I rolled my eyes, but at the same time slid off my coat, then started with the long row of buttons down the back of my dress that followed the line of my scar. “Shall I have an alias, then?” I asked. “Perhaps an Italian heiress?”
Lucy’s nose wrinkled. She helped me with the highest buttons, then together we peeled off my thin dress and layers of underskirts. “You’d never pass as an Italian. Your mother was French. How about a French baroness, fleeing the Radicals? Oh, the men will love it! They’ll all want to save you.”
I laughed for real this time. “Or swindle me out of my supposed fortune.”
“Either way, it’ll fill your dance card. What’s more,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows, “I hear Papa has invited a very eligible contract attorney.”
“Oh, an attorney,” I said, pretending to swoon. “What a dream. Do you think he has a friend for you? Maybe someone dashing, like a public registrar?”
As we laughed together, I stepped out of my final underskirt and stood in the room in only my combination, like Lucy. My braid was loose and curly like hers. My smile not quite as wide—after all, my laughter hid pain, too.
The only other time I’d been so friendly with a girl had been Father’s young maid, Alice. Days later she’d been murdered. I pictured Lucy in Alice’s place, cold body dead on the tile floor, white feet dripping with blood.
That won’t happen to Lucy. I won’t let it.
But the thought conjured visions of bodies torn apart by razor-sharp claws, and flowers stained in blood, and a murderer hidden in my attic chamber.
Lucy gave me a devilish grin, banishing my troubled thoughts. “Don’t worry, Juliet. This is going to be a very memorable party.”
I tried to smile back. Memorable was watching Alice die. Memorable was learning my father had betrayed me. Memorable was a white flower spotted with fresh red blood.
I wasn’t looking for a memorable party. I’d have settled for a perfectly forgettable one, but ever since Edward had returned to London, I had the feeling nothing would be forgettable ever again.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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THIRTEEN
THAT NIGHT I WAS sleepless with wracking pain. My knuckles popped in their sockets; my head ached in a low, dull way. I could feel each bone in my body as though it moved of its own accord. I had been taking my injections daily, and yet the fits were only getting worse. I lay in bed for an hour, sweating into the sheets, until at last the illness passed.
As soon as Elizabeth and the professor had retired, I stood shakily and broke the new lock on my bedroom window with more hydrochloric acid, praying I could find another lock to match Elizabeth’s so she wouldn’t know it was gone—and eased the window up as quietly as I could. The snow fell in thick flakes, but the wind was mild for once—a small blessing. I crawled to the end of the overhang and then down the balustrade into the garden with limbs that were still sore, and made my way along streets that grew noticeably more run-down until I arrived in Shoreditch.
I paused at the entrance to the lodging house. The fresh air and movement had eased my symptoms, and without the distraction of pain my mind could focus on bigger questions. Edward claimed he would never hurt me, but how much control did he really have over his other half?
My hand fell to the weight in my coat pocket. When I’d replaced my bedroom lock months ago, I’d ordered several extra padlocks from the blacksmith’s, a few small ones to lock my serum and journal in private boxes, but also a heavy lock I’d intended to put on the attic door. Edward had said the Beast sometimes broke the lock on his chains—surely he couldn’t break this one.
But would a padlock really stop a monster? If only Montgomery were here. He was young too, unprepared too, but together we’d always been stronger. I felt at times as though his memory was fading around the edges like an old photograph.
“What should I do?” I whispered into the night.
Montgomery was far away, but I didn’t need his voice in my ear to know that he would tell me to do everything I could to prevent Edward from hurting more people—and from hurting me.
I drew my knife and hid it in the folds of my coat, in case I needed it quickly. As I climbed the stairs to the fourth floor, a strange thrill plucked at my ribs, toying with my body like another symptom of my illness. The door was locked, so I knocked hesitantly.
Edward was quick to answer. The shock of the door suddenly opening and him standing there robbed any fears that he might hurt me. There was only concern in his dark brown eyes. Only love. I squeezed the knife harder to remind myself he was still dangerous.