Fateful. Claudia Gray

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ my steps so that I’ll fall in only a few feet behind them. They seem to be heading toward the shop, if I’ve understood the directions the hotel concierge rather brusquely gave me. That gives me a little protection for the last bit of my journey. Breathing easier, I let my mind wander to tomorrow’s voyage—my first-ever glimpse of the ocean, my first-ever time to leave England—

      And, if I have my way, the last I shall ever see of my home country—

      “You like to eavesdrop.”

      Caught off guard, I look up at the gentleman who has turned to face me. He, and all the others in his group, have stopped in their tracks. I drop a quick curtsy. “No, sir. I wasn’t listening, sir. I beg your pardon, sir.” That’s the truth, too: One of the first things you learn, as a servant, is how to ignore conversations you don’t care to hear. Otherwise you’d go half-mad with boredom.

      In the twilight shadows, I can’t quite make out his features—only the dark spade of his Vandyke beard against his too-pale skin, and the uncanny glint in his eyes. His expensive pocket watch, worth more than ten years’ of my salary, dangles from a fob, oddly scratched for something so priceless. He tilts his head slightly as he studies me. “You beg, you say.”

      “Beg your pardon, sir,” I repeat, and hurry past them without waiting to be excused. Normally I’d never be so rude to gentlemen, but these are strangers, and probably they hoped to amuse themselves by making me grovel. I’m in a hurry, thank you very much.

      I cast one worried glance behind me, expecting to see them either laughing at me or already on their way. Instead, they’re all gone. As if they had vanished.

      Unnerved, I try to remember what they said that they were so displeased I might have overheard—though I was paying them no mind, I can recall a few words and phrases now. “Valuable influence,” they said. And “must be close by.” A name: “Marlowe.” And something about “let him know he’s being watched.”

      That does sound a bit suspicious, but surely they know, whatever it is they’re up to, there’s nothing any servant girl could do to stop them.

      I try to refocus on my errand. Where was I supposed to take that last turn? Is this the name of the street? I can find no signs. It can’t be more than ten minutes until nightfall, and finding my way home after dark will be difficult.

      Then I hear footsteps, heavy and distinct. Coming closer.

      I look behind me but can see no one. The footsteps are coming from some other angle, one I can’t see. So probably whoever is coming can’t see me either and is headed in this direction by no more than coincidence. But it unnerves me for no reason I can name. I turn to continue on my way, then gasp as I realize I am no longer alone.

      A man is standing with me in the alley—not one of the frightening group from a few moments ago, but a young man, perhaps only a few years older than I am. He has the rich chestnut curls of a poet and the broad shoulders of a farmhand. His eyes are those of a hunted criminal.

      Was it his footsteps I heard? Impossible—they were from another direction. And he too is looking into the not-so-distant dark. His alarm is greater than my own.

      “Come with me,” he says.

      “I beg your pardon, sir, but I can’t.” Does he take me for a streetwalker? How horrifying. And yet he looks well-bred in his handsome suit and gleaming shoes; surely he must recognize what my uniform means. “I’ve an errand to run—”

      “Damn your errand.” His voice is rough, his broad hand tense as it closes around my upper arm. “If you don’t come with me now, you’re dead.”

      Is he threatening me? It sounds like it, and feels like it too from the rough way he drags me along with him as he starts walking quickly through the alley back toward the main street. And yet I don’t believe that’s what is happening here. Whatever’s happening is something I don’t understand.

      “Sir,” I protest. “Let me go. I can find my way to the main road on my own.”

      “You’ll be dead before you go ten steps without me.” His hand is warm as it clasps my arm—more than warm, hot. As if he burned with fever. I can hear our pursuers coming closer. “Stay by my side and walk faster. And for the love of God, don’t look back.”

      I wonder that he doesn’t suggest we run, but I realize that it’s all he can do to walk himself—he’s almost staggering, and not in the way Layton Lisle does after he’s downed two bottles of wine. It’s as though the man is in pain. And yet his fingers dig into my flesh with an almost unnatural strength.

      The steps behind us change. No longer do they sound like footsteps. Instead they’re softer—and yet they click upon the cobblestones—

      As I’m unable to wrest myself free from my captor, I defy him by looking back. And there I see the wolf.

      The scream rips through my throat even as the dark wolf pounces, its enormous body seeming to black out the last light of the day. I’m pulled to the side just in time by the young man, who slams me against the wall of the nearest building and flattens his body against mine, his back to my front.

      “What’s happening?” I gasp. Wolves attacking in the middle of the city? And this—this enormous black creature, snarling as it paces back and forth—I had never imagined a wolf could be so large.

      “Leave us,” the young man says, as if the wolf could understand. “Leave us now!”

      The wolf cocks its head—not like an inquisitive dog, but an almost human gesture. Its teeth are still bared, hot saliva dripping from its jaws. A deep growl rumbles through its chest, and its golden eyes seem to be locked on me, not the man guarding me.

      “Go now!” The young man sounds desperate now, as well he might. I can feel the hard, quick rise and fall of his chest against me with every ragged breath, and his muscles are taut beneath my palms braced against his shoulders.

      And yet somehow, it works. The wolf simply lopes away.

      “What in the world was that?” I say as my rescuer slumps forward. “It looked to be a wolf.”

      “It was.” He sounds exhausted.

      “But why would a wolf—” Be here in Southampton, find his way to an inner alley instead of preying on people and animals he would have had to pass on the way, and give up when spoken to sharply? None of it makes any sense. But I know what I saw, and what this man did for me. “Thank you, sir. For your kind help.”

      When I look back at him, though, he doesn’t look pleased. He looks crueler than the wolf ever did.

      “Leave me,” he says. His eyes have that uncanny glint to them again, though now he looks less hunted. More criminal. “If you don’t leave me now, you’re dead.”

      I can’t tell if he’s warning me or threatening me. Either way, I don’t have to be told twice. I run out of the alleyway toward the shop, not looking back once until I reach the store’s door. It is, of course, closed.

      All the way back to the hotel, and all the way through Mrs. Horne’s lecture on my tardiness and inadequacy as a ladies’ maid, I am only half-present. In my mind, I’m still in the alleyway, repeating the events over and over, braving the fear I felt in an effort to make sense of it all.

      I СКАЧАТЬ