“I won’t spy for you,” I said, backing away toward the loft ladder.
“Who said anything about spying?” Mr. Morningside asked. He held up his hands innocently, but I knew better. “I thought your friend Lee Brimble was innocent. If his uncle has designs on the young man’s fortune, then surely you must want to protect him. I only want to know if my suspicions about his uncle are correct. You were ever so keen to prove Brimble’s innocence. Has that changed?”
“It hasn’t,” I said, turning away from him. “Maybe he and I will just go, have you thought of that?”
“There’s nothing to think about. If he belongs at Coldthistle, he will be there. Nothing short of a miracle will prevent that.” Mr. Morningside shrugged and strolled toward the ladder, crowding me. His proximity made my skin crawl, and yet I could not move, his orbit as repellent as it was irresistible. I hated him, and still I wanted him to say more. Reveal more. How could he have such power over people? How could he know of books and curses and an Unworld that moved like an evil shadow beneath our own?
I glanced up at him, fuming into his catlike eyes. “Then perhaps I am that miracle.”
At that, he burst out laughing. “You?” he asked when he had recovered, wiping invisible tears from his cheeks. “Are you a miracle, little Louisa, or are you a curse?” He lowered his voice and his head, bringing his lips close to my ear and finishing his thought in a throaty whisper. “I think we both know the answer to that.”
“Sir? Sir? Mr. Morningside?” It was Chijioke calling from underneath us, his voice booming through the timbers.
“Up here.” Mr. Morningside removed himself to a safe distance and smiled at me once more. “I think that’s your cue, Louisa, unless of course you’d like to stay and chat a while longer?”
“No,” I said, disappearing down the ladder. I refused to look at him anymore. I refused to be snared. “I’m leaving, Mr. Morningside, and I won’t be back.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chijioke helped me into the back of the wagon he would drive to Derridon. I inched around to the right bench, fixed to the floor. A second bench lay on the opposite side of the wagon bed, and between that and me lay the body of the widow, wrapped in a heavy sheet. The floor of the wagon was caked with dried bird shit.
“I’d rather sit in the carriage with the others,” I said softly, letting only my tiptoes touch the floor. Now it would be almost impossible to convince Lee to go away from Coldthistle forever, with or without me. Still, going was better than nothing. I had to make sure he didn’t return to the house. Even boosted to this height, I was only slightly above Chijioke’s eye level. He wore a heavy woolen coat now and a chunky knitted scarf.
“Mr. Bremerton requested privacy for him and his nephew,” he replied, also in a whisper. “For now he’s a guest and must be accommodated. There’s no room for you on my bench, lass. With you lot and the widow’s body, I barely have room for this week’s supply crate up front. Just keep your head about you, aye? The doctor isn’t to be trusted. None of them are.”
“I trust Lee,” I shot back. “He’s not like them. And besides, the doctor stood up for me.”
Chijioke shook his head and waited until Dr. Merriman arrived to step up into the wagon bed. The back was latched shut and Chijioke ground his jaw, waiting to speak until we locked eyes. “Think what you must, Louisa; just remember what I said. Give a shout if you need me.”
He stalked away into the darkness, and for a moment I lost sight of him as he passed out of our lantern’s safe glow and around to the horses. There was an old blanket on the bench, and I slipped it over my lap, trying to keep back a shiver.
Foster called to the horses in the carriage ahead of us, and I heard the crack of a whip as they started off into the night. We followed, and I thought longingly of the warmth inside the carriage. God, how much had changed since the last time I had been inside it. That was less than a week ago, yet I felt so different, as if the whole world had been tipped on its side. Innocence could die in the blink of an eye. I had been so eager to get to Coldthistle, and now I could not wait another minute to leave it all behind. I would survive the drafty ride for what was on the other end of it.
With a friend, I reminded myself. This was my chance to get us both away from Mr. Morningside and his evil plots. It would probably require leaving Lee’s uncle behind. Whatever his nephew said, what grown man would believe my story? He would call me hysterical and silly, and perhaps poison Lee against me.
If he wasn’t already doing that now. Requested privacy. That did not bode well. He was doing his best to separate us, but why? Did he sense that we were becoming close?
“You look troubled, young miss.”
The wagons turned out of the drive, wheels crunching over stone and gravel, lanterns squeaking on hinges as the motion rocked them and us back and forth. I had curled up like a dead thing on the dirty bench, and I turned my head with a bleak smile for the doctor. At once, the road turned rough and uncomfortable, the rains ruining any chance at a smooth ride.
“Traveling by night always leaves me unsettled,” I lied. The night did not scare me, not anymore, not now that I knew far scarier things than darkness existed.
“Fear not. I have some skill with a pistol,” he said with a chuckle, “and not just the doctor’s knives. Foster, too, must have some martial training, and Mr. Bremerton mentioned at tea that he’s quite handy with fist and saber. Boxed in his youth, apparently, and spent time in the Levant and the Americas.”
I nodded, pretending to be heartened. The chill under the blanket persisted, and my eye drifted always back to the wrapped bundle between the doctor and me. It seemed only a concept, that a dead woman should be so close to me. The corpse did not smell, and, wrapped up like that, she was more like a carpet or a package than a once-living thing.
“How quickly it all can change,” I murmured.
It was a surprise that the doctor could even hear me over the noise of being rattled around in the back of a supply wagon.
“The beauty of life lies in its fleetingness,” he said seriously, closing a hand over his heart. He was a truly ridiculous fellow, but more palatable than the Colonel at least. “I hope you are not overly troubled by our . . . somewhat unusual travel arrangements.”
“I will find a way to endure,” I replied. I wondered if he could even hear me over the commotion of the wheels as they clattered over the bumpy road.