Author: Megan Shepherd
Category: Young Adult
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/megan-shepherd/page,5,54767-a_cold_legacy.html
“What do you mean?” I asked, daring a step closer.
“The Beast had stolen research from the King’s Men that I never knew about. He discovered his own origin. When your father created me, he made a mistake. He used a portion of the brain from a diseased jackal. It was infected with a strain of rabies that combined with the malaria in Montgomery’s blood to form a hybrid disease located here. . . .” He jerked his hand toward his head, as far as the chains would let him. “At the top of the spine. It’s called the reptile brain because it controls impulse and instinct. If it’s damaged, it can manifest in split personalities. It’s him, Juliet. The Beast. If you could somehow cut it out, replace it, or drain it of the ill humors, you’d cure me of him. The Beast knew it all along. He tried to hide the knowledge from the both of us.”
I couldn’t speak. My head spun with the flood of information Edward was giving me. Could the Beast really be nothing more than a symptom of a diseased brain? A foe I’d fought so hard against reduced to nothing more than a hybrid strain of rabies and a botched surgery?
Lucy spun to me, eyes wide. “Can it truly be done, Juliet?”
I knew little of diseased brains, but the books I’d read did support his theory. I’d heard of men who had suffered damage to the posterior lobe suddenly speaking with a foreign accent they’d never had before. One kindhearted man had been shot through the cortex and developed a violent new personality.
“I don’t know.” My voice faltered. “Maybe. Montgomery is a more gifted surgeon than me.” I glanced back toward the hallway, wondering what he would think of all this. Even though Edward was like a brother to him—biologically, at least—Montgomery wouldn’t hesitate to kill him if he was any sort of threat.
Edward coughed. His lips moved, but I couldn’t make out the sound.
“What is it, Edward?”
“Not letting me die . . .” He coughed again, and his voice hardened. “You’ll come to regret that.”
I jerked upright. That voice. It wasn’t Edward’s. It belonged to a creature with claws and glowing yellow eyes. “Lucy, get back!” I nearly wrenched her arm off as I dragged her away from the bed. “It’s the Beast—he’s there, too.”
She stared with eyes as wide as my own. Edward coughed once more, and then his head rolled back onto the pillow. Unconscious again. I stared at his waxy face. It might not look like the Beast’s, but I would know that voice anywhere.
Lucy tore away from me. “Edward?” She shook him. “Edward?” Her hand fell on the chain, her fingers fumbling with the lock.
“Stop!” I said, pulling her back. “You heard him—he can’t keep fighting the Beast forever. If you unlock those chains, we don’t know what you’ll be setting free.”
“We can’t just do nothing! We have to tell Montgomery!”
I paced at the foot of Edward’s bed, trying to figure out the best way to handle this.
“No. We’ll wait for Elizabeth to return. She’s studied surgery. She’ll know if there’s any truth to what he’s saying. We have to keep this secret, Lucy. If Montgomery thought we were still in danger from the Beast, he might do something drastic.”
She gaped. “Montgomery wouldn’t hurt Edward. They’re practically brothers!”
“He might not be Edward for much longer.” I finally convinced her to come out into the hall with me and locked Edward’s bedroom, testing the lock to make certain it held.
“Are you certain we can trust Elizabeth?” Lucy said. “She lied to us. She said she had no children, but there’s that little boy with the strange eyes.”
“Elizabeth has risked everything for us,” I said. “Even now she’s out there trying to keep the police off our trail. The professor trusted her, and that’s good enough for me. She’ll know what to do.”
Lucy let out a deep breath filled with reservations. “I hope you’re right.”
I gave her a long hug and reassured her again, then walked her to her room. Alone in the hallway, I pressed my ear against Edward’s door, listening to the sounds of him—or the Beast—breathing. My heart beat a little too fast. I tried to put Edward’s cryptic few words out of my head, along with the strangeness of this place—Elizabeth had warned me, after all, to be prepared for people out of touch with normal society. I reminded myself that we weren’t in danger here, and that this was also the safest place for Edward. Elizabeth had her reasons for keeping secrets from us. Despite Montgomery’s fears, the greater danger by far lay out there, beyond the moors.
SIX
WE WOKE IN THE morning to find the rains from the storm had caused the bogs to overflow the levees and flood the road to Quick. I didn’t mind being cut off, especially with the police searching for us, except that it might slow Elizabeth’s return. I was eager to ask her about Edward’s claims that the Beast had discovered a cure, as well as some of the more peculiar details of the manor—like Hensley.
Mrs. McKenna took the opportunity to lead us on a tour of the grounds that weren’t flooded. Over the next few days, she showed us the goat barn and the goose pond, the glass-enclosed winter garden off the ballroom, and the vegetable cold storage in the basement, and even took us through the plain and tidy servants’ floor. She explained Valentina’s educational program for the younger girls: how she taught them to read and write and do sums, and how she was slowly schooling the older girls in the more sophisticated workings of the manor. I admired the self-sufficient nature of the estate, but the secret passages and plentiful locked doors seemed to trouble Montgomery. Likewise, Lucy found little to appreciate about the dusty manor and its pale-faced staff. The only thing she seemed to enjoy, in those rare moments when she wasn’t by Edward’s bedside, was Mrs. McKenna’s hearty cooking.
“Mama never lets me eat like this,” she said over a breakfast of bacon rashers. “She says if I don’t watch my figure, men won’t give me a second look.”
Valentina made a disparaging noise in her throat. She hunched over the buffet table, teaching two of the girls to polish silver. “Girls weren’t made to be trussed up like Christmas hens. A woman needs weight on her bones, especially in winter.” She had her gloves on today, hiding those strangely pale hands. “Any man who thinks otherwise would certainly not be welcome here.”
She and Mrs. McKenna looked pointedly at Montgomery. He stood by the window, surveying the moors as though he expected ghosts to rise. At our silence, he turned.
“Pardon?” he asked.
“Don’t worry about him,” I said. “He’s as wild as the moors themselves. He certainly doesn’t care if I have an extra scone or two.”
He turned to us, seemingly unaware of our conversation. “There are fresh wheel ruts in the courtyard,” he observed. “Does that mean the road is passable again?”
Mrs. McKenna nodded. “Carlyle took the mule to Quick as soon as the sun broke. I’d wager it’s muddy as the devil’s bath, but it’s passable.”
Montgomery forced a smile. “Juliet, you and Lucy should take the day and walk into Quick. Some fresh air would do you both good. You could meet with the dressmaker about your wedding gown.”
I gave him a hard look. He’d kept his distance the past few days since our argument, and his sudden warmth seemed out of place.
“Your wedding dress!” Lucy said. “He makes a good point, Juliet. You’d get married in a burlap sack if it were up to you. We can talk to the seamstress and . . .” Her face fell, and she bit her lip. “Oh, but we couldn’t possibly leave Edward here.”
She gave me a glance filled with meaning. Edward hadn’t woken from his delirium again since that night three days ago, but the experience had shaken both of us.
“Balthazar and I will keep an eye on him,” Montgomery answered quickly. “We’ll fetch you straightaway if anything changes.” He nudged my shoulder. “Go on. Think of all the girls you’d disappoint, wanting to see a real bride in a white lace dress.”
Montgomery, playful? Now I was outright suspicious of his motives. I leaned in to whisper, “What a
bout the police?”
“I asked around on the way in,” he whispered back. “There aren’t any police in Quick, only an old man with a telegraph. It’s a tiny village. The sheep outnumber the people.”
I studied him closely, wondering why he was so anxious to get me out of the house. If I had to guess, he was planning on doing some investigation into the strange happenings at the manor—and I wasn’t sure I should let him, certainly not with Edward’s state so precarious. On the other hand, I couldn’t deny that I was curious to know what he would find. Not that I suspected Elizabeth of anything, but it was impossible to ignore that between the bodies in the cellar, a son we never knew about, and deadly secret passages, there was more than met the eye at Ballentyne.
I made a show of rolling my eyes. “Fine. For the sake of my poor taste.”
But I gave Montgomery a hard look while the others weren’t watching. When we returned, I’d prod him with questions until he revealed whatever he found.
WE HEADED OUT JUST after breakfast. The fresh air did brighten our spirits, particularly Lucy’s. Once she got thinking about the idea of the wedding, she couldn’t stop talking about dress patterns and cakes and how on earth we were going to get a proper wedding bouquet so far from London.
“I can’t imagine it,” she said. “You married before me. I’d have thought the world would end first. Who will give you away?”
“Carlyle, I suppose.”
She made a face. “But he’s so dour.”
“Yes, but he’s the only man on the estate.”
We came over a hill, chatting lightly, but paused. The burned-out shell of the oak tree came into view, still smelling of ash. It brought back the terror from that night nearly a week ago, fleeing the police and the storm. We’d been so desperate then.
The smile fell off Lucy’s face. “I do hope Elizabeth returns soon. Each day that Edward remains ill, I fear I’ll fall asleep and find him dead in the morning. I keep thinking, with her medical skills, there must be something she can do.”
She slipped her arm around mine, clutching it tightly. I could feel desperate hope pulsing within her. “There are medical books in the library,” I said. “I’ll do some research into the diseased-brain condition he described. Once Elizabeth returns, I’ll speak with her straightaway.”
Lucy didn’t press the point, but her thoughts turned inward, unsatisfied by my answer.
We arrived in Quick in late morning and shopped around the few scattered stores, then ate a meal at the tavern and went to the dressmaker’s. It was a small operation sharing the back half of the general store. The dressmaker had a few bolts of yellowing lace she was ashamed to even pull out in front of a girl as stylish as Lucy. We flipped through books of patterns and fabric samples while the seamstress took my measurements. Sometimes my eyes would catch on a beautiful dress and images would flash in my head of potentially happier times, Montgomery wearing a suit and me wearing the gown in a chapel with all our friends and family gathered. But those images soon faded. All my family was dead. Montgomery’s only blood relation was a boy wrapped in chains.
I closed the pattern book, sending dust into the air. Lucy looked up from the fabric samples. “What do you think of this lace?”
The sample she held out was beautiful. A single row of scalloped edges simple enough for my taste. When I brushed my fingers over the fabric, I could practically feel it draped around me.
I’m getting married, a voice inside me said. I was happy and yet unsettled at the same time. Would things be easier once we were married? Would our secrets matter as much? Would Montgomery forget, over time, how I’d killed those three men in cold blood?
Would I ever forget?
“It’s perfect,” I said, trying to smile.
Lucy drew a handful of paper bills from her purse and exchanged a few words with the dressmaker, who stumbled over promises that I’d be the most beautiful bride north of Inverness. I’d have settled for the plainest, if it meant a peaceful future for us.
“I can hardly wait until the dress is ready,” Lucy said, pulling on her coat outside. “We’ll comb your hair into a chignon like that actress at the Brixton. I’m sure Elizabeth has some pins we can borrow. . . .”
Lucy kept talking, but I only half paid attention. My eyes had fallen on a stack of old newspapers in the street outside the tavern. A GENTLEMAN’S THOUGHTS ON THE CHRISTMAS DAY MASSACRE, the headline read in bold black ink, like an accusation. My thoughts went to that bloodstained room in King’s College where my water-tank creatures had murdered three men. I took a step closer, read the byline, and nearly died of shock.
The article was written by John Radcliffe.
Lucy’s father.
“There’s Carlyle with the mule cart.” Lucy’s hand clamped onto mine, and I jumped. “He must be headed back to Ballentyne. I’m sure he’ll give us a ride and save our boots the wear. That mud was something awful.”
I twisted away from the newspaper so she wouldn’t see her father’s name. Lucy waved Carlyle down, and the old gamekeeper steered the mule toward us, pulling it to a halt.
“Not much room, but you can squeeze in there, lassies.” He jerked his head at an empty place between huge baskets of vegetables.
I glanced back at that newspaper.
“You go,” I said, pushing Lucy toward the cart. “There’s only room for one of us to ride comfortably. I’ll walk. I’d like the time alone, anyway. Getting married, you know, so much to think about.”
“Are you certain?” She climbed into the cart, looking back at me, but Carlyle whipped the mule, and the cart started with a lurch. I waved to her and she settled among the baskets, waving back, until the wagon dipped over a hill and was gone.
Stooping down, I picked up the newspaper. The date was from a week ago—already old news, but it felt so immediate that I could practically smell the brine and damp fur of the water-tank creatures.
It was with a heavy heart that I recently attended the funeral of three colleagues who had once been highly esteemed by society,
the article began.
I pictured John Radcliffe’s pale blue eyes and shivered. As the King’s Club’s financier, Radcliffe was certainly not innocent, though he was hardly the worst of the bunch. Money had driven him, not science. That was why he—and the rest of the lesser King’s Club members—were still alive. Not to mention that Lucy would never forgive me if I killed her father.
Naturally I was horrified to learn of this tragedy, and even more upset that those three colleagues, whom I had once counted as friends, were involved in a plot to bring ruin to London’s lower classes. The worst of it all, however, is the loss of my daughter, Lucy, who I believe was present at the college that night. She disappeared shortly after the massacre, and her mother and I are sick with worry. . . .
I sighed with relief. Mr. Radcliffe was formally denouncing his involvement with the King’s Club, just as we had hoped he would. I had been so shocked when Lucy and I had found a preserved human brain in a hatbox in his office, never suspecting him of being more than a mere financier. Now I knew I’d been right. He was a banker at heart, not a murderer. Lucy would be pleased to hear her father had dropped his ties with that organization. Perhaps it might even lighten her spirits.
I stuffed the newspaper into my coat and looked in the direction of Ballentyne. Clouds had rolled in, thick and low, and I had five miles to walk. I started at a fast pace, hugging my arms, mind lost in the newspaper article.
The Christmas Day Massacre.
I had been obsessed with the idea of bringing the water-tank creatures to life. Feeling their bodies warm. Counting their beating hearts. Most disturbing of all, part of me had even enjoyed it. Father had loved his work too. Was I destined to be like him, even if I didn’t want to be?
A child can never escape her father, the fortune-teller had said.
The sun sank over the horizon, meaning darkness would fall before I reached Ballentyne. I started to walk faster, but I couldn’
t outrun my thoughts. There were times when I could almost feel Father in my head. I’d read enough research papers on genetics to know that a child naturally took on the properties of a parent. Even personality. Even an inclination toward madness. Is that what the fortune-teller had meant? Maybe there was no use fighting who one was—and I was inescapably a Moreau.
I must have been a mile and a half from the manor when a shriek like a child’s cry came from the moors. I froze. My stomach tightened with fear that Hensley or one of the young servants had gotten lost.
Alarmed, I pulled up my heavy winter skirts and trod into the heather toward the sound. The ground, normally frozen, had thawed a few inches and my boots sank into it, threatening to trap me. Crossing the moors was far more difficult than it seemed, each step sucking me down, heather catching me like thorns. The crying got louder. I scrambled up a small hill where the ground was more solid, and overlooked a bog with ice clinging to the edges.
A sheep was trapped up to its neck.
I drew in a sharp breath.
At least it isn’t a child, I thought, though that was small comfort: the sheep’s desperate bleats still pulled at my heart. Behind me, I could barely make out the road in the twilight. I couldn’t afford to stay out here on the moors with night falling. Yet the sheep would drown or freeze if I left it.
I started down the hill. My heart thudded, warning me to hurry. There were so few trees that it took me a precious few minutes to find a branch I could use. I came as close to the bog as I dared. The sheep had stopped struggling and bleated to me mournfully. I laid the tree branch close to give it purchase, but no matter how the sheep bucked, it couldn’t get out. I leaned closer, trying to grab hold of its mud-clotted wool. My fingers grazed its neck when the sheep bucked again, and I slipped off the branch, landing shin deep in the bog.
I cried out with the rush of cold. My dress was beyond ruined; Mrs. McKenna would have to cut it up for scraps. But I was in now, and I could reach the sheep. I waded a few steps closer, mud trying to suck me down, and wrapped my arms around the sheep’s neck and leg. I pulled, and it bucked in fear, succeeding only in dragging me down deeper with it. Mud crept up my stockings. A jolt of cold ran through me. I tugged my foot, but nothing happened.