FATHER AND MONTGOMERY LEFT at dawn the next day. The set-in clouds threatened a storm, but Father was convinced the murderer was Ajax and must be hunted down and brought to justice, despite the weather.
The clouds broke and heavy rain stretched into the afternoon, driving the rest of us indoors. Edward kept to his room with complaints of a headache, a throwback to his time in the dinghy. I spent the day helping Alice hang laundry to dry under the portico’s covered eaves. She was quiet, but that suited me.
We heard the horses stamping outside in late afternoon. Alice brushed the hair out of her face with the back of her hand. “They’ve returned.”
Puck opened the gate. Steam rose off the horses’ bodies. The riders looked like dark, unearthly creatures, covered in mud and black duster coats. They dismounted and crossed through the beating rain to the laboratory. Montgomery glanced at me from under the hood of his duster, a flash of blue eyes and wet hair and unanswered questions.
Alice and I silently returned to the laundry, though we were both on edge. We were halfway through with the laundry when the laboratory door slammed open. I dropped the basket of wooden clothespins. Heavy footsteps echoed over the stone flags as I bent to pick them up. Two muddy boots stopped next to the last clothespin.
My father.
I had nothing to say to him. He was an old man with weathered skin and graying hair and dark impulses he couldn’t contain. Not a father.
“You should leave that work to the servants,” he said, raising his voice over the rain. Alice kept her head down as she wrung out a sheet. “Play the piano if you’ve nothing to do. Something proper for a young lady. Where’s that blasted Prince? Can’t he take you for a walk? Show you the view or some such nonsense?”
“Stop trying to push us together,” I hissed, wishing Alice weren’t overhearing. “Edward can make his own decisions, as can I.”
Father raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? I’m not so sure.” A bolt of lightning lit the sky as he continued to his apartment above the salon. I rested the basket on the side of the laundry bin, biting back words. He was a fool if he still thought he could tell me what to do.
After we finished the laundry, I went to the salon, curious whether Edward was up and feeling better. But it was empty save Puck, laying out dinnerware. The piano had been freshly polished, but I crossed to the bookshelves instead. I admired the beautiful green binding of the Shakespeare collection, each book stamped on the spine with gold emblems. There was a gap where one volume was missing, though I didn’t recall which title had been there. I couldn’t imagine one of the beasts reading Shakespeare.
I ran my hand along the uneven shelf and thought of Montgomery, hammering it together years ago when he’d still been a boy. Father demanded perfection, but he’d still kept these shelves, crooked as they were. For as much as he ordered Montgomery about, I suspected he loved him in his own warped way. He’d always wanted a son. Lord knew he never cared about his daughter.
I pulled out the brandy stopper and sloshed a healthy dose into a cut-crystal glass. I drank the spicy-sweet liquid in several gulps. My throat burned. Puck stared at me, the silverware forgotten.
“What? Want to try some?” I asked, tipping the bottle toward him. He scowled as he hurried to finish laying out the place settings.
I took the bottle to the window, studying the falling rain outside. The warm smell of supper began to fill the room, drawing in Montgomery and Father, both scrubbed clean but looking grim.
Father tore the bottle from my hands. “This isn’t for a lady,” he snapped.
“Good. Then it’s perfect for me.”
Father replaced the stopper and returned the bottle to the bookshelf. “You’re determined to ruin yourself, I see. You think you’re an adult and I haven’t control over you anymore. That is where you’re wrong.”
I bristled as spikes of anger twisted into my gut. He hadn’t seen me since I was ten years old. Hadn’t left me money or a home, just a crippling scandal. He didn’t get to dictate what was right and wrong. He didn’t get to tell me who I should marry.
Montgomery saw the look in my eyes and shook his head slowly, warning me. But I couldn’t go along with the charade like he could. “You think I care what you think,” I told Father. “And that is where you’re wrong.”
I turned before he could respond. My hands were shaking and I didn’t want him to see. Montgomery stood by the door, and suddenly my heartstrings tightened, needing a kind look from him, some reassurance. But Alice touched his arm and whispered something in his ear, and his attention was only on her. I turned my thoughts to the silverware, straightening the already straight knives, trying not to feel stung.
Edward filled the doorway, rubbing his temples. I went to him, in no small part to show Montgomery I had someone else to pay attention to as well. But when I saw the shadows under Edward’s eyes, Montgomery really did drift from my mind.
“How’s your head?” I asked softly.
“Do I look that awful?” Edward said.
I smiled. The scar down his face was now only a whisper of pain, reminding me of the first time I’d seen him, sunburned and beaten by waves and straddling the line between the living and the dead. I hadn’t thought him handsome at the time, and yet the way he wore the bruises had intrigued me. Not complaining, not vain, but like they were an inescapable part of him.
“Like Death’s waiting around the corner,” I said.
“That sounds about right.” He folded his arms. One of the cuffs had a frayed white thread that stirred a memory. They were the same clothes Montgomery had been wearing when I broke into his room at the Blue Boar Inn. Montgomery had no use for a gentleman’s suit now—he wore loose clothes on the island, clothes you could hunt and ride in.
I touched the thread, and as if seeing the line of my thoughts, Edward pulled it loose. Perhaps he didn’t want my mind turning to Montgomery, but it was too late, because Montgomery was coming over.
“Any luck finding Ajax?” Edward asked.
“No. Balthazar’s still out with the hounds. I’ve had enough of that awful rain.”
Father stared out the window. “The island is in a perpetual deluge this time of year. Trade winds off the Pacific, you know. Easy for a man to hide in weather like this if he knows the jungle.”
Easier still for an animal, I thought.
Cymbeline entered, straining under the weight of a steaming platter. Alice rushed to show him patiently how to cut and serve.
Montgomery ruffled the boy’s hair. “Smells wonderful,” he said to Alice. “You’re as good a teacher as you are a cook.”
Her cheeks turned a deep shade of peach. A pang of jealousy struck me deep inside, and I flopped into my chair. The others joined me at the table. Didn’t Montgomery remember last night, during the storm, running his fingers down the bare skin of my back? I did. I could barely think about anything else.
Edward sat across from me, deep in his own thoughts. His hands still bore the scratches from our escape. I wondered if his ribs still hurt him. I absently touched my own, remembering the feel of his hands holding me there, that night behind the waterfall. As if he knew what I was thinking, he looked up and gave me the flicker of a smile. His dark eyes were intense.
I bet he remembered.
“Those clothes suit you well,” I said.
“Montgomery was kind enough to lend them to me.”
“I hardly had use for them,” Montgomery added with a slight grin. At least he and Edward were back to being civil. “Besides, Edward’s the gentleman, not me.”
“That’s certainly an understatement,” Father said. Outside, a crash of thunder shook the windows. His bitterness killed what little contentment we had. I sat back, appetite gone in a flash. I threw my napkin on the table. Ever since Father had found out that Jaguar was alive and Montgomery had lied to him about it, he’d treated Montgomery like a dog. But all Montgomery was guilty of was sparing a creature’s life.
“When, exactly, were you going to tell us about the murders?” I asked Father, my voice tight. “Or did you plan to keep calling them accidents and having Montgomery bury the evidence?”
Father speared a dumpling and didn’t blink at my accusation. “This is my island, Juliet. Not yours. If you’d stayed inside the compound walls as I instructed, there wouldn’t be any murders.”
I nearly choked on my food. “How is this my fault?”
“You set loose the rabbits,” Father said. His voice was cold. “The islanders didn’t even know what killing was before Ajax killed a rabbit. We’ve found three more rabbits with their heads torn off.”
I turned to Montgomery, who confirmed it with a nod.
I leaned on the table, anger making me as tense as the storm outside. “Be careful with your accusations, Father. The murders started before I even arrived.”
He dismissed my comment with a scowl. “I had everything under control before you came. Now you’ve riled them up. Trying to turn them against me, but it won’t work. I’m God to them.”
“God to a pack of bloodthirsty animals.”
Alice’s face went white. Montgomery’s hand found hers in a reassuring squeeze. I was talking about her friends, I realized. And Montgomery’s.
“They weren’t animals,” Father said. Coiled rage was a tremor beneath his calm voice. “Not until they tasted blood. They were human!” He slammed his brandy against the table, sending sticky liquid sloshing onto the tablecloth. “But they won’t be for long.”
“What do you mean?” Edward asked. There was an uncertain edge to his voice like a sharp piano note.
Father turned on him, eyes flashing. “I mean Ajax should be six feet under right now. It’s dangerous to let the smart ones live, don’t you think, Mr. Prince?”
Edward’s hands coiled on the table, pulling up folds in the tablecloth. The tension between them was palpable. I had missed something, I realized. Something in their talk that first night. Some threat Father must have made. What had Edward called it? An arrangement. Maybe the arrangement hadn’t been about me, after all.
“Very dangerous, I should think,” Edward said, his voice holding something back.
“The doctor means that he’s ordered me to stop their treatments,” Montgomery interrupted. I whipped my head to face him. “He intends to let them regress.”
A deep current of fear ran beneath my skin at the idea of beastly, mindless creatures roaming the island. “You can’t do that,” I said. “If you take away their humanity—”
“Then they’ll cease to be dangerous,” Father said.
“They’ll be wild. Nothing to check their violence.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” he snapped. “I told you, most of them are pigs. Dairy cows. Sheep.”
“Not all of them.”
“Don’t you think I’ve considered that? There are safeguards. They all have domesticated components to keep them docile. What’s more, what little spirit they might have once had was driven out of them by the procedure. Pain is an incredibly useful tool.” His fingers worked the table, and I imagined he was absently tracing the shape of a body, cutting into it. “This regression is necessary, Juliet. A fail-safe. When they regress, they lose their dexterity. Everything here—the guns, the cabinets, even the door latches—has been carefully designed to work only for five-fingers.”
“Five-fingers?” Edward asked. He flexed his hand, looking at the web of cuts across his knuckles.
Father held up his open hand. “Humans. And some of the more advanced creatures, like the house staff.”
“Jaguar has five fingers, too,” I warned.
“Which is precisely why we’re hunting him down.” He turned his attention to Montgomery. “Because you let him live.”
“I’m not to blame for this,” Montgomery said. I could see the stormy rage building in him. “He shouldn’t have been created in the first place. None of them should have been!”
I couldn’t imagine he’d ever crossed my father so directly. The force of his outburst made me both elated he’d stood up for himself and terrified at what Father would do.
Father grew dangerously quiet. The clock on the mantel across the room ticked away painfully slow seconds. Montgomery’s face went white, but he didn’t take back his words.
“‘Should never have been created,’” Father repeated with a chilling calmness. “And what of your own part in it? You consider yourself innocent?”
Montgomery stared at the rain outside. His chest rose and fell quickly. “No. But no one bears the blame more than you.”
“Bah! What do you know? You’re hardly a gentleman. You said so yourself. Perhaps you should start acting like the servant you are and keep your useless opinions to yourself. And keep your dirty hands off my daughter!”
I nearly spit out my water. Montgomery’s jaw tightened.
I pulled at my collar, needing air. Edward stared at me from across the table, face so slack I might as well have slapped him. Guilt seized me. I’d told him I cared about Montgomery, so he shouldn’t have been surprised. But there’d been that night behind the waterfall. I couldn’t pretend that had meant nothing.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Montgomery said, trying to pass it off casually. But his voice shook. He didn’t look up from the table.
Father smirked. “Don’t show your lack of intelligence by insulting mine.” He poured himself another glass of brandy. His temper had cooled into self-righteousness. “Juliet, don’t tell me you didn’t know. Montgomery’s been in love with you since the day you found him again. Long before that, come to think of it. He’s been in love with the mere idea of you for years.” He took a sip. “It’s pathetic.”
“Stop this,” I said. My voice was barely audible above the rage boiling in my veins.
But Father was enjoying torturing him. “We all know it’s true. I merely want to inform him that you’re too good for him. Prince is a damn fool, but I’d rather pair you with him. At least he’s of proper breeding.”
I couldn’t bring myself to look at either of them. I just wanted the torture to end.
“What do you say, Prince?” Father said jovially. “You wouldn’t mind a match with my daughter, would you? After all, it’s a small island. Limited selection, you understand, unless you prefer the four-legged variety.”
My mouth nearly fell open. My face was burning, but I was too angry to be embarrassed.
Edward slammed his fist on the table. “I say you’re cruel and a madman, Doctor.” He pushed his chair back so hard it grated on the wood floor. “The sooner this world is rid of you, the better it will be.” He threw his napkin on the table and left the room.
I stared at a chip in my supper plate, stunned. The ticking clock echoed in the hollow cage of my heart.
At last, Montgomery stood. “I agree with Edward. And I’ll add that you’re a goddamned bastard.” He stormed out of the room into the rain.
I stood, too, but Father grabbed my wrist.
“He’s a servant, Juliet. You’d do well to remember that. Prince would be the better match.”
“Why do you care?” I yelled. “Why not just leave us be?”
“It’s still my duty to see you married. And your duty to do as I say.”
“You’ve never liked Edward.”
“He’s of use to me in this case.”
Father didn’t care about people, only how he could use them. And matching me with Edward would mean fulfilling his fatherly duty so he could send me back to London with a husband and never think of me again.
I wrenched my hand from his. I had nothing to say to him.