The Devious Dr. Jekyll by Viola Carr

Author:Viola Carr [Carr, Viola]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-09-19T05:00:00+00:00

EQUAL AND INDIFFERENT JUSTICE

IN FOG-STRAINED MORNING SUNSHINE, HIPPOCRATES lay prostrate on Eliza’s desk blotter with his legs in the air. “Be still,” she scolded, waving a screwdriver. “This won’t hurt.”

Hipp wriggled like an upturned turtle. “Evidence insufficient. Conclusion spurious. Recompute.”

She blinked gritty eyes. She was stumbling in mind and body, exhausted by Lizzie’s intrigue and her own rose-scented nightmares of Mr. Todd. If you attempt to thwart me again . . .

Not to mention Lizzie’s palaver with Edward Hyde. Eliza had already scribbled a note to the Philosopher. She hardly dared imagine the response. Hyde was befuddled. Mad. Flirting with catastrophe.

Did that same disintegration threaten her future, if she couldn’t keep Lizzie under control?

Carefully, she loosened Hipp’s propulsion spring. WHIRRR! Hipp’s legs jerked, and flopped limp.

She pried up his brass casing, blowing dust from the clockwork, and squinted through her magnifier. A pair of notched cylinders, his voice recorder. His data store, a stack of tiny crosshatched wafers. His power generator, a kernel of light emitting the faint whiff of burned aether . . .

Clink! Her tweezers hit an unexpected bump.

She poked it. The size of a pea, it seemed attached, by a network of fine wires. She pulled harder. Pop! Off it snapped, and bounced onto the blotter. Tiny octopus-like limbs writhed from a silvery metal body. A filament unwrapped itself, turning inquisitively like a snail’s stalked eye. The horrid thing’s wire tentacles flexed, a hungry parasite searching for a host.

She trapped it under an upturned beaker, wrinkling her nose in distaste. She’d built Hipp. She knew what was meant to be there. She flipped a thicker lens into her magnifier, peering closer . . .

An hour later, nervy and breathless, she tapped the knocker on Captain Lafayette’s door near Inner Temple Gardens.

Across the wide boulevard, steam barges putted on the Thames, alongside paddle-driven rafts and bobbing coracles. The dirty fog had thinned, and sunshine jeweled the water, painting golden ribbons along the iron-railed Embankment and the stately granite arches of Waterloo Bridge. The trees lining the bank shed a rich summer-blossom scent.

She fidgeted on the flower-lined garden path, waiting. Maybe Lafayette wasn’t home. He hadn’t yet responded to her telegram from yesterday. Was he avoiding her, now? She’d all but accused him of betraying her to the Royal. Called him a torturer . . .

But the thing had to be faced. The issue of his proposal remained to be settled. And she’d left Hipp at home in pieces. As if it weren’t death to a lady’s reputation to call on a gentleman alone. Good God, this was insane. Mortified, she turned to scuttle away.

“Leaving already?”

She halted, flushing. In the doorway, Lafayette smiled at her, ingenuous. Coatless, his shirt blinding white. Sun-glare ricocheted off the river to kiss his chestnut hair with gold.

“Er . . . no. Good morning.” She’d come to apologize for her foolishness, start afresh . . . but some stubborn diamond of fearful caution still glittered in her heart. She despaired. Would she ever get over this? Did it matter? Even Lafayette’s epic patience must have limits.

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