Illusion (Asylum for the Mechanically Insane Book 1) Page 3

  For now, she was just stretching her legs and waiting. The dinner this evening would bring a host of interesting guests to Harbury Hall, and although Emily was not, of course, invited to join them, she knew that the name on the top of her wanted list would be present.

  Galatea needed a perfect face.

  And the one absolutely ideal possessor of that face would be arriving shortly to dine with the Harburys.

  Miranda Fielding.

  All Emily had to do was arrange to get her separated from the guests at some point during the evening.

  Her plans were foolproof. Miranda, young and foolish, would receive a quite passionate note from an admirer, asking if she would join him for a brief moment after dinner and before they left for the Ball.

  She would, of course, agree.

  Her father would receive a note shortly thereafter, purporting to be from his daughter, explaining that she had met friends and would be traveling the short distance to the Conservatory with them. She would rejoin her father there.

  With the crush of people and the noise of the Ball, it would be several hours before Miranda’s absence was noted. And then, it would be far too late.

  Emily could see no flaw, no loophole. It would be easily executed. It had to be because Matthew desired it. And Emily would do anything Matthew desired.

  Including killing a woman and removing her face.

  *~~*~~*

  Miranda held her father’s arm tightly as she walked through the doorway and into the magic that was Harbury Hall. To her, this was a moment of prime importance, one of those times she was convinced she would remember for the rest of her life.

  She’d dreamed of it so often, prayed her invitation to this event would come, even as a young girl. Now that she was “on the market”, and the desired card had actually arrived, she was determined to devour every wonderful minute.

  There were hundreds of candles, flickering in the evening breeze, flashing and sparkling from ten times their number of crystals in the chandeliers and sconces. The glow was astounding, an aura of light, a beacon of welcome.

  And that was just the beginning.

  She was treated graciously, receiving a polite greeting and smile from the astoundingly lovely Lady Harbury, along with her laughing apology for the lateness of her husband.

  “Always so busy,” she sighed, nodding to the Fieldings and those following. “He’ll be here shortly, I know. But such a nuisance and you’re very kind to forgive him his tardiness.”

  Her brilliant eyes begged them for the favor and Miranda didn’t even get chance to mumble her courtesies before the gentlemen fell over themselves to reassure Lady Harbury that no offense had been taken.

  They were through the receiving line and in the dining room almost immediately afterward, shepherded by ruthless and efficient servants to their seats. The huge room, almost medieval in its massive structure, filled rapidly and Miranda found herself separated from her father by two other guests. Since one was a local cleric whom she knew slightly, it was no serious hardship. And on her other side was a wickedly good-looking man, who immediately reassured her that he was attending with his lovely wife, then proceeded to embark on a somewhat risqué flirtation over the soup.

  It was harmless fun, made her blush a little and feel dreadfully sophisticated and even brought a chuckle to the Vicar who happened to overhear one of the gentleman’s saucier sallies.

  “Don’t pay him too much attention, Miss Fielding.” The learned gentlemen brushed his lips with his napkin. “Got too much of an eye for beauty, that one.”

  There was a snort from her other elbow.

  “Mind you,” continued the Vicar, “I can’t really blame him. You’ve grown up into a very lovely gel. How’s that sister of yours? Couldn’t be half as beautiful as you, I’m sure.”

  Miranda bristled a little. “Portia is beautiful in her own way.”

  “Of course, my dear.” He glanced at the dessert. “Oh delightful. My favorite pudding. Harbury peaches are unsurpassed at this time of year, don’t you think?”

  “Indeed.” She kept her answer brief and a little frosty, still irked at his dismissal of her sister.

  “And those peaches are nothing next to the bloom in your cheeks, my dear.”

  Miranda sighed.

  There was a stir at the end of the room, and she realized that at long last, their host had appeared.

  A breathless silence spread like fog as he walked slowly, awkwardly, down the length of the room, past the two hundred guests, the servants, the trays of food and under the scrutiny of his wife. Miranda couldn’t help but notice the woman’s gaze fixed on the figure moving toward the other end of the massive table.

  His hair was dark brown, tied at the nape in a somewhat old-fashioned style, over a coat of black superfine. His gait was…just a little off somewhere, barely noticeable, but enough to make Miranda‘s muscles twitch. She tried to see his legs or his feet, but he was keeping out of the brightest light, perhaps on purpose.

  When he finally reached his seat and turned, she couldn’t see very much at all. But it didn’t require close proximity to realize why the air seemed to have been sucked out of the massive chamber.

  Lord Randall Harbury wore a mask covering half his face. And it had been created to resemble a devil.

  The choked cough from the man of the cloth next to her would have been amusing had she not been so shocked herself.

  “Gracious me, gracious me.” The Vicar was muttering into his peach upside down cake. “Sacrilege. Utter sacrilege.” He was clearly upset, since he actually missed a peach with his spoon and failed to finish the custard.

  “Damned fop.”

  On her other side, Miranda caught the insulting tone and turned with a raised eyebrow. “Sir, you are speaking of our host, you know.”

  “Still think he’s a damned fop. So he has some deformity. Nothing we haven’t seen in so many of our soldiers or air-warriors. But he has to make a show out of it rather than getting on with his life. People like that aren’t my cup of tea.” He reached for his wine and buried his nose in the crystal goblet.

  Restraining herself from pointing out that he was presently enjoying a very good wine courtesy of that “damned fop”, Miranda held her tonge and finished her meal.

  Shortly, Lady Harbury would summon the ladies away from the table, leaving the men to do whatever men did when not observed by the gentler sex. She would do her best to enjoy half an hour of inquisition and most probably some exquisitely phrased bitchery, because that was expected. Any time a lovely young woman found herself in the company of ladies who were neither as young nor as lovely as she was…well, the phrase “unmitigated disaster” could be applied if she failed to exert a great deal of self control.

  Fortunately, she was not unaccustomed to this kind of situation and she negotiated the tricky waters of barely concealed envy and animosity with grace and good humor. She earned several approving glances from elder ladies with ancient titles and massive fortunes; no mean feat for a girl recently turned twenty. Plus if any of them had young male offspring, they might remember the lovely chit who was so polite in the face of adversity.

  She could almost hear Portia snort, and she smiled as she turned in response to a light touch on her arm. “For you, Miss.” A servant held a small tray with an envelope on it bearing her name.

  “Thank you.” She nodded and took the parchment, puzzled but a little intrigued.

  Moving to the side of the room, she quietly opened it to find a bold note within.

  “I can’t stop looking at you or being dazzled by your beauty. Grant me five minutes of your company, O Goddess. The rose garden—when the gentlemen return? Don’t disappoint me, or I shall never recover.” And it was signed “Your devoted admirer.”

  A tingle of excitement made her fingers tremble as she refolded the note and carefully concealed it within her reticule. Her first grown-up assignation.

  The rose garden…that would be not far outside the opened
French doors. The scent of roses had permeated the room when she’d entered, so that would be where she was to meet…whom?

  Not the gentleman seated next to her at dinner, since his wife would surely claim him. Nor the Vicar. She smothered a giggle and strolled casually around the room, admiring a painting and a statue made of bronze and gold along the way. It was a little risqué, although the manly attributes were coyly hidden by a well placed fig leaf or two.

  She certainly didn’t notice the eyes of the statue, deep pools of strangely iridescent glass. Had she looked more closely, she would have seen something resembling the lens of a pupil within. But there was no movement or illumination to attract her attention. She assumed it was what it seemed, simply a decorative piece of art.

  Miranda’s focus was on the door, for certainly the gentlemen would be returning any minute. The statue was forgotten as the room began to fill with the scent of cigars and the dark jackets of the male contingent.

  Again, Miranda didn’t notice. She stepped outside under cover of the general hubbub and tiptoed carefully across the flagstones to where soaring arbors of roses gleamed darkly in the moonlight.

  “Hello? Is anyone there?”

  She paused, hesitant, unnerved by the impenetrable darkness of the gardens and the complete absence of sound. It was as if the blooms themselves were holding their breath.

  The chatter from the salon was a distant murmur and she jumped at the sudden crunch of a boot on gravel. Someone was approaching from the side garden.

  She turned. Perhaps now she’d learn the identity of her secret admirer. Perhaps he would be young and handsome. And very rich …

  Mercenary thoughts, but not unexpected given her situation.

  It was sad they were the last thoughts she would ever have. But then…one simply cannot predict the time of one’s passing.

  *~~*~~*

  Emily gently eased the body to the edge of the grass and into the cart concealed behind a trimmed rosebush. She could only guess at the young woman’s state of mind of course, but felt a measure of satisfaction that her actions had been so predictable.

  And thank goodness, she was even lovelier than Emily had recalled.

  The small metallic clamp had bitten into the silky neck exactly as planned and located the artery immediately after. The rapid contraction of the little mechanical device had sealed Miss Fielding’s fate, causing unconsciousness and death within moments. There had been no sound but a gasp, a groan and then the whisper of silk masking the crumpling of limbs to the grass.

  All while leaving her body—and her face—unmarked.

  With a tiny grunt, Emily hefted the handle of the cart and set off away from the salon and the party, into the darker reaches of the gardens and around Harbury Hall to the access gate that would take her toward the laboratory doors.

  There would be no one there at this time, she knew. Her passage, and that of the cargo she carried, would go unobserved. The fine burgundy containing just a few drops of laudanum, along with the insistence that everyone celebrate this evening, not just the nobility…well, that had been just a little extra insurance and the few servants who might conceivably have been hanging around were now enjoying a good nap.

  Emily could transport her precious burden without hindrance. The lab cart was nothing more than an oversized child’s cart with a smooth metallic lining, so it was simple to negotiate the dips and turns of the grounds. She knew them well and rapidly reached the shadows of the basement entrance to Harbury Hall. It looked so ordinary. Few knew to what it would lead the unwary.

  Emily unlatched the door and quietly pushed her cart through. There was no sound, since all hinges were oiled on a regular basis and the stone floor was covered by a rough piece of matting. The thin double wheels on the cart were pneumatic and silent. Every precaution had already been taken and there was nothing to impede her progress or attract attention.

  Once she reached level six, it would be clear sailing into the Henderson laboratory and over to the sterilized section she’d prepared so carefully for most of the day.

  It was all accomplished as she’d planned. The body slid easily onto the slab, the clothing was immediately incinerated, and the head swathed with ice and boiled cloths.

  Nothing would be allowed to contaminate this excision, nor would there be any flaw in the adherence process. Emily was sure of it. She had thin gloves at the ready, blades honed to exquisite sharpness, and other instruments gleaming on a clean tray.

  She worked carefully and thoroughly, knowing exactly where to cut and where to ease the flesh from the skull. The knives did their work with precision and delicacy, parting the flesh beneath the skin and cleaving their way through and around the face that had once belonged to Miranda Fielding.

  Emily worked carefully around the eyes, knowing it was a challenge to retain the eyelids once their supporting eyeballs were no longer present. But she managed it with a skill borne of experience. The eyes themselves would be separated after the flesh was gone.

  Even as she worked, she marveled at the quiescent beauty beneath her gory fingers, still radiating the innocence and creamy perfection of youth.

  When she was done, she straightened and pushed a bloodstained fist into the base of her spine with a groan. Her corset helped her posture, but she still had to lean over the corpse in a somewhat awkward position.

  In front of her was the stunningly beautiful body of Miranda Fielding, nude and spectacular in its femininity.

  To one side was a tray containing what had once been Miranda’s face. The eyelids were sewn shut with delicate thread, as were the lips. The stitches would be removed once adherence had begun. The eyes were resting in a small dish, covered by a small square of cloth.

  Emily sighed with satisfaction. The first phase was complete.

  She ignored the bloody bone, the empty eye sockets, the nasal cavities and the now-stained teeth, neatly aligned in bared and paling gums. She didn’t bother comparing the savagely tortured head to the body still attached to it.

  She’d seen it all before.

  Her entire focus was on the tray and the delicate membranes spread smoothly over the spotless surface.

  This would be Galatea. This would be Dr. Henderson’s crowning achievement.

  And this would be Emily’s ticket to the future of her dreams.

  Chapter 4

  The Fielding household was thrown into even more chaos than usual when Miranda failed to return home from the Mechanical Ball.

  Portia’s father, absent-minded at the best of times, began to shake when he realized the implications, and could do nothing but wring his hands, stutter and look at her with beseeching eyes.

  Mrs. Fielding went into labor and announced loudly that she was not be disturbed, especially if her cruel eldest daughter turned up ruined. She clutched her belly and disappeared into her room with the midwife, her maid, several kettles of boiling water and a bottle of brandy.

  Portia threw up her hands in disgust. Why wasn’t anyone taking Miranda’s disappearance seriously? Of course, she hadn’t been the most predictable of sisters, and it wasn’t out of the question that she would arrive home with some plausible story to explain being out all night.

  But deep in her heart, Portia knew something wasn’t right. Even the brief note that her father had believed was from his daughter…well, it didn’t look like Miranda’s writing.

  “I will be escorted by friends and return later, Papa. Please do not worry.”

  That was it. No other explanation. It was folded in no particularly remarkable way, bore the Harbury Hall imprint at the top and was probably found in most every room. There was even a tiny insignia beneath the crest, the kind of affectation that ran rife through the aristocracy—something indicating the suite from which it came, most likely. Was it a clue? Maybe. But who would be stupid enough to forge a note using their own stationery from their own suite? Certainly not anyone who could make her sister vanish so efficiently.

  Portia stared at
it, noting the paper, the dark ink and the penmanship, which wasn’t unlike her sister’s, but she, Portia, would bet her monthly allowance that it hadn’t been written by Miranda.

  That scared the daylights out of her.

  She wasn’t given to dramatic bouts of hysteria, overstatements, fusses or the vapors, unlike many of her contemporaries. If asked, most who knew her would describe Portia as quiet, of a polite demeanor and unassuming. She would be the last person anyone would imagine to be gifted with a kind of sensitivity to strange phenomena. However, the truth was that she did possess something akin to a sixth sense, which had pushed its way into her mind on more than one occasion. Whispers of thoughts, feelings of concern or apprehension—they were few and far between, but they were real. And Portia knew it.

  Right at this moment, there was a very dark shadow tickling that part of her brain. It made her natural fears that much worse.

  Being a fiercely determined young woman, she pushed those fears aside and shut herself into the attic room, empty now without her sister. It was time to plan, to think logically, and to find out where Miranda was and if she was all right.

  Focusing her mind, Portia sat at the desk and pulled a sheet of paper in front of her. Dipping the quill into the ink well, she wrote a short list, beneath a heading of “Things I Know”.

  This detailed Miranda’s time of departure, her arrival at Harbury Hall, and her dinner there, right down to the wine served. All confirmed, shakily, by their father.

  After that, things got vague. Papa remembered seeing her briefly in the salon after dinner, but received her note just before leaving for the Ball.

  Portia privately believed he was more than a little pleased to learn he didn’t have to wait for his daughter. An invitation to escort Miranda to such an event was an honor, but one Mr. Fielding could not admit he relished, and it wasn’t a very well kept secret that he’d only gone under duress from his very pregnant wife. She’d told him it was time for Miranda to find a husband and what better place to look than Coralfield Conservatory?