I glanced at Lucy. I hadn’t thought through how to explain to him what we had done.
A knock came at the adjoining door, soft at first, and Lucy and I both froze.
“Juliet?” It was Montgomery. “Are you awake? I thought I heard you walking around.”
Eyes wide in terror, I thrust the cloth in Lucy’s hand and signaled for her to keep Edward quiet. I hurried to the adjoining door, trying to think straight.
“Montgomery?” I said through the door.
“I can’t sleep. Stay with me tonight—I want to wake up with you on our wedding day.”
My wedding. Tomorrow. I looked back at the dressing screen, where I could barely make out Lucy and Edward. I’d tell Montgomery about Edward eventually, as I promised, once he regained his strength and things had settled down. It would be a shock, but Montgomery would understand in time. He’d even be delighted to have Edward back—surely.
But I didn’t dare tell him tonight.
“I think . . . that’s bad luck, isn’t it?” I said. “To see the bride on her wedding day.”
“It isn’t yet midnight,” his voice came. “There’s no rule about not seeing the bride the day before.” His voice was so light and playful, in stark contrast to the procedure we had just wrought in Elizabeth’s laboratory.
I glanced back at the dressing screen, where Lucy was dabbing at Edward’s forehead as he tried to sit up.
“One kiss,” I said, and twisted the key in the lock, swinging open the door and stepping into his room quickly. If he sensed how nervous I was, he must have attributed it to wedding jitters.
He stepped close, sliding a hand behind my back. “One kiss,” he murmured, “For tonight, that is. Tomorrow, after the wedding . . .”
He nearly growled as he pressed his lips to mine. I could feel his heart pounding beneath his thin shirt, and it made my own flair to life. Tomorrow I’d marry the boy I’d known forever. Edward wouldn’t be able to attend the wedding, but it would be enough to know he was alive, returned to us, completely healed.
Montgomery pulled back, one corner of his mouth hitched in a grin. He looked so very young then, and more handsome than I’d ever seen him. “Your hands are shaking.”
“I’m . . . just nervous about tomorrow. That I’ll trip walking up the aisle.”
“If you do, I’ll be there to help you up.”
He kissed me again, more passionately this time, his hands drifting further down my dress to settle on my hips. The clock on his mantel struck midnight, and I managed to pull myself way. I gave him a smile that I hoped appeared coy.
“Now it’s bad luck,” I said, and returned to my room. I twisted the key in the lock and leaned my head against the door.
Lucy was watching me, dabbing at Edward’s brow. I took a deep breath and released it slowly.
“We have to get him out of here,” I said. “We must find a secret place for him to stay during the ceremony tomorrow, and for a few days after while he heals. We could put him in Valentina’s room. No one’s been in there since she died.”
Edward moaned again, his body jerky as though he was still getting used to it. He kept rubbing the bandages on the back of his head where I’d replaced his posterior lobe.
“Do we dare leave him alone during the ceremony tomorrow?” Lucy asked.
I sighed. “Let’s get him to Valentina’s room first, and then we’ll figure it out.”
We struggled to help him stand. He seemed to have regained some strength, but his steps were unnatural and robotic.
I took a deep breath. I only needed to keep him secret until after the wedding. I wasn’t going to suffer the same curse as Victor Frankenstein—there wouldn’t be any tragedies on my wedding day, not after Montgomery and I had suffered so much already, only to find a safe haven here.
From today forward, I told myself, things are going to start going right for all of us.
TWENTY-NINE
I SLEPT LITTLE THAT night. Lucy and I had spent hours with Edward in Valentina’s room, monitoring his breathing and pulse, trying to communicate with him, though his eyes and hands moved strangely, as though there was some disconnect between them and his brain. He fell asleep at last, and in his sleep looked so startlingly human—so perfect—that it stole my breath. Lucy pushed back the curtains as the first tinges of dawn appeared on the horizon.
“Go to bed, Juliet,” she said. “I’ll stay with Edward. You should get a few hours of sleep. You’ll need it. It’s your wedding day.”
It felt unreal. I left her with the silver pistol, only as a precaution. Edward had been jerky and confused since reanimation, but not violent. Now, as I gazed at Edward sleeping quietly in Valentina’s bed, I couldn’t believe the Beast had ever even existed.
We’re more alike than you want to admit, he had once whispered.
I shivered with the memory. Not anymore, I told myself.
I collapsed on my bed, thoroughly exhausted by the procedure. My fingers ached in a delicious way, and I stretched and popped my knuckles as I’d seen farmers do after a hard day’s work threshing. As I drifted off, I wondered if Father fell asleep at night this satisfied. I doubted he had. After all, he’d never accomplished his goal to create the perfect creature.
I had.
In the morning, I woke to knocking. My first thoughts flew to Edward upstairs in the attic, and I scrambled out of bed and threw open the door, only to find a half dozen excited faces staring at me. Lily and Moira and the little girls crowded into my room, grinning from ear to ear.
“Today is your wedding!” they squealed, bustling into the room with combs and soaps and piles of ivory ribbon and lace. I watched them in a daze, a hand to my head, trying to calm my racing heart.
“How wonderful of you all to come help me,” I said, in an attempt to pass off my shock as jitters. “I just . . . need to check on something for a moment. I’ll be right back.”
I gazed in the direction of the stairs leading to Valentina’s room, but Moira clucked deep in her throat and shook her head. “Oh, no, no running off for you today. McKenna wants to hold the ceremony right at sunset, when the moors are at their prettiest, and you’ve slept so late we don’t have much time to get you ready.” She looked over my bare feet and frowned. “First things first, a bath!”
I protested, desperate to slip upstairs for just a peek to make sure everything was all right with Edward, but they wouldn’t hear of it. They dunked me in steaming water, scrubbed me with rose-scented lye, and slathered my hair with precious oils, only to dry me off and check my fingernails and do it all over again. By the time we finished in the bath, my skin was the consistency of a prune and my stomach was rumbling for lunch.