Boneseeker (12 page)

“I don’t know if you’re capable of that, Henry. What if we’re caught? Your presence alone would be enough for Stygian to dismiss the both of us. That my
feminine wiles
are distracting you into fornication.”

“We will not get caught. On my honor. Open the door.”

I sigh, trying to ignore his beautiful, pleading face. No wonder the silly girls fawn all over him.

“Fine, but only because you said please. Henry, I will never forgive you if we are dismissed.”

I step aside for him to enter, and look out into the hallway to assure we are unseen.

He slides past me, his chest brushing mine in the tight space as he eases into the room.

He halts, our bodies blistering against one another. He stares down at me. “We won’t get caught.”

I shove him inside, close the door and throw the bolt.

He stoops and steals a kiss and my breath, and is on my bed before I’ve managed a word.

He folds a hand behind his head. “Shall you sleep with me, then?” He pats the covers beside him.

I snap my gaping-aghast mouth shut and pelt a pillow at his head. “Get on the floor.”

###

Midnight

Henry

I wake as the boat lurches, assailing my stomach. I am momentarily disoriented and take deep breaths as I wait for my brain to categorize the most recent events.

I squint around the stateroom, which is utterly black, as is the porthole on the wall.

“Arabella?” I whisper.

Nothing. Complete graveyard silence, except for the rush of the waves past the bow.

I pat the top of the bed, my hand searching for her warm body. As I’ve been doing every hour on the hour since my head touched the pillow. The bed is smooth.

“Oh, please.” I hurry to stand and light the lamp. Her bed is empty. “She is a lunatic and is going to take me down with her.”

I reach inside my bag, extract a tiny pistol and jam it in the top of my trousers.

I crack open the door and immediately hear the ruckus.

I see the flash of her auburn hair as she rounds the corner.

“Blast.”

I bolt down the corridor, pistol drawn.

She’s made it outside and is walking in tight circles with a smallish man. He lunges, swiping within an inch of her forearm. I inhale sharply. The knife flashes; he charges her.

Volcanic anger erupts, incinerating all other thoughts.

I bolt forward, my thighs burning.

She swipes a knife at his face. He blocks, grasping her forearm.

Her hand rotates forward, loosening his grip.

If I weren’t so utterly terrified, his face would be comical; it screams,
A woman who can fight?

Her boot juts skyward, connecting with his jaw.

I had no idea her body moved like that? Like a contortionist?

Almost there
.

Bones crunch as his jaw snaps shut and blood trickles out the side of his mouth as his face turns murderous.

He lunges, and manages to grasp a handful of her hair.

“Ah!”

She screams and is still.

His face is triumphant. “That’s right, lovey. My word, you’re a petal.” He licks his lips.

The whole scene flares to red as I burst onto the deck, panting.

His eyes dart to me.

Arabella seizes the distraction; her boot flashes up again to strike his gut and his breath exhales in a
whoosh.

He releases her, but yanks, ripping out a handful of auburn hair.

“Ah!”

A droplet of blood falls to the ground as every movement slows to a crawl in my horror.

I’m bolting toward them; he’s moving her away, toward the railing.

No. No, not over the side.

She rushes him, her face contorted with pain and rage, her knee connecting with his crotch.

“Oof.”

He doubles over.

Hatred twists his face into a leer. “That’s it, missy.”

He jabs right, into her shoulder, knocking her off balance. Her head snaps back with the force.

Arabella rights and her boot swings into the air.

I hear a catch snap and see another flash of silver as a knife pops from the toe of her boot.

She slashes, cutting up and across his thigh.

“Ahh—you little wench!”

His head swivels as he registers my footsteps.

He gives her one final shove, sending her sliding bottom-first, across the deck.

He limps for the railing.

I launch forward but he dives, down into the black waves, and disappears.

I reach down to haul her from the deck and we both rush to the rail, searching.

In a moment, his head breaks through the black water and he begins to swim for shore.

Both Wonderful and Terrible

Steamship Mess Hall

Henry

My eyes skip across father’s paper, strewn across the breakfast table. The headline reads, ‘More hospital admissions from tainted sausage.’

My eyes narrow and I carefully fold it away and slip it into my pack for later-reading.

“Describe him again, Arabella.” Father’s notebook is in his hand, his face serious.

“Father, she’s already told you. Please, she should be resting.” My voice is more irritable than I intend.

Arabella’s eyes flick to me and her stare manages to be both affronted and appreciative.

“Henry, I told you. All is well. John is merely doing his job. I am no wilting flower. This is necessary data collection, as you are well aware.”

Petal.
Her expression digs up the assailant’s word and I grind my teeth together. I clutch and squeeze my hands together under the table, wanting to throttle someone. Anyone.

Get ahold of yourself.

The scent of morning coffee does nothing to ease me. She and father grasp their mugs and smile at one another as if it’s bloody afternoon tea.

Arabella places her hand on my forearm, and I forcibly restrain myself from throwing her over my shoulder and running. I did not expect this. When I saw her hair dangling from his hand; something happened.

Both wonderful and terrible.

I stepped from a ledge of infatuation into an utter free-fall.

I want to
protect her
and stop all harm from touching her. I want her away from here, away from Stygian, away from the danger of the expedition.

Would he go to such lengths, just to remove her from the expedition? Or is something more sinister afoot…

Her lips purse as she ponders a question from my father, which I didn’t hear. I should be hanging on every word, evaluating.

Stygian has barely uttered a word. His black eyes skip around the table, taking in people’s expressions.

“Most unfortunate, Arabella,” Dr. Earnest finally says. “Do you maintain your original wish, to stay on the expedition? No one would fault you, my dear, if you chose to return to the Mutter.”

Just go, Arabella. Please.

Stygian cuts across the murmuring. “Yes, Miss Holmes, after this turn of events, surely you must be in need of rest?”

“Yes,” I agree. Bella’s eyes narrow and catch fire.

I amend, “Perhaps just for a few days, to catch your breath?”

“I am fine, sir. As I assured you, I am not like other girls. It is my firm desire to find that skeleton.”

This will not do. Arabella will never sit at home, by a hearth, out of harm’s way.

Nor would I have ever wanted that of her, when I was just her friend. It’s who she is, she breathes for adventure.

My hand drags down my face.
How am I to reconcile the two?

Her need for danger and my new, mind-numbing fear for her safety?

One of her hands drops below the table; her speech never falters—she delivers the blow by blow in a fluid river of words. “He was most definitely English, not American.”

“However could you tell?” Montgomery asks with genuine interest. “His accent?”

“Accents can be faked, but no. The cut of his jacket, the shape of his boots, were decidedly European. He’d ripped out a handful of my hair, and that’s when Henry arrived.”

I am astounded by her Holmesian details, though I shouldn’t be. It’s completely Arabella.

“Black hat, brown boots covered in a reddish mud. Small frame, white, thick scar from the left side of his lip down to his throat.”

However.

However, Arabella’s eyelids have drifted half-closed.

She is lying. Or withholding information.

My mind erupts in Bella-memories.

Sherlock Holmes’s incinerating gaze and stern face. “Arabella? Did you and Henry remove the microscope from my laboratory?”

Bella, tiny, maybe ten. “No, Papa. Why ever do you ask?” Her eyelids drooping, half-closed, like now.

My foot taps out my impatience and her eyebrows rise with the sound.

Unexpectedly, I feel her fingers in my lap, under the table, searching for mine. I release my death-clenched hands, to allow her one. Her fingers rub the length of mine, in small, concentric patterns.

I
feel
the stare.

I slowly raise my head and see Stygian’s gaze boring down. He raises one questioning eyebrow. It’s most definitely rhetorical, however.

It’s as if my entire inner monologue is laid bare on the table, and he’s shifting through the words.

He knows. My heart has apparently left my sleeve and is now a sign hanging about my neck.

Arabella senses it too. I feel the muscles in her arms grow tense. Stygian turns toward Montgomery, who is murmuring in his ear.

Bella’s eyes flick and return to father. It was no longer than a single beat of my heart.

It was enough.

Stygian’s normally-pristine clothing is rumpled, having been roused from bed at this ungodly hour.

A dark, black streak, an inch across, pokes out from his unbuttoned shirt sleeve.

A tattoo.

###

Bella

The steamship slows, easing its way into the first port. Henry stands at the rail, staring down the rickety dock with uncertainty.

This new Henry was reluctant to let me retire to my room without him, which is very much at odds to my memories of youthful Henry. If anything, he was always goading, always testing the limits of my courage—the bigger the risk, the better, really.

I picture myself, hanging upside down from a tree, skirts awry and oblivious, and cringe. As a girl, I had no idea what was appropriate. At times, I still don’t.

He turns when he hears my footsteps. His eyes immediately soften. My heart stutters in my chest.

“Feeling better?”

“Much, thank you.”

The boat shakes as it slides into port, and the sailors swarm the deck to begin the securing process.

Local fishermen dot the shore as well, manning a small fleet of canoes. All eye our boat with suspicious interest.

“How long are we scheduled to be here?”

My bag feels heavy, laden with picks and brushes and spades.

“As long as necessary.” His forehead is wrinkled into a deep set of lines that match his downturned mouth.

I have only moments before Dr. Montgomery and the others arrive from below deck.

“Henry, are you cross with me?”

His lips pull to the side as he bites the inside of his cheek and he gives me one terse head-shake in the negative.

Bad liar, Henry. I hope you haven’t inherited John’s inkling for gambling. You will lose your shirt.

“You have everything you need, then?” Stygian arrives, dark as a murder of crows.

Black boots, black coat, black hair and eyes.

To match that black heart.

“Yes. We’ll send word as to whether we’ll stay at the farm, or will be back for the evening.”

Stygian smiles. It takes me off guard, as it almost appears genuine. “Dr. Watson will be staying on board. He’s examining the men’s stateroom and the deck.”

“We’re off, then,” Henry says.

I bite my lip. Henry doesn’t shake his hand. An out-and-out rebuff.

He’s either mad about me, or mad in general to cross Stygian.

My mind clicks into surveillance. Deciphering expressions was never my forte, nor father’s. He actually developed a chart, based on human observations for us to memorize.

Henry is cross, despite his assurances. His jaw is locked, his hands in fists and every rigid step screams his displeasure as he heads towards the tethered horses on shore.

Two sets: one for Stygian and Montgomery and the other for us. Two separate locations have been identified for potential burial grounds.

The hairs on my arms lift and I shiver. I discretely glance behind me. Stygian
was
watching. He is not now, but I absolutely felt it.

Gusts of wind push hard against my face like autumn water sprites skittering across the river’s surface.

I hear the squawk of geese and turn to see their V flying south across the water.

The Hudson rushes by; a reassuring constant.

My eyes flick to it. There’s something off about the color today. Its normally murky waters appear to have the slightest tint of color.

“Arabella. We’re wasting daylight.”

I smile. “Why what perfect impatience; you sound precisely like your father.”

He grimaces as I swing into the saddle. “I have the directions. You have the map?”

“Of course.”

He clucks his tongue, easing the mare up the hill. Her hooves shift through the blanket of downed leaves and the sound reminds me of a crackling fire.

I follow, rubbing the horse’s neck beneath his mane.

We venture into upstate New York, winding down a main road until we reach the small goat-path leading to our destination.

It’s been a lonely ride, save the traveling carnival we passed. Its bright colors looking distinctly out of place in the barren countryside.

The sky is dark and brooding, much like Henry.

He’s barely uttered a sentence. He’s contemplating, trying to work out what he wants to say. The weather seems to mimic his mood, as if the breeze holds its breath in similar anticipation.

I shiver as the wind whips across the road, pulling my hair from its Gibson-girl bun. I know the hairstyle to be fashionable, but truth be told, my mane of hair is merely more manageable piled on my head than fluttering about my face like those blasted butterflies.