Author: Megan Shepherd

I hesitated. Speaking of my illness made me feel exposed. It was just one more thing linking me to my mad father. But this—this was new. Montgomery already knew everything about my illness. It was an unfamiliar and comforting thought to know I didn’t have to hide from him.

I nodded slightly.

He leaned forward with concern. “And you haven’t had any symptoms?” He reached out to take my wrist, but I jerked away. There was a limit to how much I’d share, even with Montgomery. “I study medicine,” he said. “Please. Let me see.”

I thought of the game those medical students had made up as an excuse to touch every bone in Lucy’s body. Montgomery had given me anatomy lessons, but not like that. He would have been as uncomfortable with that lurid game as I’d been. Cautiously, I laid my white palm in the cradle of his tanned hand. He rolled up my sleeve, then brushed a finger against the sensitive skin of my inner elbow. My breath caught. I was alone in a young man’s room, letting him touch me in places he shouldn’t even see. But he wasn’t just any young man—he was Montgomery. His touch sent my mind whirling. My body was already leaning forward, drawn toward his presence uncontrollably, before my thoughts could catch up.

“Good,” he muttered, and I came back to the present, blushing wildly. His finger still rested against my arm, rubbing absently, burning a hole in my skin. “Have you had trouble getting enough of the treatment?”

I took a deep breath. “No. Any chemist’s will make it if I give them the instructions and the raw supplies. Though they look at me oddly enough.”

He nodded. “I’m glad. I’ve worried.” Slowly he released my arm. I rolled the sleeve back down quickly, smoothing the cuff over my wrist.

The silence was heavy.

“When do you depart?” I asked quickly.

“Soon,” he said quickly, a though it couldn’t be soon enough. He sat back in his chair. “Day after tomorrow, maybe.”

I swallowed, trying to hide my disappointment. “Back to the island?”

“Yes. Balthasar has been working to arrange our return voyage. Not many ships want to take our cargo.”

“Cargo? The trunks and things?”

“That’s only part of it. The rest is . . . well, the doctor’s supplies.”

My curiosity piqued. Surgical tools? Specimens? But I shook the questions out of my head. I wanted my father’s truth, not his science.

“Does he ever speak of me?” I asked in a rush. I had to ask before he sailed away, forever.

Montgomery grinned, one second too late. “Yes. Of course.”

I didn’t smile back. I knew that grin, one side pulled back just slightly, jaw set harder than it should have been. Montgomery had given me that grin before, when our house cat had run away. He promised me all cats knew their way out of the city to the farms where mice grew fat as pigeons. But the cat hadn’t made it out of the city. Later I found out Father had drowned it for bringing fleas into the house.

That grin meant Montgomery was lying.

I stood so fast the teapot rattled. I pushed my chair back, looking for my bag. I realized I wasn’t ready to learn the truth. And Montgomery . . . I hadn’t felt such intense and confusing emotions in so long that I didn’t know what to do but run.

“I need to go. I was supposed to work tonight.”

He stood, surprised. “Stay. It’s been so long—”

“It was good to see you,” I said, stumbling toward the door. I’d forgotten the time. Mrs. Bell had asked me to help clean the operating theater before a lecture Monday morning. She’d be furious I wasn’t there.

Balthasar poked his head out from the other room, giving me a quizzical look. The parrot pecked against the bars of its cage. “I’m sorry about trying to break in,” I said.

“Miss Moreau, please. Wait.”

I was out of the room before he could finish. I hurried down the stairs, into the dining hall, where the proprietor was mopping the floors. She looked up, but I didn’t stop until I was outside.

THE STREETS WERE EMPTY. Saint Paul’s church bells tolled as I made my way along Cannon Street. My head was as foggy as the night. Eight, nine, ten tolls. Ten o’clock. Blast. Mrs. Bell would skin me alive. I picked up my skirts—my Sunday best, which would take too long to change out of—and ran through the back alleys to my boardinghouse. Annie gave me a quizzical look as I threw open the door and grabbed my basket of cleaning supplies, but I couldn’t waste time on an explanation.

I ran back out into the night, down the Strand toward King’s College. Mrs. Bell and Mary would probably still be there, seething that I was late. I tried to ignore the other thoughts clouding my mind: My father was alive but hadn’t contacted me. Montgomery was back, and yet he’d soon return to my father, as though our roles as servant and child were reversed.

At last I made it to the entrance of the medical building and dashed up the granite steps, tugging on the front door. Locked. I set down my basket and gathered a few bits of broken stone from the street and tossed them at the high first-floor windows, praying Mary would hear me. Mrs. Bell would give me an earful for being late, but it was better than not showing at all. My aim wasn’t good, especially since my bare hands were cold and trembling, but a light went on in one of the windows.

“Thank God,” I said, cupping my freezing nose. I picked up my basket of cleaning supplies. I’d help them finish and then scramble home to my warm bed, where I could bury my thoughts in a downy quilt. I’d find a way to get a message to Lucy about my father being alive. She’d know what to do.

The door jerked open. I hurried inside but stopped when I saw the face lit by candlelight.

“Dr. Hastings—” I said. He closed the door, plunging us into darkness lit only by the glowing flame. When he slammed the door behind me, the sound echoed through the empty hallway.

“Juliet. It’s quite late.”

“I’m to help Mrs. Bell,” I stuttered, holding up my basket. His eyes were on my Sunday dress. No coat, no gloves. I must have looked suspiciously out of place on a cold night. I swallowed. “I’ll just go find them—”

I started down the hall, but he laid a hand on my shoulder. “They’ve already left. They finished not ten minutes ago.” His fingers tightened. “It’s only me in the building tonight.”

My stomach clenched. “Then I suppose I’m not needed. I’m sorry for disturbing you.” I twisted toward the doorway, but he blocked it.

“You’re freezing,” he said, clutching my bare hands. “What a silly girl, without a coat on a night like this. Come to my office. I have a fire going.”

“Thank you. But I should get home.”

His parchment-like skin grazed my palm, so unlike the strong feel of Montgomery’s touch. I tried to slip my hand away, but he didn’t let go. I jerked my arm, but his grip only tightened. He smiled. Anger and fear spread throughout my body like an infection.

“Now, now,” he said, with a sickening smirk. “What sort of mischief have you been up to, out alone late at night in your finest dress?” He licked his lips, his eyes glowing in the candlelight. “You’ve been with a man, haven’t you? I can smell his cologne. It would be a shame for Mrs. Bell to find out. She’d have to dismiss you, of course. King’s College has a reputation to uphold.”

The threat raised the hair on my arms. My body started to tremble with a feverish anger that seeped from my bones, tangling in my veins, urging me to lash out at him. My hand tightened on the basket handle as I fought to stay calm. “It’s no business of yours who I’ve been with. If it was a man, you can be sure he wasn’t a balding, dried-out old git.”

He smirked. “A dried-out old git, am I? You’re a pretty one, but you’ll have to cool that temper if you want to keep your job. Now come to my office and do as you’re told, and there’ll be a sixpence in it for you as well.”

A bilious mix of fear and disgust rose in my throat, but my lips felt sewn together. I had to get out of there, quickly. He was twice my weight. If I tried to run, he’d be on me in an instant.

His spindly fingers pried the basket from my hand and set it on the entry table. My thoughts beat in time with my frantic pulse, trying to devise a solution. He reached for my waist, but I stepped backward.

The thin line of his mouth tightened. “I’m losing patience with these games of yours. I’m going to have you tonight, and you might as well be a good girl and you’ll get something out of it.” Wax dripped from the half-forgotten candle in his hand onto the floor. I’d have to clean that hardening wax before this night was out. My fear started to harden, too. My eyes caught the blade of the mortar scraper in the basket, and all sorts of ideas came to mind of what I’d like to do with that sharp point. I might be cleaning up splashes of his blood, too, unless he left me alone.

“You’re a lucky girl, Juliet, that I still take an interest in you even after your father’s transgressions. Not every man would show such kindness.”

Kindness. A bitter laugh sounded in my head. The last thing Dr. Hastings showed was kindness. If he only knew about Montgomery, the man he’d just accused me of having been with. Montgomery would have slammed his fist into Dr. Hastings’s lump of a nose. My eyes drifted back to the basket. The mortar scraper was within reach. The palm of my hand was hungry to hold its worn handle. To do something . . . I might regret.

Dr. Hastings took my silence as consent. He snaked a hand up my arm, his fingers squeezing my flesh like ripe fruit. Run, I told myself. But what about the next time? He’d retaliate. He’d come at me harder.

There couldn’t be a next time.

“It’s a good thing your father’s dead,” he said, his fingers curling around my shoulder, suggestively rubbing the place where my worn lace collar met bare skin. “He wouldn’t want to know all the vulgar things I’m going to do to you.”

I started to twist away, but he pushed me against the entryway table. My hip connected with the sharp corner as a bolt of pain shot through me. I winced, and he took the opportunity to pin me against the table with the weight of his own body. His fingers found my throat greedily and ripped the collar of my dress. Buttons rained to the floor.

My cleaning basket was just behind me. His thin lips breathed a disgusting moan against my collarbone. Although he had me trapped, my right hand was free. A tiny voice warned me I’d regret what I was about to do, but my head echoed with a roar. My fingers had already closed over the mortar scraper. A sort of madness took me over, pushing away the fear and terror. Before Dr. Hastings realized what was happening, I had the sharp edge of the mortar scraper pressed against the fleshy triangle in the base of his palm where all the flexor tendons met.

His face twisted with anger, but I pushed the blade harder, almost breaking the skin. I didn’t want to like this. But I did, so much that my hands shook with the silent promise of the blade in my hand. “Don’t move, or I’ll sever every tendon in your hand,” I hissed. “My father was a surgeon. I know how important motor function is to you, Doctor. I can end your career in about half a centimeter of flesh.”

“I told you I was tired of these games,” he growled. “Now put the knife down and finish taking off your dress.”

“It isn’t a knife. It’s a cleaning tool, but I wouldn’t expect you to know the difference.” I pressed harder, barely able to restrain myself. “And I’ll use it unless you swear to never touch me again.” I let the blade dip into his skin, just enough to draw a dark line of blood.

“You’re as mad as your father!” he cried. He spit a thin stream of saliva that landed on my cheek. “I’ll see you run out of town just like him.”