“Oh.” Georgie’s arms dropped to her sides. “I suppose that is a fairly logical deduction.” She fidgeted. Georgie is unable to lie without displaying a great deal of discomfort. “Yes, I see why you might have drawn that conclusion. But it is quite possible Miss Stranje learned how to handle firearms while hunting with her father.” She smiled, pleased with the explanation she’d concocted.
It was clever, and I hoped it would throw him off the scent. What Georgie didn’t know is that she had just told the plain truth of the matter. Miss Stranje’s father had indeed taught her how to handle a gun. Mr. Chadwick need not be told that Miss Stranje’s father had been one of England’s finest spymasters and that he trained his daughter to follow in his footsteps. We had to guard the true nature of Miss Stranje’s school at all costs.
He bowed his head to the side, seeming to accept her explanation.
Seraphina usually speaks with a gentleness that matches her angelic appearance, as if she empathizes with everyone. But that day Sera frowned at Chadwick. No, she well and truly scowled at him. I hadn’t thought it possible for her.
In fact, she chided him in a tone so prickly that it sounded completely foreign coming from her. “I’m surprised at you, Mr. Chadwick. It is a dangerous thing to make assumptions without ascertaining the facts first. Particularly when you are here in service to your father’s office.”
My mouth opened in shock. It was not like Sera to deliver a scold to anyone, and she wasn’t finished. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be off studying at Cambridge or Oxford?”
“I … well … er … no.” The young gentleman flushed, adjusted his collar, and looked considerably more rattled than he had when I’d yanked him over my shoulder. He took a deep breath before continuing.
“If you must know, and I’m not saying it’s of any importance to the matters at hand, but as things stand I didn’t, well, you see…”
Odd. He’d been such a talkative fellow, and now he stumbled over his words.
His back went rigid, and he did not address any one of us in particular. Except he did glance sidewise in Sera’s direction. “Very well, if you insist on the facts of the matter—I surpassed what might be gained at Cambridge at a fairly young age. That’s why I am here. My father hired tutors to educate me. Excellent tutors.” He turned several shades of pink while explaining. He looked away, smoothed the nap of his top hat with care, and replaced it snugly on his head as if that signified an end to the matter.
So agitated was he at having told us about not going to university that he failed to notice Sera withdrawing even more. She closed in on herself as she so often does. It is impossible for Sera to hide her feelings. A sad gray pall settled over her.
She studied the gravel and quietly said, “You are fortunate to have such understanding parents.”
Ah, so that was it.
I understood then what was vexing her, and my heart ached on her account. Mr. Chadwick had been given approval and granted the opportunity to learn. Whereas Sera’s peculiar gifts of memory and intellect had been treated with distrust and suspicion. He’d been rewarded for his extraordinary mind with tutors. She’d been locked away in the attic until her family finally sent her to Stranje House, hoping Miss Stranje would force their daughter to be more normal.
Uneasy with the silence that fell between them, I glanced over to where Georgie stood studying the dead man. I took a closer look and drew in a sharp breath.
Mr. Chadwick leapt to attention at my gasp. “You recognize him?”
Despite the sizable hole in his skull, I knew this was the man who’d lashed Tromos with his riding crop.
In a sudden panic, I whirled to Georgie. “Where’s Tromos? Did they—is she hurt?”
“She’s alive and well.” Georgie grasped my shoulders and frowned. “But Miss Stranje is right, you’re trembling. You mustn’t worry. Both dogs are fine. Agitated, of course, but unharmed. Jane fed them and took them to the kennels.”
I nodded with relief and she let go.
Chadwick renewed his question. “So you recognize the dead man?”
“Only that he whipped our dogs because they were trying to protect us. Other than that, no. I don’t know him.” I backed away from the gruesome specter of his remains, stumbling in the gravel.
I never stumble.
I’m not squeamish. Not a bit, and yet gooseflesh raised on my arms and I shivered.
Mr. Chadwick closed in on my weakness. “Miss Wyndham saw this fellow lift you onto the horse. Do you remember anything else about them? I’m sorry to put these questions to you, but even the slightest detail might help us identify who they were and ascertain their purpose.”
“Their purpose?” My hand flew to the lump on my head. “They clubbed me and bagged me! As if I was an animal to be slaughtered.” Dizzy with rage, my voice flew up in pitch. “I know nothing of their purpose. How could I?”
He had the decency to flinch.
Georgie reached for my hand. Normally, I would never have taken it. I stand alone. Every night I face carnage and suffering—alone. Always alone. I cannot rely on the strength of others. But that morning, I let her clasp my hand in hers, and I am forced to admit it helped calm me.
Chadwick leaned in sympathetically. “My sincerest condolences, miss. They were villains of the first order.”
“Condolences? Are you pitying me? I’m not the one who is dead. Those men were nothing to me.”
He stepped back. “No, miss, but they put you in the monstrous position of having to take a life in order to protect yourself and someone you care about.” He shook his head and squared his shoulders. And for just a minute it felt as if his chief concern was my welfare. Except his voice regained its inquisitive bent and he flung one more horrid question at me. “Do you have any idea why they would try to abduct you rather than simply leave you unconscious in the field?”
I pressed my lips together, willing myself to silence, and shot Georgie a desperate glance, remembering exactly what the cutthroats had said. It was supposed to be her in that bag, not me. The command had originated from a female leader, and that could mean only one person: Lady Daneska.
What could I tell this prying son of a justice of the peace?
The truth?
We are actually young ladies with highly specialized talents. Miss Stranje is training us to work with spies and diplomats in service to our country. But we have been betrayed. One of our number ran away and joined Napoleon’s Order of the Iron Crown.
Should I tell him that I had simply been an inconvenient substitute? That the traitor, Lady Daneska, in her vicious desire for revenge, planned to abduct Georgie and torture her in order to extract her formula for invisible ink and obtain the current location of several key spies, in particular Captain Grey and Lord Wyatt.
Out of the question. I couldn’t say any of that.
So I shrugged weakly.
“It’s all so very puzzling.” He rubbed his thumb across the faint stubble on his chin. “My father will have a number of questions before we can put this matter to rest. In all likelihood, he will suggest that Miss Stranje hire a Bow Street Runner to investigate. In my opinion, that sort of investigator would be of little use. They’ve no access to the higher circles of society, and I suspect there is something larger at work here. You’re certain you have no idea who these culprits are? Or what connection they might have to yourselves or the school?”
“Of course not.” I swallowed against the lie that turned my mouth dry as sand. “Why would I?”
His hat shaded dangerously intelligent eyes. Nevertheless, I could read the signs—in the skeptical tilt of his head, his cheek muscles flinching, and his eyebrows raised a millimeter too high. He didn’t believe me.
“How very perplexing.” He pursed his lips.
Sera wrapped her arm around my waist. “They were murderers and thieves. They must have assumed Miss Aubreyson came from a wealthy family and planned to extract a ransom.”
“That is possible.�
�� He continued to appraise me far too astutely. “Although, given her mode of dress, I find that unlikely. Why are you wearing a dress of that sort?” He also noted the ragged hem on Georgie’s dress. “What brought the two of you outside so early in the morning?”
“A walk,” I said tersely and rubbed my arms to keep warm.
“Precisely,” Georgie piped up. “We like to take a brisk walk in the cool of the morning before weeding the garden. You wouldn’t expect us to wear our Sunday best for that, now would you?”
“I suppose not. But if that’s the case, we must assume these men had been watching the house. How often is it your habit to perform these early morning activities, and…” Chadwick rattled off a string of questions, but my head throbbed and I found I could no longer listen. All I could see was the dead man with his skull blown half off.
It surprised me when Mr. Chadwick finally quieted for just a moment. He, too, stared at the dead man. “I still think it was a lucky thing your Miss Stranje was able to make that shot.”
Lucky?
I turned to stare out at the field where it had all begun. There was another man lying out there with a fatal wound in his chest. My dagger having done the deed. Lucky? There was nothing lucky in all this. I hated the word. It tasted like poison on my tongue. The pounding in my head grew nearly unbearable. I reached up to check the bump and was rewarded with a handful of matted hair and blood.
“Let me have a look at that.” Sera tugged my shoulder down so she and Maya could inspect the goose egg about to hatch on my skull.
“She needs rest,” Maya murmured to Sera. “The shock has been too much.”
Sera nodded and turned to my inquisitor. “Mr. Chadwick, look at how pale she is. She must lie down soon, or I’m afraid she’ll collapse right here on the drive. We must excuse ourselves and take Miss Aubreyson home straightaway.”
“Yes, certainly. My apologies. I should’ve noticed she’s worse off than she let on. I’ll help you—”
“Wait.” I turned and pointed down the lane. “There may be another man, back there, lying in the road. I don’t know if he’s dead or not. When Lord Ravencross fired his pistol, the horse reared and threw the rider. We couldn’t stop to check. Lord Ravencross’s injuries were too…” I stared down the length of my arm. Wine-colored streaks stained my sleeve. Gabriel’s blood was everywhere. Crusted and drying. I gaped at my outstretched arm. “Too severe.”
Shivers changed to quaking. I’m not the missish sort. Truly, I’m not. Nor do I have a weak stomach. Nevertheless, I felt as if I would vomit at any minute.
“I’m cold.” My plea sounded puny and weak even to my ears.
Mr. Chadwick whipped off his coat and draped it over my shoulders. He turned to Sera. “I’ll help you get her home.”
Sera brushed him away. “Thank you, no. We can manage.” Maya put a supporting arm around me on the other side.
Georgie wedged herself between us and him. “You’ve done quite enough for one morning, Mr. Chadwick. At any rate, aren’t you are obligated to stay here to meet your father and the coroner?”
“Yes, but…” He stood there looking more bewildered than ever as we trudged down the drive and started across the lawn toward Stranje House. Apparently, those excellent tutors of his had not taught him how to deal with young ladies.
Four
SECRETS
Mr. Chadwick called after us, “I didn’t mean to distress you. I hope you feel better tomorrow, Miss Aubreyson. We’ll call on you then, and perhaps you’ll be able to give us a more thorough account.”
Georgie took the lead as we pushed through the grass heading back to Stranje House.
“He asks too many questions,” I mumbled to Sera.
“Mmm,” she agreed, and glanced back over her shoulder. “He’s too curious by half. And unless I miss my guess, he’ll be like a dog with a bone until he solves this puzzle. We must come up with some suitably engaging answers.”
Jane met us where the two properties bordered as she was coming back from Stranje House. Philip, our footman, trailed behind her, carrying Miss Stranje’s doctoring bag and a stack of extra linens from our bandage closet. Immediately, she added the ewer and basin she carried to the footman’s stack and rushed to us. “What’s happened?”
Sera kept hold of my arm as she explained, “The blow to Tess’s head is worse than we thought. We’re taking her home.”
“Wait. I’ll help you.” Jane instructed the footman to hurry on to Ravencross Manor and take the equipment directly to Miss Stranje.
He left us and we continued on our way, but when we passed the undergrowth on Stranje House’s park, I stopped walking. “We may be making a mistake.” Something was gnawing at me. I needed to reconsider our hasty departure. “Sera, I think you ought to go back. Return Mr. Chadwick’s coat to him. Try to convince him that he needn’t come back tomorrow. You’ll think of something to say.” I pulled off his coat and held it out to her. “Please. I can’t bear any more of his questions. Besides, you can tell his father everything you saw without having to lie.”
“Tess has a point.” Georgie agreed with me for once. “Sera, you could help guide them as they investigate the scene. One of us really ought to be there to throw them off the scent. And it was obvious he respected you the most.”
“I don’t know.” She glanced back at the young man pacing on the drive. “What if he sees through me?”
I shivered without the warmth of his coat. “He won’t. You’re a girl. He’ll underestimate you. They always do.”
“That’s right.” Jane patted Sera’s arm. “You’ll think of something to keep them from looking too closely at what goes on at Stranje House. You’re the best of us at strategy.”
“I’m not as convinced as you are that he’ll underestimate me. And Jane, everyone knows you’re better at strategy than I am. You’re just trying to convince me to go stick my neck out.”
Jane didn’t argue. She simply glanced to her feet and shifted uncomfortably. “Perhaps, but you’re definitely better at pointing out details they might not notice, or knowing which of those clues might be to our advantage if they didn’t notice.”
Sera sighed. “Very well, I’ll do my best.” With a determined nod, she snatched the coat from me, turned, and marched back to Ravencross Manor like a soldier bravely headed off to war.
Jane pushed aside the branches of a scrub oak and we pressed on to Stranje House. Georgie took Sera’s place, and I leaned closer to her. “You do realize it was you they were after?”
Her eyes squeezed tight for a minute as if she could keep the truth out that way.
She needed to face it. “I heard them say so. They’d been told to nab the girl with the red hair, and the person who gave them their orders was female. La comtesse.”
Georgie caught her breath. “A countess, then—”
“Daneska!” Jane finished for her.
“Undoubtedly,” I said. “She’d also told them she’d pay extra if they killed Lord Ravencross.” I shivered even more violently, but this time not from feeling cold. “Why would she want him killed?”
Worry flashed between Georgie and Jane, followed by a conspiratorial expression that set warning bells clanging almost as loud as the drumming in my head. They were hiding something.
“What is it?” I demanded. But they remained buttoned up tighter than clams out of water. It didn’t matter, I would fish it out of them eventually.
Jane tried to smooth over the uncomfortable silence. “You know why. She’s hated him ever since Möckern, when he…” She trailed off.
Möckern.
The battlefield where Lord Ravencross was wounded the first time.
The day Lady Daneska’s paramour died.
I’d lived it in a dream. No, not a dream, a recurring nightmare that haunted me long before I’d actually met Ravencross. Three times I’d dreamt of that ghastly humid battlefield in Möckern. I could still see the insides of the ramshackle farmhouse where they fought. Could st
ill smell it. That house stank of rot, mold, and the coming storm. Three times I lived through that sword fight between the brothers. Two men on opposite sides of the war, one loyal to England, and the other, leader of the Iron Crown, Napoleon’s secret order of knights.
Gabriel’s older brother almost killed him that day. Sliced his leg nearly in two. An injury he still carries. Anyone else would have died.
Not him.
Gabriel does not die easily. I prayed that today it would remain true.
His brother, Lucien, had moved in for the death blow. Instead of giving up, Gabriel swung his sword around and delivered one last protective thrust. Lucien collapsed like a toppled tree. His cheek struck the splintered floorboards, and his mouth gaped open in bloody surprise, his eyes fixed in a wide death stare.
I could still see Lucien’s lifeless face. Could still feel Gabriel’s desolation. Three times I have awakened to a scream that still shreds my peace. Gabriel’s cry of anguish. Not for his own pain, but for having killed his only brother.
Of course, Daneska hated Ravencross for killing her lover. But I could tell Jane and Georgie were still holding something back, something that had to do with him, with Ravencross. “What are you hiding? Tell me.”
I glared at them, annoyed that they would try to keep a secret from me. I would wiggle it out of them in time. Not today, though. Today I was weary, and my head hammered like a blacksmith reworking a bent horseshoe.
“We must concentrate on the matter at hand.” Georgie’s ploys are transparent. Obviously, she sought to distract me. “Think hard,” she wheedled. “Did you notice anything about your kidnappers that might lend us a clue?”
“I’m not Sera,” I grumbled. “I don’t remember details.”
“Try.”
We crossed through Miss Stranje’s gardens. A tangled mass of roses left to grow wild created a maze of thorns, calculated to discourage visitors from arriving in that direction. Georgie persisted with her questions. “There must be something you recall. Did they say anything else that might help us? Perhaps you noticed an accent?”
Exile for Dreamers Page 4
