The Wrong Girl(18)

Langley's eyes widened. "Move, Bollard!" He wheeled himself away from me so fast he backed into the occasional table, knocking it over and sending the two books that had been open upon it to the floor. Bollard retreated to the door. To stop me from leaving?

It didn't matter. I knew what was about to happen, and I wouldn't be going anywhere.

The last thing I remembered was falling to the floor.





CHAPTER 5





I awoke as someone laid me gently on a bed. Bollard, I realized as I fought to lift my eyelids. It was my bed. The mute servant crossed the room and shut the curtains, then he left the room. The loud click of the door being locked was followed by complete silence. If I hadn't strictly been a prisoner before, I was now.

I was too exhausted to care.

I closed my eyes and lay on top of the bed. It felt strange not having Vi with me, caressing my hair until I returned to myself. It was pleasant not to wake to the smell of singed wool, however. As soon as I thought it, I wished I hadn't. No smoldering wool meant no Vi.

Would she be cured now that I wasn't there? She only ever started fires when I had a narcoleptic episode, so it was entirely possible that she would never have another one again now that I was gone.

Or would some other trigger take my place?

I blew out a breath and tried not to give into the overwhelming sadness. I did give into the tiredness that still dragged at my limbs, and I fell back to sleep

I awoke some time later with the strong sense that someone was watching me. It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light, but when they did, I saw Jack sitting on a chair nearby.

He stiffened when he realized I was awake. "There's tea on the table beside the bed. It's probably gone cold by now."

I sat up and gratefully sipped the tea. It was indeed cold, but I didn't care. My mouth and throat were dry. I drained the cup and refilled it from the teapot.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Like a prisoner."

He leaned back in the chair and stretched out his long legs, crossing them at the ankles. He crossed his arms too and regarded me through half-lowered lashes. "August is furious that you tried to escape."

"He's not the only one with a temper."

"I can see that," he said with a sardonic tilt of his lips. "Why did you try to leave, Violet? I thought we went through this. I thought you understood that you would come to no harm here."

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. "You'll forgive me if I don't believe a word you say. I find it hard to trust the man who kidnapped me. Even harder to trust the man who sits up there and makes it very clear I am not to question his authority or my predicament."

He rubbed a hand through his hair, upsetting its neat arrangement and causing it to tumble over his forehead. "I understand your need to know what's going on. Believe me, I do. But I can assure you, in this case, it's black and white. There are no secret experiments being conducted, no foul play."

I huffed out a humorless laugh. "If that's the case, why keep me against my will?"

"It doesn't have to be against your will, Violet." When I didn't answer, he added, "To protect you from yourself. And protect others too, of course."

There was a kernel of truth in what he said, although I still had strong doubts. "Then why the need to kidnap me from Windamere in the first place?"

The muscles in his jaw shifted and he looked away. It was a long time before he said, "That was necessary. Lord Wade would not have let you come to us freely, no matter what you think. He cared about you in his own way, but not enough to allow you to be trained. Like you, he would have suspected our reasons were more...insidious. It's unfortunate, but there's the truth of it."

I said nothing to that. I knew little of Lord Wade and nothing of his innermost thoughts toward his daughter.

"You can trust me, Violet. I give you my word on that."

I wanted so desperately to believe him. My heart ached with the need to trust him, to feel safe, to have a friend in this place. "Tell me, is my door still locked?"

"No."

I blinked at him. "When you leave here, will you lock it?"

"No. I've talked August into coming to an agreement."

"What sort of agreement?"

"It's conditional on an arrangement between you and me. If you agree not to try to escape, he'll allow you to go about the entire estate and into the village with Sylvia and I."

I cocked my head to the side and regarded him. "What makes you think I'll try not to escape even after promising not to?"

"Because I'm going to strike a deal with you. You may leave Frakingham by Christmas. You should be able to control your talent by then and will have no need of me anyway. I'll even drive you back and smooth things over with Lord Wade." He huffed out a breath. "Or try to."