A Cold Legacy

by Megan Shepherd

  He cocked his head, unconcerned. A strange voice whispered in the back of my head that he’d never looked more human before.

  “Why aren’t you attacking?” I demanded.

  “Why aren’t you?” he countered.

  I aimed the gun at him again. This was just another game to him—show a well-calculated flash of humanity, confuse me, then once I started questioning myself he’d tear me to pieces. I clenched my jaw. I aimed the pistol between his eyes, at the diseased brain that was his origin. At only ten feet, I couldn’t miss. And yet my finger wouldn’t pull that trigger.

  “Well?” He even moved a step closer to make my aim better. “Now that you’re faced with killing me, it isn’t so appealing, is it? Because without me, there’s nothing darker than your own heart. I’ve always been more ruthless than you. Without me, you’ll be left to stare at your own capacity for evil.”

  “Stop talking,” I hissed, cocking the pistol. I urged my finger to shoot. He’s toying with you. He’d say anything to make you spare his life.

  And yet try as I might, I couldn’t pull that trigger. In some terrible way, I agreed with part of what he said. Having the Beast meant I wasn’t the most violent person in the room, nor the darkest. Besides, it was Edward’s face looking at me, and a little bit of Montgomery’s as well, and even a bit of my own.

  “You can’t do it, can you?” There was a ring of sympathy to his voice that had never been there before.

  Suddenly, one of the cabinets flew open, and Lucy sprang down, the surgical knife gripped tightly in her hand. At last I understood why the pots and pans were on the floor—she’d emptied the cabinet as a place to hide.

  She hurled herself at the Beast. “Maybe she can’t, but I can.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  LUCY DUG THE BLADE into the side of the Beast’s neck before he could react. I froze. This was Lucy, who was afraid of practically everything, who had never so much as smashed a spider under her shoe.

  “I should have done that the first time!” she yelled.

  She drove the blade deeper into his neck, letting his blood spill out onto the floor, but he overpowered her. I screamed as he pulled away, wrenching the knife from her, letting it clatter to the floor.

  At the same time, Montgomery and Balthazar appeared in the kitchen doorway with rifles. Shock flickered over Montgomery’s face but died quickly: he was a trained hunter, and it didn’t take him but a second to raise the rifle.

  The Beast clamped a hand over the bleeding wound on his neck, stumbling out of the kitchen’s rear exit toward the winter garden. Balthazar lumbered after him, while Montgomery knelt by my side.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Hurry. If he goes back outside, he might find the girls.”

  A bellow sounded from the direction of the winter garden, interrupting me, and we all jerked our heads around.

  “That was Balthazar!” Lucy gasped.

  The three of us raced toward the winter garden. Visions flashed in my head of terrible things: the Beast with a knife through Balthazar’s gut, carving him up like his victims in London.

  Montgomery made it to the winter garden first and stopped short. I caught up to him and my hand shot to my mouth.

  “Dear God.”

  Balthazar stood by the side of the glass-enclosed garden between the white statuary of a deer and a fox. He was perfectly unharmed, though I’d never seen such a look of shock on his face. He let out another bellow—not one of pain, but of fear.

  In the center of the room, within a growing pool of blood, lay the Beast. I didn’t need to see his face to know he was dead. I’d seen enough dead bodies in my day to recognize a chest that didn’t rise for breath, limbs that sagged lifelessly.

  Behind him, standing perfectly still, was Hensley. His hands were covered in blood up to the elbow, bits of blood and flesh splattered across his face and high-collared shirt. In his hands he clutched the Beast’s heart, red and dripping.

  He looked at us calmly, then wiped the back of one hand over his blood-splattered cheek. “I was tired of him,” Hensley said. “He wasn’t much fun.”

  He dropped the heart to the floor, where it splashed in the puddle of blood.

  A shiver of terror ran up my spine, vertebra by vertebra. I had thought there couldn’t be a creature more dangerous than the Beast, and yet now he lay dead at my feet, defeated so easily by a little boy who had died three times over. When I glanced at Montgomery and Lucy, they were both as white faced as I was.

  Hensley turned to me.

  “Now can I have a story?”

  I WATCHED THE SUN fall on Ballentyne from the windows of the library, where I sat on the green velvet couch, still dressed in my bloodstained clothes, reading to Hensley from a book of Scottish folktales. My hands were unsteady as I turned the pages, and my voice shook. Montgomery sat across from me with the silver pistol hidden under his coat, aimed at Hensley should his mood suddenly shift.

  I finished the story, and Hensley burrowed closer to me with sleepy eyes. “Another one, please.”

  I glanced at Montgomery, who nodded solemnly. I kept reading. After his startling display of violence, we had decided to do whatever Hensley asked while the others ran outside to fetch Elizabeth. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the little boy nestled at my side. It was hard to imagine him capable of such violence while he was listening to bedtime stories.

  Footsteps sounded at the door and Elizabeth rushed in, panic on her face—Lucy must have told her what happened. Moira was right behind her. Elizabeth swept into the room and pulled Hensley into her arms.

  “Enough stories, darling,” she said, trying to keep her voice light. “Look at you—dirty through and through. Moira will give you a bath and then read all the stories you like.”

  She passed the sleepy boy, even now nodding off and rubbing his eyes with little fists, into Moira’s arms. Only once they were gone, and the library door was closed and locked, did I let out a ragged breath.

  “Blast it all, Elizabeth, you didn’t tell us he was that dangerous.”

  She gave me a hard stare. “He saved your lives, didn’t he?”

  “You didn’t see the look on his face! He killed the Beast on a lark because he was bored with him. He ripped his heart out of his chest like he was pulling weeds.”

  Elizabeth pulled at her collar, pacing. “He doesn’t ever do it from malice. He’d never hurt any of us intentionally.”

  “As long as we do what he wants,” I said. “What if we refuse to play games and read him stories?” My gaze dropped to the ring of bruises around her wrist, and she tugged on her sleeve anxiously.

  “I’ve managed him for fifteen years,” she said. “I can keep him under control now. I’ll have two girls watch him at all times. In the meantime, I sent Lily to clean up the kitchen and winter garden and to attend to the Beast’s body. You should all change clothes. You’re covered in blood.”

  Lucy looked down at her dress as if only just realizing this. “I want to help,” she said in a shaky voice. “With the body. That was Edward once, and the least I can do for him is take care of him now.”

  She started for the door.

  “Wait,” Elizabeth said, and Lucy paused. “There’s something else we need to discuss, and you’re an important part of it, Lucy.” She turned to Montgomery and me. “When the Beast locked us in the cellar, Balthazar told me what happened when you pursued Valentina.”

  I exchanged a glance with Montgomery. “Her death was an accident. We didn’t kill her.”

  “I believe you,” Elizabeth said. “Her death is unfortunate—she was an essential part of this place. We shall notify the younger girls in due time, but at the moment I’m more concerned with Mr. Radcliffe. Balthazar told me he’s the one who’s been looking for you. Are you positive he didn’t follow you back here?”

  “Beyond a doubt,” Montgomery said. “Balthazar would have smelled horses following us. We’ll have to avoid any cities for a few
months, maybe even a year or two, but that’s a small price to pay for our safety.”

  Lucy had flinched at the sound of her father’s name. “Papa is the one after us?”

  I cast her a worried look. “Oh, Lucy, I’m sorry. I hadn’t wanted you to find out. Don’t worry, we were able to lose him in Inverness. The manor’s location is still secret.”

  “B . . . but the article Papa wrote in the newspaper,” Lucy stammered. “He said he repented his association with the King’s Club. He said it was all a mistake on his part.”

  “We think he was just trying to clear his name and cast off any suspicion about his true intentions,” Montgomery said.

  “His true intentions?” Her face had gone quite white.

  “Retaliation, we think. For killing his colleagues.”

  “But what about the part where he said he and Mother were worried about me? Couldn’t that be why he’s after us, to find me?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said softly. “I can’t imagine it was anything other than a ruse to draw you out and lead him to us. I’m sorry. I know what it feels like. My father used my affections for him as well.”

  Lucy hugged her arms over her bloody dress as though she refused to believe it. “So they don’t care about me at all?” She dragged a hand through her wild hair and started for the hall in a daze, choking out a sob. I went after her, but Montgomery shook his head.

  “Give her some time. It’s a lot to take in.”

  Elizabeth reached for the bottle of gin, hands shaking slightly, pouring herself a glass. “The poor girl.” She took a sip, closing her eyes, leaning one hand against the wooden bookshelves. “And I still can’t believe Valentina would turn on you like that. I thought I knew her better. We shall have to hold a funeral for her, regardless. For the Beast as well, I suppose, even if he was a monster.”

  “No,” I said. “We’ll mourn Edward’s passing, not the Beast’s. It was Edward we all cared about, particularly Lucy. You saw how distraught she was just now. . . .” I paused, head cocked toward the door where Lucy had disappeared. She had been upset over the news of her father’s pursuit, yes, but she hadn’t actually said a word about Edward. It felt strange, given how in love with Edward she had been, that she wasn’t mourning his death more.

  An itch tickled behind my left ear, the start of an idea. Or rather, a suspicion.

  Lucy had wanted Edward dead all along so we could cure him through reanimation. She’d admitted to unfastening the chains and planning to slit his throat while he was sleeping. That was all before the Beast’s wild rampage, of course, but the fact was, she had achieved what she’d set out to do.

  Edward was dead—just as she’d wanted.

  Was it possible that she still held on to some desire to bring him back?

  I shook myself out of such dark thoughts. No, of course Lucy wouldn’t be thinking of such extreme possibilities. Why was I even thinking of them?

  “As far as Radcliffe goes,” Elizabeth said, “I know a bit about him, and he isn’t a man who gives up easily. My guess is that he’ll only expand his search now with renewed vigor. We should send someone to look into what he’s planning and make sure he doesn’t discover our location.” She glanced out the window, toward the south fields where we’d held the Twelfth Night bonfire. “I suggest we send Jack Serra. He has a talent for slipping in and out of the shadows. His troupe left a few days ago, but they can’t be further than Galspie. Carlyle can send him a message.”

  Montgomery frowned. “Jack Serra?”

  “He’s one of the carnival performers,” Elizabeth explained. “You must not have met him at the bonfire. Troupes like his are always on the move this time of year. He’ll be able to enter London unnoticed to spy on Radcliffe.”

  Montgomery and I exchanged a glance, and he nodded. “Then send him, with our thanks.”

  Elizabeth stood. “I should check on Hensley. For the love of God, take a bath, both of you. Get a meal, and then a good night’s sleep.” She opened the door, then paused. “I am sorry about Edward.” She cleared her throat. “And I know this sounds a bit petty right now, but the dressmaker in Quick sent several pairs of shoes for you to try on, Juliet, to go with the dress she’s making. I’ll have them brought to you tomorrow.”

  She left, and I squeezed my eyes shut.

  A wedding, and a funeral, and my best friend’s father scouring the country to hunt us down for vengeance.

  “I thought life at Ballentyne would be simple,” I said.

  Montgomery came over and pressed a kiss against my temple. “It will be. But not yet.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  OVER THE NEXT FEW days, a despondency fell over the house. The servants were used to strange experimentations—they bore the scars of Elizabeth’s surgery themselves—but nothing could have prepared them for the Beast. I tried to explain that two souls had shared his body, one evil and one kind, but they hadn’t known Edward like I had.

  Montgomery avoided dealing with Edward’s death by throwing himself into work: the pony trap strut had broken on our ride back from Inverness, and he pounded away at it with hammers and nails until his hands bled. Lucy also went about her work as though his death hadn’t affected her, nannying the younger girls and helping Balthazar with his reading. I watched her closely for signs of mourning but saw none, and it only made me more uneasy.

  We held a small funeral service in the cellar chapel. McKenna came out of kindness, wearing her thick rubber boots, hovering in the doorway as if she was afraid her presence might disturb us. We formed a loose circle around the shrouded body. Elizabeth had performed small repairs on the cadaver to make it presentable: stitched up wounds, replaced the heart in his chest cavity. Lucy picked at her fingernails. I would have expected her to be hysterical, but her eyes weren’t even red.

  Balthazar drew something from his vest pocket and set it on Edward’s shrouded chest. A paper flower, clumsily made, but sweet and childlike.

  “That’s lovely,” I said.

  “The carnival folk taught me how to make it.”

  I looked back at the paper flower in surprise. Leave it to Balthazar to make friends with drunken transients and shysters. McKenna produced a Bible and Balthazar offered to recite some passages, thumbing through the delicate pages with big graceless fingers but reading with a steady voice.

  “‘Help us find peace in the knowledge of your loving mercy,’” he read, finger tracing the words. “‘Give us light to guide us out of our darkness.’”

  What’s wrong with the darkness? the Beast’s voice echoed in my head. Without darkness, there is no light. Without me, there’s no Edward. Without your father, there’s no you.

  A shiver ran through me.

  After the funeral, I paced the house restlessly until everyone had gone to bed, and then knocked on Montgomery’s door. He was in bed, reading by the light of a candle, but one look at my face and he closed the book.

  “Juliet. What’s wrong?”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose as I sat on the edge of his bed. “Listening to Balthazar read at the funeral today got me thinking. Father could have saved Edward, I know it. I didn’t tell you this, but I had my fortune read by the fortune-teller, Jack Serra. He said I was destined to follow Father’s footsteps. I think . . . maybe he was right. If I had, I could have saved Edward, too.”

  I turned, afraid my confession would only drive Montgomery further away. But instead he smoothed my hair back gently. “Just a fortune, that’s all. You know how those carnival types work. Say something vague and let you impose your own meaning on it.”

  “Yes, I know, but that’s just it. Magic fortune or not, Father means something to me. I can’t deny it. It wasn’t until the end that he went mad. Before that he was rather brilliant.”

  Montgomery’s strong hands tucked back a loose strand of my hair. “I remember. I loved him too, you know. But he was also a monster.”

  “Do you think . . .” My voice caught. “Do you think I’m a monster, too?�
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  “Of course not,” he whispered. “I haven’t agreed with all your decisions, but I wouldn’t be engaged to you if I thought that.”

  “Bringing the creatures to life, letting them slaughter those men . . .” My voice dropped even lower. “I enjoyed it, Montgomery. The justice of it. The power of it.”

  His hands paused. Though my father had raised him to be his successor, Montgomery had managed to resist the temptation to follow in my father’s footsteps.

  I hadn’t been that strong.

  “I suspected you did,” he said quietly. “That’s what scared me most.” His hand absently rubbed against the scar on his fingertip. It was where my father had taken the blood to make Edward.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry for what I did at King’s College, and I’m sorry for what happened to Edward. I know you’re grieving, too. You and Edward never had a chance to be brothers.”

  He looked at me in surprise. I’m not certain he had ever really let himself feel sorrow. When his friend Alice had been murdered on Father’s island, he’d been furious. Now he was trying to take care of me, but I wasn’t the only one hurting.

  He glanced down at his fingertip.

  His hair looked nearly gold in the candlelight. I couldn’t help but touch it. What were a few secrets, when death was always just one step away?

  “I love you,” I whispered. “I’m sorry for what I’ve done. I’m sorry for all the fighting and arguments.”

  I touched Montgomery’s cheek, feeling the hard ridge of bone there. Hard to believe the boy I loved was, at the core of it, nothing more than skin and blood and a beating heart. The sounds of the house around us were as loud as my own beating heart: rain on the windows, joints settling. His eyes sank closed. “I love you, too.”

  I leaned in to kiss him. His hand, big and heavy, found the smooth silk shift around my waist. Each time we kissed felt different. New. We still had so much to learn about each other, for better or worse, and I wanted to spend a lifetime finding out.

  “I was so afraid the Beast would kill you,” Montgomery whispered against my cheek. “I never should have let you out of my sight.”