Exile for Dreamers

by Kathleen Baldwin

  He had been.

  “I doubt he’ll be coming back anytime soon.” There was a tinge of spite in Alice’s twangy voice, and I was heartily glad when she finished filling the lamps and took herself off.

  He wouldn’t be coming back.

  I don’t know whether it was my heart or my stomach, or maybe both, but some part of me sank. Nay, part of me slid down like spilt lamp oil, dripping all the way through the floorboards, straight down into the sea churning in the caves beneath Stranje House.

  Apparently I was not as indifferent as I’d boasted to myself, and not nearly cold-blooded enough to do the job ahead of me.

  I reminded myself that I had no future. Not with Gabriel, or anyone. Unfortunately, the heart does not care about logic. I reasoned with myself there was no sense prolonging the pain. Gabriel was bound to abandon his chase sooner or later. It might as well be today. But as I accepted this fist of wisdom, a dull ache started in the pit of my stomach, spread to my chest, and then journeyed on a bruising path to my head.

  I missed him.

  Eighteen

  SAINTS AND TRAITORS

  Late that night, the five of us tiptoed up the narrow passage behind the oak paneling in our dormitorium, climbing up to our secret room in the attic. I perched in the window seat, studying Ravencross Manor through our telescope. The two men MacDougal hired were traversing the grounds around the perimeter of the house. I guessed the third man, farmer Jason’s son, would be sitting in the chair where MacDougal had slept the night I’d climbed through the window. I wondered if he would be able to stay awake and alert to intruders better than MacDougal had. Perhaps I might just check. If I timed my approach carefully, the guards on the grounds wouldn’t see me. I could scale the wall and …

  Sera came up beside me and whispered in my ear, “That would be an excellent way to get shot.”

  “Are you a mind reader now?”

  “No.” She grinned. “But you’ve trained the spyglass on his sentries’ movements and tapped the seconds between their rounds with your forefinger. I’ve known you long enough to hazard a guess at what you were contemplating.”

  Sera was right. If these men were any good at their task, I could get shot. Still, it might be worth the risk.

  She shook her head.

  “You’re happy about it, aren’t you?” I reproached her quietly enough that the others couldn’t hear. “Don’t try to deny it. You’re smiling.”

  Her smile vanished and she looked genuinely stricken. “I’m not. Why should I be happy about something that brings you pain?”

  “Because you’ve always had a tendre for him.”

  “Perhaps I did once. But your happiness means more to me than any infatuations I may have foolishly woven about him. I see now that you two are more suited.”

  Saint Seraphina. She would be good like that. Why couldn’t she be vicious and mean? I needed someone to squabble with, not someone gentle and tender and kind. And because I remembered how Mr. Chadwick made her blush, wicked creature that I am, I decided to point out her failings where it concerned him.

  “You ought to be more careful around Mr. Chadwick. I’ve seen the way you look at him.” I collapsed the spyglass. “He may seem cheerful and innocent, but don’t let him fool you. He’s a clever one, and he suspects something isn’t normal here.”

  “I already know that. You needn’t scold me. I’m scolding myself enough. I don’t know why I behave so foolishly in his presence.” She sat down on the opposite side of the window seat, making me scoot my feet out of the way. “Whenever I’m around him, I feel so unsettled. I lose my way. As if the world suddenly tilts sideways.”

  Oh, that feeling.

  I looked at her with genuine empathy. “That bad?”

  “No. That’s not it,” she protested. “I can tell what you are thinking. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I’m not attracted to him. He’s nothing like Lord Ravencross.”

  “No one is like him,” I said curtly, fuming a little. It still bothered me whenever she said things like that.

  “No one is,” she agreed too readily. “He’s so brutish and manly.”

  I rolled my eyes. “That’s what you like about him?”

  “Well…” She glanced sheepishly at me. “That … and the fact that he’s such a wounded soul. My heart nearly breaks every time he—”

  “Stop! I don’t want to hear your moonstruck fantasies about him,” I blurted too loudly. The others hushed their conversation around the lamp and looked at us. “You read too many books, Sera. We all know how you’ve idealized Ravencross. You’ve painted him as some sort of Gothic hero. He’s not. He’s just a man with flaws and virtues. A man like any other. Your Mr. Chadwick, for instance.”

  “That’s just it. Quinton Chadwick has no flaws.” She curled her knees up and hugged them. Moonlight caught on her hair, and she looked exactly how I imagined the fairy princesses of old must’ve looked. “He hasn’t a battle scar on him. He’s led a perfect life, hasn’t he? His parents are kind and understanding. They’ve encouraged him in his education. Hired tutors. I’m certain he has never been locked in a closet with only bread and water.”

  I shouldn’t have said anything to that. It was grossly unfair how abysmally her parents had treated her. But even so, she was being far too hard on Chadwick.

  “You surprise me, Sera.” I shook my head softly. “Usually you are the one who notices every little speck. You see the tiniest thread out of place and deduce where someone has been and what they were doing. Except, when it comes to Mr. Chadwick—you seem to have covered your eyes.” I twisted the spyglass, extending it out again. “We all fight battles within ourselves. Why can you not see his?”

  Jane admonished me from her seat across the room. “Leave her be.”

  Sera stared at me for a moment, then laid her head atop her knees. “I admit he confuses me. One minute I would like to give him a good shake, and the next minute I find myself wanting to impress him. It’s all very unnerving.” She turned to stare out the window. “Even though it’s not true, I tell myself I never want to see him again, and that I hope he never darkens our door—”

  The shutter caught on the breeze and banged shut.

  Suddenly I saw myself in the entry hall downstairs and Mr. Chadwick pounding on our door, shouting for admittance. The door flew open. Panic distorted his features, panic, terror, and pure anguish.

  The vision vanished and my hands fell open with shock, the telescope rolled from my lap.

  Sera lunged and caught it before it hit the floor. “Tess, what is it?”

  I clung to her arm and stared into her worried face.

  “You saw something, didn’t you?”

  I couldn’t tell her. I wasn’t sure what I’d seen, or what it meant. It was probably nothing. “I just got a little dizzy, that’s all.”

  Her eyes narrowed. She knew I wasn’t telling the truth.

  I left the window and we joined Maya, Jane, and Georgie in the circle around our lamp. I told them of my hunt for Daneska and Ghost and about Miss Stranje’s plan to send men to nearby villages and neighborhoods in search of newcomers.

  But I did not tell them of my plan to kill Ghost.

  Jane estimated our odds of finding them before they tried to breach Stranje House at roughly two hundred to one. Bleak.

  “You can’t quantify things like that,” I argued. But silently, I resolved that if I couldn’t find Ghost before he attacked us, I would have to settle on ending his life the minute he showed up at Stranje House.

  The discussion turned to what we ought to do once we captured them. No one mentioned the obvious. Not one of them suggested we put an arrow through Ghost’s treacherous heart.

  Why should they? They were good and kind. Unlike me. I was ruthless and hard as stone. I kept silent and let them make their feeble, ineffectual plans.

  Punch and Judy tumbled and played in my lap, chasing one another up and over my shoulder and down again. I fed them extra bread, since I
wasn’t certain whether or not my hunt during the next few days would take me far from home. Perhaps forever, if I failed. There were risks to my plan, but I couldn’t allow Lucien to destroy Gabriel’s life.

  No matter the cost.

  What was death to me? What difference would it make if it arrived now rather than a few years hence?

  The moon sank low and Jane blew out our flickering oil lamp. We climbed the crumbling hidden staircase back down to bed. I laid my head on the pillow, awaiting a dream that would show me my enemy. A dream more useful than gigantic waves, or mystical green water. Sleep was slow to come. When one watches the pot, it takes forever to boil.

  I closed my eyes, willing myself to dream about that traitor Daneska. Hoping for anything that might give me a clue to their whereabouts. Except, after tossing and turning for what felt like hours, dreams did not come. Only sleep. Fitful, restless, uninformative sleep. On any other night, I would’ve rejoiced, but I awoke in the wee hours of the morning troubled by all the peacefulness. The clock chimed four. In that drowsy state I accepted my temporary defeat and told myself to return to the comforts of slumber. No sooner had I sunk under the covers than noises downstairs roused me again. I opened my eyes, uncertain if I was in the midst of a dream or simply waking.

  I heard voices. Distant and soft. They sounded real. But then, my dreams always feel real. That’s the mind-snapping horror of them. The deaths I experience are not weak imitations. I sat up and walked toward the sound. Tiptoeing out of our bedroom, I saw candlelight flickering downstairs and went to the railing that overlooked the foyer.

  Greaves, garbed in a wrapper and his nightcap, stood in the hall holding aloft a branch of candles. Miss Stranje looked much the same, obviously freshly disturbed from her night’s rest, and yet she was greeting guests. I blinked sleep from my eyes and tried to focus on the dim scene below. A fair-haired gentleman, sea weathered and strong took Miss Stranje’s hand and bowed over it. I knew him. That was Captain Grey, her childhood friend, a distant relative of some kind who has taken her father’s place among the ranks of England’s diplomats. A man, who on every occasion of our meeting, had earned my deepest respect and loyalty. Next to him paced a younger gentleman, tall and equal in height to the captain, but opposite in coloring and temperament. I knew instantly by the way his dark hair gleamed in the candlelight and his impatient stride that it was Captain Grey’s colleague, Lord Wyatt.

  They’d come home. My heart surged up happily until I spotted a third guest hanging back in the shadows. Instantly, my blood turned to fire. I could scarcely breathe. My fists molded into hot steel. I ran down the stairs heedless of the fact that I wore a nightgown.

  Daneska!

  She was bound and had a gag in her mouth. But there was no disguising the laughter in her eyes when she saw me. She was caught, trussed up like a rabbit for roasting, and yet Daneska still wore her usual haughty expression, as if the rest of us were simply fools placed on earth for her entertainment. Daneska’s eyes are the color of winter ice. They reflect her heart. I used to think her coldness was born out of the loss of her mother, like my anger. But no. She’d been born cold, this one. A bloodless reptile.

  She would murder the man I loved without a second thought. I charged straight at her, grabbed her throat, and rammed her into the oak paneling. I squeezed her perfect white neck and roared, “Where is he? Where’s Lucien?”

  It didn’t matter that she had a gag in her mouth. Nor that I was squeezing the life out of her. She still managed to smirk at my fury.

  Miss Stranje grabbed my arm and wrenched it away. Hard. “She can’t tell us anything if she’s dead.”

  She and Captain Grey held me back. “Calm yourself, Tess.” Miss Stranje lowered her tone and spoke to me as if she were in the parlor serving tea. “I’m certain Lady Daneska will be delighted to tell you everything she has been doing, and catch you up on all the latest gossip about who has gone where, or done what, in the morning.”

  I had no time for Miss Stranje’s headmistress nonsense. I turned to Captain Grey and begged for answers. “Ghost—he was with her. Did you catch him, too?” I bit my tongue to keep from asking, Did you kill him? Oh, please God, let him be dead.

  The captain looked tired and worn. There was a cut on his left cheek and his knuckles were bleeding. He looked over my shoulder at Miss Stranje. There was an apology in his eyes. Regret. Shame. “He got away.”

  I moaned.

  “Why did you bring her here?” I could barely keep from crying. Except these were not tears of sadness. My eyes watered with rage. “Why isn’t she at London Tower with her head chopped off?” I spun back to her. “That’s what they do with traitors, you know. They’ll put your wicked head on a pike.”

  Daneska’s perfect composure broke for an instant. Only an instant. All too quickly her cold, smug confidence returned. Like a beady-eyed albino adder.

  After all, a snake does not worry that the rats might conspire against it.

  Take care, Daneska, I shall be your mongoose.

  One day I would put a stop to the haughtiness that burned in her eyes.

  Miss Stranje spoke openly to Captain Grey just as if Satan’s half sister wasn’t standing right there listening. “Then you must’ve received our pigeon?”

  “Yes.” He glanced at his prisoner. “After Calais we tracked the two of them along the north coast of France into Belgium. We’d lost their trail a week ago, in Antwerp. It made perfect sense that they had snuck back into Britain to lay the groundwork for an invasion.”

  When he said the word “invasion,” Daneska’s gaze shot to him. Suddenly alert. Alarmed. An instant later she whipped her attention back to me. “You,” she uttered around the gag.

  I lifted my chin, pleased that even though her assumption wasn’t true, I had partially undone her arrogance.

  “We brought her here for questioning.” Captain Grey set his hat on the entry table. “I thought it would be best. With her being a young lady, the government might be reluctant to question her as thoroughly as the situation warrants. I’ll take her on to London in a day or two. But first, we thought it best if you were to … er…”

  “House her,” Lord Wyatt offered.

  “Yes, of course.” Miss Stranje glanced at Daneska.

  “Oh, yes.” I crossed my arms. “I suppose we have a moldy dungeon below stairs that ought to do for her. She won’t mind the rats.”

  Daneska laughed. She couldn’t help herself. She thinks everything is so blasted amusing.

  “Tess!” Miss Stranje sounded as if she was scolding me.

  Me?

  When there stood the criminal. There! Scold her.

  “Ungraciousness does not become you, Miss Aubreyson. Lady Daneska is a guest here at Stranje House. Royalty. As such, we will treat her with as much hospitality as she did Lord Wyatt in Calais.”

  A flash of panic washed over Daneska’s impenetrable mask. Rightly so, for she had starved and tortured him. If we had not rescued him when we did he would be dead.

  “A dungeon is too good for her.” I brooded. “She can rot in her own excrement for all I care.”

  For some reason, that cheered Daneska up. The words were a bit muffled from beneath her gag, but I knew exactly what she’d said, “Ah, Tessie, ma chère. You still care.”

  Miss Stranje was not impressed with either of us. “Greaves, if you will please locate our irons. I believe you will find an extra set in the discipline chamber. And prepare the small guest room in the chambers below stairs.”

  That got Daneska’s attention. Not alarm, but indignation twisted her features. She deserved better than the dungeons.

  I smiled.

  At the top of the stairs, a very sleepy Georgie emerged from the dormitorium, rubbing her eyes. “Who’s here? I thought I heard…”

  Lord Wyatt saw her on the landing and his face brightened, so much I thought for a moment our candles must have flared.

  “Sebastian!” Georgie flew down the stairs and, completely
ignoring propriety, threw her arms around his neck.

  Miss Stranje ought to have scolded her. And when they kissed, she ought to have demanded a marriage proposal out of him. Instead, she looked on with a melancholy so full of soft sorrow that my own chest began to ache. Her gaze drifted to Captain Grey and immediately fluttered to the floor.

  “A-hem.” The captain cleared his throat.

  Lord Wyatt and Georgie remembered themselves and pulled apart. Georgie stood back, shyly studying her naked toes. “Welcome home, Lord Wyatt, Captain Grey.” Then she took stock of our other guest. “And Lady Daneska.” She bobbed a curtsey and glanced pointedly at the ropes binding Daneska’s wrists. “Lovely of you to call. I don’t believe I have ever seen you in better looks.”

  If I had said that, Daneska would’ve laughed at my attempt to humble her. But because it had come from Georgie, her eyes narrowed viciously. She’d disliked Georgie from the start. But now, after having been robbed by her in Calais of two coveted prizes, the invisible ink formula and Lord Wyatt, she appeared to have formed a rather venomous hatred of our newest student.

  Miss Stranje ordered the two of us upstairs to dress appropriately. “Captain Grey and Lord Wyatt have been traveling all night. I’m certain a rest is in order.”

  She took a firm hold of our prisoner’s arm. “Come along, Lady Daneska. You may enjoy the young ladies’ company after they have breakfasted.”

  Nineteen

  PLOTTING

  Daneska was here. Here. Everything had changed.

  Long before dawn I went for my run, far too early for Georgie to come with me. Wind blew up from the sea, bringing a salty chill to the air as I traversed the cliff tops. Wispy silver clouds skirted through the dark sky, racing me. The tide was high, and every time the surf crashed against the rocks, I would burst forward as if some invisible hand pushed me faster and faster.

  I loved the salt air whipping against my face and the feeling that nothing else mattered but running. The simple act of flinging one foot in front of the other and speeding past stones and cliffs and trees, all the things that had stood far longer than I had lived—that simple act washed away the turmoil in my mind in a way that a thousand baths could not.