Author: Megan Shepherd

He shook his head, almost laughing at my worry. “This is ridiculous.”

“Just look!” I said. Too loudly. We both glanced at the door. I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Please. Tell me if it looks like the procedure he uses on them.”

I started to untie the ribbons at the back of my skirt, but he grabbed my hand with an iron grip. “Don’t,” he said. “I shouldn’t even be here.”

“We aren’t in London anymore. Who’s going to gossip?” I hissed. “The birds?”

“If your father finds out—”

I shook off his hand and pulled the ribbon loose. I stepped out of my skirt and began unbuttoning my blouse. “I’ll only lower my chemise’s collar in the back.”

He started to object, but voices came from the other side of the wall and I pulled him closer, resting a finger over my lips. We waited until the voices passed. I finished the last button and removed my blouse, setting it over the chair. My fingers trembled. I told myself it was a medical examination, not some secret tryst. But I’d never taken my clothes off in front of a man before. And Montgomery wasn’t just some nameless doctor in a cold examining room.

“It’s an old-fashioned corset. You’ll have to help me with the laces,” I said, turning around. I gripped the back of the chair to keep steady.

“Juliet—”

“Please. I need to know.”

He tugged at the laces with the ungraceful hands of a man. At last they loosened. I dragged the chemise’s wide collar down over one shoulder. I kept my arms folded, holding the corset against my chest.

“Just look,” I whispered, feeling exposed. His hand brushed the hair off my back, sending shivers along either side of the scar. I hugged the corset tighter. Bit my lip. Worries drove me mad. Mother lied. I am some creature, a cat, or a wolf, or . . .

He withdrew his hands. I pulled up my chemise, feeling the warmth rise to my cheeks. He loosely retied the laces of my corset. I smoothed a hand over the whalebone ribbing, waiting.

“Well?” I asked.

“You’re crazy,” he answered. His face broke with the traces of a smile. “It’s just as he said. A spinal deformity fixed by surgery.”

My eyelids sank with relief. “Are you sure?”

“Beyond doubt.” He wet his parched lips. “I know you, Juliet. You’re no monster.”

I studied him closely. The sand still clung to his ear, and I reached up on impulse and brushed it off. His heartbeat sped at my touch. I wanted to believe him. But even if he was right, I knew that one didn’t have to be a creation to be a monster. My own family history proved that.

For a few moments he stood a breath away. His fingers found my wrist and traced along the edge of my arm. He cleared his throat and looked ready to say something, but then he shook his head.

“Good night, Juliet.” He left slowly, as if he had to pry himself away before he did something improper. A growing part of me wished he’d stayed.

Twenty-eight

FATHER AND MONTGOMERY LEFT at dawn the next day. The set-in clouds threatened a tropical storm, but Father was convinced the murderer was Ajax and must be hunted down and brought to justice, despite the weather.

The clouds broke and heavy rain stretched into the afternoon, driving the rest of us indoors. Edward kept to his room with complaints of a headache, a throwback to his time in the dinghy. I spent the day helping Alice hang laundry to dry under the portico’s covered eaves. She was quiet, but that suited me.

We heard the horses stamping outside in late afternoon. Alice brushed the hair out of her face with a soapy hand. “They’ve returned.”

Puck opened the gate. Steam rose off the horses’ bodies. The riders looked like dark, unearthly creatures, covered in mud and black duster coats. They dismounted and crossed through the beating rain to the laboratory. Montgomery glanced at me from under the hood of his oilskin a flash of blue eyes and wet hair and unanswered questions.

Alice and I silently returned to the laundry, though we were both on edge. We were halfway through when the laboratory door slammed open. I dropped the basket of wooden clothespins. Heavy footsteps echoed over the stone flags as I bent to pick them up. Two muddy boots stopped next to the last clothespin.

My father.

I had nothing to say to him. He was an old man with weathered skin and graying hair and dark impulses he couldn’t contain. Not a father.

“You should leave that work to the servants,” he said, raising his voice over the rain. Alice kept her head down as she wrung out a sheet. “Play the piano if you’ve nothing to do. Something proper for a young lady. Where’s that blasted Prince? Can’t he take you for a walk? Show you the view or some such nonsense?”

“Stop trying to push us together,” I hissed, wishing Alice wasn’t overhearing. “Edward can make his own decisions, as can I.”

Father raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? I’m not so sure.” A bolt of lightning lit the sky as he continued to his apartment above the salon. I rested the basket on the side of the laundry bin, biting back words. He was a fool if he still thought he could tell me what to do.

After we finished the laundry, I went to the salon, curious if Edward was up and feeling better. But it was empty save Puck, laying out dinnerware. The piano had been freshly polished, but I crossed to the bookshelves instead. I admired the beautiful green binding of the Shakespeare collection, each book stamped on the spine with gold emblems. One volume was missing, though I didn’t recall which one. I couldn’t imagine one of the beasts reading Shakespeare.

I ran my hand along the uneven shelf and thought of Montgomery, hammering it together years ago when he’d still been a boy. Father demanded perfection, but he’d still kept these shelves, crooked as they were. For as much as he ordered Montgomery about, I suspected he loved him in his own warped way. He’d always wanted a son. Lord knew he never cared about his daughter.

I pulled out the brandy stopper and sloshed a healthy dose into a cut-crystal glass. I drank the spicy-sweet liquid in several gulps. My throat burned. Puck stared at me, the silverware forgotten.

“What? Want to try some?” I asked, tipping the bottle toward him. He scowled as he hurried to finish laying out the place settings.

I took the bottle to the window, studying the falling rain outside. The warm smell of supper began to fill the room, drawing in Montgomery and Father, both scrubbed clean but looking grim.

Father tore the bottle from my hands. “This isn’t for a lady,” he snapped.

“Good. Then it’s perfect for me.”

Father replaced the stopper and returned the bottle to the bookshelf. “You’re determined to ruin yourself, I see. You think you’re an adult and I haven’t control over you anymore. That is where you’re wrong.”

I bristled as spikes of anger twisted into my gut. He hadn’t seen me since I was ten years old. Hadn’t left me money or a home, just a crippling scandal. He didn’t get to dictate what was right and wrong. He didn’t get to tell me who I should marry.

Montgomery saw the look in my eyes and shook his head slowly, warning me. But I couldn’t go along with the charade like he could. “You think I care what you think,” I told Father. “And that is where you’re wrong.”

I turned before he could respond. My hands were shaking and I didn’t want him to see. Montgomery stood by the door, and suddenly my heartstrings tightened, needing a kind look from him, some reassurance. But Alice touched his arm and whispered something in his ear, and his attention was only on her. I turned my thoughts to the silverware, straightening the already straight knives, trying not to feel stung.

Edward filled the doorway, rubbing his temples. I went to him, not in small part to show Montgomery I had someone else to pay attention to as well. But when I saw the shadows under Edward’s eyes, Montgomery drifted from my mind.

“How’s your head?” I asked softly.

“Do I look that awful?” Edward said.

I smiled. The scar down his face was now only a whisper of pain, reminding me of the first time I saw him, sunburned and beaten by waves and straddling the line between the living and the dead. I didn’t think him handsome at the time, and yet the way he wore the bruises had intrigued me. Not complaining, not vain, but like they were an inescapable part of him.

“Like Death’s waiting around the corner,” I said.

“That sounds about right.” He folded his arms. One of the cuffs had a frayed white thread that stirred a memory. They were the same clothes Montgomery had been wearing when I broke into his room at the Blue Boar Inn. Montgomery had no use for a gentleman’s suit now—he wore loose clothes on the island, clothes you could hunt and ride in.

I touched the thread, and as if seeing the line of my thoughts, Edward pulled it loose. Perhaps he didn’t want my mind turning to Montgomery, but it was too late, because Montgomery was coming over.

“Any luck finding Ajax?” Edward asked.

“No. Balthasar’s still out with the hounds. I’ve had enough of that awful rain.”

Father stared out the window. “The island is in a perpetual deluge this time of year. Trade winds off the Pacific, you know. Easy for a man to hide in weather like this if he knows the jungle.”

Easier still for an animal, I thought.

Cymbeline entered, straining under the weight of a steamer platter. Alice rushed to show him patiently how to cut and serve.

Montgomery ruffled the boy’s hair. “Smells wonderful,” he said to Alice. “You’re as good a teacher as you are a cook.”

Her cheeks turned a deep shade of peach. A pang of jealousy struck me deep inside and I flopped into my chair. The others joined me at the table. Didn’t Montgomery remember last night, during the storm, running his fingers down the bare skin of my back? I did. I could barely think about anything else.

Edward sat across from me, deep in his own thoughts. His hands still bore the scratches from our escape. I wondered if his ribs still hurt him. I absently touched my own, remembering the feel of his hands holding me there behind the waterfall. As if he knew what I was thinking, he looked up and gave me the flicker of a smile. His dark eyes were intense.

I bet he remembered.

“Those clothes suit you well,” I said.

“Montgomery was kind enough to lend them to me.”

“I hardly had use for them,” Montgomery added with a slight grin. At least he and Edward were back to being somewhat civil. “Besides, Edward’s the gentleman, not me.”

“That’s certainly an understatement,” Father said. Outside, a crash of thunder shook the windows. His bitterness killed what little contentment we had. I sat back, throwing my napkin on the table. Ever since Father had found out that Jaguar was alive and Montgomery had lied to him about it, he’d treated Montgomery like a dog. But all Montgomery was guilty of was sparing a creature’s life.

“When, exactly, were you going to tell us about the murders?” I asked Father, my voice tight. “Or did you plan to keep calling them accidents and having Montgomery bury the evidence?”

Father speared a dumpling and didn’t blink at my accusation. “This is my island, Juliet. Not yours. If you’d stayed inside the compound walls as I instructed, there wouldn’t be any murders.”

I nearly choked on my food. “How is this my fault?”

“You set loose the rabbits,” Father said. His voice was cold. “The islanders didn’t even know what killing was before Ajax killed a rabbit. We’ve found three more rabbits with their heads torn off.”

I turned to Montgomery, who confirmed it with a nod.

I leaned on the table, anger making me as tense as the storm outside. “Be careful with your accusations, Father. The murders started before I even arrived.”