The Wrong Girl

by CJ Archer

"Violet?" Jack's soft voice startled me out of my foggy stupor. "Violet? Are you telling us you didn't know?"

  "How could she not know?" asked Sylvia.

  How indeed.

  Her face appeared in front of mine, her big eyes filled with concern. "Are you all right, Violet? You look very pale."

  I gripped the chair arms until my fingers ached, but I didn't let go. If I did, I was sure I would tip over. My thoughts raced so fast I couldn't quite grasp them. All I knew was that if I could start fires, then everyone at Windamere had lied to me.

  Including Vi.

  "Violet?" Jack still knelt in front of me, so close I could feel the heat radiating from him. It made my skin hot, my blood hotter.

  Or was that the heat within me? It all began to make sense. I'd never felt cold, never needed a coat to go outside and I hated wearing gloves. Where Vi had shivered through our wintry walks, I'd relished the cold breeze against my skin, the frost in the air.

  "Do you need to lie down?" he asked me.

  I shook my head. "I need...answers."

  "Whatever we can provide, we will." He took a deep breath and scrubbed his hand over his jaw.

  "Why did you lie to us?" Langley said. "You let us believe you could start fires even though you thought you couldn't."

  "Don't," Jack warned. "Our questions can wait. Let Violet ask hers first."

  Langley heaved a deep sigh. "Very well. I suppose you'd like to know what happened up there."

  I nodded.

  "Bollard told me what the Gladstone fellow told you."

  "Bollard followed us!" Jack snapped. "Bloody hell, August. Why?"

  "I originally sent him to London to make sure Violet didn't escape." He gave a jerky nod of apology. "I didn't quite trust her." At Jack's protest, he put up his hand and continued over the top of him. "He followed all three of you when you visited your friend. Bollard's deaf mother taught him to read lips, and he used the skill in order to keep his distance. He missed some of the conversations thanks to the poor light, but he caught most. As well as the meeting you had with your friend, he told me everything the Gladstone fellow told Violet."

  "What did he tell her?" Sylvia clicked her tongue. "And why am I always the last to know?"

  "Gladstone informed Violet that her narcolepsy could be cured by subjecting her to a profound dose of the emotion that triggers it."

  "But we didn't know what that emotion was," Jack said.

  "I suspected it was anger. I always did. That first time she unexpectedly fell asleep here and almost set my laboratory on fire, her temper was pronounced."

  "The first time...?" I whispered. "There...there was a fire? Why didn't anyone tell me?" I remembered the fresh scorch marks on Langley's floor that hadn't been there upon my first visit...I'd thought Jack had put them there. That was me?

  Jack and Langley looked askance. "We merely assumed you'd been aware of what happened that day," Jack said. "It never occurred to me to discuss the incident in detail. Wait a moment." He turned to Langley. "I see now. You lied to her about not being able to leave because you wanted her to get angry. You let her think Sylvia and I were in on the trickery."

  "What do you mean?" Sylvia stamped a hand on her hip. "Once again I'm the last to know everything."

  "I had no choice," Langley said to Jack, ignoring her. He shrugged, as if it were nothing. As if manipulating my emotions and making me believe Jack lied didn't matter, as long as he got the outcome he wanted.

  The heat rose within me again, but not enough to produce sparks or flames. Unlike Jack. He looked like he wanted to set something alight. His breathing had become ragged, his nostrils flared. At least there were no sparks.

  "What happened in your room, Uncle?" Sylvia asked.

  Jack gave a low, bitter laugh. "Our dear Uncle August knew that anger would cure Violet of her narcolepsy and was also the trigger that would ignite the heat inside her. He decided to set up a little experiment."

  "Not an experiment," Langley said. "An experiment is where you test a hypothesis within a controlled environment. I bypassed the experiment and went straight to administering the cure."

  Sylvia gasped. "Good lord. Was that wise?"

  "I think we all saw how unwise it was," Jack muttered.

  "Now it makes sense," Sylvia said. "You deliberately made her angry with a lie about her being kept prisoner here. Uncle, how could you?"

  "Enough! I did what was necessary to remove the narcolepsy and memory block. Now we can start her training anew."

  I pressed my fingers to my temples. My head ached. My heart was sore. I should be disturbed by Langley's admission, but I couldn't muster any thoughts in that direction. All I knew was that Vi and Miss Levine had lied to me for many years. My world had been turned upside down and shaken about. I felt like I was watching a grand illusionist working his magic so cleverly and subtly that the sleight of hand went unnoticed. Nothing was as it seemed anymore.

  "I think you need to lie down," Jack said, once more crouching in front of me. He peered at me as if he would see my thoughts. It was clear from his earnest gaze that he wanted to hold me, just as I wanted to be held by him. But touching of an intimate nature was impossible. He may have been able to carry me to safety, but there'd been no desire in his touch then, only urgency.

  It would seem that anger caused me to light fires, but mutual desire caused us both to combust.

  "I'll find out if the maids have made up any of the bedrooms," Sylvia said.

  "Wait." Langley tapped his finger on the arm of his chair. "You owe me an explanation, Violet."

  "She doesn't," Jack growled.

  "It's all right," I said. "I want to tell you." I needed to, if only to help me make sense of it.

  "Why did you not tell us you thought you couldn't light fires?" Langley asked. "If you didn't want to stay here, why not inform us of what you thought was the truth?"

  Three sets of eyes watched me intently. Only Bollard seemed disinterested. I sucked in a breath and let it out slowly before beginning. "I was protecting my friend. I thought she was the fire starter, not me. She's not as strong as me, you see. She scares easily and I wanted to protect her from...your experiments. If your intentions truly were to do harm or to study her then I wanted to keep her safely at Windamere."

  "That's so sweet of you," Sylvia said, sniffing and dabbing at the corners of her eyes.

  "She's lucky to have a friend like you," Jack said.

  "Except we're not friends, are we?" I said, bitterness souring my tongue. "How can we be? She's been lying to me for years. She knew I was the one who started the fires, yet she allowed me to think it was her and that my narcolepsy was somehow tied to it." I shook my head. It sounded ridiculous now that I thought about it. Why would my narcolepsy have been caused by her being able to start fires, or vice versa?

  "Why would she do that?" Langley asked.

  "Yes," Jack said. "Why lie at all?"

  I shrugged. I felt like the stupidest fool that ever lived. "I don't know. They were all lying. Miss Levine, Lord Wade and Violet—"

  "Violet?" Jack frowned. "But you're Violet?"

  I chewed the inside of my cheek and tasted blood. "My name is Hannah Smith."

  Langley's fingers gripped his chair arms. "Hannah...Smith," he muttered.

  "You've heard of me?"

  He lifted a hand in dismissal, but the distance in his eyes remained.

  "You're not the daughter of Lord Wade?" Jack asked.

  "No. Violet Jamieson, my friend, is. I was her companion, confined to the attic alongside her because she couldn't be let out with her condition." I twisted my hands together, knotting the fingers. "Or so I thought. But since I am the fire starter, and she isn't...I don't understand why Lord Wade kept me at all. Or why she's in the attic."

  "Who are your parents?" Jack asked.

  "Lord Wade's servants. They died when I was a baby."

  "I'm terribly confused," Sylvia said. "Are we to address you as Hannah now?"

/>   I nodded.

  "You're not a lord's daughter?"

  "No."

  "You're a...servant?"

  "A lady's companion." Which was little better. "Shall I remove myself to the servant's quarters?" I asked, unable to keep my snide tone in check.

  "No," Langley said before the others could speak. "You're our guest as much now as you were when we thought we had Lady Violet. That doesn't change. Sylvia, go see if the maids are finished making up the rooms. Hannah needs some rest. We all do."

  "I didn't mean anything by it," Sylvia muttered as she left.

  "You told me that Lady Violet was the one with red hair," Jack said to Langley. His eyes narrowed, as if he were deep in thought trying to solve a puzzle. "They both had red hair, although different shades."

  "I wasn't to know that," Langley said.

  "So why take me and not the real Violet Jamieson?" I asked Jack. "You saw us both, yet you kidnapped me. Why?"

  He shook his head, frowning. "I...I was led to believe..."

  "Believe what?"

  He paused before answering, and I got the feeling whatever he was about to tell me wasn't the entire truth. "I watched you both during your walks. You seemed to be the one in charge. You led, she followed. You were feisty where she was meek. I assumed that meant you were the earl's daughter and that the earl's daughter was the fire starter. Besides," the corner of his mouth lifted in a fleeting smile, then it vanished and he looked down at his feet, "I felt a strong connection to you. Like I was being tugged toward you by an invisible leash." He looked up again and our gazes locked. My spine tingled and heat flared through my body. "Why would I feel that unless you were a fire starter too?" He shrugged. "I didn't question it."

  A tug toward me. Because of my ability or because he desired me? He smiled again, a soft, knowing smile that I desperately wanted to capture. Knowing it was just for me would have to be enough.

  "Will you teach me to control this?" I asked.

  The smile turned achingly sad. "I hope so. It should be a matter of controlling your temper. But unless you can turn off...more intimate emotions at will, then I'm afraid I can't help you when we..." He cleared his throat. "Just as I cannot help myself. I will find a cure though. I promise you, V— Hannah."

  I gave an emphatic nod. I no longer needed any convincing to stay at Frakingham. There was nothing for me at Windamere anymore, and everything at Freak House. "We'll find it together," I said.