Mr. Sinclair’s countenance fell. His lips pressed together and he stared at the fork as if he’d like to stab it into something besides a potato. “They hauled me off to that house outside of Paris. The one where your friend, Lord Wyatt, found me.”
Despite his sudden dark mood, our relentless headmistress gave him no quarter. “And is that all?”
He stared at her as if she had all the diplomacy of a wide-mouthed cannon. “No, Miss Stranje, that is not all. They tried to persuade me.” He abandoned his fork for a swig of apple juice. “Here’s where I’m faced with a dilemma.” He raised the glass as if to toast us. “I was given to understand you all found my conversation coarse and unfit for the drawing room. Begging your pardon, I meant to say unfit for your workroom. So you can understand why I hesitate to regale you at your breakfast table with the details of my torture.”
He lowered the goblet and tugged down his cuff, just enough that we could see a scabbed line of cuts and the purple bruises marking where he’d worn heavy irons on his wrists.
Georgie set her spoon down with a decided plunk and glared at Jane, who turned white with shame and stared at her plate.
Miss Stranje nodded and said, “I apologize, Mr. Sinclair. You must forgive me for having asked these questions. I would not have intentionally stirred such unhappy memories. You need not say more. We know firsthand the sort of cruelty one may expect from Napoleon’s secret order of knights. The Iron Crown is—”
Loud pounding at the main door startled us.
The thumping got louder and more insistent until Greaves scraped the door open. After which, we were treated to a booming Scottish brogue ordering our butler to “Stand aside, man, afore we chop ye down.”
An even louder and more agitated voice, belonging to Lord Ravencross, carried into our breakfast room. “I don’t care if they are in the middle of tea with the Queen, you’ll let me in. Where are they?”
“Not that way, yer lordship,” MacDougal called after his master and sniffed loudly. “Unless m’ nose deceives me, they’ll be at breakfast. I smell sausage and it’s straight down this way.”
Greaves is sturdy as a pike, but he is an old man and no match for MacDougal and Ravencross. Greaves shuffled after them, maintaining a dignified tone despite repeating numerous times, “I’m warning you, my lord. I shall summon a footman.”
Our only footman, Philip, was already trailing along behind Greaves, no match for the burly Scot and Lord Ravencross, who was a great bear of a man, even though he was down to the use of only one arm, the other being in a sling.
At that point, Lord Ravencross had already charged like a bull into our breakfast room.
Philip and Greaves made a desperate lunge to apprehend him.
I stood abruptly and shouted, “Leave him be.” They turned to me in alarm. Miss Stranje rose and nodded permission for her servants to stand down.
After that, my wits went begging and all I could do was gape at Lord Ravencross like a foolish besotted schoolgirl. He was still rumpled from sleep. He wore a simple cambric work shirt, which hung open at the throat, buckskin trousers, and riding boots. This was not a social call.
Miss Stranje indicated a chair. “Lord Ravencross, perhaps you would care for some breakfast?”
“No. No, I…” His eyes did not leave my face. He appeared to be completely astounded to see me standing there looking back at him.
The breakfast table was lined with spectators, but Lord Ravencross didn’t give them even a cursory glance. “I … I thought you were hurt … that is to say … I heard a scream. Several screams.”
Miss Stranje sighed heavily and muttered, “I must remember to make certain those upstairs windows are shut tight.”
Georgie squinted up studiously. “I don’t see how he could’ve heard—”
Miss Stranje cleared her throat and, in a tone that demanded attention, she said, “My lord, clearly, you’ve not had your breakfast yet. Won’t you please have a seat?”
MacDougal spoke up in place of his tongue-tied master. “Right you are, miss. He hasn’t had a bite to eat since yesterday. Even then, it weren’t no more than weak broth. Not near enough by my way of thinkin’. Came roaring up from his bed as if the devil were jabbing ’im wi’ a pitchfork. Shoutin’ and carryin’ on, saying as how the young lady must be in trouble. On account of he could hear ’er screaming, y’see?” MacDougal scratched at his side-whiskers. “Tried to calm him, miss. I did. Me and the doctor held ’im down for as long as we could manage. Told ’im as how I’d been awake the whole time an’ not heard a peep, save the cock crowing. But it weren’t no good. He fought us and flung the covers at me, demanding his clothes and boots. And here we are.” He gestured at me as if I was the source of all the commotion. “And there she is wi’ not a scratch on ’er just as I promised.”
A blush climbed up Ravencross’s neck. He rubbed at his forearm, the shoulder still wrapped in bloody bandages. “I feel a fool.”
“No, my lord. You were concerned, and rightly so.” Miss Stranje sounded surprisingly conciliatory. “Miss Aubreyson did, indeed, scream this morning because of a particularly bad nightmare. The sound alarmed me as well. As you know, I am not easily alarmed.” She gestured to a chair at the end of the table. “Won’t you please sit down? Miss Aubreyson will explain it all to you after you’ve eaten. You, too, Mr. MacDougal.”
The burly Scot backed away, waving his hands. “No, miss, couldn’t do that. T’wouldn’t be proper fer the likes of me to sit at yer table, what wi’ me being his lordship’s servant an’ all.” He eyed the warming pan full of crispy fish on the side table. “But I wouldn’t say no to takin’ one of these kippers with me to the kitchen. I’ll just wait for you there, shall I, sir?”
Sir. Lordship. MacDougal’s wobbly forms of address would leave the listener confused as to whether Lord Ravencross was a duke or a baronet. Miss Stranje waved her fingers, and the footman took the hungry Scot away to the kitchen with a heaping plate dressed with fried fish and potatoes.
Lord Ravencross remained standing where he was. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“Sit, my lord. You are more than welcome at our table.”
He continued to stare at me, as if staring reassured him that I was truly alive and well. “You’re all right, then?”
I nodded, still astonished.
“It was just a bad dream?”
“Yes.”
Jane muttered under her breath as I took my seat. “We are nothing to each other.”
Her sly remark jarred me from my stupor.
“No more than neighbors,” she mocked, only loud enough for me to hear.
“Enough.” I pinched her as she sat down. A trick I’d learned from Daneska, how to pinch while pretending to smile and be polite.
Had I’d truly screamed so loud he heard it all the way across both parks? I shook the idea away. It seemed impossible. Or had he dreamt of me? Perhaps he’d had a worry nightmare like the one Sera accused me of having. Was he worried about me just as I was about Georgie? I felt absurdly pleased at the prospect. I shouldn’t be happy that he’d had a nightmare, and yet the thought that I might be that much in his thoughts made my blood gallop and my heart dance.
The footman brought him a plate heaped with food. Lord Ravencross glanced with little interest at the bacon, curried eggs, sliced oranges, and toast. He looked around the table, moving from face to face until he landed with a jarring thud on the personage of Mr. Sinclair.
“Who the devil are you?” Lord Ravencross did not say this with the gentility one might expect from a guest. His tone made it clear he expected a prompt answer. He issued his demand with the force of a man having discovered a gentleman caller in his wife’s bedchamber instead of finding a perfectly civil male visitor seated across the breakfast table in a girls’ school.
“Apparently, I am the fox in this henhouse.”
Jane groaned and rolled her eyes. Miss Stranje performed the introductions, but Lord Ravencross continued to frown
at Mr. Sinclair.
We concentrated on our breakfast, eating in silence, save the scraping of forks and clicking of spoons.
In the relative quiet, Miss Stranje perused her morning post. She squinted at the address of one of the letters, flipped it over, and broke the seal. If it had been a letter from the captain or someone in the diplomatic affairs office, she would have slipped it into her pocket and read it later. I watched with curiosity as her pallor increased and she pinched the bridge of her nose as if the contents pained her.
At length, she held the missive out to me. “From your aunt Lydia,” she said cryptically.
My knife clattered to my plate, the marmalade meant for my toast splattered. In all these four years, there had been only a handful of letters from my aunt, and those were usually short. By the grievous look on Miss Stranje’s face, this lengthy missive could mean only that my uncle had succumbed to his injuries and died.
Injuries that were my fault.
I closed my eyes tight against the memory of my tumble from grace, willing it away.
But it would not go.
The sound still thundered through my head of my uncle stomping up the stairs to my attic bedroom, cursing my name. “Tess, you worthless she-demon. I know what you’ve done. You’ve turned my horse against me.”
Willful child that I was, I had slammed my door and shoved the bureau in front of it. Admittedly, it hadn’t been a very clever way to escape a whipping. I had trapped myself. Except there was the window.
That day was when I first learned to scale walls. I’d thrown open the window and crawled out, planning to climb down and escape to woods. Or fall. But at thirteen I had little care for caution. I’d hung from the moldy sill, dangling three stories above the ground, my skirts flapping madly in the wind as I struggled to find a foothold.
Finally, I was able to wedge my toes into the narrow mortar grooves between the stones. I’d clutched the window frame and scrambled my fingers across the rough limestone, searching for a protrusion to hold. I found a thin lip on a stone beneath the window, but my leg trembled stupidly as I lowered myself down onto the wall. I remember taking a deep, steadying breath and telling myself, don’t look down.
Concentrate.
Breathe.
The cold, reliable certainty of rock beneath my fingertips helped calm me. Stone walls and falling—these things I’d understood. They were dependable truths. Fall, die. Hold on, live.
Simple.
Understandable.
Unlike my uncle. He’d baffled me. Why would my riding Orion without a bit upset him so much? And anyway, why had he insisted on using such a cruel type of bit on an animal as obliging as Orion? Didn’t he see that the thing was tearing up his horse’s mouth? If his beast revolted against that, it was his fault, not mine. But Uncle Martin had liked to be in charge. He’d kept my aunt completely under his thumb. Back then, I used to wonder if perhaps I was more wild animal than human. I had always been able to figure out horses and dogs, all manner of creatures, even the elusive foxes that hid in our woods behaved in ways I’d readily understood. But my aunt and uncle had been impossible to comprehend.
So I’d climbed to freedom—one handhold, one toehold at a time, down the side of the house.
He leaned out of my window and hurled the tin water pitcher at me. It clanged off the stones above my head. “First, you spoil my horse. Now, a broken door. You’ll pay for what you’ve done!”
The ground lay more than a story away, but his scarlet rage made the distance seem short. I’d dropped and tumbled downhill, away from the house, rolling and rolling, skirts flopping, until I stopped, scrambled up from the wet grass, and took off in a dead run.
Uncle Martin came after me.
I had been fast even back then. Very fast. On foot, he never would have caught me, not even if he had a hundred lifetimes in which to give chase. But Uncle Martin was crafty. He came after me on horseback.
His stallion’s hooves thudded against the soft soil, flinging clods of earth, thundering behind me, louder and louder. I pushed harder and faster. My lungs burned and I prayed the wind would lift me up and sail me on its current. But I’d had no wings, only frightened rabbit feet. So I’d raced for the woods.
In the forest I would’ve had a chance. The trees would’ve hidden me. After all, hadn’t my mother taught me I was part of the forest? Almost to the woods, I’d glanced over my shoulder. He rode at a mad dog pace, whipping Orion into a lather. What a fool I was to have looked back. I stumbled. A hole hidden in the grass. Ironic. Me, the rabbit, tripped up by a rabbit’s lair.
Stupid! It had been a stupid mistake. I should never have looked back. My ankle snapped. Pain, hot and sharp, shot up my leg and brought me down in a crumpled heap. I drew up my knees and clutched my ankle.
Uncle Martin jerked Orion to a sudden stop, leapt off, and marched toward me, slapping his riding crop across his hand. “Not so high and mighty now, eh, you little witch?”
I remember shaking my head and scooting backward, uncertain how to ward him off. He’d slapped the whip again, this time against his thigh. Orion shied. Martin should’ve known better than to threaten me in front of that horse. It was because of that very stallion that my uncle hated me with such passion. He should’ve known. How could he have not known what would happen?
He raised the crop, intending to thrash me. Orion reared. My uncle turned.
There were three screams that day.
Mine.
My uncle’s.
And Orion’s. Right before his hooves struck my uncle’s head.
A stallion’s scream blots out all reason. The sound plunges the hearer into a dark, echoing cave of fear. When I’d regained my senses, the big brown horse stood beside me, snorting, stamping, and shying like a confused child. My uncle lay unconscious on the ground a few feet away from me.
“Shhhhh,” I’d crooned, beckoning Orion to me. “It’s all right, boy.” He tossed his head, agitated, afraid. “You didn’t mean it. I know you didn’t. You were just trying to protect me.”
Even as I said it, I knew the sad truth. When Uncle Martin awakened, he would shoot Orion for his actions that day. It wouldn’t matter that the horse was a superb hunting mount and a valuable breeding stallion. I’d struggled to my feet somehow and limped to the agitated horse, smoothing my hand down his neck to quiet him, leaning my head against his withers. I’d murmured words from the ancient Welsh language my mother had taught me, telling him how much I loved him for trying to save me.
My guardian still hadn’t roused. “Uncle Martin?” I edged toward him. Any second, I’d expected his hand to flash out, snare me, and I would’ve been in for the beating of my life.
Only he didn’t move. Apart from the wind ruffling his hair and neckcloth, he lay completely still. His mouth gaped open, a silent echo of the scream he’d uttered before Orion kicked him. I saw then how his head rested at an odd angle against a small boulder.
Suddenly dizzy, my stomach spun through empty air, falling like a baby bird from the nest. “No,” I whispered. “No. Don’t let him be dead. Please. Not dead.”
I knelt beside him. “Uncle Martin?” Blood had pooled at the base of the rock, a thick burgundy ooze, staining grass and soil. “Uncle Martin, wake up!” His chest lifted ever so slightly. He was alive.
Barely.
I ripped a strip of cloth from the bottom of my underdress and wrapped his head to slow the bleeding. Then I’d hobbled back to the grazing stallion and heaved myself onto his back.
“Run, Orion,” I’d shouted. The stallion’s ears flicked up sharp. “Rhedeg,” I’d said in the old tongue, and he took off, racing for the house, galloping across the field so fast that half the time his feet scarcely touched the ground.
“Lydia!” I cried out for my mother’s sister, praying she would hear my call for help.
As soon as I’d explained, she’d sent servants to unhinge a door and they’d used it to carry him back to the house. Martin still breathed, but the
doctors could not wake him. “Any day,” the doctor had said, and then he’d shown Lydia how to squeeze broth from a cloth and let it drip down my uncle’s throat. But as the days passed, the doctor’s expression had grown more solemn. His words “any day” had changed to a death watch.
My uncle’s family had arrived already wearing black. It was not long after that they exiled me to Stranje House. Not Aunt Lydia; she’d wept when they carted me away with my hands bound. It was Uncle Martin’s prune-faced sister and his fat sweating father’s doing. They’d sent me here to be punished, to be beaten into submission, to learn to conduct myself in a manner befitting a proper young lady. Beneath their fine words and stiff speech, it was as if they had thought I truly was a demon child. And Miss Stranje had the perfect reputation for being able to exorcise the devil from unmanageable girls like me.
Or so they had thought.
I glanced at the headmistress I’d come to respect and with shaking hands reached for my aunt’s letter. I had no desire to read it, but just as traitors must face a firing squad, I knew I must face the sad truth that another death would be laid at my door.
Lydia’s handwriting is challenging under the best of circumstances, as it is small and fraught with a great many decorative flourishes. Add to that the dread and guilt blurring my sight, and as a consequence I stumbled along, scarcely able to make out the words on the page. Upon the second reading, my disbelief settled, and here is what it said:
My dear Niece,
I have news.
My husband’s family has given up hope that Martin will ever recover. What black thoughts his people have. They persist in ignoring the fact that he is greatly improved. I was not sorry to see them pack up their belongings last month and leave. They have gone home to Middlesbrough, saying they will not return until Martin’s funeral. The good Lord willing, that occasion shall not take place for a great many years.
Now that a month has passed, I believe they are well and truly gone. That means you may return here without fear of being locked in a closet, tied to a bedpost, or anything else. I feel simply wretched about all the horrid thrashings they wrought upon your person. You must understand, it is just their way. They are rather stern folk.
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