A Cold Legacy Read Free Page A

had once thought impossible were real—split personalities, talking animals, even the possibility of bringing back the dead.
    My mind turned back to the conversation I’d had with Elizabeth in the carriage from London before she left us at Derby. I had whispered to her, low and secretive: But that’s not the end, is it? Death, I mean . She had looked at me fearfully as she understood that I had pieced together her dark family history, which she and the professor had only alluded to. Their ancestry from Switzerland, fleeing persecution, changing their name.
    What was their name? I had pressed.
    Frankenstein , she’d admitted at last.
    M Y EYES SHOT OPEN , searching the darkness for a sense of place. A scratchy mattress below me. A single window, filled with fog. I’d slept and dreamed of impossible things.
    In that carriage ride leaving London, Elizabeth had revealed that her family was descended from Victor Frankenstein, the brilliant doctor of century-old legends, but she’d insisted that his science had been forgotten and his journals lost. There was no way to replicate his procedures to bring the dead back to life.
    I let out a breath I didn’t even know I’d been holdingand climbed out of bed, still wearing my wrinkled lavender dress. I twisted the knob silently and slipped into the hall to look for Montgomery.
    This far north the days were shorter, eaten on both ends by darkness, but now early-morning light streamed through the hallway windows. Balthazar slept on the floor outside Edward’s room, keeping watch, with my little dog, Sharkey, curled against his chest. I stepped over them carefully and tiptoed to the door of Montgomery’s room. When I cracked it open, I found the bed empty.
    Voices came from the dining room downstairs along with the smell of freshly baked scones and coffee. My stomach reminded me that I hadn’t eaten more than a bite of soup the night before. I descended the stairs, stepped into the dining room, and froze.
    Four British police officers faced the bar with their backs to me, speaking with the barmaid from last night. I went rigid. A single creaking board might alert them to my presence.
    â€œTwo girls under the age of eighteen traveling with a twenty-year-old servant, a large deformed man, and possibly a young gentleman,” an officer said.
    I didn’t dare move a step. The barmaid’s eyes flickered to mine just long enough for me to read the warning written in them. It was us they were after and she knew it.
    â€œYou’re certain they came this way, are you?” she asked.
    â€œClean out your ears, woman. I said we aren’t certain of anything. The dispatch said they haven’t been spottedsince fleeing London, so all the major thoroughfares are being checked as a precaution. Train stations and the ports to the Continent and the Americas as well.”
    His fellow officer picked at the broken edge of the bar, bored. “I can’t imagine they’d have left London for these parts. Not even criminals would want to hide out in muddy bogs filled with sheep’s dung.”
    The barmaid narrowed her eyes. Relations had never been easy between the English and the Scottish, and these officers were as English as weak tea. I could practically see her face burning redder with anger as another one of the officers riffled through the ledgers on the counter.
    She flipped a bar towel at him. “You can’t go poking about through there.”
    â€œKeep that rag to yourself,” the officer snarled. Tension crackled between them. With my breath held, I took a single step backward.
    â€œWell?” the lead investigator pressed. “Have you seen anyone matching their description or haven’t you? We’ve other work to do.”
    The barmaid glanced at me again, chewing the inside of her cheek. The woman had no loyalty to us. We were just as English as the officers. One word from her and we’d be thrown