Grave Expectations (The Ministry of Curiosities Book 4)

by C. J. Archer

  "Of course she would," Seth protested, quite sincerely.

  I agreed with Miss Redding. Lady Harcourt had been desperate enough to become a dancer to stave off poverty, and she must be desperate now to save her reputation and keep her scandalous background a secret. If her society friends found out, her life in London would be over. She would have to move out of the city to avoid the stigma. The darling of London's social scene wouldn't want that.

  "No, sir, she would not offer us a single thing." Miss Redding pulled her hands free of mine and crossed her arms. Her shyness had completely vanished, replaced by the cold steel I'd glimpsed on our first meeting. "Julia Templeton is a manipulative, ruthless cat who'll do anything to hold onto the position she gained through her marriage. Acknowledging those of us who knew her when she danced at The Al would mean admitting to that past. You must understand, a woman like her doesn't even want to remind herself. So I'm afraid I don't believe she ever said such a thing to you and I'm baffled as to why you would mention her at all."

  "I can assure you, Lady Harcourt did offer to help Mrs. Drinkwater." Just not offer to shelter her, but to assist in my kidnapping. "There must be a reason," I said, for Seth's benefit.

  His face brightened. He stood straighter, taller. "Someone wrote Lady Harcourt a letter, threatening to go to the weeklies with details about her past. Was that you, by any chance?"

  "No!" Miss Redding pulled a face. "I would never do such a thing."

  "Thank you." He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. "You've been a marvelous help. Come on, Charlie. It's time to go."

  He took my hand and pulled me out of the kitchen, barely giving me enough time to toss out a "Thank you," and "Goodbye, " to the very flushed Miss Redding. She looked quite stunned, but I wasn't sure if that was due to our sudden departure or Seth's kiss.

  We raced past Mr. Golightly's office so quickly that he didn't even see us, up the steps and out to the promenade.

  "Slow down," I said as I stumbled.

  He stopped to allow me to regain my balance. "She blackmailed her," he said. "Merry Drinkwater blackmailed Julia into telling her everything about you, and about Lichfield needing a housekeeper et cetera."

  "I suppose." I shook my head. "But she would have had to know about my necromancy in the first place—and Lady Harcourt's connection to me. How? Who told her?"

  "I don't know. We'll ask Merry Drinkwater."

  "How can we do that if we can't find her?"

  "I think Miss Redding does know where her friend is, but won't say. We'll follow her home at the end of the day. It's likely we'll find Merry there."

  He opened the door for me, almost knocking over a woman who was about to enter The Al. She looked up and gasped.

  "Mrs. Drinkwater!" I went to grab her hand but she ran off.

  Seth ran after her. "Gus! Stop her!"

  But Gus must have been half asleep. He tilted his hat back as he sat up from his slumped position on the coachman's seat. "What?" He saw the woman run past and Seth follow. "Blimey!" He too jumped down. "Charlie, watch the horse."

  "I'm not sure it requires both of you," I called after them.

  But he didn't listen to me. He followed after Seth who'd slowed down when several gentlemen eyed him with suspicion. The horse stood quietly, but I reached for the bridle anyway.

  A gloved hand caught mine and something pressed into my back.

  "Do as I say. I have a gun." Holloway! Oh God. He wasn't dead then.

  Pity. "What do you want?" I kept my voice low, level, so as not to startle him. If I moved suddenly, he might fire.

  "I want to save you, my girl."

  "I'm not your girl, and I don't need saving."

  "Of course you do. Look at you, cavorting with men." He spat out the words as if they tasted vile. Despite the strength of his conviction, he was suffering from illness. His grip felt weaker and his hand shook. I could feel the heat of his fever through our clothing, and his breath stank. "The devil is in you, Whore."

  It was pointless arguing with him. He wouldn't listen. His mind was closed, and perhaps touched by the fever, madness, or both.

  There were few passersby, and none seemed to notice my peril. I didn't scream or plead for help. Holloway was just mad enough to kill me there on the street. I wanted to glance back to see if Seth and Gus had seen, but I didn't dare.

  He shoved me. "Up."

  "You want me to drive?"

  "We're going somewhere safe. Somewhere far away so I can exorcise the beast from you without disturbance."

  I plopped down on the seat and grabbed the reins. He stretched his arm around my shoulders and placed the barrel of the small pistol at my throat. My coat collar hid it, but no one was looking anyway.

  "I don't know how to drive," I said lamely.

  "Flick the reins."

  I did and the horse moved off. Another coachman shouted abuse when he had to pull up quickly to avoid a collision. When he saw that a woman drove, he shook his head. "You should be in the home! Leave the drivin' to them who can manage!"

  The horse followed the traffic at a steady pace. I spotted Gus rounding the corner. He didn't see me and I didn't shout out. He would soon notice the coach gone. I felt some sympathy for him and Seth. They would go into a panic when they found me gone.

  But I wouldn't try to fight Holloway, nor would I summon my imp. Not yet. I had the perfect opportunity to ask him who'd helped him escape from prison, and I wasn't going to waste it.

  I only hoped he wouldn't try to kill me first.

  Chapter 14

  "Who helped you escape from jail?" It was the third time I'd asked, and Holloway no longer bothered to answer. The first time, he denied having help, and the second time he said it was none of my business.

  Once we'd left behind the busy streets of central London, driving had become easier. The first half an hour or so had taken all of my concentration to control the horse. Holloway had offered little assistance, only telling me to go faster when the horse slowed.

  "I've never driven before," I snapped at him when he once again told me the pace was too slow.

  "Don't lie to me. I know your whoremaster taught you to ride."

  "First of all, he is not my whoremaster. Or anyone's, for that matter. Secondly, yes he taught me to ride, but not drive." Although I had picked up a little of the technique by watching him and the others. "Where are we going?"

  "Be quiet," he growled. "I taught you to speak only when you're spoken to."

  "Along with a number of other foolish things. 'Novels will corrupt your delicate mind,' is a particular favorite of mine."

  He grabbed my jaw and forced me to look at him. His thumb dug into my skin, mashing my teeth against the inside of my cheek. "Stop it," he hissed.

  I jerked away, only to drive the barrel of the small pistol into my neck. I sucked in air as it bit into my skin. "You're hurting me."

  "Good. The devil only responds to pain."

  He let me go and I remained quiet. I didn't want to risk his ire. He might want to save me, but if I became difficult or a burden, I didn't know what he'd do. His eyes were bright with the fever, his lips pale and his skin glossy. The hand that held the gun at my throat shook. Despite his illness, he seemed alert. He tensed whenever I moved, and that cold metal gun barrel continued to press against me. I couldn't have touched the pendant at my chest even if I'd wanted to.

  We headed north and east through London until the houses became smaller and then gave way to industry altogether. High factory walls lined the road on both sides. Enormous chimneys spewed smoke into the already gloomy sky. We passed an ironworks, a rubber works, dye factory and even a piano maker, with a showroom attached. The air in London was never clean, but here it was thick with the odors and sooty smoke of manufacturing. I could feel it on my face, settling into my skin. The few people out on the street in the miserable weather kept their heads bowed and took no notice of us.

  I'd never been to this part of the city but I'd taken careful note
of our route, and I felt confident I could make my way out again. That's if we stopped soon. I began to worry that Holloway wanted me to drive forever when he finally directed me to enter a lane. It was home to more workshops and factories, but on a much smaller scale, each one jammed up against its neighbor to stake its claim on the street.

  "Pull over here." He pointed to a low, brown-brick building squashed between an upholsterer and a French polishing workshop. "Tie the horse to the bollard near the trough."

  "What if someone tries to steal him or the coach?"

  He didn't answer me. He took the reins and got down first. I followed slowly, not taking my eyes off him. Once on the ground, I touched the pendant at my chest. I could say the words and the imp would save me, but then I wouldn't get answers.

  I needed those answers. Who hated me enough to release Holloway from jail and set him upon me? Was this Lady Harcourt's doing too? Or was it someone outside the committee altogether? Either way, finding out would go a long way to proving my worth to them.

  Holloway fished out a key from his inside jacket pocket and tossed it to me. "Unlock the door and get inside."

  My hands trembled but I managed the task. There was enough light streaming through the high arched windows to see that the factory was mostly empty. An enormous kiln occupied the center of the vast space, its bricks blackened at the mouth. The thick chimney could easily fit two of me, side by side. Broken crates and barrels formed a pile in the corner, and a white powder spewed from torn sacks. Newspapers littered the floor, along with pieces of pottery, some of them jagged and sharp. I took note of all the potential weapons within reach.

  It was colder in the cavernous factory than outside, and I wasn't the only one feeling it. Holloway waggled the gun at me. "Light a fire."

  "Do you have matches?"

  He jerked his chin at the window where a box of matches sat on the sill. I retrieved the box and gathered some newspapers, placing them in the kiln. Holloway dragged over a bag of coal. He was puffing by the time he reached me and sweat dripped from his brow. He wiped it off with the back of his hand and shivered.

  "Hurry up." He hunched into his coat. Whoever had assisted him to escape had given him clothing for winter. He couldn't have retrieved them from home; it would be the first place the police would look for him.

  It made me wonder if his neighbors and parishioners would protect him or alert the police if he had gone to them. Probably not. His reputation would be ruined now. How ironic that I was the cause.

  I finished making the fire and knelt on the flagstone floor to soak up the warmth. Slowly, slowly, my fingers thawed, and I could once again feel my face.

  "You like that, don't you, Devil Child? You're used to the flames of hell."

  I didn't respond. Nothing I could say would convince him that I wasn't possessed by the devil.

  He wiped his brow on the back of his sleeve. His breathing hadn't returned to normal after his exertion. If anything, he looked paler, his skin slicker. He'd lost weight since his arrest. The bones in his face were more prominent, his cheeks and chin sharper. Prison hadn't been good for him.

  Perhaps I should have felt sorry for him, but I couldn't muster any sympathy. I felt nothing for him, not even fear. I'd seen what my imp could do. It might be time to summon it, if I could be sure I could do so before Holloway fired the gun.

  He lowered it to his lap as if it had become too heavy. He wiped his brow again. No, not his brow, his eyes. They were wet. From crying or from the fever? "You were such a good little girl. Such a dear little thing." He shook his head and his lips trembled. He was crying.

  A lump filled my throat. I swallowed it down. I would not feel sympathy for this man, for the life I could have had if he'd never thrown me out. That was the past and I refused to dwell upon it.

  "How?" He spoke so quietly I almost didn't hear him. "How did the devil get in? I don't understand, Lord." He searched the ceiling, but the rafters remained quiet, still. "Why did you forsake my daughter? What did I do to deserve this?"

  Slowly, slowly, so as not to alert him, I raised my hand to the amber. It throbbed in time to my heartbeat.

  "Guide me in this time of need. Help me expel the demons inside her."

  "Who released you from prison?" I demanded again, one last time. "Was it Lady Harcourt?"

  His muddy eyes didn't quite focus on me. He swayed too, but the gun remained steady.

  If I wanted answers, I needed to change questioning tactics. "I had a wonderful childhood. It was filled with everything a little girl needs—dolls, toys, pretty ribbons and an education." Albeit one confined by Holloway's strict beliefs. "And parents who loved me."

  He wiped the beads of sweat off his forehead. "We tried so hard to bring you up a good Christian girl." He shook his head, as if he couldn't believe all that effort had been wasted.

  "You and Mama were my entire world."

  "And you were ours. We never told anyone you were adopted. It seemed unnecessary, when we loved you as much as any parent loved their child." He looked as if he would start crying again. "And yet this is how our efforts are repaid."

  "It's not your fault," I told him. "Or mine. I was born this way. You weren't to know."

  His gaze sharpened. "Yes! Yes, you're right. It's not our fault. We did everything we could. We loved you…but our love could never be enough because of what you truly are. A de—"

  "Don't say it." The pendant throbbed harder, as if the imp were begging me to release it.

  He eyed me for a long moment, as if trying to see the demon he thought lurked inside me. I stared back, unblinking, willing him to see the little girl he'd once called his own. Wanting him to call me 'daughter' again, if only because it meant there might be a chance that I could walk free without hurting him. It was impossible to tell from his fever-ravaged face whether I was getting through.

  "I wish Mama was alive."

  "Do not call her that," he snarled. "She is not your Mama. She never was." He pushed himself to his feet and stumbled forward. For one heart-stopping moment I thought he might fire the gun accidentally. He seemed hardly in control of his own movements as he swayed back and forth. Spittle frothed on his lower lip and sweat dripped from his brow. "She was my beautiful, loving wife." He began to shake and cry, the tears and sweat pouring down his face. "And now she is dead."

  "I miss her," I hazarded.

  "You miss her!" He clutched the gun in both hands and aimed it at my forehead. "She is not yours to miss!"

  "I…I only meant—"

  "Quiet!" He began to circle me slowly, not lowering the gun. I followed his progress, my fingers twitching around the pendant. "I thank the lord every day that he took her so she can't see what you became, you disgusting creature. You filthy, grotesque abomination! If she had learned what lived inside you she would have been appalled. She would have cast out the devil immediately. She was strong, where I have been weak. I should have destroyed it—destroyed you—the moment I saw what you truly are. But I—I couldn't. Sending you away was all I could manage."

  "I was thirteen!"

  "I was too sentimental." He bared his teeth, now yellow and rotting in his gums from lack of care in jail. "I should have cut your throat."

  "You almost did. You're mad."

  "You're wrong. They're all wrong. Only one understands."

  "Who?" I blurted out.

  His eyes burned with the fever, not quite focusing on me anymore. "He can see the devil too. He knows you for what you truly are, and he wants you gone from this Earth, back to Hell, where you belong."

  He. So it wasn't Lady Harcourt. "How did you get out of jail? They thought you were dead."

  "He gave me a foul concoction that slows the heart to almost nothing. Once the effects wore off, I woke up in another room, alone. It was easy for him to get me out of there. No one was watching."

  "He wants you to kill me?"

  "He showed me that I have been weak, that I should have killed you years ago. He gave me this
chance to make amends, to conquer the evil you've brought here. I won't waste it." His fingers flexed around the pistol handle. Squeezed the trigger.

  "Imp!"

  I rolled to the side as the gunshot rang out. My shoulder and hip smacked into the floor despite putting out both hands to save myself.

  "Imp, I release you!"

  Nothing happened.

  I felt at my chest for the pendant, but it was gone. No, no, no! I couldn't summon the imp without touching it. It must have come off when I fell. Where had it gone?

  He aimed the gun again. I scurried across the floor, kicking the barrel toward him as I did so. He dodged it, stumbling to one knee, and the barrel rolled past and into the fire. I got to my feet and ran behind the kiln.

  "Come back, Devil," he snarled. "You cannot escape."

  He was right. I had to pass him to get to the door, or expose myself to reach one of the windows. Where was my pendant? Why had I waited so long to summon the imp?

  Because I wanted answers. I wanted to convince him that I was still his daughter. My foolish delay had almost got me killed; it might yet. Without the imp, I had to get free on my own. If Holloway didn't have a gun, it might have been possible to overpower him, but even in his fevered state, he could still shoot.

  "Come back here." His snarl came from closer than I expected. He was rounding the kiln to my left, so I moved to my right.

  I continued around the large oven, back to where he'd been standing when he fired. A beam of late afternoon sun glinted off the pendant lying on the floor a few feet away. Too far. He would see me if I tried to retrieve it.

  I needed a distraction.

  A piece of wood from a broken barrel cracked as the fire caught it. The end stuck out, unburned, just near my feet. I picked it up and threw it as hard as I could into the pile of barrels and crates. It didn't quite reach, but skidded across the floor, spitting off sparks and sweeping up pages of newspaper in its path.

  Holloway gasped. "Are you trying to frighten me, Devil?"

  I pounced on the pendant. It flared to life in my gloved hand. "I release you, Imp. Come out now."