Author: Megan Shepherd
Category: Young Adult
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/megan-shepherd/page,4,54767-a_cold_legacy.html
“What’s this one for?” I asked. The bedroom door had only one lock.
“A welcome present from McKenna.” She smirked. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out soon enough. Mad Lord Ballentyne was full of surprises when he built this house.”
The little girl with the limp giggled, and Valentina shushed her and swept her out of the room, leaving me alone while she showed the others to their rooms down the hall.
I went to the window, where I could make out little in the dark rain. Lightning crackled, revealing a sudden flash of ghostly white. I jumped back in surprise. It looked like enormous white sheets, spinning impossibly fast, and I threw a hand over my heart before the whirling shapes made sense.
A windmill.
At least now I knew the source of Elizabeth’s electricity. Glowing lights flickered from the other exterior windows on this wing. I wondered which room was Montgomery’s, and Lucy’s, and which room they’d put Edward in earlier. Sorrow washed through me at the thought of him. If only Lucy’s premonitions were right, and the fever would break and he’d be himself again, miraculously cured of the Beast.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t nearly as optimistic as Lucy. Sometimes things didn’t work out for the best. The King’s Club massacre, for one. It had been a messy, cruel solution, even if it had saved us.
Would I take it back, if I could?
The answer eluded me, and I started to pull the drapes closed over the window, tired of the same guilty thoughts circling in my head, only to find that the curtains spanned a wider section of the wall that hid a secret door. The small key Valentina had given me was a perfect fit, and I swung it open.
I let out a soft sound of surprise when I found a second bedroom that was like a mirror to my own—except for the young man standing by the wardrobe in the process of undressing. Montgomery turned at the sound of the door. His suspenders hung by his side, his blond hair loose and still damp from the rain.
“Adjoining bedrooms,” I explained, holding up the key. “This must be the welcome present Mrs. McKenna meant for us. How scandalous. I guess the household isn’t as puritanical as their clothes make them seem.” I tried to keep my voice light. Since fleeing London we’d barely spoken, and I didn’t want our new life here to begin in sullenness. But he came to the doorway and rubbed his chin, distracted.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It doesn’t feel right,” he said. “Those bodies in the cellar. This place, these people, greeting us with a rifle to our heads.” There was fear in his expression, which made my heart dim. Montgomery was rarely afraid of anything.
“It’s better than being arrested for murder,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow, unconvinced. “Well, of course. The housekeeper is kind enough, and they’re good to take us in, but they’re hiding something. I can smell it.”
“Does it smell like musty old clothes?” I tried to lighten the mood again. “Because that’s just the carpets.”
He tensed, not in the mood for joking.
“This isn’t London,” I said, more seriously this time. “Elizabeth clearly lets them run wild, and they’ve no idea what to do with us. You saw the disdainful look Valentina gave Lucy, like we’d die without our tea and crumpets.” I laid a hand on his chest, toying with his top button. “I suspect she’s just jealous of our nice clothes and fancy address in the city.”
For a moment we stood mirrored on either side of the door while the wind whistled outside. His jaw tensed, and he stepped back so my hand fell. “We don’t have a fancy address anymore. We can never return to London, not since you murdered three men.”
I blinked. The fire crackled, heat trying to push us even farther apart, and my heartbeat sped up. “You know I had no choice. I didn’t want to do it.”
“That isn’t what you said at the time. I could see in your eyes how badly you wanted to kill Inspector Newcastle. You burned him alive.” He paused, breathing heavily, arms braced on either side of the door. I could only gape, wanting to deny the accusation but not quite able to. “Sometimes you remind me so much of your father, it’s frightening.”
The sting in his words settled into the curtains and bedspread like the smell of chimney smoke, and just as impossible to get rid of. “It was better than letting them use Father’s research,” I said in my defense. “They would have hurt so many more people. Father would have helped them, not stopped them.”
He cursed under his breath. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
I placed my hand on my forehead, trying to calm the blood searing in my veins. “No. Don’t apologize. We said we’d always be honest with each other. And if I’m being honest with you, I think you should be thankful we have a roof over our heads and walls around us, and stop questioning Elizabeth’s generosity. There’s nothing wrong with these people, and there’s nothing wrong with me.”
I closed the door in his face, twisted the key, and leaned my back against it. He knocked and called to me, but I didn’t answer. I crawled into bed and thought about Montgomery’s words. It was true that I’d been obsessed with bringing the water-tank creatures to life, even knowing the bloodshed that would follow. Maybe the fortune-teller was right. Reading the future was nonsense, but there was a grain of truth in how his predictions had made me feel—as though escaping Father was impossible, even in death. Maybe, just maybe, I should stop trying so hard to fight it.
FIVE
THAT NIGHT, I DREAMED I was in the professor’s house on Dumbarton Street, in the cellar where we’d kept the Beast locked away. I descended the stairs slowly, listening for the tap-tap-tap of claws on the stone floor. When I faced the barred cellar door, though, no yellow eyes met mine. Tropical warmth and the smell of the sea came instead. I was back on Father’s island, ankle deep in the surf, watching the volcano’s plume ascend into a cloudless sky.
“You’re engaged to him,” a voice said from behind me. “Yet you know so little about him.”
The Beast emerged from among the palms. I’d only ever seen the Beast at night, or cast in shadows. In sunlight he looked more like Edward. Just an ordinary young man—except for his golden yellow eyes.
“Montgomery and I grew up together,” I said. “I know him better than anyone.”
“And yet he’s keeping secrets from you.” The Beast stopped a few feet away from me, smelling both sweet and bitter, like the blood-soaked plumeria flowers he’d left for me in London. “I warned you about his secrets once. You like to pretend that you didn’t hear, and yet here I am in your head, a voice you can’t escape.”
My head suddenly ached with splitting pain.
“Do you remember what I said?” he asked.
I pressed a hand to my temple.
Ask Montgomery about your father’s laboratory files on the island, he had said. About the ones you didn’t see.
MY EYES SHOT OPEN as I jerked upright. The smell of the professor’s root cellar hung around me like fog. I tried to stand but the memory choked me until I realized it was only the bedspread tangled around my limbs.
Scotland, I reminded myself. I’m in Scotland, not on the island.
I climbed out of bed and threw open the window for fresh night air. The rain had stopped, but the smell of bogs was heavy. No matter how many deep breaths I took, I couldn’t rid myself of that terrible dream.
I looked toward the door to Montgomery’s room. My fingers drifted to the thin silver ring on my finger, glinting in the candlelight.
My future husband.
Had I been wrong to disregard the Beast’s warning about him?
My stomach churned with worry. I didn’t want to return to an empty bed, frightening dreams, and thoughts of a fiancé who might be keeping secrets. I decided to find Edward’s room and verify with my own eyes that the Beast hadn’t returned.
I threw on an old dressing gown I found in the armoire. It was lacy and long, softly feminine yet old-fashioned. I lit the candelabrum and opened my door silently.
The hallway was quiet.
Everyone else was sleeping soundly. I pressed the electric light button on the wall but nothing happened—the electricity must have gone off in the storm. I peered through the first keyhole I came to, at a room smaller than my own and considerably cozier. To my surprise, the bed was empty, the occupant curled on the warm hearthstones instead, his big hairy arms tucked under his heavy head, snoring softly. Balthazar. Sharkey slept in his arms, feet twitching as he chased dream rabbits. Balthazar must have snuck down to the barn to get him. The sweet scene warmed me as if I was curled by the hearth with them.
A floorboard squeaked down the hall, and I jerked upright, but it was nothing—just the manor settling. I shivered anyway as I peeked in the next keyhole. A half dozen candles burned on the table as though the room’s occupant feared the dark. A soft murmur came and the figure rolled over, flashing dark curls and a pale face not so different from my own.
Lucy.
There was only one guest bedroom left, so it had to belong to Edward. I peered through the keyhole. A candle on the side table flickered there, too. Edward lay still as a corpse on the bed, not even a blink or a flicker of breath to tell me he was alive. The chains wrapped around his arms and chest glinted in the candlelight.
I shuddered. The servants must think us mad to chain a young man we claimed was a friend, but if they knew the truth, they’d be even more fearful of us. I took out the key to his room, ready to open it.
Suddenly a face blocked the keyhole. A shriek ripped through me as I stumbled backward. An eye looked back from the other side of the keyhole. It was milky white, completely devoid of color.
It blinked.
I screamed.
MONTGOMERY WAS FIRST INTO the hallway. He spotted me and rushed to my side.
“What’s happened?” he asked, all tension from our fight put aside.
Another door slammed, then another, and footsteps sounded above our heads. I tried to steady my breath.
“A face,” I breathed. “There’s someone in Edward’s room.”
Uncertainty creased his forehead. He crossed to Edward’s door and rattled the knob. “Still locked. Only you and Valentina have a key.”
Lucy’s door opened across the hall. Her sleep-dazed face peeked through the crack. “Juliet? I thought I heard a scream.”
Mrs. McKenna appeared at the top of the stairs with Valentina right behind her, both in their loose-fitting sleep shirts. “Was that you who screamed, Miss Moreau?” Mrs. McKenna asked.
“I saw someone in Edward’s room. Blast it, I’m going in.”
I turned the key in the lock and opened the door. We all pressed inside. Edward lay on the bed, unconscious, with sweat dripping down his brow. My heart pounded as I searched the tall curtains. Montgomery threw open the armoire, and Lucy knelt to look under the bed. They both came up empty-handed.
Had it been only my imagination?
Mrs. McKenna watched me keenly. “This person you saw,” she said, throwing Valentina a wary glance. “Can you describe him or her?”
“I don’t know if was a man or a woman. I only saw the person’s eye looking at me through the keyhole. It was completely white, as though the iris had been drained of color.”
Mrs. McKenna shared another look with Valentina, this one substantially less mysterious. I felt as though I was missing something between these two.
“Do you know the person?” Montgomery asked.
“Oh, aye, we know him.” Mrs. McKenna’s mouth quirked with either annoyance or amusement, I couldn’t tell. She walked over to a fading oil painting in a gilded frame that stood as tall as her. To my surprise she swung it open on groaning hinges, reaching quickly into what must have been an alcove or tunnel behind the painting, and grabbed something that scrambled there.
I heard a tussle as the thing tried to get away, but then gave up with a curt little sigh and let the housekeeper pull it out.
No one was more shocked than I when her hand reemerged clutching a small child by his shirt collar’s high nape. He was a tiny thing, five years old perhaps, with a shock of dark hair and a scowl that rivaled even that of the old bartender from the inn on the main road. A live white rat perched on his shoulder—a tamed pet. Lucy made a face of disgust.
When Mrs. McKenna turned him toward the light, I saw his eyes. One was a deep brown, the other milky white.
“Is this your trespasser, miss?”
“Y . . . yes,” I stammered.
Mrs. McKenna let go of the boy’s shirt. “This is Master Hensley. He’s been missing since breakfast. He often disappears; he always comes back sooner or later, when he’s hungry. I should have thought to look in the walls.”
“Master Hensley?”
“Aye, Mistress Elizabeth’s son.” Mrs. McKenna gave me a strange look. “Didn’t she mention him?”
Something curdled my blood. I’d spent a month in London with Elizabeth, sharing all our secrets, practically becoming family, and not once had she mentioned having a son.
Why not?
The housekeeper gave him a firm pat on the back in the direction of Valentina. “To bed with you, child. Leave our guests alone, else they’ll think the house haunted.”
Valentina held out her hand, ungloved now that she was just in her dressing gown. Her hand was surprisingly small and white beneath her long sleeve, not at all the same complexion as the rest of her body. I wondered if the pigment in her skin had been bleached in some chemical accident. That would certainly explain why she wore gloves most of the time, when she hardly acted like a Puritan.
The little boy sauntered off with her into the hallway. He barely seemed like a child in those stiff clothes, with that scowling face—more like a little man made to live in a too-small body. His scuffed shoes and the dirt under his nails spoke of frequent disappearances like this one.
“I apologize for the disturbance,” Mrs. McKenna said, closing the painting. “It’s an old house, filled with these tunnels. Mad Lord Ballentyne is rumored to have built them to confuse spirits that might be wandering the halls, though I think it’s more likely it was to hide his distillery from the British authorities. No one uses the passages now, except Hensley. They’re quite dangerous. Loose nails and uneven bricks and a few traps Lord Ballentyne set in case he was being pursued. Tomorrow I’ll have Carlyle seal this painting with some nails, so you won’t need to worry about anyone intruding upon your friend’s slumber.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“As to the electricity, the girls will try their best to repair it tomorrow. Until then, you’ll find more candles in your closets. Let’s hope for no more disturbances this time, eh?”
I gave an uneasy nod. “Indeed.”
The servants returned to their rooms, and after a few minutes Montgomery did as well, leaving Lucy and me alone with Edward. She sank onto the bed next to him, brushing an errant strand of hair from his brow.
“He’s burning up,” she muttered. “All the excitement must have him worried.” Her hand dropped to the chain across his chest, toying with the lock almost as if she didn’t realize what she was doing, but I did—she wanted those chains off him so he could sit up and be his old self. But I wasn’t certain he was his old self, not anymore.
“Lucy,” I said softly, “he’s delirious. He doesn’t even know we’re here.”
She gave me an exasperated look. “I’m the one who’s been taking care of him since we left London, and I know his moods best. I swear he woke up in the traveler’s inn on the way here, no matter what you say. . . .”
I’d stopped listening to her, shocked by what was happening on the bed. Before my very eyes, Edward blinked. For a moment I thought I’d imagined it. But then his eyes opened.
My lips parted in shock.
“Juliet, what’s the matter?” she asked, and then followed my gaze to the bed and gasped.
Edward blinked again, wincing in pain, lucid for the first time since he’d taken the poison. “Lucy,” his voice rasped.
“Edward!” She threw hersel
f against him, running her hands through his sweat-soaked hair. “I knew you were better!”
I covered my mouth with my hand, hanging back by the door as though afraid to believe it. “Edward? Is it you?”
“Juliet.” He winced in pain. “Listen to me, both of you—” He coughed, the chains rattling, and he collapsed back on the bed, overtaken with the fever again. He looked so much like the skeletal castaway we’d found on the Curitiba that my heart started thumping painfully hard. Back then, he’d been just a step away from death. He looked even closer now.
“Edward, can you hear me?” Lucy said. “You’ve been delirious for days. Montgomery gave you something to help with the poison.”
I clamped a hand on her shoulder, holding her back. “Be careful, Lucy. We don’t know if it’s the Beast or Edward.”
“Of course it’s Edward!”
His eyelids fluttered and I pulled Lucy back farther, despite the chains and her insistence. “Listen to me,” he said. “I can’t fight him off any longer. This might be the last you hear from me.”
Lucy and I both gaped at him. She shook her head. “You’re recovering,” she pleaded. “You’ll be fine.”
His eyes shifted to her. “Lucy, don’t think I haven’t been aware of everything you’ve done for me, taking care of me all this time and believing in me. Your strength gave me strength, and it was enough to keep fighting him. But even so, I can’t fight forever.” He swallowed hard, as though his throat was bone dry. “There was a moment, a flash, when he and I were truly one. I could see all his memories because they were my memories too. I know everything he knows, all his secrets—and there were many. The Beast was doing his own research. His own experiments.”
His eyes shifted to mine. The tenderness in them was gone. If he still bore any love for me, it was hidden under his desperation. He needed me as a scientist now, not a former lover.