Page 50 of Caging Darling (The Lost Girl #3)

CHAPTER 50

W hen I reach the hallway, I find my legs are wobbling too hard to hold myself up, and I press my back against the wall, my entire chest trembling.

Already, thoughts of how to trick Tink into returning to the Nomad have swarmed my head. Claiming there’s danger inside she doesn’t know about. Claiming there’s something outside I need her help with to save Michael.

I feel as though I could throw up.

I’m going to betray her.

I’m going to betray my friend.

And there’s nothing I can do about it.

And even if there were, I don’t know that I’d want to.

If I fail, I die. For so long, that’s been my only wish aside from Michael’s safety, to finally be released into the peace of darkness, to drift off and no longer have to feel the shackles of my own body.

If I succeed, I’m still chained to Peter. But I’m as foolish of a girl as I’ve ever been, and the hope for a future between me and Astor, the ember I should have let fade—it’s glowing again.

That awful, cancerous hope has multiplied in my chest, and I possess no cure, no means of containing it.

I want to live. Even if the only life I’m destined is one where I know that out there somewhere, he’s coming for me. Even if he never succeeds.

Because the hope that one day, he will, won’t seem to die. It infiltrates my reason, filling my head with tales of romance in which love actually wins in the end.

Except the love I have for Astor isn’t the only love that exists, the only love that matters.

Wendy Darling’s sleeping , I hear Michael say from the past. If he saw me, would this still be his mantra, how he’s remembered me all this time? So easily swayed. So unable to say no.

I’ve been manipulated so many times, it’s as if I’m in a dream. One that keeps changing on me. A nightmare from which I can never wake, but in which I continue to make horrible decisions, then wonder what came over me.

All at once, every manipulation swarms my head. Killing Victor’s father on the beach, not knowing who he was, because I thought Peter’s life was worth defending. Making the bargain with Peter in the tower, thinking it was the only way to save my brothers’ lives, when I now know Astor wouldn’t have laid a finger on either of them. That he never would have hurt John. Even the Nomad didn’t have to spend more than half an hour with me to know which weak spots to hit, that I’d give up Tink at the chance I might solidify Peter’s love for me, just to know that someone’s wanting of me was real. The Nomad had sensed that I was weak, broken-hearted from learning Astor had once been my Mate, only to trade me away, and he’d used my pain for his own benefit.

He’d seen right through me. Used my pain, my fears against me.

And now he is going to win.

If only that came so easily to me. Knowing how to win. If only I could read other people to get them to do what I want them to do.

The thought is wry, but it sets in my belly like concrete, refusing to be washed away.

I roll it around in my mind.

And an idea blooms.

“My footman said you wished to meet with me,” says Lady Whittaker. “That it was urgent.”

Something about her tone makes it sound like she thinks I’m probably being dramatic. Overly anxious. I can see how I would have given her that impression.

But the Wendy who stands before Lady Whittaker is none of that.

Indeed, when Lady Whittaker glances up from the papers on her desk in her office, peering over her spectacles, I see in the way her brows lift, the corners of her wrinkled lips tighten, that my posture has her attention.

“The children in your care are in danger,” I say.

Lady Whittaker removes the spectacles from her face and allows them to rest on her chest, hanging from the beads around her now-taut neck.

“And what has led you to believe such a thing?”

“Because I’m not who I allowed you to believe.”

The only reaction from Lady Whittaker is the stiffening of her long fingers against the edge of her desk.

“And who, pray tell, are you?”

“It doesn’t matter who I am. Just who sent me.”

The lady purses her lips together. “Spit it out, girl. I’m growing impatient.”

My heart patters against my chest, but it’s imperative I get this right. So I steady myself. Make myself appear calm but urgent.

“Your son has grown suspicious in recent months regarding his father’s long illness.”

“He’s expressed no such concern to me.”

“That’s because you’re the one he’s suspicious of. You’re right in saying your son has no concern for his father. In fact, he’s been awaiting a letter announcing his death for the past two years. But no such letter has come. Your son has grown impatient for his inheritance. He cannot believe his father has hung onto life this long, and therefore, he believes you are hiding something from him.”

To Lady Whittaker’s credit, she doesn’t blanch. Doesn’t even swallow. “Continue.”

“He hired my master to infiltrate your manor.”

“To spy on me.”

“Yes.”

Lady Whittaker sighs, then wipes her eyes with a handkerchief. “And let me guess, now that you know the truth, you’d like me to bribe you to keep that information to yourself.”

“Not exactly.”

“Smart,” says Lady Whittaker. “Because I’d sooner have your corpse as fertilizer for my flower bed.”

I fight back the shiver tapping against my spine. “I’d expect nothing less. Not all that I told you was a lie, my lady. My brothers are quite real. When my master offered me this assignment, I was still under the impression you had simply continued your husband’s business. You can imagine my shock when I discovered what you’ve truly been doing with these resources.”

“Yes, I’m sure it pricked your hired heart,” says Lady Whittaker, folding her hands together.

“My master has every intention of handing the truth over to your son,” I say.

“Not if there’s no one to tell him the truth,” says Lady Whittaker, no hint of a smile on her face. She’s as grim as the grave.

“My partner, the man posing as my master, will inform our master that you conducted the business on your own. That there was no evidence of your husband in the house.”

“That’s no proof. My husband is known to be ill. Why would anyone expect him downstairs?” says Lady Whittaker.

“It doesn’t matter whether the evidence is compelling. The only thing that matters is what your son already wishes to believe.”

This time, the color does drain from Lady Whittaker’s face.

“I don’t wish for the good you’re doing to end, Lady Whittaker,” I say. “My life, and my brothers’, have been difficult. There’s been little kindness, little care bestowed on us. And now I see these children who would otherwise be cast out, at worst, without futures once their caregivers died, at best, taken care of. Fed, educated, loved. It’s the type of world I’ve always longed for but never imagined could exist.”

“Then what do you suggest I do?”

“Your son has offered my master a great sum, but there’s something you have in your possession that money cannot buy.”

“Which is?”

I fight the urge to swallow. “A faerie.”

Lady Whittaker stiffens against the back of her chair. “Pardon?”

“He would find her quite useful.”

Lady Whittaker scoffs. “I’m sure he would.”

“You made it clear earlier tonight that you would do anything to preserve the futures of those children. Even murder.”

“I spent the majority of my adulthood complicit in trafficking. I won’t be roped back into it.”

“I’m afraid you have little choice,” I say. “It’s her or the children.”

A needle pierces my conscience as I realize this was exactly the choice Peter was forced to make.

Lady Whittaker stares at me for a long while before she rises from her chair. The legs squeal against the hardwood. “There is always a choice, my dear.”

“So you’d put the children at risk for one faerie?” I ask.

For a moment, she doesn’t answer, and I worry I’ve failed. That my plan has not worked, or perhaps, worked too well.

“Alren,” she says.

The guard shuffles into the room. All it takes is a slight gesture of Lady Whittaker’s head in my direction, and the guard snatches my hands and binds them behind my back.

“Dispose of this girl,” she says. “I’m afraid she’s proven herself a liability.”

Mingled panic and relief flood my chest as the guard does what he’s told and grabs me by the hair at the nape of my neck. I should probably struggle. Should probably sell it.

But my limbs feel limp with relief and extreme sadness.

I’ll never see Michael again. Never run my hand through his sandy hair. Never glimpse his smile or hear his little songs.

And Astor.

I can’t bring myself to think about Astor.

The guard forces me to my knees.

“Try not to get any blood on the rug,” says Lady Whittaker, now returned to shuffling through her papers.

“Yes, my lady,” says the guard.

I shouldn’t think of Astor, but I do. I whisper apologies through the night. Tell him he shouldn’t have had to mourn another woman. Outlive another woman he loved.

My heart aches for him.

“Tell him what I did,” I tell Lady Whittaker. “When he comes for you.” So he’ll understand. So he’ll know it wasn’t because I wanted to leave him. “Maybe then he’ll spare you.”

Lady Whittaker glances up from her desk, clearly confused, as the guard pushes my head down, and I feel the whir of a blade cutting through the air.