The Wrong Girl (Freak House) (25 page)

Jack rose and stood over his uncle, his clenched fists at his sides. When he spoke, it was low and his jaw hardly moved. "You knew Tate wanted to use Hannah and yet you let her come after me?"

"I didn't
let
Hannah go," Langley said. "She went without permission. In case you haven't noticed, the girl has a will of her own and tends to follow it without thinking things through."

"I resent the accusation," I said. "I would not have gone if I'd known Tate was a fire starter himself." Probably not. Maybe. "Perhaps you ought to keep us all apprised of the villains you've fallen out with, Mr. Langley. Keeping secrets helps no one."

"Are you quite finished?" he said.

I sipped my tea. Jack moved to the window and leaned against the sill. He stared out to the abbey ruins beyond. Perhaps he was desperate to get into the cool air, to exercise the stiffness from his joints and the demons from his mind.

"How did Tate know about me?" I asked Langley. "When I introduced myself, he seemed to recognize my name, as I think you did when I first told you I was Hannah Smith. But if Tate connected me to being a fire starter, shouldn't he have thought my name was Violet, as you presumed?"

"Hannah Smith was the name of...someone we used to know. I didn't know you'd been given that name too. You were a baby when Reuben Tate and I first met you. You had no name then."

What parents didn't give their child a name? My parents, it seemed. Parents who died soon after the birth of their child.

"Is Hannah Smith my mother?"

"No."

"Then who is she?"

He didn't answer and I let the matter drop. There were more pressing questions to ask. "Is that why you want me? To study me and find a cure for Jack?"

"You are different than Jack. There'd be no point." It wasn't quite a no. "Tell me, was Reuben interested in Jack? Did he...want him the way he wanted you?"

I shook my head. "Just me."

Jack looked from me to Langley. He crossed his arms. "Why is that significant?"

"Your abilities are different than Reuben's and Hannah's," Langley said. "You can control your fire. They cannot."

"You've led us to believe that Hannah will learn."

"That's because I think she will, in time."

"But I didn't need to learn," Jack said quietly. "It's always been instinctive. I never questioned it too much, never thought too deeply about how it happened. Until I met you," he said to me. "Now I question everything."

"Why are we different?" I asked Langley. "Why did Tate want me and not Jack?"

"I can only guess it's because he thinks the cure for it is within you, not Jack. As to why Jack is different..." He sipped his tea. "I cannot say."

"He said he knew Jack as a baby. That means you did too. Is that because Jack really is your nephew or because he was part of an experiment?"

"I don't owe you an explanation about Jack, Hannah."

I expected Jack to question him further, but he did not. Why?

"Why does Tate want to be cured?" Sylvia asked, speaking after a long silence.

"I suppose because of the unpredictability of it. It can make going about one's daily business difficult."

"That is rather an understatement," I muttered. "Do you know why we three have this ability in the first place? There must be a reason."

Langley shrugged one shoulder. "I cannot say."

"Did you perform tests on us as children?"

"No."

"Was it something to do with a drug you were developing? Did you...change us somehow?"

"I did nothing of the sort. You've read too many of those horror novels Sylvia likes so much. I am not Dr. Frankenstein."

No, but sometimes I had the feeling I was the monster of the story.

"Did it have something to do with the Society For Supernatural Activity?" Jack asked, moving back toward our cluster of chairs.

Langley inclined his head. "He told you about it?"

"Who are they?"

"A group of men and women interested in the paranormal, those things which can't be explained by scientific means. Yet."

"You don't believe in the supernatural?" I asked.

He lifted his gaze to mine and held it. "I do believe, Hannah. I also think science can help us understand strange phenomena. It was an area I wanted to explore when I belonged to the Society years ago. Tate also belonged, and we researched some matters together. That's how we met."

"What matters?"

"The existence of spirits, angels, demons, that sort of thing."

"Demons!" Sylvia cried. Her hand fluttered to her chest. "Good lord. Ghosts I can accept, but demons? Surely not."

Langley didn't look at her. He didn't look at any of us. Bollard's hand curled around one handle of the wheelchair. The knuckles went white for a moment then he pulled away.

"Do they exist?" I asked. My heart raced. I didn't know when it had begun to beat so furiously, but it seemed to want to know the answer to the question very badly.

"I've found no proof to indicate they don't."

"Isn't that the wrong way around? Shouldn't you be proving that they do?"

"Members of the Society begin with the viewpoint that the supernatural is real."

"Do you still belong to the Society?" Jack asked.

"No. However, I have kept in touch with some current members. They come to me with questions every now and again."

"Why you?"

"I
am
the foremost microbiologist in the country."

And the one with the highest opinion of himself.

"Enough questions," he said, setting his teacup down on the table beside him. "Bollard."

"Wait." I leapt off the sofa and rested my hand on his wheelchair arm. If Bollard wanted to push forward, he could, but he did not. "How did you know I was at Windamere Manor when Tate didn't?"

He shook his head. "Bollard. Forward."

Jack put his hand on the other wheelchair arm. Bollard didn't try to move off. It seemed I wasn't the only one who wanted to know the answer, but to have Bollard on my side in this was a complete surprise.

Langley drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I sent you there to keep you away from Tate when you were a baby. I knew I couldn't trust him with you, knew he wanted to use you. I gave you to Lord Wade. He was a member of our Society and one of the few I could trust with a child's welfare."

"His way of caring for a child included locking her in the attic for years," Jack said. "Perhaps you should have tried harder to find someone else."

"I didn't expect him to do that, nor did I find out until very recently."

"Why did Lord Wade keep me
and
his daughter locked up in the attic?" I asked. "Me, I understand. I was dangerous and I wasn't his child. But Violet? It doesn't make sense."

"You'd have to ask him that. She's nothing to do with me."

"Very well." One day I would do exactly that. "Did you hypnotize me and give me narcolepsy?"

"No."

I sighed. Another thing to ask Wade. "So why kidnap me now, Mr. Langley? Does it have anything to do with Tate suddenly needing me?"

"He's always needed you. There's nothing sudden about it."

I was a little shocked and withdrew my hand from the chair arm.

"But not quite as badly as he needs her now," Jack muttered. "Because he's known where you live for some time, August, yet he only stole your papers a few nights ago. He was looking for her, wasn't he? Looking for some way to find her? Isn't that right?"

"I don't know. You'd have to ask Tate that question."

I didn't plan on going anywhere near Tate. He would have to hang before I would completely relax again. "He thought I was dead," I said, recalling his words. "So I don't think he stole your papers in the hope of finding me. I think he was looking for a way to cure himself. He hoped you'd kept working on it. Indeed, he assumed you had."

Langley looked surprised that I knew that much. "Perhaps."

"So why did you send Jack to kidnap me
now
?" I asked.

"The governess contacted me and asked me to remove you."

"Miss Levine?" I'd known she was party to the secret that had been kept from me, but I'd not known she was aware of the connection to Langley.

"She claimed that living in the attic was no life for either you or your friend."

"That seems rather too kind of her," I muttered. And yet she didn't hate me, nor I her. We'd clashed often, but hate was a strong word that didn't fit our relationship.

"I wish she'd told me you were the companion and not the daughter," he said, shaking his head. "When Bollard told me that he'd heard there were two of you confined to the attic, I naturally assumed
you
were being passed off as his daughter, and
she
the companion."

"
Is
Vi his daughter?"

"I don't know."

"She may be illegitimate," Sylvia said. "Perhaps he's ashamed of her and what he did. What do you know of Lady Wade, Hannah? Did she look like Lady Violet?"

"I don't know anything about her." Indeed I was beginning to question everything I thought I did know.

"It was fortunate that you got the right girl in the end, Jack," Sylvia said cheerfully. "I'm certainly glad we have Hannah and not the other one. She sounds like she can't be trusted if she was indeed part of Hannah's kidnapping." The fact that most of the people in the room had been part of my kidnapping seemed to have escaped her notice.

"That's not what you first thought when you found out we didn't have an earl's daughter under our roof," Jack said.

She sniffed. "Don't be ridiculous." She smiled at me and patted my arm. "Hannah is delightful company. I can't imagine anyone else I'd rather have as my friend."

I smiled at her, but it wavered a little when I recalled Vi saying something very similar.

"Why
did
you take her and not Violet?" Sylvia asked Jack.

"The governess described the one to collect, but gave me no name. She simply called her 'that fire girl.' Nor did she tell me the one I wanted was the companion and not the lady." The color of his eyes deepened as his gaze held mine. "Besides, I felt a connection with Hannah. It was like I was being pulled toward her. What better evidence is there that we are alike?"

"Then you must have felt the same connection to Tate."

Jack said nothing. Langley, Sylvia and I turned to him. Even Bollard's gaze slid to Jack's.

"No," Jack finally said. "I felt nothing around Tate. Only you, Hannah."

A little jolt shot through me and my face heated.
Only you.
I smiled at him, and his lips quirked up at the edges. Then he frowned and looked down at his hands.

"Those children have to be gone by tomorrow," Langley said.

"What children?" Sylvia asked. "Oh, yes, Patrick's friends. Your friends," she said to Jack.

We'd told him about the children coming to us, and how they had no adult to care for them. He'd expressed his concern that they might wind up thieving to survive. We'd come to the conclusion on the journey home that something needed to be done, but we'd not decided what.

"Can't they stay here?" I asked.

"Not all of them!" Sylvia said. "There's far too many, especially with half the house in ruins."

"They're noisy and disruptive," Langley said. "I can't work with the two of them running about, let alone dozens."

"We'll need to find somewhere for them in London," Jack said.

"We ain't going to the workhouse!" The boy, Sniffles, stood in the doorway. He wiped the back of his hand across his nose. He looked neater than the first day he'd arrived. His hair had been combed flat and he wore clean clothes that were too large but looked warm.

"I won't let you end up at the workhouse, Davey," Jack said, going to him. "There must be a charity school you can attend."

Davey pulled a face. "I hate school."

Jack made as if to clip him over the ear, but nudged him affectionately instead. "Go on. Go find Tommy and annoy him. Let us sort out where you'll go."

"You sort it out, Jack," the boy said. He wrinkled his nose at Langley and Bollard. "Not them." He darted off.

Frowning, Jack watched him go.

"How many more of them are there?" I asked.

"Dozens. I'd been sending Patrick money, and he was supposed to be taking care of them." He came back inside and shut the door. "There's no room for all of them here, even if they weren't disruptive, but there's no one to look after them in London. They'll have to be separated and families found for each of them."

"Is it necessary to separate them?" I knew what it was like to be wrenched from the only family I knew, and I was eighteen. It would be horrible to do that to little children.

"Is that even possible?" Sylvia asked.

"It is with the right amount of money," Jack said. "No one will take in extra children without an incentive."

"I'm not sure you'd encourage people with good hearts that way," I said. "The greedy ones, on the other hand, would be falling over themselves."

Langley grunted. "I'll provide whatever is needed."

Bollard said something to Langley with his hands. The rapid movements were smooth and elegant, his fingers dexterous in their twisting and pointing. I'd never seen him communicate with Langley, it had always been the other way around. It made the servant more human, but only just.

When Bollard finished, Langley closed his eyes. He didn't open them or speak for some time, and I grew anxious that he would dismiss us all and make the boys leave Frakingham. What Jack would do in that situation was anyone's guess.

"There's a charity school in London," Langley finally said, opening his eyes. "Its patroness is a lady named Emily Beaufort, the wife of Jacob Beaufort. She's a most interesting woman, quite the sensation about eight years or so ago."

"Why?"

"She was a girl of dubious parentage who married the son of a prominent viscount."

"Is that all?" Sylvia scoffed. "It may be unusual, perhaps a curiosity even, but to describe it as a sensation...hardly."

"She can also communicate with ghosts."

Sylvia snorted through her nose. "Are you serious?"