I blinked. I’d pushed the picnic out of my head with all the rest of my father’s unfulfilled promises, and it took me a moment to dredge it back into daylight. “Yes,” I stuttered. “Yes, I’m ready. Five minutes.”
She didn’t take her eyes from the comb. There was something so delicate about her, so vulnerable, and yet mature beyond her years. I’d seen it in the other lodging-house girls, especially the younger ones. I guessed she was an orphan. I knew what that awful loneliness felt like, though for me there’d been a happy ending—a long-lost father. For Alice, I doubted such luck.
I held out the comb. “Take it, if you like.” Her eyes widened. She didn’t move. I reached for her hand and pressed the comb into her palm.
“No, miss, I couldn’t.”
“I don’t need it.” I motioned to the matching silver brush from the dressing table. “See? I certainly don’t need both.”
A brief smile flickered on her face as she slipped the comb into her apron pocket. But then she covered her scarred mouth and, with a timid nod, slipped back to the kitchen.
She wasn’t one of the islanders, that was certain. How had such a young girl come to the island and found herself in my father’s employment?
I braided my hair and tried on Mother’s floppy sunbonnet in the mirror. The fashion was out of style, yet it made me look glamorous and bold. Someone to be proud of, I hoped. I found the wagon outside in the courtyard, loaded with a wicker basket and blankets from the salon. Edward leaned against the side of the wagon in crisp, clean clothes. He was recovering fast, and the bruises on his face were almost gone. I couldn’t help but notice that if it hadn’t been for the faint scar down his face, he’d have been almost handsome.
Montgomery hitched the harness to the horse, Duke, struggling with a stiff leather strap.
“Ah, Juliet,” Father said. A bouquet of bright yellow wildflowers rested next to him on the wagon bed. “Ready to go?”
The flowers, the food, the effort on my behalf. I nodded, afraid of speaking. Words might make it all go away. Not in a million years would I have expected my pragmatic father to have picked flowers for his daughter.
“What beautiful flowers,” I said at last.
He looked at them blankly. “Oh yes. Montgomery thought they’d add a touch of elegance you might be homesick for. He arranged for this, the food and all. You know I’ve little skill for that sort of thing. Where did you find them, Montgomery?”
Edward stood a little straighter, picking a little too hard at a splinter in the wagon gate.
Montgomery strained against the leather cinch. At last the buckle clicked into place. “North side of the island,” he said gruffly.
I could feel blood rushing to my cheeks. Montgomery had gotten the flowers. Sometime yesterday he’d picked wildflowers like he used to when we’d visit cousins in the country. Mother would put them in a glass jar on the servants’ kitchen table, saying the grand dining table was only for proper arrangements.
Edward wiped his brow, eyes lingering on the flowers. And then they slid to Montgomery, who was looking at him with equal hardness. I swallowed. Were they jealous? Of each other?
“Are you coming with us?” I asked Edward.
He started to speak, but Father cut in.
“Family only,” Father said. I briefly wondered if he counted Montgomery in that or if Montgomery was coming along merely to drive the wagon. “I’ve given Prince a project anyway. Cataloging the pantry supplies. Well-educated boy like you can manage that, can’t you, Prince?”
Edward turned away, a little too abruptly. “Enjoy your flowers,” he muttered to me before sauntering off toward the salon. I took a deep breath. Lucy had never said how complicated boys could be.
Father offered me a hand. “Let’s go before the sun melts us.”
I climbed into the back. Montgomery tied off the last straps and took the reins in the driver’s seat. Puck and one of the hunchbacked servants opened the gate for us, and we were off.
THE DAY WAS BEAUTIFUL. A blue sky stretched as far as the ocean, which we glimpsed between breaks in the trees. I’d traded a bitter English winter for the lush tropical sun and beautiful calls of faraway birds.
As we rode, Father described the unusual vegetation and wildlife that I’d only read about in books. I listened, though my thoughts kept sliding between Edward and Montgomery. If I’d been in London, and still wealthy, this coming spring would be my Season. Lucy and I would have talked endlessly about the boys—the men—at the dances, the galas, the summer picnics in the park.
But after we lost our fortune, I couldn’t afford to think about boys. I was just trying to stay off the streets. And now there were two boys my thoughts drifted between. Yet one had been a servant, I reminded myself. And the other . . . well, the other would surely leave the island the first chance he got.
Montgomery stopped the wagon on a windy bluff high above the compound, just below the volcano’s smoking peak. I climbed out and made my way to the bluff’s edge, where the full expanse of the island stretched below us, meeting the sea in a line of sandy beach. The wind pulled at my skirt, blowing loose my hair, and I closed my eyes, enjoying it.
“Not too close,” Montgomery murmured. My eyes snapped open.
“Over here,” Father called. “Out of that confounded wind.”
We made our way back to the wagon. Montgomery started unloading the supplies. He stretched out the blankets in a shady spot away from the cliff. He’s not a servant anymore, I reminded myself, watching him unpack the baskets. Even if he still did the work of one.
“You’ll have to forgive our basic fare.” Father uncorked a carafe of water. “We live simply here out of necessity. I’m afraid we’ve only cold vegetable stew with bread. And some fruits from the jungle.”
“I don’t mind.” I settled onto the blanket. Montgomery casually laid the bouquet of flowers near my feet before filling our china bowls. Father and I set into the meal.
“Well, Juliet, what skills have you acquired?” Father asked expectantly.
“Skills?” I briefly met Montgomery’s eyes. He knew that the only skills I’d acquired were cleaning mortar and avoiding the gutter. Not exactly what Father hoped for. “After Mother died, I found employment at the university.”
Father raised an eyebrow. “A job? Shouldn’t a relative have taken you in?”
I paused. This wasn’t going to be easy. He disapproved of his daughter working, yet he’d been the one who’d put me in that position.
I took a sip of water, trying not to feel irritated. I suppose he hadn’t had much of a choice. Maybe he thought that by leaving he was doing the best for us. He hadn’t known Mother would die. Or that the relatives’ kindness didn’t extend very far.
“It wasn’t so bad,” I said. I don’t know why exactly, but I didn’t want to make him feel guilty. Our relationship was so fragile, like one of the trailing vines bursting with soft white flowers along the garden wall. One harsh word and the flowers might shrivel. “I learned to clean. To sew a little.”
“To sew? To clean?” He looked unimpressed. “A professor’s daughter shouldn’t do that sort of work. What about piano? Needlepoint? All those things your mother taught you.”
I swallowed. “I might remember a little piano.”
“I see.”
I looked to Montgomery for help. He rested an arm on his knee, tapping a thin twig against his shin. “Little good needlepoint would do us around here,” he said. “Maybe she could help Alice with the cleaning.”
I gave him a slight, grateful nod, but Father only bristled.
“No daughter of mine is going to scrub anything,” he said. “I hardly think a future husband wants a girl with calluses on her hands.” He waved toward my chipped nails. My face went white.
“Juliet,” Montgomery said softly. “What he means is—”
“Thank you, Montgomery, I’ll speak for myself. Don’t misunderstand my criticism, Juliet,” Father said. “It’s my duty as your father to see you well married. You can’t remain on this island forever, and when you leave you’ll need to find a husband. Your mother should have seen you prepared to please a man, but alas, she died too soon. I am merely trying to determine what’s to be done with you now.”
What’s to be done with me. It was like a barb in my side. I clearly wasn’t marriage material, but I was too high-bred to be of use on the island. What did that leave?
“I know something of medicine,” I said in a rush. “I’ve studied the books you left behind. I worked at King’s College in the operating rooms, and I know anatomy and biology. Perhaps I could help you in your work.”
Even Montgomery’s face went white at this. Father gave me a good, hard stare and then laughed. “A girl interested in science. How modern of you. I suggest you find more appropriate interests. Montgomery, we’ve an old needlepoint set, haven’t we?”
“But I can help you—”
“That’s admirable, Juliet, but you’d only be in the way. Science is best left to men. Women have too delicate a constitution.”
I fought against my bubbling urge to argue. I wanted to tell him all the things I’d seen. My God, the things I’d done with my own hands. But I wasn’t ready to trample on the delicate flowers of my father’s and my new relationship.
“You’re right,” I said, hating myself even as I said it. Father had a way of bending everyone to his will—apparently I was no different. “Of course.”
Montgomery gave me a questioning look. But he was hardly in a position to judge.
The sound of horse hooves broke the tension. Balthasar came along the trail on Duchess, two bandoliers across his chest, his face pinched and eyes darting. A rifle was strapped across the saddle. Puck jogged behind on foot, another rifle in hand. Montgomery leapt up to meet them.
I started to stand, but Father shook his head. “It’s nothing to concern yourself with, I’m sure. Montgomery will attend to it.”
“What if someone’s hurt?”
“Everything’s under control,” Father said, eating a strawberry. “I know everything that happens on this island. You must trust me.” He tilted his head, studying me like a specimen. His eyes were like black stars, making me forget the rifles and the commotion and Balthasar’s worried face.
Almost.
I watched Montgomery run a hand through his hair, his muscles tense, as he said something I couldn’t hear. Puck slunk about, whispering low and hushed words that made Montgomery’s hand tighten on his pistol.
I looked over the shimmering water, the savage but beautiful island below us. Whatever was happening, this was my home now, at least until the next ship came. I wanted to be a part of it.
“I didn’t come here to do needlepoint,” I said firmly. “You can use my help. Montgomery does the work of ten men. At least let me help you in the laboratory. If not with your experiments, then taking notes. There has to be some use for me.”
His black eyes bore into me, studying, thinking, analyzing. I could almost see the clockwork gears clicking into place. He chewed another strawberry slowly.
“Help me with my work, eh?” He absently ran his fingers over his shadow of a beard. His eyes weren’t focused on me anymore, but somewhere beyond the ocean. “Yes, perhaps you could be of use to me after all.”
I smiled uneasily. His words were just what I wanted to hear, and yet, between the guns and that peculiar look in his eye, something felt wrong. “Good,” I said. “I won’t disappoint you.”
Suddenly his eyes snapped back to me with a fiery intensity. “What do you know of that boy, Prince?”