I pressed my fingers to my temples. My head ached. My heart was sore. I should be disturbed by Langley's admission, but I couldn't muster any thoughts in that direction. All I knew was that Vi and Miss Levine had lied to me for many years. My world had been turned upside down and shaken about. I felt like I was watching a grand illusionist working his magic so cleverly and subtly that the sleight of hand went unnoticed. Nothing was as it seemed anymore.
"I think you need to lie down," Jack said, once more crouching in front of me. He peered at me as if he would see my thoughts. It was clear from his earnest gaze that he wanted to hold me, just as I wanted to be held by him. But touching of an intimate nature was impossible. He may have been able to carry me to safety, but there'd been no desire in his touch then, only urgency.
It would seem that anger caused me to light fires, but mutual desire caused us both to combust.
"I'll find out if the maids have made up any of the bedrooms," Sylvia said.
"Wait." Langley tapped his finger on the arm of his chair. "You owe me an explanation, Violet."
"She doesn't," Jack growled.
"It's all right," I said. "I want to tell you." I needed to, if only to help me make sense of it.
"Why did you not tell us you thought you couldn't light fires?" Langley asked. "If you didn't want to stay here, why not inform us of what you thought was the truth?"
Three sets of eyes watched me intently. Only Bollard seemed disinterested. I sucked in a breath and let it out slowly before beginning. "I was protecting my friend. I thought she was the fire starter, not me. She's not as strong as me, you see. She scares easily and I wanted to protect her from...your experiments. If your intentions truly were to do harm or to study her then I wanted to keep her safely at Windamere."
"That's so sweet of you," Sylvia said, sniffing and dabbing at the corners of her eyes.
"She's lucky to have a friend like you," Jack said.
"Except we're not friends, are we?" I said, bitterness souring my tongue. "How can we be? She's been lying to me for years. She knew I was the one who started the fires, yet she allowed me to think it was her and that my narcolepsy was somehow tied to it." I shook my head. It sounded ridiculous now that I thought about it. Why would my narcolepsy have been caused by her being able to start fires, or vice versa?
"Why would she do that?" Langley asked.
"Yes," Jack said. "Why lie at all?"
I shrugged. I felt like the stupidest fool that ever lived. "I don't know. They were all lying. Miss Levine, Lord Wade and Violet—"
"Violet?" Jack frowned. "But you're Violet?"
I chewed the inside of my cheek and tasted blood. "My name is Hannah Smith."
Langley's fingers gripped his chair arms. "Hannah...Smith," he muttered.
"You've heard of me?"
He lifted a hand in dismissal, but the distance in his eyes remained.
"You're not the daughter of Lord Wade?" Jack asked.
"No. Violet Jamieson, my friend, is. I was her companion, confined to the attic alongside her because she couldn't be let out with her condition." I twisted my hands together, knotting the fingers. "Or so I thought. But since I am the fire starter, and she isn't...I don't understand why Lord Wade kept me at all. Or why she's in the attic."
"Who are your parents?" Jack asked.
"Lord Wade's servants. They died when I was a baby."
"I'm terribly confused," Sylvia said. "Are we to address you as Hannah now?"
I nodded.
"You're not a lord's daughter?"
"No."
"You're a...servant?"
"A lady's companion." Which was little better. "Shall I remove myself to the servant's quarters?" I asked, unable to keep my snide tone in check.
"No," Langley said before the others could speak. "You're our guest as much now as you were when we thought we had Lady Violet. That doesn't change. Sylvia, go see if the maids are finished making up the rooms. Hannah needs some rest. We all do."
"I didn't mean anything by it," Sylvia muttered as she left.
"You told me that Lady Violet was the one with red hair," Jack said to Langley. His eyes narrowed, as if he were deep in thought trying to solve a puzzle. "They both had red hair, although different shades."
"I wasn't to know that," Langley said.
"So why take me and not the real Violet Jamieson?" I asked Jack. "You saw us both, yet you kidnapped me. Why?"
He shook his head, frowning. "I...I was led to believe..."
"Believe what?"
He paused before answering, and I got the feeling whatever he was about to tell me wasn't the entire truth. "I watched you both during your walks. You seemed to be the one in charge. You led, she followed. You were feisty where she was meek. I assumed that meant you were the earl's daughter and that the earl's daughter was the fire starter. Besides," the corner of his mouth lifted in a fleeting smile, then it vanished and he looked down at his feet, "I felt a strong connection to you. Like I was being tugged toward you by an invisible leash." He looked up again and our gazes locked. My spine tingled and heat flared through my body. "Why would I feel that unless you were a fire starter too?" He shrugged. "I didn't question it."
A tug toward me. Because of my ability or because he desired me? He smiled again, a soft, knowing smile that I desperately wanted to capture. Knowing it was just for me would have to be enough.
"Will you teach me to control this?" I asked.
The smile turned achingly sad. "I hope so. It should be a matter of controlling your temper. But unless you can turn off...more intimate emotions at will, then I'm afraid I can't help you when we..." He cleared his throat. "Just as I cannot help myself. I will find a cure though. I promise you, V— Hannah."
I gave an emphatic nod. I no longer needed any convincing to stay at Frakingham. There was nothing for me at Windamere anymore, and everything at Freak House. "We'll find it together," I said.
I slept fitfully in a bedroom I shared with Sylvia. The following morning, she peppered me with questions over breakfast in the parlor. What was the real Lady Violet like? How could I not know I was a fire starter? And, the one that confused me most—why had Lord Wade kept me at all? The only explanation I could come up with was that there was something wrong with Vi. There had to be some reason he'd keep his daughter in the attic with me, away from public view.
As I listened to Sylvia's chatter and ate my eggs, I questioned not only my reason for being confined at Windamere, but also my reason for leaving it. Jack had been hiding something when he spoke of kidnapping me and not Vi. I'd noticed his hesitations, yet he'd smoothed out the wrinkles in his story so expertly that I'd failed to recall my unease until now. I would have asked him except he'd eaten breakfast an hour earlier according to Tommy, and had since disappeared.
I went in search of Langley instead. He'd taken his breakfast in his new temporary room along the corridor from my bedroom. I knocked and Bollard opened the door. The big servant filled the doorway, his presence as solid and imposing as ever. If he felt guilty for following me in London and playing a part in the fire, he didn't show it.
Langley sat in a chair at a small desk facing the center of the room. A collection of blackened equipment filled a box nearby, and he was pouring over half-burnt pieces of paper. Bollard must have gathered up anything that was salvageable from the laboratory and brought them to the new room.
"Was much of your research destroyed?" I asked.
"Some." He didn't sound nearly as annoyed as I thought he would be. I'd come prepared with a speech that put the blame for the fire back onto him. Considering he'd deliberately riled me, I thought it only fair he acknowledged his role. It seemed unnecessary now, and perhaps a little petty when he didn't seem too upset.