The Wrong Girl

by CJ Archer

  ***

  I slept fitfully in a bedroom I shared with Sylvia. The following morning, she peppered me with questions over breakfast in the parlor. What was the real Lady Violet like? How could I not know I was a fire starter? And, the one that confused me most—why had Lord Wade kept me at all? The only explanation I could come up with was that there was something wrong with Vi. There had to be some reason he'd keep his daughter in the attic with me, away from public view.

  As I listened to Sylvia's chatter and ate my eggs, I questioned not only my reason for being confined at Windamere, but also my reason for leaving it. Jack had been hiding something when he spoke of kidnapping me and not Vi. I'd noticed his hesitations, yet he'd smoothed out the wrinkles in his story so expertly that I'd failed to recall my unease until now. I would have asked him except he'd eaten breakfast an hour earlier according to Tommy, and had since disappeared.

  I went in search of Langley instead. He'd taken his breakfast in his new temporary room along the corridor from my bedroom. I knocked and Bollard opened the door. The big servant filled the doorway, his presence as solid and imposing as ever. If he felt guilty for following me in London and playing a part in the fire, he didn't show it.

  Langley sat in a chair at a small desk facing the center of the room. A collection of blackened equipment filled a box nearby, and he was pouring over half-burnt pieces of paper. Bollard must have gathered up anything that was salvageable from the laboratory and brought them to the new room.

  "Was much of your research destroyed?" I asked.

  "Some." He didn't sound nearly as annoyed as I thought he would be. I'd come prepared with a speech that put the blame for the fire back onto him. Considering he'd deliberately riled me, I thought it only fair he acknowledged his role. It seemed unnecessary now, and perhaps a little petty when he didn't seem too upset.

  "How are you this morning, Hannah?"

  "Well enough, considering I've just learned that I'm not who I thought I was."

  "That's a dramatic way of putting it."

  "You try going from being a narcoleptic to a fire starter in one evening. It would be like..." I searched for a metaphor and settled on the obvious. "Like suddenly discovering that you can walk again."

  "Not necessarily a bad thing."

  "Sorry." I chewed my lip, but he smiled. It was so unexpected and out of character that my jaw flopped open.

  "Sit, Hannah. I suspect you have questions."

  "Several, but I don't think you can answer them all. How did I get to be a fire starter? Was I born this way?"

  "You're right, I can't answer them all."

  Can't or won't? I sighed and flounced onto the chair, only to have to reposition myself on the edge of the seat when the bustle in the back of my dress got in the way.

  "Would you like to speak to Lord Wade?" he asked.

  I stared open-mouthed at him. "Me speak to Lord Wade?" I snorted. "The man hasn't said a word to me in all the time I've known him. Why would he deign to talk to me now?"

  "I could arrange a meeting."

  "In his house?"

  He shrugged one shoulder. "Do you want to go back there?"

  "I'd like to speak to Vi. I'd like to ask her..." I choked back a sob that had unexpectedly risen to my throat. "I'd like to ask her why she lied to me all this time."

  "Perhaps she was told to."

  I contemplated that for a moment. She had lied to me for years, even as a child. It must have been an order from the earl. Vi was my friend. We'd cared for one another, laughed together and cried together. She'd never have willingly lied. My feelings toward her tempered somewhat, although not entirely.

  The day of the kidnap came back to me. Her nervousness had been more pronounced than ever, and I'd had the very strong feeling that she was keeping something from me. At the time, I'd thought she wanted me to stay away from the mysterious gardener—Jack—but now...now I wondered if she were pushing me toward him, albeit reluctantly.

  Miss Levine had also been on edge that day, and yet eager for us to go for a walk despite the looming storm. She'd also disappeared very quickly when it began to rain and not followed us into the woods. The woods that Vi had wanted to enter when usually she hated it.

  Had they known I was about to be kidnapped? Known and...wanted it?

  I felt sick. I couldn't breathe. Vi... how could you?

  "Put your head between your knees, Hannah. Breathe."

  Bollard's strong hand gently pressed the back of my neck, pushing me forward so that I folded up on myself. I breathed deeply until the nausea vanished and my head cleared. I felt ill all over again, not because Vi had colluded with Miss Levine to force me into a trap, but because it was Jack who'd orchestrated the trap. He must have, or how would they know to lead me into the woods? He'd enlisted Vi's help. He'd known she was involved all along—and he hadn't told me.

  It explained his hesitation last night when I asked him how he knew to take me and not Vi. It wasn't because I was more confident than she, or that we had a connection, it was because he'd met her.

  "What is it, Hannah?" Langley asked.

  "He lied to me," I muttered through my tears. I don't know when I'd begun to cry, but I couldn't stop myself. Vi and Jack had lied to me. People I thought I could trust. People I thought cared about me.

  To make matters worse, I was a fire starter, and so much about that was still shrouded in mystery. I needed to talk to someone about it, but there was no one I could completely trust. I'd never felt more alone in my life.

  "Jack lies about a great many things." Langley signaled for Bollard to escort me to the door. "I thought you already knew that. I'm not sure why this has come as a surprise."

  "I think I hate you," I said through my tears and clenched jaw.

  "It'll pass, as will your feelings for Jack, both good and bad." He sighed and slouched over his papers. His voice when he spoke again sounded muffled, as if his mouth was buried in his collar. "Perhaps it's better for you both if you learn now just how much he has lied. The two of you together is a dangerous combination to yourselves and to others."

  He was right, yet I hated hearing it.

  "Good day, Hannah."

  I ran past Bollard, down the corridor and outside. I wasn't dressed for walking, but I didn't care, nor did it matter. There was no need for coat or gloves, although sturdier shoes would have been nice. The heels may have been small but they weren't made for running and the soft leather was ruined by the time I reached the old abbey. The weak morning sun hadn't quite burned away all the mist and it hung over the lake like a cloud. The sky was a monotonous gray stretching endlessly above, and there wasn't a breath of wind in the air. Everything was so still, peaceful, the only sound came from my sobs, echoing around the ruins.

  How many others had come to that place to cry? Had the Frakingham children before they were locked in the dungeon?

  I leaned against the stones for support and buried my head in my hands. A thousand things raced through my mind, but one screamed louder than the rest.

  What else had Jack lied about?

  At some point I stopped crying, but I remained at the ruins. I couldn't face Sylvia and Langley yet, and something about the Abbey called to me. It had been a proud and majestic building once, dwarfing the landscape and reaching for the clouds. Monks had lived and worked there for hundreds of years, going about their daily ritual with purpose and a strong sense of themselves and their place in the world's order. But now it was just a collection of stones that barely resembled its original structure. It was broken and almost overrun by the higher power of Mother Nature. Much like me, if the fire inside me was indeed a natural thing I'd been born with. I truly had no idea.

  I wandered through the ruins. The stones were cool and slippery, but that didn't stop me climbing some of the more stable walls. I inspected hidden nooks and pulled back the grass in places to see the foundations. After a while I knew the Abbey's layout and could picture the monks as they shuffled off to ma
ss, or slept in their bare cells. It was a welcome activity and helped calm me, but my adventure was interrupted by the crunch of gravel on the long drive beneath Jack's horse's hooves. He didn't see me and rode straight up to the house. I thought about going after him, but decided against it. It didn't matter in the end. He came to me.

  "I thought I might find you here." He stopped a few feet away and tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the flat top of a large stone. "You seem to like this place."

  "At least I can't burn it. It's already ruined."

  His Adam's apple bobbed erratically. "What happened is not your fault, Hannah. Don't blame yourself."

  "I don't."

  He nodded. "I've been to see August."

  "There must be a reason you're telling me that."

  Another nod. He took a few steps closer, but remained out of reach. He looked exhausted. His eyes were webbed with red lines and circled by dark shadows. Seeing him like that dissolved most of the lingering anger I felt toward him, but the sadness remained, a heavy weight pressing down on my chest. "He warned me that you were upset."

  "You lied to me, Jack. I'd say I have good reason to be upset."

  He leaned his hip against a low wall and regarded me. "You're right. I did lie. I wanted to protect you, but I suppose I should know by now that you don't need protecting. I'm sorry, Hannah."

  "Tell me what role Violet played in my kidnap."

  "I'm not entirely sure. I never spoke to her, only to your governess. She came to me in the grounds soon after my arrival and told me which girl to take. The short, freckly one, she said."

  "She came to you?" I frowned. "So she already knew your purpose?"

  He nodded and crossed his arms. "I don't know how. It may have been August's doing. But she gave me a time and place and true to her word, you were there."

  "But what of Vi?"

  He shrugged. "I assumed the governess enlisted her help to get you into the woods that day. I saw her in the cottage, you know."

  "Before or after you kidnapped me?"

  "After. I was about to carry you away when her face appeared at the window. She looked...odd. Sad, perhaps, or conflicted. I don't think her involvement was a decision she came to lightly, if that helps."

  "I looked out for her every day of my life. I ensured Miss Levine never became cross with her, only with me. If she couldn't complete a task set by our tutors, I'd help her. If she was cold, I gave her my coat. Yet she abandoned me like I was nothing more to her than a doll she no longer wanted to play with. It doesn't matter how much she was involved. She just was."

  I walked off and headed for the lake. Jack came up beside me, and I swiped away my tears. He shortened his stride to walk in time with my steps and he didn't take his gaze off me. Not that I was looking at him, but I could feel him watching me.

  "I'm sorry I forced her to do it," he said. "And I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I thought it was best you didn't know. Can you forgive me?"

  "I can if you don't lie to me again." I wanted him to talk to me about his past, about being Jack Cutler before he became Jack Langley, but he didn't. Until such time that he did, we could never be true friends, trusting one another implicitly.

  It would seem I no longer had a single friend in the world. I turned my face to the lake, but didn't continue on. "Why would Vi betray me like that?" I asked. "Particularly if she were reluctant to do so."

  "I can only guess."

  "And what is your guess?"

  "That she was given no choice, either by your governess or by Lord Wade himself."

  "Lord Wade?" I chewed my lip. None of it made sense. Not Vi's involvement, not her father's and certainly not Langley's. I was still skeptical about his motives, even though I was now sure Jack and Sylvia weren't party to them. "How did Langley know where to find another fire starter?"

  "He told me that Bollard had heard rumors in the village about a girl kept in an attic in a manor house who could set things on fire. He thinks the villagers must have heard it on the grapevine from the Windamere servants. It's not far from here. I'm sure some of the Harborough residents have been to the village near Windamere. You don't believe that?"

  "I'm not sure. What troubles me is that it has happened now. Why?"

  He shrugged. "The rumors may have been around for years, but Bollard has only just overheard them."

  "Perhaps, but...don't you think it's odd that it coincided with the theft of your uncle's papers?"

  "You think the two are linked?"

  "I don't know, but it is strange that your friend was commissioned to perform the burglary right after I moved in, and that nothing of monetary value was stolen, only some of your uncle's papers. What was in those papers? How did the man who hired Patrick know where to look and what to look for? He gave Patrick some very specific instructions."

  Jack pressed his lips together and put his hands on his hips. After a moment of staring at the lake, he spun round. "You're right. Too many questions." He strode off back to the house.

  I picked up my skirts and ran to catch up with him. "Are you going to confront Langley?"

  "Yes."

  "Then I'm coming with you."