Exile for Dreamers (10 page)

I stopped short.

My joy vaporized into a gasp.

Miss Stranje leaned against the wall, Phobos and Tromos pacing on either side of her. “Good evening, Tess. Or should I say good morrow? I gather you are feeling better?”

Caught.

I swallowed in answer.

“And how is our patient?” she asked, as if simply making polite conversation, nothing more.

Devil take it!
There was nothing I could do except face my punishment. Still panting from running so hard, I bent to catch my breath. “Resting.”

She stood relaxed, at ease, as if we'd simply happened upon one another at a dressmaker's shop. That's how I knew to keep my guard up. Miss Stranje was always more dangerous when she was relaxed.

“You do realize these passageways exist so that if Stranje House is ever attacked and overrun by an enemy we might be able to make our escape.” When I did not answer, she took a step closer. “They were
not
designed so that young ladies might sneak out in the dead of night and climb into a neighboring lord's bedchamber.”

That set my nerves thumping. “Put like that, it sounds rather sordid.”

“So it does.”

“You know perfectly well why I went. There was nothing unseemly about it. He needed protecting.”

Miss Stranje waited as unmoved as a monolith in the moonlight.

“How did you know I'd gone?” I straightened and crossed my arms, shoring up against the peal she would surely ring over my head.

“Madame Cho went to check on you in the middle of the night. Imagine her dismay to find you missing from your bed.”

To this, I could only dip my head, shamefaced.

Miss Stranje understood my attachment to Madame Cho, an attachment she shared, which gave her all the more reason to scold me. “She came to me in considerable distress.”

I was sorry to have worried Madame Cho, but I would still have gone. Someone had to keep him safe from Daneska's murderers. Defiant, I looked up and collided with her hooded-hangman expression.

“Madame worried you had wandered off in a stupor. We live near some rather treacherous cliffs.”

“And yet…” I jutted my chin higher. “You didn't sound the alarm. Why is that?” I kept my shoulders back, square, as rigid and unyielding as hers.

She took a deep breath, calculating whether to admit the truth. “You know why.” Something akin to pride tempered her expression.

“You guessed where I'd gone.”

“It didn't require much conjecture on my part.” She exhaled and clicked her tongue as if I was being childish. “It did, however, bring into question my trust in you.”

“For that I am sorry. And for alarming Madame Cho. But I do not regret that I went. Daneska hired assassins—”

“Yes, I know.” She waved away my protest. “Sera and Jane explained it all to me. Nevertheless,
you
must understand
my
position. It was not so very long ago that Lady Daneska snuck out at night to rendezvous with the former Lord Ravencross. I should not like to see history repeat itself.”

She might as well have slapped me.

“How can you say that?” I jumped back, throwing my hands wide. “I would never!
He
would never. How can you even suggest such a thing?” Tromos yipped softly and nuzzled my hand in an effort to calm me.

“Because, my dear, I hadn't expected it from Lady Daneska either. At least, I hadn't suspected the extent of her treachery.”

“But I am nothing like her.” I thumped my palm against my chest. “
Nothing!
Daneska is an evil, vicious, conniving…” I could not find the right expletive. Georgie's words from the previous morning came back to me. “Vipers are more trustworthy.”

Miss Stranje's shoulders pinched up. She looked away from me, out across the park to where Ravencross Manor stood, still a dark silhouette at this gloomy hour before dawn. She stared. Silent. Remembering.

I remembered, too.

The night she left us, Daneska told me the truth about Lucien.

It had been cold the night Daneska left, having snowed the day before. I'd awakened an hour after midnight to find her bed empty and the panel to our secret passage slightly ajar. I'd caught up to her as she was headed out through this same hidden door. She was carrying a satchel, and I knew my best friend was not simply sneaking off for another assignation. But she wouldn't tell me what she was doing, not until she swore me to secrecy.

Once she'd obtained my promise, she confided that they were fleeing the country because Lucien had aligned himself with France. He was obsessed with Napoleon's ideologies and had even gone so far as to join the Order of the Iron Crown. I could still hear her laughing at me for not understanding why she, too, intended to side with France. She and Lucien were convinced Napoleon was destined to win the war and that he would one day unite all of Europe. With her chin at a haughty angle, hoisted well above the white fur of her ermine collar, she'd said, “And then Lucien and I will rule at his side.”

I'd begged her to reconsider. When, in desperation, I'd asked if loyalty meant nothing to her, she mocked me. “
Loyalty?
Do not be so naïve, Tessie. I have no country. No king. My father's duchy has been laid waste by British armies. I owe my allegiance to no one, not you, not Miss Stranje, and certainly not your fat English prince. I am loyal only to myself.” Even though we were the same age, she'd patted her glove against my cheek as if I were a toddler she pitied. “Not even to Lucien. Like all men, he is merely a means to an end.”

She'd grinned wickedly, as if it pleased her to admit that even Lord Ravencross had no hold over her. “I'm not like him,” she'd said proudly. “I have no interest in democracies and lofty ideals. But I do have a keen interest in being on the winning side.”

She'd laughed then and slipped through the door. “Power, Tessie, that is what matters. Money and power.”

I'd followed her out and stood in my nightgown and bare feet watching her traipse across the snow. Ice crystals blew in soft sparkling swirls as she turned and pressed a lone gloved finger to her lips, reminding me of my promise not to tell until morning. She knew that where she had no use for loyalty, I prized it. Though it ate at me like a green sickness, she knew I would keep my word. With another laugh, she ran away. The sound caught on the wind and turned to breaking glass. I kept standing there, my feet going numb, watching as she faded into the night, leaving dark, coffin-shaped footprints in the snow.

It had taken me a long time that night before I'd ducked back into the passage and slammed it shut behind me, and even longer to trudge back up to the dormitorium. Daneska's betrayal angered me more than it could ever vex Miss Stranje.

It still gnawed at my stomach, a churning ball of spiked fury. I wanted to cough it out and forget Daneska had ever been my friend, forget she had ever existed.

Some wounds take longer to heal.

With a quick intake of breath, Miss Stranje spun back to me, herself once again. “You're right. You're not like her, Tess. Not in the least.”

She meant it. I saw it in the softening of her features.

The dogs paced between us, looking first to her, then to me, gauging our words, whimpering at our harsh exchanges, unsure how to protect against this kind of trouble in their pack. I felt bad for them. And for her. I lowered my pretense of pride. “I'm sorry I worried you and Madame Cho.”

She nodded and put an arm around my shoulders. “It might surprise you to know I did not wait out here at this hour to scold you. To warn you, perhaps, but not to scold. I do understand why you went.” She swallowed, and hesitated, as if the worst was yet to come. “I waited for you so that we might have a private word.”

Private.

Twelve kinds of trouble dripped like poison from that word.

Phobos tilted his head suspiciously, and I expect I may have done the same thing. “Private?”

She dropped her arm and resumed her normal headmistress-like self. All business. Except her tone was too stiff. Too formal. “I'm concerned, you see.” She took a deep breath before going on. “Matters are going rather badly on the continent. With Napoleon back on the throne, making sweeping advances to the north, Wellington's troops have been forced to retreat. Bonaparte has driven them all the way up to Hanover. The House of Lords and several of our military advisers are recommending our troops return home to protect British soil against his inevitable attack. But it is extremely difficult to transport more than a few troops at a time, especially when the nearest port is even farther north, in Hamburg.”

All this I already knew. Last week Georgie had been desperate for news of Lord Wyatt. She was frantic to find anything that might tell her where Sebastian was or even if he was alive. The two of us decided to put our training to use. We crept into our headmistress's office and searched for correspondence about the war.

“Although I suspect you already knew this much.”

I caught my breath and turned to scratch Phobos behind the ears, afraid to meet Miss Stranje's gaze for fear of giving away our duplicity. “I may have read something of the sort in the newspapers, and I'd heard—”

“Come now. Did you think I wouldn't notice that my papers had been disturbed?” Her tone lightened. She wasn't angry. But I was.

Caught again.

It rankled. I exhaled loudly. “How did you know? We were so careful to put everything back exactly as it was. We replaced the stack of books atop the papers at precisely the same angle.”

The corner of her mouth turned up in amusement. “You may not have noticed the small broken nib I left sitting on the lower left corner of the papers.”

“A spent nib?”

“Yes.” She tsked, as if I'd suggested something silly. “You don't think I would be so sloppy as to leave a cut-off nib on my papers for no reason. I also left a small corner of felt midway through the stack.”

“You were testing us.” I growled and kicked at the grass, dislodging a sleeping grasshopper. Tromos bounded after it.

She merely inclined her head in answer.

“And we failed.”

“Not entirely. You entered and left my study without being seen.”

“Unlike tonight,” I said, suddenly feeling weary and not nearly so light of foot as I had earlier. “What is it you wanted of me?”

She caught her lip and for an instant looked worried. Miss Emma Stranje is nothing if not intrepid. Where she might bite her lip in consternation, the rest of the world would quake in their boots. If she was worried, matters must indeed be grave.

She rallied her air of authority. “It is about your gift, your dreams. You haven't mentioned them of late.”

I glanced sideways at her.
What was she getting at?
“I hadn't thought them important.”

She blinked as if she thought I was being obtuse. “Whyever not? They were instrumental in helping Georgie with the ink, and without them, who knows what lives might've been lost.”

“That one time, perhaps. But most of the time my dreams are inscrutable—a roiling mess of sadness and pain. Of what use it that?”
Apart from causing my mind to break.

Miss Stranje spoke to me as if I was still a young girl in her classroom. “The fact that they are sometimes predictive—surely you see the benefit of that?”

I retreated a step or two, trying to hide the low growl climbing up my throat. “I'm no prophet.”

“Of course not…” She waved my dispute away. “But if it weren't for you and your dreams, Sebastian might be dead, and who knows what would've happened to the diplomats in Vienna. You must admit that much.”

I exhaled loudly, trying to breathe out the confusion she was stirring up. “Except things have gotten worse, not better. Worse! Napoleon is back in power.” I shook my head, trying to escape this debate. Nothing she could say would convince me anyway. “None of this matters. We've no way to know what would have happened had I not interfered.”

She sighed. “I suppose there's not much use in mere mortals pondering such things.”

“Then let us leave it, shall we. What is it you wanted?”

She sniffed, haughty, defensive, very
unlike
Miss Emma Stranje. “Well, as a matter of fact, I would like to know if you've had any other dreams. In particular, any dreams about the situation on the continent. Or the war—”

“You want to know if I've seen anything pertaining to Captain Grey?” I asked, not intending to be cruel, simply wishing to get to the point a bit quicker.

She caught my arm. “He is not the only reason for my asking.” She let go and turned back into the sharp-eyed hawk. “Naturally, it's frustrating not knowing. If we'd had some small word,
anything.
You know how I dislike being kept in the dark. The diplomatic office has had no word either. So, yes, among other things I would like to know if he and Lord Wyatt are…” She pursed her lips.

“Alive?”

“If they are
well.
” She seemed annoyed that I spoke her fear out loud. “Have you seen either of them? A glimpse, perhaps? Anything at all?”

“No. Nothing of them.”

Her shoulders sagged a fraction of an inch lower than her normal soldierly posture. “I thought as much.”

I felt sadness fall upon her like a cold fog. Phobos whimpered and rubbed his head against her leg. Miss Stranje stared down at the dark pool of grass surrounding us. Wind rippled across the ebony blades. The moon had abandoned us, leaving the world still shrouded in the funeral clothes of night. Morning larks had not yet begun to sing and nightingales had long since fallen silent. In the stillness that lay between night and morning, one last star glittered just above the treetops, a small beacon of hope in the darkness engulfing us.