A Cold Legacy

“What about her body?” Balthazar asked. “It isn’t right to leave it here.”

 

 

“I know, my friend,” Montgomery said. “The Christian thing to do would be to bury it, but I’m not feeling very Christian at the moment, and time is running out. We can say a prayer for her on the road.”

 

Balthazar whined low in his throat, unhappy to leave her body amid the crows, but he followed Montgomery obediently back to our pony trap.

 

I rested a hand on Balthazar’s shoulder. “Someone will find her horse,” I said softly. “They’ll follow its tracks back here and give her a proper burial.”

 

Montgomery cracked the reins. I looked overhead, where the sun was murky behind a film of thin winter clouds. A gust of cold wind chilled me and I took a swig of the brandy Elizabeth had given me. It sat in my belly, stickily warm, like a sense of foreboding.

 

Who were we going to encounter at that inn, I wondered, and why were they so desperate to find me?

 

INVERNESS WAS A MODERN industrial city, dirtier than London and substantially colder. The pony trap must have made for an odd sight, but no one spared us a glance as they huddled in their coats, hurrying home to supper. We stopped to ask directions and learned the Stonewall Inn was the city’s grandest hotel. As we pulled up and saw the palatial inn’s lights, my sense of foreboding grew.

 

“Whoever her contact is, he must have plenty of money to stay here,” I said.

 

“I should imagine so,” Montgomery said. “If they are paying off Scotland Yard, that doesn’t come cheap.”

 

We climbed out of the pony trap in an alleyway between two millinery shops. “We’ll have to be cautious,” Montgomery said. “They’re sure to recognize you if they see you, Juliet, and chances are our mysterious pursuer knows my identity as well. Perhaps even Balthazar’s.”

 

I peeked around the edge of the shop at the gentlemen and ladies climbing out of their carriages in front of the inn. All of them were dressed in finery, a stark contrast to our drab northern clothes. “I have an idea,” I said. “There’s more than one way to blend in. Balthazar, you stay here with the horse and be ready to make our escape. Montgomery, come with me.”

 

We silently climbed the inn’s garden gate and slipped into the hotel’s rear entrance, where grocers were unloading boxes of cabbages. I signaled for Montgomery to pick up a box so it looked like we belonged there. We entered the kitchen, which was in the midst of hectic preparations for the feast of St. Timothy. That was fortunate for us—no one gave us a second glance.

 

I tugged my hair lose from its chignon and pulled it back into a loose braid, then tapped the shoulder of the youngest-looking kitchen girl. “I’m supposed to start today, but they haven’t given me my uniform yet.”

 

The girl barely glanced at me as she strained under a heavy dish. “Second door there,” she said, jerking her chin toward a hallway. “And hurry, we need all the help we can get.”

 

I grabbed Montgomery and pulled him down the hallway into the linen room. He already wore dark pants, so all he needed was a crisp white serving shirt and an apron. I changed into a kitchen maid’s dress.

 

“Trust me, this will work,” I said, fumbling with the apron ties. “I spent years as a maid. No one makes eye contact with you. You might as well not even exist.”

 

“You don’t have to tell me,” Montgomery said, turning me around to finish doing up the buttons of my dress. “I recall quite well what it felt like to be a servant.” He spun me back around, and in the cramped room we were only inches apart. His hands lingered on my waist. “I remember wishing desperately that you would look at me. Speak to me.”

 

I swallowed, suddenly very aware of his proximity. There had been a distance between us ever since the King’s Club massacre, a tension that ate away at my insides like hunger. But beneath it all, I still loved him fiercely. “I did speak to you.”

 

“Only because you were lonely for a playmate. Or to ask me to make a fire in your bedroom hearth.”

 

I slid my arms around his neck, looking him fully in the eye. “Well, I see you now,” I said softly. “I’d like to spend the rest of my life looking at you. And from now on, I’ll make the fires.”

 

He kissed me. It was quick, before anyone might walk in, and it made me believe that somehow we’d work out all our differences. He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Be careful tonight, Juliet.”

 

“You too.”

 

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