With torch in hand, they moved deeper into the cavernous space. In the distance, a very small and dim light glowed. As they neared it, it was easily identifiable as a lamp that had nearly burned out. It sat on the floor next to an abandoned tray that had been scavenged by rats. Cursing, Benedict passed the torch to the other man and then lifted the heavy bar that crossed the door.
It opened slowly, grudgingly, the wood scraping over the uneven floor. Inside the chamber a man lay on a small cot. An empty flask was on the floor next to his hand, and he appeared to be passed out in a drunken stupor.
Crossing to him, Benedict slapped him hard. The man sat up sputtering. “What? What? Why’d you do such a thing?”
Speech slurred and nearly incomprehensible, he was obviously not the man in charge of the operation.
“Where is the woman you were holding here?” Benedict demanded.
“She escaped… go ahead and kill me. Best to put a bullet in me now than wait for him to find out I let her get away!” the man groused.
“Your employer is the least of your concerns. Where is she?” Benedict demanded again.
“She hit me on the head with a rock and ran away. Locked me in here and left me for dead,” he complained.
Benedict closed his eyes and prayed for the strength not to simply end the worthless bastard right there on the spot. Explaining to him that he had done precisely the same to her was pointless. “What did she look like?”
The man smiled then, grinning toothlessly. “Oh she were a pretty piece! Tiny, little thing with blond curls… I’da liked to teach her a thing or two—”
Benedict hit him then, his fist connecting with the man’s nose. The crunching sound of bone on bone echoed throughout the small chamber. The man screamed and cupped his bleeding nose.
“What’d you do ’at for?” he squalled.
“How long ago?” Benedict asked, ignoring his question.
“It was breakfast time! Just ’afore daybreak. I brung her some porridge!”
Benedict looked back at Middlethorp. “That was hours ago. She could be anywhere by now!”
“Would she have gone back to Bath, to Mrs. Simms? Or would she try to return home to London?”
Benedict shook his head. “I’ve no idea. Who can say what’s in her mind after what she has been through?”
“What to do with him?” Middlethorp asked “Should we kill him?”
The man screamed again and Benedict shook his head. “We can’t prove he’s done anything wrong. There are no other women here.”
“Don’t kill me!” He dropped to his knees and continued his pleading. “I can tell you who he’s sold ’em to. At least some of ’em. I can tell you which abbesses handle the auctions!”
Middlethorp frowned. “Auctions?”
“Yes!” The man rose to his feet, clearly seeing that his information had perhaps spared his life and made him useful. “Some he sells direct to men what ask for certain types or certain girls! But others, he has auctioned off at bawdy houses in London and gives the abbesses a portion of the sale price!”
Benedict swallowed the bile rising in his throat. It wasn’t an unheard of practice. But when coupled with the hundreds of dates and locations that Madame Zula had recorded in her ledger, the amount of suffering that he so casually spoke of, as if the women bought and sold like cattle were not even human, turned his stomach.
“We need to get him back to town… I’ll not take him to Sarah’s. But with a hefty payment to the jailor, I can see to it that our friend is well secured,” Middlethorp offered.
“Do that. I’ll make my own way back to town. I mean to search the woods in case she’s lying injured somewhere,” Benedict insisted.
“I’ll send men to help, and send a carriage back for your use. You’ll need it by the time you’re done.”
As Middlethorp left, the dirty, drunken sot walking before him, Middlethorp’s gun pointed at his back, Benedict left the mine and began traversing the same path they’d taken to get there. He stepped off it frequently, following every offshoot, and examining every potential hiding place, looking for any sign or indication that she’d come that direction. Hours passed and a group of men arrived, servants sent by Middlethorp to assist in the search.
He’d backtracked all the way to the road before he found it. There was a small bit of cloth, dirty and frayed, clinging to a low thicket. The cloth was embroidered with a delicate Greek key pattern that was one of Mary’s favorites.
“Mary!” he called out again and again, until his voice was hoarse. Stepping deeper into the woods there, he saw the dark stain on the white bark of an oak. Kneeling beside it, he touched the spot and his fingertips came away red with blood.
Fear churned in his gut. The other men convened on that area, each of them looking for any sign. One found hoof prints beneath a tree not far from there, indicating that a horse had grazed there for some time. But that was it. Mary was gone once more and with only faint traces left behind. He didn’t know if the blood was hers. He didn’t know if she was injured or even dead. He only knew that his sister was still missing and he wouldn’t rest until he found her.
Epilogue
Mary was running, her legs pumping and lungs burning. The trees that surrounded her were dark and twisted, each one appearing more sinister than the last. Deep shadows seemed to write and move on the ground. Twigs and branches snagged at her hair and clothes as she ran, almost like hands grasping at her. She fought them off, screaming as she did so.
“Stop your wailing or I’ll give you something to wail about!”
Mary stopped in her tracks as her father stepped from behind the trees. He looked as he had the last time she’d seen him, drenched in blood, his face pale and eyes clouded by death.
It was not the first time she’d seen him thus, but strangely, for once, it offered her a sense of peace. His presence told her the truth of it, that what she was experiencing was only a dream. Even knowing that, and try as she might, she could not force herself to wake up.
Instead, she stood still, facing the man who’d tortured them both for all of their childhood as the trees twisted about her, their branches curving about her limbs and holding her fast.
“It’s all right,” a distant voice whispered. “You’re safe now. No one will harm you.”
That voice penetrated the dream, penetrated the very blackness within her own mind and pulled her back to reality. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked up into the dark visage of a man she did not know.
“Who are you?”
“Ambrose,” he replied softly. His large hand stroked her face gently, bathing it with a cool, damp cloth. “You struck your head.”
“In the woods,” she whispered, her voice hoarse and weak. “It was you.”
“I didn’t mean to frighten you there,” he said. “It’s my fault you were harmed.”
She tried to shake her head but pain exploded. She cried out from it and then the blackness claimed her once more, sucking her back down into the nightmares she’d only just escaped.
*
Elizabeth was sitting in the library. It was well after midnight. Mr. Middlethorp had retired to one of the guest rooms. Lady Vale had given up waiting for Benedict to return and had sought her own bed. Tired as she was, Elizabeth knew she would not sleep until he had safely returned.
When she heard the front door open and close, Calvert speaking in hushed tones, she breathed a sigh of relief. Within minutes, the door opened and Benedict stepped inside. His clothes were dirty and torn, hair mussed. But it was the expression on his face. He looked haunted. Grieved, she thought.
“Is she… I had thought she would be with you,” she said.
“I still don’t know,” he answered, “where she is. Middlethorp told you she’d escaped her guard?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “She was apparently quite resourceful.”
He smiled sadly at that. “She is, indeed. But not invincible. I found blood… and a scrap of fabric torn from he
r clothing, probably her petticoat or chemise. It’s a pattern I’ve seen her embroider time and again. It’s on every handkerchief she’s ever given me.”
“It’s possible the blood isn’t hers,” she said. “Even now, she could be on her way back to London thinking to reunite with you.”
“I’ve considered it. I’m praying for it,” he said softly. “I mean to leave word with Mrs. Simms and pay her well in the chance that Mary returns there… but I have to return to London, Elizabeth. I need to be there if she arrives.”
Her heart stuttered painfully in her chest. “Of course you do. I wouldn’t expect you to remain here. And you needn’t worry, of course. We’ve made no promises to one another—”
“We may not have made a promise to one another,” he interrupted. “But I made one to myself. You are mine, Elizabeth. You gave yourself to me in this very room and I’ve no intention of letting you go. Return to London with me?”
“And be your mistress?” She didn’t dare hope for more.
“And be my wife,” he corrected. “We can be married by common license… as soon as possible.”
It was something she hadn’t thought about, hadn’t let herself consider as an option for her future. But he was offering her the thing she’d always dreamed of, to spend her life with a man who cared for her, who made her heart race and her blood sing. “And Lady Vale? Benedict, every shred of evidence thus far points to the fact that you are Lord Vale. All that’s left is to make a case in front of the House of Lords and have it confirmed!”
He frowned at that. “If you want me to be Lord Vale, I’ll be Lord Vale, Elizabeth. If you’d be happier for me to remain the lowly owner of a quite successful gaming hell, that is what I will do. Right now, there are only two things I want. You as my wife and my sister safely home with us.”
“I want you to have what is yours… a family. A mother who adores you and an uncle who is far more terrifying than I ever realized,” she answered.
“Even if that means having your secrets laid bare for all of society… and mine?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter. The only person whose opinion counts for anything is yours.” It was true, she realized. He accepted her as she was. He wanted her for who she truly was and not who she had tried to pretend to be. “I know it shouldn’t be possible given our short acquaintance, but so much has happened in that time. I love you. I love you and I can’t imagine trying to go on with my life without you being part of it.”
Benedict felt some of the tightness leave his chest, felt one the fears that had been riding him so hard slip away. Mary wouldn’t begrudge him that. She had always fought for his happiness, even when he himself would not. “And I love you. I think I was born loving you. How strange it all is the way our lives have intersected here. It’s as if all of this was meant to be. Freddy’s connection to Harrelson, Harrelson’s connection to my abduction and now to Mary’s. We’ve all come together in this strange manner, like marbles in the corner of a crooked room.”
Elizabeth’s face tensed, her lips firming into a thin line. “Mr. Middlethorp went back to Madame Zula’s this afternoon. She and Harrelson are both dead… and her manservant was there. She’d served Harrelson and herself poisoned whiskey. He’d drank from it but was still alive when Middlethorp arrived.”
“So the main players are all dead now… all that is left are the bit parts,” Benedict surmised. Whether any useful information would be had from Hardwick and the imbecile who had guarded Mary’s tiny cell remained to be seen.
“If I take up the mantle of Lord Vale,” he said softly, “I would make it my life’s work to track down as many of Harrelson’s victims as possible… to give them their freedom and some chance at a normal life. It eats away at me, now. Knowing what he did to them all.”
Her head dropped to his shoulder and he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. It was simple acceptance—of him, of what he now saw as his purpose in life. Together, they would attempt to right those wrongs.
“She will come back to you,” Elizabeth offered. “I believe that. We will find her and you will be reunited with your sister.”
He lifted one hand to her head and stroked her hair as they sat there on that small settee. It was a moment’s peace in a storm of chaos, and he had it because she was at his side.
“Do you think Middlethorp will ever profess his love to Lady Vale?” he asked, on a totally different topic. He didn’t want to talk about Harrelson anymore. He didn’t want to talk about Mary and where she might be or what might be happening to her. For that moment, he wanted to simply hold the woman who made his world right.
He felt her smile against his chest. “I imagine that he will. The bigger question is whether or not Lady Vale will be willing to acknowledge her own feelings for him.”
“Can I persuade you to be utterly scandalous and sneak into my bed?”
She smiled. “As if I require much persuading… will Mary like me, do you think? Or will she be offended that you have shackled yourself to a scandalous woman?”
Benedict smiled again. “Mary has only ever wanted one thing for me, and I for her, and that is happiness. Wherever she is, I pray that we are all together again soon and that someone will care for her as tenderly as you cared for me.”
Elizabeth leaned in and kissed him again. “I will pray for the same.”
They left the library hand in hand, neither caring if one of the servants saw or was utterly scandalized by it, and retreated to the solitude of his room and the peace they could offer one another.
The End
If you enjoyed The Vanishing of Lord Vale, please take a moment to leave a review.
Also, if you have not yet read the first book in the series, The Lost Lord of Castle Black, you may find it here.
Also by Chasity Bowlin
THE LOST LORDS SERIES
The Lost Lord of Castle Black
The Vanishing of Lord Vale
The Missing Marquess of Althorn (Coming in February, 2018)
The Resurrection of Lady Ransleigh (Coming Soon)
The Mystery of Miss Mason (Coming Soon)
The Awakening of Lord Ambrose (Coming Soon)
THE DARK REGENCY SERIES, PART ONE
The Haunting of a Duke
The Redemption of a Rogue
The Enticement of an Earl
THE DARK REGENCY SERIES, PART TWO
A Love So Dark
A Passion So Strong
A Heart So Wicked
STANDALONE
The Beast of Bath
The Last Offer
Worth the Wait
About the Author
Chasity Bowlin lives in central Kentucky with her husband and their menagerie of animals. She loves writing, traveling and enjoys incorporating tidbits of her actual vacations into her books. She is an avid Anglophile, loving all things British, but specifically all things Regency.
Growing up in Tennessee, spending as much time as possible with her doting grandparents, soap operas were a part of her daily existence, followed by back to back episodes of Scooby-Doo. Her path to becoming a romance novelist was set when, rather than simply have her Barbie dolls cruise around in a pink convertible, they time traveled, hosted lavish dinner parties and one even had an evil twin locked in the attic.
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