The Courtesan and Mr. Hyde
Prologue
Detroit, Michigan
June, 1890
Steaming liquid streamed from the spout of the autokettle, splashing over the rim of the delicate porcelain cup to pool in the saucer below. Hal lifted the cup with a sigh. At least the tea was properly steeped this time. Someday, when their experiments had changed the world and brought them wealth and fame, perhaps the Society wouldn’t have to meet at a second-rate club with poorly-calibrated mechanical devices.
No, that was unfair. This club was full of progressive, scientifically-minded people—who were only occasionally raucous—and housed this lovely alcove where he and his friends could sit around the fireplace, share their work, and ignore the torrential rain outside. Only the machines were second-rate. And maybe the tea.
“Don’t know why you insist on drinking that swill.” Nemo sprawled in a faded armchair and took a swig of something from a polished flask. Probably whiskey.
Hal shrugged. “I suppose I could ask the kitchen to try that masala chai recipe of yours.”
Nemo arched a single dark eyebrow. “I meant alcohol, but that would be an improvement, yes.”
“Ol’ Harry’s contemplating joining a temperance union, dontcha know?” Victor lazily waved his glass of wine as he strode into the alcove. As usual, his sandy hair was slicked perfectly into place and his clothes were the height of fashion. Yet somehow he managed to exude an air of rakish insouciance.
“You know very well I am not,” Hal shot back. “And don’t call me that.” He adjusted his spectacles. He didn’t strictly need them, but the electrophoto lenses darkened in bright light and provided enhanced low-light vision. Also, Hal thought he looked quite sporty in a pair of spectacles. “Besides, once my elixir is perfected, we won’t need temperance unions anymore. We’ll be able to separate out and control our baser urges, restricting them to certain times and places, or even eliminating them altogether.”
Victor lowered himself into the last available chair, shaking his head in disbelief.
“This is why we named ourselves the ‘Mad Scientists,’” Nemo said with a chuckle.
Hal bristled. “As if your submarine is any less outlandish than my experiments, ‘Captain’?”
“The Narwhal will be fully functional within the next year or two and it will revolutionize transportation and exploration as we know it.”
Victor made a sniffing noise that could almost be termed a snort, if Victor had been a snorting sort of man.
Nemo replied with a mocking smile. “And how are your electrical experiments, Dr. Franklin?”
“Coming along quite well, thank you.”
Which meant no progress at all.
“I’ll be making a breakthrough any day now,” Victor insisted, probably more to convince himself than his friends.
The trio lapsed into silence, commiserating in their lack of anything notable to contribute to the scientific community.
“We all will,” Hal said at last, setting down his teacup. He held out his right hand, palm downward. “In Scientific Solidarity.”
Nemo’s palm came down atop his, then Victor’s.
“Solidarity,” they intoned together.
Talk turned to the latest science journals and the viability of a new micro steam engine, but Hal’s own work continued to nag at him. Maybe the ideas he and his friends were pursuing really were mad. But they were meant for the good of society. Done in the name of progress and in hope for a brighter future. Tease though they might, they’d pledged one another loyalty and support.
They would succeed. It was only a matter of time.
Chapter 1
Uninhibited
2 months later
Hal dropped a bit of food into the habitat of his long-suffering pet. The rat crawled out from beneath a worn bit of flannel and sniffed cautiously at the morsel.
“Nothing strange in there,” Hal assured him. “I’m sorry for feeding you peculiar things in the past, but that’s all over now. You’ve been a great friend and a true contributor to the advancements of science. Today, it’s time for human trials.”
It was ridiculous, wasn’t it, to be apologizing to a rat? This is what scientists did. Rats were sacrificed all the time in the name of progress, as were stray dogs. Sometimes scientists pulled orphans off the streets to test their new therapies.
Hal fought back a shudder. He was a doctor. He’d pledged to help people, not use them as experimental test subjects. He’d had a hard enough time giving drops to his poor rat. The rat he’d sworn not to name in an attempt to remain emotionally unattached.
Hal reached for the flask of elixir. He could recruit others to test the formula eventually, but he wasn’t subjecting anyone else to it until he was certain it was safe. Not when he was already plagued with guilt for experimenting on Eddie the rat—who, in a surprise to no one, did indeed have a name. Hal was intimately acquainted with failure. Such was the nature of science.
He lifted the flask to Eddie in a toast. “To you, my trusty assistant. And for science.” Hal gulped down the syrupy liquid before he could change his mind.
The potion didn’t have a strong taste—only the hint of an apple that had been left sitting too long and had just begun to ferment. It oozed down the back of Hal’s throat, settling heavily in his stomach, and he quickly washed it down with a cup of room-temperature tea he’d forgotten about until that moment.
He sat down at his desk, tidying up the pens and papers, and stashing things in drawers until the desktop was as spotless as it had been since he’d first purchased it.
“Well, it doesn’t seem to be poisonous,” he observed.
Nor did it seem to have any noticeable effect. He felt exactly as he’d felt before drinking the concoction. No change in energy level, heart rate, breathing. No unusual sensations.
He removed his spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Damn,” he muttered.
Hal reeled. He didn’t swear. Not out loud. He was careful and particular about what he said, only relaxing—slightly—around his friends. Society had certain rules, after all, and he’d always been reluctant to break them. He’d been the boy who was teased for being a Little Goody Two-Shoes.
“To hell with those bullies,” Hal declared.
Well. He stood up, grinning. It seemed the elixir worked after all. He didn’t feel at all bad about his uncouth language. In fact, he felt rather exhilarated. That nagging voice that always cautioned him to mind his manners and obey the rules hadn’t gone away, precisely. It was simply… subdued. Easy to dismiss.
“All right, Eddie. Time to put this drug to the test! I’m ready to tear up the town. Carouse with the best of them.”
The rat gnawed on his food, uninterested.
“No more nights of talking to a rodent. I’m off to seek some human companionship. Drinking to excess and making noise in the streets. Consorting with loose women.”
Ooh. That did sound particularly appealing. Unfortunately, Dr. Henry Jekyll, the prude, didn’t know where one found loose women. He would have to seek out some habitually debauched fellow and pry the information out of him.
Hal locked up the laboratory and started out into the night, his special spectacles allowing him to see easily in the dim light of the gaslamps. His brisk strides carried him quickly from his middle-class lodgings to an upper class area, dotted with the lavish stone mansions of shipping magnates and lumber barons. Here, the gas lighting gave way to electricity, and the latest steam carriages lined the cobblestone roads.
One particular mansion, a red-brick Second Empire edifice with enormous dormer windows punctuating its mansard roof, boasted so many cars in front of it that Hal had to cross the street entirely to get around them.
He paused, taking in the bright lights behind every window and the noises of merriment seeping from inside the walls.
A party. One of those lavish, hedonistic affairs so many of his wealthy classmates at medical school had bragged about. Hal had never been invited, of course. Hell, he hadn’t even been invited to the less fancy parties. Tonight, he was going to discover what he’d been missing.
He walked back across the street, meandering through the carriages to peer at the entrance. A man stood at the door, greeting finely-dressed visitors and checking invitations. Not that way, then.
Hal circled around the house, looking for an unguarded servants’ entrance, or a window he could climb through. That do-gooder voice in his head told him this was absolutely not acceptable, under any circumstances; but with the potion running through his veins, he found he had no difficulty ignoring it. He grabbed hold of the ledge of a window that stood slightly ajar, and hauled himself up. The room beyond was some sort of parlor or sitting room, and a few people stood at one end of the room, chatting and looking up at a ridiculously large painting of what Hal guessed to be the owner’s dog.
Hal pushed the window fully open, swung himself through, and darted out of the room behind the backs of the other guests. Once safely in the hall, he wandered for a bit, following the noise into a large and heavily occupied ballroom. Guests decked out in upscale garb covered nearly every foot of space, and he could hardly hear anything above the din of music and voices. In a crowd of this size, no one even looked at him. He was nothing but another face. Perfect.
He picked up a drink from a tray, scanning the room to assess the situation. Not far away, a woman in a shockingly revealing red dress clung to a man’s arm, laughing and batting her eyelashes. Hal grinned. Loose women. Perfect! Tonight he could experience all the wild indulgences he never allowed himself.
He took a sip of his drink and his mouth puckered. It was an appalling concoction. He couldn’t tell if the alcohol in the cocktail was gin, whiskey, or something else entirely, but there was certainly a lot of it.
Starting on a circuit of the room, Hal attempted to sip at the drink, hoping he’d become accustomed to it. His eyes sought colorful gowns, considering the potential for flirtation. Maybe tonight, with his loosened tongue, he could actually attempt such a thing. Or maybe he’d get right to the point.
Hello, gorgeous. Care for a fuck?
“Fuck,” he said aloud, for the first time in his entire life. “Damnation. Cocksucking bas—”
“Are you swearing at someone in particular?” inquired the most melodious voice he’d ever heard. “Or merely for your own edification?” Sweet and low, with just a touch of laughter, the voice burrowed beneath his skin and set his blood ablaze.
Hal whirled around to discover a woman in a figure-hugging dark blue dress, holding a glass of champagne and smiling at him. She was pale-skinned, with a dusting of freckles across her cheeks, light brown hair that had been curled into ringlets, and intense gray eyes. She gave him a suggestive lift of her eyebrows, and his heart began to hammer in his chest.
This was the woman. He could do this. Ask her to slip away with him for a night of debauchery. What was going to stop him?
He took a generous swig of his cocktail.
And choked.