Edlyn raised her otherworldly eyes. “Do you mean like a sword? But my hands are too small.”
“Show me what you are holding.”
And when she pried Edlyn’s fingers apart, she screamed and screamed as half a dozen brown spiders went scurrying up her arms to her neck into the bodice and sleeves of her dress.
Harriet thought she might be the only rational person in the house that night. Lady Powlis had gone into understandable hysterics when she discovered Edlyn’s headband in the box. The maids and even one of the footmen had wept in fear and held one another, clearly convinced that Edlyn would never come back. The duke had withdrawn into his library in the worst mood she’d witnessed since knowing him, and that was saying something, as he’d never been all rainbows and roses to begin with. He was afraid, and feeling helpless made it worse.
She was relieved when he went out prowling at half past seven with Lord Heath and one of the night Runners who’d worked for Sir Daniel before he officially retired from service. Griffin would go mad if he sat here twiddling his thumbs all night. If she hadn’t promised to stay home, she’d have been tempted to visit one of the flash houses in Spitalfields or Whitechapel herself. But if Nick Rydell had put out the word, he’d have every thief, prostitute, and parish watchman in London who owed him a favor on the job. She could have helped, though. She had her own friends. But Nick had taken over. He was the one everyone owed.
Edlyn had the best of the beau monde and the city’s underworld joining forces to find her. Her abductors obviously had no idea whom they were up against, and Harriet didn’t give a toss who got the credit. She only wanted Lady Powlis to stop crying and the duke to stop carrying the weight of the world on his well-formed shoulders.
Chapter Thirty-one
So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein- more, far more, will I achieve.
MARY SHELLEY
Frankenstein
The town house was as quiet as a tomb when Griffin came home nearly eight hours later. He went straight to the library, lighting a candle before he realized that Harriet had fallen asleep on the chaise. The coals had burned out. He pulled off his jacket and covered her shoulders. There was no point in disturbing her.
He had nothing to say that could not wait until morning. Every beggar and youngblood in the city claimed to have seen a lady of Edlyn’s description, and every one of their claims had led, sometimes literally, into a blind alley.
He looked out the window, half wishing Harriet would wake up. He wouldn’t mind talking about where he’d been. And if he carried her upstairs to bed, he’d likely still be there in the morning. He walked around his desk and stared without interest at the books arranged neatly on the shelves. Had his brother actually read when he visited London? Had he ever stood on this very spot and reached for-Harriet’s book? No.
Griffin had placed it there himself the last night Edlyn had visited here. And even though he didn’t think the story had been written that could hold his interest tonight, he found himself suddenly sitting at his desk and leafing through the well-worn pages of Frankenstein.
A random passage caught his eye.
“You must create a female for me, with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being.”
He settled into his chair.
A compelling theme. To be created and destined to be alone.
To be considered so loathsome that no ordinary female would fall in love with you. To be forced to beg a mate from the creator who considered you a fiend, too ugly for the human eye to behold.
He turned to another page, his interest unwittingly aroused.
“‘Shall each man,’” he read aloud, “‘find a wife for his bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone?’”
He wondered how many times Harriet had lost herself in this tale of horror and unhappy romance. And what page had she deemed important enough to mark with a torn remnant of an old letter? He glanced at her sleeping form on the sofa. It could not be considered an invasion of privacy, surely, to read what she had written. After all, she had offered the book to him and Edlyn, and in all likelihood he would find nothing more revealing than one of Harriet’s lists dictated by his aunt.
The partial letter was not written in Harriet’s spidery scrawl. He smoothed the scrap of paper out on the desk, recognizing Edlyn’s script from one of her journal entries.
I met Rosalie Porter tonight at the ball. We were interrupted by my uncle, who would not have noticed had I been talking to a goat, and by that pretty companion who notices too…
That was all.
Was it enough? Did it mean anything?
At least now there was a name to investigate. Of course, the woman could be innocent of any wrongdoing, in which case she should be easily found. She might have been one of the guests at Grayson’s ball who had already been questioned. She might have a daughter Edlyn’s age, a student at the academy. He could not let his hopes soar. It was only a name. But it was something for Sir Daniel to go on.
Could Harriet have seen it, too?
He rose and strode to the sofa, shaking her gently by the shoulder. Her eyes flickered open. She gave him a groggy smile, muttered an incomprehensible greeting, and burrowed back between the cushions.
“Harriet, wake up, please.” He shook her again, to no avail. “I need to-”
“We can’t keep doing this sort of thing whenever you have the urge-” She stuck her hand up toward his face. “Be gone.”
He drew his jacket from her shoulders. “I need to ask you something about Frankenstein.”
She rolled over, one arm dangling off the chaise like deadweight. Her white cotton stockings were sagging, her plain brown muslin gown wrinkled and caught between her knees. He pushed back the curtain of softly curling hair from her face.
“I need you, Harriet.”
She half opened her eyes. “Here? Right this minute? I don’t-”
He pulled her upright, propping her against the back of the chaise. “I want to ask you about the name I found inside your book.”
She frowned. “Why am I wearing your jacket?” she whispered, her head dropping back. “I can’t keep my eyes…”
He slid his arm around her shoulders to support her weight. “What have you been drinking?” he asked urgently.
“Nothing. Oh, that-your aunt made me taste her medicine before she would take it.”
“Good God.”
“It wasn’t half bad, though.” “I’m going to put that woman out in the old priory when we get home,” he muttered. She laughed. “Stop teasing, duke. I’m tired out.”
“You are drugged, Harriet,” he said in annoyance. “And absolutely useless to converse with in your condition.”
“What did you say?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You called me useless. I’ll try to remember that in the morning.”
He shook his head. “It is doubtful you will even remember that this conversation took place. I might as well take you up to bed.”
She gasped as he lifted her from the chaise. “What is it you wanted to talk about?” she whispered, pressing her cheek to the hollow of his throat.
He clasped her closer as he ascended the staircase. “Rosalie Porter. It was a name on a partial journal entry that Edlyn must have tucked inside your book.”
“Rosalie Porter?”
He kicked open her bedroom door, blinking in distaste at the Egyptian motif. She looked up at his face as he dropped her on the bed. He turned, then hesitated as her eyes opened again.
She pushed up on her elbow, in that hazy realm between wakefulness and sleep. “There’s no character of that name in Frankenstein.”