Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
When I reach Broadbent’s office, out of breath and boiling beneath my cloak, I throw it off in frustration and try the door. It’s locked, the front windows dark. I bang on the door with my closed fist. Finally, a weary maid opens to me. “Yes, miss? Can I help you.”
“I need to see Dr. Broadbent, please. It’s an emergency.”
With my reddened face and panicked breathlessness, it’s hardly an act.
“I’m sorry, miss. He’s out for the day. He won’t be back until evening. He was sent to call on a patient in the marshes.”
“The marshes?”
“Yes. He had a visitor this morning. A lady. They left together.”
“Did you happen to catch her name. It’s very important.”
“No, miss. I didn’t.”
“What did she look like?”
“She was very pretty. Tall. With dark hair. I’m sorry I can’t help you more. I must see to my work.”
It could have been Kate. Or it might have been someone else. When she left Angel’s Rest, she was dressed as Alex. I take some comfort in that knowledge. I sigh, my shoulders sagging. “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”
“If you’ll leave your card, miss, I’ll tell him you called.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
She nods and closes the door. I rush to Bay Street and hire a boat to take me back to the marshes, paying the oarsman handsomely for his efforts.
When I arrive at Angel’s Rest, it’s evening, and the house is lit up like Christmas, its windows blinking yellow through the oaks. Kate’s home. Relief floods through me. I race up the path and onto the piazza, calling her name.
But when I fling open the door, she doesn’t come to greet me. “Kate! I’m home!”
Nothing but silence. I walk into the parlor. A vase on the sideboard is tipped over, murky water spilled on the floor. I right it, and call for her again. I still, listening. Upstairs, I hear the floorboards creak. My skin prickles with wariness. Something isn’t right.
“Kate?”
I climb the stairs, slowly. Light bleeds into the hall from one of the second-story bedrooms—the one with the wallpaper birds where Kate nursed me when I first arrived.
I push the door all the way open. Kate sits there, next to the bed, dressed in one of Varina’s gowns, working on a hoop of embroidery.
She smiles at me, too wide. “Hello, sweetling,” she says, tilting her head.
“I was wondering when you would come home.”
Something hits the back of my head, hard. Pain explodes inside my skull. I crumple to the floor. As my consciousness fades, I hear Kate’s voice: “There, I’ve done my part.”
When I come to, I’m tied to the bed, my wrists bound with scraps of fabric.
I panic, crying out. A stinging slap lands across my face.
Kate grasps my jaw, her thumb pressing against my pulse.
Her eyes are cold. Vacant. Even though she’s wearing Varina’s clothes, she’s become Winthrop again. Heartless, reptilian Winthrop.
Rebecca’s voice rings in my ears. Do you trust her?
I strain against my bonds. Try to rise. My head spins, sickening me. “You’d better not struggle,” Kate scolds, pushing me back down. “You’ve taken a nasty blow to the head. Best to rest.”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask, my voice tight as a bowstring.
“Money, sweetling. That’s the short answer. Although you’ve been a pleasant plaything. I’m going to miss you.” She drags her finger down my neck, scratching my skin with her fingernail. Goose bumps rise along my arms.
“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”
She sighs. “We have to, I’m afraid.”
“We?” I become conscious of another presence in the room, lurking beyond my line of sight. I smell the faint scent of tobacco. “It’s him, isn’t it? Broadbent.”
“Hello, Miss Carmichael.” Broadbent emerges from the shadowed corner of the room and comes to my bedside, where he greets Kate with a lingering kiss. “I take it that this is a bit of a surprise to you,” he says, smiling down at me.
“Some of it,” I say. “But not all. Kate’s a liar, and I knew you were a snake.”
“You’ve always been a clever one. That’s the problem. You know too much. That’s why we’re at this unfortunate impasse.”
“Yes, I do know. I knew you were carrying on with my mother, and abusing my sister, even on her deathbed. You let Mama slowly poison Rebecca. But it was so easy to blame me for that, wasn’t it? You are foul. A charlatan.”
Broadbent’s lips thin. He pushes two fingers against the skin to the left of my sternum. “Here. Here’s where Katherine was supposed to place the stake, that night. But she lacked the courage. So now we’ve been forced to resort to other means.”
He withdraws a knife from his pocket and flicks it open, its point gleaming in the candlelight. With his other hand, he raises the hem of my thin shift, exposing me. Cold air hits my bare skin. “It won’t hurt, not very much at all, Miss Carmichael. The femoral artery bleeds out quickly.”
I clamp my legs together tightly. I can’t do much to protect myself, or my modesty, bound as I am, but I will not submit easily. “You killed them all, didn’t you?”
“No. I didn’t. Not all of them, in the literal sense of the word.
It became too messy after Marjorie, so I hired a lackey.
One of my patients with a predilection for such things and a need for money.
You saw him that night, with Arabella. I was mostly concerned with obtaining their blood.
The rest was for theatrics. And a bit of fun. ”
“It made for great theater, my love,” Kate says, her voice syrupy sweet. I shoot daggers at her with my eyes. My desire for her has swiftly transformed to loathing. I want to destroy her for betraying me. For manipulating me into trusting her.
“Why did you kill them?” I ask, turning to Broadbent.
“For science. I saw an opportunity to create something new. A drug to treat my asthmatic patients and also excite the senses. Your dear sister was the key to my discovery. I noticed when I placed her in a state of heightened arousal, her asthma symptoms diminished. I drew her blood after her hysteria treatments and made an exciting discovery. An excess of epinephrine—an attribute unique to those with red hair. I’ve begun the process of isolating the substance.
Once I’ve successfully synthesized it, I’m going to be a very wealthy man.
” He smiles. “When you escaped your grave, I saw an opportunity to capitalize on your resurrection. Casting you as my vampire enabled me to collect more samples to experiment with. Katherine and I have both read Dr. Polidori’s work.
It was easy enough to make you our vampire. ”
“Indeed,” Kate chimes. “It was a brilliant idea, husband.”
He shrugs, as if humbled.
“You knew,” I said, my eyes accusing Kate. “You knew he was the killer and you helped him.”
I see it then, that flicker of pain, of hurt in her eyes. The slight shake of her head as she falls out of character and Kate, my Kate, returns. Her eyes slide to Broadbent, then back to me.
“Open your legs, Miss Carmichael.” He approaches the bed, the knife glinting in his hands.
He leans over me, grasping me by the throat.
I gasp, bucking my hips. “You know, I rather enjoyed bringing Rebecca to paroxysm like this. I’d take her to the brink of unconsciousness as she met her crisis. She was so lovely when she was afraid.”
Beauty is a curse . . . I just want it to be over.
How long? How many years had he abused Rebecca, tortured her, without our knowing?
Just as my vision begins to darken, he releases my throat, and I gulp in a breath of air, my heart hammering in my chest.
“Open your legs, Miss Carmichael. I don’t want to force you. It’s a painless death, I assure you.”
But it wasn’t for Arabella. I saw the pain, the fear in her eyes. I lock my legs together, twisting onto my side.
“Very well . . .” he says. “I can see you aren’t going to make this easy.” He crouches over me, rolling me onto my back. “Katherine, if I could have you—”
A loud crack shatters the air. Broadbent yelps, falls to his knees. Blood pours from his shoulder, staining his shirtsleeve crimson.
Kate stands there, a pistol in her trembling hands, her eyes wide and frightened.
“You double-crossing bitch,” he roars, clawing at her legs.
She kicks him off, then rushes to the head of the bed, her fingers working at the fabric binding my wrists. “I missed.”
“Me, or him?”
“Heavens, Lil! Him. His heart.”
“Forgive me if I don’t trust you.”
“We’ll talk about everything later. But I only had one bullet in that gun, and I never was a crack shot. He won’t stay down for long. We must hurry.”
Broadbent groans, still writhing on the floor.
She frees my wrists, and I whip one hand out, slapping her. “I hate you.”
“No you don’t.” She grins. “You’re a terrible liar. Now, make haste and follow me.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“Because I’ve saved your life three times now, sweetling. This is the fourth. You have no reason not to trust me.”
“No reason? You can’t be serious.”
Broadbent is up on his knees now, and as I watch in horror, he pulls himself to his feet with an angry roar.
“Told you he wouldn’t stay down for long,” Kate says. “Come on.”
Suddenly, an idea breaks through the fog of my panic. A brilliant one. I follow her out of the room, then grasp her by the arm, turning her. “I have an idea, too. But you must listen to me, for once.”
She looks at me, one eyebrow arcing. “What is it?”
“The widow’s walk. We’ll lure him up.”
She gestures to the stairwell. “But there are weapons in the kitchen house. Knives. I thought . . .”
“It’s too risky, Kate. He’s stronger than us, even injured. We can’t fight this one out. We have to trick him.”
“This had better work,” she says. “If not, we’re stuck on a roof with a madman who wants both of us dead. I don’t like our odds. Not one bit.”
“They’re better odds than yours. He’s like a rabid bear.”
“Fine.” She shakes her head and leads the way to the attic stairs. My legs are weak as jam as we begin to climb, my head cloudy with dizziness.
“I lied to you, Lil,” Kate says over her shoulder.