The Daughter of Doctor Moreau(65)

“Melquíades was trying to steal my research,” the doctor said. “He has reason to be my enemy and speak his poison.”

“Prove to me this is not a monster, an unholy cross between a jaguar and a human,” Hernando demanded, pointing at the girl again, who was now clinging to Eduardo and had buried her face in his chest. She was shaking, perhaps weeping. She seemed to want to make herself smaller, to hide between the folds of her betrothed’s jacket. “Prove it to me if you can.”

“I can haul your son before a magistrate for estupro, Lizalde, so don’t start demanding that I prove anything, or I’ll prove more than you want and he’ll have to marry her anyway,” Moreau warned.

Hernando looked at his son, his face going slack. “For God’s sake, say that isn’t true. You did not let yourself be seduced by the whore?”

“She is no whore. Father, when I bedded her she was untouched,” the boy said earnestly.

Hernando blanched and no wonder. If his son had indeed deflowered Carlota, Moreau had a case, and it would be a humiliation for Eduardo. Carlota would have to be examined by physicians, but the boy might also be examined to determine if he was capable of deflowering a virgin. Imagine that, a Lizalde with his trousers down and a doctor looking at his penis as if he were a dirty, common lout. And then there would be the nastiness of standing in front of a judge, the threat of arrest, names splashed in the papers.

The girl’s body was racked by great sobs, and when she turned her head and looked at Hernando her eyes were shining with tears. Montgomery wanted to yell at Lizalde, tell him that enough was enough.

“My lord, promised in marriage to an abomination,” Hernando said, and he turned to Moreau, the crop ready. “You did this, you madman!”

Hernando launched himself at the man, and he was so quick he managed to hit the doctor in the face, the leather slapping him with such viciousness Moreau dropped his cane and let out a loud groan. He stepped back and almost lost his footing.

Carlota rushed to his side, helping steady the doctor before he could be toppled. “Get away from my father!” she yelled.

“Stand aside or I’ll whip you bloody,” Hernando warned her, raising his crop again.

Montgomery had had enough, and he made a motion, intending to drag Hernando Lizalde to the other side of the room, since distance seemed the most prudent course. But he didn’t have a chance because as the man held the crop tight, the girl launched forward.

She moved swiftly, and at first Montgomery did not understand what had happened. All he heard was Hernando’s terrified cry. Then he saw the red lines on the man’s cheek. She’d scratched him.

The girl lifted her head, and Montgomery had a perfect view of her wide, angry eyes. They gleamed now, saturated with color. Carlota’s eyes were a beautiful shade of honey, but this was a different hue. The eyes seemed to glow, and the pupils were all wrong; pinpricks of blackness against a citrine background.

These were not a woman’s eyes, and when she turned around, chest heaving, Isidro almost toppled a vase as he stepped back. Montgomery, for his part, did not move a muscle.

He’d seen eyes like that, once, close against his face. Those were the eyes of a jaguar. The girl’s stance, the way she held her head up, the neck stretched out, and her body tense, that was the furious stance of a cat.

Dazedly he thought of all the times he’d been near her, of how he had admired the way she moved, like an acrobat, terribly graceful. How her eyes sometimes seemed to gleam in the dark for the briefest of moments. She could see so well in the dark, walked without a candle in the middle of the night, and her feet were quiet, a whisper. You couldn’t tell she was approaching you if she didn’t wish to announce herself. The shadows cradled her: she slipped in and out of them in the darkness of the courtyard, in the greenery of the jungle. Fluid, like water, like a ghost, like the jaguar when it hunts.

And he knew it was true. The lot of it. She was a hybrid. And the others knew, too.

“How dare you!” Hernando said and pulled out his pistol with one hand while he pressed the other hand against his wounded cheek.

Montgomery reached for his own gun, pointing it at the man’s head. “Let go of that,” he said, his voice low.

At first Hernando did not seem to understand. He stared at Montgomery with more shock than rage. Then he snorted. “Mr. Laughton, do not dare to threaten me. My men are right outside this house and will shoot you down.”

Although Montgomery had spoken defiantly to Eduardo the first time they had met, this was a different situation. This was Hernando Lizalde, the man who ultimately held his debt and who paid his wages. He was dooming himself by speaking against him, yet he swallowed any misgivings and held the gun with a steady grip. It was time he summoned his courage.

“Not before I put a bullet in your skull,” Montgomery said. “Need I remind you I’m an excellent shot?”

“Think about what you are saying and who are you siding with.”

“Toss that on the floor. I want you out of here. I’ve had enough of the lot of you.”

The hacendado sneered, but placed the pistol on the floor and straightened himself up. Montgomery kept the gun pointed at him and picked up the ivory-handled pistol.

“Get out of here, all three of you,” he ordered.

“If we are made to leave, we will come back, Moreau,” Hernando said, now looking at the doctor. “And when I come back it will be with a dozen men, and we will grab those hybrids of yours, use them to kill the Indians that have been bothering us, and then punish you thoroughly. It is best if you surrender to me now. If you obey, then I will be merciful. Do not force my hand because I will harm you.”