The night that she had combed my hair and told me her memories of my parents had cemented a bond between us. A part of me longed to tell her about the proposal, yet Elizabeth already thought we were engaged, and judging by her face, she was far more concerned with immediate matters.
We followed her to the library, where she hung her coat by the door while Montgomery and I took our places uneasily on the sofa. My thoughts churned between the ring on my finger, the boy locked downstairs, and how we would possibly explain everything so that she wouldn’t immediately send for the police.
“Mr. Balthazar retired for the evening,” she said. “I found him guarding the basement door when I came home. You can imagine my surprise to find a man locked in the root cellar. I tried to question Mr. Balthazar, but the poor fellow was quite flummoxed by the whole thing, so I gave him one of the professor’s sleep shirts and showed him to an upstairs bedroom.” She knelt by the cold hearth, a strange expression on her face. “He changed his shirt in front of me. Not a modest one, your friend.” Her eyes slid to mine. “And not like any human I’ve ever seen.”
I hesitated. Elizabeth was clever—of course she would have realized, with her medical training, that there was something more than odd about Balthazar’s deformities. But did she suspect his true nature? Like her uncle, she had been staunchly against Father’s work, so I couldn’t imagine what she would do if she knew we’d brought one of Father’s walking experiments into her house, and had another far more dangerous one locked in the basement.
“Balthazar’s a good man. He’s no risk to you, I promise,” I said.
“And the man in the cellar?”
My silence was its own answer. She raised an eyebrow as she reached for a log for the fireplace. Montgomery protested and offered to build it for her, but she shot him a withering look.
“I’m quite capable of stacking firewood, Mr. James,” she said, striking a match. “Now, I shall dismiss Mary and Ellis for the rest of the week. I think it best, given the fact you’ve kidnapped someone.” She dusted her soot-blackened hands, then took her seat in a leather wingtip chair. “Which one of you would like to explain to me what’s truly going on?”
Montgomery and I exchanged a glance. He shifted uncomfortably, never having been at ease around Elizabeth. “Tell her as much as you see fit,” he said to me. “I should check on Edward, anyway.” He kissed my cheek before leaving us alone. I knew I should speak, but there were too many things to say, and not enough words to convey them.
From somewhere outside came the sound of harness bells as a carriage passed, and my head jerked toward the window. Such merriment didn’t belong in this room, not now, with the conversation we faced.
In the end, Elizabeth spoke first. “My father—the professor’s brother—enjoyed taxidermy. A foul hobby, for sure, but as a girl I idolized him. So I’d plug my nose against the smell and help him with the pelts. I know the difference between animal fur and human hair, Juliet, and your friend upstairs falls into the former category.”
I swallowed. “Yes. I know.”
Her voice dropped low, like the hearth’s warmest flames. “He’s one of your father’s experiments, isn’t he? You found your father on that island, and he hadn’t stopped his work at all.”
To hear it spoken aloud made it true all over again. My secret was out, but perhaps this was for the best. I’d regretted not telling the professor everything. I couldn’t bear to have Elizabeth’s death on my conscious, too. “I thought you would think it impossible.”
Elizabeth reclined into the wingtip chair. “Unfortunately, I am all too familiar with the strange things in this world. I told you my family had skeletons in our closet, but I’m afraid it’s more than just our illegitimate lineage. Our ancestors were half mad, and not all of them scrupulous. I’ve read accounts of their travels, and it’s chilling.” She leaned so close to the fire that I was surprised it didn’t burn her face. “All along I suspected your father might succeed, which is why I turned him in.”
Suddenly the small fire seemed to throw off far too much heat. I was on my feet without thinking. “You started the rumors?”
“Yes.”
“I thought the professor had turned him in.”
“The professor was the one to alert the police, yes,” she said calmly. “But I was the one to start the rumors. You forget that I was friends with your mother. She was a sweet woman, but none too bright. She hadn’t a clue what he was doing down there in the laboratory, but I figured it out rather quickly.” She paused. “I apologize for what happened to you and your mother—it wasn’t my intention that you would be left without resources.”
I chewed on a broken fingernail, thinking. For so many years I thought I’d hated the men who had brought scandal upon my family, and yet all along it had been this one woman, who wasn’t so different from me, who had betrayed him for the good of the world.