The Wrong Girl

by CJ Archer

  ***

  I slept solidly that night and into the next day. All three of us did. The rest of the day and part of the next was busy with fittings and fabrics. Dressmakers and milliners came to us, and by the third day, they had clothes and hats ready for our journey home.

  Home. Yes, I supposed it was, in a way. There was nothing for me at Windamere anymore, but I now knew I at least had friends in Jack, Sylvia and Tommy. Frakingham was the only place I belonged.

  I was grateful to be finally leaving Claridges. Not that the hotel wasn't exquisite, our every need and comfort met, but because I wanted to be alone with Jack again at Frakingham. We'd been surrounded by others ever since the fire, and I had so many things I wanted to talk to him about before we saw his uncle again.

  He rode with Sylvia and me inside the cabin on the journey back. Olsen drove because Tommy had left the morning after the fire to report back to Langley. At first I was glad I wasn't going to be near him when he found out what Tate had almost done to us, but then I changed my mind. Seeing Langley's first reaction may have said a great deal about his character as well as his intentions.

  "Well," said Sylvia on a breath. "I'm glad that's over."

  London grew smaller in the distance, the miasma that hung over the city merely a brown stain on the horizon. I didn't dislike the place, but I didn't want to return there in a hurry. Frakingham at least had fresh air and open spaces, although its moodiness was something I wasn't yet used to.

  "There'll be a trial," Jack said. "We'll all be called as witnesses. It's not quite over yet."

  "I can endure a trial to see that man swing," Sylvia said. "He and his creature."

  "They don't actually hang people in public anymore, Syl."

  "You know what I mean. They deserve to be hanged. You shouldn't have gotten Tate out, Jack."

  He lowered his gaze and said nothing.

  "And now that I think about it," she went on, "why didn't you throw one of those fireballs at the thug, Ham? You could have saved yourself all those bruises."

  Jack fingered his swollen lip. The cut above his eye had closed, but it still looked raw and would be for some time. His knuckles too were grazed and must be sore.

  "That's a good question," I said to Jack. "You threw one at Tate, but not Ham. Why?"

  "It would set his clothes alight and burn him," he said.

  "So?" Sylvia said. "The man was horrible. He doesn't deserve our sympathies or your consideration."

  "You think that now," he said. "But if you were the one inflicting the fireball and you had to watch a man burn alive, would you think the same then?"

  "Yes."

  He shook his head and turned to the window. From the distant gaze reflected in the glass, I guessed that he wasn't actually seeing any of the scenery that slipped past. "It's the screaming that gets to you first," he said. "Even a man as large and strong as Ham has a high-pitched scream when his skin is exposed to intense heat. After the screams comes the smell. Burning flesh has a distinctive odor, Syl. It's not very pleasant. You wouldn't like it."

  She fell silent and pulled the collar of her new fur coat closed at the throat.

  "I saw someone burn to death once," he went on. "I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy."

  "You, Hannah and Tate can't burn though, can you?" Sylvia asked.

  Jack shook his head. "I know I can't. Hannah? Did you feel anything in there? Did your skin hurt?"

  I shook my head. "I felt nothing on the outside, only the inside when Tate touched me." The memory of him stroking my face made me want to scrub myself clean again. There had been no desire in the touch, not the sort between a man and a woman, but it had been filled with a kind of longing that I'd never seen before and had not known could exist. "He was boiling. To me he felt hotter than the fire."

  Jack leaned forward and lifted a hand. He stroked a strand of my hair that had fallen out of the pins and dangled near my face. Although I instantly warmed, there were no sparks. It seemed it was only actual contact between us that produced those.

  I smiled and he smiled back. "Thank you for rescuing me," I said.

  "My pleasure." He continued to stroke my hair. I liked it, liked him near me, but it took every ounce of self-control not to lean into that hand and feel it cupping my cheek, caressing my lips.

  Sylvia, not looking at us, shuddered. "Thank goodness Tate's gone. Finally we can resume some normalcy at Freak House."

  "Normalcy," Jack said with a lopsided smile. "Is that what you're calling it now?"

  CHAPTER 15