The Wrong Girl(53)

How many others had come to that place to cry? Had the Frakingham children before they were locked in the dungeon?

I leaned against the stones for support and buried my head in my hands. A thousand things raced through my mind, but one screamed louder than the rest.

What else had Jack lied about?

At some point I stopped crying, but I remained at the ruins. I couldn't face Sylvia and Langley yet, and something about the Abbey called to me. It had been a proud and majestic building once, dwarfing the landscape and reaching for the clouds. Monks had lived and worked there for hundreds of years, going about their daily ritual with purpose and a strong sense of themselves and their place in the world's order. But now it was just a collection of stones that barely resembled its original structure. It was broken and almost overrun by the higher power of Mother Nature. Much like me, if the fire inside me was indeed a natural thing I'd been born with. I truly had no idea.

I wandered through the ruins. The stones were cool and slippery, but that didn't stop me climbing some of the more stable walls. I inspected hidden nooks and pulled back the grass in places to see the foundations. After a while I knew the Abbey's layout and could picture the monks as they shuffled off to mass, or slept in their bare cells. It was a welcome activity and helped calm me, but my adventure was interrupted by the crunch of gravel on the long drive beneath Jack's horse's hooves. He didn't see me and rode straight up to the house. I thought about going after him, but decided against it. It didn't matter in the end. He came to me.

"I thought I might find you here." He stopped a few feet away and tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the flat top of a large stone. "You seem to like this place."

"At least I can't burn it. It's already ruined."

His Adam's apple bobbed erratically. "What happened is not your fault, Hannah. Don't blame yourself."

"I don't."

He nodded. "I've been to see August."

"There must be a reason you're telling me that."

Another nod. He took a few steps closer, but remained out of reach. He looked exhausted. His eyes were webbed with red lines and circled by dark shadows. Seeing him like that dissolved most of the lingering anger I felt toward him, but the sadness remained, a heavy weight pressing down on my chest. "He warned me that you were upset."

"You lied to me, Jack. I'd say I have good reason to be upset."

He leaned his hip against a low wall and regarded me. "You're right. I did lie. I wanted to protect you, but I suppose I should know by now that you don't need protecting. I'm sorry, Hannah."

"Tell me what role Violet played in my kidnap."

"I'm not entirely sure. I never spoke to her, only to your governess. She came to me in the grounds soon after my arrival and told me which girl to take. The short, freckly one, she said."

"She came to you?" I frowned. "So she already knew your purpose?"

He nodded and crossed his arms. "I don't know how. It may have been August's doing. But she gave me a time and place and true to her word, you were there."

"But what of Vi?"

He shrugged. "I assumed the governess enlisted her help to get you into the woods that day. I saw her in the cottage, you know."

"Before or after you kidnapped me?"

"After. I was about to carry you away when her face appeared at the window. She looked...odd. Sad, perhaps, or conflicted. I don't think her involvement was a decision she came to lightly, if that helps."

"I looked out for her every day of my life. I ensured Miss Levine never became cross with her, only with me. If she couldn't complete a task set by our tutors, I'd help her. If she was cold, I gave her my coat. Yet she abandoned me like I was nothing more to her than a doll she no longer wanted to play with. It doesn't matter how much she was involved. She just was."

I walked off and headed for the lake. Jack came up beside me, and I swiped away my tears. He shortened his stride to walk in time with my steps and he didn't take his gaze off me. Not that I was looking at him, but I could feel him watching me.

"I'm sorry I forced her to do it," he said. "And I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I thought it was best you didn't know. Can you forgive me?"

"I can if you don't lie to me again." I wanted him to talk to me about his past, about being Jack Cutler before he became Jack Langley, but he didn't. Until such time that he did, we could never be true friends, trusting one another implicitly.

It would seem I no longer had a single friend in the world. I turned my face to the lake, but didn't continue on. "Why would Vi betray me like that?" I asked. "Particularly if she were reluctant to do so."