A Cold Legacy

by Shepherd,Megan

  His face softened in the light of his lamp. Montgomery had destroyed the truth about my past. About my very identity, even. And yet as I looked into his eyes in the lamplight, I remembered how Henri Moreau had manipulated and abused him as a child, making him adore him as a father figure, only to treat him like a slave. And Montgomery had gone along with it all those years, just for the chance of having a father.

  “We’re married now,” I said. “No more secrets between us. Agreed?”

  He held my hand in his, our gold rings glinting beneath the stars. “No more secrets.”

  BY THE TIME WE returned to the library, McKenna had put the little girls to bed and was waiting in the library with Carlyle and Lucy and Edward, discussing how best to strengthen the front doors against attack.

  A floorboard squeaked under my boot and they all turned. Edward stood.

  “Montgomery,” Edward said. His skin had gained some color, though he still moved with just the slightest bit of stiffness.

  Montgomery held up a hand to silence him. “No. Let me speak first. It was wrong of me not to accept that you were back. It caught me by surprise, but I shouldn’t have raised my pistol. I’ve played a hand in my fair share of experimentation, and I’m not one to judge how we are brought into this world, only our nature as we are now.” He absently rubbed the scar on his thumb where his blood had been drawn to make Edward. “I’m glad to see you standing here, and I’m proud to call you a brother.”

  He held out his hand, and after only a slight hesitation Edward stepped forward to take it. Lucy squeezed her pocket watch tight, beaming to see them no longer at odds.

  “I suppose, if we’re making amends,” Edward said in a lighter tone, “I should apologize for all the times I tried to kill you. Don’t take it personally.”

  Montgomery gave the hint of a smile. “As I recall, I also tried to kill you a few times.”

  “Then we’re even.”

  They broke apart, and I smiled to think of the four of us on friendly terms, no more misunderstandings, no more sickness or anger. Our friendships had even overcome death itself.

  Now we just had to overcome Radcliffe.

  I went to the windows, looking down on the flooded courtyard and the road beyond. For all I knew, Radcliffe was already in Quick, just waiting for the road to drain. “We don’t have much time, and there’s much to be done. I have a plan that involves all of you. I want to know your thoughts.”

  We stayed up until dawn discussing how to prepare for Radcliffe’s arrival and the logistics of trapping his men in the courtyard to electrocute them. Montgomery said that he and Balthazar would dig a trench around the rear of the house to force Radcliffe into the courtyard, while Edward and Carlyle reinforced all the doors and ground-floor windows, and Lucy agreed to work with McKenna to stock the barn cellar with supplies to keep the girls warm and well fed during the siege.

  Rain fell against the windows. “Let’s hope the rain holds until we’ve prepared the house,” I said. “The longer it rains, the longer it will take for the road to drain.”

  Montgomery squeezed my hand. “We’ll be ready for him.”

  The following day was a flurry of activity. The rain continued, steady and cold, turning the gardens into a soggy mess. We laid out thick wooden planks along the courtyard to walk across as we went about gathering weapons and ammunition. To my surprise, when I handed Lily and Moira each a rifle and started to explain how to fire, they just laughed.

  “Mistress, we’ve been hunting foxes since we were three years old,” Moira said, and took the rifle with a well-practiced hand.

  By midday, when we took a break to eat some sandwiches McKenna had prepared, the trench was dug and most of the windows were boarded up, and I was starting to feel like we might have a chance after all.

  “I’ve been thinking about the secret passageways,” I said. “In case Radcliffe’s men do get into the house, the passages could be extremely helpful to help us move around unnoticed, but I only know a handful of them.”

  McKenna arranged the sandwiches, thinking. “I have the previous mistresses’ ledgers in my study. One of them tried mapping the passages in the 1770s, but the map’s been damaged. Parts aren’t readable, but it might be a good place to start.”

  She fetched the map and brought it back to the library, where Montgomery and I pored over it. “You and I already know how to travel through the passages without getting hurt,” he said. “It won’t take but a few hours to fill in the blank sections of the map.”

  Frowning, I looked outside in the direction of Quick. The rain was already lessening, and there was still so much left to do. But the passages could save our lives. “Let’s do it, then.”

  While everyone else continued readying the house, Montgomery and I went upstairs to the second floor hallway, to a watery portrait I’d never given much thought to before. Amelia Ballentyne, read the plaque. Her hair was a fair shade of red, but otherwise she looked very much like Elizabeth, her defiant stance, the crooked smile, the mischievous glisten in her eye.

  Montgomery raised his hammer and smashed it into her face.

  I flinched as the canvas and wooden frame shattered, reveal the gaping chasm of a secret passageway beyond that had been sealed away for as long as anyone could remember.

  “Poor woman,” I muttered as he used the hammer to pull away the remaining bits of wood and debris, giving us access. “All this was hers once. She entrusted it to Elizabeth, and now to me. She’d be disappointed if she knew.”

  Montgomery took my hand before I could continue down that dark line of thought. “You must stop doubting yourself. Come on.” We climbed through the broken portrait. The only lights came from seams in the walls. Montgomery’s presence was nothing more than a shadowy figure until he lit a candle.

  “If only Hensley were here,” I said, picking my way carefully along the uneven brick floor. “He could have mapped these passageways with his eyes closed.” I ducked under a jagged broken post. “I keep thinking that if Elizabeth could have gotten away from him, she could have crawled into these passages. She might have survived.”

  “It would be a death trap to be caught in here in a fire, with so few exits and so little ventilation.” He studied the map. “This way.” He turned left and climbed a flight of rickety stairs. We wound around a brick fireplace to continue down the branching hallways. I tried to ignore the hundreds of spiders that must be there and I didn’t see. Montgomery found a crack and peered through.

  “What do you see?”

  “It’s nothing,” he said, straightening a little too fast. “We should keep going.”

  I bent down to look myself and jerked in surprise to find lifeless eyes staring back at me. A deer—one of the white statues from the winter garden. Behind the statuary, Lucy and Edward sat on the wall tucked between the stone fox and stone wolf, speaking in low voices I couldn’t make out. Edward’s pocket watch glinted in Lucy’s hand. She was trying to give it back to him, and he was folding her hand around it, insisting she keep it. His hands stayed wrapped around hers for quite some time, as though he didn’t quite want to let go. She suddenly leaned in and kissed him, and his initial surprise gave way to an embrace.

  My cheeks went red.

  “We should give them their privacy,” Montgomery said softly. “Let them have their happiness wherever they can find it. They might not have too many chances once Radcliffe gets here, even if we do manage to defeat him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He hesitated. “If you or I can’t kill Radcliffe ourselves, then Edward stands the greatest chance of . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “Of killing the father of the girl he loves,” I answered.

  Montgomery looked away; the tension was too high, reminding me that I’d killed the man I’d thought was my own father, a man who’d been like a father to him, too.

  Montgomery stood up. “Come on. We’ve faced a lot worse than him. I’m not going to let a banker take us down, army or no
t.”

  We kept walking, faster now, but I couldn’t shake the thought of Lucy in Edward’s arms. I remembered what it had felt like to kiss Edward—wild and passionate. Was it different now, without the Beast? I could never admit it to anyone, but in a way, I missed that dangerous side of him. For a brief period of time, there had been a creature even darker than myself.

  I shivered.

  “What’s wrong?” Montgomery was at my side in an instant.

  “Just cobwebs. But look.” I pointed ahead, at the gap in the floor I had nearly fallen into my first week at Ballentyne, before Hensley had stopped me. “Another one of Lord Ballentyne’s traps. It’s three stories up. You’d fall to your death.”

  Montgomery marked it on the map, and we took our care stepping over it. “Well, there are worse things than death,” he said in a tone that was strangely distant.

  I cocked an eyebrow. “You mean you’d rather die than be caught by Radcliffe?”

  “No.” In the faint light, his face twisted with indecision. “I mean that if I don’t survive Radcliffe’s attack and you do . . .” He paused. “In the forest, you said you would bring me back to life. I don’t want you to.”

  A draft blew through the passageways, making me shiver. “It worked for Edward.”

  “I don’t care if it works or not. I want to know that this life is the only one that matters. When you can never die, do you ever really live?”

  I could only stare at him. “We have the secret to eternal life, and you don’t want it?”

  “I want only this life. With you.”

  “But I don’t want to lose you.” I intertwined my fingers in his, feeling the sturdiness of the ring around his fourth finger.

  He pressed his lips to mine, silencing those thoughts. I kissed him harder, twisting my hands in his shirt. When Radcliffe arrived, there was no telling what would happen. Like Montgomery said, we had to steal any moments of happiness we could.

  “One last battle,” Montgomery whispered against my cheek. “One last stand, and then we’ll be left to live our lives however we desire.”

  In the darkness and shadows of the hidden passages, I’d never loved him more.

  I won’t let him risk himself, I promised silently. He wants only one life; then it shall be a long one.

  And as I devised a way to keep him safe from Radcliffe’s army, even from his own crazed sense of morality, I kissed him harder. We stayed like that until time was lost. As I broke the kiss, resting my head against his shoulder and breathing in his scent, I heard a muffled voice on the other side of the wall. It was calling my name.

  “Do you hear that?” I asked.

  “It sounds like Lucy.”

  We hurried to find an exit to the passageways back into the house, and when we finally crawled out of the walls, covered in cobwebs, I heard Lucy frantically calling my name.

  She rounded the corner, stopping short when she saw us.

  “Juliet!” she cried. “There are lights on the road, coming fast.”

  I looked at Montgomery in confusion. “But the road is still flooded. The rain hasn’t stopped.”

  She swallowed. “They’ve found some way around the flooding. They’re nearly here.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  WE RACED OUTSIDE TO the courtyard, where Jack and his troupe were gathered with Balthazar. Lights were just visible through the trees.

  Balthazar cocked his head, calculating the distance with his superior hearing. “They are two miles off. On horses and riding fast. Twenty riders.”

  McKenna must have heard the commotion because she eased open the kitchen door. A few little girls peeked out behind her skirt. “I couldn’t help but overhear, Mistress. Should we take the girls to the barn?”

  The little girls squealed with fear. My heart started pounding harder, imagining Radcliffe’s horses pawing the ground. Twenty men. Even with Jack and his troupe, could a handful of servants defend this place?

  McKenna cleared her throat. “What will you have us do, Mistress?”

  The word cut into me. Mistress. That was Elizabeth’s title, not mine. That was the title for a leader, for someone who understood strategy and risk and had a grasp on reason. Ever since Montgomery told me Moreau wasn’t my father, I didn’t even have a grasp on myself.

  Jack Serra took a step forward. “You’ve proven yourself to me, pretty girl. Now prove yourself to them.”

  I gave him an unsteady look, but his gaze didn’t waver. Maybe I wasn’t a monster like Father, but did that make me a leader?

  “Lucy, take the little girls to the barn,” I said, stumbling over commands that felt foreign on my tongue. “Hide in the underground cellar, and no matter what happens or what you hear, stay there until morning.”

  Lucy nodded and gathered the girls.

  “Wait.” Edward took a step toward Lucy. They wouldn’t see each other again until the battle was over, I realized. Edward was needed here with us to defend the house, and Lucy was needed in the barn. He brushed her hair back gently, sweeping the line of her cheek with his thumb. “Be safe,” he said, then leaned in and whispered a few words I couldn’t make out. They weren’t meant for my ears, anyway.

  Lucy covered her mouth with a hand, stifling emotion, and nodded to whatever he’d whispered. She placed a quick kiss on his cheek, aware of the little girls watching, then herded them through the rain toward the barn.

  Lightning flashed in the distance.

  I closed my eyes to grit my resolve. “I want everyone safely inside, except for Balthazar and Montgomery. You two will be posted on either side of the gate. Keep hidden and don’t show yourselves unless we need to surround them. McKenna, lead Lily and Moira to the upper windows and take up arms with Carlyle, but don’t shoot until I give the signal. I want to hear Radcliffe out first. If I can keep this attack from turning violent, I will.”

  The servants nodded and hurried upstairs. The rain was coming harder now.

  “Jack, I don’t want to put your men in any more danger than necessary, but I could use your help. We need people who are physically skilled to climb onto the roof and tear down the wire rigging. Edward knows the full plan—he can explain.”

  Jack nodded solemnly. “We’ve performed acrobatics, at times. We shall be honored to do so again.”

  Thunder cracked, strangely long and sustained. I frowned, turning toward the sound, and realized it wasn’t thunder at all, but hoofbeats. Through the trees, I made out the light of a half dozen lanterns.

  Montgomery took my hand. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a Moreau or a Chastain or a James. I believe in you.”

  I squeezed his hand, hard. “Everyone, get to your posts. They’re coming!”

  The riders came through the pouring rain with all the force of a train engine. Montgomery and Balthazar had silently slipped into their hidden positions on either side of the entryway into the courtyard, with two rifles each and knives strapped to their chests. From where I stood on the front stairs, letting the rain pummel me, I could just make out the brim of Montgomery’s hat. A glance at the windows overhead revealed the tips of rifles at the ready—Carlyle and McKenna and Lily and Moira, ready to follow my orders as they’d once followed Elizabeth.

  I stood alone on the steps as the riders formed a half circle in the courtyard. Five riders, then ten, then twenty, filled the space with steaming horses and rain-slick jackets. I held my head high. The night of the bonfire, Elizabeth had looked so regal and confident. I hoped to summon some of her courage.

  The horses stamped in the flooded gravel. The water came up past their hooves, even to their knees in the deeper puddles. Four of the riders held torches that cast light over the riders’ faces and uniforms. Half wore dark blue police slickers, though by their unshaven beards and slouched posture, I doubted that a single one of them was an actual officer.
The rest of Radcliffe’s men didn’t even bother with disguises: hulking men with thick beards and worn leather jackets splattered with mud.

  Mercenaries for hire, all of them.

  One rider came forward through the flooded courtyard, as the others parted to let him pass. He held no torch, but I didn’t need one to recognize him. That ramrod-straight back. The eyes so light blue they were almost white. Dark hair the same color as Lucy’s.

  John Radcliffe.

  He seemed taller than I remembered. To me he’d always been a financier, the type who huddled over ledgers and accounts in an office, and I’d hardly cast him a second look when Lucy and I had been friends. Now, he sat atop his horse as though he commanded the night itself. My confidence wavered for a moment. I glanced toward the barn, praying Lucy was tucked safely away with the little girls. At least she was spared having to face her own father.

  “Miss Moreau.” His voice was deep and just a little bit weary. “I’ve gone to great expense to find you.”

  I squeezed my fists together. “Elizabeth von Stein is dead. Ballentyne belongs to me now, and I haven’t given permission for you or your men to enter my lands. Leave now and we won’t shoot you.”

  I pointed to the row of rifles in the upper windows aimed in their direction.

  A brief ripple of uncertainty ran through the other riders, making the horses snort and paw at the gravel, but Radcliffe didn’t flinch. “I don’t care if you’re mistress of this estate or a maid cleaning my boots. You can see my men are armed as well. We can avoid bloodshed, but that’s up to you.” He adjusted his horse’s reins. “Now, where is Lucy?”

  I blinked. Of all the demands I had expected him to make, this hadn’t been one of them. I’d told Lucy myself that he was only using her affection to learn my location. Had I been wrong? Was I simply looking at a banker from Belgrave Square who just wanted his daughter back?

  From the corner of my eye, I noticed a wire snaking down the southern wall, hidden in the shadows. It came from the window of Elizabeth’s laboratory, where a few shadowy hands were lowering it as quickly as possible. There was a flash of green satin, and then a dark-skinned face looking down.