"Who are your parents?" Jack asked.
"Lord Wade's servants. They died when I was a baby."
"I'm terribly confused," Sylvia said. "Are we to address you as Hannah now?"
I nodded.
"You're not a lord's daughter?"
"No."
"You're a...servant?"
"A lady's companion." Which was little better. "Shall I remove myself to the servant's quarters?" I asked, unable to keep my snide tone in check.
"No," Langley said before the others could speak. "You're our guest as much now as you were when we thought we had Lady Violet. That doesn't change. Sylvia, go see if the maids are finished making up the rooms. Hannah needs some rest. We all do."
"I didn't mean anything by it," Sylvia muttered as she left.
"You told me that Lady Violet was the one with red hair," Jack said to Langley. His eyes narrowed, as if he were deep in thought trying to solve a puzzle. "They both had red hair, although different shades."
"I wasn't to know that," Langley said.
"So why take me and not the real Violet Jamieson?" I asked Jack. "You saw us both, yet you kidnapped me. Why?"
He shook his head, frowning. "I...I was led to believe..."
"Believe what?"
He paused before answering, and I got the feeling whatever he was about to tell me wasn't the entire truth. "I watched you both during your walks. You seemed to be the one in charge. You led, she followed. You were feisty where she was meek. I assumed that meant you were the earl's daughter and that the earl's daughter was the fire starter. Besides," the corner of his mouth lifted in a fleeting smile, then it vanished and he looked down at his feet, "I felt a strong connection to you. Like I was being tugged toward you by an invisible leash." He looked up again and our gazes locked. My spine tingled and heat flared through my body. "Why would I feel that unless you were a fire starter too?" He shrugged. "I didn't question it."
A tug toward me. Because of my ability or because he desired me? He smiled again, a soft, knowing smile that I desperately wanted to capture. Knowing it was just for me would have to be enough.
"Will you teach me to control this?" I asked.
The smile turned achingly sad. "I hope so. It should be a matter of controlling your temper. But unless you can turn off...more intimate emotions at will, then I'm afraid I can't help you when we..." He cleared his throat. "Just as I cannot help myself. I will find a cure though. I promise you, V— Hannah."
I gave an emphatic nod. I no longer needed any convincing to stay at Frakingham. There was nothing for me at Windamere anymore, and everything at Freak House. "We'll find it together," I said.
***
I slept fitfully in a bedroom I shared with Sylvia. The following morning, she peppered me with questions over breakfast in the parlor. What was the real Lady Violet like? How could I not know I was a fire starter? And, the one that confused me most—why had Lord Wade kept me at all? The only explanation I could come up with was that there was something wrong with Vi. There had to be some reason he'd keep his daughter in the attic with me, away from public view.
As I listened to Sylvia's chatter and ate my eggs, I questioned not only my reason for being confined at Windamere, but also my reason for leaving it. Jack had been hiding something when he spoke of kidnapping me and not Vi. I'd noticed his hesitations, yet he'd smoothed out the wrinkles in his story so expertly that I'd failed to recall my unease until now. I would have asked him except he'd eaten breakfast an hour earlier according to Tommy, and had since disappeared.
I went in search of Langley instead. He'd taken his breakfast in his new temporary room along the corridor from my bedroom. I knocked and Bollard opened the door. The big servant filled the doorway, his presence as solid and imposing as ever. If he felt guilty for following me in London and playing a part in the fire, he didn't show it.
Langley sat in a chair at a small desk facing the center of the room. A collection of blackened equipment filled a box nearby, and he was pouring over half-burnt pieces of paper. Bollard must have gathered up anything that was salvageable from the laboratory and brought them to the new room.
"Was much of your research destroyed?" I asked.
"Some." He didn't sound nearly as annoyed as I thought he would be. I'd come prepared with a speech that put the blame for the fire back onto him. Considering he'd deliberately riled me, I thought it only fair he acknowledged his role. It seemed unnecessary now, and perhaps a little petty when he didn't seem too upset.
"How are you this morning, Hannah?"
"Well enough, considering I've just learned that I'm not who I thought I was."