There was no answer. Should I wait? I rapped again, harder. Behind me, low voices and the sounds of clinking glasses floated up from the dining hall.
A wild idea struck me. I tried the knob—locked, of course. It wasn’t a sophisticated lock, though, so any skeleton key might do. I rifled through my bag for the key to my wooden box at the lodging house. At last I found the small bronze key and compared it to the door’s lock. Too small. I knelt, peering into the keyhole. Inside was a small room with an unmade bed and stacks of steamer trunks. I tried the key again, willing it to reach the tumbler, and I almost had it before it slipped out of my hands.
“Blast,” I muttered, bending to retrieve it. As I stood back up, I brushed the hair out of my eyes, the movement reflected in the mirror. I looked again at my face, studying the hollows under my cheekbones, the shadow around my eyes, wondering if Father would even recognize me now. Suddenly, a second face appeared behind my own—a dark face covered in a thick beard that obscured a man’s heavy features. His forehead slanted with an odd deformity, leading to a brow that thrust forward, hooding his eyes. I gasped and tried to turn, but his beastly hands dug into my shoulders. The key fell as he forced a cloth over my mouth. The last things I saw before passing out were his yellow-green eyes glowing in the mirror.
FOUR
I AWOKE, HEAD THROBBING, the taste of chloroform in my throat. I was on the same wooden-framed bed I’d seen through the keyhole. I bolted upright. Scanned the room for my attacker, for a weapon, for an explanation as to why I was there.
I remembered in flashes. The face in the mirror. The cloth against my mouth.
Drugged.
A rush of panic sent my vision blurring and my ears roaring as I ransacked my clothes, relieved to find no signs I’d been harmed. Regardless, I needed something to use as a weapon—a fire poker or a letter opener. But a wave of nausea knocked me back to the pillows. I squeezed my eyes shut until my foggy head began to clear.
I was alone at least. In someone’s room—the deformed man’s, most likely. From the angle of sunlight pouring into the room, I must have been out for hours. A sick taste rose in my throat as I recalled the feel of his hairy hand against my mouth. My breath came fast, faster, until I thought I might black out. I gritted my teeth, holding in the urge to scream. Panic would get me nowhere.
I opened my eyes, slowly. Testing the door wasn’t an option until my head cleared enough for me to stand. But the room was full of clues about my abductor. Crates and trunks were stacked by the door three deep, surrounded by packages wrapped in brown paper. He was traveling, then, and somewhere far away, judging by the cargo. A caged parrot on the dresser eyed me warily while picking at the bars with its beak. I stared at it.
My abductor traveled with a parrot?
A second door, which I assumed led to an adjoining room, was shut. Beside the bed was an open trunk, which I managed to lean toward without too much nausea. It contained rows of glass bottles, partially obscured by packing straw. I brushed the straw aside and took out a bottle: Elk Hill brandy. My father’s favorite.
Before I could piece together what it meant, the door to the adjoining room swung open, revealing the beastly face from the mirror.
“You!” I cried. I coiled my fist around the bottle neck, ready to swing. I tried to stand but my feet wouldn’t obey, and I grappled for the bedpost for support.
His was not the face of a monster, as I’d first imagined, but it was disfigured nonetheless. A wild black beard covered a protruding jaw below a snub nose and deep-set eyes. He moved with an odd lurch, as though he was unused to his own legs. Despite his disfigurement, he didn’t seem so threatening now, partly due to the tray of tea and biscuits he was holding.
Still, my body tensed. He stepped forward with a shuffle, just far enough to set the tray on the foot of the bed. He scurried back and twisted his mouth into what might have been a smile.
The strange act of kindness only made me more uneasy. “Get away!” I cried. I hurled the bottle at him, but my vision was distorted from the drugs, and it fell uselessly past his shoulder into a crate of clothes. I climbed over the bed, stumbling with vertigo, grabbing at his wrinkled linen shirt and hammering him with my fists. “Someone, help!”
The man did not speak. He merely cringed and let me pummel him. But the side door jerked open again with a squeal of hinges and another man rushed in, a young man with shirt half buttoned and suspenders at his sides. He threw his arms around mine to keep me from tearing the beastly man apart.
“Let me go!” I cried. But he was powerfully built, and it didn’t take him long to pin my wrists in the shackles of his hands.
“Juliet! Stop this!” he said.
I froze at the gruff sound of my name. The young man let me go and I whirled on him. His face was deeply tanned, odd during the London winter. Loose blond hair fell to his broad shoulders. My lungs seized up.