Bollard pulled me along with him back to the house. I resisted every step of the way, but of course it achieved nothing. It was like a bee flying into a gale—utterly pointless.
Bees could sting, though. When we reached the courtyard, I threw the most terrible, ear-splitting tantrum, complete with colorful curses and the most awful names I could think of to call him.
It didn't halt Bollard's progress in the least, but it did draw the attention of the servants and Sylvia. Three of the former peered out of the ground floor service windows as we passed, their eyes as wide as saucers. Sylvia burst out the same door I'd used to escape and ran across the courtyard to us. Her face was a picture of pale horror, her bottom lip quivering. She blinked back tears.
What she had to cry about, I'd no idea. I ought to be the one in tears. Yet I had no intention of crying, nor any inclination. The shouting must have got it all out of my system, and I quieted when Sylvia grabbed my other arm. She let it go again with a gasp.
"Be calm, Violet, for Heaven's sake!"
"I'm finding that rather difficult at the moment," I spat. "All things considered."
She edged away from me. "What happened? Violet, did you...?" She glanced up at the rooms on the top floor of the eastern wing, and a shiver wracked her. I followed her gaze and saw August Langley watching us from a window. "Did you try to escape?" she whispered.
I lifted my chin. "Of course. Unfortunately Bollard here was doing a bit of gardening in the woods. What were you doing, Bollard? Digging a grave?"
Sylvia gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. She eyed Bollard's shovel with horror.
Oh God, if she were frightened, then perhaps my off-handed remark wasn't so absurd.
Where before I'd felt hot from my exercise and anger, now icy cold fingers wrapped around my heart. I couldn't dislodge the notion from my head. But if he was digging a grave at his master's behest...whose was it?
Mine?
Bollard marched me to the house and up the stairs to Langley's rooms. Sylvia didn't follow.
"Aren't you coming?" I called back to her.
She shook her head. "I haven't been summoned."
I'd been right about her. That sunny disposition was all a façade. She was as afraid of her uncle as I was. I swallowed the lump in my throat. I could do this alone. There was nothing to fear. Indeed, I had every right to be furious, and damnation, I would be!
One look at the anger in Langley's eyes had my heart in my throat again and my nerves jangling. If he'd been able to stand and approach me, I'd no doubt he would have slapped me. He still might order Bollard to do it. The servant held his shovel like a weapon and stood between me and the door.
"Stupid, stupid girl," Langley spat. "I'd thought you more sensible than that."
"Then it seems you were quite wrong." Wrong about more things than he knew.
Color flushed his cheeks, but his lips turned stark white. "Did I give you permission to speak?"
As if being kept prisoner weren't enough, he wanted to make me as mute as Bollard too! "I don't need your permission, Mr. Langley," I snapped. "I have a tongue and will use it." Something inside me rose with my anger and filled me up until I was brimming with it. Something familiar yet wrong. Something terrible and ill-timed. My limbs became heavy, my mind dulled so that I could no longer form words. My skin felt like a thousand needles had been injected into it.
Langley's eyes widened. "Move, Bollard!" He wheeled himself away from me so fast he backed into the occasional table, knocking it over and sending the two books that had been open upon it to the floor. Bollard retreated to the door. To stop me from leaving?
It didn't matter. I knew what was about to happen, and I wouldn't be going anywhere.
The last thing I remembered was falling to the floor.
CHAPTER 5
I awoke as someone laid me gently on a bed. Bollard, I realized as I fought to lift my eyelids. It was my bed. The mute servant crossed the room and shut the curtains, then he left the room. The loud click of the door being locked was followed by complete silence. If I hadn't strictly been a prisoner before, I was now.
I was too exhausted to care.
I closed my eyes and lay on top of the bed. It felt strange not having Vi with me, caressing my hair until I returned to myself. It was pleasant not to wake to the smell of singed wool, however. As soon as I thought it, I wished I hadn't. No smoldering wool meant no Vi.
Would she be cured now that I wasn't there? She only ever started fires when I had a narcoleptic episode, so it was entirely possible that she would never have another one again now that I was gone.
Or would some other trigger take my place?
I blew out a breath and tried not to give into the overwhelming sadness. I did give into the tiredness that still dragged at my limbs, and I fell back to sleep
I awoke some time later with the strong sense that someone was watching me. It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light, but when they did, I saw Jack sitting on a chair nearby.
He stiffened when he realized I was awake. "There's tea on the table beside the bed. It's probably gone cold by now."
I sat up and gratefully sipped the tea. It was indeed cold, but I didn't care. My mouth and throat were dry. I drained the cup and refilled it from the teapot.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
"Like a prisoner."
He leaned back in the chair and stretched out his long legs, crossing them at the ankles. He crossed his arms too and regarded me through half-lowered lashes. "August is furious that you tried to escape."
"He's not the only one with a temper."
"I can see that," he said with a sardonic tilt of his lips. "Why did you try to leave, Violet? I thought we went through this. I thought you understood that you would come to no harm here."
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. "You'll forgive me if I don't believe a word you say. I find it hard to trust the man who kidnapped me. Even harder to trust the man who sits up there and makes it very clear I am not to question his authority or my predicament."
He rubbed a hand through his hair, upsetting its neat arrangement and causing it to tumble over his forehead. "I understand your need to know what's going on. Believe me, I do. But I can assure you, in this case, it's black and white. There are no secret experiments being conducted, no foul play."
I huffed out a humorless laugh. "If that's the case, why keep me against my will?"
"It doesn't have to be against your will, Violet." When I didn't answer, he added, "To protect you from yourself. And protect others too, of course."
There was a kernel of truth in what he said, although I still had strong doubts. "Then why the need to kidnap me from Windamere in the first place?"
The muscles in his jaw shifted and he looked away. It was a long time before he said, "That was necessary. Lord Wade would not have let you come to us freely, no matter what you think. He cared about you in his own way, but not enough to allow you to be trained. Like you, he would have suspected our reasons were more...insidious. It's unfortunate, but there's the truth of it."
I said nothing to that. I knew little of Lord Wade and nothing of his innermost thoughts toward his daughter.
"You can trust me, Violet. I give you my word on that."
I wanted so desperately to believe him. My heart ached with the need to trust him, to feel safe, to have a friend in this place. "Tell me, is my door still locked?"
"No."
I blinked at him. "When you leave here, will you lock it?"
"No. I've talked August into coming to an agreement."
"What sort of agreement?"
"It's conditional on an arrangement between you and me. If you agree not to try to escape, he'll allow you to go about the entire estate and into the village with Sylvia and I."