Against the Tide (28 page)

31

F
or once, Lydia’s insomnia served her well as she prowled the house the rest of the night, looking in drawers and beneath the carpets. She checked behind paintings hanging on the walls and ran her hands along the dusty undersides of the furniture. The pain in her head made it difficult for her to function, especially as she approached the Professor’s bedroom. It was the next logical place to look, but revulsion skittered along every nerve ending in her body, and the ache in her head swelled even larger at being in this room. A sip of Mrs. Winslow’s would wipe out the blinding pain, but she reminded herself only a weak woman would give in to such a vice.

The Professor’s bedroom was surprisingly stark. It did not take her long to search the drawers and riffle through the wardrobe. She cringed at even touching his bedding, but she peeled back every cover, squeezed the pillowcases, and pushed her hands deep beneath the mattress. There was nothing.

The servants’ wing of the house was the only place left to search. She had avoided it all night, but dawn was less than an hour away
and Mrs. Garfield was already up. The others would soon follow. Mrs. Rokotov’s room was right in the middle of a wing of sleeping servants, and Lydia would have no excuse if someone caught her ransacking the awful woman’s bedroom. After failing to find anything in any of the other rooms, Mrs. Rokotov’s room was the only logical place left to look.

Mrs. Garfield’s door was open. Lydia held her breath as she passed, praying the cook would not return. She stood silently in the hallway, listening for the stirring of any other servants, but sensed nothing. Reaching a shaky hand out, she twisted the cold knob on Mrs. Rokotov’s door, wincing at the tiny squeak the knob made as she slipped inside the room.

The housekeeper’s room was as stark as her appearance. Wasting no time, Lydia lifted the mattress and checked beneath the sheets. Squeezed the pillows. Lifted the rug. She opened every drawer and searched the underside of the dresser. She was running out of places to look, but she had to move fast. Anxiety was making her dizzy, but she couldn’t afford to waste even a moment of time. She scanned the walls, the ceiling . . .
the fireplace
! Mrs. Rokotov would never break the Professor’s rule about fire in the house.

Squatting down, Lydia tucked her head into the opening, the air inside the fireplace as cool and fresh as the rest of the house. This fireplace had not been used in decades. Her fingers rubbed along the grainy bricks of the interior as she reached up high. A surge of triumph flooded her as a packet of papers tumbled down.

With shaking fingers, Lydia opened the pages. There was a deed to a house in California. A train schedule. An inventory of books to be shipped. Her vision blurred as she realized what she held in her hand. These pages were the key to Bane’s freedom.

Wasting no more time, Lydia folded the pages and slipped them
into her bodice. Just as her fingers touched the cold knob of the door, a commotion echoed up from downstairs.

“Everybody up!” It was Boris’s voice, yelling from below. “Everyone out of bed.
Now!
”

People in the rooms on either side of Lydia began stirring. They’d catch her if she didn’t get out of Mrs. Rokotov’s room this very moment! Twisting the squeaky knob as quietly as possible, she darted into the hallway and scurried down the long corridor, holding her breath as she raced past each servant’s door. She made it to the main landing on the second floor in time to turn around and pretend to be emerging from the north wing, just as the others stumbled out of their rooms.

“What’s going on?” one of the servant girls asked, clutching a blanket around her. Like the others, her hair was disheveled and she wore nightclothes.

The balcony Lydia stood on overlooked the main entry, and Boris appeared below. “The Professor has been found out,” he called upstairs in a booming voice. “We went to Boston last night to warn him not to return. He ordered us back here to box up his books and close up the house. All of you people get dressed and report to the kitchen in three minutes.”

Lydia cringed as his gaze landed on her, traveling up and down her fully dressed figure and tidy hair. “You too,” he growled. “Get downstairs. Now.”

Boris watched through narrowed eyes as she lowered herself gently onto each step, pain bursting in her head with each footfall. She must not faint. The papers were stiff in her bodice and she fought to maintain even breathing so they would not rustle. The moment her foot touched the slate floor, Boris clamped his hand around her arm and hauled her forward. She gasped at the pain that whirled in her head and raced down her spine.

“What are you complaining about?” he barked, the noise making the misery in her head worse. “You are just going to the kitchen for a nice little breakfast.”

Mrs. Rokotov waited for her in the kitchen, where Mrs. Garfield was preparing a massive pot of oatmeal.

“You!” Mrs. Rokotov said. “What do you know of Dr. McKlusky?”

Lydia opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. Mrs. Garfield poured a mug of hot tea and slid it across the table to her. “Here you go, dear. There will be oatmeal in a few minutes.”

Lydia wrapped her icy fingers around the warm mug, taking a deep sip to buy herself time, then settled down at the table. She could practically smell the anger radiating off Mrs. Rokotov and cleared her throat before answering. “I don’t know any Dr. McKlusky,” she said. Which was true enough; she had never met the man.

She took another sip of tea to escape the blistering glare of the housekeeper as others began shuffling into the kitchen. It didn’t take long for all six guards, four serving girls, and two groundskeepers to assemble.

Boris issued the orders. “Lars will be bringing empty crates inside. All you women begin packing up the books on the ground floor. I’ll supervise transportation of the book vaults from the north wing. I want every book in this house packed up by noon. And
you,
” he said, pinning his glare on Lydia. “Get up to your bedroom and stay out of the way.”

When she stood, her headache pounded so badly she thought it would explode. She couldn’t take this pain any longer. The moment she got to her room she would need a sip of Mrs. Winslow’s. She was finding it impossible to keep functioning when her skull felt like it was about to split in two. She held her breath as she walked up the stairs, trying not to jostle the papers in her bodice. In less
than a minute she was in her room, holding the cool, smooth bottle of Mrs. Winslow’s in her hand. Her fingers shook as she unscrewed the lid and took a deep sip. Even the flavor of the syrup comforted her as it slid down her throat and eased the tension in her head.

She set the bottle back down on the dresser.

Something was wrong. Her hairbrush was slightly angled next to her toothbrush. Neither of them was perfectly aligned with the edge of the table. She never would have left them like that. It did not matter how sleepy or distracted she was, she kept her belongings in meticulous order.

A new round of tremors raced through her, so she badly needed to sit. She made it to the chair in front of the writing desk before her knees gave way. Who had been prowling through her room? Had Boris and Mrs. Rokotov been in here before rousing the servants?

She needed to sit down and think of a plan, and maybe rest for just a few minutes. It would be easier for her to think after she had some sleep. Everything was so scattered and confused. Perhaps she could just put her head down and rest quietly for a few minutes. The writing desk was smooth and cool against the side of her face as she laid her head down. When the teachers at Crakken Orphanage had needed a break, they had told the children to put their heads down on their desks, just as Lydia was doing now. Oddly, the children had always obeyed without complaint.

Her eyes snapped open. It wasn’t odd, because those children had been
drugged.
Just as she had been drugged. And it was more than a sip of Mrs. Winslow’s. The only thing she’d consumed this morning had been those few sips of tea. Lydia knew what Mrs. Winslow’s felt like, and this was different. There must have been something in that tea.

She had to get out of this house. They were already suspicious of her, and as soon as Mrs. Rokotov noticed the missing documents,
they would pull the house apart board by board . . . probably beginning in Lydia’s room. She had to leave the mansion and get to the spot where Bane would meet her. She had to get out now, while the house was in chaos as servants rushed to pack up the books. She could wait it out in the woods.

She forced herself to her feet, but an avalanche of dizziness drove her back down. Whatever had been in that tea was working its way through her bloodstream and sapping her strength. She couldn’t let it. The key to Bane’s freedom was in those papers, so she was
going
to make it out of this house. Bracing herself against the wall, she made it out the door and clutched the banister with both hands as she descended the servants’ staircase to the ground floor. The racket of hammers and books slamming into crates filled the air as servants swarmed the house like bees in a hive. No one paid attention to anything but the task of packing up the books.

Cold air helped rouse her fading energy as she slipped out the back door. Lydia glanced behind her. No one was watching as she escaped the house.

She wasn’t even halfway to the iron gates when she knew she wouldn’t make it. The edges of her vision were growing dim and her legs dragged as she walked. She stumbled and went sprawling onto the loamy soil. It took her three tries to get back on her feet.

She needed to hide these papers before she passed out. If anyone found her with them, she was as good as dead.

The icehouse! Surely she could make it that far. Lewis and Clark walked all the way to the Pacific Ocean; she could find a way to walk a hundred yards to the icehouse. She planted one foot in front of the other, her gaze fastened on the small stone building looming closer with each of her steps.

The door of the icehouse was rickety, and the scent of sawdust and stagnant air engulfed her as she stepped inside. Blocks
of ice stacked as high as her chest filled the space, and a foot of sawdust topped each tower of ice with more sawdust layered in between each of the blocks. Could she simply slip the papers into the sawdust?

Lydia tried to insert the tip of her finger into the packed sawdust, but the weight of the ice was too heavy. She tried to lift the top cake, but it didn’t budge. Wondering how on earth a person removed the ice, she spotted a pair of tongs, a hammer, and a metal file resting against the wall of the building. She breathed a sigh of relief and fitted the file into the sawdust insulation. The finely honed edge slid cleanly into the sawdust, and Lydia was able to wedge open the smallest of cracks. It took some maneuvering on her part, but she finally slid the documents into the layer of sawdust. Then she packed a little loose sawdust into the disturbed area, making the papers invisible.

The exertion helped revive her. She only wobbled a little as she left the icehouse, shaking the sawdust from her clothing. Maybe she could make it out the gate and to the meeting spot with Bane after all. If she could walk to the spot to meet Bane, it would not matter if she fell asleep. All she had to do was keep moving.

“Lydia!” Lars shouted at her from the steps of the mansion. Pretending she didn’t hear, she kept heading toward the gate. She had no strength to run, only to steadfastly keep moving forward.

“Lydia, stop.” Within a few moments he loped up alongside her. “What are you doing out here?”

“Just taking a little walk.”

“You don’t look good,” he said.

“Watch it with those compliments, or I’ll think you are flirting with me,” she said. Her energy was fading again, and she was as weak as a kitten.

“Yes, well, it is the truth.” He pressed a hand to her forehead.
“Mrs. Rokotov said you weren’t feeling well and told you to rest. You really look awful, Lydia.”

She tried to laugh. “There you go again.”

He put his arm around her waist and turned her in the opposite direction. She was helpless against his strength. “Come on. I’m taking you back to the house. You need to lie down.”