Her Dark Curiosity (The Madman's Daughter 2)

In the meanwhile, I gave Edward another injection of valerian to keep him sedated, then pored over every word in Father’s journal and letters, studying his procedures, focusing on the science the King’s Club was trying to duplicate. For the first time I allowed myself to truly delve into it, guiltlessly, and the genius of his work made my whole body feel alive.

Elizabeth paced around the house like an unquiet ghost, throwing wide-eyed glances at the cellar door, never far from the musket and bottle of gin. In the afternoon Lucy left with Balthazar to deliver each of the letters personally, with instructions to meet back at the professor’s house in the evening. The final step in my preparations involved Montgomery, but when I asked him to get his medical bag and come with me to King’s College, he didn’t obey as unquestioningly as Lucy had.

“You must tell me what this is all about,” he said. “I’m to be your husband. You must trust me.”

I bristled at the word husband, still unused to the idea despite how much I loved him.

“That trust goes both ways,” I said. “Once we’re there, I promise to make everything clear. You said once that before we are wed, you want no more shadows in our lives. Tonight I can end all our fears about the King’s Men and Edward falling into dangerous hands.” I held his hand, squeezing hard. “But I can’t do it alone.”

He leaned in, resting his forehead against mine, and the feel of him so close kindled the coldest parts of my body.

“Come with me,” I whispered. “I need you.”

The tensed muscles in his back eased. “You know I’d follow you anywhere. Though I fear we’ll both end up damned.”

We left Elizabeth to keep an eye on Edward and slipped out the back alleyway under cover of darkness. As we darted down the lanes, I peeked into open windows. Each one showed a different vignette of city life. A stout family shared a feast of ham and bread pudding amid the twinkling lights of a Christmas tree. A wife baked a meat pie for her husband. A young woman tucked a baby into a bassinet under a spring of mistletoe.

We’re doing this for them, I told myself. To keep power out of the hands of the King’s Club.

At last we reached the imposing brick archway of King’s College. On Christmas Day the place was deathly quiet, no horses or harness bells or students tromping around. We climbed the main stairs and I used a pouredtin copy I’d made of Radcliffe’s key to allow us entry. As I’d anticipated, not even Mrs. Bell and her cleaning crew were working. Only faint moonlight filled the long hallways, even the dust having long settled.

I jerked my head for Montgomery to follow me.

The halls threw loud echoes of our footsteps as we hurried down the marble floor. He headed for the King’s Club smoking room, but I grabbed his hand.

“Wait. Come with me to the basement first.”

His face hardened. He knew, as I did, what those basement hallways held. But he followed me without argument, trusting me, and we took the stairs into the basement that smelled of sawdust, where the windowless halls held a darkness thick as fogged breath, and then we climbed even lower to the subbasement level where the stone walls smelled of ancient times. I felt along the wall until my fingers brushed the doorknob of the King’s Club’s secret laboratory, but Montgomery stopped me.

“Stop, Juliet.” In the darkness, his voice was disembodied. “Tell me what you are planning, first.”

“Come inside, and I will.” I pushed open the door and lit a match to illuminate the various lanterns, which threw orbs of light onto the tanks of water and the ungodly beasts suspended within. With one glance, I could tell they had grown in the week since we’d been here. They now had inch-long claws, and powerful jaws that could snap a man’s bone in one bite.

It was better than I had hoped.

“This is what I wanted to show you,” I said. “These creatures. All this time we’ve tried so hard to keep the King’s Club from catching Edward, but they’ll never stop. So we’re going to finish the King’s Club’s work for them.” I curled my hands into fists, my fingernails digging into my own skin. “They wanted monster. Let’s give it to them.”

“ARE YOU MAD?” MONTGOMERY asked, closing the laboratory door behind him as though afraid someone would overhear us. “That is exactly what we’ve been trying to prevent from happening.”

“Yes, trying to prevent by keeping things secret. But don’t you see—secrets are their ally. The moment rumors spread about Father’s research was the moment his work in London ended. If the public knew the truth about what the King’s Club was endeavoring to accomplish, they’d never stand for it. Imagine the newspaper headlines. So many illustrious men, captains of industry, even Scotland Yard’s most promising detective—all in on this conspiracy. They’d be banished. Arrested. Even if some of them escaped the courts, they’d never dare pick up a scalpel again.”

“Your father did.” Montgomery stepped closer. “Say they’re banished, or let off with a light sentence. What’s to stop them from fleeing to an island of their own?”

“Don’t flatter them,” I answered, perhaps too harshly. “My father was a genius. Half of the King’s Club members are only pawns. Radcliffe was never a man of science; he just saw this as another investment. They don’t have the brilliance, nor the drive. If we expose them, their families will be shamed. They’ll lose their social standing, their credit. They’ll move on to some other, respectable scheme—investing in agriculture, promoting some new politician—and curse themselves for ever getting involved in my father’s work.”

I glanced at the water tanks before continuing. “The ones who are truly dangerous are the few who aren’t doing this for the financial advantage, but for sheer scientific hubris. There are twenty-seven King’s Men, but I gave Lucy a list of only three names: Inspector Newcastle, Dr. Hastings, and Isambard Lessing. The ones who are scientists, the ones who might dare to consider dabbling in Father’s realm again, the ones who would murder to get what they want, or experiment on humans—those are the ones who can’t be allowed to continue at any cost. Without those three, the others will scatter.”

Montgomery studied me very carefully. “What do you intend to do to those three?”

When I glanced at the water tanks as an answer, he grabbed my arm a little roughly. Ever since learning that Edward was his own blood relation, he’d seemed to stop thinking in such stark terms. In a way it was as though we had swapped places, he now more concerned with the gray parts of life, and me with the black and the white.