THE NEXT FEW DAYS were a precarious balance of secrets and truths, darkness and light. I snuck off to my attic chamber to work on the serums with Edward at night, and during the day attempted to maintain a respectable life with the professor and Elizabeth as they hosted teas and took me ice-skating on the pond in Wiltshire and teased me about every young man who glanced my way.
The newspapers were blessedly silent. The Wolf of Whitechapel hadn’t struck again, credited to Inspector Newcastle’s prowess. Of course I knew it was my efforts that had kept Edward restrained, but I could hardly tell that to the London Times.
On a sunny morning the professor, Elizabeth, and I walked together in Covent Garden market, looking for Christmas presents for Mary and the other servants. By and large, Elizabeth was a fiercely private person, used to the solitude and quiet of the Scottish moors, and even days after her arrival I still had little indication as to the type of person she was. She stayed up late most nights, dressed in a housecoat in the library until all hours, wearing reading glasses not unlike the professor’s wire spectacles, drinking licorice tea laced with gin—she didn’t know that I knew—and staring out the window at the city lights.
“Have you heard of a man called John Newcastle?” I asked the professor as we passed a stall of silver dishware. “He’s an inspector with Scotland Yard. I met him last week.”
“Newcastle? Yes, a crackerjack, they’re calling him. Trying to make a name for himself rather quickly. He puts on a show that he’s from a good family, but his father owned a handful of shoe shops, nothing more. You haven’t got your eye on him, have you? And here I thought you hated police officers.” He gave his off-balance smile.
I laughed. “No, nothing like that. He’s courting Lucy.”
“Ah. Well, he’s got ambition, and that would certainly appeal to her father.” The professor patted my hand as we followed Elizabeth to the flower market for mistletoe. “He wouldn’t be good enough for you, anyway, my dear. You deserve at least an earl. Perhaps even a duke.”
I laughed again until I saw the flower market stalls pressing in on us, and I was reminded of my twisted rosebushes and the attic where I sheltered the city’s most terrifying murderer.
You’re keeping him contained, I reminded myself. It’s working.
That evening, my feelings were still torn about Edward. The professor, Elizabeth, and I dined on carré d’agneau, and as I hid some of the meatiest pieces in my napkin to take to Sharkey later, my thoughts went from Edward to my father’s letters. If Father indeed had maintained a correspondence with someone in London the entire time he was on the island, then Montgomery must have known about it, since he had been the one to travel to Brisbane and London for supplies, and post letters if there’d been any.
But Montgomery had said nothing. More secrets, just as Edward said. It left the hurt of Montgomery’s betrayal even more raw, as though perhaps I’d never known him at all.
“Well, we aren’t much of a social bunch, are we?” the professor said. “Two weeks till Christmas, and the three of us sit home like lumps of coal.”
I set down my soup spoon, then cleared my throat of my hesitation in bringing up a subject I knew they wouldn’t like.
“I was thinking of Father.”
The professor’s good-natured smile wilted.
“The holidays,” Elizabeth said tenderly. “They always make one think of family.” She dipped her spoon into her soup as though that ended the conversation, but I couldn’t let it go. I needed to discover who Father’s colleague was—and prove that it wasn’t the professor.
“What was he like before?” I asked.
Elizabeth exchanged a look with the professor, who leaned forward with his hands folded. “Yes, a girl should know what sort of man her own father was. When I met him, he was quiet. Focused. A lot like you, though considerably less pretty.”
I smiled.
Elizabeth reached over and squeezed my hand. “Your mother was a lovely woman.”
The professor had his head turned, almost as though listening for voices on the streets outside, or perhaps from his memory. “A brilliant man,” he muttered, and then, “a shame, the way it all happened.”
It seemed he spoke of Father’s banishment, but there was a far-off tone to his voice that tickled the back of my mind and made me wonder if his words weren’t in reference to some other, darker memory instead.