Heart of Perdition (3 page)

She could not bring herself to be surprised when Lord Falmouth disdained to believe her.

“Yes, your father spoke of a curse attached to the artifact. I assumed his statements arose from the wanderings of a dying mind.”

“On the contrary, I assure you the curse is very real, along with the evil that generates it.”

“You surprise me, Miss Shaw. After all, we are on the cusp of the twentieth century.” His smile was charming enough to eradicate the resolve of a lesser woman.
He must practice that one in the mirror.

“I’m well aware of the date, my lord. Your point?”

The smile faded, replaced by an expression of defiant determination. “My point is that I am a student of science and technology. Your father’s notes have led me to believe the artifact in question may end my quest to repair the defect in my heart, but I have no interest in this so-called curse. I abhor superstition.”

“And if I could convince you the curse is not mere superstition?”

Falmouth sat back in his wheelchair and smiled again, this time with more smug superiority and considerably less charm. “You have my permission to try.”

She’d expected no less—not from a man trapped in a body that betrayed his strength of will with every wheezing, broken breath. Not from one who might have been startlingly handsome if not for the sickly cast of his skin, and the gaunt contour of his face. Not from one so plainly in love with life, and just as plainly losing his grasp on it, inch by agonizing inch.

Oh, Father, why did you send him here? Had you never any conscience, any sense of right and wrong, even to the very end? And how am I to persuade him to leave empty-handed when you’ve poisoned his mind with hope?

No matter. She had to make the effort, if only to redeem her father’s sin.

“Allow me to acquaint you with the facts of my existence, my lord.” She planted her feet on the floorboards before the hearth, too aware of the hateful, muffled ticking of the clock above her head. “Perhaps it will surprise you to know that every mortal creature who has ever felt the even slightest attachment to me has died a horrible death.”

Falmouth stared at her for a long moment. “You speak of your poor mother, I suppose.”

“She was the first, but certainly not the last.” Elspeth moved to a wing-backed chair and perched on the edge of its seat. “Did my father tell you how my mother died? Did he tell you how her heart burst inside her ribcage, and she bled from every orifice?”

Falmouth winced, undoubtedly unaccustomed to hearing such a vulgar turn of phrase from a woman of Elspeth’s station and upbringing. Inwardly, she claimed the small victory and continued.

“Some years ago, my father sat across from me at tea one hot, dry afternoon in a café in Athens and told me the story of my birth, and why I was not meant to live like other young women.”

“Miss Shaw—”

“He told me of my mother, and then of the first wet nurse he’d employed immediately after her death. Her name was Afet. She lived with us four days. On the fifth day, she was found dead in her bed, her body black and swollen from multiple stings of a horned viper.”

“Miss Shaw, please!”

“The second nurse lasted nearly three months. I understand her own newborn infant was sickly, and I imagine she had neither the time nor the inclination to form an attachment to me. But the other child died.”

“And?” Falmouth’s tone was reluctant, as if he asked the question in spite of himself.

“A week later, there was a mishap with an oil lamp. I will spare you the gruesome details.”

“I beg you, Miss Shaw, to spare me the entirety of this madness, for you shan’t convince me—”

“My lord,” Elspeth rejoined in her sharpest tone, “you have already given your permission, and I cannot allow you to retract it till I’ve had my say.”

Falmouth pressed his lips into a thin line and, with a gesture of one elegant hand, bade her continue.

So Elspeth told him of her father’s two further attempts at employing nurses, and how each ended in fatality. She told him of how her father took over her care entirely, and how they traveled the length and breadth of Europe and Asia, a solitary man and his small daughter, till the day they made the acquaintance of a young Viennese widow by the name of Mrs. Olga von Schmeltung.

Her father had thought to marry again. A wife, a mother for his child—why should something so elemental be beyond his reach? Mrs. von Schmeltung lacked any sort of fortune, but possessed both beauty and sweetness, and was not adverse to the idea of a stepdaughter. Yet her father avoided introducing the six-year-old Elspeth to his fiancée…avoided it so long, in fact, that the good woman began to suspect the girl was either deformed, or had some obvious defect of intelligence or character.

And so Aurelius Shaw had banished his apprehensions and brought them together, woman and child. Elspeth, who had no memory of her doomed nurses, clung to the lady shamelessly from the moment of their meeting.

“She carried the scent of roses in her hair, and when she read me fairy stories, I believed her to be an angel sent down from heaven to care for me.” Elspeth paused and cleared her throat. “She was just eight and twenty—no older than I am now. When she died, I saw the fear in my father’s eyes. Fear and hatred for what I was. For what I am.”

The fire had burned down to embers, and the shadows in the corners of the room pooled like brackish water. Lord Falmouth sat erect in his wheelchair, the lamplight filtering through the mellow gold of his curls and casting one side of his face into darkness. The dark circles beneath his blue eyes resembled thumbprints pressed into clay.

“You are formulating a response, are you not, my lord?” she asked him. “You seek out the weak spots in my story—the places where logic does not hang together.”

His eyes narrowed, but he did not answer, plainly ready to wait till she’d finished her tale before offering his arguments.

But I won’t finish it. Not completely. That wound is still too fresh, and I’ll not be forced to relive it unless I must.

Instead, she folded her shaking hands in her lap and goaded him. “You will say a mother dead in childbirth, a few foreign nursemaids who met untimely ends, a prospective stepmother drowned in her own bathtub—”

“Really? In her bathtub?” he repeated, as if this, of all things, were the most improbable.

“You will call these occurrences tragedies, and commiserate with our very bad luck. Then you will ask if I’ve ever kept a pet.”

“Have you, Miss Shaw?” He sounded eager, and she knew she might as well have pulled the thought directly from his mind. “Have you ever kept a pet?”

Elspeth shook her head. “There was a mongrel spotted dog that came ’round to our villa in Rome, begging for scraps. I would meet him at the kitchen door with the remains of my breakfast, and after just a few days of this treatment, his tail would wag when he saw me.”

“And what became of him?”

She sighed. “One day, he simply wasn’t there. I consider it a blessing that I never knew his fate.”

“But hardly conclusive proof of his death.”

“Perhaps not. And now you will point out the greatest flaw in my tale of woe—the long and varied life of my father.”

Falmouth nodded. “Even you must admit it a rather conspicuous chink in your armor.”

“Only if one assumes my father harbored even the slightest bit of affection for me.”

“Oh, come now, Miss Shaw—”

“Did he speak of me warmly, my lord? Did he call my name on his deathbed, or ask that you send me word of his fond regard?”

Falmouth shifted in his chair, his discomfort plain in the scowl on his brow. “He left you everything. This house, all his money and belongings. He might have willed it to the Institute for Technological Advancement, or any of the other great organizations of scientific minds.”

Elspeth shrugged. “Aurelius Shaw was a man of science, but he was first a creature of duty. He would not fail to ensure a lifetime of security and comfort for his only offspring.”

“And you?” Falmouth asked, his bright eyes pinning her to her chair. “Are you a creature of duty, as well?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because it was your father’s dying wish that I travel to this island to find the artifact of which I’ve spoken. His
dying wish,
Miss Shaw.”

The killing blow. Father was too clever by half, and this earl of Falmouth is a match for him. He has known me a handful of hours, and already he has taken accurate measure of my nature.

Elspeth held his gaze. A clot of ashes fell onto the hearth with a soft thud. On the mantel, the clock tolled the hour.

“Do you cheat at cards, my lord?”

He gaped at her. “What an extraordinary question.”

She waited, for now that he’d defeated her, she had nothing but time and patience at her disposal.

After a moment, he smiled. It was neither the charming grin, nor the condescending smirk, but something altogether different and perhaps even genuine. “I have been known to be creative when dealing a hand of cribbage.”

Elspeth nodded, unsurprised. “You and my father must have got on famously.”

She rose and moved to the door, only to turn again and address her guest in a tone she hoped would brook no argument. “You will allow me to assist you with the stairs to the laboratory, my lord, for I’m sorry to say this house is not equipped with a lift.”

She exited the library, followed by the sound of Lord Falmouth’s laughter, and the rude expulsion of air as he engaged the engine of his wheelchair.

Miss Shaw refused to allow him to hunt for the entrance to her father’s hidden room.

“As Father made a point of papering over the entire western wall and then lining it with the heaviest and most cumbersome pieces in his collection, I can only assume we’ll find the door there,” she told him. “You will only harm yourself in attempting to assist in the search, my lord. Please, indulge me in this matter, if in no other.”

Guilt made him comply. Using her father’s deathbed wish against her had left a sour taste in his mouth, so he sat quietly on a stool in the corner and watched as four of the household’s mechanical servants carried the largest crates to the other side of the room.

The laboratory was as jumbled as the library. Containers of all kinds stood cheek-by-jowl with fantastical equipment James could not hope to name. The air was murky with dust when Miss Shaw dismissed the servants and began moving the smaller pieces. After several moments, James broke the strained silence with a question.

“You have not shared your entire tale of woe, as you call it. There is more, is there not?”

Miss Shaw froze in the act of transferring an outsized microscope from one marble counter to another. “What difference could it possibly make now? You refuse to be persuaded.”

“Which does not mean I am uninterested.”

She let the microscope drop with a thud. Her hair was disordered and her bodice covered with cobwebs. Although it was both cold and damp in the basement laboratory, her face glowed pink with exertion.

“I have shared all I intend to on the subject, my lord.” Her words held a note of glum finality that challenged him. If she would not discuss this imaginary curse—and why should she, after all, when it
was
wholly imaginary and not a fit topic for any but the inmates of an asylum?—then perhaps he could draw her out on a related subject.

“What do you know of the actual artifact to which this supposed curse is attached?”

This time she did not freeze, but the lines of her body grew tense. When she spoke, her voice had a flat quality that fell harshly on his ear.

“The object is Sumerian by provenance, and therefore quite ancient. The lore surrounding it suggests it is the distilled essence of the demon Xaphan, a fallen angel whose breath fans the flames of perdition.”

James stifled a sigh. “Yes, I’ve read your father’s notes. I am interested in the artifact’s actual, physical form. You’ve seen it, I assume?”

“No, my lord. My father always kept it packed away, lest it fall into the wrong hands.”

Wrong hands? If the object is the vessel of such potential power, then whose hands are the right ones?

He shook off the phantom voice of doubt and applied himself again to the task of drawing out his hostess while she searched. “If your father’s final invention proves itself viable, his name will be on the lips of every medical man in Europe.”

Miss Shaw lifted another crate and set it aside. “What a shame he isn’t here to enjoy the fruits of his labors,” she replied distractedly.

“Are you not interested in this invention of his? The one that may save my life?”

“If you wish to divulge my father’s secrets, feel free, my lord. I will listen with an avid ear.”

He suspected she was mocking him, and didn’t care. “Are you familiar with electrochemical theory as it applies to the workings of a zinc-carbon battery?”

“I am. Zinc and carbon provide negative and positive terminals, respectively. The zinc erodes in an electrolyte paste, resulting in the flow of electrons and the production of electricity.”

He blinked at her. “I say, very good!”

She didn’t trouble herself to hide her laughter. “Did you truly think me so feeble in understanding? I am Aurelius Shaw’s daughter, after all.”

James’ ears burned, and he knew he deserved her scorn. “Forgive me, good lady, for underestimating you. It shan’t happen again.”

They regarded each other a moment, the air between them charged with something James recognized as animal attraction—not so different from the electrical variety, ironically. Then Miss Shaw appeared to remember herself, and turned again to her work.

James cleared his throat. “What your father has proposed is the use of this artifact—this distilled essence or whatever it may be—to replace the electrolyte paste in a dry-cell battery. This battery will then power a clockwork device of his invention that will regulate the rhythm of my heart.”

“You will carry this device within your chest cavity?”

“That is the general idea, yes.”

She shook her head. “I’ve seen a dry-cell battery, my lord. I’m certain what you’re suggesting is impossible.”

Warming to his subject, James rose from his stool. “The advantage of the newly formulated electrolyte paste is that it magnifies the voltage even as it slows its conduction. If your father’s theory is to be believed, a battery the size of a thimble would be sufficient to last one man several lifetimes.”

For some reason, Miss Shaw looked appalled. “By what mechanism is this magnification accomplished?”

“Your father’s notes were unclear on the particulars.”

Miss Shaw’s face appeared to draw in on itself. For the first time she looked all of her eight and twenty years.

A high-pitched cry made James turn toward the door of the laboratory. A moment later, a gray tabby cat sauntered into the room, moved directly to Miss Shaw’s side and began to rub itself against her skirts in an obvious bid for attention.

Fully aware he was broaching a closed topic, James couldn’t help but comment. “Look at that beast. The proof your curse is a sham, Miss Shaw, is purring at your feet, for how can you say he does not adore you…and yet he lives?”

She bent and fetched the cat up in her arms. It instantly began kneading the bodice of her dress in a most provocative way.

“I’ve asked myself the same question. But one must recall that a cat, like a shark, is the perfect predator. Unlike a dog, for example, it is doubtful they feel affection outside their species.”

“That animal certainly feigns it well.”

“He knows the going price for a warm bed and a bit of fish.”

“You are cynical.”

“I am a naturalist.” With a final pat, she set the cat down. “Keep your cogs and wheels and levers—and electrochemical equations. Give me leaves of grass, the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. Give me a tree, my lord.”

“I would happily do so, but there were none in evidence where we landed.”

“True enough. No trees grow on St. Kilda. The climate won’t allow it.”

“Life here is harsh.”

“There are compensations.”

“Such as?”

Rather than answer, she insinuated herself between the far corner of the laboratory and a tall, narrow crate. She gave the container a singularly vicious shove. Its front panel dropped away and crashed to the floor. A human skeleton followed, its yellowed bones falling in pieces at their feet. The skull rolled some distance and came to rest near the stool upon which James had been seated.

Miss Shaw appeared unaffected, too busy examining the patch of wall revealed by the crate’s displacement to notice James’ sudden recoiling. As he watched, she reached out and rapped on the wall. The sound produced by this action had an unmistakably hollow tone.

“I believe I’ve found it.”

* * *

The object rested on her father’s desk in the library, drawing Elspeth’s gaze again and again, despite her intention to ignore its existence. Lord Falmouth sat at the desk in his wheelchair and examined the item in question.

“Such an odd shape,” Falmouth said, the note of wonder in his voice betraying his excitement. “Twelve surfaces, with each surface having five sides, and each sporting a five-pointed star.”

“It’s a dodecahedron,” Elspeth said, compelled to share what she knew despite herself. “An ancient symbol for the totality of the world, known and unknown. The stars are likewise symbols of the occult. The box itself appears to be made of ebony and the scorched wood of a linden tree.”

“Hmm. Well, the container is certainly of less import than its contents.”

He fumbled with the tarnished brass catch. The box sprang open in his hands, revealing a bed of mold-spotted red silk surrounding a small vial made of pitted green glass. Falmouth lifted it from the box and held it up to the lamplight. The vial, in turn, contained a fine-grained black powder.

“Looks remarkably like coal dust,” Falmouth muttered. “Shouldn’t open it now, I suppose. Should wait till I get it in the proper environment, where it can be studied. But I see clearly what your father intended—the ease with which this substance will be made into a paste fit for the conduction of electricity.”

Elspeth rose from her chair near the fireplace and crossed to stand before the desk. Falmouth dragged his gaze away from the vial and looked up at her from his seated position, his brows raised in a silent question.

“I implore you, my lord, to listen to reason. The manner in which you propose using this…this
artifact
is reckless in the extreme. I fear it may mean the end of you.”

In response, he replaced the vial in the box and snapped shut the latch. Then he wheeled himself ’round the desk till he was close enough to touch her. Without warning, he reached out and grasped her hand, pulling her forward till her palm rested on the center of his chest.

“Do you feel that, Miss Shaw? That is the off-tempo spasm of a dying heart. You fear I will meet my end if I am reckless. I
know
I will meet it if I am not.”

She disengaged her hand and stepped back. “But are there not worse things than death, my lord? My father never feared offending the Almighty with his hubris, but can
you
not see the folly?”

Falmouth laughed. “You believe in the Almighty?”

“I believe in a Creator, and I believe we owe Him some sense of duty, not unlike that which we owe our earthly parents.”

“But you do not feel the warm embrace of that Creator, do you, Miss Shaw? Your faith in His existence does not bring you comfort?”

Elspeth pivoted away from him and began to pace. “What do all the great religions have at their core, after all?” she asked him as she tread the perimeter of the room, dodging in and out of the shadows. “A simple credo—if you would love your god, love others first.”

He made an assenting noise, and she turned to face him. “But my experience of love has been nothing short of catastrophic. It is only natural that I distrust the entire notion.”

“Surely the only natural thing in this place,” he murmured, scarcely loud enough to be heard. She saw his gaze drawn back to the object on the desk, and knew the desperation of imminent defeat.

I am losing him. He has his prize. Now he’ll go away forever, and I’ll never know what becomes of him.

This thought, even more so than her fear for his life, moved her to try again.

“You are correct, my lord. I am unnatural, my father always said so.” She crossed to stand between Falmouth and the desk, blocking his view. “A woman is built to be loved—to be a wife, a companion and a helpmeet. In that regard I am now, and ever will be, a failure.”

“You speak as if there were no hope.”

“None whatsoever.” And never before had she felt the lack of it so keenly as she did in this moment.

He inclined his head and offered her a crooked smile. “Perhaps the domestic bliss you envision isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The uncle who raised me always said the only difference between a wife and a whore is the fee for services rendered.”

It was a shocking and wholly inappropriate comment—one he would never make in the presence of London’s debutantes, wives and spinsters. Elspeth knew she ought to be offended, but she could only laugh. They laughed together, in fact, their voices loud in the dim room.

Falmouth reached for her hand again. This time, he merely gave it a gentle squeeze and let it fall. “Tell me, Miss Shaw, the rest of your tale, for I know there is more. Do not let it fester within you like an infected wound. I will listen with careful attention, for I should like to know you better.”

Before she could reply, his face twisted in pain and he pressed his fist to the center of his chest. When she exclaimed in alarm, he waved her off with an impatient gesture. She crossed to the cold, ash-filled fireplace and waited there till his spasm passed, using the time to collect her thoughts and reinforce her resolve. Above her head, the clock on the mantel tolled four times.

When Falmouth had recovered, Elspeth said, “The hour has grown from late to early. If you are to embark for London on the next airship, you will need rest.”

“But—”

“I insist, my lord. But before I see you to your room, I should like to make a final attempt to convince you of the danger you face in testing my father’s theory of the artifact.”

Without waiting for his answer, she reached up and yanked off the length of black muslin in which the clock was draped, exposing its face to the dim lamplight. Even knowing what to expect, she recoiled at the sight of it.

“Hideous,” Falmouth whispered. “Extraordinarily so. Who built the thing?”

“A clockmaker in Switzerland, I believe. When my father acquired it, it did not appear as you see it now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, my lord, that my father removed a small amount of the substance from that vial,” she said, pointing to the object on the desk, “and used it in fashioning new inner workings for this clock. Since then, the thing never runs down. It never needs winding, and its gears never need a draught from the oil can.”

“Perpetual motion? Impossible.”

“Do you believe I would lie to you at this juncture?”

He looked from her to the clock and back again. The clock stared down at them with its grotesquely humanoid face, smugly superior and ravenously hungry by turns.

“You say he only replaced its inner workings? He didn’t alter the exterior in any way?”

Elspeth nodded. “He set it on the mantel, and within twenty-four hours its appearance had transformed into what you see now.”

“And it has no other special properties?”

“Oh, it’s always run ten minutes fast, no matter how Father tinkered with it,” she said. “I refuse to touch the thing. My solution is to set all the other clocks in the house at times that vary by several minutes in either direction. When I walk among the rooms, I call it time travel.”