I tried to conjure a smile to match her tone, but it wouldn’t come.
“Don’t just stand there,” she said. “Take off that awful coat and throw it into the rubbish bin. Those stockings, too, while you’re at it; they look like they’re from the last decade. I’ve picked out a gown for you, behind the dressing screen.”
The gown hung on a wooden hangar, red satin, low lace collar, and sleeves that floated like clouds. I touched the fabric tentatively between thumb and forefinger, afraid my presence alone would stain it. I didn’t deserve this—not the gown, and not her kindness.
I came out from behind the screen, frowning. “It’s too fine for me.”
“Good lord, how many times must I tell you that you aren’t a maid any longer?”
“It’s just that all of this isn’t really my world anymore.”
“Of course it is!” She rested her hands on her hips. “I know what this is about. You’ve no one to take you to the masquerade. Well, I’ve refused John, and Henry’s left me, so I haven’t anyone either. I’ll be your escort.” She smiled so broadly that I hadn’t a clue what to say. I couldn’t help but feel her joviality masked the pain from Henry’s rejection and the questions she had over her father’s business.
“Lucy, don’t be silly.”
“I’m perfectly serious! Come on, you’d have half the men in London after you if you weren’t so dour. That’s why this masquerade is so perfect for you. The whole point is to be someone else.”
Her lips curled, and this time I did manage to smile back. The idea of being someone else certainly had its appeal. Not daughter to a madman. Not jilted by Montgomery. Not a girl who found a flower laced with blood and kept it pressed in a heavy book.
Lucy slid her arm in mine and led me back around the dressing screen. I touched the lace trim of the red silk dress, imagining its feel against my skin.
“Try it on,” she said. “And then decide.”
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.
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.