Against the Tide (27 page)

“I don’t think there is any cure for rabies,” Lars said. “Maybe it was just a crazy coon. It can happen.”

Mrs. Garfield shook her head. “No, there is a treatment. Just the other day I saw it in a newspaper. Something about a vaccine.” She hoisted herself to her feet and went rummaging through the stack of newspapers beside the hearth. “Oh heavens, please don’t let it have been burned already. Where is Lydia? She saw it.”

Boris’s eyes landed on her. “What are you doing down here? Get back up where you belong.”

She stepped into the kitchen. “But . . . those children look like they need help.”

Boris looked furious enough to strike her, but she stood her ground. “They are just neighborhood children,” he snarled. “Nothing for you to concern yourself with. Now, scat.”

He barreled toward her and pushed her backward, but Mrs. Garfield stopped him. “Lydia! What did that newspaper say about the treatment of rabies? These poor boys . . .”

Lydia twisted free of Boris. “There is a vaccine, but the boys need to be treated right away. Within a few hours. Otherwise it will be fatal.”

Mrs. Garfield looked frantic, pacing the kitchen and wringing a rag between her hands. “The article said something else about treatment. What was it, Lydia?”

Panic simmered in Mrs. Garfield’s eyes, and Lydia turned it up a notch. “It said the only hope is to get to a doctor right away,”
Lydia said. “The odds of surviving are good if treated immediately. There is no reason why these boys can’t both be saved, but we must
hurry.
”

Lars shifted uncomfortably. “The Professor will kill us all if anything happens to those boys.” At his words, one of the serving girls buried her face in her apron and started crying. Boris glared at Lydia. “You and your highfalutin treatments. Get back upstairs where you belong.”

He made a move to shove her out of the kitchen, but Lydia sidestepped him. “Those boys need to get to the doctor immediately,” she insisted.

“I suppose I can go fetch one,” Lars said. “Dr. McKlusky lives a couple hours away. I could probably get him here before sundown.”

“That is too late!” Lydia said. “You need to take those boys to him so they can be treated immediately. They will die otherwise, and then we will
all
have to answer to the Professor for why two children died on his property.” It was time to ratchet up the pressure. She turned a glare onto Mrs. Garfield, who wilted even further. “What were they doing outside when you knew there was rabies in the area? How could you have been so careless?”

Mrs. Garfield twisted her hands in indecision. “I don’t want to be anywhere in this state if harm comes to those boys.” The way the color drained from Lars’s face made it apparent to Lydia he also feared the Professor’s reaction.

Jack lifted his head. “If I die from rabies, my dad is going to be really mad. He’s in charge of the whole navy, and he’ll make sure all you people get in trouble.”

Lars didn’t need any prodding from Jack. “I’ll take them to Dr. McKlusky for treatment. I’ll bring them straight home as soon as they receive the vaccine. We’ll bring Boris and a few others to ensure there will be no trouble. The boys can be back in their beds
before morning. The Professor need never even know they stepped foot outside this house.”

The serving girl lifted her head from her apron, holding her breath while Mrs. Garfield fretted. As kindly as the woman seemed to be at first glance, she was more worried about her own skin than children in danger of dying. Lydia decided she must have no mercy. She stepped closer to Mrs. Garfield and lowered her voice to a whisper so no one else could hear.

“When those boys develop rabies, it will take weeks for them to die. Will you be able to tend to them as they lose their minds and wallow in agony? Knowing that your fear of the Professor allowed the rabies to take root inside their bodies and eat away at their brains? It is not too late to get them to a doctor and give them a fighting chance.”

Resolve hardened Mrs. Garfield’s features. “Lars, get the wagon out. And fetch Mrs. Rokotov. She will want to go as well.”

Triumph surged through Lydia. The plan was working! Those boys were on their way out of this gothic nightmare and would be reunited with their parents soon. She screwed up her courage and looked at Mrs. Garfield. “Should I go with them? I can tend to their wounds on the journey.”

Boris grabbed her arm and steered her down the hall. “The only place you’re going is upstairs, lady.” He propelled her through the hallway and up the stairs, squeezing her arm hard and driving her so fast she stumbled on the steps. As he shoved Lydia into her bedroom, he growled a warning about skinning her alive if she showed her face downstairs before lunchtime.

With the crash of the slammed door still echoing in her ears, Lydia darted to the window, where she had a bird’s-eye view as Lars pulled up the wagon. Mrs. Garfield guided the boys outside, fussing over them as she buttoned their coats. Lars sprang down
from the buckboard and loaded the boys into the bed of the wagon. Boris was about to get in as well when the black-clad figure of Mrs. Rokotov appeared, her body rigid with anger as she approached the group. She started arguing with Boris, but Lydia could hear nothing from behind her window. She pressed her hands to the cold glass, praying the severe woman would not ruin the boys’ chance for freedom.

At last, Mrs. Rokotov seemed to arrive at a decision and hoisted herself onto the front seat. Lydia went weak with relief at the sight. Lars closed the hatch of the wagon with a hearty thump and then vaulted onto the driver’s bench beside Mrs. Rokotov. As soon as Boris hopped in the bed of the wagon, Lars snapped the horses into action, carrying the boys away from the prisonlike fortress.

Lydia leaned her forehead against the windowpane, feeling more alone than ever before.

30

A
s the wagon rolled outside the iron gates, Lydia sprang into action. With the Professor away and the worst of his minions gone, she was free to search the house at will. Mrs. Rokotov had spoken of written plans for the Professor’s evacuation, complete with a new house and new identities. This was Lydia’s chance to find those plans.

The doctor and the admiral’s men were going to insist the boys be taken to the hospital. With the children out of her clutches and free to speak to the authorities, Mrs. Rokotov would realize the Professor was on the verge of being exposed. She would race back to the mansion to set the Professor’s escape plan in motion.

Bane had assured Lydia that unless she managed to escape with the boys, the admiral’s men were under strict orders to protect her cover. Any attempt to begin arresting the Professor’s servants before Lydia was safe could put her at risk of being exposed as a spy and endanger her life.

Unless Lydia could find those papers and foil the Professor’s
escape. The papers were the key to freeing Bane from the intolerable state of limbo in which he had been living.

Lydia marched directly to the Professor’s private study. There was a modest desk, some cabinets, and a bookshelf stuffed to the ceiling with volumes.

She tackled the desk first. The drawers were a disappointment, containing only stationery, writing utensils, and a pouch of tobacco. The cabinets were jammed with files and paperwork. Flipping through the pages, she looked for anything that mentioned an address that could be a new house or train schedules to flee the state. Nothing.

When the setting sun made it too dark to continue, she lit a lamp and felt dwarfed by the thousands of books that lined the walls from floor to ceiling. Slipping the escape plan in the pages of a book would be an excellent way to hide it. Searching each volume would be like examining every blade of grass in a field. Setting the lamp on a table, Lydia began with the bottom shelf.

After two hours, her hands felt grubby and she was growing convinced this was a hopeless quest. Slips of paper occasionally fell from a volume, but they appeared to be innocent: a sales receipt or notes summarizing the book’s contents. She couldn’t stop searching, but as she shifted the stepladder to attack yet another shelf, despair clouded her spirit. She did not even know what she was looking for, just groping blindly at straws. And after two more hours, she had flipped through every book but found nothing. And Bane would be waiting for her. It was already past midnight and he would be worried if she did not come soon.

Bane chose an ancient sycamore tree with spreading branches that were easy for him to climb and get a better view of the Professor’s estate.

Lydia was late. Until now, the plan had been working perfectly. Eric had been reunited with his son, and Dennis’s father in New York had been summoned. The Professor’s servants appeared to realize they could not prevent the doctor from sending the boys to the hospital, but they gave no indication they suspected Lydia as they fled from the doctor’s house. After all, the plan had been cleanly executed and there was no smoking gun pointing to Lydia. None of the servants even knew she had had any contact with the children.

Now all he had to do was get Lydia out of this house and smuggle her to safety. He had tied his horse to a tree less than half a mile from here, as the embankment was too steep for the horse in the dim light. In just a few minutes, he and Lydia would ride away from this fortress and its dark memories.

He would take her to Boston and help her establish a new life. He would get her to a doctor who could help her overcome her opium addiction and stay by her side until the poison was gone from her body.

And then he would walk out of her life. It would be too painful to watch Lydia fall in love with someone else and grow large with another man’s child. He knew she would. Lydia was too resilient to wither away as old memories plagued her. She was a fighter that way.

He raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes and finally spotted her scurrying through the trees. Relief flooded through him as he climbed down the branches and ran toward her, sweeping her into his arms and swinging her in a circle. She was here, she was safe. What other woman in the universe could have pulled off such a feat of sheer bravery and bravado?

“My horse is at the top of the embankment. Let’s get you out of here.”

“I’m not leaving.”

He must not have heard her correctly. He grabbed her hand and began tugging her up the embankment, but she dug in her heels.

“I’m not leaving, Bane. I’ve got a chance to find the evacuation plan that says where the Professor intends to flee.”

He pulled back to look down at her face, ice trickling through his veins at what he saw there. Her trembling lips had no color. She was in full-blown withdrawal and it was a dangerous time. “Don’t,” he said quickly. “Don’t do something foolish.”

“I have to.”

He held her face between his hands. “Lydia! You aren’t thinking clearly. You’ve got the shakes and your skin is gray. Don’t think you can walk back into that dungeon and figure out a way to bring the Professor down. It can’t be done. Not when you are already half dead.”

She grabbed his wrists. “Listen to me! If I can discover the location of where the Professor intends to flee, the authorities can go after him. Just give me time, and I will find it.”

Lydia was fighting valiantly, but her voice was weak. She was exhausted, and any fool could see she couldn’t last much longer without medical attention. “I can’t let you go back in there,” he said. “You’ll kill yourself.”

“Don’t you understand?” Her voice held a curious blend of hope and desperation. “If the Professor is dead or in jail, you can have a normal life.
We
can have a normal life. Bane, we are a team. We are stronger together than when we are apart.” It was painful for him to see the anticipation brimming in her eyes.

“Lydia, that is just a fantasy.”

She grabbed his shoulders and shook. “Bane! Look at what we have accomplished together! Have you ever been closer to bringing Van Bracken down than you are at this very moment?” Anger darkened her face and she shoved him away so hard he had to stumble
to keep his balance. “What have you ever really done to hurt that man other than send him some poppies? I want to slay the dragon, make the world safe from his poison, while you merely taunt him!”

Even though the accusation struck home, he had to find a flaw in her logic. He didn’t have the strength to turn her around and send her back into that web of danger and deceit. Not when he could have her safely in Boston by sunrise.

“There may not
be
any written evidence of where the Professor intends to flee.”

Lydia did not hesitate. “Give me another day. That is all I’m asking, Bane. Give me one more day.” She grabbed his hands and kissed them, desperate hope burning in her eyes. “Bane, we are a team. If we can bring the Professor down, there will be no stopping us! We can build a better world where no little children will be lulled to sleep with drugs. We can be free to love each other.” She clasped his hands between hers, and his heart nearly broke at the frailty of her grasp, the trembling of her fingers. The effects of withdrawal were eating away at her nervous system, turning her into an anxious, fragile wreck of a woman, but it still did not destroy her hope for the future. How could he not adore a woman who was willing to undergo such an ordeal to chase a dream?

He pulled her into his arms, pained at how thin her body was, how he could feel each of her ribs. He loved this woman with a ferocity that scared him. If ever the Lord created a woman who was perfect for him, he was holding her right now. He could not cast her aside and tell her to continue her life without him. With the Professor moving to a new location, Bane would lose the advantage he’d had when he could track the man. It was time to bring the Professor down once and for all.

“One more day, Lydia. If you can’t find those plans quickly, we’ll need to find another solution. You can’t go on much longer.”

Lydia shook her head. “Bane, if you are with me, I feel strong enough to call the moon down from the sky.”

He kissed her deeply, wondering how God could have forgiven him enough to bless him with a woman like Lydia Pallas. “Tomorrow night,” he murmured against her mouth.