Exile for Dreamers (38 page)

“Fast isn't everything. Birds are fast. Haven't you ever thrown a rock to kill a morning dove? Did you know Madame Cho is the only one who ever empties my slops? Oh, but this is not done out of kindness. No. She never even looks in my direction when she does it. Cho hates me too much. And yet she does what none of the rest of you will do. She didn't know I'd had my chains off. She toddled in to change my piss pot a few minutes ago. One hard swing from the corner, and she went down like a good little dove.”

“You wretch.”

“The hardest part was slipping those irritating things back on every time one of you came down to visit me.”

I started for Madam Cho, but Daneska yanked her in tighter with the knife. “
Tsk, tsk.
Stay back or I'll cut her throat.” Her eyebrows danced up as if the thought excited her. “I may do it anyway unless you talk sweetly to me.”

“What do you want, Daneska?”

She exhaled with irritation. “I have been perfectly clear from the first day.”

When I shrugged, she snapped at me, “You.”

She wasn't making sense. “Go ahead, run away. Escape. But leave Madam Cho alone. She's bleeding. Let me take care of her. I promise I won't stop you. Go,” I pleaded.

“Why are you being thick?” She frowned at me. Daneska doesn't frown very often. She doesn't want to ruin her pretty face. At least that's what she told me once. I think it is more likely that she is quite happy being wicked.

“You are coming with us, Tessika. You are the prize I will bring to Napoleon. And now you must hold very still because Ghost, he is not so fond of you as I am.”

He stepped through the doorway with a pistol pointed straight at my head. A pistol I had seen before in a dream.

Lucien.

Ghost.
I sucked back a gasp. He looked so much like Gabriel, and yet not. He was taller than his brother, and as improbable as it seemed, he was even more handsome. But a wintery hardness radiated off him that put the cold stones around us to shame. His father would've been pleased. Lucien had, indeed, turned to steel. He moved toward me, cornering me, every step deliberate and efficient.

Maybe if I was very, very good he would disappear as he had in that dream.

“Ah,
très
bien.
I see you remembered the rope.” Daneska smiled at him. “Tie her hands. Mind you, she is a tricky one. Use a very good knot.”

He said nothing, as if he need not trouble himself responding to Daneska.

“Now, Tessika,” Daneska began to chide me with unsettling cheerfulness. “If you make one tiny move that I don't like while the real Lord of Ravencross secures your hands, I will cut Cho. And just to prove I mean what I say, I will start right here by her chin.” Daneska etched a thin line of blood along the underside of Madame Cho's chin.

No!

My shoulders lurched to attention, and I tried to hold in the unbidden noises screaming up my throat—a war cry, a wounded moan. Either sound would betray me and testify to Daneska the hold she had over me. For Madame Cho's sake, I arched my neck, and choked it back down my gullet.

She saw through me and scoffed. “You always were too fond of this old woman.” She waggled the bloody knife at me. “If I kill her, I'll be doing you a favor. I tried to warn you, love makes you weak.”

A low, guttural rumble came from Ghost. It was a sound achingly familiar to me, having heard his brother utter it. But when it came from Lucien, it sounded twisted and indecipherable. I couldn't tell if what Daneska had said pleased him or annoyed him, or both.

He slammed me against the wall and studied me closely. Too closely. His icy gaze seared down the curve of my neck and over the rise of my breasts. Then he glowered at me, taking the measure of my soul. Where Gabriel's eyes are a warm melting brown, Lucien's are dark, like soil found at the bottom of a deep pit. There was no light in them.

He watched my face steadily as he twisted my wrists and bound them with a rough hemp rope, cinching the knot so tight I couldn't keep from grimacing. My wince drew the faintest suggestion of a smile to his lips, but it quickly vanished.

“Did you get the drawings?” Daneska asked him.

Lucien pulled some folded papers out of his coat. “They were right where they were supposed to be.” He shook them open. The first was a detailed drawing Sera had made of Sinclair's warship.

The second pleased Daneska enormously. “Notes. A list of parts and materials. It's all here.”

Jane's notes.

I grimaced. “You've got what you want, just go.”

She grinned and folded up the papers. “Oh, no, my dear, you are coming with us. You're to be the emperor's new toy.”

“You can't make me dream for him.”

“Oh, but I can, my dear Tessika.” She laughed and ripped a strip of cloth from the hem of her filthy underdress. “I can.”

The silver bowl.

Of course! The green water was probably absinthe laced with laudanum. The two were often mixed together. Once they got me to the palace, they intended to keep me in a drugged stupor, trapped in the madness of my dreams.

Better I die here.

She twisted the torn cloth and held it out to Lucien. “Gag her.”

The instant he turned, I kicked out as hard as I could, aiming a crippling blow at his knee. In one stunningly smooth motion, Ghost dodged it, grabbed my foot, and flipped me to the floor. My head hit the stones, and for a second I thought the lantern had flickered out.

Daneska laughed, looking quite gleeful as she knelt over me and tied the gag in place. “I told you, you are no match for him.”

Ghost jerked me to my feet.

Madame Cho was still unconscious and bleeding when they locked her in the cell. I prayed someone would come for her soon. Like a lamb being led to slaughter, Daneska and Ghost led me out of the dungeon and down into the secret passage that wound beneath Stranje House to the sea cave. We were so far beneath the house that even if I could scream, no one would hear me.

Their sloop was tied to the dock in the cave. We passed the skeleton that had frightened Georgie so badly her first night at Stranje House. On a lark, Jane and I had dressed those old bones in a pink gown. I thought to myself that the gown was getting a little faded and if I ever came back to Stranje House I might fix that. Odd, the mundane thoughts that tumble through the mind when everything else has turned impossibly dark and hopeless.

They tugged me into the boat and tied my lead line to a cleat on the gunwale. The thing about the sea cave is that it is rather tricky to navigate. It's not hard to row into the cavern, especially if the tide is with you. No, it's the rowing
out
that's difficult.

Ghost, who up until this time remained frighteningly quiet, began to curse. “You're going to have to help, Daneska.”

“Must I?” She grimaced at the long oars. “I bet we could make her do it.”

“With her hands tied? Don't be daft. Row.”

And so Daneska did her best, and while they struggled, trying to keep from bashing into the cave walls, I worked on loosening my knot. Neither of us made rapid headway. By the time they managed to row out of the cave, my progress on the knot had taken a disheartening turn. Amid all the sloshing, the rope had gotten wet and the hemp began to swell.

Once a boat clears the mouth of that cave, the sea is determined to push it back in. Especially at high tide, which it was that night. And if that doesn't do the job, there are always the rocks. The waves tend to smash unwary sailors against the rocky shore.

“I'm tired.” Daneska slumped over her oars.

“Stop complaining and put your back into it.”

Unfortunately, Daneska did a much better job than I thought she would. Soon we were moving farther from the coast and my chances of escape were lessening by the second. I picked furiously at Ghost's knot, but between the hemp swelling and my fingers turning numb from lack of circulation, I'd managed to loosen only one loop.

My heart sank when Lucien said, “You can stop now. We're far enough away that we can hoist the sail.”

It was a clear night and I could see the lights of Stranje House atop the cliff. Surely by now they knew what had happened. I hoped above all that they'd found Madame Cho and were tending to her injuries.

At this point I knew I had little chance of escaping alive. The fading silhouette of Ravencross Manor drew my gaze and filled me with regrets. I wished I'd kissed Gabriel one more time. I wish I hadn't fretted about not having a future. I should've been happier when I had the chance.

Still, I picked at the rope.
Habit,
I suppose
.
Miss Stranje required us to do timed practices of getting ourselves untied. Normally I excelled at it, but Ghost tied an exceptionally good knot, and the wet rope made it nearly impossible to loosen. Frustrated, I growled and bit down on the gag in my mouth, working it with my teeth.

They were hauling up the sail when I caught a faint sound that made me start picking at my ropes faster. The
slap, slap, slap
of a paddle wheel. It was far-away, and if you didn't know what it was you might think it was just the lapping of the waves in the distance or the beat of a sail catching the wind. Except this sound was too regular. Mechanically regular. Even with that filthy gag in my mouth, my lips spread in a wide smile. It was so blessedly wonderfully regular. Quite possibly the most beautiful sound I'd ever heard.

They would see the sloop's white sail, I told myself.
Please God, let them see that white sail shining in the moonlight.
The sound got louder by the minute, and I picked at my bonds faster. Finally, I could see the outline of the ship and the puff of smoke rising from her stack.

“Do you hear that?” Daneska asked.

“Hear what?” Ghost asked.

I tried to make a noise despite the gag in my mouth. It drew her attention for a moment. “Hush. Be grateful I didn't make you row. I daresay, I shall have blisters for a week. Whereas you could've rowed and spared me—”

She squinted in the direction of the sound and stood up.

“Sit down, Dani,” Ghost snarled. “If the sail comes about, it will knock you overboard. I'm in no mood to stop and fish your carcass out of the water. Although you could do with a bath.”

“Do you not hear that? It's the oddest noise and it's getting louder.” Then she saw it. “What is that?” She pointed.

“I'll not tell you again, Daneska. Sit down or I will knock you overboard myself.” He held the tiller with one hand and with the other reached over to adjust the boom line.

She plopped back down on the rowing thwart, and jabbed her finger in the direction of the steamship. “For pity's sake, look!”

He turned with deliberate slowness in the direction she pointed. Straightened. Stood and looked harder. “Damnation.”

Ghost tied off the tiller and ran to the bow. He drew out the flintlock he'd pointed at me earlier, aimed, and fired. The blast nearly deafened me. But I thought I heard a distant
ping.
His bullet must've hit metal.
Please let that be all it hit. Let it be a hole in their smokestack, not in something that would sink them, and not in someone's body.

I couldn't bear it if one of them got hurt trying to save me. I was the one who was supposed to do the saving. Not them. They had too much at risk.

The sail trapped a cloud of acrid gun smoke in the boat. Dani coughed. Ghost primed his gun and fired again. My heart clenched tighter than the knot Lucien had tied around my hands.

The warship steamed straight for us. I heard a soft whistling sound. Through the dark I saw moonlight catch on the silver tip of a spear speeding straight for the bow of our sloop. Ghost dove out of the way, just as the spear hit where he'd been standing and exploded in a burst of flame.

The impact rocked the sloop, and flames crackled to life on the bow.

They were trying to shoot us down.
Even with me aboard the ship.
It stung. But a split second later I realized they'd chosen rightly. Daneska and Ghost had to be stopped at any cost.

Good!

As things stood, I'd planned to attack Ghost once I got these ropes off. I'd intended to sink the ship, along with Ghost, Daneska, and the stolen warship plans. I would much rather die out here under the stars and the wide-open sky than trapped in Napoleon's silken prison.

But as I considered where the spear struck, I suspected Jane had the spyglass to her eye and knew exactly which end of the sloop I was sitting in. Either way, shooting us down was my best chance of escape.

“Bucket!” Ghost shouted from where he had fallen amidships. But Dani grabbed a wool blanket from beneath the thwart and began beating the flames. It didn't work. There is oil in a Greek fire bomb and that oil spreads and latches on rather handily to things like woolen blankets.

“Wet it!” Ghost yelled at her as he grabbed a bucket. She dipped the blanket in the sea. He hung over the side and scooped water onto the flame, spreading the oil in blazing rivulets along the bow. He cursed.

Daneska grumbled that it was all my fault as she beat out flames. Then she changed her tune and swore that as soon as she could get her hands on Georgiana Fitzwilliam, she would ring her worthless neck.

“This is that smart-mouthed little redhead's doing.” She made sure I was paying attention to her rant. “Mark me. I'll have her freckled hide for this.”

I quietly slipped off my shoes and hoped she hadn't noticed that I'd finally freed myself from Ghost's confounded knot.

Waves lapped against the side of the boat. This was my chance. Soon the fire would be out and Daneska would have the presence of mind to tie me more securely. I heard the constant chug of the steam engine getting closer. The quarter-moon cast little light that night. It glimmered soft as doves' wings on the rolling swells. I slipped out of my gag and silently set the ropes aside.