by L Rollins
England had to be mistaken. Victor wasn’t sick. They just didn’t have the same details he did. She strode confidently toward the room she believed he was staying in. It was up to her to make sure England knew what Victor knew. She wasn’t going to give up on her friend for anything.
Leila lifted a hand toward the door handle but paused before entering. The young man she’d been in charge of the previous week had wholly believed his father said he could go for a swim in the stream. Gracious, she had been quite beside herself trying to subdue the fully-grown boy.
Boy—calling him such was almost laughable. The poor soul was nearly her own age. He ought to be out building himself a house. He ought to be starting his own shop or farm. He ought to be catching the notice of the young women in town. Not going mad and believing his father planned to spend the day teaching him how to swim.
Her heart ached for the young man, just as it ached for every soul who filled this dreaded castle.
If he could be so deceived, could the same be said for Victor? What if he was truly sick? How would Leila know if his skilled acting had twisted into horrid insanity? What if his belief that an individual was purposely perpetrating the illness was the very same type of madness that had driven the young man to believe he needed to jump in the stream?
Natalie had called it ‘confabulation’, when an individual wholeheartedly believed the lies their brain had formulated. Was Victor suffering from such now?
Leila’s hand dropped away from the doorknob and she strode down the hall. She needed a moment to think, to plan and organize her approach. She could believe Victor without proof. Or, she could do as her superiors instructed without conscious.
Or . . . Leila tapped her lip with her finger. She could assess Victor’s health herself.
She was a nurse after all. Well, a faux-nurse if one was technical about it. Nonetheless, she’d learned quite a bit over the past several weeks about how to assess patients. Even those who suffered from frequent bouts of confabulation never suffered from it every minute of every day.
Leila grasped her skirt tighter in her fist. Assessing the state of a patient’s current grasp on reality was something she had done more—
An arm wrapped tight against her waist, pinning her arms to her sides and hauling her backward. She let out a shriek. A hand pressed over her mouth, muffling the sound. A door banged open and she was forced into a dark, small room. The heel of her thin boots scrapped against the stone floor.
Leila twisted in the stranger’s grasp.
“It’s me. Calm down.”
Not a blooming chance would she—
“Leila!” a deep, yet familiar voice hissed.
She instantly stilled. Victor?
His grip lessened and Leila struggled to pull her feet back under her before he let her go completely.
He stepped back and she faced him fully. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t recognize you at first.”
He was breathing heavily and stood hunched over, hands on his knees. “How many times have I told you, even when surprised or afraid, you must keep your brainbox moving.”
He was right. She hadn’t recognized his voice at first because of the fear pulsing through her. Then again, he probably shouldn’t have grabbed her and dragged her unwillingly into—she glanced around and, despite the dark, noticed shelves of bedding—a dark linen closet.
“Have you heard back from London?” he asked.
Leila followed his lead and kept her voice low. Not many people were pacing the halls as the sun had set nearly an hour ago. But it wouldn’t do to be flamboyant about their meeting.
“As a matter of fact . . .” Leila hesitated to say more. If Victor truly was suffering from the waltzing flu, then who knew how he would react if she told him the truth.
“No, I have not,” she said. Right out lying to Victor made her stomach twist. However, she had to assess his health before she did anything else.
Leila knew this linen closet, having needed bedding from it more than once when a patient had soiled themselves during some form of madness episode or another. She reached for a half-burnt candle and, pulling the lighter all nurses had been given from her pocket, clicked the button until two small gears sparked the wick and a small fire burned on the candle’s end.
“I am not sure why there’s been such a delay in their response,” she continued even while walking closer to Victor with the light. He was pale. But with only the light from her small candle it was impossible to know if he was only slightly pale or alarmingly pale.
He was shaking, too. But one could fake a tremor.
Victor looked up at her, still breathing deeply. Almost too deeply to speak.
“Are you quite all right?” Leila placed a hand on his shoulder. Holy gears above, he was burning up. How had she missed that when he grabbed her?
“Hang London.” His tone was tense.
His gaze met hers and, as she watched, one of his eyes did a slow, almost imperceptible, roll.
Leila’s heart dropped into her stomach. One could not fake that. He truly was sick. Victor had the waltzing flu. She’d so wanted to believe him, to prove to London that Victor was every bit the incredible, trustworthy spy he’d always been.
Oh, poor Inez. What would Victor’s wife say when she saw her husband this way? True, theirs had been an arranged marriage because of Victor’s work as a spy, and it was also true that Victor normally played the part of an arrogant rake in society.
But Leila had been granted the rare opportunity to see behind the veil of secrecy. Victor and Inez adored one another and were ardently true. If Leila was ever permitted permanent employment as a spy, she too would be facing an arranged marriage, as her superiors would expect her to make a match with either someone they needed to keep a close watch over, or someone they needed an alliance with. She could only pray her marriage turned out half so good as the Winstones’ had.
Leila gently laid her arm around Victor’s shoulder. “Come, let’s get you back to bed.”
He shoved her away. “I don’t need to sleep!”
Leila stumbled back, gripping the candle tighter to keep it from falling to the floor. Had he truly just pushed her? Victor had proved himself a gentleman many times over, when not in his rakish disguise. His sudden burst of anger was almost more proof of his madness than a rolling eye.
“Write again to London.” He pounded a fist against a shelf of bedding. “Tell them someone, I don’t know who, is making this happen.” He ran a shaking hand down his face. His hair, black and streaked with gray, splayed out in crazed directions. “She’s making money. She’s giving some patients more, better treatment than others.” His voice shook worse than his hands.
He was slipping further into madness, right here in front of her. She’d seen it happen before. Inez, I am so sorry. Leila tried to reach for him again. The best thing would be to get him lying down, perhaps get him a sedative. It was sad how often the nurses had to resort to sticking their patients with an opium-filled needle, but, so often, there was no other option.
“Leila.” He grabbed her arms, holding her painfully tight. “You must believe me. I’m only ill because they made me this way.” His brow creased and his eyes shut tight. He let out a deep breath. “You must believe me. Someone is doing this to me. To us all.”
Footsteps sounded from just outside the linen closet door. Victor spun Leila around and shoved her up against the wall where she was hidden by the tall shelves of bedding.
“Don’t move,” he ordered in a low but firm voice, wrenching the candle from her grasp.
The door opened and Victor stumbled back and away from Leila.
“There you are, Victor,” the newcomer spoke pleasantly in a masculine timber. “I’ve been looking all over for you. Brought your supper.”
Leila shut her eyes momentarily and drew in a deep breath. Victor was truly insane, his mind swirling in a mix of reality and dream. She’d seen it all before. Just that morning, one of her patients woke up believing
the castle was flooding and his only chance at survival was to jump from the window. They’d only just stopped him in time.
She wrapped her hand across her stomach. Nothing to do now but notify London that one of their best spies could no longer continue and wait for the promised back-up.
“This seems like a strange place to visit,” the man continued. “Here, let me hold the candle while you eat.”
Victor grumbled a response.
Leila peeked around the corner of the linen closet. She vaguely recognized the man who had brought Victor food but couldn’t place where she’d seen him before.
She lifted her foot, ready to step out and make her presence known, but her stomach pricked with warning. All the nurses were female. Monsieur Claude Martin occasionally brought in a doctor to see if more could be done for the patients, but one hadn’t been by in weeks. So, then, who was this man?
Leila pushed herself back further behind the shelves. She needed to think about her next action and be sure she chose the right one. Her options were not extensive: she could stay hidden or come out. Coming out exposed her to questions and possible scandal—having been raised a member of the upper class she couldn’t ignore the reality that someone might construe her being caught in a closet alone with a man as worse than the actual truth. Staying hidden meant she was safe from rumor. Moreover, it meant she would remain unconnected with Victor. That thought took precedence. It was important that no one ever know she and Victor had any kind of a relationship.
Leila committed herself to the shadows, but couldn’t help but peek around the corner once more. Victor held a small bowl of soup in his trembling hands.
The other man smiled.
Victor’s written warning burned hot in her memory, colliding in her brain with the recollection of where she’d seen the visiting man before. He was the foreman for the factory in town.
And as a foreman, he had absolutely no reason to be bringing patients supper.
The foreman’s hand came up, something metal glinting in the candlelight. A needle. He pressed it to Victor’s neck.
Silently, Victor’s knees buckled. The bowl of soup fell from his hands, clattering to the floor. Soup sprayed across the foreman’s pant legs, but he didn’t so much as flinch. Victor hit the floor with a low thud, then lay motionless at the factory foreman’s feet.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LEILA PRESSED HERSELF close to the cold wall as she hurried down the hallway after the foreman. He dragged Victor with him, arms hooked under his armpits.
She tried to stay close enough to see him clearly, but far enough away that he wouldn’t take notice of her slinking after him. Blast it all. Where was he taking Victor? What was this all about? Victor may certainly be sick with the waltzing flu, but it was quite clear now that he’d been right about something else going on.
The foreman pushed open a door and walked backward into the adjoining room, shuffling his feet as he pulled Victor through the doorway. Leila hurried forward, careful that her feet moved soundlessly against the floor. What had her instructors said about following a suspect? Or sneaking through a door without being noticed?
At least the door hadn’t creaked when the foreman opened it. Hopefully it wouldn’t for her, either. The door led to a narrow, twisting stairwell. Leila couldn’t see either the foreman or Victor, but she could hear them moving deeper into the castle.
Leila stepped lightly. Poor Victor, he would undoubtedly awake with sore ankles after this escapade. Would he be allowed to awake? Or would the foreman try to kill him after he was finished doing whatever it was he intended to do? Leila’s stomach twisted. It was good for him she was not far behind. But there was still the question of her hidden identity. Would she make herself known in order to save Victor? Would he want her to?
If she confronted the foreman in her role as a nurse, he would probably resort to one of two lies. Either he would say Victor had grown worse and he was taking the man somewhere safer, or he would say Martha, or perhaps even Monsieur Martin, had requested Victor’s removal from the main part of the castle. What reason would she have to disagree with him?
The steps didn’t slow and Leila hurried on, always staying just out of sight and absolutely noiseless. There was always the very real possibility that the foreman would not try to lie at all. He might just attack her instead. Who knew if he had anymore serum in the needle that had knocked Victor out?
She certainly wouldn’t be of any help to Victor, to London, or to the people here in Conques if she was kidnapped or killed.
Leila kept close to the center of the corkscrewing staircase. She stepped down stair after stair until the foreman suddenly came back into view. Leila paused halfway between one step and the next, then backed up.
The foreman fiddled with a key in a door, twisting it hard one direction and then the next. Victor lay in an unmoving lump on the ground.
Gears above, he wasn’t already dead, was he? The foreman glanced over his shoulder. Leila drew back and placed a hand over her mouth to muffle any sound of her breathing. Her heart was pounding so loudly, it was a miracle the foreman couldn’t hear it from where he stood.
Never before had she thought to be thankful for the lungs and muscle and skin that covered her heart and deadened any noise it made. But then, she’d never been a spy before either.
The grating of a door against the old stone floor echoed up the staircase. Leila peered out once more. The foreman was pulling Victor into the room.
This door would not open silently for her as the one at the top of the stairs had. How was she to get inside? Victor’s feet slipped through the dark opening and the door began to swing shut.
Leila hurried forward—she couldn’t risk being shut out. The room the foreman had moved into was dark, but light from a gas burning lamp in the hallway spilled a few feet into the room. Along the wall against the inside of the room there was a small table.
She could stop and debate the options, as she was wont to do, or she could simply take the chance.
If it had been anyone other than Victor—the man who had seen in her a valuable asset to the crown and not only a pretty face looking for a wealthy catch—she may have paused outside the door. Her instructors probably would tell her that was the wisest of options.
But the door was sliding shut and Leila, for once, didn’t stop to contemplate. She slipped in, hunched over, and crawled quickly beneath the table.
The door shut with a heavy clank.
Well, if she was hoping to avoid being detected by the door opening or closing, she had at least done that much.
If she was hoping to see where the foreman took Victor next, she was wholly failing.
The room was completely dark. And muggy. Breathing felt different, the air unlike anything she’d encountered anywhere else in the castle. It smelled of damp wood and the root cellar she used to sneak into when she needed some time away from her nagging sisters. The stones beneath her hand were cold, too. Wherever they were, it was likely far below ground.
Something thumped-thumped-clapped against the stone floor. Then, a grunt.
Was that Victor? Perhaps he was coming to? Or was that the foreman trying to heft Victor’s inanimate form?
Blast, but she needed a light. She didn’t have anything with her; no gas burner—Victor had taken hers back in the linen closet—and no flint and steel. But then, it’s not as if she could risk lighting anything even if she did.
A mumbled moan came from a few yards away. That was certainly Victor.
He was still alive. Leila momentarily closed her eyes in relief. When the foreman had first stuck her friend, she hadn’t thought it was with anything deadly, but then he was still for so long, she couldn’t help but fear the worst.
There was movement again. Footsteps probably—it was a steady enough rhythm to be—then another grunt and a soft thud. Wherever the foreman was planning to take Victor, it seemed this was it.
There was a soft clicking and a small lamp flickered to lif
e, sending a small ring of orange light into the darkened room. The foreman stood next to the ancient looking lamp, twisting the wick down. The light folded in on itself until it only illuminated a few feet in every direction.
Though the light fell nowhere near close to her, Leila inched further under the table. Her back pressed against the uneven, icy cold wall. She shivered but didn’t move.
Victor was counting on her, even if he wasn’t conscious enough to realize as much. What’s more, London was counting on her. With Victor clearly out of commission, she was the only one left to figure out what was really was going on.
Furthermore, the foreman still might be intending to kill Victor—though Leila wasn’t sure why drag him down here if that was the end goal. Nonetheless, she steeled her nerves against the possibility. It was another good reason she was there. If it came to that, someone would have to step in and save him.
The foreman stomped toward a table on the opposite side of the room, his back toward Leila. He wasn’t a particularly large man, but his gait was confident and the way he held himself made Leila think he could take down more than one man in a fight.
“Why are you doing this?” Victor’s voice was slurred, but his words were unmistakable.
The foreman didn’t respond. He was hunched over the table, his hands busy with something. What was he up to?
Concocting something else to stick in Victor’s neck? That didn’t make sense. If he wanted to inject something into Victor, why drag him all the way into the castle’s dungeon to do it, when he clearly had no qualms about doing it in the linen closet whenever it pleased him?
“Why are you doing this?” Victor asked again, his voice stronger this time and the words more distinct. He was coming to almost as quickly as he had passed out.
The foreman paused his work, one hand beside the small lamp, the other holding a leather belt.
“I find it intriguing that you always ask the same question, word for word.”
“And yet you never answer me.” Victor’s voice was nearly normal. There was the sound of something grating against the stone floor, but he was well beyond the reach of the light and Leila could see him no better than they could see her.
