Agent of the Crown (40 page)

Eleanor, doing something at the fire, looked
over and smiled.

“Nice to see you conscious again,” she said
in a low voice. “Everyone’s asleep. Past midnight, I think, but I
couldn’t rest until I was sure you were well.” She bent over and
wiggled Telaine’s toes, making her giggle. “Show me your fingers.”
Telaine waved them at her.

“Don’t mind telling you that you were lucky,”
Eleanor went on. “Much longer and hypothermia would’ve killed you.
And I don’t want to know about that thing you were wearing.
Might’ve killed you quicker.”

“It’s a design flaw,” Telaine said, “and I
plan to fix it. It wasn’t that wet until I fell down a few
times.”

“You’re well and that’s all that matters,”
Eleanor said. “But I don’t understand what you were doing out there
in the first place. Didn’t even know you were gone.”

Aunt Weaver
. “I have to go home. Aunt
Weaver has no idea where I am.”

Eleanor shook her head. “You’d be lost before
you took three steps out that door. No way to let her know until
the storm passes. Don’t worry.”

“All she knows is that I left.”

“And where did you go, that you were caught
by the storm? Even you must have known it was coming.”

“I—” She considered her words for a moment.
“I think I should wait for Ben and Liam to wake up before I tell
that story. Don’t want to tell it twice. Or three times.”

“Kill me with curiosity,” Eleanor said
without malice. “You want some porridge? Don’t know how hungry you
are.”

“Very. I missed supper and then I tried to
kill myself walking around in a snowstorm.”

“I’ve got some things to say to you about
that,” Ben said, sitting down beside her. “Mind if I disrupt your
patient, Eleanor?”

“Nothing wrong with her now that porridge
won’t cure.”

Ben wrapped the blankets around Telaine more
securely and lifted her to lean against him, putting his arms
around her. She closed her eyes and snuggled into his strong
embrace. “Why aren’t you in your own house?”

“Because this storm is like to last four days
or more, and it’s not right being all alone for that long,” Eleanor
said. “Happen you start hearing voices.”

“I ought to ask you why
you
aren’t in
your own house,” Ben said. “That was a stupid thing to do.”

“Don’t be too angry. I saved a life today,”
Telaine said.

“What?”

“Don’t bother,” said Eleanor. “She says she
won’t tell the story until Liam’s awake too.”

“Then I’m going to wake Liam up.”

“Liam’s already awake because you people
won’t stop nattering,” said Liam, sliding onto the long bench.
“What’s the story?”

“Porridge first,” Telaine said, and the men
groaned. She ate quickly, handed off the bowl, and told them what
had happened, starting with her having heard a rumor about the
Baron being the one who took the children.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone? Would’ve saved
Sarah being taken in the first place,” Eleanor said.

“I…wasn’t sure how true it was.” The most
despicable lie she’d told, but the actual reasoning she and Aunt
Weaver had done included facts she couldn’t tell them. “And I
thought, with Morgan not there to do the snatching, the Baron might
not do it again before he could be taken in charge. I didn’t count
on anyone walking voluntarily into his trap.”

She went on through entering the manor,
giving Sarah her clothes, and seeing her head off down the path
toward Longbourne before setting off along the forest’s edge. When
she’d finished describing her journey, her three listeners sat
silent.

“That…was brilliant,” Liam said.

“It was foolish. And lucky.” Ben’s arms
tightened around her.

“I don’t suppose you know if Sarah made it
home before the storm hit?” Telaine asked.

Eleanor shook her head. “Didn’t even know she
was missing. Didn’t know
you
were missing. We were occupied
getting ready for this last big storm.”

Telaine sat up and was restrained by someone
who wasn’t willing to let her go yet. “The last storm?”

“This is the one. Then we wait for the passes
to clear and we’re connected to the downside world again.” Ben
looked down at her, upside down, and made a funny face that Telaine
realized was a smile when it was right way round. “And you can make
that trip to Aurilien.”

“But—” Liam said. “You’re still going
back?”

Telaine glared at Ben, willing him to stop
talking. He might decide her deceptions were too much to take, and
how humiliating for him if he had to explain why they weren’t
getting married after all. But he didn’t take the hint. “She needs
to see her family, is all,” he said.

Liam’s face cleared. “Thought you’d get
married before that,” he said.

Telaine gasped. “Ben!”

“I didn’t say anything! We’re not even
betrothed!” Ben looked as if he wanted to sink through the
floor.

“You’re not?” Eleanor raised her eyebrows.
“You sure have everyone fooled if you’re not.”

“Don’t you think that’s something we’d tell
people?” Telaine exclaimed.

“We all figured you had your reasons,”
Eleanor said. “I guess you want your folks’ approval first,
huh?”

“Eleanor—” Telaine buried her face in her
hands. She’d thought it would be an easy secret to keep. She hadn’t
counted on the observant eyes of hundreds of people all crammed
together for the winter.

“We can’t be betrothed until her uncle gives
permission,” Ben said. He’d apparently come to the same conclusion
she had, which was that trying to keep this secret was pointless.
“So we’re not spreading the news. See?”

“Not really,” said Liam.

“Yes,” said Eleanor. “And I think it’s time
for all of us to get some sleep. Lainie, I have a dress you can
wear, and you can sleep in Liam’s bed.” Liam protested, but
half-heartedly. “You boys get off to the loft, now. Lainie, come
with me.”

Eleanor’s dress was too short and was loose
on Telaine in all the wrong places, but it was soft and better than
wearing a shroud of blankets with nothing underneath. She slid into
Liam’s bed and promptly fell asleep again.

One day passed, then another. Telaine became
so used to the sound of the storm wailing and beating at the house
that she stopped noticing it. She played games with the girls and
listened to Ben and Liam and Liam’s brother Alex sing, helped
Eleanor cook, which she did badly, tinkered with the bodysuit, and
sat in front of the fire encircled in Ben’s arms, talking quietly
into the night. The Baron and his earth mover and the planned
invasion were so far away she was almost able to forget about them
entirely. Even her anxiety over how Aunt Weaver must be worrying
faded, as she eventually accepted there was nothing she could do to
change that but wait.

With Sarah safe—and she insisted to herself
Sarah was safe—and the earth mover sabotaged, Telaine relaxed and
even indulged in some daydreaming. Next winter they could huddle up
together in their own house. There might be a baby on the way.
She’d learn to cook, or make Ben learn to cook, and she could build
Devices all winter and he could do whatever it was he did when he
was snowed in. And he wouldn’t need to drink Wintersmeet Eve away.
The little voice that warned her not to take her future for granted
faded nearly to silence.

At around noon on the fifth day Telaine was
stirring a pot of soup she’d made all by herself when she realized
the sound of the shrieking wind was gone, leaving her with a dull
ringing in her ears. Then the younger Richardsons made a scrambling
dash for the door, flinging it open and shouting their excitement
into the still air.

A drift that had blown against the door fell
in and buried Hope, who began to cry, but the others pushed over
and past each other and stumbled and danced through the snowdrifts,
shouting. The sky was a cloudless blue, not only cloudless but
looking like it had never heard of such a thing as a cloud before.
Up and down the main street people were poking their heads out of
doors and windows and exclaiming that the snows were over and
winter was drawing to a close. How they could be so certain,
Telaine didn’t know, but she prayed they were right.

“I need boots. And a coat,” she said. She
shivered, standing in the doorway wearing only Eleanor’s dress, and
reached up to turn her bodysuit Device’s knob higher.

Ben looked at her feet, then swept her up and
carried her off, shrieking and kicking and laughing, to Aunt
Weaver’s home, taking her around to the back door and setting her
neatly inside.

Aunt Weaver was standing by the fire,
stirring the pot, and as the door slammed shut the spoon fell from
her hand into the bubbling depths. “Merciful heaven,” she said.
Then she shocked Telaine utterly by putting her arms around her and
hugging her so tightly Telaine couldn’t breathe. She hugged her
great-aunt back, unable to speak. “I thought you were dead,” Aunt
Weaver whispered into her ear. “I was never going to forgive myself
for letting you go.”

“It’s all right,” Telaine whispered back,
“Sarah’s safe—I hope Sarah’s safe. I had to send her home a
different way.”

“Tell me the story another time.” Aunt Weaver
took up another long-handled wooden spoon and used it to fish the
first one out. “Hope the two of you didn’t get into any mischief,
canoodling all alone during the storm.” Her voice was rough and she
kept her face turned away from them.

“We were at the Richardsons’,” Telaine said.
“Where do the Andersons live?”

“Down the dressmaker’s street and first
right, third house on the right. Hurry.”

“Wait here while I put on some actual shoes,”
Telaine told Ben, glowering at his innocent expression, and ran up
to her room. Her shoes weren’t suitable for the snow, but she
didn’t have time to find a pair of boots in the morass of Aunt
Weaver’s spare room.

She bounded down the stairs, two at a time,
and raced out the door with Ben at her heels. Snow fell into her
shoes and melted, leaving her feet wet, but she didn’t stop running
until she reached Sarah’s house. Then she paused, afraid of what
she’d find there. “She’s alive,” Ben said.

Telaine knocked. After a moment, Sarah
answered the door.

They stared at each other, then Telaine
wrapped her arms around the girl, who started to cry. “I thought
you must be dead,” Sarah wept.

“I was afraid you’d been caught out in the
storm,” Telaine said.

“You want to come on in here?” said a gruff
voice. Sarah’s mother Susan.

They sat in a drawing room every bit as
uncomfortable as Aunt Weaver’s. Maybe they were mass-produced
somewhere. “Sarah told us everything,” her mother said. John
Anderson stood behind her with one hand on her shoulder. “We owe
you our daughter’s life.”

“I wish I’d known how to stop him,” Telaine
said.

“Well, I do,” said Anderson. His voice was
like the bass growl of a bear. “And I got a bunch of fellows who
know how to stop him, too.”

“
Please
let the law have time to
dispense justice,” Telaine said. “I know who to talk to, down
mountain, and I promise they’ll come after him. Besides, he
commands the soldiers at the fort, and his men are well armed. I
would hate for any of you to come to grief.”

Sarah’s father looked as if he didn’t think
the law’s justice would be better than his own, but eventually he
nodded. “After the pass clears,” he said. “I expect you to be true
to your word.”

“I will be.”

Sarah ran after them before they’d gotten
more than a few steps away, carrying a bundle of clothes with
Telaine’s boots piled atop it. “I found these in your boots,” she
said, handing over the throwing knife Telaine had taken to carrying
with her, to practice, and the flat black package holding her lock
picks.

Ben looked at the packet curiously. “What’s
that?”

“Just a few tools of the trade,” Telaine
said.

They walked back to Aunt Weaver’s in silence,
hand in hand. Telaine was adding justice for the Andersons, for all
the children, to her plan, and she was startled out of her reverie
when Ben said, “Don’t know how a man can sit still for having
someone do that to his daughter. He’s stronger than I am.”

Telaine guessed he was thinking about
their
hypothetical daughter, and she wanted to ask him about
it, but a tiny part of her still clung to the idea that she
shouldn’t make those plans until she was safely retired.
You
haven’t listened to the voice of reason for weeks,
she told
herself.
This whole adventure has been one compromise after
another. Something’s bound to go wrong.

“Nothing’s going to go wrong,” she said
aloud, and waved away his questions when he wanted to know what she
was talking about. She wouldn’t let anything go wrong.

The next
morning, the main street looked very different. Telaine sat halfway
out her window and marveled at the change. People had pitched in
the day before to clear the blanket of snow from the street,
leaving a half-inch-thick layer now punctuated with footprints.
Spaces between the houses and businesses lining the street were
full to bursting with packed snow. Longbourne was serious about
welcoming in spring as soon as possible.

“They clear the street and the crossroads
so’s we can have a concert and a dance tonight,” Aunt Weaver
explained at breakfast. “Only reason we have that gazebo. Happen
you can persuade your young man to give us a few solos.”

“But the pass still isn’t open,” Telaine
chafed. “I can’t settle down for a concert knowing that.”

“Don’t see how fretting about it will open
the pass any sooner.”

“You’re much calmer than I am. I don’t know
how you do it.”

“I’m seventy-seven years old. Happen I’ve had
plenty of practice.”

Telaine dressed warmly, ate, and discovered
her usual path around the side of the house was blocked. She would
have to use the front door. Outside, she squinted in the bright sun
reflecting off the packed snow. The street was more than usually
busy with people standing in small groups, talking and laughing. It
felt like a holiday. Maybe it was, in Longbourne.