“Be careful!” she called.
“You, too!” I called back. For a second, I wondered if I was making a terrible mistake by leaving. Lucy had had such a wild look in her eye when she’d devised that plan to murder Edward and reanimate him. Which was the greater danger, I wondered—Valentina going to the police, or leaving Lucy alone with Edward?
Montgomery cracked the reins again, and the pony trap leaped into the night. In the lighter carriage, with only three of us, we tore down the path to Quick at twice the speed as our ride in.
“We’ll have to ride all day to catch up to her,” Montgomery said, “but with the hackney coach, she’ll be forced to stay on the main roads. Try to rest, while you still can.”
WE RODE INTO THE dawn and out of it again. The morning and early afternoon passed amid endless roads that all looked identical, with the frost-coated heather reaching out of the land like crystal skeletons. McKenna had packed us a small bag of scones and apples, which we ate on the way so we wouldn’t have to stop more than necessary. Montgomery had immediately identified the hackney coach’s tracks in the muddy roads.
“Her horse is getting tired,” he said, examining the tracks. “Another hour or two and we might catch sight of her. If anyone’s going to prison it’s her, for stealing Elizabeth’s property. Not you.”
My stomach tightened. Prison. I thought again of those socks my mother had knit for the prisoners in winter so they wouldn’t get frostbitten. Would Mother have chased down a girl who just wanted the best for the manor? Balthazar’s head turned, blinking in the cold. Frost had formed on his long eyelashes.
“What’s that, Miss?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said, not realizing I had spoken aloud. “I was just thinking of my mother. I wish you’d had a chance to know her, Balthazar. She was a kind woman.”
Montgomery nodded beneath the wide brim of his hat. “When my own mother died, she took me aside after the funeral and said I would always have a place with the Moreau family. Beautiful and thoughtful. Just like you, Juliet.” Something caught his attention on the road ahead, and he frowned. “That’s odd. The main road to London continues to the left, but Valentina’s tracks go to the right.” He stopped the pony trap at the fork in the road. “It leads through Kielder Forest toward Brampton. Nowhere of significance.”
“Are you certain you’re following the right tracks?” I asked.
“As certain as I can be.” He cracked the reins, leading the horse in the direction of Kielder Forest.
Trees started to rise on either side, a dense forest filled with shadows. The ground was frozen solid, and we couldn’t make out her wheel tracks. I bit my lip, hoping that Montgomery’s skill as a tracker wouldn’t lead us astray.
After ten minutes of riding through the forest Balthazar sat up, on alert. “Ahead. I can smell the horse.”
Soon Montgomery and I made out the black dot on the horizon that Balthazar had sensed with his keen nose. Montgomery whipped the stallion faster.
“That’s Ballentyne’s hackney coach, all right,” Montgomery said. “She’s driving it like a madwoman. If she hasn’t yet spotted us, she will soon, but it doesn’t matter. There’s nowhere for her to go with the trees on either side. I’ll try to ride alongside her and knock her off the road. Juliet, keep that rifle on hand, just in case.”
“I promised not to hurt her.”
“I didn’t,” he said.
He cracked the whip again and we gained more ground. Her coach bumped and jerked over holes in the road, moving so fast I expected it to tip at any moment.
“Get ready,” Montgomery said.
The road turned sharply ahead, hiding her from view for a few seconds. When we rounded the bend, suddenly she wasn’t there.
“Blast and damn!” Montgomery cursed.
I sat up, heart pounding. “There! She turned and drove deeper into the forest. There are pathways just wide enough for her to pass.”
“She’s mad,” Montgomery said. “The coach will never make it through those woods.”
He tugged on the rein as hard as he could to direct the stallion in between the trees. The pony trap bumped over roots and dips so hard I had to hold onto the sides of the trap to keep from getting thrown out.
“Ride alongside her, if you can!” I yelled.
“The path isn’t wide enough,” Montgomery answered. Soon we were close enough that I could see her dark hair whipping in the wind from the path that ran parallel to ours.
“Valentina, stop the coach!” I yelled. She tossed me a look of pure hatred before we were separated by a stand of trees. Balthazar had to duck to narrowly avoid a low branch. We passed the trees and I could see her again. “Valentina, stop and we can talk about this.”
“I wanted Ballentyne!” she yelled. “I planned for years to get into Elizabeth’s good graces. I was fifteen years old, an orphan, when I first overheard actors talking about her at a fair. A woman who lived as free as a man, and could perform miracles without witchcraft, and who would teach girls anything they wanted to know—but only girls with deformities. I knew that was the life I wanted. I did whatever I had to.” She held up one of her hands, gloveless against the cold, so porcelain white against the dark skin of her wrist. Bile rose up my throat as I started to comprehend what she was saying.
“Don’t you understand, you spoiled girl? I cut off my own hands to gain admittance to Ballentyne.” She whipped the horse harder. “I sacrificed everything; then you came along and ruined it!”
“It wasn’t my fault!” I yelled back.
“Yes it is, and I’ll see you in jail for it!”
I shrieked as another tree blocked our path, and Montgomery narrowly steered us out of the way. Valentina wasn’t as lucky, nor was she as good a driver. She saw the tree too late. Her horse leaped out of the way, but the back of the lumbering coach clipped it, and the wheel spun off. The entire hackney coach went smashing to the ground, freeing the horse, which took off wildly into the trees with half the harness still around its neck. The rest of the carriage went hurling at incredible speed. Screams filled the air—Valentina’s and my own, as I watched in horror.
Her coach slammed into another tree. The rear end tipped over, flipping once, then twice. The sound of shattering wood ricocheted through the forest. I gasped. Time seemed to move too fast. There was nothing any of us could do to stop it. I caught a glimpse of her dark hair as she was thrown from the coach, her porcelain white hands desperately reaching for something to stop her, but finding nothing.
The coach shattered against a tree.
I knew I’d hear the echo of that crash for years to come.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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SIXTEEN
MONTGOMERY DREW THE CARRIAGE up sharp and the three of us jumped out. We tore over twisting roots to reach Valentina’s coach. It was on its side, nearly unrecognizable in its destruction. I was the first to hear Valentina moan.
“She’s here!”
I raced around the wreckage, tripping on a shattered strut, and stopped up short at the sight. I cupped my hand over my mouth to stifle a gasp. The driver’s portion of the coach had been torn completely off and now lay across Valentina’s middle.
“Balthazar,” I called. “I need you!”
I knelt in the wreckage, tossing off the scraps of wood that were light enough for me to lift. Her hair streaked her face, and when I brushed it back, it caught on a line of blood seeping from her mouth. She coughed, and more blood came. I dared a glance back at the beam pinning her down—right across her essential organs. Balthazar and Montgomery came stomping through the wreckage behind me.
“Hold on,” I said. “We’re going to try to get you free.”
“Juliet Moreau,” Valentina whispered angrily, voice barely a sound. “Just a spoiled girl with her pretty toys, who cares nothing for anything or anyone else.”
> “Shh,” I said, and signaled to Balthazar. “Over here. Can you lift this beam?”
“Aye, miss.” He wrapped his big hands around the end, then strained with all his strength to lift it off Valentina. She moaned painfully as more blood poured from her mouth. Balthazar tossed the beam to the side.
“Montgomery,” I said, kneeling next to her again. “Is there anything you can do?”
He bent next to her but didn’t bother to inspect her wounds. He grabbed her shoulder instead. “Where were you going?” he demanded. “You veered off the road to London. If not to Scotland Yard, where?”
“Montgomery, she’s dying!”
He ignored me and fixated on Valentina instead, but she just coughed more blood, and then let out a joyless laugh. “You might have stopped me, but I’m not alone. Someone is very desperate to find you, Miss Moreau. All of you.”
“Who were you going to meet with?” Montgomery demanded.
She convulsed once, twice, her lips stained with blood, and then she sagged against the wreckage.
I put a hand over my mouth. “She’s dead.”
Balthazar removed his cap out of respect. Montgomery leaned over, letting his loose hair hide his face, and then he took a deep breath and tossed his hair back. He started going through her dress pockets.
“Montgomery, must you do that?”
“She was planning on meeting with someone. We need to know who. She was going to have you arrested, Juliet, so don’t spare her any sympathy.”
He dug through her coat pockets and came up with nothing, then picked up a leather satchel strapped across her chest. He freed the strap with his knife and pulled out a handful of telegrams.
“Let me see those,” I said.
There was a blank where a telegraph operator would normally type the address of the sender; Valentina must have sent it from Quick but specified that she wanted her location kept confidential.
Her first telegram read:
RESPONDING TO THE SPECIAL MEMORANDUM
KNOW WHEREABOUTS OF JULIET MOREAU
INQUIRING ABOUT REWARD
I felt a burst of panic. She’d already contacted Scotland Yard? I hurried to read the next few telegrams.
REWARD 10,000 POUNDS
PRIVATE INVESTIGATION DO NOT GO TO THE POLICE
WHERE IS YOUR LOCATION
I paused. A private investigation led by someone who didn’t want the police involved? That was even more frightening. Who would want to find us, without the police’s knowledge?
Valentina’s response read:
YOUR IDENTITY IS ANONYMOUS
SO IS MINE
WANT TO MEET TO DISCUSS TRADE
The final telegram read:
MEET AT STONEWALL INN NEAR INVERNESS
ON THE EVE OF SAINT TIMOTHY’S DAY
“What do they say?” Montgomery asked.
“It isn’t the police looking for us, at least not in any official capacity,” I said in confusion. “There’s someone else behind it all paying for the police to run a private investigation. She was going to Inverness to meet with them.”
“Not the police?” Montgomery said. “Then who? We killed all the King’s Club members who would have attempted any kind of retribution.”
“We must have overlooked someone,” I said. “Or perhaps a member of Dr. Hastings’s family.”
A crow cawed overhead and I jumped.
“We have to go to that inn near Inverness,” Montgomery said. “We have to know who she was meeting. It’s never going to end, not unless we know who’s behind this search.” He looked up at the sky, where the sun was getting low. “It will be another few hours to Inverness. If we don’t leave now, her contact might leave.”
“What about her body?” Balthazar asked. “It isn’t right to leave it here.”
“I know, my friend,” Montgomery said. “The Christian thing to do would be to bury it, but I’m not feeling very Christian at the moment, and time is running out. We can say a prayer for her on the road.”
Balthazar whined low in his throat, unhappy to leave her body amid the crows, but he followed Montgomery obediently back to our pony trap.
I rested a hand on Balthazar’s shoulder. “Someone will find her horse,” I said softly. “They’ll follow it back here and give her a proper burial.”
Montgomery cracked the reins. I looked overhead, where the sun was murky behind a film of thin winter clouds. A gust of cold wind chilled me and I took a swig of the brandy Elizabeth had given me. It sat in my belly, stickily warm, like a sense of foreboding.
Who were we going to encounter at that inn, I wondered, and why were they so desperate to find me?
INVERNESS WAS A MODERN industrial city, dirtier than London and substantially colder. The pony trap must have made for an odd sight, but no one spared us a glance as they huddled in their coats, hurrying to go about their day and head home. We stopped to ask directions and learned the Stonewall Inn was the city’s grandest hotel. As we pulled up and saw the palatial inn’s lights, my sense of foreboding grew.
“Whoever her contact is, he must have plenty of money to stay here,” I said.
“I should imagine so,” Montgomery said. “Paying off Scotland Yard doesn’t come cheap.”
We climbed out of the pony trap in an alleyway between two millinery shops. “We’ll have to be cautious,” Montgomery said. “They’re sure to recognize you if they see you, Juliet, and chances are our mysterious pursuer knows my identity as well. Perhaps even Balthazar’s.”
I peeked around the edge of the shop at the gentleman and ladies climbing out of their carriages in front of the inn. All of them were dressed in finery, a stark contrast to our drab northern clothes. “I have an idea,” I said. “There’s more than one way to blend in. Balthazar, you stay here with the horse and be ready to make our escape. Montgomery, come with me.”
We silently climbed the inn’s garden gate and slipped into the hotel’s rear entrance, where grocers were unloading boxes of cabbage. I signaled for Montgomery to pick up a box so it looked like we belonged there. We entered the kitchen, which was in the midst of hectic preparations for the feast of St. Timothy’s. That was fortunate for us—no one gave us a second glance.
I tugged my hair lose from its chignon and pulled it back into a simple braid, then tapped the shoulder of the youngest-looking kitchen girl. “I’m supposed to start today, but they haven’t given me my uniform yet.”
The girl barely glanced at me as she strained under a casserole dish. “Second door there,” she said, jerking her chin toward a hallway. “And hurry, we need all the help we can get.”
I grabbed Montgomery and pulled him down the hallway into the linen room. He already wore dark pants, so all he needed was a crisp white serving shirt and an apron. I changed into a kitchen maid’s dress.
“Trust me, this will work,” I said, fumbling with the apron ties. “I spent years as a maid. No one makes eye contact with you. You might as well not even exist.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Montgomery said, turning me around to finish doing up the buttons of my dress. “I recall quite well what it felt like to be a servant.” He spun me back around, and in the cramped room we were only inches apart. His hands lingered on my waist. “I remember wishing desperately that you would look at me. Speak to me.”
I swallowed, suddenly very aware of his proximity. There had been a distance between us ever since the King’s Club massacre, a tension that ate away at my insides like hunger. But beneath it all, I still loved him fiercely. “I did speak to you.”
“Only because you were lonely for a playmate. Or to ask me to make a fire in your bedroom hearth.”
I slid my arms around his neck, looking him fully in the eye. “Well, I see you now,” I said softly. “I’d like to spend the rest of my life looking at you. And from now on, I’ll make the fires.”
He kissed me. It was quick, before anyone might walk in, and it made me believe that somehow we’d work out all our differenc
es. He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Be careful tonight, Juliet.”
“You, too.”
I opened the closet door and we snuck back into the kitchen. Maids were carrying rows of identical serving trays, and I picked one up. Montgomery joined a group of male attendants preparing to serve the wine. We gave each other one last look before the doors opened and we filed into the dining hall.
After the blazing lights of the kitchen, I wasn’t prepared for the abrupt shift to dim candle lighting, quiet music from a string quartet, and the soft chatter of the upper classes. For a moment I felt torn between the various stations in life I had held—I’d been born into this world of wealth only to have it torn away and been left as a maid.
To be honest, I wasn’t certain which I preferred.
I glanced at the line of male attendants across the room. Montgomery was taller than the others by a few inches, and his long hair stood out even swept back, but I doubted any of the diners noticed since they were so caught up in their own trivialities.
The girl at my rear jostled me, and I realized I was staring. I followed behind the two girls ladling soup into china bowls and set down a dinner roll with silver tongs. I kept my head down so my hair would partially hide my face, but tried my hardest to search the room for familiar faces. The man or men searching for me had to be in this room somewhere.
My group of serving girls moved to the next table, where Montgomery was serving wine counterclockwise to us. I caught his eye as we passed.
“See anything?” I whispered.
“Not yet. Check the empty seats—they’ll have saved a seat for Valentina.”
I nodded and we continued serving in opposite directions. I had no idea who I was looking for. What if it was a family member of Dr. Hastings, furious at me for killing the man? Or someone who knew I was related to the Wolf of Whitechapel’s killing spree across London?
I was so lost in my thoughts that I bumped into the maid in front of me and accidentally dropped my roll. I gasped as it landed in the lap of a black-haired young gentleman. The other maids froze.
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