Chapter Three
F or a week, they all lingered easily enough at Bluefield Park.
Between them, Niall and Stayme turned the estate into a fortress. Guards manned the entrances and patrolled the boundaries at variable schedules. The hidden gate was securely padlocked. “No one is getting through here without making a significant racket,” Niall said with satisfaction as he fastened the last chain.
Kara thought it was going a bit far, but her husband—how she enjoyed saying that, even to herself—convinced Turner that they should go together to inspect every inch of Bluefield’s secret tunnels. They were all clear, as Kara had insisted they would be, but it eased Niall’s nerves to be sure.
They kept themselves busy for the week, and even for a few days beyond.
Kara and Harold finished the design for the Green Man automaton. Kara got him started on the initial framing and let him carry on while she drafted a plan for the project for her next client. It was a picnic scene, complete with figures eating tiny sandwiches and strawberries, a thieving squirrel, and a child holding a kite that lifted aloft, as if on the wind.
Gyda kept both herself and Kara’s lady’s maid, Elsie, busy. They were sewing an elaborate traditional Nordic dress to go with her new jewelry.
Stayme kept a couple of trusted couriers running ragged as he conducted his business from Bluefield. When he wasn’t working, he buzzed around the rest of them and their projects, offering advice, criticism, and praise.
Niall fired up his forge and started on his marshland-themed gates, but he kept pausing to check in with the patrols and read over Wooten’s updates, which arrived every couple of days.
“Still nothing!” he exclaimed. Kara could feel his frustration as he handed her the latest missive. They were approaching the middle of the second week. “How can Petra have disappeared so completely?”
“Perhaps she has left the country once again?” Turner ventured.
“I’ve had no word of it,” Stayme said. “And I’ve had people watching.”
“They cannot watch every ship that leaves every port,” Kara said with a sigh. “Not even your net stretches so fine.”
“Perhaps she’s just lurking around here, waiting for her chance,” Gyda mused.
The thought sent a shiver down Kara’s spine. “If she is, then I hope she is seething in frustration.” She squared her shoulders. “And I am happy for her to continue to do so.”
Gyda’s words stayed with Kara all day. In the evening, she decided to dissipate some of her nervous energy in her gymnasium.
It was a special room fashioned from a walled-off section of the ballroom. The place had been designed by her father and some of the consultants he had hired to train her when she was young. Much of the ballroom décor was hidden behind equipment, and parts of the wooden floor were covered in mats. She had spent many hours in here back then, and kept up a good bit of her training even after her father’s death, but it had been some time since she’d used it.
She roamed idly about a moment, lighting the lamps. The one mirrored wall reflected the light, making the space bright— useful for studying one’s opponent. She swished a fencing foil back and forth a few times, but she had no partner to spar with.
Her thoughts went back to the last time they had matched wits with Petra Scot and her followers. There had been some physical encounters then, as well. The recollection led her to assemble a rough circle of wirework dummies. They were a varied lot, padded out to represent opponents of different heights and sizes. It had been a trick taught to her by an Irish fellow, a master of the shillelagh , a club or walking stick sometimes called a fighting stick. The instrument was very useful for defending oneself, and Kara had been trained to use it to fight off an attacker.
She had several sticks of varying sizes and lengths in a rack on the wall. She took down her favorite, stepped into the circle, crouched into a fighting stance, then began to move. Whirling, striking, and jabbing, she hit one opponent in the throat, the next in the kidney. Spin. Strike. Knee. Groin. Head. She pushed herself hard. Think. Strategize. Hit.
It had been too long, she realized. She tired too quickly, although her aim remained true. She stopped, panting, and resolved to get back to her training more often. Still breathing heavily, she eyed the rope that hung from the high ceiling.
She hated that rope. It had taken her a ridiculously long time to conquer it and consistently reach the top. She winced at the thought of tackling it again, but avoiding the hard things would be of no help. She pulled in a great gulp of air, grabbed the rope, closed her eyes a moment, then jumped high and began to climb.
Her arms grew tired. It took her a moment to remember just how to lock the rope with her feet so that she could use her legs. So slow. But she gritted her teeth and pushed on. When she reached the top, she braced herself with her feet, threw back her head, and sucked in celebratory air. She hung there for a triumphant moment before going carefully back down, hand over hand.
When she reached the bottom, she was startled by the sound of rapid clapping. Harold rushed in, his eyes shining. “Gor! That was somethin’!” In his enthusiasm, a bit of his old street accent crept back. “Kara! I can’t believe you can do that!” He looked around, clearly entranced. “I didn’t even know this was back here!”
“That was rather by design,” she admitted.
“But things change.”
She looked up to see Niall following the lad in, carrying a laden tea tray.
“Come,” he said. “Pull out one of those mats and we will have a picnic.”
Kara moved to arrange the space. Niall set down his burden, then poured water from a tall pitcher. “Water first, then tea.”
She saw he had also brought a plate of her favorite cream-filled pastries. Raising a brow, she settled next to Harold. “This smacks of a conspiracy.”
“A small one,” Niall admitted. “Young Harold has a proposition for you.”
“Does he?” The water was cool, and her curiosity was piqued.
Harold looked nervous. Also, he was not attacking the pastries, which was a sure sign that he was preoccupied.
“I…I want to take lessons,” he blurted.
“Beyond the Latin and mathematics that you are studying now? What subject is it that you would like to explore?”
“I want to train , Kara,” her ward said, excited. “Like you did! Like what you just did with that rope. Fighting, climbing, escaping, hiding. I want to learn it all, just like you.”
The request hit her like a blow. All of her nervous anxiety rushed back. She felt such a failure . “Oh,” was all she managed to get out. She had to blink back tears.
“Kara,” Niall said with concern.
Harold looked aghast. “I didn’t mean to upset you!” He drew a deep breath. “They still talk of you, you know. In the city, throughout Covent Garden, in the alleys. The rich nob’s daughter who can slip through the streets unseen, scale a wall like a monkey, and take down a street thug with one blow. I want to learn it all too.” He took her hand. “I want to be like you.”
She bit her lip, hard. “When I took you as my ward, Harold, my greatest wish was for you to live a life in which you didn’t have to learn those things.”
“I don’t have to. I want to.” He looked stubborn suddenly. “Back on the streets, when I was cold and hungry and the runt of the crew…back then, if I could have picked any life I could have—any at all—I would have picked this .” He smiled tremulously. “Here. With you and Niall. And Gyda and Turner and Stayme. Watching you and learning from you—how to act, how to be a family, art, and forging, and mechanics, even Latin.” He made a face.
Kara squeezed his hand. “I was always fearful, watchful, on edge, as a child.”
“Yes, but it worked! Those men came for you and you escaped. Four times!”
“Three times,” she said. “Three times I evaded them.”
“Only because you were not ready the first time.”
“I never wanted you to live in fear, Harold.” Niall made a noise, and she rolled her eyes at him. “Yes. I recognize the absurdity of such a statement, given that the lad was so recently poisoned. Not to mention our current predicament. I’m sorry, Harold.”
“I want to do my part,” the boy insisted. “I want to help protect the family.”
The family . Her heart eased a little to hear him say it. Yes. They were a family. And he deserved equal footing in it.
“I would feel less afraid if I could do some of the things you can,” the boy cajoled.
“I understand.” Her gaze met Niall’s. “I assume you have already encouraged him in this?”
Her husband shrugged. “I told him you would decide. But I don’t believe it will harm him to learn. It’s not going to attract trouble, Kara.”
“No, there’s no need of that. It finds us all on its own.” She sighed. “I know you are right.” She eyed Harold sternly. “If I agree, you will have to abide by the same rules I did. That means studying first—and if you fall behind in your lessons, then the training will pause.”
Harold nodded eagerly.
“And one more thing.”
He waited.
“You must study fencing. I need a sparring partner.”
“That’s all? I can do it?”
She nodded. “You can.”
He launched himself at her and hugged her tightly around the neck. “Thank you! Thank you!”
“You are welcome.” She held him for a moment. “We will make arrangements. But for now, sit back and pass me those pastries.”
*
The interlude led to Harold’s satisfaction, but a couple of more days of their isolation stretched out and began to lead to frustration for the others.
“I’m going to go and speak with Wooten myself,” Niall announced as they sat in the parlor one evening. “There must be something else we can do to find the damned woman. Perhaps I will also go and consult Towland. I’ll have him set the members of the Druidic Order to investigating.”
“I’ll go along,” Stayme chimed in. “There are files that I must have, if I’m to extend my stay here.”
“I’ll take the train into Town with you both,” Gyda said. “Charles writes that he has good news and something to show me.”
Nerves flaring, Kara stood. “I am not sure,” she said, pacing to the hearth and back around again. “Perhaps it is too soon.”
“We cannot stay locked up here forever,” Gyda told her. “For all we know, Petra could be on the Continent again, or on her way to the Americas. She’d be laughing at the thought of us holed up here, hiding from nothing.”
Kara couldn’t explain the dark foreboding that clawed at her every time she thought of that note. “I don’t think we are hiding from nothing.”
“Stayme and I will stay together,” Niall said, frowning. “We will take every precaution. But Gyda—”
“Let me send a note with one of your couriers, Stayme,” Gyda interrupted. “I’ll have Charles pick me up at the train station. He’s the son of one of the most powerful men in the realm. I’ll be safe as houses.” She sighed. “It’s been too long since I’ve seen him.”
“I still don’t like it,” Kara objected. She couldn’t stop pacing.
“We cannot keep at this stalemate forever,” Niall said grimly. “But we must all be very careful. Prepared.” Standing, he drew Kara into his arms. “You and Harold will be safe here. But you must stay alert as well.”
Nodding, she burrowed further into his arms.