Serafina and the Black Cloak - Robert Beatty Page 0,27
to get used to the rumbling motion of the moving carriage, she noticed that Braeden was studying her.
“I’ve been looking for you…” he said.
She stole a quick glance at him and then looked away. When she looked into his eyes, it felt like he could tell what she was thinking. It was unnerving.
She tried to say something, but when she opened her mouth, she could barely breathe. Of course, she’d snuck around enough over the years to overhear people of all walks of life speaking to one another, so theoretically she knew how it was done. So many guests and servants had passed through Biltmore over the years that she could take on a rich lady’s air or a mountain woman’s twang or even a New York accent, but for some reason, she struggled mightily to find the right words—any words—to say to the young master.
“I—I’m sorry about all this,” she said finally. The annoying constriction in her chest seemed to strangle her words as she spoke them. She wasn’t sure if she sounded anything like a halfway normal person or not. “I mean, I’m sorry about being dumped into your carriage like luggage that wouldn’t fit on the roof, and I don’t know why your dog doesn’t like me.”
Braeden looked at Gidean and then back at her. “He normally likes people, especially girls. It’s strange.”
“There are plenty of strange things happening today,” she said, her chest loosening up a bit as she began to realize that Braeden was going to actually talk to her.
“You think so, too?” he said, leaning toward her.
He wasn’t anything like what she imagined the young master of the Vanderbilt mansion would be, especially as good-looking and well educated as he was. She had expected him to be snobbish, bossy, and aloof, but he was none of these things.
“I don’t think Clara Brahms is hiding,” he said in a conspiratorial tone. “Do you?”
“No,” she said, raising her eyes and looking at him. “I definitely don’t.” She wanted to pour it all out and tell him everything she knew. That had been her plan all along. But her pa’s words kept going through her mind: They ain’t our kind of folk, Sera.
Whatever he was, Braeden seemed to be a good person. As he was talking to her, he didn’t judge her or discount her. If anything, he actually seemed to like her. Or maybe he was just fascinated by her in the same way he would be by a weird species of insect he’d never seen before, but either way, he kept talking.
“She’s not the first one, you know,” he whispered.
“What do you mean?” she said, drawing closer to him.
“Two weeks ago, a fifteen-year-old girl named Anastasia Rostonova went out for a walk in the evening in the Rambles, and she didn’t come back.”
“Really?” she asked, hanging on his every word. She had thought she had something to tell him, but it turned out that he had just as much to tell her. A boy who whispered about kidnappings and skulduggery was the kind of boy she could learn to like. She knew the Rambles well, but she also knew that the shrubbery maze of crisscrossing paths caused many people great confusion.
“Everyone said Anastasia must have wandered into the forest and gotten lost,” he continued, “or that she ran away from home. But I know they’re wrong.”
“How do you know?” she asked, keen to hear the details.
“The next morning, I found her little white dog wandering around the paths of the Rambles. The poor dog was frantic, desperately searching for her.” Braeden looked at Gidean. “I didn’t know Anastasia well—she’d only been visiting with her father for a couple of days when she disappeared—but I don’t think she would have run away and left her dog behind.”
Serafina thought that sounded about right. Braeden seemed as loyal to Gidean as Gidean was to him. They were friends, and she liked that. Then she thought about that poor girl and what might have happened to her.
“Anastasia Rostonova…” She repeated the funny-sounding name.
“She’s the daughter of Mr. Rostonov, the Russian ambassador,” Braeden explained. “She told me that Russian girls always put an a on the end of their last name.”
“What did she look like?” she asked, wanting to make sure she hadn’t gotten her kidnapped rich girls mixed up.
“She’s tall and pretty, and she has long, curly black hair, and she wears elaborate red dresses that look really hard to walk in.”