Manners and Monsters Collection by Tilly Wallace

Author:Tilly Wallace
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ribbonwood Press

15

The next morning, the newspaper headline declared, Monster Continues to Terrorise Chelsea Fields.

Hannah held in a sigh at such a grammatical error. The fields themselves were probably ambivalent about the existence of a monster. It would be those out at night who feared encountering it. The subtitle posed the question, Is Sir Hugh Miles experimenting on more than mice? She tried to read the lines upside down as she buttered her toast, but had to resort to pulling the paper closer.

“What has caught your interest?” her father asked as he entered the room.

Hannah pushed the newspaper along the table. “Another ridiculous and fallacious article about the possibility of your being the creature that roams the fields around Chelsea. Now the scandalmongers speculate on what you do in your laboratory. It says young women are being snatched off the streets.”

Sir Hugh carried his plate from the buffet and took his seat at the head of the table. “It will pass. These things always do. I suspect some people like scaring themselves with the idea of a monster stalking the dark, looking for a vulnerable victim. Usually these supposedly vanished young women have taken employment elsewhere or run away with a beau.”

“But how can they make such horrible accusations about you? They are simply not true!” Her father was a good man and it riled Hannah to think people could believe such nonsense. If the stories continued, what would be next—a torch-carrying mob marching along their road?

Did women truly disappear without telling their friends or family? She could not imagine being so enamoured of someone that she ran away with him on impulse, without at least telling her mother first. No passion could be so all-consuming that a person forgot common decency and omitted to notify their worried family of their whereabouts.

“With Lord Wycliff investigating the matter, I am sure he will unmask the true monster in due course.” Sir Hugh tucked a napkin into the top of his waistcoat and then picked up his cutlery.

Hannah poured coffee for her father and stirred in two lumps of sugar. “The article dwells on the wounds seen on the woman found near the Physic Garden. Lord Wycliff said she bore many similarities to Mr Barnes’ hand.”

“Is that so?” Hugh looked up from his breakfast, his eyes narrowed with interest. “Ah, here is the man himself.”

Hannah tried not to jump in her chair as the viscount appeared in the breakfast room. He had a way of walking without making a sound, even though he had hard soles on his boots.

“Tell me, Lord Wycliff, about this woman found in the fields. Was she Afflicted like Mr Barnes?”

The viscount nodded to Hannah and then collected a plate from the end of the buffet. “That I do not know, Sir Hugh. But the woman bears the same surgical scars as the hand and forearm we examined. Except in this case, all four limbs have been stitched to her torso.”

Her father paused and his eyes rolled to one side in thought.

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