Her Dark Curiosity (The Madman's Daughter 2)

Cold bit at my bare limbs. Pain would come soon, and then terrible numbness.

I scrambled to my feet. I would freeze in minutes without coat or boots, not enough time to race across town to my attic in Shoreditch. Perhaps not even time to make it to Lucy’s in Cavendish Square, but I had no choice. I stamped through the snow toward the garden gate, eyes blinded by flurries.

Someone was waiting for me.

I felt his hands on me before I saw his face. The shock of it made me scramble and claw, but he had another man with him wearing leather driving gloves, and the two of them together were too strong. It wasn’t until the lights from the house shone on his white hair that I recognized his terrible visage.

“You won’t get away from me this time,” Dr. Hastings said.

THIRTY-SIX

ANGER SEETHED IN ME. I had overpowered him once, and I could have done it again if not for the driver holding me. He had twelve inches on me, and I had no knife, no mortar scraper, nothing to give me an advantage.

“Put her in the carriage,” Hastings said with no little relish. “And notify Newcastle that I’ve got her.”

The driver shoved me in, despite how I scratched at his face and kicked at the soft parts of his body. I winced, shivering in nothing more than my nightdress, as I landed in the carriage. It rocked as Dr. Hastings climbed in after me and locked the door.

I scrambled to the opposite door—locked as well. Trapped. I pressed my back into the furthest corner, eyes wide. Dr. Hastings clutched a pistol.

“You know, I always detested von Stein, thinking himself so much smarter than the rest of us,” he said. “Pity he isn’t here to protect you anymore.”

“Were you the one who killed him?” I seethed.

“That honor wasn’t mine, but no matter. Seeing you locked away for the rest of your life will please me well enough.” He held the pistol unsteadily in his left hand, the one I had maimed. I couldn’t see the scars in the dark carriage, but I knew they were there.

“Newcastle promised me a chance to dole out my own punishment. The courts can be so lenient sometimes. I’m a biblical man myself. An eye for an eye, isn’t that how the expression goes?”

Anger seeped up my spine, vertebra by vertebra. I’d be damned before Dr. Hastings laid a hand on me again. I wished the Beast had clawed his heart out when he’d had the chance. Some people didn’t deserve to live, and if that made me a monster, so be it.

He smiled in that thin-lipped way that showed the tip of his tongue.

“Now, now, Miss Moreau. I’ve the blade this time.” He flicked open a knife, sliding closer until I could smell his spoiled-milk stench. The pistol’s cold metal barrel pressed against the gooseflesh of my arm.

“Hold out that wrist of yours like a good girl. It’s either a slice through the tendons of your hand, just as you did to me, or a bullet in the head. Your choice.”

Fury screamed inside me. I could kick him, throw myself at him, yet he held the two weapons. As he reached the knife toward my wrist, there came the sound of a key turning hastily in the lock.

The carriage door swung open, and my hopes surged until I recognized the familiar outline of Inspector Newcastle, his copper breastplate glinting in the moonlight.

“Another few moments, Inspector,” Dr. Hastings said. “And I’ll be done with her.”

“You’re done with her now, you blackguard,” he said. He grabbed the doctor by his collar and dragged him onto the hard street. I could only stare, stunned and numb. Newcastle coming to my rescue was the last thing I’d anticipated.

He said a few words to the driver in reference to Dr. Hastings moaning on the sidewalk, then climbed in and shut the door. With a rumble, the carriage started moving.

“My apologies for exposing you to that vile man,” Newcastle said, adjusting his shirt cuffs. “He was a necessary evil, I’m afraid. Without his statement we had no grounds to request a warrant.” He paused. “Were you truly the one who mangled his hand like that? Quite impressive.”

I tore at the door handle, trying to break the lock, but he hauled me away, pushing me onto the plush seat cushions across from him.

“Miss Moreau, calm yourself. I’ve no wish to hurt you. I desire only to speak.”

“Is that why you’ve abducted me?”

“This isn’t an abduction. It’s an arrest, and I’m fully within my legal grounds. The case against you was dropped last year, but not the formal charges.” He adjusted his copper breastplate. “With luck, we’ll be able to reach an agreement that will keep you out of prison. In fact, I think you’ll find that what I shall propose is exceedingly beneficial for the both of us.”

When I didn’t respond, he smiled in an almost sad way and added, “I know you saw the spectacles. You left your fingerprint on one of the lenses.”

The carriage jostled as we left Belgravia’s smooth pavement and moved onto a cobblestone street. Stately Street, perhaps, or the north end of Highbury. The heavy curtains hid the outside world.

“Who killed him?” I asked, deathly quiet.

Newcastle reached up to turn on the lantern as though he hadn’t heard my question. He sat below the flame, hidden by its own flickering shadow, so all it accomplished was blinding me whenever I looked at it.

“You must be freezing. Take my coat.” He shrugged out of his wool coat and extended it to me. As much as I wanted to throw the coat back in his face and demand an answer, my bare, damp limbs were shivering beyond my control. I wrapped the coat around me, hating having the smell of him so close.

“You haven’t involved Lucy in this, have you?” I asked.

“It isn’t I who involved her, Miss Moreau, but you. I would never have put Lucy in any sort of danger.”

“You can’t expect me to believe you actually care about her.” A man like him, so deceptive, was not the type to care about anything.

But he frowned in a sincere way. “I care about her a great deal. I’m in a business where I hear lies all day, Miss Moreau. You’ve no idea how I admire a young woman who says what she truly thinks, even if more often than not it’s to express her poor opinion of me. It only makes me love her all the more. If she suffers because of all this, it’s on your hands.”

“I had to warn her. Her own father is wrapped up in this.”

“Miss Moreau, the entire King’s Club is wrapped up in this.” He smiled, teeth glinting in the shadows. “But you already suspected that, didn’t you? When I heard you were back in London, I was curious to meet you. After we received word from Claggan that your father had died, all our hopes fell on you. I guessed you’d be clever. I’m delighted to find it’s true.”