Father followed, muttering, “Perhaps you are a changeling. Stolen at birth and replaced with an identical child, but one with a confounding bent toward society.”
Mother chuckled as she came into his arms. The scent of lavender and violets drifted to his nose. Why was it that his own house never made him feel as at home as did that one whiff of her perfume? She gave him a squeeze and then, as always, pulled back enough to study him. “As handsome as ever, just like your father. Who,” she added with a pointed look past Thad, “knows well from where that streak of charm came.”
“Knowledge which would be even more frightening than the idea of a changeling, had our boy not inherited our sense along with my brother’s affability.” Father winked and rubbed at his neck.
The gesture made Thad wonder when he had put Jack down and where the boy had gone. A happy squeal from the back of the house answered that question, so he focused on his parents again. “Mother, did he have to bring his entire laboratory?”
Her smile seemed never to change. Ever since he could remember, it had been that lovely, that faithful. “It seemed the wisest course, Thaddeus. One never knows when he might need to mix up a new batch of elixir.” By which, of course, she meant the invisible ink and the counter liquor to develop it. “And we certainly could not risk all his compounds falling into British hands, should they come to Annapolis.”
All inclination to jest dissolved on his tongue. He glanced over at Arnaud and then back to Mother. “Have you reason to think they will?”
“Nothing new.” Father urged them off the walk a step as Henry emerged again, set to grab the last of the wagon’s load. “But normal operations have all but ground to a halt. My students have either taken up arms or gone to protect their homes, so there was no reason to stay.”
Mother nodded. “Amelia and the children are safely ensconced on their plantation, so we thought we would come here, nearer to you and Philly.”
“Put us to work, son.”
Exchanging a look with Arnaud, Thad gave a slow nod. With Father’s arsenal of chemical agents and Mother’s history with codes, they could prove invaluable indeed. Perhaps between them, they could make sense of the missive that had been bewildering him for the last week. The one from too important a source to be as benign as it appeared.
He turned to the door and crooked a finger. “Come inside. I have a letter you may want to see from an old friend of yours. One Isaac Fairchild.”
Three
The cabin blurred, doubled, yawned. Darkness oozed toward her, though Gwyneth knew the ferocious teeth of the sea waited beyond. She pressed herself to the corner of the floor and clenched her jaw. If she slid into that open mouth…
She squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them again, the cabin looked like it had when she first stepped foot in it some six weeks ago. Wooden planks for floor, walls, and ceiling, the few pieces of furniture nailed into place. The bed to which she’d lashed herself in rough seas.
The bed that had provided no rest, nothing but nightmare upon nightmare.
A rattle came from the door, and a moment later Mrs. Wesley slid in, her face a web of concern. She scanned the room with alarm before finally spotting Gwyneth in her place between the small desk and the wall. “Ah, love, what are you doing on the floor?”
She hadn’t the energy to resist Mrs. Wesley’s gentle hands. Dizziness washed over her and made her sway, but when it cleared she was on her feet, standing in the middle of the tiny room and staring at the wall that had been a mouth.
Mrs. Wesley clicked her tongue. “Still in yesterday’s dress I see, though you promised me you would change into your nightgown. Did you sleep at all?”
Gwyneth couldn’t convince her gaze to leave the wall, lest it open again. “Sleep?” She took a step away from the monster of a bed. “I do not know. Perhaps for an hour or two.”
Before the nightmare had snapped its fangs around her, before the scream had battled for a place on her lips and, when denied, tried to choke the life from her.
Mrs. Wesley’s worried frown was yet another arrow through her heart. “Dear girl.” She laid a soft hand against the Gwyneth’s cheek and swept a thumb under her eye, where circles had deepened to hollows. “You cannot survive on so little rest. Why, if the general finds you in such a state, he will think me a sorry guardian indeed.”
Her voice had been light, straining for a jest, but it struck like one of the rogue waves of which the sailors had spoken, the kind that hit without warning and swept all life into the depths. Gwyneth squeezed shut her eyes and opened her lips. She must tell her, must tell the Wesleys that their master was no more. She must…she ought to…
Her lips pressed together as tightly as her eyes. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t scream. He would hear her, and he would come after her. Come and…what?