as I adore you, my darling, I am and always have been Dr. Jekyll. The awful trouble of getting a new door shingle, you know, and all my stationery. And ‘Dr. Eliza Lafayette’ just sounds . . .” She wrinkled her nose. “Polysyllabic?”
An enchanted smile. “Fair enough. So . . . ?”
She teased her finger into his chestnut curls. “So since we’ve already got the house, and our staff, and my practice, and you’re obligingly filthy rich and we’ve everything we need, I was wondering . . .”
“Mmm?” His gaze fixed on her lips.
“. . . if we could, well, take the ‘married’ part as read and carry on.” She smiled sweetly. “It’ll be just as good as the real thing. We could stay engaged, so we’re a little bit respectable. If it makes you feel better.”
“You delectable rebel.” His murmur was husky. “I’m shocked. Whatever will people say?”
She yanked his hair playfully. “Since when have you given a rusty pin what people say?”
He sobered a little. “Seriously, people will talk. And it won’t be about me. You know how these things go.”
“Pah,” she retorted comfortably. “They already talk. ‘Look, there goes Dr. Jekyll, the suffragette who plays with dead bodies and consorts with razor murderers. A spinster, you know, washed up at twenty-seven with no man to look after her and a mad scientist for a father.’ Or is it a killer criminal kingpin? It’s so hard to keep up with the gossip.”
Remy laughed. “My love, I couldn’t care less about formalities, so long as I get you. If you mean it, consider me all yours.”
She smacked a kiss on his cheek. “Knew I chose you for a reason.”
“On one condition,” he added with a grin. “You’re telling my mother. If I say I’m canceling the wedding to shack up with a corpse-fixated suffragette, there’ll be nothing left of me but a quivering pile of dust. You might at least get away with only a flayed limb or two.”
“It’s a deal.” She jumped up, buoyant.
He caught her trailing hand. “Not so fast, Doctor.”
Her heartbeat quickened, as he brushed his lips across her palm. “I’m sorry, is there something else?”
“Well . . .” A tingling kiss on the inside of her wrist. “You were saying that our, um, arrangement is just like the real thing.”
“I did mention that.”
He traced a speculative finger around the buttons on her bodice. “So we’re as good as married.”
She arched her back, luxuriating. “As good as.”
“Then make love to me, Eliza Jekyll.” A bright blue twinkle. “So long as you don’t mind the scandal.”
She pushed him back into the chaise with one finger, and climbed after. “Give me a lifetime of scandal, Remy Lafayette.”
Then his mouth captured hers. She kissed him slowly, savoring his breath, his tongue, the hot flavor of his love for her. Her skin sparkled under his touch. His beauty made her ache, his scent of steel and aether and hot skin a delight.
She slid her palms beneath his shirt. His scars fascinated her, his shapes strang
e yet familiar, with a warm thrill of recognition that wasn’t bitter, but enticing. Exhilarating.
He groaned as she settled in his lap, skirts flowing over him. They were still dressed, barely. “Did I ever tell you you’re merciless? At least let me carry you swooning to the bed like a proper seducer.”
“Just you try it.” And she ran, laughing, down the corridor and up the stairs, until they fell together onto warm sheets by firelight.
* * *
In the dark of the morning, Eliza stirred.
Beside her, Remy slept, hair mussed on the pillow, long limbs glistening in the light of the dying coals. She smiled. Careful not to disturb him, she slipped out of bed, padding naked across the carpet. On the mantel, a glass-globed clock ticked, softly counting the hours. Henry Jekyll’s clock. But the white curtains of the bed held no ghosts now. Madeleine was gone. Just Eliza’s own memories, sweet and breathless with pleasure. And they’d make many more.
But for now, she’d things to do.
Her reflection gazed back from the gilt-edged mantel mirror. Hair drifting in a pale halo, her storm-gray eyes shining. Her father’s eyes, deep and liquid and not quite right. A glint of something other.
She exhaled, and changed.
Not with a pop! or a fighting wrench of bone. More like a sigh of contentment.
I wink at the mirror. Hello, Miss Lizzie. My dark curls are like raw silk, my body lush. I slide curious hands over my skin, my curves. Something feels different. Something . . . complete.
You can feed it, or you can fight it.
It’s nice, not fighting. I like it.
I glance at Remy, her lover at last, asleep with his monster contented. He’s beautiful, all strong limbs and hot skin and scars. It’s tempting to crawl back into bed beside him, but the temptation only lasts a moment. Remy’s a fine man, but . . . well, ick. We can’t share everything.
Quiet-like, I sneak over and open the closet. Inside, red fabric lies folded beside gray. When Eliza bought new clothes, she ordered some for me, too. A peace offering, of sorts, after that business with the asylum. I’ll take it, please and thank you. Guess I lost me head for a while there.
I still remember, see, that future that never happened. The hatred in my heart, the death in her eyes as they dragged her away. Funny, when you get what you think you want. Often as not, you don’t want it no more.
Half hidden beneath my dresses, a rolled canvas pokes out, unfurling. A new, perfectly finished painting of a lady in scarlet, hair shining like an angel’s, softly asleep on a green chaise in a world where evil can be tempered by love.
He sent it before he gave himself up. A note attached, no address or salutation. Just two words in his odd left-slanted hand: Sweet dreams.
I could burn her, this new, stronger, happier Eliza. But I let her stay there. It’s a beautiful dream.
Swiftly, I pull on my new skirts. Bright, luxurious Venetian red. Nothing but the best for Miss Lizzie. I’ve business with my father tonight. And there, my lover’ll be waiting, his black velvet hair jeweled with raindrops, a smile in his crooked dark eyes.
Johnny weren’t in lavender after all, see. And don’t imagine sommat as petty as me being someone else half the time will come between us. It’s a funny thing, love. It forgives ’most everything.
I tiptoe down the stairs, and the front door creaks as I slip out. The nighttime streets sparkle clean after the rain. Stars glitter through broken clouds, and the air’s bracing, alive. I stride along, boots splashing, dragon cane over my shoulder, singing. “That dirty no-good robbing Maggie May . . .”
Down in Soho, it’s thriving with music and bright arc-lights. In our room, Johnny’s waiting, my fine fairy beauty. By the fire, Jacky Spring-Heels giggles, scratching his arse and sucking on his long white hair. And in the armchair, dark-eyed and dreadful, slouches Eddie Hyde.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he growls, then ruins it with a dirty-handsome grin.
“Already drunk as a skunk, is you? That’s my papa.” I sweep Johnny into my arms, bending him back like a tango dancer for a kiss. He tastes of gin and sweet desire, and my heart shouts with gladness. Lizzie’s got her man, and she don’t want no other.
“Christ,” mutters Eddie, “put that away, Wild. That’s my friggin’ daughter you’re pawing.”
Johnny’s crooked eyes smolder. “You’re in a mood, sweet ruby Lizzie.”
“Can’t a girl be happy once in a while?” I flop into the lumpy chair beside Jacky. “Now, about the Sultan. Is it coopered, or are we sweet?”
Johnny and Eddie share a grin.
“What, you glocky lunkheads?”
Johnny just gestures to the bed. “That came for you last night.”
In the cushions, like a slumbering cat, sits a lacquered black box. The card, in narrow left-slanting letters, reads Miss Elizabeth Hyde.
Inside, on red satin, there’s a dented black topper, crushed in on one side. A famous hat, that. Almost as famous as the name what once wore it.
Tucked into the band is a single crimson rose.
You’ll never get near him, Johnny said. Not I, for certain. But an expert on murder, with a glittering razor and a selfish thirst for blood?
What favor might I owe you, when you need it most?
Still, my thoughts slide uneasy to that gore-soaked room at Mrs. Fletcher’s. A bloodied diamond ring, the slaughtered remains of a girl unlucky in love . . . and my father drunk to hell in the corner, laudanum on his breath and his shirt drenched tell-tale red. Mr. Todd at his lunatic finest. Now there’s a man with murder in his blood.
I pick up the late and no-longer-Artful Dodger’s hat. Mr. Todd’s rose gleams, a cunning red wink, and I bury my nose in those soft petals. What do you know? It smells sweet.
A peace offering, of sorts. And I’ll take it, please and thank you. Miss Lizzie needs all the friends she can get.
I tuck the rose into my bodice. Tilt the hat rakishly over one eye, a saucy salute. “Gin all round, then.”
Eddie grins, and produces a bottle. “A wake, by God. To the Artful fucking Dodger, may he rot in his own juice. And to Mr. Malachi Todd, the maddest bastard in London bar none.”
“I’ll drink to that.” I grab the bottle, tilt and swallow. Fire rolls in my gullet, a molten-gold glory. God rot it, but Miss Lizzie likes a drink. I pass it to Johnny, who like a good landlord’s rustled up some cups, and he pours and we all three clink ’em high. “God save Your Majesty.”
Because Eddie Hyde’s the King. And there ain’t no other.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to my team of excellent enablers: Elle and everyone at Harper Voyager; my super-agent, Marlene; my ever-patient crit readers, who feed me hot chocolate and endure far too much whining about how hard it is to live in this amazing world of books. To the new cat, who’s mostly learned not to sit on the keyboard. And to readers everywhere, who enjoy Eliza’s and Lizzie’s madcap antics and laugh at my hist-lit nerd jokes—gems, every one of you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Viola Carr is the author of two previous novels in the Electric Empire trilogy, The Diabolical Miss Hyde and The Devious Dr. Jekyll. She was born in Australia, but wandered into darkest London one foggy October evening and never found her way out. She now devours countless history books and dictates fantastical novels by gaslight, accompanied by classical music and the snoring of her slumbering cat.
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ALSO BY VIOLA CARR
THE ELECTRIC EMPIRE
The Diabolical Miss Hyde
The Devious Dr. Jekyll
COPYRIGHT
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
THE DASTARDLY MISS LIZZIE. Copyright © 2
017 by Viola Carr. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Harper Voyager and design are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers LLC.
FIRST EDITION
Chapter opener art © Flat Design/Shutterstock.com
Cover design by Richard L. Aquan
Cover illustration © Gene Mollica
ISBN 978-0-06-236312-1
EPub Edition APRIL 2017 ISBN 9780062363138
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