Against the Tide (26 page)

“You don’t know a man called Alexander Banebridge, do you?”

She nearly gasped, and the Professor kept circling her. She forced her voice to remain calm. “Banebridge? I don’t think so. Is he one of your groundskeepers?”

The Professor pulled out the only other chair in the room and placed it opposite her. He sat down and studied her from across the expanse of the table, where he might get a view of her translation book. She shifted in her seat and simultaneously pushed some papers to further hide the book.

“No. He is not a groundskeeper,” he said with great deliberation. He took a deep breath as if the subject pained him. “I did a little digging when I was in Boston and inquired about your translation work at the Boston Navy Yard.” The band about her chest got tighter and tighter. “Very commendable, doing such patriotic work,” the Professor continued. “However, it did come to my attention that your former employer, Admiral Fontaine, has a close association with Alexander Banebridge, who was known to be a frequent visitor at the Navy Yard.” Lydia fought not to squirm under the Professor’s scrutiny as he fastened his gaze on her. “So I will ask you again. Are you acquainted with Alexander Banebridge?”

She would be committing suicide if she admitted it. Lydia pretended to think, then said simply, “There are two thousand people who work at the Navy Yard. I only know a tiny fraction of them. I don’t remember meeting a man named Banebridge.”

The Professor seemed satisfied. He rose to his feet and placed a hand on her shoulder as he headed to the door. “Very well, Lydia. Please continue with your translations.”

Her heart continued to pound for a solid two minutes after the Professor left. Surely he suspected her. Why else would he prowl around the Navy Yard seeking to find an association between her and Bane?

She waited a few minutes for her heartbeat to regain its normal tempo. The Professor’s suspicion made her even more anxious to leave this horrible house as quickly as possible, and that meant she needed to start planting the seeds of anxiety about a local outbreak
of rabies immediately. Lydia opened the door and checked both sides of the hallway before venturing outside the workroom and down the hall.

Mrs. Garfield looked up in surprise. “You are awfully early for lunch,” she said, glancing at the clock hanging above the brick hearth. “I wasn’t expecting you for another two hours.”

“I know, but I’m famished. Is there anything to eat?”

The cook’s face twisted in indecision. “The Professor has rules about when his guests take their meals.” Clearly, she was worried about the possible appearance of two little boys Lydia was supposed to know nothing about.

“It is only ten o’clock,” she said as she sat on a bench before the weathered farm table. “I’ll beat the lunch crowd rush and be out in just a few minutes,” she said with a smile.

“I suppose that would be all right,” Mrs. Garfield said as she began slicing a loaf of bread. Lydia’s gaze darted about the room and landed on the stack of newspapers beside the hearth. She moved beside them and began paging through the stack.

“You must feel so isolated out here in the middle of nowhere,” Lydia said, her eyes quickly scanning each page before moving on to the next.

Mrs. Garfield smiled. “I suppose I’m stuck in a kitchen no matter where I’m working,” she said. “I once worked at a lumber mill outside of Burlington, where I cooked for sixty men. I felt just as isolated there.” Lydia nodded politely while the cook reminisced about her days at the lumber mill, but her entire focus leapt from one headline to the next as she scanned the
Vermont Gazette
in search of any mention of rabies.

And then she spotted it. “Oh my heavens,” she gasped, her hand flying to her throat.

Mrs. Garfield dropped her knife. “What is it, dear?”

“Rabies! It says here there is a case of rabies at a farm just outside St. Albans.” Lydia scanned the story, then glanced at the date at the top of the newspaper. “Only a week ago! A man and his son were bit by their hunting dog, a dog which later turned out to be rabid. They were rushed to Burlington for treatment, but it is unlikely they will survive.”

Lydia did not need to feign her horror. “I knew a girl where I grew up who contracted rabies from a dog bite,” she said. “The medical care there was not the best, and they gave her opium to soothe her fever. It was a week before a doctor correctly diagnosed her, and by then it was too late. They took her away before she died.”

Mrs. Garfield sank down onto the bench opposite Lydia. “Do you think they could have saved the girl if the doctor had been called earlier?”

Lydia nodded. “I think you have to move really fast, or it is always fatal.” She went back to scanning the article. “It says here that a doctor in France, Louis Pasteur, has developed a vaccine for rabies, but it must be administered within a day of the infection. It says the wounds should be treated by cupping.” Lydia looked up. “What is cupping?”

The cook looked as confused as she. Lydia looked back to the newspaper. “It says that if treatment is applied immediately, there is a fifty percent chance that the person will not develop a full-blown case of rabies.” She folded the pages so the rabies article was on the top. “We must warn Lars and the others who are outdoors about this,” Lydia said. And then a sudden inspiration struck. “Perhaps we should keep the dogs confined until the scare is past.” If Bane’s plan involved getting anywhere close to the property, it would be best if the ferocious dogs would not be a concern.

Mrs. Garfield rose to her feet and continued making Lydia a sandwich. “Leave it right there, and I’ll be sure that everyone on
the staff sees it. I couldn’t live with myself if something like that happened here.” She put the sandwich on a plate and pushed it across the table toward Lydia.

“I’ll eat this and be out of your way immediately,” Lydia said.

The first sign of the approaching train was the vibration of the wooden platform Bane was standing on outside the Burlington train station. The minor vibration intensified until a wall of sound rolled forth as two hundred tons of iron and steel came roaring into the station amidst clouds of steam and smoke. Moments after the steam cleared, the doors opened and Admiral Eric Fontaine stepped onto the platform.

Bane was not surprised Eric was the first man off the train. Since the day his boy had been kidnapped, Eric had been pushing Bane to move faster, work harder, plow further forward. This was how Eric had led his entire life.

It wasn’t Bane’s style. When handling a scorpion, a person only had one chance to strike. It required carefully examining the landscape, manipulating the conditions, and then absconding with the scorpion’s prize before he ever knew what was happening. And that took planning.

Eric extended a hand for Bane to shake, which Bane found a little surprising, given the havoc he had caused in this man’s life. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk,” Bane said. He chose a bench in the middle of a public square. With the barren trees and bleak March climate, there was not another human soul in sight, and it did not take long for Eric to fully grasp the plan and what was required of him.

“The Professor leaves the mansion every Monday night and returns on Thursday. That is our window to get the boys out. The servants are terrified of the Professor, and the only way they will
allow the boys to leave is if they fear the hostages are in extreme danger.”

Bane told Eric of the doctor’s house located thirty miles away from the Professor’s mansion. On the outskirts of a rural town, it was the best place to take the boys away from the Professor’s henchmen. Bane had already bribed Dr. McKlusky, a struggling young doctor just getting started in the business, to cooperate in the plan. The doctor’s house had a single room upstairs where a number of hired guards could aid in rescuing the children from whoever brought them for treatment from a supposed bite from a rabid animal.

“I have a contact inside the mansion who is helping to set the stage by spreading a little preliminary panic about the rabies outbreak in the area. When the boys come running to the house, frightened over getting bitten by a wild raccoon, the odds are good the staff will rush the boys to the doctor for treatment.”

“Who is this person you have inside the house?” Eric asked. “Can he be trusted?”

Bane knew there was no use avoiding the question. Eric would eventually find out anyway. “It’s Lydia Pallas. The Professor hired her to do some translation work.”

The transformation that came over Eric’s face would have frightened a lesser man than Bane. “You sent that innocent girl in to do your dirty work?”

The words stung because they were true, and Bane was in the mood to lash back. “You tossed her out on the street without references.”

Eric shot to his feet and began pacing around the iron bench, his back rigid and fists clenched. “I can’t sit out here on a blasted park bench while a woman is sent in to rescue my son. I need to do more. I need to lead the charge.”

“Forget it. Lydia is leading the charge.”

Eric whirled around, his eyes flashing with anger. “Lydia is twenty-four years old! She is a
girl.
”

Girls like Lydia had been doing warriors’ work since biblical times. This job did not call for brute force; it called for intelligence, a will of iron, and a level head. Lydia had all of that, and Eric’s implication that she was not equal to the task didn’t sit well with Bane.

“Lydia’s backbone is pure steel,” he said. “We’ll put the plan into action in two days, and you’ll have your son back soon.”

Bane knew all their nerves were stretched near to their breaking point, and if he couldn’t get Lydia and the boys out from the house in the next few days, he did not know if they would last another week.

29

I
n the moonlit night, Lydia pulled her cloak tighter as she trudged toward the iron gate. Lars stepped out of the gatehouse, one hand clutching a rifle and the other holding a lantern high. “Going out for a walk again? Mrs. Garfield says there’s rabies about.”

Lydia could not afford to undermine that belief, but she also needed to meet Bane. “I’ve been in a windowless room all day hunched over a manuscript with letters the size of a grain of rice. If you don’t get out of my way, I am liable to burst into flame.”

Lars blanched. “Um, sure, no problem, Lydia.”

Even after she slipped through the gate and into the dense forest surrounding the estate, her nerves were still strung as tight as a drum. She had expected her antsy feeling to subside now that she was on her way to meet Bane. The trees were making the awful low groaning sound that made her feel like they were whispering about her, spying on her. Honestly, if Bane couldn’t get her out of here soon, she would be fit for no place but an asylum.

Her hands trembled as she held the compass, making the fragile needle wiggle even more, but the moment she saw Bane’s lean
figure in the distance, her anxiety drained away. She pocketed the compass and began hastening toward him, but he devoured the space between them with a few long strides and swept her into his arms.

“I missed you,” he murmured against her throat. For a few minutes they simply held each other. It felt like his strength was restoring her equilibrium. Always,
always
when she was with Bane it was as if his confidence flowed into her.

Finally, he broke apart from her and told her the escape plan. “Tell the boys to meet me in the icehouse on Tuesday, after breakfast but before lunch. We are going to have to manufacture some wounds on them to make it look as if they tangled with a rabid coon. They’ll come running and screaming back to the house. Be there. Insist that they be taken to a doctor immediately. Do your best to go along with them in the wagon. Say you need to treat their injuries during the ride. It would be best if we can get you out at the same time as the children.”

“What if they won’t let me go with them?”

Bane’s mouth thinned. “Do your best, but don’t endanger the escape plan by appearing too eager to go.” Lydia nodded, and Bane stretched out a hand to stroke the side of her face. “If you can’t get out with the children, I will come for you that same night,” he said. “Meet me here, and I’ll have a horse for you. You need never see this place again.”

Bane proceeded to outline the rest of the plan. “Dr. McKlusky will insist the boys be taken into Burlington for treatment, and he’ll have some strong men at hand to make sure the Professor’s guards can’t refuse. We will only arrest the guards if you make it out with the boys. Otherwise, we run the risk of exposing you as the inside spy.”

She closed her eyes and leaned against Bane for support. She
needed to last just a little bit longer, and then this nightmare would be over. But what exactly would she have to go back to in Boston? She opened her eyes and stepped back to look into Bane’s face.

“What will happen then?” she asked.

“When?”

She fought back a sense of panic as she realized what would likely happen once she and the boys were safely whisked away from the mansion. “After the boys are rescued, what will happen to us? Are you going to disappear on me again?”

Anguish clouded his face, and he dropped his gaze. “Nothing will have changed. I won’t be able to see you again.”

Her knees almost gave way at the statement, but Bane continued speaking. “The Professor will pull up stakes here and simply reemerge somewhere else. If he knows what you mean to me, he would take you and lock you away in some remote location I know nothing about. You would grow old in isolation while he tried to ensure my good behavior. I can’t take that risk with you.”

She snapped. “Then why don’t you just end it? Why do you let him manipulate you like this?”

“How, Lydia? The moment we rescue those boys, the Professor will know what happened, and he’ll disappear from Vermont. He will begin again with a new identity in a new location that has already been carefully established. It may be years before I can track him down again.”

Bane would not even look her in the eyes, but kept staring stonily into the distance. Her throat felt so constricted she could barely speak. “If you had any idea how much I love you, how strong my feelings are, you would never be able to walk away.”

“I do know, Lydia. And that is why I won’t have you living that sort of life.” A sad smile twisted his lips. “Look at you. There are shadows under your eyes, and your hands are trembling. I know
exactly
what you have been doing to cope with the stress, and it is tearing me apart.”

Lydia flinched but raised her chin a notch. “I haven’t taken a drop of Mrs. Winslow’s since I last saw you.”

His angry gaze flicked to her hands. “And you are trembling like a leaf as a result. That is what withdrawal does, Lydia. All over this country there are innocent children who are being spoon-fed Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup because their parents don’t know any better. Because of monsters like the Professor. And
I
was responsible for helping him.
I
was responsible for what happened to you in that orphanage and what is
still
happening to you.”

Bane closed his eyes, took a steadying breath, and when he looked at her again, his face was blank. “I won’t abandon this fight,” he said calmly. “From the moment my soul was saved, I knew this was my calling. I knew that I would never be free to lead a normal life. It is my penance for what I have done.”

Lydia grabbed his shoulders and shook. “What kind of God would demand a penance like that? I won’t give up on you, Bane. I won’t give up on the future we can have together.”

How could he be so composed when her heart was breaking wide open? He peeled her fingers off of his shoulders and took a step backward. “I need you to put a note to the boys in the book telling them to meet me at the icehouse on Tuesday morning.”

His face was expressionless, his tone formal. Bane was pushing her out of his life, shutting her out, and resuming his brusque, businesslike demeanor toward her. She was smart enough to know she would make no progress by attacking his God or his motives. She and Bane were at their best when they were working in tandem toward a common goal. Sooner or later he would realize that.

She unclenched her fists and looked him in the eye. “I’ll be ready,” she said.

The interior of the icehouse was frigid and uncomfortable, but it was also the safest place for Bane to meet the boys. Protected by a screen of shade trees, it was far enough away from the guardhouses that Bane need not fear discovery. There were no windows in the small stone hut, and it was completely unused at this time of year. Someone had cut blocks of ice months earlier and covered them in sawdust for preservation well into the summer months.

Lars had confined the dogs ever since Lydia raised the alarm about the rabies scare, so Bane had no difficulty slipping into the icehouse in the early hours before sunrise. That was several hours ago, and his fingers were numb with cold. He was bored too, with nothing to do except stare at the case of kitchen forks by his feet as he sat on an overturned bucket beside the door. He hoped the boys were as brave as Lydia made them out to be because the marks he needed to leave on the boys had to look as if they had actually come from a rabid raccoon.

When he heard footsteps, he silently rose to his feet and pressed himself flat against the wall beside the door. The handle jiggled, then the door squeaked open.

“There’s nobody here.” The young voice was full of despair.

“Are you sure? Let’s wait inside.” Two boys stepped into the icehouse, their gazes scanning all around the icehouse and into the rafters of the building. Bane stepped out of the shadows, and both boys jumped.

“You’re here!” Jack cried out.

“Shh!” Bane warned quietly. “Is anyone else outdoors?”

Jack shook his head. “No one goes out when it is this cold unless they have to.”

“Good.”

Bane introduced himself to Dennis, who seemed as eager to
escape as Jack. Bane squatted down on his haunches to be eye level with the boys as he went over the plan. He outlined how they should react, who they should run to, and what they should do if the servants were unwilling to take them to the doctor. He had each of them repeat the plan twice before he was satisfied. Bane put a hand on Jack’s shoulders.

“Are you sure you are up to this?” he asked. “Tell me honestly, Jack. If you don’t think you can do this, I’ll find another way.”

The lad who was afraid of the ocean and terrified of disappointing his father took on the resolute look of a commander before a battle. “I’m ready,” Jack said with a gleam of anticipation in his eyes. Dennis looked equally determined.

Bane nodded. “Then let’s get started.”

Lydia was working on the translation when a screech pierced the silence. That was her cue.

She flew out the door of the workroom and heard shouts of hysteria coming from downstairs. “Oh my heavens.
Oh my heavens!
” Mrs. Garfield shrieked. Lydia raced with the other servants toward the kitchen and caught sight of the boys as they huddled together on the bench. Both were crying, their faces streaked with tears, and blood smeared on their clothing.

“It was a raccoon,” Dennis wailed. “We didn’t do
anything
to make it mad, but it came straight at us. I tried to run away but I fell down and it got me.” Another wave of sobs came from Dennis, and Lydia’s eyes grew wide with concern. Was the boy truly in pain? The wounds looked terrible and the tears were genuine.

Mrs. Garfield sank into a chair, fanning herself. Lars must have heard the commotion, for he had followed the boys into the house. “A raccoon in the middle of the day? That doesn’t sound right.”

“It
isn’t
right,” Mrs. Garfield moaned. “There is rabies in the area. Oh, you poor boys. What is to be done?”

Lydia clung to the side of the kitchen door, partially hidden as she watched the scene unfold. Bane’s instructions were firm. She was not to intervene unless the servants refused to take the boys to a doctor.