Her Dark Curiosity (18 page)

I finished sorting through several stacks but didn’t find Father’s letters, so I turned to the boxes instead, deliveries from an expensive tailor. I lifted the lids. A box full of crisp white shirts still smelling of tailor’s chalk. A smaller box of handkerchiefs monogrammed with the Radcliffe crest. I moved those aside and opened a tall blue hatbox.

Just a single peek inside made me jump up, silencing a scream. Lucy’s head jerked up from the papers at my alarm. I pointed a trembling finger to the hatbox, the urge to scream still rising in my throat.

“Inside that box,” I said at last, breath strained. “It isn’t a hat.”

She stepped around the desk cautiously, starting to bend down to open the lid before I grabbed her hands away and started to pull her toward the door.

“But the letters . . . ,” she started.

“Blast the letters, we’ll come back for them later.” When she still protested, I leaned forward. “It’s a brain.” I whispered.

Her eyes went wide as she backed away from the box. “Are you certain?”

“I know what a human brain preserved in a jar of formaldehyde looks like,” I said. “We’ve got to get out of here. Go to the party, act as though nothing’s happened. He can’t suspect that we know.”

“How can I act like Papa doesn’t have a
brain in a hatbox
?”

“You must, Lucy. Come on.”

I threw open the door, grabbing our masks on the way out, and we raced toward the spiral staircase. The music was louder here, as I put my own mask on and told Lucy to do the same. We hurried to the landing above the ballroom, where a tall man stood at the top of the stairs, presiding over his party.

The man turned his gaunt face to us.

Mr. Radcliffe.

Seeing his face turned my stomach. A man I’d known since childhood, yet a total stranger now. The entire time Mother and I were practically starving in the streets, he’d known Father was alive. He had corresponded with him. Sent him money. Even now he kept preserved organs in his study for who knew what purpose.

His eyes shifted to mine. They were a blue so light they were almost as white as the hair at his temples. It was all I could do to keep breathing beneath the mask. “There you are, Lucy. Your mother’s been looking all over for you.”

“Sorry, Papa,” Lucy stuttered. “Juliet had a bit of a hairpin emergency.”

He stood stiffly at the top of the stairs, still eyeing me.

“Is that you beneath that mask, Miss Moreau? Still causing trouble, are you?” His voice was light and teasing, but he didn’t smile. He offered us each one hand. “If I may. My daughter and our guest of honor shouldn’t enter a ball without an escort.”

I dared a glance at Lucy. We had no choice but to obey.

I slid my arm in his, and Lucy did the same, and arm in arm with a monster we joined the masquerade.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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NINETEEN

T
HE MASQUERADE WAS IN
full swing as Mr. Radcliffe led us down the sprawling spiral staircase. The music swelled to meet us, bringing with it delicate notes of laughter and the smell of cinnamon and fir boughs. I stepped carefully, squinting through my mask’s small eyeholes, trying not to step on my hem. Lucy was more practiced in these things and seemed to glide on air. No one would ever know she’d just learned that the man she loved was a monster, and that her father kept brains tucked away in hatboxes.

Halfway down the staircase, the full view of the ballroom swept out like a colorful sea. Masked couples in glittering gowns danced to the string quartet’s waltz beside tiny glowing candles on the Christmas tree. The swarm of partygoers was so dense that my head spun.

My fist tightened on the handrail instinctively, as the joints in my hand stiffened. The vertigo, the joint pain . . . my illness was coming, induced by stress. I nervously bit the inside of my cheek, trying to overcome the symptoms through willpower, until I tasted blood. A sudden high note from the violin made me gasp.

Mr. Radcliffe turned to me, his unmasked eyes like two microscopes on my thoughts. I cleared my throat and let him finish leading us down the stairs. At the base he kissed Lucy on her cheek and gave me a gentlemanly nod. The moment I could take my fingers away from his, I grabbed Lucy’s hand and dragged her into the chaos.

“Juliet, what will we do?” she hissed.

“Promise me you’ll stay close to Inspector Newcastle,” I whispered, searching the crowd for him. “I know you don’t care for him, but he’s an officer. You’ll be safe with him. Don’t leave his side for a moment, and then tomorrow come over to the professor’s house. We’ll figure out what to do when we can speak privately.”

She nodded, and we plunged into the deep of the partygoers. Couples swept together in their waltzes, separating us. I tried to ignore the vertigo creeping into my head and spun, looking for Lucy, but all I saw were masks. My too-tight shoes slipped on the polished floor, and I had to catch myself against a window.

A beautiful girl stared directly at me.

I started—it was a mirror, not a window. The girl was me.

In the red silk dress and mask, I hadn’t recognized myself. The girl in the mirror looked like a happier person, who belonged in this crowd. Her mask—
my
mask—was split down the middle, white on one side, a deep red to match my dress on the other. That was how I felt—half a person. The other half I’d left behind on the island. That was the stronger half, who knew how to move silently through jungle underbrush, who had fought a beast with six-inch long claws, who had stood up to my father.

The other half would know what to do.

Behind the mask my lips were trembling. It was too much. I pushed into the crowd, my breath moist and hot beneath the papier-mâché mask. The flour paste and newsprint tasted thick in my mouth. Newsprint . . . headlines . . . my mask might be made out of reports of Edward’s murders. I was suffocating. The lace around the edges of my mask irritated my skin and made me want to rip it off and fill my lungs with fresh air.

Where was Lucy? Was the crowd growing, or was it just in my head?

From the corner of the eyehole I saw the glass-paned balcony door and stumbled toward it. The handle was slick in my sweating palm. I twisted it and went out into the cold night and the solitude of the empty balcony. I caught myself against the railing and tore at my mask’s ribbon until I could rip the thing off, gulping fresh air, making a mess of my hair.

The stars were out.

It was rare to see the stars in London, where the soot from coal chimneys and factory lights polluted the sky. I rubbed my bare shoulders for warmth. Snow covered the hedges and empty flowerbeds of the garden below. Lucy and I used to play hide-and-seek in those hedges, a lifetime ago.

I turned the mask over to look at it. The red paint had bled a little and a few of the sequins had fallen off when I’d ripped the ribbon from my hair.

Is this how Edward feels too—half a person, split in two
?

I heard the door open and footsteps behind me. I turned to find a tall man in a golden mask and instinctively stepped back, afraid my thoughts had manifested Edward into reality.

“Hello, Miss Moreau.” The man removed his mask to reveal a familiar sweep of chestnut hair and white teeth. John Newcastle. Two weeks ago seeing a police officer would have terrified me; now I had far greater worries than an inspector besotted with my best friend.

“Inspector,” I said.

He motioned to the party. “Needed some fresh air, did you? You’re not the only one.” He offered me his glass of champagne, but I shook my head. Intoxication meant lowering my guard, which I didn’t dare do, especially now that he and I, the two people best suited to protect Lucy, weren’t by her side.

“No, thank you,” I said. “Shouldn’t you be with Lucy? I think she was looking for you earlier.”

“Truly?” He had been looking up at the stars, but at my words faced me with surprise. “I thought she never cared to see me again. She told you about the proposal, no doubt.”

I nodded. “You shouldn’t lose hope,” I said, hoping for a glimpse of her green silk dress through the glass door. “Perhaps a proposal was too strong. Don’t press so hard this early.”

He leaned casually against the brick balustrades with the champagne flute in hand. “I must say, Miss Moreau, I had the distinct impression you didn’t care for me. That makes your advice all the more surprising, but I’m grateful.” He tipped the glass back and downed his drink in one swallow, then set it on the balustrade next to him. “Perhaps you’ve also changed your mind about helping to solve your father’s case? I realize this isn’t the proper place for such a conversation; you must forgive me. . . .”

I folded my arms tightly, suddenly very aware of the cold. “I’m afraid I haven’t. Some things are best left in the past.”

“It isn’t wise to let something like this go unresolved. Until the case is closed, your father will be in your mind—and in the mind of the public. His death has never been more than a rumor. A dead cat was found in Cheshire six months ago, vivisected alive. A distasteful prank, we believe. But rumors could start so easily. Who’s to say Henri Moreau isn’t back in England, picking up where he left off—”

“He’s dead,” I said, unable to hear more. The thought of that cat, prank or not, filled me with malaise. I raised my hand to my aching head but it grazed the champagne flute, which slipped and fell to the ground below with a shattering of glass.

Inspector Newcastle didn’t flinch. “How do you know that? Have you had contact with him? Am I to believe—”

“Believe what you like,” I interrupted, angry with myself for the slip. I shouldn’t have let a mere mention of Father get under my skin. I picked up my mask and headed for the door. “I assure you he’s dead. You can close your case and stop asking me about it.”

Perhaps I was too harsh, but I threw open the door into the warm ballroom and left him just the same. As I pushed through the thick crowd, something brushed by my head, nearly pulling my hair, and I stepped on a woman’s trailing blue satin dress and mumbled an apology. I moved near the wall, away from the thick crowd.

With luck, Inspector Newcastle would ignore what I’d said about Father and react to my words about Lucy instead. He’d stay with her for the rest of the night, keeping her safe from Edward.
From Radcliffe, too,
I thought darkly, thinking of the brain. But as I headed for an empty chair, a woman dressed as a masked bandit grabbed my arm. I jerked away until she pulled her mask off and gave me a crooked smile. Elizabeth.

“I’ve been wondering where you’ve been all night,” she said. “I thought I’d find you with Lucy.”

I rested a hand against the tight bodice of my dress. “I stepped out onto the balcony for a breath of air.”

She reached up to remove something caught in my hair, the same place where one of the partygoers had bumped into me.

A little white flower.

The room, with all its whirling commotion, stopped as though captured in a photograph.

“What a beautiful flower,” Elizabeth said. “I don’t recognize this one. Wherever did you get it?”

A gift from a monster.

I took the delicate flower, thinking of the matching one at home pressed between the pages of my journal. When I turned it over, this one too was tinged with blood. I crumpled it in my fist before Elizabeth could see.

My throat went dry with the memory of the Beast’s transformation.

“Lucy gave it to me,” I lied, while my eyes darted among the crowd, and my heart pounded harder. The flower meant the Beast was here, yet every face was covered in a mask. For a monster with his skills, this ball was a playground for his killing.

“I should find her.” I balled my fist. “If you’ll excuse me.”

I stepped away, but Elizabeth held my arm. “Don’t think I don’t know what this is about,” she whispered. I froze until a smile slowly worked across her face. She nodded across the ballroom. “That man in the black mask has been staring at you throughout our entire conversation. He’s smitten, the poor fellow. You didn’t tell me you’d an admirer.”

I halfheartedly searched the crowd of faces. What use was an admirer, when a monster was in our midst? The masked partygoers swirled together in a gossiping tide, impossible to single out just one face for long.

Except for one.

Amid the crowd one masked man stood still, eyes turned in my direction. He wasn’t just looking at me. His every sense was trained on me in a way that made my heart race. This wasn’t an admirer. This was a predator stalking his prey.

“Yes, that’s the one,” Elizabeth said, teasing me. “Who is he?”

His mask was black, covering his whole face, with two points like ears or horns and a sinister painted grin. It reminded me of an animal. A wolf. A
jackal.

“He’s no one. If you’ll excuse me . . .” I stumbled away from Elizabeth, toward the twinkling Christmas tree filled with tiny wrapped presents and gold bows, and leaned against the wall. Apparently it didn’t matter that I had hidden my face behind a mask. Someone had recognized me.

The Beast was here.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

TWENTY

I
NSTINCTIVELY,
I
SCANNED FOR
exits. There were only two—the grand spiral staircase and the balcony door to the gardens. Should I run? Or would it be safer in a crowd? Not even the Beast would attack a person amid all these witnesses. Then again, at some point the ball must end. The crowd would leave. I would have to leave too, with only Elizabeth to escort me into the dark streets.

A woman near us let out a laugh so shrill it sounded like a scream. The music was loud. The chatter louder. People were dancing out of order, tipsy from wine. The Beast stood so calmly among them, not taking his eyes off me.

I could ask Elizabeth for help, but she would think me mad. Inspector Newcastle was here with a dozen officers, but I didn’t dare tell him that the very murderer he was hunting was here, just so Edward could fall into the hand of those who might cut him apart,
snip snip snip,
to learn my father’s science.