A Cold Legacy (The Madman's Daughter 3)

I knew he wouldn’t like the idea of more bloodshed. Violence wasn’t in his nature, but he’d slaughtered the beast-men when he’d been given no choice. We had no choice now, either. I would try to reason with Radcliffe, but if that didn’t work, there was no way I was letting him harm a single one of those girls.

I shook my head. “We’re going to electrocute them.”

THIRTY-SIX

ON THE WALK BACK to Ballentyne I explained my idea.

“Jack Serra—Ajax—flooded the road when he broke the levees to slow down Radcliffe. It flooded the manor’s courtyard as well. There must be three inches of water soaking the gravel, deeper in places. The entire manor’s wired with electricity. If we can trap Radcliffe and his men in the flooded courtyard and introduce an electric current, it would electrocute anyone touching the water.”

For a few moments, Montgomery said nothing. I couldn’t tell if he was considering my plan, or if his silence came from disapproval. “That’s true,” he said at last. “But I think we owe it to Lucy to reason with him first. If we try to negotiate and he is still bent on bringing us harm, then I suppose we haven’t many other choices. The problem is that someone would have to connect a metal line to carry the current. That person would be electrocuted, too. It’s suicide.”

I hesitated. “For a normal person, yes. Not for someone who can’t die.”

Ballentyne blazed in the distance, reflecting in Montgomery’s eyes. “You mean Edward.”

“Exactly. Elizabeth said the reanimated can’t be killed unless their bodies are destroyed beyond repair, like how Hensley burned to death. A simple electric shock wouldn’t hurt Edward any more than the tree branch harmed Hensley. He might need a few small repairs, but he wouldn’t die.” I paused. “At least, I don’t think he would.”

“Is this why you brought him back? Because he’s useful to you?”

I stopped in the road, and Montgomery stopped as well, as Balthazar and Sharkey trailed up ahead toward the flooded courtyard. I lowered my voice.

“You make me sound as ruthless as Henri Moreau. I didn’t bring Edward back to serve some purpose. He’s a person. A friend. I brought him back because he had been wronged, and I had the power to help him. If you died, I’d bring you back as well. Not because I wanted to use you, but because I loved you.”

His face softened in the light of his lamp. Montgomery had destroyed the truth about my past. About my very identity, even. And yet as I looked into his eyes in the lamplight, I remembered how Henri Moreau had manipulated and abused him as a child, making him adore him as a father figure, only to treat him like a slave. And Montgomery had gone along with it all those years, just for the chance of having a father.

“We’re married now,” I said. “No more secrets between us. Agreed?”

He held my hand in his, our gold rings glinting beneath the stars. “No more secrets.”

BY THE TIME WE returned to the library, McKenna had put the little girls to bed and was waiting in the library with Carlyle and Lucy and Edward, discussing how best to strengthen the front doors against attack.

A floorboard squeaked under my boot and they all turned. Edward stood.

“Montgomery,” Edward said. His skin had gained some color, though he still moved with just the slightest bit of stiffness.

Montgomery held up a hand to silence him. “No. Let me speak first. It was wrong of me not to accept that you were back. It caught me by surprise, but I shouldn’t have raised my pistol. I’ve played a hand in my fair share of experimentation, and I’m not one to judge how we are brought into this world, only our nature as we are now.” He absently rubbed the scar on his thumb where his blood had been drawn to make Edward. “I’m glad to see you standing here, and I’m proud to call you a brother.”

He held out his hand, and after only a slight hesitation Edward stepped forward to take it. Lucy squeezed her pocket watch tight, beaming to see them no longer at odds.

“I suppose, if we’re making amends,” Edward said in a lighter tone, “I should apologize for all the times I tried to kill you. Don’t take it personally.”

Montgomery gave the hint of a smile. “As I recall, I also tried to kill you a few times.”

“Then we’re even.”

They broke apart, and I smiled to think of the four of us on friendly terms, no more misunderstandings, no more sickness or anger. Our friendships had even overcome death itself.

Now we just had to overcome Radcliffe.

I went to the windows, looking down on the flooded courtyard and the road beyond. For all I knew, Radcliffe was already in Quick, just waiting for the road to drain. “We don’t have much time, and there’s much to be done. I have a plan that involves all of you. I want to know your thoughts.”

We stayed up until dawn discussing how to prepare for Radcliffe’s arrival and the logistics of trapping his men in the courtyard to electrocute them. Montgomery said that he and Balthazar would dig a trench around the rear of the house to force Radcliffe into the courtyard, while Edward and Carlyle reinforced all the doors and ground-floor windows, and Lucy agreed to work with McKenna to stock the barn cellar with supplies to keep the girls warm and well fed during the siege.

Rain fell against the windows. “Let’s hope the rain holds until we’ve prepared the house,” I said. “The longer it rains, the longer it will take for the road to drain.”

Montgomery squeezed my hand. “We’ll be ready for him.”

The following day was a flurry of activity. The rain continued, steady and cold, turning the gardens into a soggy mess. We laid out thick wooden planks along the courtyard to walk across as we went about gathering weapons and ammunition. To my surprise, when I handed Lily and Moira each a rifle and started to explain how to fire, they just laughed.

“Mistress, we’ve been hunting foxes since we were three years old,” Moira said, and took the rifle with a well-practiced hand.

By midday, when we took a break to eat some sandwiches McKenna had prepared, the trench was dug and most of the windows were boarded up, and I was starting to feel like we might have a chance after all.

“I’ve been thinking about the secret passageways,” I said. “In case Radcliffe’s men do get into the house, the passages could be extremely helpful to help us move around unnoticed, but I only know a handful of them.”

McKenna arranged the sandwiches, thinking. “I have the previous mistresses’ ledgers in my study. One of them tried mapping the passages in the 1770s, but the map’s been damaged. Parts aren’t readable, but it might be a good place to start.”