A Cold Legacy (The Madman's Daughter 3)

“Juliet.”

I jerked awake, disoriented by the sunlight pouring through the window. Montgomery was sitting up in bed, dark circles under his eyes and deep lines in his face.

“Montgomery!” I pushed out of the stiff chair and climbed onto the bed, feeling his forehead, trying to count the pulse on his wrist, but he brushed off my attempts with a laugh.

“I’m fine,” he said, though his voice was gravelly with exhaustion.

“You’ve been asleep for a full day,” I said.

He took my hands in his, kissing the palm of each one. “You’re safe, and that’s all that matters.” He squinted around the room. “Where are we?”

“The guest rooms above the tavern in Quick.”

“What happened at Ballentyne?”

I swallowed, hating to relive all those terrible memories. “You passed out after you saved me in the passageways. Balthazar dragged you to safety, and we defeated Radcliffe and his men. They’re all dead, even Radcliffe, buried in the bog. Edward and Balthazar are fine. And Jack and his troupe . . .” I looked at the lines in my palm. “We wouldn’t have made it without them, but they left. Disappeared. They didn’t say good-bye.”

Montgomery reached past me to the bedside table, picking up a small piece of paper. A card. Bright colors flashed on it.

“That’s one of Jack’s fortune-telling cards!” I recognized the same bright blue paint, the same lettering. I’d only seen a few cards of his deck before: the Fool, the Emperor. This one was the Lovers, a man and a woman embracing. Someone had taken an ink pen to the woman’s fair hair and colored it dark, like mine.

“This wasn’t here last night,” I said. “I haven’t left the room once.”

Montgomery’s mouth hitched back in a smile. “Well, Ajax is nothing if not clever. He probably left this while you were sleeping.”

“Then he’s still in Quick?”

Montgomery shook his head. “I doubt it. He’s probably long gone.”

I ran my finger down the edge of the card. “At least he did say good-bye, after all.”

By midday, Montgomery was well enough to dress and go downstairs to the dining room, where we ordered a feast and indulged as though we were just any travelers in any inn in the world. It was a fantasy that was starting to feel real, and I liked it.

When I looked out the dining hall window and saw a familiar figure, I gasped.

“Balthazar’s back!” We ran outside to greet him. He held his shepherd’s staff in one hand, a lead in the other tied around the neck of the little goat that was always getting away. Sharkey barked when he saw us and ran up to have his head scratched.

“The goats,” Balthazar explained, nodding toward the flock that trailed behind him on the road. “No one remembered the goats. We couldn’t just leave them.”

My face broke in a smile.

Montgomery wrapped an arm around my back and pulled me close, pressing his lips to my hair. “Elizabeth would have been happy to see you smile so carefree,” he said. “Lucy, too.”

I brushed back a strand of blond hair that had fallen in his eyes. “Edward’s decided to leave us and go north. I wonder if he’ll find what he’s looking for.”

There was silence for some time, and then Montgomery turned me around, taking my hands. “Did you?”

I thought about my fantasy of the little cottage in Quick. Perhaps Balthazar would live in a little house behind ours, where he’d take care of the goats and attend to his spiritual matters. It was a far cry from the grand house on Belgrave Square I’d grown up in, and from the imposing Ballentyne Manor. It reminded me more of my little attic apartment in Shoreditch, where I’d felt so at home. The only thing that had been missing from that life was someone to share it with, but now I had Montgomery.

“Yes,” I said, and leaned in to kiss him.

I didn’t know exactly where our paths would lead. I might study botany, or animal husbandry, or meteorology, or even take up the piano again. I wasn’t sure what I wanted in life, but I knew now that it was my choice, and as I grinned against Montgomery’s face, I knew that there really was only one life, and I intended to live mine as richly as any person could.