The Witching Hour (Wiggons School #3) (Wiggons' School for Elegant Young Ladies) (The Wiggons' School for Elegan Young Ladies)

by Jane Charles

  Claudia did not answer, but her face began to burn.

  Tess and Natalie looked at each other and nodded.

  “What else do you enjoy that he’s done?” Natalie teased.

  “Nothing,” Claudia pretended to be scandalized, but she wasn’t about to let her friends know that he’d touched any part of her person. They’d end up telling their husbands and then Claudia would be forced, possibly at gun point, into marriage.

  Perhaps Atwood and Kazakov wouldn’t act in such a drastic manner, but they could threaten to tell Mrs. Wiggons. If there was even a hint of impropriety attached to Claudia, she’d lose her position and that would leave her with nothing.

  “We don’t believe you.” Tess grinned. “But we shan’t tell a soul. It is your secret.”

  Thank goodness.

  “Do you at least care about Westbrook?” Natalie asked with more seriousness.

  Claudia had to glance away. “Yes.”

  “Do you love him?” Tess asked.

  “I don’t know. How can I know?”

  “It’s here.” She placed a hand over her heart. “And here.” She placed a hand over her stomach. “What are those two things telling you?”

  “My head is telling me that it is impossible to love a gentleman after knowing him for so short a time.”

  “We didn’t ask about your head,” Natalie reminded her. “But your heart.”

  That was the problem. Her heart ached for Gabe, and her stomach had been in turmoil since she rejected him. It was only her head that told her that she was doing the right thing.

  “I think you have your answer,” Tess finally said.

  “Not that it matters now,” Claudia answered. “I’ve rejected him, and his sisters’ futures are more important. I’m sure he’ll be grateful for my decision once he returns to London. Besides, I’m still not certain he would have made the offer without the interference of your husbands.”

  Natalie glanced past her and a slow smile came to her lips. “By the way he’s watching you. I don’t believe Westbrook has given up just yet, or that our husbands needed to do much convincing.”

  Chapter 13

  Witches deny their baptisme which they Covenant with the Devill, water being the sole element thereof, and therefore saith he, when they be heaved into the water, the water refuseth to received them into her bosome, (they being such Muscreants to deny their baptisme) and suffers them to float, as the Froath of the Sea, which the water will not receive, but casts it up and downe till it comes to the earthy element the shore, and there leaves it to consume.

  ~ The Discovery of Witches by Matthew Hopkins, Witch-finder

  Perhaps her friends would be of assistance, Gabe thought to himself. From what he understood, they were very close. The gentlemen of Claudia’s acquaintance would be of no assistance. The more they insisted, the more defensive Claudia might become, especially after her reaction last evening.

  No, he needed to go about this differently. He just needed to determine the how.

  “Miss Morris,” one of the girls called, and he looked out over the ice.

  One of the students had fallen and another was having difficulty getting her back on her feet. Claudia, without skates, made her way to the shore then out across the pond where she helped the young woman stand, then steadied her.

  “The girls are not supposed to be out so far,” Atwood said as Gabe dismounted. “My groundskeeper and his men walked the ice before the students arrived to make sure it was safe, but I’m not at all comfortable with the girls skating out so far.” Atwood stepped away. “Stay closer to the shoreline!” he called.

  The students nodded. They were all having an enjoyable time, even Victoria and Olivia, who were a little wobbly but laughing.

  Gabe glanced back at Claudia, her cheeks bright pink from the cold and laughter in her blue eyes. Desire struck him as it often did when he gazed upon her.

  Claudia smiled as the girls skated back toward the shore. She took a step and her smile slipped with concern. She stepped again and stopped, he eyes rounded. “Girls, off the ice now!” she yelled.

  Everyone looked in her direction and Gabe ran to the shoreline, along with Atwood, Keegan, and Ashford.

  “What is it, Miss Morris?” Atwood called.

  “The ice is cracking.”

  Gabe’s heart lodged in his throat. She was too far away for him to reach out to her. Suddenly, her distance in the center of the pond seemed miles away.

  The adults on shore urged the girls to skate off the ice but Gabe stayed focused on Claudia. “Get a rope!” he demanded.

  “Hurry with the one we used this morning,” Atwood yelled.

  A moment later, Wesley thrust a rope in Gabe’s direction.

  “Stay where you are, Claudia!” Gabe called out.

  Her eyes met his. Her blue depths were full of fear, and he hoped she didn’t read the same in his.

  Ashford and Keegan went to work making loops in the rope. They’d gone through all forms of training when still at Oxford, and one of them happened to be a fall through ice because one could never be certain what danger they might encounter. He’d not had to employ this method of saving anyone but was grateful for the knowledge now and that his friends were here so they wouldn’t need to waste time in explaining.

  “What’s going on?” Kazakov called as he and Petrov came toward the pond.

  Atwood quickly explained, and they rushed forward to help.

  “All of you, get behind Keegan and hold onto the rope,” Gabe ordered.as he neared the edge of the ice. He held a looped end in one hand, the one he would put about Claudia. Another was tightened at his waist. Behind him, Ashford held tight to the rope, as did Keegan on shore, just letting enough out so he could move forward. The remaining gentlemen fell into line and took up part of the rope. Thank goodness they were here as they had the strength to pull both Gabe and Claudia from the water if the worst happened. He just hoped he made it to Claudia without incident, looped the rope around her waist, and led her back to shore without even a drop of water dampening her skirts.

  “Start walking toward me slowly,” Gabe told Claudia. “Stop if you fear it’s going to give way, and I will come to you.”

  She nodded and took a hesitant step, and he did the same. In this situation, one’s first instinct was to run, once they realized they were in danger, but running required more force, which could shatter the delicate ice. Thank goodness Claudia had remained where she was or this would be a water rescue. “Calm and slow,” he said.

  She nodded and took another step, as did Gabe.

  The progress was excruciatingly slow, and his heart pounded hard against his breastbone as sweat broke out on his brow. He couldn’t lose her. Not now.

  The danger Claudia currently faced brought everything he’d been thinking about into focus. He didn’t just want and need her. He had somehow fallen in love with her. It wasn’t something he’d question now. Not the reasons or the how, or how it could happen so quickly. None of that mattered. What did was that she could fall through the ice, and if he didn’t reach her in time, Claudia could be lost to him for good. Something he would not allow.

  He was almost to her, and Gabe held out the end of the rope. “When you can reach it, put the rope around your waist as I have done.”

  She nodded and took another step. He could hear the slight crack beneath her feet and held his breath. With each step she took, more of the ice crackled, as it had done since she started moving toward him, and Gabe prayed it was only surface ice and not the thicker ice below.

  He took a step. They were so close she could almost touch the rope.

  Claudia stepped again. In that instant the ice shattered, creating an opening back to where she’d first stood, and she dropped from his sight. Before he could grab her, the solid surface beneath Gabe disappeared, and he was plunged into the icy cold water. The rope at his waist jerked and he surfaced.

  “Loosen it,” he barked. He needed some give to go after Claud
ia, and he went down again, searching for her. She couldn’t be that far away. They were right next to each other.

  Then he saw a flash of material sinking, and he dove further, grasped at the material and hauled it up.

  A hand gripped his wrist and he grasped onto her, pulling her back toward the surface. As he was certain they’d break through the water, he was met with ice instead. Had they moved so far away from the break?

  Panic rose because he knew he had to get her out of the water before there was no more air in her lungs.

  Gabe yanked hard on the rope, hoping they understood that he needed help and would pull him to an opening. He then pulled himself along the rope, butting his head against the ice above, and holding tight to Claudia. His lungs burned from lack of oxygen, and she’d been under longer than he. Just as he thought they weren’t going to make it, his head broke the surface and he gulped in air, and Claudia gasped beside him and then coughed. He hoped she’d only swallowed some water as she went under because if she had breathed it in then he’d come far too close to losing her.

  He swam toward the edge of the ice with one arm around Claudia’s waist as Ashford belly crawled toward them until they met at the edge of the ice. Gabe put the rope about Claudia’s waist then nodded for Ashford to pull her from the water.

  His legs and feet were growing numb from the cold water but he wasn’t going to try and pull himself onto the ice until they’d moved Claudia further toward the shore. When the rope that linked him to Claudia grew taut at his waist, he had no choice. Trying to use as little weight as possible, he pushed himself up onto the ice, only to have it shatter again, but this time he held himself above the water.

  The ice began to splinter again, and they ceased all movement for a moment.

  Gabe untied the rope from his waist but wrapped the end around his wrist which allowed Claudia to move closer to shore.

  “Help her to shore!” he ordered, his teeth chattering

  “What of you?” Ashford demanded. “You can’t stay in the water.”

  “We can’t have her plunging in again if the ice breaks beneath her.” This was not the time to argue. Claudia’s safety was above everything else right now.

  Keegan made his way slowly to the ice then assisted Claudia back to shore. She could barely walk after nearly freezing to death. Once she was safe, Ashford backed away, the men tightened the rope, and Gabe pushed himself back onto the ice. Even though he was no longer surrounded by freezing water, he wasn’t any warmer.

  Ashford backed to the shore, holding the rope and Gabe followed, also keeping tight to the rope in case the ice buckled again. Keegan handed Claudia off to Lady Atwood, who wrapped a blanket around her. She was safe, and that was all that mattered.

  Now, he just had to make it back to shore. “I hope you have some brandy!” he called to Atwood.

  “As much as you need,” the viscount yelled back as Gabe neared the edge of the pond, Ashford by his side. Keegan and Atwood were there waiting.

  In a blink, he was wrapped in blankets and being led up the slope leading to the manor. He’d seen Claudia practically carried in that direction as well. They both needed to be out of the cold air and out of their wet clothes.

  Victoria and Olivia rushed forward, tearstained tracks on their cheeks. He tried to muster a smile, but he was exhausted. “I’m fine.”

  “We thought we’d lost you.”

  With that, they threw their arms around him. Gabe held them close for a moment. Another reason to be glad he hadn’t died today. They’d be left with no one if he was gone.

  It was as though his life suddenly had clarity. Yes, he enjoyed his work and had never feared for his life, but he also accepted the possibility that he could be killed at any time. However, more than his life was in peril. He could not leave this world until Olivia and Victoria were settled. For that very reason, after this mission was complete and he’d captured the French spies, he was resigning his position.

  Claudia trembled with cold and fear. Neither the blankets, nor her friend’s arms around her offered much warmth. Never had she been so cold in her life or so afraid. She had been certain she was about to die the moment she crashed through the ice. Gabe hadn’t reached her yet, and her heavy skirts drug her even deeper into the pond. No matter how much she kicked and tried to reach the surface, the weight drug her down. If Gabe hadn’t grabbed the edge of her cloak, she’d be very much dead at the bottom of Atwood’s pond.

  At least the girls were safe, but what of Gabe?

  Tess and Natalie had engulfed her with blankets and started moving her toward the manor before he was off the ice. She couldn’t leave until she knew he was safe.

  Claudia stopped and jerked away from her friends.

  “We need to get you inside,” Tess insisted.

  “N-not u-until he’s off the ice.” Shivering, Claudia turned, just in time to see him fall through the pond once more. A scream lodged in her throat and even though Tess and Natalie tried to get her to move toward the manor, Claudia wouldn’t move an inch until she knew for certain Gabe was safe.

  The moments ticked by as she watched them painstakingly pull Gabe out of the water once again and up toward the shore. It wasn’t until he grasped the strange gentleman’s hand and stepped onto shore that she breathed a sigh of relief and allowed her friends to take her inside.

  Mrs. Zobard, Atwood’s housekeeper, was waiting just inside the entry for them and hustled Claudia up the stairs and into a chamber where four maids were waiting. They stripped her of the wet and frozen clothing before wrapping her hair in a towel and pulling a nightgown over her head. One maid pulled back the covers on the bed and another tucked her in as Mrs. Zobard added a bed warmer that had been sitting next to the fire raging in the fireplace.

  Claudia tried to focus and help, but she was so numb and cold from her toes to her hair. She had no more energy than the rag doll she’d found in the belvedere. The maids and Mrs. Zobard worked so quickly and with such efficiency that everything had practically been done in the blink of an eye. Or perhaps it only seemed so since she’d lost all sense of time.

  Tess helped her sit and then Natalie fluffed her pillows so that Claudia was no longer lying down. Then a cup of tea was placed against her lips and she drank, welcoming the warmth as it coated her raw throat. She hadn’t even realized it was sore until she drank. Was it from swallowing cold pond water or her scream from right before she went under?

  She drained the contents, and Tess took the cup away to refill it.. Thank goodness her friend held the cup for her because Claudia still shook, and she’d have spilled it all over the covers.

  She emptied the cup again and leaned back. Slowly, the warmth was beginning to seep into her body from the blankets and the tea. “Gabe?” she asked, needing to know he was going to be well. He had been standing on the shore when she’d seen him last, but that didn’t mean he’d made it into the house.

  “He’s in another chamber,” Tess said. “Wesley is seeing to his care as we are seeing to yours.”

  She tried to nod that she understood, but her head was too heavy. Exhaustion liked she’d never experienced before seeped into every part of her being until it was impossible to lift her eyelids. It was pulling her into sleep, much like her skirts had pulled her deeper into the water, but this time Claudia didn’t fight against the forces.

  “Miss Morris is not yet a witch,” Eliza proclaimed once they’d taken their teacher and Westbrook up to the manor.

  “Come along, girls, we are returning to the school,” Miss Hamilton called. She was a newer teacher and had taken over the classes Lady Atwood had once taught.

  The three girls followed behind the other students, slowly, falling further back so that their discussion could be held in private but in sight of their teachers if they turned to look.

  “What makes you say so?” Rosemary asked quietly.

  “Remember how we read that the water will reject the body of a witch as the witch had rejected the waters
of baptism?”

  Sophia nodded. She remembered reading that part.

  “The waters did not reject Miss Morris,” Eliza reminded them. “But they did Westbrook.”

  “A rope was tied at his waist, and he was pulled to the surface,” Sophia reminded them.

  “The rope was loose when he emerged the first time,” Eliza said. “They were holding onto it but not pulling it. The waters pushed him out but allowed him to save Miss Morris.”

  “She’s right.” Rosemary’s curls bobbed with a vigorous nod of her head.

  Sophia tried to form an argument that neither of them were witches, and now it was obvious that Miss Morris was not, but what proof did she have to dispel the belief that Westbrook was?

  There wasn’t anything. No matter how hard she’d thought on it, what she’d witnessed herself, and what they’d read, there was nothing to suggest that he was not a warlock.

  “How are we to save Miss Morris?” she finally asked upon realizing it was not too late for their teacher.

  “We’ll figure it out,” Eliza said with confidence. “If anything, we’ll watch and learn. Something is bound to occur to us.”

  That was what Sophia feared. Whenever something occurred to Eliza, it was usually too outrageous to be believed. Though she had very little choice in this instance as Sophia had no idea how they were to protect their teacher and rid the area of witches.

  “Do you think the two gentlemen with him are warlocks as well?” Rosemary asked.

  Sophia gasped. The idea hadn’t even occurred to her. Was Westbrook having such a difficult time conquering Miss Morris that he’d sent for assistance? Had they been part of the virgin sacrifice? All manner of scenarios popped in her mind, frightening her near to death.

  Goodness! She was getting to be as bad as Eliza, Sophia chastised herself. “I’m sure they are merely friends or acquaintances.”

  As they neared the gentlemen, who stood in conversation with Mr. Kazakov, Sophia took a closer look and then sucked in a breath. She knew them. Well, not personally, but each had visited with her father in private. Only gentlemen associated with his work in the Home Office did so. At least those who were strangers to the family and not neighbors.