He would kill Edward. Or Edward would kill him. Either way, one of them would die, unless I prevented it.
My hand drifted to the scratches hidden beneath my silk dress. Amid my unquiet thoughts, something else Montgomery had said came back to me. He’d had been in London for a week already. He hadn’t come to see me. If not for our accidental encounter tonight, would he have come for me at all?
I didn’t get a chance to ask. The porch door opened above our heads, and footsteps came out onto the balcony. The fibers of my stomach shrunk at the thought that it could be the Beast. Montgomery pressed a finger to his lips to tell me to remain silent and pulled me into the shadows beneath the balcony where we couldn’t be seen. I nodded, holding my breath, dreading the telltale clicks of claws upon stone that meant the Beast had found us.
But I heard only the hiss of a match springing to life, and then smelled tobacco on the breeze. There were footsteps of a few other men, three or four in all. A man’s voice spoke, and relief rushed out of me.
“Did you see where she went?” the man said. His voice was the deep baritone of a lifelong smoker, and I recognized it as Lucy’s father, Mr. Radcliffe, and the vision of that brain came slamming back into me. Perhaps my relief had come too soon.
“So many damn masks in there, it’s hard to keep straight,” another man said.
“The masquerade is necessary for our purposes,” Radcliffe answered. “Moreau’s creation wouldn’t have come unless he could disguise himself. You’re certain no men tried to talk to her? I’d stake my life they’ve been in contact. That fool who brought Moreau’s last letter—Captain Claggan, isn’t it?—said the boy was quite taken with her.”
My breath halted as I realized the girl they spoke of was me.
TWENTY-TWO
I JERKED MY HEAD toward Montgomery. Worse, they also spoke of “Moreau’s creation,” which meant they knew about Edward, too. Montgomery kept a finger to his lips and silently reached for a revolver holstered at his side.
“She got lost in the crowd,” another man answered.
“Well, find her,” Radcliffe said. “She’s the best chance we have of hunting him down. If only Claggan could have given us a better description before he drank himself to death. Dark hair, not yet twenty—that could describe half the young men in there.”
One of the men spit over the side of the balustrade, and added, “That old blatherskite von Stein won’t say a word. The moment he hears the name Moreau, he slams the door in my face, and he practically threw Lessing out by the collar.”
“Leave von Stein to me,” Radcliffe said, and then added, “What of the preparations?”
“The specimens will be ready within two weeks, providing we can capture Moreau’s creation. Then it’ll be a simple matter of extracting what we need from him and finishing the preparations for New Year’s Day.”
“Rochefort is speaking to his contacts about the exact delivery date. They’re threatening to change their minds, but once they see what we have planned, they’ll double their current order.”
“Excellent.” Radcliffe snuffed out his cigar, and it fell to the garden at my feet. I drew in a gasp as it singed my slipper, but Montgomery pressed his hand to my mouth. It felt like an eternity while we waited until their footsteps receded and the balcony door swung closed, leaving us alone in the garden once more.
Montgomery let go of my mouth, and I gulped in air.
“They know about Edward!” I gasped. “Claggan must have learned on the ship about his two sides and somehow gotten in touch with the King’s Club. This whole party is a trap. They knew I’d be here and thought it would lure him. That ‘guest of honor’ nonsense—I thought they were just trying to win favor with the professor, and all the while Radcliffe wanted me here as bait.”
Montgomery ran a hand over his forehead. “They don’t know what Edward looks like—that’s good at least, so we can get to him first. Damn it all, how do they even know he exists?”
“Radcliffe is the one Father was writing to on the island—his secret colleague who went by the code name ‘A King’s Man.’ Don’t you know about the letters? You must have delivered them.”
Montgomery shook his head. “I did, but all Radcliffe ever did was pay the bills for my travel and the exotic animals and other supplies—chartering a ship to the island was exorbitantly expensive. There was never any science exchanged, or else I would have put an end to it.”
“Did you ever actually read the letters?”
“Of course not—they were sealed. But your father swore. . . .” His voice trailed off as he realized Father had lied to him, as he’d lied to all of us. As much as Father had loved Montgomery, he wasn’t above lying to him.
I put a hand to my head as everything started to come together. “They did exchange science. They must have, because Lucy’s read some of the letters that reference it, and you heard them talking about specimens. They said all they needed was to extract something from Edward. His blood, perhaps, or bone marrow, I can’t imagine what else. They have to be attempting to replicate Father’s creatures.”
Montgomery’s face hardened. He didn’t disagree, and this worried me even more. I continued, “They said everything would be ready in two weeks, in time for New Year’s Day. What are they planning?”
“I don’t know,” he said gruffly. “But we need to find out.”
I chewed on a fingernail, pacing in the snow. “Earlier tonight I found a human brain.”