by Darcy Burke
“I am not a prisoner. Don’t you think I’d know if I were being held against my will?”
“If you’re not, then prove it,” the boy insisted, casting nervous glances over his shoulder. “Let me help you escape. Come with me. Now, before they notice you’re gone.”
She wrested her arm from his grip. “This flimflam has gone on long enough. Listen to me. I can leave anytime I choose. I simply don’t choose to. I’m hardly a sheep waiting to be—”
“What’s going on here?” came a deep voice, followed by heavy footsteps.
The boy’s eyes widened in terror.
“Mr. Roper!” Violet exclaimed in relief. “I was just explaining—”
“What’s this?” He lifted Violet’s abandoned satchel and loosened the cord. The tip of a loaf of bread peeked out of its cloth cover. “You caught him stealing?”
“No.” Violet reached toward the bundle. “It’s not his. It’s mine.”
“She’s coming with me!” the boy cried, tugging desperately at her skirt. “Hurry. Come now!”
At that, Mr. Roper’s face hardened. “She’s not going anywhere.”
Before she could begin to comprehend the sudden change in his demeanor, she’d been hefted over his shoulder as if she were no more bother than a sack of laundry.
“Miss!” the boy yelled back as he darted out the open door. “I’ll be back for ye!”
“Let me down!” She struggled to slide free of the burly manservant’s unyielding grasp. The delivery boy was young and foolish, but his very real panic had managed to unsettle her. And now this! She was an employee, not a prisoner ... so why was she being forcibly prevented from exiting, slung over a silent lackey’s shoulder as if headed to a dark dungeon? “Mr. Roper! Mr. Roper!”
As he turned a corner past the kitchen, Mrs. Tumsen stepped from an adjoining corridor. “Charles? What are you doing?”
Mr. Roper’s grip barely loosened at the sound of his given name, but it was all Violet needed to slip free. She twisted, rolling off his shoulder like a stone down a mountain. She landed hard against the marble floor, but was up and running into the darkness before anyone had a prayer of catching her.
Panting, half-shogging and half-hobbling with her heart racing faster than ever before, she finally collapsed against a wall and sank to the floor. With neither food nor water in her belly, her body was incapable of much more exercise. And without an explanation for Mr. Roper’s manhandling—and forcible detainment—her brain was incapable of coming up with a plan.
She rested her forehead upon her bent knees and concentrated on emptying her mind until her breathing returned to normal. Now more than ever, she could not return to her chambers. Although she had lost her satchel in the altercation with Mr. Roper, the sanctuary still seemed the wisest choice ... if she could determine how to get there from here. Without a candle, or any reliable recollection of which direction she’d fled, she had no idea where in the abbey she might be.
She pulled herself up and forced her feet to move, slipping noiselessly down corridor after corridor. She was concentrating so hard on finding a path to the sanctuary that she almost missed the small sound coming from behind a door just to her left. She froze in her tracks to listen. Tiny, arrhythmic scratches came from the other side of the door, as if someone were locked inside and trying desperately to claw their way out.
Her heart nearly stopped.
She knelt to peer through the keyhole. Blackness. She could see nothing. If there was someone inside, they had been left there without a candle.
“H-hullo?” she called softly through the keyhole. “Is someone there?”
The scratching stopped.
The only sound in the entirety of the murky corridor was that of Violet’s own heart, and nothing more. She held her breath. Silence remained.
Perhaps she’d imagined it. Surely she’d imagined it. Despite the unquestionable appearance of being kept in the abbey by force, she had arrived here of her own free will. She carried a skeleton key, for goodness sake. If she were not meant to leave, this was surely a recent mandate. Mr. Waldegrave was hardly the sort to go about abducting and imprisoning young girls, despite what the villagers claimed.
Right?
She pulled herself to her feet and stared at the silent door. She reached forward, closed her fingers about the handle, and gave it a twist.
Locked. Of course it was locked. Every chamber in the entire abbey was locked. But she had a key, did she not?
She fished the key from beneath her bodice and slid it into the lock. Before she could change her mind, she slid the bolt free, pushed open the door, and stepped inside.
Empty. The chamber was completely empty.
Not only was there no virgin sacrifice, abducted from her parents or chained to the bedpost, there was no bed, no wardrobe, no furniture, nothing. Just a large, empty chamber with thick curtains covering the far wall. Nothing more.
Fingers brushed against her ankle. With a scream, Violet leapt backward.
A loud fluttering thundered past her face toward the curtains.
A bird. A bird. Her choking laugh was tinged with almost hysterical relief. Those hadn’t been fingers against her ankle, but the soft weight of robin’s wings. And of course there were robins—hadn’t she just noted the warmth of the sun and the softly blooming flowers and the distinct scent of outdoors? Why, it was a miracle the abbey wasn’t overrun with robins. God knew, she had never been able to prevent any kind of creature from entering any place she called home. All it took was an open window, and the next thing one knew—
Her breath caught again. This was Waldegrave Abbey. There were no open windows. There weren’t even windows. Just layers of crisscross boards hidden beneath reams of heavy curtains. There was no way a robin could have squeezed through a gap that even sunshine couldn’t slip through.
Slowly, she crossed step by step to the dark curtains hanging on the other side of the empty chamber. A faint hint of light seeped from beneath. Hands shaking, she shoved the curtains apart.
Colored sunlight blasted her in the face. She stumbled backward in surprise.
Iron-framed stained glass stretched from knee height almost to the ceiling. A semi-opaque view of the abbey grounds spread before her, from a height of perhaps twenty feet. Not all the boards had been removed from the windows, but enough had been cleared to allow the smallest pane to be unlocked and lifted. She did so now. The robin seized its opportunity for flight, leaving her alone once more.
She stood there, gazing out an artisan window that should not be visible, until the sun began to set beyond the edge of the neighboring woods.
With his daughter’s sunsickness—and his own—Mr. Waldegrave would never have condoned the de-boarding of a window. But then, neither would a servant dare be so presumptuous. And yet, the room was free of dust, and someone had clearly begun to expose the stained glass design. Even the missing boards had been cleared from the room. But who? And when? And why?
Violet shoved the curtains closed with trembling fingers. Perhaps she and Lily weren’t the sole captives of Waldegrave Abbey after all.
***
By the following noontime, Alistair had lost his appetite.
His eyes were streaked red from studying through the night, his fingers were cramped and swollen from copious note-taking during the day, his throat was sore and his voice raspy from shouting over the din of theories and postulations. It should have been a glorious turning point for the future of the Waldegraves.
Except all he was hearing was “no.”
No, they had never come across such a disease in their lives. No, there was no research on the subject, and therefore, no, there wasn’t the faintest path toward amelioration. No, they couldn’t imagine what might cause nor cure such a queer allergy. No, their busy schedules did not permit a second such gathering anytime this year, much less frequent house calls. No, there would be no way to treat an unknown disease through mere correspondence. No, they really must study the
subject in person. No, they could not guarantee that experimentation in their faraway laboratories would not exacerbate, rather than solve, the problem. No, they could not study the symptoms without causing additional pain to the subject, or perhaps accidental death. They were physicians and scientists, not miracle workers and magicians. They were not God.
When the subject turned for the hundredth time to whose laboratory and bright young assistants would be more suited for physical research of this nature—despite Alistair’s repeated pleas that they focus on preventing the symptoms, not documenting them—he could bear the frustration no longer.
Rude as it may be, he leapt from his chair and strode from the wall of “Would the reflection of sun on snow deepen or lessen the severity of the burns?” and “Once enough scar tissue had formed, might not a few seconds of sunlight be tolerated?” and into the blessed darkness of his empty office. Silence ... but not peace. He collapsed into his chair, crisscrossed his arms over a stack of worthless notes, and lowered his head to his desk.
His prayers had not been answered. He was not on the path to saving Lillian. He was destined to disappoint her yet again. And life would trudge on as it always had.
A knock sounded on the office door. “Master Waldegrave?”
His housekeeper. Sighing, Alistair lifted his heavy head. He plodded across the room without registering much of anything and mechanically opened the door. “What is it, Mrs. Tumsen?”
“It’s tea. I thought you could use a pot.” She bustled right past him as if in-office tea service were an everyday occurrence rather than an unheard of presumption.
No one had ever been allowed in Alistair’s office but him. No maid, no housekeeper, no one. His office was the repository of an entire decade of research into his daughter’s sunsickness. Nine long years he’d kept this oasis of knowledge, this haven of hope, sacred. Books, notes, his sweat and blood and essence on every diagram or model or scrap of parchment. And for what? Just to make the bitterness of disappointment all the more severe?
Tea would not erase his woes. Only a cure for Lillian could do that.
Rather than return to his desk, he stepped into the passageway and headed back toward the large refectory they’d been using as a meeting room. He did not bother to shoo Mrs. Tumsen from his office or bid her close the door behind him. So what if she spilled tea over nine years of notes or mistook yellowed parchment for forgotten rubbish? He was never going to devise a cure on his own. He needed help. He needed the experts arguing animatedly on the other side of the abbey. While there was still air to breathe, he was not willing to give up.
Nearly to the refectory, he spied Roper heading toward the servants’ quarters. Alistair called out to his manservant, who started as if he’d been caught sneaking biscuits.
“Master! Good afternoon.”
“Not particularly. Is Miss Smythe about? I haven’t seen her and she promised to lend her mind to the meeting. Could you escort her to the refectory for me?”
“She’s ... not in her chamber, master.” Roper dropped his gaze suspiciously. “Or speaking to me.”
“What?” Alistair’s eyes narrowed. “Why not? Where is she?”
“She hasn’t left Miss Lillian’s side since yesterday afternoon, master. I’m certain she’s there still.”
Alistair’s stomach dropped. “What happened to Lillian? Has she sickened? I must go to her at once. I must—”
“Miss Lillian is fine, master. The problem was not with her.”
His heart still beating rapidly, Alistair raked a hand through his hair. “Then what?”
His manservant sighed. “I caught Miss Smythe by the kitchen exit with a young boy yesterday. She had a gown and a loaf of bread wrapped up in a mantle. He was raving about coming to rescue her, that they were leaving.”
Alistair’s heart slowed to a stop, then sped up twice as fast as before. She had been planning to leave. Abandon him and Lillian both without so much as a fare-thee-well. And if that’s what Violet wished to do, how could he stop her? He’d have to let her go. And never hear her voice or see her face again.
With spreading surprise, he realized it wasn’t the lack of goodbye that had skewered him. It was the realization that he did not want her to leave his side. Ever. She was indelibly a part of his life now. A part of his heart.
Even if that made him a monster.
He let out a slow breath. Why did his undeniable affection for Miss Smythe make him feel so guilty? Was it because he couldn’t reunite his daughter with her birth mother?
He had spent Lillian’s entire life telling her she was the child of the most perfect angel that ever walked the earth. And now what? He wanted his skeptical daughter to believe her father had managed to ensnare not one but two angels? Did he even believe such a thing were possible?
He would have to puzzle it out later. This might be his last chance to find a cure for Lillian, and the hourglass was running low.
“I can’t concern myself with Miss Smythe right now,” he said, ignoring the tumult in his brain. “I cannot afford the distraction. I have a roomful of scientists and physicians attempting to put their minds toward a cure, and that is where my focus belongs.”
“But master ... if she should try to leave again?”
Ignoring the thundering of his heart, Alistair forced himself to do the right thing. “Then let her.”
Roper’s usually emotionless demeanor was an unfamiliar mixture of surprise and disappointment, as if he, too, felt Miss Smythe’s attempted departure to be a personal betrayal, and had fully expected his master to employ whatever means necessary to get her to stay.
But what was Alistair to do? Drop to his knees and bare his soul? He wasn’t entirely certain of where, precisely, his heart stood, but he did know where his focus needed to be. Until he could give Lillian the life she deserved, Alastair did not deserve a life at all, much less a romance. Only a cure could save them. With his guests leaving on the morrow, the hours remaining to devise a reason to hope dwindled fewer and fewer. And he wanted more than mere hope. He needed success.
With a quick nod to dismiss Roper, Alistair sprinted back to the refectory where the intellectual debate still raged at top volume. When he entered the room, however, the voices stalled.
“What?” he demanded, his skin sticky with foreboding. “What happened?”
“We have drawn a conclusion,” Mr. Knightly announced somberly. “But you will not like it.”
His stomach dropped. “There’s no hope? None at all?”
“There is always hope,” Mr. Knightly corrected with a smile. “But there is only one possibility for success.”
Alistair sagged as relief washed over him. “Anything. Anything at all. Just tell me what I must do.”
“Submit yourself to one of our laboratories for examination. We must have a live subject.”
“What? No!” Alistair’s fingers clenched at the thought of his daughter strapped to an examination table. “Not even for a day.”
“We’re not asking for a day,” Mr. Knightly said softly. “But for life. Or until the disease can be cured, whichever comes first. It’s the only way.”
“There is no cure,” Dr. Hughes spoke up from the opposite corner. “Not without extensive research and experimentation.”
Alistair desperately shook his head. “There will be no experimentation.”
Mr. Knightly rose to his feet and donned his hat. “Then there will be no cure.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The following day, Jenny and Elsa—the maids who brought each meal to the sanctuary—also carried the news Violet had been waiting for.
“They’re gone.” Jenny slid her heavy tray onto the top of Lily’s escritoire. “Master Waldegrave is taking his leave of the last one right now.”
“And he is not in a good humor,” Elsa added under her breath as she arranged the milk and tea.
Marvelous. Violet thanked them for the food and bade them good afternoon. As she nibbled at a bite of boiled
potato, her gaze was continually drawn to the hands of the clock. As much as she enjoyed Lily’s company—and a warm meal—she could not stay here forever. Visiting his daughter would undoubtedly be Mr. Waldegrave’s first stop after seeing off the last of his guests, and Violet was not up for a confrontation over her conspicuous absence.
She did need to address having been forcibly restrained from leaving the abbey, but that particular argument seemed disingenuous at the moment, given there was nowhere to go. And what did that say about her current turn of affairs? Well, she certainly couldn’t claim to be unwanted.
She snorted softly. “Be careful what you wish for, I suppose.”
Lily glanced up from her meal, one cheek smeared with orange marmalade. “Hrmph?”
“Nothing, Tiger Lily. Except I have to go back to my own chamber now. We’ve been in this room together for nearly three straight days. Aren’t you tired of me yet?”
“Huh-uh.” Lily threw her arms around Violet’s waist and let herself hang on dead-weight, smearing orange marmalade across Violet’s morning dress and nearly toppling her over in the process.
“All right, you,” she chastised good-humoredly as she plucked the giggling little girl from her skirts. “Now I definitely need to bathe and change. Your papa should be by before too long, and I’ll see you in the morning. Try to behave, please.”
The answering look of mischief in Lily’s eyes lent no hope whatsoever to proper behavior, but Violet secretly could not have been more pleased.
Lily was finally misbehaving as a nine-year-old girl ought. No table manners, a disinclination for mathematics, frequent snits over the brushing of her hair or whether she must eat boiled vegetables—all of these were far more welcome than the frightened animal of a child who had attacked anyone who entered the sanctuary and scratched and bit her own father out of a desperate bid for attention. Lily was slowly maturing. She might never see the sun, but she was blossoming all the same.
Violet kissed the top of Lily’s head before hurrying to her bedchamber.