Flames of Revenge

Master Nicholas's Room

March 4th 1872

NICHOLAS CHAPWORTH

Nine days before the fire.

Where is it? Where could it be? Frantically, I searched everywhere for my notebook. I had left it in the hiding place in my chest of drawers, under the false bottom, but when I came to look for it once more, it was gone, Missing.

In a slight panic, I began rifling through my other drawers. I couldn't bear the thought of someone finding it. One day I intended to share my poems with the world, but not yet, not yet. Only when the world was ready to accept them.

But where could it have gone? I was fairly sure that no one knew of it. Could Mary, my maid, have found it by accident? Doubtful. She never went through my drawers. Genevieve? Could she have found it? She was certainly clever enough to be able to figure out where it would be if she looked hard enough. Even so, I had just been with her. She couldn't have been in here any time since I'd last put it away.

This thought made me stop my single-minded efforts, and once again reminded me of her last remark. Can't you see I don't need you? I wanted to believe that she didn't mean it, that it was something said in the heat of the moment, but I found that I just couldn't. I knew that she did mean it.

I smiled a little to myself, a sad smile. My little sister really was growing up, she didn't need me any more. When she was little, I always saw myself as her shield, her protector, who would keep her from harm at all costs. I liked the idea of being someone's knight in shining armour, I guess.

But this knight clearly wasn't needed anymore. His armour has become rusted, his sword blunt and his shield tarnished. Like a broken toy, cast aside when the child has grown too old for it.

I shook the thought from my mind. No use in thinking things like that. If Genevieve didn't want me to be her knight anymore, so be it.

My thoughts turned back to the problem at hand. Notebooks don't just vanish into thin air, someone must have found it. But who? Who would have been going through my drawers?

Sighing, I ran a hand through my hair in worry and frustration. There was no use staying here to look for it, it clearly wasn't around. Maybe Jeggings would know something about it? That old man seemed fairly omniscient sometimes. Deciding to find him, I left my room. I was so lost in my thoughts that I wasn't paying any attention to where I was walking. Somehow, my legs had carried me to the gardens.

I gazed around me and breathed in the sweet smell. Many of the flowers were in bloom, and the air was thick with their perfume. I didn't know why I walked here. I was intending to go look for Jeggings, and yet I ended up here. Strange.

However, it seemed that I was not the only one enjoying the gardens. The gardeners had all retired for the day, but there was someone else in the gardens. I almost didn't see him, he was hidden somewhat by the branches as he sat reclining in one of the trees surrounding the courtyard. He was just sitting there, reading a book. My book, I realised with a start as my gaze took in the familiar leather-bound volume, in the hands of this stranger. Who was this person?

I walked closer, my footsteps barely making a sound on the soft grass. He hadn't seen me yet, he was absorbed in his reading. He only looked about nineteen, and although he was dressed like a servant boy, he didn't look like any other servant I had ever met. I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was, it was just an air of confidence almost, something in the way he was totally unaware of his own presence. He did not possess the same demeanour as a servant, there was just something that made him different. There was a soft smirk on his face, which was framed by messy brown locks of hair that stopped just before his collar.