Charles hoped that perhaps if he didn’t mention John Vaunt and convinced Tesla to come with him, the awfulness that had happened originally in New London might not occur. How, he wasn’t sure. To think too much about it taxed his brain.
Tesla rose and gathered his things again, this time in a much more leisurely fashion. He pulled on kid gloves and then reached to take Charles’s hand. “To London in the morning, then.”
“Yes. To London.”
He held his writing case and the parchment close to his chest. “I am delighted to have stumbled across you, Mr. Waddingly. One is never fully prepared for the realization of a dream until it occurs, but I am very glad it did.”
“Likewise, Mr. Tesla,” Charles said. “The pleasure and fortuitousness of this meeting is all mine.” Charles bowed deeply.
He would return to New London. And with Tesla’s help, he would finally set all to rights.
To Mr. Charles Darwin, Esq,
Kindest sir,
My sincerest apologies that I have left only this missive to wish you farewell. I had thought better of it, but I must make haste to London on urgent business. I hope you will understand.
However, I could not leave without letting my undying gratitude to you be known in writing if nothing else. You took in not just a stranger in your garden, but a man more ill and dangerous than you were prepared to encounter. And you met that man with kindness and patience. You trusted him when no trust had ever been earned, and you brought him to be healed when no healing ever seemed possible.
I am in your and Gwen’s debt eternally. You are indeed a Saint.
I am and will remain
Your Obedient Servant,
Charles D. Waddingly
Also by Tiffany Trent
The Unnaturalists
The Tinker King
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Tiffany Trent
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ISBN 978-1-4814-0518-8 (eBook)
Contents
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
A Stranger In The Garden
A Stranger in the Garden Page 5