Tenfold More Wicked (39 page)
Read Tenfold More Wicked Online
Authors: Viola Carr
He collides with François. Growling, slavering, fangs tearing flesh.
I don't look. I just run. Lurch out onto the landing, slam the door. Fall into Marcellus Finch's arms, and listen through my weeping to the snarling, choking, rending sounds of death.
I
N THE SUMPTUOUS UPSTAIRS DRAWING ROOM, ELIZA
sighed and put her book aside.
Treatise on Dissociative States and Disorders of the Nervous Mind
. She'd recovered the torn pages, pieced it back together. But her concentration danced, fickle like windswept leaves. Her mind kept stumbling over burning skyships and dead queens, finding its way to squalid Newgate where a man had waited to die.
Sun poured over the richly dyed Bombay carpet, shining on the rosewood tea table. Her cup was long cold. Hippocrates jumped onto the chaise, nosing at her skirts, and she petted him absently.
Lizzie peered out the window, impatiently twitching the velvet drapes. “Dullest book ever,” she grumbled. “Jesus in a jam jar, I'm snoring over here.”
“Get your own book, then, if you're so clever.”
Lizzie tossed her hair, jaunty top hat teetering. “From your library? Never a rum tale among 'em. All medicine and science and dead old Greek bastards. Nothing happens.”
“Historians,” protested Eliza. “Really, Lizzie, not everything needs to be a penny gaff melodrama.”
“Don't it? Where are the good books? That
Varney the Vampyre,
for one. A rollicking good yarn. Always waking up in graveyards and bumping off ripe maidens and woe is me. Proper tragic hero, he is.”
“I'm sure.” Eliza eyed Hipp dubiously. “Perhaps we could both use a walk.”
“Walk!” squawked Hipp, bouncing. “Motion! Make greater speed!”
Lizzie flounced her scarlet skirts. “'Bout bloody timeâ”
“Can I come?” From the doorway, Remy flashed a smile. Weary, but still dazzling. Half dressed, scarlet coat slung over his arm. His bruises had faded, just a shadow under one eye.
By the window, Lizzie smirked. Transparent again, just a light-speckled shimmer. Eliza flushed. She knew Lizzie wasn't real, of course. Sometimes, she just . . . forgot. And always, when she remembered, she was gripped with sadness. As if her best friend had departed on a long and perilous journey.
Eliza cleared her throat. “What are you doing here?”
“This is my house. Attendance is customary.” Remy hovered in the doorway. Waiting for permission?
She still thought of it as François's house. But François was dead. And nearly a week later, Remy still muttered and cried out in his sleep. “I mean, what are you doing up? I recall prescribing strict bed rest.”
“You did. But I can't stand it anymore.” Remy bent to pet Hipp, still moving gingerly, as if he ached all over. “And laying eyes on your fresh and lovely face has already improved my condition no end.”
She eyed him sternly. “Is this how we're to proceed? You
thwart my every command, then charm me into forgiving you with clownish flirtations?”
“Precisely my plan. Is it working?”
“It could be worse.” She hesitated. “How are you feeling?”
“Sore,” he admitted. “I can still taste those vile concoctions Finch forces down my throat. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was trying to poison me.” Mr. Finch had restored Remy, with the help of that icy pink remedy and a lot of luck. Not an easy transition. The wolf had resisted, digging in its claws and howling to be free. It wanted life.
“Remy . . . I haven't had the chance . . . I'm so sorry about François. I don't know what to say.”
A shadow darkened his face. “I'd rather not speak of it, if you don't mind.”
Eliza swallowed. Crimson rivers, ragged flesh, that awful rending sound . . .
“But on that subject,” added Remy softly, “I owe you an apology. I told you I couldn't let a killer go free. I meant it. And that includes me.”
Her heart whispered, uneasy. Newgate Prison had burned in the riots, and in any case, the chaos meant the authoritiesâwhoever those were, with the Mad Queen dead and the Philosopher the new Regent for a half-witted, underage King who slobbered and gapedâwhoever was in charge, they had more urgent things on their minds than arranging a hanging.
And in her pocket lurked a letter from a certain froggy-fingered bailiff, detailing where she mightâif she choseâpick up a certain collection of sketches and an unfinished oil painting. The bailiff had commandeered them, a favor in
return for Quick's vexatious lawsuit. She hadn't yet retrieved the collection. Maybe, she never would.
But Mr. Todd was lost. A ghost. Denying your dark side couldn't absolve you . . . but Remy was different. Wasn't he? “I'm not listening. It was self-defense and that's that.”
“Butâ”
“François wasn't himself, Remy. He attacked you. He attacked all of us.”
A pause. “Butâ”
“There you are, then. And stop saying âbut.' I'm not a goat.”
He bit his tender lip. “I once promised I'd never hurt you, do you remember?”
His ring hummed in her pocket, accusing. She hadn't put it back on. Hadn't insisted he take it back either. “Please, don't say itâ”
“I must.” Gentle, earnest. “I can't keep that promise. You saw what happened. The moon isn't the only thing that awakens this creature. What if it happens when I'm not expecting it? I can't trust it. Not now. Not ever.”
All that blood,
François had said. It made her shiver. But whatever Remy had done was as much her fault as his. She couldn't just walk away. “I know you're trying,” she insisted. “Those candles, that incantation, or whatever it was? Don't lose heart, Remy. Mr. Finch is optimistic for a cure. When the next full moon comes . . .”
He didn't need to speak. He'd already tried spells, amulets, medicines.
When the next full moon comes . . . what?
She cocked hands on hips, a defiant Lizzie-like gesture. “I won't hear of it. We have the cage. We'll triple the locks if necessary. And we'll keep trying until the thing is done.”
“Butâ”
“Ah.” She cut him off with an upraised finger. “Doctor's orders. Think you'll be rid of me so easily? And don't even think about turning yourself in,” she added, “or other such gallant foolishness. No matter that your secret died with Lady Lovelace. You're still under enough suspicion at the Royal as it is.”
“I can't promise I won't do that.”
“Fine. Then this conversation isn't ended. And it won't be until you forgive yourself, Remy Lafayette.”
Remy's eyes shimmered. “I really am the luckiest man alive. Aren't you even the tiniest bit afraid of me?”
Behind him, Lizzie snorted. “After what we've been through? Not a chance. Now bloody well kiss him until my eyes boggle, or I'll throttle you.”
Laughing, Eliza reached up to brush her thumb across his lashes. “Lizzie says I ought to kiss you now.”
“Oh.” His smile flashed, glorious. “Well, forgive me, madam, but that's impossible. We're not engaged.”
She slipped the ring from her pocket. The stone sparkled in the sun. Ridiculously blue, like his eyes. “Yes,” she whispered, “we are.”
He took the ring, and slipped it onto her finger. And she kissed him until she couldn't breathe.
Like every author, I couldn't be one without my fabulous team of enablers: Kelly, Caroline, and the gang at Harper Voyager; Marlene, agent extraordinaire; and Sean, bringer of chocolate and kisses. Oh, and cheers to the staff at the Alnwick coffee shop where I spent many hours writing this book, who called me “Sheila” and wondered if they were in it.
VIOLA CARR
was born in a strange and distant land, but wandered into darkest London one foggy October evening and never found her way out. She now devours countless history books and dictates fantastical novels by gaslight, accompanied by classical music and the snores of her slumbering cat. She is the author of
The Diabolical Miss Hyde.
www.violacarr.com
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This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE DEVIOUS DR. JEKYLL.
Copyright © 2015 by Viola Carr. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
Harper Voyager and design is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers L.L.C.
ISBN 978-0-06-236310-7
EPub Edition October 2015 ISBN 9780062363114
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