A School for Unusual Girls

by Kathleen Baldwin

“Tsk, tsk, you must address me properly, as my lord, remember?” He mimicked Miss Stranje’s scolding voice as he spread out the papers. “Thus you would say, my lord, would you please be so good, and kind, and tolerant, and forbearing, as to spread out the test papers so that they might dry thoroughly? At this point, if you were a well-schooled young lady, you would flutter your long lashes and demurely add, if you will do me this one kindness, my lord, I will be forever in your debt.”

  My mouth opened in search of an appropriate response, but nothing came. So I closed it and did something I never do. I giggled. I blame it on the lateness of the hour. Exhausted, elated, whatever the cause, I succumbed to giddiness. In fact, I shook so hard with nearly soundless laughter that I sloshed a bit of gall solution over the edge of the pan.

  “Oh, no, Miss Fitzwilliam. This is not a proper response at all. You shall have to do better.” He aped Miss Stranje’s mannerisms perfectly. “Else how shall we punish you for this effrontery to womankind?”

  “A turn on the rack?” I suggested. “Horsewhipping?”

  The mirth on Sebastian’s face changed to stone.

  I didn’t understand what I’d said to offend him. “She has one, you know,” I said defensively. “A rack, I mean. And a horsewhip.”

  “Torture is not a jesting matter.”

  Yet it had felt good to speak of the torture chamber concealed in the underbelly of Stranje House, to mock the evil it represented. Then I remembered the horrors he must have seen as a child. What other grisly sights had he witnessed even more recently? My cheeks burned as they did so often around him.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He nodded, still withdrawn and stone-faced.

  Was his hardened countenance because he’d been tortured? “Have you ever…”

  A grimace of pain crumpled his features, silencing me. I dared not ask. Some secrets are too dark to share.

  We worked under a woolen blanket of awkwardness, until he held one of the sheets of paper over a candle flame, and said, “I’m checking to see if heat makes the message appear.”

  I stopped work and came close to watch. Wind rattled the windows. The candle guttered and flickered noisily. We stared at the seemingly blank paper. Waiting. Hoping. At last, he nodded with satisfaction and held it up to the light for me to see. The invisible writing was so faint that, with diversionary writing laid atop it, no one would ever be able to see it.

  “So far, it’s a goer.” He shifted up onto his toes and drummed his fingers on the worktable. His excitement cast off those earlier shadows. No more prickly wool between us. Eagerness radiated from him like heat from the candle. Almost breathless he said, “Let’s see about the developer.”

  My hands trembled as I lifted the pot from the heat, hoping the results wouldn’t disappoint him. “It’s ready.” I dipped a small sea sponge in the brown liquid. “Which note would you like to test first?”

  He passed one of the papers to me, crossed his arms and held his breath, watching me with his lips pressed tight. I dabbed reddish brown fluid over the invisible message, and waited a moment before blotting the page with a dry cloth to soak up the excess moisture.

  We stepped back and watched as the iron slowly reacted with the gall. Faint words appeared on the page. He breathed out a huge sigh of relief. “We’re close. Try it again,” he urged. “Only this time apply more gall.”

  I did, and the results were gratifying. Brown words materialized on the paper, clear and easy to read.

  “You’ve done it,” he whispered, staring at the message. Then he nearly shouted, “By all the saints and angels, you’ve done it!” He picked me up in a bear hug and whirled me around. We knocked the scales and corner of the cupboard as he spun toward the window. “I can’t believe it. Do you know how incredible this is? Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited for an ink like this?”

  “It’s well after midnight,” I said. “Six days?”

  He laughed and loosened his grip, allowing me to slide down his chest until my feet barely touched the floor on tiptoes. With one hand he gently smoothed a flock of wild curls back from my face. “So many deaths could’ve been prevented if you’d been born a few years sooner.” He stroked the sides of my head. “There’s so much going on in here.”

  Through my nightgown, I felt the muscles of his chest constrict. My forehead brushed against the rough stubble on his jaw. He held me so close that I could almost taste the warmth of his lips as he smiled at me. Hours ago, he’d loosened his neck cloth and shed his coat. My arms rested around his shoulders clutching the rumpled linen of his cambric shirt. He kept holding me, studying my face as if he saw something remarkable there.

  Joy washed over me. It was as if all the hidden messages inside me had suddenly been revealed, as if everything about me that had always seemed peculiar and awkward finally made sense. I felt truly happy for the first time ever. I never wanted to leave his arms.

  But Sebastian would leave me. Soon.

  Sadness crushed me like a pestle grinding a gall against the stone mortar. There would be no tomorrow for us. He would leave for London as soon as we mixed enough ink. I lowered my gaze from his lips and tried in vain to straighten his disheveled neck cloth, but the folds had long since lost their ability to stand. So had I. If he hadn’t been holding me, I would’ve crumpled and fallen to the floor.

  Sebastian lifted my chin, and without a word, with no reprimand for looking at him with mooncalf eyes, no mockery, no teasing, he brushed his lips against mine. It was no more than the fluttering of a hummingbird’s wing. Then he pressed them against my forehead, kissing me on the head as if I was a child he was kissing good night.

  “I will come back,” he whispered.

  I said nothing. Simply held him, knowing his words were a lie spoken out of kindness. At least, he felt that much. Kindness.

  An instant later, his mouth found mine. This time it was no child’s kiss. It felt as if he poured years of hunger and longing, thousands of heartbreaking secrets into me, into this one urgent moment. I didn’t know whether to weep or explode with happiness. I never wanted to let him go. I kissed him harder, wanting to keep him with me forever.

  Sebastian pulled back and took a deep ragged breath. “Georgie,” he called my name in a husky gasping whisper. I opened my eyes and he wore such a pained expression I tried to get closer to him, to comfort him. But he held me away and shook his head. “We can’t. I can’t do this. In the name of all that’s merciful, Georgie, go away.”

  Go away?

  My father’s customary dismissal. “Go away, child.” My older brothers’ greeting when they visited. “Go away, runt.” My mother’s weary refrain. “Go. Away.”

  Go away.

  Stunned, I stumbled back. What had I done?

  He turned away from me and leaned onto the windowsill like a man praying, his head in his hands. “I don’t form attachments. I can’t. No entanglements.” He hid his face from me and said all this with cold certainty. “It’s less painful for everyone.” When he said those words, I detected a slight tremor, and couldn’t help but think of the little boy who watched his father murdered on the guillotine. Less painful for him.

  Still bowed, still articulating each word in an unfeeling monotone, he said, “You deserve more.”

  To that absurd claim, I laid my soul bare. “And yet, you have already given me more than I have ever had.” The truth shamed me, but I stood and faced him squarely. I would rather accept the humiliation than allow him to banish me on such feeble grounds.

  He rubbed at his cheek and mouth as if he wanted to scrub my scent off his skin. “I can’t.” He whirled around, glaring at me like an enraged angel. No, like the devil I’d first met. “Don’t you see?” he growled. “I’m not in a position to—” He stopped trying to explain. “For God’s sake, go to bed. I don’t want to argue the matter. I’ll mix more test batches myself. Check drying times. Different papers. I can’t concentrate with you here. Go! Now.”

  Like everyone else in
my life, he wanted to be rid of me.

  “It’s you who should go. You have your ink. You have what you came for. We already know it works. Make as much as you need and leave. That way you’ll never have to see me again.”

  I backed toward the door, my shoulders heaving as I gasped for air in violent gulps. Was it shame suffocating me? Anger? Or was it grief? I didn’t know. It all mixed together and bubbled up into an inscrutable toxic froth that made me tremble.

  I could hardly speak. “My notes” I pointed with a shaking finger. “Try to follow them properly.” Bumping into the door, I groped pathetically for the handle, and left.

  In the dark hall, I sagged against the door pressing it shut. I heard the muffled sound of his footsteps on the other side. There was a slight movement of the handle as he took hold of it. Except he didn’t turn the knob. Instead, there was a soft thud. I felt the vibration through the wood, and knew he had leaned his forehead opposite mine. I heard him say my name, but it didn’t make the pain go away. No, in fact, I had to wrap my arms tight against my stomach, pressing against the turmoil, as I stumbled away from the laboratory.

  The storm had abated. There were no more eerie blue-gray flashes to light the way. Cold, shivering, I pulled my shawl tighter around my shoulders. As I trudged past Miss Stranje’s relatives, my eyes adjusted to the dark and I saw every one of their shadowed faces. Instead of chiding me, they seemed to mourn with me as I walked away from the one truly warm moment of my life.

  Even the lion at the top of the stairs no longer frightened me. Go ahead. I thought. Devour me. Rid the world of my noxious presence. There are things in life worse than dying. For instance, this chilling apathy that spread like a canker into my limbs.

  With slow heavy steps I made my way into bed. I did not give way to tears, not even when Punch nuzzled my chin, not even when the house moaned in sympathy. I stared at the ceiling, numb. Tomorrow, I would beg Madame Cho to clamp me onto the rack and turn the wheel. Maybe a good stretching would snap the feeling back into my soul.

  Somewhere before dawn I must have slipped into a coma-like sleep because I awoke to Tess shouting at me.

  “Wake up!” She shook me as if the house had caught fire. “It’s happened. It’s all gone wrong.”

  Sixteen

  FAILURE AND SUCCESS, THOSE TWO IMPOSTERS

  “How could you let this happen?” Tess stood beside my bed in her nightclothes, her hair uncombed and matted. Wild-eyed, she glared at me like some sort of madwoman from Bedlam. “What happened? What have you done?”

  “What are you going on about?” I muttered groggily.

  “I told you not to do anything in haste.”

  I shook my head trying to comprehend her meaning. Did she know I’d let Sebastian kiss me? Even if she did, it was none of her business. Tess, of all people, had no right to say anything. “Leave me be.” I pulled up the blankets and wriggled deeper into the pillow.

  “You were supposed to stop him. Now, he’s gone. The nightmare is back.” She shoved me. “Get up!” she yelled, rousing the others.

  Sera turned over. “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s happening again. It’s like it was before she came,” Tess said in a ragged voice.

  Sera sat up and grabbed Punch, holding the squirming rat the way a frightened child clutches a rag doll. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” Tess tugged my arm, dragging me out from under the covers. “Quickly. You have to do something or it’s all going to go horribly, horribly wrong. Hurry!”

  “Stop.” I jerked out of her grasp and sat on the edge of the bed, lowering my throbbing head into my hands. It felt as if a cannonball had collided with my skull. “At least, let me dress.”

  “There’s no time.” She thumped my shoulder. “Come now, or he’ll die.”

  My stupor vanished. I looked up into her distraught face, afraid to ask, “Lord Wyatt?”

  “Yes.”

  Fear jolted through me. I dashed out of the room with Tess hard on my heels. We tore down the stairs and sprinted through the hall. I flung open the laboratory door, expecting the worst, expecting to find his asphyxiated body lying on the floor, but the room was empty. My work table looked tidy. The tools gleamed as if he’d scrubbed all night. Early morning sun drifted in through the windows. Everything at peace. Except Tess.

  “He’s gone,” she murmured, “to London.”

  “I know.” Gone. The paralyzing sadness of the night before crept back into me.

  Her shoulders sagged. “You were supposed to keep him here longer.” She glared up at me. Furious. “Why didn’t you keep him here one more day? Just one more.”

  “I couldn’t.” My hands squeezed into tight fists, fingernails digging into my palms, helping me hold steady, and not yell at her. “Lord Wyatt wanted to be rid of me. No doubt, he wanted to get as far away from me as possible.”

  “I don’t understand.” She blinked rapidly, shaking her head. “No. I saw him with you yesterday. Clearly, he had feelings toward you. I was certain he wouldn’t be so quick to leave.”

  “Why does everyone keep mistaking Lord Wyatt’s feelings toward me?” I glanced around the room empty-handed. Nothing with which to prove my point. “He feels no—” I lowered my voice. “He felt no particular affection for me. Aside from that, he has urgent business in London. He would’ve left today regardless of anything I did, or didn’t do.”

  I flicked my finger against the scales, and sent them clinking and bouncing. “Anyway, what difference does one day make?”

  “Everything.” Tess frowned at me, her eyes rimmed with sadness and dark circles. “The difference between kingdoms rising and falling. Life and death. His life and death.”

  “Not Sebastian,” I begged in barely a whisper. No! I silently screamed. He might want to be rid of me, but the thought of his death pressed down on me, gravity times a thousand, crushing my chest, forcing my knees to buckle. I gripped the worktable. “It can’t be. How? Why?”

  She sat on the long bench, tucked up, hugging her knees. She pointed to the window sill. A half-sheet of paper rested beneath a small pot of reddish brown liquid. “See for yourself.”

  “This is how it begins.” She rocked slightly. “Tyranny. Decades of war. Thousands dead.”

  I stared at her and chewed the corner of my lip. I’d admired Tess from the start, reluctantly, but there you have it—she inspired awe. I envied the way she always seemed so aloof, so remarkably confident. Even if her confidence was, at times, tinged with hostility. This morning, her whitened pallor and distraught wide eyes frightened me more than if she held a dagger to my throat.

  She’d withdrawn into herself, turned inward by visions of destruction and death. The way she stared at the letter, I suspected she already knew the contents.

  My feet felt brittle as icicles. With hesitant steps, I approached the windowsill. My fingers trembled as I slipped the paper out from under the bottle of gall. There, written in India ink, Sebastian had scrawled a note in bold hard strokes. This portion of the letter anyone could readily see, this was the diversionary writing as he called it—the ruse.

  Dear Miss Fitzwilliam,

  I pray you will be so kind as to excuse my early departure. Captain Grey and I have numerous duties in London that require our immediate attention. As you can see, I completed our experiment and prepared flasks for the purpose we discussed.

  I wish you well in your future endeavors. May I say, it has been an honor to make the acquaintance of a young lady who has more than flounces and fripperies occupying her thoughts.

  My best regards,

  Lord Wyatt.

  Another set of words resided between those lines, a secret message meant only for me. Written in fainter ink, it read:

  Dearest Georgiana,

  You must forgive my harsh words last night. The situation caught me off guard. I couldn’t think clearly with you so near. My baser instincts wanted to rule.

  First, I cannot thank you enough for this ink. It will d
o more good than you could imagine. As you might’ve guessed, after London I go to Vienna. How long my sojourn there will be, I cannot know. Second, I must warn you, Georgie. Do not expect other gentlemen to behave with the restraint you witnessed in me. Exercise caution around other men while I am away. No kissing.

  I shall be extremely unhappy if I hear of you breaking any other hearts.

  Yrs, Sebastian

  He was teasing, of course, about breaking hearts. I hadn’t broken his. If I had, he might still be here. I wanted to smile at his words, but the warmth they generated vanished under a deadly chill.

  Sebastian’s secret message wasn’t hidden at all.

  Neither of us had applied the gall solution, and yet the faint writing was clearly legible, every word exposed. My invisible ink had darkened on its own. Sunlight streaming through the window may have developed it, or may have reacted with a chemical in the paper. It didn’t matter. Sebastian was headed to London, and tonight he would distribute an invisible ink that would betray everyone who used it.

  I whipped around to Tess. “We have to stop him.”

  She rocked, pale, unmoved.

  I ran and shook her shoulders. “Tess, listen to me. Lord Ravencross’s horse—you must get him to lend it to you. I have to ride for London straightway. I can’t explain why. It’s a secret, but I need you to get me a horse.”

  She stared blankly at me.

  I shook her again. “Tess, I need a horse. Any horse. Now.”

  That seemed to wake her up. “You can’t.”

  “I can. I must. I have to warn Lord Wyatt or terrible things will happen.”

  “No. You can’t leave yet. Think it through. We only have one hope.” She frowned. “You have to make an ink that works.”

  After my colossal failures in the past few days?

  “There isn’t time.” I gave her shoulders another shake. “We have to stop him. Now! Before he gives it to his men. He’ll get caught. They’ll all get caught.”

  “No!” She jerked out of my grasp and buried her face in her hands. “Listen to me. I’ve seen that path. If you don’t make an ink that works, too many people die.” She looked up, eyes pleading. “Too many. Him, others, ambassadors, kings…” She tried to suppress a moan and started rocking again. “If they die, you can’t begin to imagine what happens here in England, and on the continent.”