These Vicious Masks: A Swoon Novel (17 page)

“The greater good is all that matters.”

My stomach flipped. This scientist was rationalizing the pain and suffering he would inflict on Rose for his success.

“You’re mad,” I got out. “You’re all stark raving mad. She’s just a girl.”

“There are thousands of people out there every day, forced to watch their sisters and daughters die of diseases. And they’re saying the same thing.”

I turned to glare at Dr. Beck. “When I tell the police of this—”

“They will do nothing,” he interrupted, looking exasperated. “I have plenty of persuasive friends who are highly invested in my research. Not that it matters, as neither of you
are leaving here alive anyway.”

The words sliced right through me—his matter-of-fact tone, as if our death were an inevitability I was too foolish to realize.

I tightened my fists and took a deep breath, holding back my tears of frustration. “Th-then what are you waiting for?”

He didn’t deign to respond. Instead, he just watched as Mr. Braddock dodged and Claude advanced, winding the lamppost back for another swing, digging his foot into the broken ground below
him, and aiming a powerful and unexpected kick right in Mr. Braddock’s direction.

It happened in the blink of an eye. The cobblestone debris hit Mr. Braddock’s face and sent him tumbling down, his forehead smacking the wooden bridge as he landed. With the slightest hint
of satisfaction, Claude balanced the lamppost on his shoulder and made his way across the bridge to Mr. Braddock.
Get up, get up, get up
, I pleaded.

He didn’t.

Claude raised the lamppost high above his head for one last blow, his grip crunching into the metal post.

“Wait!” The cry ripped itself from my chest. “Take me!”

Silence. Dr. Beck looked at me, incredulous. “I’m sorry?”

“I can heal, too! Please, just call your other man back and take me in Rose’s place.”

Dr. Beck narrowed his eyes skeptically as though I were the insane one. Without a word, he turned and headed for Claude and Mr. Braddock.

Somehow, I found the legs to follow. “And you must let Mr. Braddock go.”

Dr. Beck motioned to Claude, who obeyed and lowered the gas lamp as we drew closer. “If you can heal,” he said.

“I can,” I insisted. “I promise.”

Dr. Beck knelt beside Mr. Braddock. In one swift motion, he pulled a knife out of his jacket pocket and slashed a long, cruel cut into Mr. Braddock’s back as I screamed. “Then prove
it.”

My stomach sank, along with the rest of my body, and before I knew it, I was on the ground pressing my hands over Mr. Braddock’s gushing wound, willing it to close, to fix this whole mess,
to bring Rose back.

With Claude and Dr. Beck standing over me, I swallowed my fear, removed my blood-drenched hand, and found the open cut staring back at me.
No.

Dr. Beck shook his head. “As I thought. Just because you’re siblings does not mean you and Miss Rosamund both have the same ability. I’ve found no such correlation in my
research.”

“It’s t-true, I promise you, it’s true.” My voice was as broken as my newfound power, and tears fell fast down my cheeks.

“I hope this same sense of selflessness runs in your family. Then Miss Rosamund and I shall get along very well,” he said, turning to go. “Finish it!”

Claude’s heavy tread approached, the lamppost scraping and rattling along the wooden planks. Clutching Mr. Braddock to myself, I slid us backward, inch by inch, as if the extra step would
somehow keep us from Claude.

Suddenly, Dr. Beck spun around, calling out urgently, “Claude, watch—”

A gunshot cracked through the silence, striking the railing near Claude. A carriage screeched behind me as the bridge started to vibrate. Claude froze, watching its approach, then turned to find
Dr. Beck already backing away.

“Let’s go!”

Another gunshot rang through the air, and Claude retreated, not waiting to see if our savior’s aim would improve upon his approach. He disappeared down the street and into the distant
darkness as the carriage rumbled close. Only when the horses whinnied to a stop and Mr. Kent leaped down next to us did my breath return in a gasp of relief.

“Miss Wyndham! Are you all right? What’s happened?” he asked, reaching out to calm me down. I wanted so badly to close my eyes, collapse in his arms, and sleep for days.

Instead I ignored his hand on mine, concentrating on the injured man in my lap. I forced back a wave of nausea as I stared down at the deathly pale face. The only color interrupting Mr.
Braddock’s gray pallor was the sticky red blood still issuing from his forehead.

“I don’t know—Rose is gone—she’s gone—and he was protecting me from Claude,” I babbled. “We—we have to help him.”

I pressed my cheek against his, feeling his faint response tingle in my blood: weak, but it was there. A ragged breath scratched along his throat.

“Mr. Braddock, if you don’t wake up, I shall kill you myself.”

“It will be all right,” Mr. Kent reassured me as we tugged Mr. Braddock up, pulling his arms around our shoulders. “God, he is much heavier than he looks, isn’t he? Must
be that large head.”

We laid Mr. Braddock down in Mr. Kent’s carriage, then squeezed ourselves in. “The closest hospital!” Mr. Kent called out to his driver.

“No!” I shouted, shaking my head fervently. The hospital would contact the police, and the police would contact Dr. Beck. We needed a quiet, safe place to treat him. With no other
choice, I provided the driver with the Lodges’ address. Mr. Braddock had to live. Then we could worry about the rest.

“How did you find me?” The words slipped out of me. I needed a distraction as I pulled Mr. Braddock onto my lap, cradling him as if my arms were the only things keeping him in one
piece.

Mr. Kent’s jaw set, but he answered civilly enough. “I saw a strange woman in the dress your sister was wearing earlier. Curious business, that. But she told me where you
were—after enough money changed hands, of course.”

“Yes, of course, I will explain . . .” But I couldn’t. My words drifted away, leaving me unable to think on anything besides Mr. Braddock. Blood still seeped out of the cut on
his back, soaking my hands, my dress, my thoughts. He had said I was a miraculous healer. He said I restored Miss Lodge to full health. I’d seen my hands heal. It was true. And I wanted it to
be true. As we rolled down the bumpy streets, I closed my eyes, willing my body to access my power, whatever part it was that would make him better.

Please. I believed. Damn it all, I believed.

T
HE ENTIRELY HEALTHY
Miss Lodge greeted us at her front door and let out a soft gasp, taking in the entirely bloody Mr.
Braddock. With the quiet, incurious assistance of Cushing, we hauled Mr. Braddock’s body up the stairs and into a dark-paneled guest room. My arms trembled with exertion, and my eyes itched
with tears I would not allow to fall. As we set him on the bed, I held Miss Lodge’s disbelieving gaze, unnaturally shiny over the candle.

It was true. She really
had
recovered. And now I burdened her with this.

“I’m terribly sorry for troubling you,” I whispered. “We just needed to treat him quickly.”

At that, she snapped into action, swiftly rearranging the bedsheets around Mr. Braddock with an agitated energy. “No, no, please. Thank you for bringing him,” she said with a rushed
imitation of a smile. Her eyes finally landed on my dress and widened. “You’re—you’re covered in blood, Miss Wyndham. Are you hurt? We will call for a doctor.”

“It’s all—it’s his blood,” I croaked. “Please, let me help him . . . I must, he saved me.”

Miss Lodge looked hesitant but gave in before I did, asking Cushing to fetch me the supplies I needed. In a flash, he returned with a cart of bandages, gauze, towels, laudanum, a sewing kit, and
a bowl of warm water. Even if I couldn’t magically heal him, I could still do this.

Whereas Miss Lodge’s illness had baffled me, Mr. Braddock’s treatment came naturally, recalling the countless farming accidents that Rose and I tended to in Bramhurst. First came the
knife wound, which required peeling off the blood-drenched jacket and shirt with Cushing’s help and trying to ignore the fact that Mr. Kent and Miss Lodge were waiting and watching in the
corner. The cut ran six inches across his back, but fortunately it ran fairly shallow—Dr. Beck had not hit anything too serious. Silence fell upon the room, and I fell into a trance with my
ministrations, carefully cleaning up the cut with the towels, stitching it closed with the sewing kit, wrapping it with the bandages, and then repeating the process for the cut on his forehead. The
whole time, the faint sensation from Mr. Braddock tied us together like a delicate thread, and I did everything in my power to keep it from snapping.

Only when I stood up to fetch the laudanum to help Mr. Braddock with the pain did the exhaustion of the night hit me in full force. The dizzying room lurched like a boat, and my feet struggled
to find stable ground.

In an instant, Mr. Kent was by my side, supporting me on his shoulder. “Miss Wyndham, you need rest, and I doubt this floor is the best place for that.”

I let go of him and grabbed the bottle from the cart. “He still needs some laudanum. And some ice for his bruises.”

Miss Lodge gently took it from me. “You’ve done all the difficult work. We can manage some simple nursing. Please, you’ve given me my health back, and I am truly thankful that
I can do this for him.” She looked past me. “Would you be able to escort her home, Mr. Kent?”

He nodded, and I gave Mr. Braddock one more glance, no energy left to argue or obstinately plant myself down by his side. This was Miss Lodge’s home. She was already busy asking Cushing
for more supplies and preparing for the rest of the night. Mr. Kent turned my exhausted body away and led me downstairs.

The dismal trip back to the Kents’ felt like it took hours as Mr. Kent and I rolled through black, vacant streets, our silence thicker than the London fog. I hardly knew what to say to
him, and he didn’t press me with questions. My lips managed a thankyou and a promise to explain everything the next morning. He nodded and helped me to the house, where Tuffins politely
greeted me as if I weren’t a horrible mess and had a maid draw me a bath.

In the warm water, I gazed at my limbs as if they belonged to someone else. If my powers weren’t working, there should have been at least a bruise or a scrape from my fall out of the
carriage. But my skin was unbroken, unblemished. I tried to think, to analyze the evening’s events, but my brain refused to process anything. I was numb, detached, empty. The last thing I
remembered, as my head finally hit the pillow, was making a final prayer for Mr. Braddock’s recovery. For my strange abilities to somehow do their work.

It was a good sign that the Lodges hadn’t donned their mourning weeds the next morning when they welcomed me into their drawing room, but they weren’t exactly the portrait of
happiness, either. They both had expressions of equal parts trepidation and optimism, a fear of hoping too much.

“Miss Wyndham, it is good to see you safe and sound,” Mr. Lodge said. “Is the rest of your party well?”

As I took a seat on a settee, I settled on a vague enough answer. “Yes . . . a bit shaken up, perhaps, but no harm came to them.”

“Something must be done about these drunk ruffians,” Mr. Lodge declared. “It’s a shame that you cannot even attend the opera without worrying about an unprovoked attack.
You must be able to identi—”

Mrs. Lodge rested her hand on her husband’s. “Dear, I am certain Miss Wyndham does not want to revisit the event so soon. For now, we must count ourselves fortunate it was not
worse.”

“Thanks to Mr. Braddock’s bravery,” I added. Did this mean he was awake? He must have provided the Lodges this story. “How is he right now?”

The Lodges exchanged a brief glance. “He left early this morning.”

What? He was close to death just hours ago. “How could he— did Miss Lodge not stop him?” I asked.

“She was watching over him but started to feel rather unwell herself. That is why Sebastian left. He did not wish to slow her own recovery.”

“Terrible, terrible business,” Mr. Lodge concluded, his weary, kind face drained of all color.

A silence settled over the room. I should have anticipated this. Both of them cared too much for the other’s health, to the detriment of their own. Had Miss Lodge’s illness returned?
Had I even cured it in the first place, as Mr. Braddock claimed? My fully healed body gave me some hope, but I dreaded the thought of failing Miss Lodge. I had to be sure.

“Is Miss Lodge still resting upstairs? May I see her?” I asked.

From the way both their faces lit up, I could tell I’d made the right decision, even though the same doubt and dread (which seemed to accompany every visit here) seeped into my stomach as
I followed Cushing upstairs to the bedroom.

“Miss Lodge?” he asked with a light knock.

No response.

“Miss—”

“No need to wake her,” I whispered to Cushing. “I just want to see her condition.”

He nodded and left me alone in the dim bedroom. This would be better anyway. With her asleep, I wouldn’t have to flounder about trying to explain my lack of medicines.