Her Dark Curiosity (The Madman's Daughter 2)

One of the men spit over the side of the balustrade, and added, “That old blatherskite von Stein won’t say a word. The moment he hears the name Moreau, he slams the door in my face, and he practically threw Lessing out by the collar.”

“Leave von Stein to me,” Radcliffe said, and then added, “What of the preparations?”

“The specimens will be ready within two weeks, providing we can capture Moreau’s creation. Then it’ll be a simple matter of extracting what we need from him and finishing the preparations for New Year’s Day.”

“Rochefort is speaking to his contacts about the exact delivery date. They’re threatening to change their minds, but once they see what we have planned, they’ll double their current order.”

“Excellent.” Radcliffe snuffed out his cigar, and it fell to the garden at my feet. I drew in a gasp as it singed my slipper, but Montgomery pressed his hand to my mouth. It felt like an eternity while we waited until their footsteps receded and the balcony door swung closed, leaving us alone in the garden once more.

Montgomery let go of my mouth, and I gulped in air.

“They know about Edward!” I gasped. “Claggan must have learned on the ship about his two sides and somehow gotten in touch with the King’s Club. This whole party is a trap. They knew I’d be here and thought it would lure him. That ‘guest of honor’ nonsense—I thought they were just trying to win favor with the professor, and all the while Radcliffe wanted me here as bait.”

Montgomery ran a hand over his forehead. “They don’t know what Edward looks like—that’s good at least, so we can get to him first. Damn it all, how do they even know he exists?”

“Radcliffe is the one Father was writing to on the island—his secret colleague who went by the code name ‘A King’s Man.’ Don’t you know about the letters? You must have delivered them.”

Montgomery shook his head. “I did, but all Radcliffe ever did was pay the bills for my travel and the exotic animals and other supplies—chartering a ship to the island was exorbitantly expensive. There was never any science exchanged, or else I would have put an end to it.”

“Did you ever actually read the letters?”

“Of course not—they were sealed. But your father swore. . . .” His voice trailed off as he realized Father had lied to him, as he’d lied to all of us. As much as Father had loved Montgomery, he wasn’t above lying to him.

I put a hand to my head as everything started to come together. “They did exchange science. They must have, because Lucy’s read some of the letters that reference it, and you heard them talking about specimens. They said all they needed was to extract something from Edward. His blood, perhaps, or bone marrow, I can’t imagine what else. They have to be attempting to replicate Father’s creatures.”

Montgomery’s face hardened. He didn’t disagree, and this worried me even more. I continued, “They said everything would be ready in two weeks, in time for New Year’s Day. What are they planning?”

“I don’t know,” he said gruffly. “But we need to find out.”

I chewed on a fingernail, pacing in the snow. “Earlier tonight I found a human brain.”

“A brain?”

“Yes, in Radcliffe’s study, in a hatbox. He doesn’t practice science himself—he must have been holding it for one of the others. Whatever they’re doing, it involves humans, not just animals.”

Montgomery jerked his chin toward the balcony. “I think there were four of them,” he said. “Five maybe—one might have been small. It means . . .” He rubbed his face, letting it all settle in.

I finished his thought. “It means this isn’t limited to Radcliffe. It’s much larger than we ever imagined. That makes sense now—Radcliffe’s a businessman, not a scientist. He’s providing the funding while the others are handling the research, the specimens, the politics. There are several members of Parliament in the King’s Club. They even mentioned Rochefort, the French ambassador. That means this goes beyond one man or even a group in London. They have connections in France, Germany . . . who knows how far this reaches?” I leaned against the wall, body numb but thoughts churning like a steam engine.

I pressed my hand against my chest. Men like that, with limitless resources and connections, could change the entire system. They could make vivisection and animal experimentation legal, if they chose to. They could establish entire colleges dedicated to Father’s research. They could recreate his creatures. They could take everything Father had done on that isolated island, and spread it through the globe.

“Montgomery, we can’t let them—”

But I didn’t get a chance to finish. A scream rang out from the ballroom.

MONTGOMERY AND I RACED up the balcony steps and through the glass-paned door. The crowd inside the ballroom was packed tightly, everyone murmuring and pushing forward to see what had happened.

The girl in the swan mask stood on tiptoe next to me, trying to see over everyone’s heads.

“What happened?” I asked her.

“A woman screamed,” she said. “I think it was Mrs. Radcliffe.”

“That’s Lucy’s mother!” I gasped. I tugged Montgomery toward the grand spiral staircase, the swan girl forgotten. “Something might have happened to Lucy.”

I tried to push through the crowd, but no one made room for me, so Montgomery took the lead instead. He had a way of moving among people as gracefully as ducking trees and brambles in the jungle. I had to trip over my own feet to keep up with him. Soon we were at the front of the murmuring crowd.

“Lucy!” I yelled, spotting her by the stairs. She was leaning against the grand staircase banister, mask off, face white, looking shaken but unharmed. I wrapped my hand around hers.

“What happened?” I whispered.

Half dazed, she pointed to a clump of people on the stairs. “Mother screamed. There was a commotion on the landing and then she tumbled down the stairs covered in blood.”

Lucy’s eyes were fixed on the bottom of the stairs, where Inspector Newcastle, Mr. Radcliffe, and several men were leaning over Lucy’s mother. She was still screaming, though when I pushed closer I could tell with one glimpse that the wounds were only superficial. Just shallow cuts on her arm, though the three slash marks spilled a startling amount of blood onto her white gown.