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She drove the blade deeper into his neck, letting his blood spill out onto the floor, but he overpowered her. I screamed as he pulled away, wrenching the knife from her, letting it clatter to the floor.
At the same time, Montgomery and Balthazar appeared in the kitchen doorway with rifles in hand. Shock flickered over Montgomery’s face but died quickly: he was a trained hunter, and it didn’t take him but a second to raise the rifle.
The Beast clamped a hand over the bleeding wound on his neck, stumbling out of the kitchen’s rear exit toward the winter garden. Balthazar lumbered after him, while Montgomery knelt by my side.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Hurry. If he goes back outside, he might find the girls.”
A bellow sounded from the direction of the winter garden, interrupting me, and we all jerked our heads around.
“That was Balthazar!” Lucy gasped.
The three of us raced toward the winter garden. Visions flashed in my head of terrible things: the Beast with a knife through Balthazar’s gut, carving him up like his victims in London.
Montgomery made it to the winter garden first and stopped short. I caught up to him and my hand shot to my mouth.
“Dear God.”
Balthazar stood by the side of the glass-enclosed garden between the white statuary of a deer and a fox. He was perfectly unharmed, though I’d never seen such a look of shock on his face. He let out another bellow—not one of pain, but of fear.
In the center of the room, amid a growing pool of blood, lay the Beast. I didn’t need to see his face to know he was dead. I’d seen enough dead bodies in my day to recognize a chest that didn’t rise for breath, limbs that sagged lifelessly.
Behind him, standing perfectly still, was Hensley. His hands were covered in blood up to the elbow, bits of blood and flesh splattered across his face and high-collared shirt. In his hands he clutched the Beast’s heart, red and dripping.
He looked at us calmly, then wiped the back of one hand over his blood-splattered cheek. “I was tired of him,” Hensley said. “He wasn’t much fun.”
He dropped the heart to the floor, where it splashed in the puddle of blood.
A shiver of terror ran up my spine, vertebra by vertebra. I had thought there couldn’t be a creature more dangerous than the Beast, and yet now he lay dead at my feet, defeated so easily by a little boy who had died three times over. When I glanced at Montgomery and Lucy, they were both as white faced as I was.
Hensley turned to me.
“Now can I have a story?”
I WATCHED THE SUN fall on Ballentyne from the windows of the library, where I sat on the green velvet couch, still dressed in my bloodstained clothes, reading to Hensley from a book of Scottish folktales. My hands were unsteady as I turned the pages, and my voice shook. Montgomery sat across from me with my silver pistol hidden under his coat, aimed at Hensley should his mood suddenly shift.
I finished the story, and Hensley burrowed closer to me with sleepy eyes. “Another one, please.”
I glanced at Montgomery, who nodded solemnly. I kept reading. After his startling display of violence, we had decided to do whatever Hensley asked until the others could run outside to fetch Elizabeth. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the little boy nestled at my side. It was hard to imagine him capable of such violence while he was listening to bedtime stories.
Footsteps sounded at the door and Elizabeth rushed in, panic on her face—Lucy must have told her what happened. Moira was right behind her. Elizabeth swept into the room and pulled Hensley into her arms.
“Enough stories, darling,” she said, trying to keep her voice light. “Look at you—dirty through and through. Moira will give you a bath and then read all the stories you like.”
She passed the sleepy boy, even now nodding off and rubbing his eyes with little fists, into Moira’s arms. Only once they were gone and the library door was closed and locked, did I let out a ragged breath.
“Blast it all, Elizabeth, you didn’t tell us he was that dangerous.”
She gave me a hard stare. “He saved your lives, didn’t he?”
“You didn’t see the look on his face! He killed the Beast on a lark because he was bored with him. He ripped his heart out of his chest like he was pulling weeds.”
Elizabeth pulled at her collar, pacing. “He doesn’t ever do it from malice. He’d never hurt any of us intentionally.”
“As long as we do what he wants,” I said. “What if we refuse to play games and read him stories?” My gaze dropped to the ring of bruises around her wrist, and she tugged on her sleeve anxiously.
“I’ve managed him for fifteen years,” she said. “I can keep him under control now. I’ll have two girls watch him at all times. In the meantime, I sent Lily to clean up the kitchen and winter garden and to attend to the Beast’s body. You should all change clothes. You’re covered in blood.”
Lucy looked down at her dress as if only just realizing this. “I want to help,” she said in a shaky voice. “With the body. That was Edward once, and the least I can do for him is take care of him now.”
She started for the door.
“Wait,” Elizabeth said, and Lucy paused. “There’s something else we need to discuss, and you’re an important part of it, Lucy.” She turned to Montgomery and me. “When the Beast locked us in the cellar, Balthazar told me what happened when you pursued Valentina.”
I exchanged a glance with Montgomery. “Her death was an accident. We didn’t kill her.”
“I believe you,” Elizabeth said. “Her death is unfortunate—she was an essential part of this place. We shall notify the younger girls in due time, but at the moment I’m more concerned with Mr. Radcliffe. Balthazar told me he’s the one who’s been looking for you. Are you positive he didn’t follow you back here?”
“Beyond a doubt,” Montgomery said. “Balthazar would have smelled horses following us. We’ll have to avoid any cities for a few months, maybe even a year or two, but that’s a small price to pay for our safety.”
Lucy had flinched at the sound of her father’s name. “Papa is the one after us?”
I cast her a worried look. “Oh, Lucy, I’m sorry. I hadn’t wanted you to find out. Don’t worry, we were able to lose him in Inverness. The manor’s location is still secret.”
“But the article Papa wrote in the newspaper,” Lucy stammered. “He said he repented his association with the King’s Club. He said it was all a mistake on his part.”
