by Karen Ranney
“Please find her,” she said, the request so quietly spoken that he almost missed it. Her lips barely moved, but her eyes deepened in color, their gray shade turned leaden by unshed tears.
Part of him didn’t want to be needed. He didn’t want her depending on him so deeply. The responsibility was too great and failing too difficult to contemplate. But this was Jeanne, and he had no other choice.
“I will,” he said and it was a promise he gave her. “I will,” he repeated and she seemed mollified, nodding.
“You mustn’t worry about me,” she said, almost smiling. He didn’t question her ability to divine his thoughts. Women had the power to surprise with their innate intuition. Or perhaps it was simply because they studied people more carefully than men, in tune for half-hidden emotions and thoughts.
Worry accompanied his journey to the warehouse. When he arrived, he rounded up every single employee and addressed them in the yard at the back of the buildings, a drab and dull place that someone, perhaps Henry, had ordered enlivened by a planting of flowers. Now those flowers waved gaily and unknowingly in the morning breeze.
As he stared out at the sea of faces, he realized that until this moment he’d never felt different from any of them. But there was every possibility that Margaret had been taken because he was the owner of MacRae Brothers and a wealthy man.
He would have traded every cent of his fortune for Margaret’s safety.
As he began to address his employees, he watched as their faces changed from curiosity to anger.
“This morning someone entered my house and took my daughter,” he told the assembled crowd. After a gasp that seemed to travel through the men, each face turned toward him. “I need your help to find her.”
Margaret was a favorite here. During the annual meeting of families, she played with their children as if she were one of them and not the owner’s daughter. She didn’t care if a boy’s father was a wagon driver or laborer or a clerk. If she disliked someone, it was because of his personality, not because of his place in the world.
Although he secretly agreed with Jeanne that the Comte was probably responsible, he didn’t mention that possibility to the men assembled in front of him. He might well be wrong.
He knew every single one of these men, had hired each personally. He knew the stories of their families and their individual triumphs and failures. All of them were good, hardworking men whose labor had made it possible for MacRae Brothers to prosper.
“If you will form four lines,” he said. “We’ll give out the assignments.” Some men would be sent into taverns to see if they could learn anything. Others would be sent to various places throughout Edinburgh where criminal activity was prevalent or to talk to prosperous merchants in locations where crime was never a factor.
He stepped down from the impromptu podium and made his way through the crowd, accepting the well-wishes and prayers of the men who clapped him on the back. He answered them all as best he could.
Tables had been set up as per his earlier instructions to Jim. The watchman had set aside four tablets, one for each of the lines, and had selected four clerks to keep a record of which man was assigned and where.
“Where’s Henry?” he asked, when he scanned the crowd and couldn’t find the older man.
“I thought you sent him back to London, sir,” Jim said.
He nodded, thinking that the older man might have gone before learning of Margaret’s disappearance. If he had, it was too late to call him back now.
Sitting at the table, Douglas sketched out a rough map of Edinburgh. The general shape of the city was that of a large circle. He divided it into quarters, giving a section leading from Leith south to the center of Edinburgh to one group of men. Another section from the west near Queens-ferry Road ended at Majesty’s Court. The other two quadrants, south and east, led from St. Johns’ Road around to Craighall.
“Give me something to do, sir.” Surprised, Douglas turned to find Lassiter standing there, his usual formal attire replaced by workingman’s jacket and trousers. So surprised was he by his majordomo’s appearance that Douglas didn’t say anything for a long moment.
“I may look infirm, Mr. MacRae,” Lassiter said, “but I can assure you that I’m as able-bodied as any man here.”
“I don’t doubt it, Lassiter,” he said. “But did you ever think that I need you at home?”
“Miss du Marchand is in command, sir.” He stood stiffly at attention, as if he were still in the infantry and fighting one of England’s many battles in America.
“Very well,” Douglas said, knowing that the worst thing he could do for the old man’s pride would be to send him home after he’d volunteered to help. He assigned his majordomo to the south quadrant. “It’s a rough area,” he cautioned, “but I have no doubt that you’ll persevere.”
“Indeed, I shall, sir.”
“We’ll find her, Lassiter.”
Lassiter nodded. “It is my fervent hope, sir.”
When? The question hung between them, demanding an answer. Unfortunately, Douglas didn’t have one.
There was little sun today, the overcast sky a mirror to his mood. The view before him was of the Firth of Forth and beyond to the North Sea. The world lay out there, exciting and challenging. But his existence had always been marked by the width of a raven-haired little girl’s smile.
And now its depth was measured by the track of one woman’s tear.
He mounted his horse and returned to Edinburgh to begin his own search, beginning at Queen Street and slowly widening the circle. Hours passed with him asking every passerby if he’d seen a little girl with black curls and a radiant smile. No one answered in the affirmative. Nor did he find any further clues as to where Margaret might have gone—where she might have been taken. His mind shied from that thought.
Jeanne’s despair about Margaret being missing was real. Had she felt the same when the infant she’d borne had been taken from her? Jeanne’s words kept coming back to him. Who do you think would have been just as pleased if she’d died taking her first breath?
For years, anger had left a rut inside him, a pitted road where nothing else could travel. He’d felt only rage when thinking of Jeanne du Marchand. Yet even that emotion wasn’t pure hatred. Instead, it was mixed with desire, confusion, and a curious sort of despair.
Last night he’d begun to suspect he was wrong, only to realize it firmly this morning. Now he felt as if he’d been released from the past and presented with the chance of a future. All he had to do was sort out the present.
Jeanne went back to her room, but she didn’t change her clothes right away. The pitcher had been filled with hot water and she washed her face, wishing she had cold water to reduce the puffiness around her eyes. After blotting her face dry with the towel, she stared at herself in the mirror over the bureau. Her eyes were red, her face too pale. Even her lips looked bloodless. She folded the towel and hung it on the rack beside the basin.
Moving to the window, she stared out at the advancing morning. She felt on edge, nervous. Twice she looked back toward the door, and twice turned away. Finally, she clasped her hands together, trying to stop her trembling.
A noise made her turn, but there was nothing there. Moving to the door, she opened it and looked both to the right and left. There was no one in the corridor.
She was being foolish, but she felt as if she were being observed. Slowly, she closed the door, and that’s when she felt the breath against her neck.
Jeanne didn’t have a chance to scream. Two hands were suddenly wrapped around her throat so tightly that she could barely breathe. Her assailant threw her up against the door until her cheek was pressed flat against the intricately carved panel.
“Where’s the ruby?” a harsh voice demanded.
She tried to speak but all that emerged was a choked gasp. Her arms flailed, hands clawing at the fingers that cut off her air.
“Where’s the ruby?” The grip around her throat tightened.
She made a sound, a half moan to acknowledge the darkness surrounding her. She was going to die before she could speak.
Abruptly, he released her and jerked the locket from around her neck. She winced at the pain and sagged against the wall, both of her hands encircling her neck.
“Is it in here?” he asked, twisting the necklace around his hand. He opened the loosened case and, finding it empty, threw it to the floor.
She sank down slowly to her knees, her breath coming in deep, hoarse gasps.
“Where’s the ruby?” he asked for a third time. Her only response was to weakly shake her head from side to side.
Leaning her head against the wall, Jeanne turned to see the man who’d invaded her bedchamber. His face was pocked, his teeth blackened. Thinning hair fell to his shoulders, and his face was larger and rounder than his skinny frame warranted. Behind him was the open door of the armoire. How long had he hidden in there, waiting for her?
“Tell me or I’ll kill you.”
“Kill…me…and…no…ruby.” Each word was punctuated with a wince.
He seemed to consider the matter for a moment. “There are other things I could do to you.”
She shrugged.
Her reaction seemed to surprise him. Scowling at her, he dragged her to her feet with a punishing grip on one arm. “Give me the bloody ruby.”
“I don’t have it.”
She didn’t see his hand until the blow struck her. She fell to her hands and knees again, tasting blood.
“I don’t have it.”
He swore, a particularly foul oath.
Jerking her to her feet again, he breathed whiskey fumes into her face. “Then you’ll just have to find it, won’t you?”
He dragged her to the wardrobe, reached in, and grabbed a stocking, stuffing it into her mouth.
“If you even try to scream, I’ll choke you again,” he threatened. Her throat hurt so badly that she was incapable of making more than a faint sound. Screaming seemed an impossibility.
She nodded and hoped he would believe her.
He took another of her stockings and wrapped it around her wrists. The knot was too tight and her hands tingled.
No one was in the corridor. It seemed as if every single servant had left the house, intent on searching for Margaret.
He dragged her through the deserted kitchen and out to the back. Hedges were planted on either side of the drive and he pulled her through one of them, uncaring that the branches were filled with tiny, piercing thorns. A carriage was waiting on the other side. He reached out, opened the door, and threw her inside. She fell to her knees but righted herself quick enough.
“What the hell is she doing here?” a voice demanded.
“She wouldn’t talk.”
“Take off the gag,” the man said. “A du Marchand is never treated like a common prisoner.”
That’s all she ever had been, Jeanne realized. Not a person but a thing, a daughter, a du Marchand, an object of some value only because of its ancestors and not because of its own worth.
She rubbed her mouth, staring at the man opposite her. Her lips were numb but she managed a greeting nevertheless.
“Hello, Father.”
He looked, as usual, impeccable and immaculate.
“She doesn’t have the ruby.”
Her father studied her, his eyes narrowing.
“I think she does.” A moment later he spoke to her abductor. “Leave us,” he said, and the man vanished to the outside of the carriage. No one disobeyed the Comte du Marchand. Even as an émigré, he had a force of will that was surprising.
But so did she, a discovery she’d made years earlier.
She faced him, leaning back against cushions of the carriage. “I don’t have the ruby,” she said, her voice still sounding unlike her. She massaged the base of her throat. His glance went to her neck and then he looked away. She wondered if the man’s fingerprints were embedded in her skin.
“Where’s my daughter?”
He stared at her, confusion flickering in his eyes just for an instant.
“Your daughter?”
“You know who I’m talking about. Margaret MacRae. The little girl you took from her home. Where is she?”
He flicked an imaginary speck of dust from his sleeve. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re prattling on about, but you disappoint me in all this talk about your bastard. Have you never learned discretion?”
He looked so irritated that she almost believed him.
“Where’s the ruby?” he asked, leaning back against the cushion and fixing her with a cold look.
“Douglas has it,” she said, almost smiling.
Anger pinched his features and made him ugly.
The journey home was marked by Douglas’s impatience and punctuated with his prayers. He hoped that by the time he reached his house word would have come about Margaret. Or, even better, she might be home.
I didn’t mean to worry you, Papa, she’d say. But that was as far as his imagination could carry him. There wasn’t a situation he could envision that would take Margaret from home. She wasn’t the type of child to be disobedient.
Lassiter had still not returned from his assignment, but a tall young footman had taken his place. He opened the door and bowed too deeply as Douglas entered.
“Is there any news?”
“No, sir, nothing.”
Douglas walked into his library and closed the door behind him. For a moment he simply stood there before walking to the fireplace. He looked up at the portrait. The curtains were still closed but a shaft of light from between them struck the fortress of Gilmuir, almost making it seem inhabited. The glow made Margaret’s eyes sparkle and once again he realized how much his daughter resembled the picture of his grandmother, Moira MacRae.
“Wherever you are, Margaret,” he said solemnly, “be safe. Be safe.”
He couldn’t tolerate the thought that she might be in danger, or that she might be hurt somewhere or ill. The idea that someone might have taken her was one that he couldn’t bear to entertain. There are some thoughts that a parent was not meant to have.
Suddenly he needed to be with Jeanne. He needed to understand how she had endured nine years of uncertainty. How had she made it through one day? One week?
He should have protected Margaret more assiduously. He should have ensured that the lock on the window was stronger. Or that there was a guard posted at night.
His thoughts stopped. There were some things he could never prevent; he knew that well enough. He gave himself the illusion of safety within the walls of his home, but even that had been breached. Yet he’d done everything he could to provide a secure and safe place for his daughter. The fact that it had been violated not only angered him but made him feel culpable.
A moment later, he was knocking on Jeanne’s door. When he received no answer, Douglas turned the handle only to find that room was empty. The armoire door was wide open, and a few of her garments were in disarray, but other than that there was no sign of her.
He pulled on the bell rope, greeting the tall footman with a question when he arrived a few moments later.
“Where is Miss du Marchand?”
“I don’t know, sir. Shall I ask the staff?”
“Do that,” he said impatiently.
Douglas went back to the armoire and hung up her garments neatly, stacking her much-darned stockings in the bottom. Her clothes smelled of lilies and he wondered why that was. His fingers trailed across the sleeve of one of her two dresses before he finally closed the door.
He’d never investigated her chamber as he did now, violating her privacy in a way that he knew was wrong but could somehow not prevent. She had few possessions, nothing more than could be packed in a small valise. There was something intrinsically wrong with that fact. She’d come from an old family, a wealthy, respected name in France, but she had less than the poorest inhabitant of Edinburgh.
Who Jeanne was could be found in he
r eyes, not in what she owned.
On top of the nightstand was a book and resting on the red leather cover were her spectacles.
He held them in his hand. Her fingers had spread the hinged temples wide and placed the ribbons around her ears. She had pressed the covers of the book apart and read the words printed there. He opened the red leather book at random and only then realized that it was a journal.
I’m going to have his child. I can’t believe my joy. Part of me knows it’s wrong to be so happy, but I can’t wait to see Douglas and tell him. I can’t wait to see my child. I must betray my happiness every time I speak because I cannot stop smiling.
He closed the book, holding it between his hands for a moment before opening it again. Half of the book was blank and he searched for the last page where she’d written something. It was a day ago, the handwriting appreciably different from her earlier script. This writing was not so effusive; there were not so many curls and swooping letters.
I see him with Margaret sometimes, and my heart feels as if it’s breaking. This, then, is the real punishment for my sin, that I should see what can never be mine and endlessly want it. My beautiful daughter, heaven’s greatest angel, I miss you.
“Sir?”
He turned and glanced at Betty. Slowly, he returned the book and the spectacles to the top of the nightstand.
Something shiny caught his eye, and he bent to pick up the locket.
“Has Miss du Marchand gone looking for Margaret?” he asked before she could speak. He threaded the necklace through his fingers, wondering at the fear that suddenly speared him.
“I don’t think so, sir. When I came back a few hours ago, I knocked on the door, and she wasn’t here.”
He stared at the nurse and behind her the footman.
Douglas felt his temper edge up one more notch at their blank expressions. “Is there something strange about this house? Is there a magic cave beneath the stairs where people disappear? Why is everyone suddenly missing?”
Betty’s eyes widened.
Douglas pointed his finger at the footman. “How long have you been here?”
