The Wrong Girl(13)

"Are you all right?" Sylvia asked him.

Jack nodded without taking his gaze off me. He seemed calm, his face expressionless. It was his eyes that gave away his true feelings. They were as wild as a stormy sea, but just before he turned away, I caught a glimpse of something else in their depths. Something that made him look as lost as a little boy.

He strode out of the room, leaving the door open.

"Well." Sylvia huffed. "Is there anything else, Uncle?"

Langley lifted a hand in a dismissive gesture. "Jack knows what to do." He spoke heavily, as if the little scene had sapped his strength. "The window, Bollard."

The servant wheeled him toward the window and positioned the chair so that Langley could see out.

"Shall we dine, Violet?" Sylvia asked, smiling. Did she ever not smile?

I wanted to make a quip to prove that I was unaffected by everything I'd seen and heard, but nothing came to mind. I allowed Sylvia to lead me down the stairs to the dining room.

The long table was set for three, but the third place was empty. A footman brought in a soup tureen and set it on the sideboard. He hovered until Sylvia asked him to serve.

"Jack will come when he's ready," she said as the footman ladled soup into her bowl.

"His accent changed up there," I said. "Why is that?"

"It happens when he's...upset." She glanced at the door, then at the footman. He'd paused in his duties and stared at me. "You mustn't speak of it to him," she went on. "He doesn't like talking about it."

"First your uncle and his legs, and now Jack and his accent. Is there anything in this house that we can discuss?"

"The weather?" said Jack, striding in. He looked and sounded quite composed again. He sat at the vacant seat opposite us. "I'm starving. You must be too, Violet. We both missed our luncheon today." It seemed he was going to pretend nothing untoward had happened in his uncle's rooms.

"I'm not feeling particularly hungry." I waved away the second ladle of soup. "It's amazing what being abducted can do to one's appetite. I highly recommend it for ladies wishing to shrink their waists."

"Your waist is already tiny," Sylvia said.

"I think Violet was being sarcastic," Jack said.

"I know that. Forgive me if I'd prefer to gloss over the nastier events of the day while I'm eating."

"Speaking of which, I'm sorry to say that your reticule couldn't be saved, Syl."

"That's quite all right. I didn't like it anymore anyway." She suddenly brightened. "Perhaps we can go shopping together to buy a new one," she said to me. I was so taken aback that I spilled some soup on the tablecloth.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Jack said.

"But Uncle August told me she's free to come and go."

I witnessed a silent exchange between the cousins as they communicated without words. Jack's glare was quite stern, and Sylvia's smile changed from genuinely hopeful to falsely polite. She was not the sort who could hide her feelings.

"Perhaps we'll go when you've settled in," she said to me. "In a week or more."

"She won't have time before then anyway," Jack said. "Training begins tomorrow. I can't spare her."

"Ah yes, training," I said. "Your uncle stated that I was brought here so that you could help me learn to control my...affliction."

"It's not an affliction," Sylvia said. Her response sounded automatic, as if she were repeating something often said.

I grunted. "That's easy for you to say. As to the training, forgive me if I don't believe Mr. Langley."

Sylvia blinked her wide blue eyes. "Why wouldn't you believe him?"

"Because I was kidnapped."

"I don't understand."

"You knew I lived in the attic, which meant Lord Wade—my father—obviously cared little for me. It would also be a natural supposition that I was eager to leave the attic. My removal to your uncle's care could have gone ahead without this fuss if you'd simply asked to have me. All of which implies that your reasons are less pure, and you didn't wish to explain them to Lord Wade."

Sylvia continued to stare at me, her spoon drooping over her bowl, the soup forgotten.

"You make a lot of assumptions," Jack said.

"What does Langley really want with me?" I asked.

Jack returned to his soup, and it was left to Sylvia to answer. "Uncle August truly does want to help you." She glanced at Jack then back at me. "He's not a bad man."

I said nothing to that, and neither did Jack. The irony was, if they'd gone about the task as I'd suggested and asked Lord Wade's permission, they would have gotten the correct Violet Jamieson. As it was, they had an imposter. And this imposter was going to have to lie convincingly to make Jack believe she had the power to start fires.