“Where—” Telaine asked, mumbling through her frozen face.
“No talking until we get you taken care of. Sit up for just a moment.” Eleanor removed the boots and peeled the sodden bodysuit away from her chest and over her hips until she lay there in her underpants and brassiere and wool socks. She took Telaine’s socks and stripped off her soaked undergarments and patted her dry.
“Scoot over onto these blankets. Good. Hope, if you can keep from wiggling, you can cuddle up with Lainie and help her get warm. Take off your dress first.” A warm body that did wiggle a little snuggled in against her side. Eleanor tucked several layers of blankets around her and covered her head with a knit cap. “You’re going to need this.” She lifted Telaine’s head and put something warm and dry behind her neck.
Telaine shook so hard she was afraid her teeth might fall out. Hope grasped her across the stomach and squeezed. “Don’t be afraid. This happens to lots of people,” she whispered.
Eleanor took Telaine’s hands out of the blankets and looked at them. “Tuck those under your armpits and leave them there until I say,” she said.
She lifted Telaine’s feet one at a time. “Fern, do we have some hot water? Get the big pan and mix in snow until it’s just more than room temperature.” Soon someone lifted her feet and placed them in a burning hot bath of water. She whimpered. “Don’t worry, that means your feet are warming up,” said Eleanor.
“Ma?” shouted Liam from somewhere far away. “If she’s decent, we got a very worried fellow up here wants to come down.”
“All right, Ben Garrett, but don’t you disturb her,” Eleanor warned. Footsteps pounded down the stairs, and Telaine opened her eyes to see Ben’s upside-down face in front of her.
“Still alive,” she said, and although he began to speak, rapidly and with feeling, she drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
She woke, confused at how the ceiling was too far away, then after a moment realized she was lying in front of the fire in Eleanor’s house. The great room was lit only by the flames in the hearth, making it feel warm and comforting. Her bedmate was gone and her dry, warm feet were under the blankets. Her hands, still tucked in her armpits, were warm and flexible, as were her toes. She thought she had never truly appreciated being warm before.
She stretched, and discovered she was still naked. Her hands hurt when she opened them, and she saw they were covered with scratches and the beginnings of a couple of bruises. Pain, another thing she’d never appreciated, welcome because it meant she was still alive.
Eleanor, doing something at the fire, looked over and smiled.
“Nice to see you conscious again,” she said in a low voice. “Everyone’s asleep. Past midnight, I think, but I couldn’t rest until I was sure you were well.” She bent over and wiggled Telaine’s toes, making her giggle. “Show me your fingers.” Telaine waved them at her.
“Don’t mind telling you that you were lucky,” Eleanor went on. “Much longer and hypothermia would’ve killed you. And I don’t want to know about that thing you were wearing. Might’ve killed you quicker.”
“It’s a design flaw,” Telaine said, “and I plan to fix it. It wasn’t that wet until I fell down a few times.”
“You’re well and that’s all that matters,” Eleanor said. “But I don’t understand what you were doing out there in the first place. Didn’t even know you were gone.”
Aunt Weaver. “I have to go home. Aunt Weaver has no idea where I am.”
Eleanor shook her head. “You’d be lost before you took three steps out that door. No way to let her know until the storm passes. Don’t worry.”
“All she knows is that I left.”
“And where did you go, that you were caught by the storm? Even you must have known it was coming.”
“I—” She considered her words for a moment. “I think I should wait for Ben and Liam to wake up before I tell that story. Don’t want to tell it twice. Or three times.”
“Kill me with curiosity,” Eleanor said without malice. “You want some porridge? Don’t know how hungry you are.”
“Very. I missed supper and then I tried to kill myself walking around in a snowstorm.”
“I’ve got some things to say to you about that,” Ben said, sitting down beside her. “Mind if I disrupt your patient, Eleanor?”
“Nothing wrong with her now that porridge won’t cure.”
Ben wrapped the blankets around Telaine more securely and lifted her to lean against him, putting his arms around her. She closed her eyes and snuggled into his strong embrace. “Why aren’t you in your own house?”
“Because this storm is like to last four days or more, and it’s not right being all alone for that long,” Eleanor said. “Happen you start hearing voices.”
“I ought to ask you why you aren’t in your own house,” Ben said. “That was a stupid thing to do.”
“Don’t be too angry. I saved a life today,” Telaine said.
“What?”
“Don’t bother,” said Eleanor. “She says she won’t tell the story until Liam’s awake too.”
“Then I’m going to wake Liam up.”
“Liam’s already awake because you people won’t stop nattering,” said Liam, sliding onto the long bench. “What’s the story?”
“Porridge first,” Telaine said, and the men groaned. She ate quickly, handed off the bowl, and told them what had happened, starting with her having heard a rumor about the Baron being the one who took the children.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone? Would’ve saved Sarah being taken in the first place,” Eleanor said.
“I…wasn’t sure how true it was.” The most despicable lie she’d told, but the actual reasoning she and Aunt Weaver had done included facts she couldn’t tell them. “And I thought, with Morgan not there to do the snatching, the Baron might not do it again before he could be taken in charge. I didn’t count on anyone walking voluntarily into his trap.”
She went on through entering the manor, giving Sarah her clothes, and seeing her head off down the path toward Longbourne before setting off along the forest’s edge. When she’d finished describing her journey, her three listeners sat silent.
“That…was brilliant,” Liam said.
“It was foolish. And lucky.” Ben’s arms tightened around her.
“I don’t suppose you know if Sarah made it home before the storm hit?” Telaine asked.
Eleanor shook her head. “Didn’t even know she was missing. Didn’t know you were missing. We were occupied getting ready for this last big storm.”
Telaine sat up and was restrained by someone who wasn’t willing to let her go yet. “The last storm?”
“This is the one. Then we wait for the passes to clear and we’re connected to the downside world again.” Ben looked down at her, upside down, and made a funny face that Telaine realized was a smile when it was right way round. “And you can make that trip to Aurilien.”
“But—” Liam said. “You’re still going back?”
Telaine glared at Ben, willing him to stop talking. He might decide her deceptions were too much to take, and how humiliating for him if he had to explain why they weren’t getting married after all. But he didn’t take the hint. “She needs to see her family, is all,” he said.
Liam’s face cleared. “Thought you’d get married before that,” he said.
Telaine gasped. “Ben!”
“I didn’t say anything! We’re not even betrothed!” Ben looked as if he wanted to sink through the floor.
“You’re not?” Eleanor raised her eyebrows. “You sure have everyone fooled if you’re not.”
“Don’t you think that’s something we’d tell people?” Telaine exclaimed.
“We all figured you had your reasons,” Eleanor said. “I guess you want your folks’ approval first, huh?”
“Eleanor—” Telaine buried her face in her hands. She’d thought it would be an easy secret to keep. She hadn’t counted on
the observant eyes of hundreds of people all crammed together for the winter.
“We can’t be betrothed until her uncle gives permission,” Ben said. He’d apparently come to the same conclusion she had, which was that trying to keep this secret was pointless. “So we’re not spreading the news. See?”
“Not really,” said Liam.
“Yes,” said Eleanor. “And I think it’s time for all of us to get some sleep. Lainie, I have a dress you can wear, and you can sleep in Liam’s bed.” Liam protested, but half-heartedly. “You boys get off to the loft, now. Lainie, come with me.”
Eleanor’s dress was too short and was loose on Telaine in all the wrong places, but it was soft and better than wearing a shroud of blankets with nothing underneath. She slid into Liam’s bed and promptly fell asleep again.
One day passed, then another. Telaine became so used to the sound of the storm wailing and beating at the house that she stopped noticing it. She played games with the girls and listened to Ben and Liam and Liam’s brother Alex sing, helped Eleanor cook, which she did badly, tinkered with the bodysuit, and sat in front of the fire encircled in Ben’s arms, talking quietly into the night. The Baron and his earth mover and the planned invasion were so far away she was almost able to forget about them entirely. Even her anxiety over how Aunt Weaver must be worrying faded, as she eventually accepted there was nothing she could do to change that but wait.
With Sarah safe—and she insisted to herself Sarah was safe—and the earth mover sabotaged, Telaine relaxed and even indulged in some daydreaming. Next winter they could huddle up together in their own house. There might be a baby on the way. She’d learn to cook, or make Ben learn to cook, and she could build Devices all winter and he could do whatever it was he did when he was snowed in. And he wouldn’t need to drink Wintersmeet Eve away. The little voice that warned her not to take her future for granted faded nearly to silence.
At around noon on the fifth day Telaine was stirring a pot of soup she’d made all by herself when she realized the sound of the shrieking wind was gone, leaving her with a dull ringing in her ears. Then the younger Richardsons made a scrambling dash for the door, flinging it open and shouting their excitement into the still air.
A drift that had blown against the door fell in and buried Hope, who began to cry, but the others pushed over and past each other and stumbled and danced through the snowdrifts, shouting. The sky was a cloudless blue, not only cloudless but looking like it had never heard of such a thing as a cloud before. Up and down the main street people were poking their heads out of doors and windows and exclaiming that the snows were over and winter was drawing to a close. How they could be so certain, Telaine didn’t know, but she prayed they were right.
“I need boots. And a coat,” she said. She shivered, standing in the doorway wearing only Eleanor’s dress, and reached up to turn her bodysuit Device’s knob higher.
Ben looked at her feet, then swept her up and carried her off, shrieking and kicking and laughing, to Aunt Weaver’s home, taking her around to the back door and setting her neatly inside.
Aunt Weaver was standing by the fire, stirring the pot, and as the door slammed shut the spoon fell from her hand into the bubbling depths. “Merciful heaven,” she said. Then she shocked Telaine utterly by putting her arms around her and hugging her so tightly Telaine couldn’t breathe. She hugged her great-aunt back, unable to speak. “I thought you were dead,” Aunt Weaver whispered into her ear. “I was never going to forgive myself for letting you go.”
“It’s all right,” Telaine whispered back, “Sarah’s safe—I hope Sarah’s safe. I had to send her home a different way.”
“Tell me the story another time.” Aunt Weaver took up another long-handled wooden spoon and used it to fish the first one out. “Hope the two of you didn’t get into any mischief, canoodling all alone during the storm.” Her voice was rough and she kept her face turned away from them.
“We were at the Richardsons’,” Telaine said. “Where do the Andersons live?”
“Down the dressmaker’s street and first right, third house on the right. Hurry.”
“Wait here while I put on some actual shoes,” Telaine told Ben, glowering at his innocent expression, and ran up to her room. Her shoes weren’t suitable for the snow, but she didn’t have time to find a pair of boots in the morass of Aunt Weaver’s spare room.
She bounded down the stairs, two at a time, and raced out the door with Ben at her heels. Snow fell into her shoes and melted, leaving her feet wet, but she didn’t stop running until she reached Sarah’s house. Then she paused, afraid of what she’d find there. “She’s alive,” Ben said.
Telaine knocked. After a moment, Sarah answered the door.
They stared at each other, then Telaine wrapped her arms around the girl, who started to cry. “I thought you must be dead,” Sarah wept.
“I was afraid you’d been caught out in the storm,” Telaine said.
“You want to come on in here?” said a gruff voice. Sarah’s mother Susan.
They sat in a drawing room every bit as uncomfortable as Aunt Weaver’s. Maybe they were mass-produced somewhere. “Sarah told us everything,” her mother said. John Anderson stood behind her with one hand on her shoulder. “We owe you our daughter’s life.”
“I wish I’d known how to stop him,” Telaine said.
“Well, I do,” said Anderson. His voice was like the bass growl of a bear. “And I got a bunch of fellows who know how to stop him, too.”
“Please let the law have time to dispense justice,” Telaine said. “I know who to talk to, down mountain, and I promise they’ll come after him. Besides, he commands the soldiers at the fort, and his men are well armed. I would hate for any of you to come to grief.”
Sarah’s father looked as if he didn’t think the law’s justice would be better than his own, but eventually he nodded. “After the pass clears,” he said. “I expect you to be true to your word.”
“I will be.”
Sarah ran after them before they’d gotten more than a few steps away, carrying a bundle of clothes with Telaine’s boots piled atop it. “I found these in your boots,” she said, handing over the throwing knife Telaine had taken to carrying with her, to practice, and the flat black package holding her lock picks.
Ben looked at the packet curiously. “What’s that?”
“Just a few tools of the trade,” Telaine said.
They walked back to Aunt Weaver’s in silence, hand in hand. Telaine was adding justice for the Andersons, for all the children, to her plan, and she was startled out of her reverie when Ben said, “Don’t know how a man can sit still for having someone do that to his daughter. He’s stronger than I am.”
Telaine guessed he was thinking about their hypothetical daughter, and she wanted to ask him about it, but a tiny part of her still clung to the idea that she shouldn’t make those plans until she was safely retired. You haven’t listened to the voice of reason for weeks, she told herself. This whole adventure has been one compromise after another. Something’s bound to go wrong.
“Nothing’s going to go wrong,” she said aloud, and waved away his questions when he wanted to know what she was talking about. She wouldn’t let anything go wrong.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The next morning, the main street looked very different. Telaine sat halfway out her window and marveled at the change. People had pitched in the day before to clear the blanket of snow from the street, leaving a half-inch-thick layer now punctuated with footprints. Spaces between the houses and businesses lining the street were full to bursting with packed snow. Longbourne was serious about welcoming in spring as soon as possible.
“They clear the street and the crossroads so’s we can have a concert and a dance tonight,” Aunt Weaver explained at breakfast. “Only reason we have that gazebo. Happen you can persuade your young man to give us a few solos.”
“But the pass still isn’t open,” Telaine chafed. “I can’t settle down for
a concert knowing that.”
“Don’t see how fretting about it will open the pass any sooner.”
“You’re much calmer than I am. I don’t know how you do it.”
“I’m seventy-seven years old. Happen I’ve had plenty of practice.”
Telaine dressed warmly, ate, and discovered her usual path around the side of the house was blocked. She would have to use the front door. Outside, she squinted in the bright sun reflecting off the packed snow. The street was more than usually busy with people standing in small groups, talking and laughing. It felt like a holiday. Maybe it was, in Longbourne.
She set off up the street toward the forge, though she guessed Ben wouldn’t start the fire today. The sun had melted the snow enough the day before that it had frozen overnight into a thin crust that crunched pleasantly under her boots. She bent down to rearrange her throwing knife, which had slipped slightly and was pressing against the knob of her ankle. She and Ben could go for a walk, and maybe they could have a throwing contest. A walk, and dinner at the tavern…she was going to make herself relax if it took all day.
When she stood up, she saw movement in the distance, a mass of people moving toward Longbourne from the fort. Some of them were mounted. She shielded her eyes from the sun’s glare. Those people were marching. Soldiers.
Dread crept over Telaine, and she ducked out of sight behind the general store, as far as she could get with the mass of snow blocking the space between it and its neighbor. Soldiers coming into Longbourne had to be bad.
From her hiding place, she couldn’t see anything but people stopping what they were doing and turning to face the soldiers. She heard feet, and hooves, breaking through the crust, and the jingle of harnesses, then she heard a voice that sent an icy spear through her heart. “We’re here for Lainie Bricker.”
Morgan.
How was he here? Unless—Thorsten Pass was clear. No. Impossible. He had to have found another way back. Rapidly she went over her sabotage in her head—no, sweet heaven, if they’d worked out it was only overheating, there was all that snow—
Agent of the Crown Page 30
