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“From the world. The world is a great, hungry maw that devours, especially those like Iris. Shy, sheltered, naive. She was already being devoured with sin, defiled by that doctor.”
“And what of Miss Collier?” Gideon asked.
“Calliope was not shy.” He sneered. “She raced toward that devouring maw, eager. Far too eager. She needed a bit of Iris’s nature. She was mine for a time, but not mine alone, and I could not bear that.”
Since the man was in a talkative mood, Gideon was determined to keep him speaking.
“And Aurora Fretwell?”
A sickening smile lit Kerrigan’s face. “Such a pretty thing. And she was a sweet balm to me for a while.”
And now she is dead, Gideon thought. “Had you tired of her?”
“No. I did not tire of her. I do not tire of any of them. But there comes a point where I see that they are lost to me. No longer mine. It is a terrible kind of curse to find a young woman, a pale proxy, yet the very image of my sweet Diana, only to realize they are as lost to me as she is.”
He spoke of his wife. Each young woman he’d lured or seduced or imprisoned reminded him of the lady in the portrait in his London library.
“Diana Braxton?” Gideon asked.
Kerrigan flashed a beaming grin and nodded as if recalling some pleasant memory. “The first time I saw her, I thought she was a ghost. She looked exactly like my wife. My Diana had been gone for three years, leaving my days empty, haunting my nights, filling my dreams. And then there she was, walking through the museum with a useless boy on her arm. And then I learned her name was Diana. And I wanted to keep her. Dear God, I wanted to keep her.” He grimaced. “But she would not be mine. Fought me like a she-devil.”
“And then Aurora. A Roman goddess, not mine, but a goddess, nonetheless. And Calliope, a muse. Not a goddess, but a muse. And I thought that I would like a muse. But she was a strumpet, and she would not be mine.”
“Why Iris? She does not look like your wife,” Gideon pointed out.
“No, she does not. Not physically, but her nature is the closest of all of them. Kind, sweet, diligent. If she but had Calliope’s face, she would be perfect. I never wanted her to be mine, not in that way, as I knew she was tainted already by that doctor.”
He shrugged and looked up at Gideon. “But I thought it useful to keep her.”
“Because she found out about Calliope?” Electra asked. She stood on the threshold, her clear blue-green eyes locked on Kerrigan.
“Yes. She had questions. Incessant questions about Calliope. She would not keep her nose out of it, and then she had the audacity to confront me, accuse me.” He smiled up at Electra. “Did you deduce that, Miss Poole? Sense it when you touched my book?”
“No, but it makes sense of why she would be the exception. She cared for Calliope and would have sought answers. She would have had no notion of your madness.”
Kerrigan had the temerity to chuckle. “Am I mad?”
Electra offered no reply to that.
“Do you have someone you love, Miss Poole?”
Electra flicked her gaze to Gideon, and he felt it like a hand closing gently around his heart.
“Yes,” she murmured.
“Did you ever love someone you lost?” Kerrigan asked.
Electra nodded and reached up to touch her throat. Gideon knew she wore a pendant from her mother there, underneath the high neck of her dress.
“Do you not yearn for them, Miss Poole, ache for them?”
“Sometimes,” Electra admitted.
“And is it not natural to then look upon the world around you and seek them again?”
“No, I don’t think that is natural, Mr. Kerrigan. There is loss and there is grief, and then there is carrying on with living.”
“You make it sound very simple, my dear.”
