“Do not lie to me Nancy. Not now.” His voice was quiet but infused with a deadly tone he never used with his children.
Nancy took a step back in fear. “I…only gave him a way to get in the compound. The back gate that leads to Hyde Park. That’s all.”
Her voice shook and Duncan might have been sorry about scaring her but he was too worried about Miss Fletcher. Now that he knew she was truly in danger, he did not have time to waste. “Please leave my sight. And get me Mrs. Cooke.”
Nancy nodded shakily and stumbled out of the room. Soon after, Mrs. Cooke was back. Duncan turned to face her. “Tell me everything you know about this man.”
“She’s fighting hard this one. I don’t know what she might do if you leave her alone with a customer. She might bite him or worse.”
Laurence sighed with irritation. “Can we not just tie her down?”
“We could. But she is threatening to invoke the Earl of Sulby’s name. She says he is a dear friend and would be very upset at her treatment.” Madam Bainbridge rolled her eyes to show her disdain for these obvious lies.
Laurence snorted. “She was a governess to his children, and under false pretenses at that. I doubt very much he would be concerned about her fate. His daughter certainly wasn’t.”
“Yes well…it could still leave our customers feeling uneasy unless you have someone specific in mind?”
Laurence paced thinking hard. In order to reap maximum benefit from the transaction, his patrons would expect the girl to be willing.
The question is, how to make her willing?
Chapter 26
Arthur Fletcher stumbled his way out of the tavern, cursing softly to himself. Ever since Emily had left him for the big city, he found that his fortunes had turned for the worse. He had barely won a single card game since Blackmore’s carriage had flown out of his gates.
It’s annoying is what it is. Why would my luck flee at this time?
He’d thought he was turning a corner, now that all his former debt had been forgiven. He’d thought he’d be able to get his business profitable again. Instead, he was plunged in more debts by his gambling.
It truly is very unfair.
Someone caught hold of his arm and he stiffened in surprise. The man began to drag him toward a carriage parked at the end of a dark alley and he began to struggle in earnest.
“What is it you want? Is it money? For I have none you nasty brigand. Leave me be!”
The man ignored him, propelling him as easily as if he were a young child. Arthur began to feel afraid and he dug his heels into the muddy alley road, trying to stop his forward motion. But the man just jerked him forward with a barely audible grunt, ignoring his protests as if they meant nothing.
He began to shout for help but suddenly there was a knife at his throat. “I’m to bring you alive, but my boss said nothing about uninjured. Now quiet unless you want to lose your voice.”
Arthur swallowed hard but stopped yelling. His mind was churning, trying to think who he might have maddened enough in the last month, to do this to him. Nobody specific came to mind. Or rather one man did, but he had no reason to abduct Arthur. He and Laurence Blackmore had ended things on a very amiable note. He had said something about Emily getting lost in London and his need to find her but that would not entail kidnapping Arthur. He wanted her found as much as Blackmore did.
Mr. Blackmore had seemed quite taken with Emily’s beauty. Arthur could not blame him. Emily was the spit of her mother, God rest her soul. Of course she would attract a man of means such as Laurence Blackmore. Perhaps he should try to invoke his name. Might scare this man off.
“Listen mate, my son-in-law is Laurence Blackmore. You don’t want to mess about with him. I suggest you leave me right here, right now, before he hears of this.”
The man just barked a laugh and proceeded to tie him to a hook placed on the roof of the carriage. He was able to sit down but his hands were raised in an uncomfortable angle in front of him. The man slammed the carriage door closed and jumped up next to the coachman. Soon they were barreling down the road toward London. Arthur did not know what it all meant, but he was truly afraid for the first time in a long time.
Emily spent another night on the floor, her hands and feet tied together. Once a day, a serving girl brought her a chamber pot, never meeting Emily’s eyes the whole time. She was also given a jug of water from which she could choose to wash or she could drink the water.
She was given no nourishment.
“You recall the rule here do you not, young lady?” Madam Bainbridge had said on the first night when Emily had enquired about whether or not they intended to feed her, “If you want to eat, you have to work for your food.”
Emily had immediately offered to clean the floor. Madam Bainbridge huffed, turning up her nose at Emily. She had a plate steaming with pigeon pie and beans. The smell made saliva well up in Emily’s mouth and she licked her lips again and again. The madam simply ate her food and then, when she was full, she threw away the rest, emptying it into a slop bucket for the maid to add to the compost heap.
Emily tried not to watch but she could hardly move her eyes away from the plate.
I’m so hungry.
She didn’t know the last time that she’d eaten. Being a defiant little chit, as Madam Bainbridge accused her of being, was hard work. She drank the water from the jug and tried not to think about anything. She tamped down the fear that they were weakening her to make her easy to use. If she was too weak to fight off any assault upon her body it would make it easier for them to get what they wanted from her.
Duncan. Come. Save me.
Her eyes fluttered closed as she thought about the Earl. She had no reason to think that he would make any effort on her behalf but hope did seem to spring eternal. Besides, she had no other recourse but him. If he did not come, she was doomed. She wondered if she might kill herself sooner or later.
If there is no other way to get out…perhaps.
She stiffened her spine, pushed the thought away. There was more to life and she knew she was not one to just give up so easily. But she did not know what she would do if she was put through everything that Madam Bainbridge and Laurence Blackmore threatened her with. She did not know why they had not yet tried to force her. She suspected that whatever it was, it was no good reason.
Still she was grateful for the respite. She would use it to gird herself and prepare for what was to happen next. One thing she knew was that she would not make it easy for them to get what they wanted from her.
Madam Bainbridge walked into the room, striding right up to Emily and looking triumphantly down at her. She smiled, and Emily’s heart quailed. “Tonight, you will prepare yourself. Elisha shall bathe you and dress you appropriately. You will have a meal. And then you will fulfill your part.”
Emily twisted her mouth in contempt. “What makes tonight different from any other night I’ve been here? What makes you think I will do what you want?”
She laughed. “Oh, I think you can be persuaded.”
With that she walked out of the room, leaving Emily to try and calm her rapidly beating heart. The way Madam Bainbridge had looked, perhaps she had an ace up her sleeve. Perhaps she had located the Earl and he had abandoned her to her fate. She did not know but she was very afraid all of a sudden.
Silently, tears rolling down her face, she began to pray.
They left her alone for the rest of the afternoon but just as the sun began to drop from the sky, Laurence Blackmore stepped into the room. His nose immediately wrinkled as he looked about.
“What a mess you have made,” he sneered. “Well, no harm done. You shall clean it up soon enough.”
“Or what?” Emily asked, trying to make sure he could not hear her rapidly increasing heartbeat, her erratic breathing, the shaking in her limbs.
“Or…how do you feel about your father? Have you tired of him? Would you like to be the last remaining member of your family?”
Emi
ly gasped. “You would not.”
Laurence Blackmore just smiled. “Try me.”
Arthur opened his eyes from a sleep he had not been aware of taking, jerking awake into immediate awareness. He tried to get to his feet but realized he was tied to the bed with iron shackles. He shook them with frustration, wondering who would do this to him.
The door opened and he looked up. His eyes widened with shock as he beheld his daughter standing there, looking thinner than she’d ever been, her eyes weighed down with bags. She blinked at him, shock in her eyes.
“Papa?” the whispered horror of his name was enough to let him know that whatever he had thought was going on here, it was a thousand times worse.
“Emily! What…?”
Laurence Blackmore reached out and pulled her out of the room suddenly. The last thing he heard before the door was slammed in her face was a squawk of protest.
“Emily,” he whispered in shock, wondering what he had just seen. “What is going on?”
He tried again to stand, forgetting that he was shackled.
Duncan paced as he waited for his friend to join him. He supposed he could get the Constable but that would mean that everyone would know Miss Fletcher’s fate. If he could possibly spare her that, he would. As a precaution however, he decided to retain a Bow Street Runner. Just in case Holburn was not as helpful as he hoped he might be.
A slight knock on the door had him wheeling around. The door opened and his friend entered the room, his face serious, for once.
“I got your letter. What has transpired and why do you want to know if I know a brothel owner named Blackmore?”
Duncan closed his eyes and sighed. “I cannot tell you everything. It is not my place. But he has Miss Fletcher, Holburn. He has my Emily. And I must get her back.”
“Why would he kidnap a governess surely? I mean she is quite fetching to look at but–”
“Cecil, please!” Duncan said and the sound of his given name had Holburn shutting up at once. “There is no time.”
He nodded his understanding. “Well, you are fortunate that his holdings burned down some time back…around the time your Miss Fletcher came to work for you actually. He had insured his properties with one of our holdings and so I happened to hear about it.”
Duncan waved a hand impatiently. “I have no interest in his troubles. Where can I find him?”
“Well, I cannot tell you, honestly…”
Duncan deflated in despair.
“…but, my firm did handle the paperwork and they also insured his new premises so all we have to do is go down there and sift through it.”
Duncan eyed his friend with despair. “And you could not just have said that?” he grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair, “Let us go then. There is no time to waste. He has had her for too long already.”
He almost fell over Anne and Harry, lurking outside his door. He tried to go around them but they blocked him. “Papa, have you found Miss Fletcher yet?”
Duncan’s eyes narrowed, “And what do you know about that?”
“We know that bad men took her. We heard Mrs. Cooke talking about it.”
Duncan sighed with impatience. “Yes, well the two of you blocking my path is not helping at all. Do you want me to get her back or not?”
“Get her back,” they both shouted.
“All right then, I need for you to move out of the way.”
Anne stepped left and Harry stepped right, leaving him a clear path in the middle. He nodded to them. “Thank you.”
He took a step forward, Holburn on his heels, before hesitating. He turned back and stared at his children’s scared faces. He stepped back, gathered them together in his arms and looked into their eyes. “I promise you solemnly, I will bring her back to us.”
They nodded hard, a lone tear trailing down Anne’s face. It broke Duncan’s heart that he could not protect them from this. “Meanwhile, I want you to pray very hard. Can you do that for me?”
“Yes,” they both declared with conviction.
“We shall pray so hard that God shall have no choice but to return her to us,” Harry declared.
“You’re good children.” He reached up, kissing each of them on the cheek, “Now excuse me while I go and find her, all right?”
They nodded, stepping back and letting him go.
Holburn gestured for him to hurry. His carriage was already parked outside the manor house and they both got into it as Holburn yelled directions to the coachman. Duncan’s heart beat hard with determination and fear. He wanted to ask Holburn what he knew of this man, what they might find but he was afraid to know.
“Have your Bow Street man meet us there. He might have some more information and we can pool our resources,” Holburn said.
“That’s a good idea. Thank you.”
Emily was working on drawing in breaths and letting them out. No matter how deeply she inhaled, she still felt as if she had no air. Her chest felt tight and there was nothing she could do to loosen it.
Madam Bainbridge thrust a glass into her hands, filled with brown liquid. Emily shook her head; not sure anything could get past the lump in her throat.
“Drink it!” Madam Bainbridge’s voice was hard and uncompromising.
Emily took the glass and drained it. She shuddered, the liquid burning down her throat, and warming her belly. Nausea assailed her and she heaved, almost casting up all the food she’d eaten. Only her determination to keep it down saved her. This was the first food she’d eaten in days; she was not giving it up for anything.
Certainly not for my Father who is responsible for almost any and every problem I have right now.
She did not know if she was angry with him for putting her in this position or scared to death of what would happen if she did not do what Blackmore said. There was nothing she could do now. Blackmore was right–he had her dead to rights. With her father in his hands, he most definitely had the upper hand.
The serving girl came in, picked up a brush and began to brush her hair. Tears fell down her face as she sat still on her bed, not even trying to look in the glass. The serving girl pulled her hair this way and that before knotting it atop her head.
“You know, you would do better to accept your lot and try to enjoy it as much as you can. All this crying and carrying on will not be helpful to you.”
Emily almost jumped when the serving girl spoke to her. In the interminable time that she’d been locked in this room, she had not said a single word while she brought her water or took her slop bucket out.
“Accept my lot you say? And how exactly does one do that?”
The girl shrugged. “Stop acting like it is a fate worse than death. It is only intercourse and sooner or later, everyone does it. Even an uppity lady like you. So close your eyes and think of England, eh?” the girl grinned, her stained teeth glinting in the candlelight.
“Think of England? Yes, thank you very much for the advice. That should help.” She wasn’t sure if the girl understood her sarcasm.
Chapter 27
Duncan, Holburn, and the Bow Street Runner, whose name was Jansen Hansom, sat in a carriage across the street from Blackmore’s brothel. It was little more than a series of rooms in a commercial building in Cheapside. Music was already starting to filter outwards. Now and then, a man would wander in. It was still early however, and Duncan knew if he went in by the front door, he would draw everyone’s attention. Gentry such as himself were easy to spot by the quality of their clothes, their mannerisms, and the currency with which they paid.
So they had agreed that Holburn would go in the front door, and divert everyone’s attention. He was no stranger to brothels although he usually frequented a higher end establishment.
“You will pretend to be with malt above water, and had somehow gotten turned around. They would know he was gentry and employ every effort to get him not to leave. Meanwhile I shall sneak into the upper rooms and try to find her. You are sure she has not been in the parlor in al
l of the time since she was taken?” Duncan asked the Bow Street Runner.
“Aye. I spoke with the guards at the doors, gave them your description. Good thing she’s so distinctive,” the man grinned, “there is no woman answering that description who has been available. One of the guards did know that there was a prisoner being held. On the third floor.”
“So that’s where I’ll go.” Duncan said with a decisive nod.
“I shall watch the doors,” the Bow Street Runner said.
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