But how? Where could he have taken her?
He turned on his heel and paced back across the room, his eyes narrowed as he thought. He could sense the butler watching him, but he ignored it. He had to think. He ran through all the possible places he could have taken her.
Not Gallonon Hall—that would be too obvious. Perhaps a park, perhaps? No, it was too open and there was too much of a chance of being seen, even at this time of night. He thought through all the places they attended together—the club, the church, the inn—but all seemed so unlikely.
So where?
He heard himself growl in frustration, the sound unintentional but uncontrollable. He clenched his fists so tightly together than his fingernails left half-moon marks in his palms, but he liked the pain. It helped him to focus, to concentrate. It was a physical manifestation of his emotional pain, and he embraced it.
And then it hit him, all at once and with a heaviness that took his breath away. He stopped in his pacing and his head shot up in realization.
The abandoned manufactory. He has only recently asked me about it.
It was the place they had played as children, chasing each other and running around. It was also where they had talked about the plan, in depth and in private, where no one could overhear them. It was somewhere they had visited often, and somewhere they knew they were likely to be undisturbed.
It has to be there.
“I think I know where she is,” he said, his words a rush of breath, his eyes searching the floor.
“Where?” Celine asked.
“I—” What could he say? That he was certain his brother had kidnapped her sister in order to punish her father for murdering his? Not only did it sound ridiculous, but it put the plan clearly on him.
“It matters not,” Henry wheezed. “Just go.” Isaac’s body rushed with relief. He knew this was a story he would have to tell eventually, but for now, he couldn’t. He paused, frozen to the spot, eyes wide and terrified.
“Go!” Celine screamed, primal and angry. “Save her!”
Isaac nodded and then he dashed from the room and out of the house. He ran through the garden, still only half-dressed, the loose tails of his shirt flowing out behind him. He skidded as he turned the corner in the direction of the stables, his hand grazing the ground as he righted himself.
“Quick,” he cried as he rounded the door to the stable. The stable hand, who at this point was dozing on a mound of hay in the corner, hat over his face, leapt up in surprise.
“What? What’s the matter? My Lord? I mean, Your Grace? I—”
“Just get me a horse. Now!”
The stable hand jumped to attention and ran to saddle a stallion as quickly as he could.
“What has happened?” he asked as he worked. Isaac could see the panic in his face, but Isaac’s mind had gone blank.
“Lady Diana…I—”
By the time Isaac even thought of the words to say, the stable hand had finished his task and Isaac was leaping onto the stallion’s back. He rode away without another word, pushing the horse faster, faster still, a speed with which to match the beating of his heart.
Chapter 32
Diana sat on the wooden chair in nothing but her night-rail. Thomas hadn’t given her a chance to get dressed, and her outline was visible through her sweat-damp clothes. Her hair hung limply around her shoulders. She shivered—against the cold and against the fear—and the thick, rough rope dug into her wrist, rubbing at her skin.
Her body sagged with exhaustion, her head hanging low, and she had bruises developing over her arms and legs from his rough handling. His hands upon her left her trembling, but in an entirely different way to his brother. Her head thumped from his angry, vicious words, and she wanted to spit at him, to send him running away.
She had put up a fight when he had snuck into her room, or at least she had tried to. He pushed his hand against her mouth, muffling her screams, and he held her so tightly that she couldn’t bite down on his flesh. He had easily overpowered her and dragged her from her bed to a waiting carriage, where he tied her arms up. She hadn’t known who he was at first, not until he had sneered him name, his face leering into hers.
She lay on the floor of the carriage, rocking back and forth with the movement, and praying for some sort of release. And all that time she wondered. Why would Isaac’s brother want to be so cruel? She couldn’t get her head around it, and the only explanation she could come up with was jealousy.
Thomas was far from the handsome, charming man that his brother was. Diana would not be at all surprised if he was jealous. When the carriage finally stopped, he grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out, not caring if she found her footing and letting her fall to the muddy, uneven ground.
“Get up,” he growled.
The sky was thick with dark, even the stars hiding from the fearful night, and Diana only managed to right herself before Thomas pulled her up a set of stairs and through a large set of double doors, the window panes cracked and damaged. She growled as he pulled her, her ineffectual rage at least releasing some of her energy, but he merely smiled in satisfaction and that made her growl all the more.
The room they were in was huge, stretching on into the distance, and full of some sort of machinery that Diana didn’t even want to understand. There were tables at regular intervals, and Isaac dragged her up on aisle until they reached the end of the room, where he threw her into a hard wooden chair.
He untied her binds, pulled her hands behind her, and retied them, but even Diana could feel their looseness. She squirmed, and they loosened a little more.
He had underestimated me. Or perhaps he is too lost in his madness to care.
She blew the hair from her red and sweaty face, and she scowled at him as he stood back and eyed his handy work with a smirk of satisfaction.
“Why are you doing this to me?” she spat, her words full of fury that she couldn’t express, combined with a fear she had never before felt. The two combined to set a fire within her, one that she could only expel through her words.
“Don’t you worry, little girl, I’ll tell you everything, in good time.” Then he sniggered and said, “You’re safe with me. Maybe.”
“Stop calling me little girl!” she roared, pulling forward on her ropes, but then she fell back in the chair, spent, her throat sore from screaming.
The manufactory was long-abandoned, although not yet looted for the goods it held. She suspected Thomas had already been there that night, for their part of the room was littered with half-burned candles and lanterns, lighting the evening.
If it was not for the thick layer of dust over everything, it would look as though the inhabitants had not long left. The room they were in was large and echoey, the roof high and bare. Up ahead, there were four steps leading up to what Diana could only assume was an office, and behind them lay the length of the room.
It was cold thanks to the late hour, and other than her own screams and the furious pacing of her capture, Diana could hear the birds that had nested in the eaves chattering among themselves, the fluttering of their wings accompanying them. She took in a deep breath and forced herself to remain calm. There was no way she would get out of this through sheer will alone. She needed to think.
Either Isaac would appear and rescue her, or she would find a way to escape herself. No matter what happened, she had to look for a way out. She searched the room, her eyes skipping over the madman in front of her, who marched up and down while pulling at his greasy black hair.
There was the office, but she doubted there would be a way out of the manufactory that way. And then there was the front entrance. That was her only chance. She writhed in her chair, twisting her wrists. The rope rubbed her skin raw but still she pulled. She thought her binds were loosening but she couldn’t be certain.
Thomas marched away from her, seemingly lost in thought. She eyed him carefully. He seemed on edge, fearful in his own right.
“This is all your fault,” Tho
mas said, turning to her suddenly, with a disturbing look on his face.
She jumped at the sudden sound, his madness having been so contained until then, and then she blinked at him, completely baffled by his words. She said nothing though, not wanting to goad him or encourage him. She again closed her eyes, again forced her breathing to slow, to calm. She couldn’t look at him, because if she did, she would feel the anger all over again.
“You weren’t supposed to make him fall in love with you!” he snarled. “That was never part of the plan. It’s all your fault.”
Spittle flew from his mouth and she cowered away from it, pushing herself further back in her chair and turning her face away. His breath stank of stale brandy and bad hygiene, and she couldn’t fathom how he and Isaac had been born of the same parents.
“No,” he said, shaking his head violently, confused by his own words. “It was your Father’s fault. It was he who started all of this. Not you.”
“My Father? What has he to do with any of this?”
“Do not think that makes you innocent,” he spat.
“What did my Father do?” she repeated, saying the words slower, more pronounced.
She hadn’t had any intention to speak to him, but when he mentioned her father, the question flew from her mouth without her control. Her heart thumped and with her senses heightened, she could feel every part of her body, tense and ready to run.
Thomas stopped pacing and he crouched down so that he was eye-level with Diana. He spoke slowly, as though she were a child, and a stupid one at that. Every word he spoke sent shivers down her spine.
“Your Father,” he said, eyeing her carefully, “murdered my Father. Did you know that?”
“No,” Diana said, her shivering becoming all the more violent. “No, I—” she shook her head.
No, it’s not true. It can’t be true.
“It is true,” he said, as though reading her mind. “He poisoned him. Isaac and I had to watch him dying on the floor. Didn’t he ever tell you that?”
Diana shook her head again, her eyes filling with tears and her lips pushed together to stop herself from crying out. She wanted to whimper, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
But could it be true?
“There’s more,” Thomas said.
“No,” she whined. “Please, no. Just let me go. Everything will be all right if you let me go. My Father will forgive this. You are wrong about him. He didn’t kill anyone. We’ll find a solution to everything and—”
“It is your Father who needs forgiveness, not me!”
“We will find the real killer, but I promise it wasn’t my Father. It couldn’t have been, he’s not—”
“It was!”
“All right,” Diana said, thinking quickly despite the confusion in her mind. “He will beg for forgiveness. He will get down on his knees and he will beg. He will give you money—all the wealth you could imagine. Whatever you want, if you just let me go.” This man was clearly mad, and she would say whatever she needed to say to get rid of him.
Diana watched him for a moment, her heart in her throat. He said nothing, but looked at her with his head tilted, examining her as one might examine a painting.
“Isaac never had any interest in marrying you, you know?” he said, still crouching. His voice was calm now, explanatory. He did not accuse nor rail, he didn’t even seem that angry anymore.
“Wh…what do you mean?” She felt a lump in her throat, a fear that grew bigger and more stifling by the second. She didn’t believe it could be true, but this brute was so convincing, his eyes so clear with everything he spoke of.
“I mean,” Thomas said, smirking, “that my Brother only ever wooed you with the intention of making you suffer. We want to destroy you.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said, her lips in a pout. She didn’t believe him, not really, but there was something in her, something that niggled at her. A thought that wormed its way through her confidence, buried itself in her soul.
“Then you are fool,” he said, getting up from his position on the floor and resuming his marching.
“My Isaac would never—” she trailed off, unable to steady her breaths, her eyes searching the floor.
“Do you not think your Isaac may have been traumatized by his Father’s murder? Do you not think he has been plotting his revenge for years?”
“I…I don’t know. And you? Have you been plotting also?”
“Of course I have! I will avenge my Father’s death, no matter what it takes.”
“And no matter who gets hurt?”
A pigeon flew from the eaves then, fast and diving, and swooped between them, feathers flying. Thomas jumped back in surprise and Diana cried out, but it left as quickly as it had arrived. Diana sagged, catching her breath.
“Goodness,” she said, eyes wide.
It took Thomas a moment to recover from the surprise, and then he railed at Diana, shouting so loud that Diana scrunched her face up against the noise.
“The whole point was that you get hurt, just as Father did!”
“But I didn’t kill your Father,” Diana said, shaking her head. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You’re his daughter, aren’t you?” Thomas said, his voice calm, reasoning. “That’s reason enough.”
“You are mad,” Diana said, suddenly not caring if she enraged him. As she spoke, her words got louder, more aggressive, angrier. “You are mad, and you are alone. My Isaac would have no part in this. Never!”
He flew towards her, hand raised to strike her, a growl on his voice. She cowered. But the second before his hand made contact with her face, he seemed to think better of it and he fell back.
“No,” he sneered. “I’ll keep that for when my Brother is here to witness it, for he will work it out, believe me.”
“He’s coming?”
“I have no doubt he’ll come for you,” Thomas spat. “And when he does, I can make you both suffer at the same time.”
He turned away from her. His mood turned quickly again, from anger and hatred to sullenness and misery.
“You think you know my Brother,” he said, his voice quiet and full of sadness. “But you do not.”
“What does that mean?” Diana asked, her voice weary and exhausted. “Please, tell me whatever it is you wish to say.”
He turned around, his mood again suddenly changed. Gone was the sadness, perhaps even the madness. In its place, Thomas’ face was full of joyful delight, a child about to spill his secrets to one he shouldn’t.
“Do you really want to know?” he asked. “I’ll tell you what my Brother is really like, if you want to know.”
“Yes,” she said, sighing, “I really want to know.”
“Isaac was devastated by our Father’s death,” he began.
“As is normal,” Diana said, her jaw clenched. “I was as equally devastated by my Moth—”
“Yes, but our Father was murdered. And Isaac was hell-bent on revenge.”
“And you weren’t, I suppose,” she spat.
Thomas pulled himself up onto a table and sat, his legs swinging beneath him and his hands clutching the edge.
“I didn’t say that,” he said. “Why do you think I am here at all? Your beloved Isaac deserted me, disowned me. So I had to take matters into my own hand.”
“Deserted you? You are talking utter nonsense.” Her brow was furrowed in confusion. She didn’t know what to believe, what to think. All she knew was that as long as she was talking, he was not hurting her.
“For you,” Thomas sneered. “But let me tell you our plan. He was meant to get close to your Sister, Lady Celine.”
“Celine? But—”
“That’s right. But she didn’t want him, she shunned him. She has better taste than you, clearly.”
“But that’s nonsense. How do you expect me to believe such lies?”
“Think about it, Lady Diana. Remember back. Was he not surprised to discover you were also the da
ughter of the Earl of Estnell?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“And had he not met your Sister before you.”
“Yes,” she said. “He had, but that means nothing.”
“He was to woo your Sister, persuade her to fall in love with him, but when she rejected him, you became an easy second choice. He will make you suffer, destroy your life, and then he’ll kill your Father in the same way that your Father killed ours.”
Silence covered the room like a blanket, thick and heavy and stifling. Diana swallowed. She looked at the floor, then at the ceiling. She took deep, gulping breaths.
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