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Even if she could escape from the castle, she still had no idea where she was. Wolfbridge. A place she’d never heard of. She could be on the continent for all she knew. Or in the Americas, for the span of time her memory failed her—enough time for her to burn her arm and for it to heal—that was more than enough time to sail far across the seas. Anything was possible.
Her chances of immediate escape were not good. Not with what little she knew.
She set a kind smile on her face. “I’ll not get you in trouble. I promise to not try to escape past you. How did you get in here? The door is locked.”
“The key is in Uncle Reiner’s chamber, sitting on his secretary. He does not bother hiding it.”
“Well then, I’m surprised he lied to you about what was in this room—if he didn’t want an inquisitive child to find the key and look in here, I would think he would hide it.”
“Yes, that is exactly what I thought, miss.” Vicky’s head bobbed up and down and one of her dark curls fell in front of her left eye. She blew at it, then shoved it behind her ear. “You are Scottish?”
“Yes.”
“You look like a lady—I thought it from the first.”
“I do?”
Vicky pointed to Sloane’s skirts. “Your dress is fine, even if it has wrinkles in it.”
Sloane glanced down, her hand attempting to smooth the deep-set wrinkles from her ribcage downward. Her left hand and arm had gone back under the long glove—only twice had she stripped it off since discovering what had happened to her arm.
Both times had not gone well.
Sloane shrugged. “I suppose I am.”
Vicky’s eyes went wide. “Are you a duchess? Or a countess? Or a marchioness?”
Sloane chuckled. “No, no. I’m not married. My grandfather is a marquess.”
“Oh. Well, that is still very exciting.” Vicky stepped further into the room, her hand wrapping along the lower right post of the tester bed. “The usual ladies that show up at Wolfbridge don’t like me. They wrinkle their noses and pretend I’m not here.”
“The visitors to Wolfbridge are not the kindest people?”
Vicky sighed, leaning to the side and swaying back and forth, a pendulum swinging from the post. “I don’t know. Maybe not. I know I am young and they don’t care for young girls, but I have started to plan for when I am old enough.”
Sloane moved to the bed, sitting on the foot of it as she watched Vicky. “How?”
“I have been learning French and German and Italian even though I hate Italian. Uncle Reiner insists upon it. I have been learning to dance, but my governess is old and stodgy. Miss Gregory refuses to teach me anything exciting—only the most boring steps of the minuet.”
Sloane laughed. “You would like to learn to dance something else?”
Vicky’s swaying stopped and she looked directly at Sloane, her eyes serious. “Oh yes, the quadrille and the cotillion and the reels and most of all, the waltz.”
Sloane started. “You have seen people waltzing?”
“Oh yes.” Vicky went back to swinging. “I watch all the parties from the alcoves looking down into the ballroom from the upper level. I have a chair and a blanket and everything. Sometimes I fall asleep watching the ladies and gentlemen dancing through the balusters.”
A smile came to Sloane’s lips. She remembered that feeling well, the fancy of youth when everything of the years ahead of her glittered in romantic possibilities. “I am surprised you’ve seen the waltz—I understand it is not at all proper in the most respectable establishments.”
“I don’t imagine Miss Gregory thinks Wolfbridge is at all respectable. She mutters it all the time when Uncle Reiner leaves the room. But it is hopeless—Miss Gregory will not have it.”
“I could teach you all of those dances.”
Vicky stopped her swinging, her jaw dropping. “You can?”
“Of course.”
Vicky’s eyes narrowed at her for a long second. A mirror image of the same suspicion that crinkled Reiner’s eyes when he looked at her. “Why would you do that?”
