The Daughter of Doctor Moreau(64)

Moreau stared at Hernando with cold eyes. “May I ask what has happened? Or am I supposed to be dismissed without an explanation?”

“You can try to explain, but I doubt you can. For years you’ve provided me with nothing except bills and excuses. I asked for workers, you give me nothing. I told you I could not continue to so generously sponsor you.”

“I know. You have been rather frugal when it comes to my research these past few years.”

“Because there is nothing to be had, Moreau! Nothing but overblown speeches and sickly animals. Yet I would not have minded if talk hadn’t come that someone at Yaxaktun had been providing Juan Cumux with assistance.”

“That is ridiculous,” Moreau said flatly.

“I thought so, too, until I did more research. An escaped Indian was captured recently, a rascal who had worked once at Vista Hermosa, and upon interrogating him the man confessed that he had been living near Yaxaktun and that the people there were friendly with Cumux.”

“You believe an escaped laborer? He is inventing it all.”

“I believe it when he’s been under the lash more than a dozen times,” Hernando declared, and he swished his crop again, cracking it against the arm of the settee. Carlota jumped up in her seat. Montgomery saw her extending her hand up and Eduardo clutching it tight.

“Your son spoke similar words when he first came here,” Montgomery said, “but as I told him that day, we know nothing of that. You can’t trust gossip.”

Hernando now looked at Montgomery, a contemptuous smirk on his lips. “Gossip has a source in fact, Mr. Laughton. And when you consider all the facts, it seems to me I’ve spent a fortune for nothing, and perhaps all I’m doing is feeding Cumux’s men and providing them with weapons so they can ransack my properties. I have a thought to go look for that Indian bastard with a few of those useless animals of yours, doctor, and kill the pig. What else might they be good for if not that?”

“Hernando, you cannot possibly think you can take the hybrids and what…put knives in their hands and ask them to search for a phantom?” Moreau asked.

“Why would they need knives? They have claws, don’t they? They bit my nephew, didn’t they?” Hernando said, pointing at Isidro. “If they can bite him, they can feast on other flesh. As I said, your research has been fruitless. Someone else can continue the work for a fraction of your price.”

“No one can do what I do,” Moreau said fiercely. “Try and bring a silly hack in here, he won’t find a way to ever approximate my genius.”

It is too bloody hot to be quarreling, Montgomery thought. On days like this he’d entered into senseless brawls, driven by idiotic rage. That was what was happening now. Hernando looked no better than a buffoon in a cheap drinking den, wailing about being cheated at cards, and Montgomery feared the worst. Days like this never ended well. They were soaked in blood.

“Gentlemen, father, please, let us sit down and discuss this over drinks,” Eduardo said, his voice laced with panic. The boy, despite all his stupidity, seemed to smell the blood in the air, too. “We cannot quarrel. The doctor is the father of my bride-to-be.”

He surely could not have said a worse thing. Hernando’s face immediately grew flushed with anger.

“Bride-to-be?” Hernando asked. He looked at Isidro. “When did this happen? The letter did not mention anything about a marriage.”

“He asked for her hand in marriage a few days ago,” Isidro said.

“And you did not think to stop him?”

“Uncle, I wrote to you before the fact and could do nothing else.”

“You are not going to marry her,” Hernando said. “I’ll be dead before you do such a thing.”

Eduardo shook his head. “Sir, I have given my word and my heart—”

“Your heart be damned! Are you blind! Can you not see?!” Hernando roared, pointing the riding crop in the direction of the girl. When he spoke, spittle flew from his mouth. He resembled a rabid dog.

In a few quick strides, he was before the young woman, tilting her chin up with the riding crop, making her gasp. He looked down at Carlota, scorching hatred in his eyes. He’d seen drunkards knife another man with that same look plastered on their face. Montgomery restlessly circled closer to them, his left hand forming a fist.

“What are you doing, Mr. Lizalde?” Montgomery asked, his voice low.

“Admiring the doctor’s handiwork,” Hernando muttered and stepped back, releasing her. “She is like them, one of the doctor’s creations.”

The girl grasped Eduardo’s arm, and her fiancé laughed. “Father, you must be joking. She is a woman and nothing like the hybrids.”

“She is one of them, I tell you. When I met Moreau, he had no daughter. Still, it wasn’t my business if he had a hidden bastard and brought her to live with him. But when Isidro wrote and said you were interested in the girl, I had to give the matter more care.

“Do you remember your old assistant, Moreau? I met with him a few months ago, trying to discuss the possibility of his return to Yaxaktun. I contacted him again and asked the man if he knew anything about your daughter. I thought he’d tell me the doctor had availed himself of a servant and that I’d have to inform you, Eduardo, that you were infatuated with a maid’s bastard spawn, a girl with no prospects. I did not expect him to tell me the doctor’s daughter was the literal child of a wildcat.”