If He's Wild

by Hannah Howell

  “You can and you will. You will need the strength it will give you. And while you eat, you can think about that first vision, the one that brought you here, and find the clues that we need. There may even be something in your sketches that will help.”

  By the time the men arrived, Alethea had managed to choke down some food and think about that first vision until her head ached. She had stared at her sketches until her eyes burned. Despite all that, she had come up with very few clues as to where the place was that she had seen, where she had felt Hartley in so much pain. She touched her throat, recalling in vivid detail how she had shared the pain he had suffered as his throat was cut. It was that dark memory that caused her fear for him to writhe like a living thing trapped inside her, one she kept caged with great difficulty.

  Argus came over and kissed her on the forehead. “We will find him, dearest. Remember who we are and what we can do. Within the hour we will start to fill the streets with family, all of them using their many talents to find him.”

  “They will be hurting him, Argus,” she whispered as she briefly pressed her face against his broad chest.

  “We cannot stop that, and you know it, but we can do our best to make his time in their hands as short as possible. Trust us.”

  “Oh, I do.” She looked at the others gathered around the table. “All of you.”

  “Then let us follow Olympia outside and see what she can see.”

  Olympia did her best. She could sense where the men had come upon Hartley, how they had caught him unaware and knocked him out. The ghostly trail Olympia sensed allowed her to follow the assailants’ path as they had carried Hartley away, right to the point where they had put him in a carriage. They all silently followed her as she walked the path the carriage had taken, but Alethea could see the frustration growing in her cousin’s intent expressions. Even at such an early hour there were too many carriages, carts, and horses moving over the street, all leaving their own ghostly trail of passing. She was not surprised when Olympia finally stopped and spit out a curse that had both Aldus and Gifford gaping at her.

  “Tsk, Pia,” Argus said, “such language. I am to assume that there is too much here now to discern the exact path the carriage took?”

  “Yes.” Olympia sighed. “If I had knowledge of the carriage, had ridden in it or touched it, it might be easier, but there is too much here now. All I know is they headed east, but they could turn in any direction after here.” She gave Alethea a sad smile. “I am sorry.”

  “No, nothing to be sorry for. The city itself works against us,” Alethea said. “Too many people, too much noise, and too many hiding places.”

  “Exactly what were you following?” asked Gifford as they all started to walk back to the house.

  “Everything leaves a faint trail behind it,” Olympia said. “The more dramatic or violent the action, the stronger its mark and the longer that mark lingers. I can see that mark, see the remnants of what happened. It is as if the event itself left its ghost behind.”

  Alethea could tell by the look of concentration on Gifford’s face that he was trying hard to understand how that was possible. Her interest in that was abruptly ended as they all walked into the breakfast room. Germaine and Bayard stood there looking both worried and accusatory.

  “Where is my uncle?” Germaine demanded, her voice sharp and unsteady with fear.

  Modred walked over to her and touched her cheek. “Your wall is cracking, Germaine,” he said quietly. “Breathe, slow and deep. All that anger you have tried to bury needs to be resolved, for it is eating away at your heart. Now is not the time to do that, however.”

  Germaine did breathe as Modred told her, and he slowly smiled at her. The girl looked at Alethea then and asked much more politely, “Where is my uncle?”

  “Sit and eat,” said Alethea as she moved to the table. “Both of you. We will tell you what has happened and what we need to do.”

  The moment Bayard and Germaine were seated and eating, Argus told them all that had happened. Alethea quickly sat down beside Germaine and took hold of her hand when the girl paled. She noticed that Bayard was not looking much better. They may not have decided exactly how they felt about the uncle they had not seen for so long, but he was the last of their family.

  “We will find him,” she told the siblings. “It is just a matter of time.”

  “That is not a knowing, is it?” Germaine asked.

  “No, it is full confidence in the people who will work to make it so.”

  “Child, do not forget who we are,” Argus said quietly. “This will not be an easy thing to accomplish, but the skills our family will bring to the hunt are the best one can get. I will send out word to every Vaughn and Wherlocke in the city and within a short ride of here. They will quickly put their skills to work to help us.”

  “I cannot lose any more of my family,” Germaine whispered, and Bayard reached out to clasp her free hand in his. “I cannot.”

  “And you will not. I refuse to allow that woman to beat us.”

  “That woman needs to be killed.”

  Alethea opened her mouth to tell the girl she needed to ease the anger and need for revenge behind her hissed words, and then shut her mouth. It would be hypocritical to tell her not to say what Alethea herself had been thinking. Claudette also fully deserved those dark emotions directed at her. The woman had been the cause of far too many deaths.

  “She will be,” said Alethea. “If not now, then when she is hanged for all the evil she has done. Our job now is to find where she has taken your uncle.”

  “We need to go to Margarite’s house.”

  Everyone stared at Olympia to ask what she meant by that, but Olympia was staring blindly at the wall. A moment later she shuddered slightly and then looked around as if surprised to find everyone looking at her. Olympia did not often have visions as Alethea did, but she did get many strong knowings, and Alethea felt her hopes rise just a little.

  “What did I say?” Olympia asked.

  “That we need to go to Margarite’s house,” replied Argus. “Do you think they have taken Hartley there?’ His doubt about that was clear to hear in his voice.

  Olympia frowned for a moment and then shook her head. “No, but there is where we will find information we need.”

  “We have already searched her house and found nothing,” said Aldus.

  “Except that Hartley told me she had left it as if she thought she would be returning to it some day,” said Alethea.

  “Then that is why we must go there,” said Olympia. “She will be returning. Late today. The sun will be going down. And we will need a few more men.”

  Germaine looked at Alethea. “Have you seen that, too?”

  “No,” Alethea reluctantly replied. “I am too close to Hartley. I see nothing. The only reason I woke up and knew he was in trouble was because it happened so close to home, and he suffered pain. That is the greatest weakness of the gift I have. The closer I am to people, the less I can see about what may happen to them. However, I am not the only one with such a gift in the family. I am sure I will hear from any one of the others if they have a vision that can help. For now, we shall follow what Olympia’s knowing told her.”

  “And I will still contact as many of the family as I can.” Argus looked at Aldus and Gifford. “You two can find what men you can and get them searching.”

  The men quickly dispersed—Argus, Modred, and Iago to notify what kinsmen they could, and Aldus and Gifford to go and gather some men to help in the search for Hartley. That left Olympia and Alethea with the siblings. Alethea could see that Germaine and Bayard desperately wanted to believe what Argus had said, but sad experience had robbed them of the ability to hope easily.

  “We will find him,” Alethea told them.

  “Is that what you know or what you want to believe?” asked Germaine.

  “It is what I have to believe.”

  “Why would they take him if they did not plan to kill him?” Germai
ne studied Alethea and Olympia and then sighed, the soft sound unsteady as she held back her tears. “They want him to tell them something. They will try to make him tell them anything he might know, and to do that they will have to hurt him, will they not?”

  “I fear they will, and there is nothing we can do about that. We can only pray that we get to him before he has to suffer too much pain.”

  “Then find him fast, please. Use all your gifts, all your family, all the men those departments they work for can spare, and find him. I have lost too many. I will not lose him, too.”

  “That is exactly what we plan to do.” Alethea leaned over and kissed Germaine’s pale cheek. “I cannot lose him, either. And we will make them all pay dearly for every moment of pain they have caused him.”

  Hartley groaned as consciousness returned. His head throbbed, and it took him a moment to recall why it should. He started to raise a hand to check what wound there might be and tensed. His hand was secured to something. Cautiously, he opened his eyes and nearly cursed aloud. He was tied to a chair.

  Taking several deep breaths to calm the urge to thrash about and strain against the bonds holding him firmly to the chair, Hartley fought to clear his vision. He needed to study where he was and assess any chance of escape. A small voice in his aching head taunted him for thinking he could escape when he was bound to a chair, but he ignored it. If he allowed it to win, he would lose all hope, and he knew he needed it to survive.

  A few lanterns dimly lighted his surroundings, and there was nothing he saw that immediately told him where he was. All he was sure of was that he was not in a cellar or a house. Some place of business, he mused, although it could be an unused office in one of the many warehouses that dotted the city, especially along the river. He took a deep breath and tried to sort out the various smells that assaulted his nose.

  Hartley was certain he was somewhere near the docks. Faint though it was, there was the rank odor in the air that was peculiar to the Thames. That could cause a problem for the people who were looking for him, and he knew there were some. If nothing else, one of the Vaughns or Wherlockes running freely in his house would have a vision or a seeing or some such thing that would tell them he had been taken. There were some advantages to finding oneself wedded into a family many people would run screaming from, he thought.

  The thought of the family he now belonged to through marriage made him think of Alethea. He could still see her curled up in their bed, sleeping the sleep of the sated, a hint of passion’s blush still on her cheeks. That image gave him strength, and he used it to push back his fear of never seeing her again. Fate could not be so cruel as to give him what he needed to complete his life and then allow some murderous viper of a woman take it all away just so she could fatten her purse.

  He shook his head, and a wave of nausea poured over him. Closing his eyes tightly and breathing in slowly and deeply, he fought the churning sickness in his belly. The last thing he wanted to do was vomit on himself. At least give him one of his enemies to aim it at, he thought. It would be a pathetic defense, but there would be some satisfaction in it.

  It took several minutes to push aside the urge to empty his belly, but he knew he had succeeded when the cool, damp air in his prison began to dry the sweat on his face. Then the door opened and Claudette walked in, followed by five big men, and Hartley silently cursed. His luck had obviously not begun to improve yet. His sickness had passed, and here came the very targets he had hoped for.

  “So, you are awake,” said Claudette and smiled as she stood before him.

  “Why, I do believe I am,” he drawled. “How perspicacious of you.”

  “Do not try my patience, Redgrave. I believe I hold the upper hand right now.”

  She did, he silently agreed, but he had no intention of letting her see that he acknowledged that. Claudette looked so pleased with herself his palm actually itched with the need to slap her, and he had never raised his hand to a woman in his life or wanted to. He knew what she had planned for him. Alethea’s vision had warned him, and he was as prepared as anyone could be for what was to come. What disturbed him and made his skin crawl was the knowledge that this woman would enjoy it.

  “For now,” he said and smiled when she frowned.

  “No one knows where you are, Redgrave. You cannot be so foolish as to think they are all going to come riding to your rescue.”

  He shrugged. “Not so foolish. I have married a Vaughn, after all, and with Alethea comes all of that family, including the Wherlockes.”

  To his surprise, he saw the hint of fear briefly flash in her eyes. Claudette was one of those who believed in demons and witches, he realized. Her threat to Alethea had held some truth about her own feelings. Hartley would freely admit that a few of the gifts that family had made him uneasy, but he had yet to meet one he could dislike or actually fear. It also astounded him that, in this enlightened age of reason, anyone could still believe in such things as demons in human form and witches who cast spells or consorted with Satan. It was a shame that he only saw the fear Claudette held now, when it was too late to put it to good use. That did not mean, however, that he could not taunt her with it.

  “A foolish lot of eccentrics and recluses who think they have some power,” she scoffed and flicked her hand in a dismissive gesture.

  “But they do have power. A great deal, in fact.”

  “Am I to believe then that the great rake Hartley was seduced by such a little country wench because she cast a spell on him?”

  “In a way, she did. The spell of honesty and innocence. Two things I believe you have not been touched by in a very long time.” He could see her anger in the narrowing of her eyes and the flush upon her cheeks and knew he would pay for his remarks, but he did not care.

  “You were to be mine,” she snapped. “I had chosen you.”

  “As your next victim? Like Peterson and Rogers?”

  “What do you speak of? I know no Peterson or Rogers.”

  “Iago says different. He has seen their spirits around you. Them and the compte and his family. All angry and crying out for vengeance.” She paled a little, and he knew he had struck at a deep fear. “Children, Claudette? You felt a threat from a boy so young he did not even talk yet and a tiny girl of five? Did you think they would grow and take back the jewels you were so hungry for? I am surprised you can wear them, that the stink of that sin does not burn your skin each time you put them on.”

  The slap she gave him caused enough movement of his head to bring on the nausea again. He actually considered letting it flow, but she was already out of reach, pacing in front of him with her hands clenched tight at her sides. Hartley fought to push the sickness aside again and fixed his gaze on one of the men who stood a little distance away from the others. He had the look of a man who found himself involved in something he no longer wanted a part of.

  It was because of the talk of murdering children, Hartley decided. It was when he had spoken of the compte’s children that the man had taken a step back. Obviously the man was willing enough to take coin for beating, torturing, and killing a grown man, but the murder of children stirred what little conscience he had.

  Hartley was just wondering what use he might make of that when Claudette whirled around to face him again. He watched as she nervously rubbed her hands over her arms as if trying to brush away something and nearly smiled. Claudette’s mind had accepted the talk of the ghosts of her victims clinging to her. A miasma of hate and fury, Iago had called it, and Hartley could almost swear he saw a faint glimmer of it.

  “You talk nonsense,” she said. “The dead stay buried. It is good that Iago did not continue the affair with my sister, I am thinking. He is not right in the head.”

  “He did not continue the affair with your sister because he felt her cold emptiness. A spirit like a soulless killer, he said. He felt she probably did not do the killing but did not care who died, mayhap even chose a few. No, once his lust cleared away, he could not abide to tou
ch her. I do wonder why she wanted him, however. The two of you tended to pick lovers with ties to the government or the military. He had neither. I suspect your sister disappointed you a little there as she chose a man simply because he was handsome.”

  “There is nothing wrong with Margarite. I will not listen to any more of this nonsense. You try to upset me and make me fear, but I am stronger than that. Stronger and far more clever that the lot of you.”

  “Why? Because as a poor farm girl you have managed to get yourself accepted in society? Your face and body did that, and you know it. Foolish men who wished something beautiful on their arm brought you out of the gutter, naught else. But you will soon be back there. Even if you do as you intend to me, even if, by some miracle, my allies do not prove what a murderous bitch and traitor you really are, you will still never be accepted back in society.”

  “You made a mistake when you turned away from me. You may have saved yourself all of this by making me your marchioness.”

  “I would rather endure this than have you in my bed. And do not think me such a fool as to believe having anything to do with you would have saved me. This has been planned for me from the beginning. In fact, it was foretold by my wife. It is yourself you can blame for the fact that I found the woman I wished to marry. She came here to save me from you.”

  “Then she has failed,” Claudette hissed. “I now have you, and you will tell me what I need to know. I may have lost my place in the pathetic group of idiots you call society, but I mean to leave this country with my purse full. You will give me the information I need to make that happen.”

  “No, I think not. I doubt you got much off of Rogers or Peterson, either.”

  “They were fools.”

  “Why? Because they chose not to betray their country before they died?”

  “Yes. Of what good is honor to a dead man?”

  “Only a person who has none could ask that question.”

  “Fool. I will ask you a lot more questions, and you will answer me. Mayhap I will even allow you to live.” She smiled. “Although you may not wish to when I am done with you. Still, you may consider the fact that if you die, you leave your little wife alone.”