The Honorable Mr. Branson Middlethorp, Esquire
Mr. Middlethorp,
Forgive me for writing in such a hurried manner, but I felt it imperative that I inform you at once of her ladyship’s latest escapade. She and her companion have brought home some gentleman—and I assure you, sir, that I fear he is anything but—whom they claim rescued them from footpads outside the establishment of a mystic whom her ladyship chose to visit against my advice.
The gentleman has been shot and has been treated by her ladyship’s personal physicians. On the surface, it would appear to be nothing more than charity and perhaps a sense of obligation, as he was injured while protecting them. But the gentleman is of an age and of a certain physical description, possessing both light-colored eyes and blond hair, that lends me to believe her ladyship may harbor suspicions about the young man’s identity that would be harmful to her.
Your loyal servant,
Calvert
Branson read through the missive once more before cursing and tossing the balled up piece of paper toward the hearth. It was difficult to fault Sarah for her obsession with her lost son. He had no inkling of what she must feel. It had been supremely painful for him to have lost the boy, as he’d doted on his only nephew. But it was hardly the same thing. Still, it did leave her vulnerable to any number of schemes and confidence games. Grief made one an easy target. There was nothing he would not do to protect her and spare her more pain and agony—even if it further cemented her hostility toward him. That had been his primary reason for insisting that she have a companion who reported to him about her continued search for Benedict.
Miss Masters’ primary responsibility in her current position was to keep Sarah from bringing home any stray who claimed to be Benedict. But under the circumstances, if they truly had been set upon by common thieves and the man injured while protecting them, they could hardly have left him to bleed to death in the street.
Rising to his feet, he rang for the butler. When Toombs entered, he looked at the man levelly and, without any hint of the excitement he felt at the prospect of seeing her, he said, “Inform my valet to pack a bag for me and the driver to have the coach readied at dawn. I leave for Bath at the break of day.”
“Certainly, sir,” Toombs said with aplomb before sketching a bow and backing from the room.
He would get to the bottom of this and see to it that she was safe. If it meant he would get to bask in her presence for a few days, that was no one’s business but his own.
Chapter Twelve
Mary had done everything she could think of to pass the time. She’d recited passages of Shakespeare in her mind, she’d sang songs to fill the vast emptiness of her current cell, she’d paced, counting the steps to calculate the size of her enclosure. All the while, she’d been planning.
It had been days since she’d been brought there. There had been another room before, smaller and dingy in the dim light, but no doubt still far superior to her current accommodations. But her memory of it was fuzzy and indistinct. No doubt, she decided, she had been heavily drugged while being held there.
She’d been giving it a great deal of thought and could only surmise that, in the first instance, they’d been in a city where there were neighbors or someone to overhear if she were to shout for help. Now, isolated and no doubt far into the countryside, her captors no longer felt the need to take such measures. The countryside posed greater risk. There would be fewer people to offer aid even if she did manage to get away. There were wolves still in the woods and wild dogs. If she wandered onto an estate, it was possible she’d be mistaken for a poacher and shot, or fall into a poacher’s trap. Even as she enumerated the dangers in her mind, she steeled her resolve.
She would take those risks gladly rather than wait for whatever fate others held in store for her. Staying there—well, she refused to think of what might become of her if she did.
Was Benedict searching for her? He would be, of course. She didn’t know what day it was but it stood to reason that it was well beyond the date she had told him that she would return to town. He had always protected her, always taken care of her. But in the last year, he’d also allowed her an inordinate amount of freedom, much more than most females of her acquaintance were blessed with. It was that freedom that had allowed her to begin her search for their true families. Benedict professed not to care, claiming that she was his only family and all that he required. But that wasn’t true. She knew of his nightmares and knew that not all of them originated with the callousness and brutality of their adoptive parents.
Would that change when she returned? If she returned. Perhaps, she reasoned. He would blame himself, would, as always, take on the responsibility for events that had occurred solely as a result of her own actions. She did not blame herself for the actions of her abductors, but if she’d hired a companion, or taken it upon herself to hire a carriage and not gone off entirely by herself, she might not have been such an easy target.
Memories stirred, flitting through her mind, of the strange conversation with Madame Zula’s manservant. He’d been quite insistent that she come alone. Perhaps the entire thing had been planned from the start? Perhaps Madame Zula was the mastermind of the entire thing? A procuress or abbess posing as a mystic would certainly have her pick of foolish young women coming and going from her house.
It hadn’t been Madame Zula who had interested her though. She’d gone in because of the other man, the one she saw frequenting the house. He never entered by the front door but always descended the narrow steps to the servants’ entrance. After encountering Lady Vale in a shop in London months earlier, she’d immediately noted the shocking similarity to Benedict. It hadn’t taken very much digging to uncover the truth about the beautiful but tragic woman. The loss of her son, the posters and rewards still offered for information on the kidnappers. And one of those posters had depicted the very man she’d seen coming and going from the servants’ entrance of Madame Zula’s home.
A noise in the corridor alerted her. It was the distant opening of a creaking door. Her guard was arriving with the slop that posed as an evening meal.
With only her own mind for company, she’d concocted a plan. He always demanded that she answer him when he called out from the other side of the door so that he could determine her position in the room.
“Where are you, little mouse?” he called out from just beyond the door. She could hear the clinking and shuffling as he balanced the tray of food.
“Please, help me!” she called out, letting her voice quake. It wasn’t fear or pain, but anticipation and a healthy dose of nerves. “I was bitten by a rat.”
“There are no rats in here,” he barked.
There were. She’d heard them. It was where the idea had come from. “There are! I was sleeping and one bit my ankle! It was after you brought breakfast… I can’t stand now. The wound is festering.”
He cursed and she knew she had him. Another clink had him placing the tray on the floor. The locking mechanism on the door groaned as he turned the key, begging to be oiled.
Sitting on her small cot with its straw ticking, Mary clutched the single weapon that she’d been able to procure. The same loose stone she’d nearly tripped over that morning would perhaps be her salvation.
Light, dim and yellow, from lanterns hanging in the corridor filtered in behind him. He wasn’t overly large, no more than average in height. If his silhouette was anything to judge by, he was softer in the middle, likely having a taste for ale and pies.
“Come over here into the light so that I can see,” he demanded.
Mary rose, affecting a limp, as she made a great show of struggling toward him. She even allowed herself to fall once and cried out as she picked herself back up. He made no response to her suffering and she imagined that he was a man quite like her adoptive father, that he took joy in the suffering of others.
When she did reach him, she leaned heavily against the wall, panting as much for show as from the exerti
ons she’d taken in her performance.
“Lift your skirts,” he demanded.
Intentionally misinterpreting his statement to keep him from guessing her true purpose, Mary feigned indignation. “I am injured, sir! Ill! Surely you would not think to take advantage—”
“So I can see this bloody rat bite, you cabbage brain!” he shouted.
Mary sobbed in mock relief and carefully lifted her skirt to just above her ankle. She’d smeared a great deal of dirt on it earlier to mask the fact that there was no blood or obvious injury. When he stooped in front of her to examine the “wound”, she clutched the rock still held in her hand and raised her arm high above her head. She brought the stone crashing down on the back of his head with all the force she could muster. He staggered but did not fall, so she hit him again, this time across his face. She saw blood. Rather than being horrified, she felt a moment of satisfaction. She wanted him to bleed, to suffer.
Lifting her leg, she pressed her foot against his chest and shoved him backwards, far enough to be clear of the door. She rushed through it, but he was not out just yet. He scrambled after her, slower and clumsy. He managed to insert one hand through the door, preventing her from closing it completely. Knowing that he had to be behind it, Mary used it as a weapon, shoving it open with all the strength she had. It connected with a heavy thump and he tumbled backwards. When she closed the door again, there was no impediment. The key was still in the lock so she turned it with a satisfying click and then pocketed it.
She was free. Somehow, her plan, foolhardy and fraught with peril as it had been, had worked.
“Now what?” she muttered aloud in the dim corridor.
*
It was nearing midnight when the last of Madame Zula’s clients had left for the evening. Removing the turban from her head, she removed the pins from her hair and let the still dark mass tumble over her shoulders. It was like taking off a mask. Madame Zula was no more. She was simply Zella Hopkins, a one-time actress, some-time whore, and a woman who wanted nothing more than to retreat to the countryside of her youth. Or America, she thought. Perhaps across the vast ocean in a land of rebels, she would finally find freedom.
“I’m going up to bed, Dylan. Will you lock up down here and put everything away?” she asked as she rose from her seat at the table. George, the tiny man who remained hidden under the table for most of their sessions had already gone, slipping out the back of the house so as to avoid being seen.
“Of course, my love. I’ll take care of everything. Don’t I always?” he asked, offering her the same winsome smile that had won her heart.
“That you do, my darling. That you do,” she agreed as she made her way toward the stairs. Each one was taken more slowly than the last and by the time she reached the top, she wanted nothing more than to fall into her bed with exhaustion. It wasn’t the work, or even her ever advancing age that had worn her down. It was worry. Fear pressed in on her—fear of discovery, fear of the man who held their lives in his hands, the fear that ultimately she would have to pay for all of her many sins.
Entering her chamber, she paused. Even in the darkness, she knew she wasn’t alone.
“How did you get in?” She didn’t bother to ask who was there. There was only one possible option.
“Oh, my dear Zella, there is nowhere that I cannot go if I desire it. You know that! You’ve disappointed me greatly,” he said, his voice low yet shockingly civil. It was nonetheless menacing for it.
With hands that trembled, Zella moved toward the small table beside her bed and fumbled in the darkness for the tinder box. Once the candles were lit, the dim glow bathed the room and dispersed all but the deepest of shadows. She was reluctant to turn and face him, but it was even more dangerous to keep her back to him. It was a lesson she had learned the hard way.
“It was an oversight. When Miss Masters booked her appointment, we truly thought it was only for her and not for Lady Vale. Had we known she would not be coming alone we would have made other arrangements. I am very sorry. The other girl—”
“The little, low-born, tavern wench? She’s fine for a diversion, but my client wants Miss Masters. He asked for her specifically by name. As for Sarah, Lady Vale, that woman has been naught but a nuisance in my life for far too long. You will get Miss Masters. I will not be made a fool of here!”
Zella sank onto the bed. “We will get her. It may take us some time.”
“You have until the end of the week,” he barked. He then paused and took a breath, so that when he continued, his tone was the same modulated and well-controlled one that allowed him to move through society with no one ever guessing just what a monster he was. “That is when I promised delivery… and I need to make that delivery. I will not disappoint my client! That is unacceptable.”
“We made one attempt already! If another attempt to abduct her is carried out, do you not think it will look suspicious?” Zella demanded.
“You are foolish if you think I care. If you go to the noose for it, so be it!”
“I will not go alone,” she warned.
It was the wrong thing to say. She recognized it instantly as he sprang from his chair and closed his hand about her throat. “I made a vow to you once, Zella, that I would squeeze your neck until I watched the life fade from your eyes. I can do that tonight and not lose a second’s sleep for it… but then what becomes of your pretty Irishman?”
“Leave Dylan out of this!” Zella gasped.
“He left his home country under a bit of scandal I believe… something about a fire?”
She’d known that, of course. He’d been little more than a child then and had made a foolish mistake. It was still an offense that would see him executed if ever brought to trial. “What do you want me to do?”
He smiled coolly at her. “My dear, your pretty Irishman has all the skills necessary. If you want to flush the fox out of the den, then you use smoke… get the whole household outside in the dark of night and it will be easy enough for someone to grab Miss Masters and drag her into an appropriately speedy carriage.”
“We’d be identified,” she protested.
“As you were planning to leave Bath anyway, it doesn’t much matter, does it? What name will you use in your next city… Madame Zoey? Madame Zara? You’re running out of alliterations, my dear.”
“How did you know we meant to run?”
He chuckled then, a soft but cruel sound. “I can smell your fear. I always could. That’s how I knew you had betrayed me, and that’s how I keep you in line now. Get her for me, and then go on to Liverpool or wherever else you mean to start procuring other girls for my very demanding clients. But don’t think you can hide. There is nowhere you can go that I will not find you.”
The bedchamber door opened then and Dylan entered, pistol at the ready. “Unhand her. Now.”
“Don’t be foolish, boy! You shoot me and it’ll be the end of you both,” he said, but he let go of her just the same and stepped back. “Besides, my old friend Zella and I have come to an agreement. Haven’t we, love?”
Zella nodded her head in agreement. “It’s fine, Dylan. Everything is fine, I promise. Put down the gun.”
Dylan lowered it to his side, but kept it in hand. “If she says it’s fine, then fine it is. But I’ll thank you to be taking your leave now. And if you ever again want to speak to her, you can do so in the parlor or the drawing room. You’ll not be in her bedchamber ever again.”
He laughed. “What a gallant lad you are! Just so you don’t forget where everyone ranks in this particular situation, I was in her bed before you were even born. What were you, darling? Fifteen, I believe, or younger still? I will say, you are aging remarkably well… but what a sight you were then. The firmest, lushest breasts I’ve ever taken to my mouth.”
Dylan raised the gun again, but Zella rushed forward. She understood how he worked, how he loved to torment and manipulate the emotions of everyone around him. “Don’t let him taunt you this way! Don’t. If you s
hoot him, we both hang. He’s only goading you to get to me.”
Her young lover looked past her, his gaze flat and hard as it fell on the man who was slowly ruining their lives. “Get out,” Dylan said. “I’ll not ask you again.”
He left then, chuckling all the way down the stairs. When the door closed behind him, Zella sagged against Dylan’s chest. “I can’t lose you. Please don’t ever be so reckless again!”
“He was your lover, wasn’t he?” Dylan asked softly.
It had always been an issue between them, that she had been experienced in carnal matters, had, in fact, introduced him to the joys of lovemaking. He often felt insecure in his ability to please her, though the truth was she’d never known pleasure with anyone such as she did with him. She had given him far more than just her body. He was the only man, in all of her life, to whom she’d given her heart.
Zella sank onto the bed. “No,” she denied softly. And it was true. He’d had her, he’d taken her, but it had never been anything tender or sensual. It had been about power and control, about the infliction of pain on someone who simply did not have the freedom to fight back.
“He was never that,” she continued, telling a story that she despised. “I never wanted him and I certainly never loved him. He bought me, you see… the same way he now sells the girls we provide him with. My own father sold me to him, for enough money to buy some gin. That is what will send me to hell… that I know precisely what awaits those poor women and I do it anyway. I sell them the same way my father sold me.”
“You have never willingly partaken of it. We both know that. I’ve never understood why. What is it that gives him such power over you?” Dylan demanded.
“I was foolish enough to betray him to the late Lord Vale. The man was a blackmailer you see. He kept track of everything in a book.” Her breath shuddered out of her, as she let the memories of it all wash through her. “I told him everything I knew about my so-called protector, hoping to buy my freedom. But it didn’t work. He knew just as much about Lord Vale’s wrongdoings as Lord Vale did about his.”
The Vanishing of Lord Vale Page 13
