Chapter Forty-One #3
Her breath caught as she dropped the page, guiltily shoving it back on top of the pile.
Horatio Denver. Joshua’s childhood friend.
Renowned trader, disgraced portrait-holder, and slave owner.
Most of Lord Denver’s money had been made from sugar plantations in Jamaica.
Antony’s great-great-great grandparents had been enslaved in Jamaica.
She’d asked him once what he would have done if Denver’s portrait had still been up in the Extraordinary Café.
Whether he would have still wanted to work at the LEZ.
He’d just looked at her and asked what she would have done.
It had taken her a few beats before Hamish had cut in, and answered solemnly, We’d have drawn a penis on Denver’s face and covered him in Extra Strange Sauce, before throwing him in the bin, obviously.
She wished she hadn’t taken those few beats. Especially now, sitting at this desk.
Dearest Horatio.
Suddenly she couldn’t hear the grandfather clock, or the crackling of the fire.
I write in haste for I have much to update you on, but the Board, our dear friends, are on their way here for dinner.
She stifled a gasp and couldn’t stop her eyes from darting to the heavy door, knowing that just on the other side, there were still the faint sounds of laughter and the soft notes of piano keys and violins.
Was it possible he’d written this today, barely a few hours ago?
If this was 1837, this was after Sir Joshua and Lord Denver had argued famously in parliament.
How could Sir Joshua still be friends with this arsehole? !
You enquired after my sisters, and I am pleased to report they are all in fine fettle.
Dahlia, as ever, sends her most ardent affections and asks after you tenderly.
Jane devotes herself to the pianoforte, and Hannah continues to paint.
Sadly, she still shows little inclination for subjects beyond peonies, despite my gentle urgings, but what more can one reasonably expect?
Frida bristled. What the hell did he mean by that? Because she was a woman?
She begs that, upon your next return, you might bring with you some specimens of exotic fauna as yet unseen on these shores. I fear, despite all I endeavour to provide for my sisters, they are dreadfully bored. ‘How appalling!’ I hear you cry. Yes – what terribly spoiled creatures they are.
Frida blinked. Reading that sentence again.
You smile – I know you do. Nothing so enlivens you as the plight of my long-suffering family.
But now, to business Sir. I must apprise you of our latest discovery here within the walls of Forge House.
You will recall, I trust, my many trials with that cursed dragon we brought here – what, nigh on two years past?
Frida found the words starting to swim before her.
It still whimpers day and night, driving us all to distraction. I truly know not what I shall do with it if there is no improvement soon. I cannot keep the house shuttered much longer – the Ton are positively clamouring at my gates, all but begging to part with their coin.
Her heart now, it was all she could hear.
A cavern was opening below her feet.
The paper shook in her hand.
‘Frida?’ she heard from somewhere across the room.
She didn’t respond, the letter now in a death grip in her fingers.
I believe I have it at last, though! Henry – that scruffy old genius – has come through at the final hour, just as I was considering throwing him to Jane’s cursed seahorse.
We have found a new method of containing our beasts, dearest Horatio, and I daresay it shall leave you astonished.
As for those blasted artifacts – well, if fortune favours us, we will have no need of them at all in a few years’ time.
I shall tell you more when next we meet, and I must say, I enjoy imagining your expression of wonder, and hope I have stoked the fires of your curiosity.
God keep you safe.
Your devoted friend,
Joshua.
Frida stood up all in a rush. The letter dropped to the floor, and she shook out her hand as if the words had burned the skin off her fingers.
Then she thrust back the chair, not even hearing when it fell with a mighty crash.
Her brain was working a mile a minute, trying to catch up.
The words seemed stamped in her mind, and she wanted to scrub them out, but she didn’t know how.
Fury. Betrayal. Guilt. All these things raged through her, on Antony’s behalf, on her own, on her mum’s, on everyone’s who’d ever put their lives and faith in the hands of these men.
She felt her bile rising and clamped her lips shut.
‘Frida?’ Dian repeated, standing up now from their chair. This time, she heard them clearly. They’d come closer without her noticing and were almost at the desk. ‘What’s wrong?’
She swayed. Suddenly she was peering at the map on the wall, the one she hadn’t even bothered to look at.
It was a map of Brazil. The country Sir Joshua had visited as a child, and where he’d fallen in love with extraordinary creatures.
But now as she looked at the map, all she saw were marked lines – divisions showing different territories.
Gold mining, railways, engineering, water and gas pipelines.
‘I was wrong,’ she said hoarsely. ‘We have to leave.’
She’d been so blinded by all the ‘good’ Sir Joshua had done, by the fact that she’d wanted – so deeply – for him to be good. For the LEZ to be good.
Dian frowned. Their eyes flicked to the map. ‘Why? What’s happened? I thought—’
‘I was wrong! I . . . I thought it was just Henry, but it’s not.
We have to – I don’t know!’ She was pacing back and forth, pulling at her ragged hair.
She must have looked a state. ‘We have to go. Maybe we should go back to the Old Forge and look again to find a way to turn off the wards from in there. Or maybe we should go back to the fairies! Maybe they’ll be able to help.
Or maybe we should try and speak to the sisters. I don’t know!’
Her brain was pounding as if it was being stabbed by Sir Joshua’s silver letter opener.
Suddenly, everything was spiralling. Everything she’d believed, everything they’d all believed, everything they’d built their lives on.
Frantically, she pulled at the curtains, dragging them open.
They were still on the ground floor, and the dark night loomed before her, warm light spilling out over the grass.
The gardens stretched away, a line of trees just visible in the distance behind the panes.
Desperately, she started fumbling with the catches on the windows.
Dian, wordless, came to stand next to her.
Just as she’d managed to get the closest window open, the summer breeze washed over her, smelling of cut grass and the faint tang of tobacco smoke.
Dian placed a hand on hers, and Frida winced.
‘Don’t,’ she cried, hating herself.
Dian flinched back, their eyes shuttering, but Moth had already jumped onto the window, and his row of dark eyes looked back at her like jewels, dancing with tongues of flame. ‘What did you learn? Tell us, please!’
She didn’t have a chance.
Suddenly, a face appeared at the window.
Pale, with a shock of blond hair over a thin face, attached to a thick neck, and a body that was a wall of wiry muscle.
She sucked in a terrified breath, and saw his eyes, reflected like Moth’s in the firelight.
Small and grey, as if they’d been stripped of all colour.
‘There you are,’ the man said companionably. As if they were old friends.
His dour voice skated over her bones, and before she really even knew what had happened, he’d leant through the open window, grabbed the back of her head, and smashed her skull into the leaded pane.
She didn’t hear the glass shattering. She didn’t have time to scream at Dian to flee, before the pain burst through her head, blooming like white stars, and she collapsed senseless to the floor.