Her Dark Curiosity (The Madman's Daughter 2)

“You still look like death, Juliet,” she observed. “But at least you’re no longer raving about cutting dogs open. Now you can tell me why the devil I heard you’re engaged. Elizabeth told Aunt Edith, and everyone is talking about it.” She glanced pointedly at Montgomery, who backed away slowly and returned to his medical notations at the dining room table. I pulled Lucy into the foyer, but she kept straining to look back at Montgomery.

“That’s him, isn’t it?” She peeked back around the doorway. “Oh my, Juliet, he’s quite handsome.”

“The engagement isn’t true. That’s Montgomery James, the assistant I told you about. He followed Edward back to London and made up the engagement as justification for being alone with me while we figure out what the King’s Club is planning.”

Her face wrinkled in confusion and I paused, realizing she had no idea the danger spread beyond her father. I pulled her into the dining room, where Montgomery looked up from his work.

“Lucy knows everything, except what we learned last night.” I explained to her what we overheard her father and the other King’s Men saying on the balcony.

“But why do they need Edward?” she asked, sounding worried.

“We aren’t certain,” Montgomery said.

“They spoke of extracting something from him to complete the rest of the specimens,” I said, then paused, forgetting I was talking about slicing open the man she loved. “Whatever they’re planning, it seems to culminate on New Year’s Day.”

Lucy sat straight up at this. “New Year’s Day? And the King’s Club is involved?”

I nodded, filled with an unsettling premonition. “Why, do you know something?”

“Papa’s on the planning committee for the club’s charitable activities. This year they’re planning a paupers’ ball for the city’s poor. They’re distributing warm meals and secondhand clothes. The crowd will fill Parliament Square.” She paused. “It’s scheduled for New Year’s Day.”

I exchanged an alarmed glance with Montgomery, who stood and paced to the window, deep in thought.

“What does it mean?” Lucy asked. “Is it a coincidence?”

“We don’t know,” I said. “At least not yet.”

Lucy pulled over her handbag and drew out a thick set of keys, which she threw on the table. “Then let’s find out,” she said. “I stole these from Papa. I thought they might come in handy.”

My eyes went big. “Lucy, if he finds out . . .”

“That’s why we have to be fast. One of those unlocks the smoking room at King’s College of Medical Research, where the King’s Club holds their meetings. It should be empty tonight, since Papa left on business first thing this morning. I’ll need to have the keys back in his desk by the time he comes home tomorrow, or he’ll be furious.”

“You want to investigate tonight?” I said.

“Juliet, this is my father. You have the luxury of knowing yours was insane. I can’t sleep until I find out what the devil mine is up to.”

I shook my head, reluctant to involve her. “How would we even get to King’s College? The professor watches me like a hawk now, especially after the attack at the masquerade.”

“There’s a lecture this evening at King’s College on the women’s role in household management,” she said. “It’s being held upstairs in the same building. Tell the professor we’re attending. Montgomery can go as our driver.”

Her idea wasn’t a bad one, and I drummed my fingers, thinking. “I suppose I could feign a fainting spell halfway through the lecture. You could run and fetch Montgomery under the guise of taking me home . . .”

“ . . . but we’d really sneak into the King’s Club smoking room,” Lucy finished.

“Absolutely not,” Montgomery said, interrupting our scheming. He reached out and grabbed the keys. “It’s far too dangerous. I’ll go alone.”

“To a ladies’ lecture?” Lucy asked. “You might stand out, don’t you think? Anyway, you haven’t a clue what to look for once we’re there. I’m the only one who’s read the letters.”

They stared each other down until at last Montgomery cursed under his breath and threw the keys back on the table.

“Very well. We go together.” He glanced at me. “Now I understand why you’re friends. I thought you were the most impossible woman in the world, but now I see there are two of you.”

TWENTY-SIX

PRETENDING TO FEEL FAINT during the women’s-role lecture wasn’t difficult, especially in light of my recent illness. We sat in the university’s mahogany-paneled lecture room amid a sea of straight-backed chairs filled with bored-looking ladies. The lecturer’s drone might have put me to sleep, if I wasn’t so jumpy from the knowledge of what we were planning to do. As he went on about tending to household tasks, it seemed perfectly natural to swoon and clutch the back of the chair in front of me and complain about the vapors. Lucy made a show of saying she’d fetch the driver, and soon returned with Montgomery. His presence woke up a few nodding heads in the audience, but we were gone before the lecturer had even started in on the proper way to attend to a sick husband.

We raced down the marble staircase to the main floor. Lucy led us past the long line of framed photographs, including the one from 1875 where Father’s young face watched me. She stopped at a locked door and pulled out her jangling key ring, but I held her back.

A finger to my lips, I pressed my ear to the door and listened for the sounds of voices within. Just because Lucy’s father was out of town didn’t mean the rest of the King’s Club wasn’t meeting, but the room behind the door was silent, and I gave her a nod.

She inserted a key emblazoned with the King’s Club crest into the brass lock and opened the door cautiously. It was pitch-black inside save the light from a few windows on the east wall. The scent of cigars was heavy in the room, though beneath it I detected a lingering trace of men’s cologne, and another more earthy scent that made me think of Sharkey when I buried my face in his fur. I swallowed. Why would a smoking room smell like animals?

We entered cautiously, and Montgomery found a switch on the wall and flipped on the electric lights. I shaded my eyes from the sudden brightness.

Lucy let out a cry and I whirled around. A beast hovered on the wall next to her, fangs barred, black eyes glinting. She ducked behind a sofa as I let out a deep breath. It was a taxidermied boar, and it wasn’t the only trophy. At least twenty mounted heads hung on the walls: bucks with nine-point antlers, lions with snarls frozen in time, bodiless zebras, and stuffed owls perched atop the upper bookcases.