Mr. Camden went to his desk and sorted through the piles of documents. There were no chairs to sit in, a deliberate choice to keep visitors from becoming comfortable or staying too long, and so Camden stood awkwardly by the door, waiting for his father to give him further instruction.
“Here,” Mr. Camden said, placing several thick folders of papers in his hands. “Take these to your office and read through them. They contain all the information of the possible new contract. Prepare a prospectus outlining the relevant issues, the costs, labor and equipment needs as well as all the possible profits and net gains of taking on the client. I’ll have it by this afternoon.” He sat down at his desk, waving his son out of his office without another glance in his direction.
Camden shifted his weight self-consciously. He knew the prudent thing to do in the face of a dismissal from his father was to run and do his bidding, but he wanted to bring up the issue of his marriage. It wasn’t the perfect time, of course, but there was rarely a good time to discuss anything with his father, and he was impatient to have things resolved. His father never looked up from his desk, however, and Camden was once again feeling a strange agitation from him, and so he decided to go to his office and get to work. Things were sure to go more smoothly for him if he engaged his father in discussion after handing him a meticulously prepared report that would, he hoped, show a significantly favorable outcome for the company. The prospect of huge financial gain was the one thing that went the furthest to put his father into any kind of mood resembling amenability.
Once sitting at his own desk, Camden threw himself whole-heartedly into the project. He welcomed the chance to concentrate on something other than Del and how much he wanted to be with her right now, since there was nothing he could do about it at the moment. The facts and numbers contained in the files were dry, straightforward, and numerous to the point of being almost overwhelming. Because there was almost nothing he hated more than sitting indoors sorting through this type of information, he had to force himself to give it his full attention. It meant there was no opportunity to torture himself with imagining, in exquisite detail, exactly what he would do to Del if he were with her. Stuck at the office, those fantasies would do nothing but frustrate him both physically and mentally, and it was better to concentrate on other things until he could go to her tonight and act out every last decadent thought he had ever had about her.
The distraction worked, for when he looked up from the papers in front of him to give his tired eyes a rest, a glance at his pocket watch told him several hours had passed. He was stiff from sitting so long in an uncomfortable chair and he took a moment to stretch his arms and legs. He needed to take a break from work to move his limbs and perhaps take a meal, and so he decided to ride to Del’s townhouse and invite her to eat with him.
Outside, astride Sebby, Camden was immensely glad of his notion to leave the offices for a bit. The afternoon was beautiful, with clear blue skies with a gentle breeze containing just a hint of autumn crispness. The trees were showing their golden, crimson, and brown colors, and already a few leaves had fallen to the ground, crunching beneath Sebby’s hooves. It was a perfect day for a picnic in the park, and Camden deeply regretted he had only limited time for a visit with Del before returning to work to finish his prospectus.
As he approached Del’s townhouse, his entire body warmed in anticipation of seeing her. Perhaps he would forgo the suggestion of a meal and instead invite Del to partake in sating a far more primal hunger. His appetite was voracious when it came to her, like she was his ambrosia, the only thing capable of sustaining him. It was difficult to remember he needed anything else when he was around her. Air, food, and water seemed like inconsequential nuisances when his senses were filled with her heady scent, her luscious curves, her beautiful voice.
He bounded up the stairs to her townhouse, all eager anticipation, but stopped short when he saw her front door was just slightly ajar. He frowned. Del was always thoughtful and organized and it was entirely unlike her to be so careless. He pushed the door open while calling her name, his heart beating a slightly faster tempo. The residence was quiet. There was no response to his repeated calls to her. He walked through the foyer, trying to ignore the feeling of worry creeping up on him. No need to be worried just yet, he assured himself, Del had probably gone out, perhaps to see Jane, and had simply not noticed the door had not shut completely.
And then he saw it.
A heavy candlestick lay on the floor. When he picked it up, he saw it was smeared with something that looked very much like blood. The hair at the nape of his neck rose, his palms began to sweat, and his heart pounded. Violence had been done here, he thought, violence against Del, and she could now still be in danger.
He tore through the house, shouting her name, trying to keep his fury and worry from completely overtaking him. The edges of his vision went red, like it did whenever his anger rose, and he wasn’t sure he could keep it at all contained this time. He had no idea what had actually happened here and he tried to stop his mind from conjuring up a myriad of horrific scenarios. Surely there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for the open door, the seemingly bloody candlestick, and Del’s absence, one that involved a minor lapse of memory and a moment of clumsiness or something similar. He tried to make himself believe that, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of dreadful surety that whatever explained what he saw here would be decidedly unreasonable and not at all minor.
Upstairs, Camden saw the unmade bed, the tousled covers still suggesting the outline of where they had lain together. He saw a pair of gloves and a reticule on the bureau. She wouldn’t have left the house without such things, but he didn’t know if she had others she had taken instead. His agitation and panic increased. He hated this uncertainty, hated feeling like Del was bleeding and hurt and beyond his reach, but then not knowing if that were even the case.
Camden had searched the whole house and found nothing, no sign of Del and no clues to point him in any definite direction. He decided he needed to return to the foyer and check closely and methodically for something — anything — that would shed light on what had occurred and give him an idea on where to look for Del.
He noticed the table that stood against the staircase wall. The various items resting upon it were in disarray, as though someone had knocked them over or perhaps bumped — or been shoved — into the table. There were a few drops of blood on the floor near the table and a few more near the door. He tried to focus on the fact that the presence of minimal amounts of blood suggested only minor injuries, but the very implication of any injuries at all was driving his anger and worry to dangerous levels.
His eye caught on something small and dark lying on the floor in the shadowed corner near the front door.
It was glove. A man’s glove.
It was made of thick leather, darkened by age and dirt and scuffed from heavy use. It was no finely stitched riding glove of a gentleman but rather the utilitarian glove of a workman, and it had no earthly reason to be in Del’s house.
The sight of that glove destroyed Camden’s hope that nothing untoward had happened to Del. A man had been here and it had not been merely a pleasant social call. The visit had resulted in disturbed furniture, a candlestick apparently used as a bludgeon, blood, and his missing fiancée.
Camden’s fear and rage and righteous vengeance began to take over him — and he let it. He welcomed the rushing blood and throbbing temples and tightened muscles of his shaking fury. A man had come here and hurt Del. Perhaps it had been a random burglary attempt and Del had merely been unlucky to have been targeted. Or maybe it was premeditated revenge from someone she knew. He thought of Ashe, how angry he had been when Del ended their arrangement, how he had leveled threats and laid hands upon her. Had he or one of the other men had become enraged upon hearing of her engagement and come to forcefully change her mind? The exact motivation didn’t actually matter, for C
amden would hunt down and punish the perpetrator regardless of who it was or what he wanted.
He needed to control himself, to clear his mind of the dizzying anger just long enough to formulate a plan for finding Del. He would go back to the shipping office and enlist several of his father’s men — as well as Wittingham, Farber, and Hollsworth — to form a searching party, and they would go to every damn house and building in London until they located her. They would start with Ashe and go from there.
And when he found Del, may God show mercy to the poor soul responsible, because Camden sure as hell wasn’t going to.
• • •
She was running.
It was early morning, but the heavy cloud cover meant it was cold and damp and gray. The fog hugging the ground was so thick it seemed like a solid, impenetrable wall that would stop any forward progress. She slipped through it though, her legs pumping, until the tattered hem of her sleeping gown wrapped itself around her knees and threatened to trip her. Her bare feet slapped against the cold, jagged cobblestones of a neglected and deteriorating street.
She ran faster.
Her breathing was heavy, her lungs burned, and her fatigued muscles were in danger of giving out completely, but she could not stop or even slow her pace. She was being chased by dark and foreboding things. She couldn’t see them but she knew they were behind her, swallowed in the fog, just out of sight.
She was terrified — of what was coming after her, of what was lying in wait ahead, of her own weakness and exhaustion and diminishing ability to ever find safety.
There were voices behind her. Women were shouting at her, criticizing and scolding and threatening. Men were jeering and cajoling, making specious promises and impossible demands. It was all an almost intelligible cacophony of hostile pursuers and she needed to be free of them.
She ran blindly, not knowing what obstacles or hazards lay in her path, not knowing her destination or whether salvation even existed. She would not stop, though. She would continue to run, alone and cold and afraid, until she either found a place she felt safe or collapsed from the effort of trying.
The cobblestones changed beneath her feet. She was running on grass now. When the fog suddenly lifted and the sun peeked through the clouds, she saw she was in a meadow. The voices behind her were muted, far away, and she slowed to a walk, grateful for the chance to rest. There was a man in the distance standing under a tree. She realized she knew him somehow. She needed to reach him, and then she would be safe and happy and protected. Each step that brought her closer to him also brought a feeling of absolute calmness, and she felt she couldn’t get to him fast enough.
She began to run again, but this time is was to happiness and joy instead of away from fear and misery.
She was almost there. She was so close to him she could smell his slightly musky scent, see locks of his hair tousle in the breeze, see the deep, rich brown of his eyes. He reached out to her. She lifted her hand to him, but just before their fingers touched the distance between them suddenly and jarringly increased. She began to panic again, that familiar cold knot of fear coiling in her stomach. She called out to him, wanting to know why he was abandoning her just when she had finally found him. Before the words were formed, however, she realized he wasn’t the one moving away. She was sliding backwards, as if pulled by an invisible rope, and soon the fog behind her would swallow her completely.
The discordant voices of her tormentors grew louder. She was again almost within their grasp.
It was too much.
She was too tired, too frightened, too alone to fight anymore, and she contemplated ceasing to struggle and just accepting her fate. It would be so easy to let the fog take her, to give into her fears and doubts and let those who wished her harm do what they may. It was seductive, the urge to give up, to end the pain and terror and bone-deep weariness of constantly running, of always fighting.
Tendrils of fog curled around her ankles. Her vision became blurry and her limbs grew numb. She knew if she did nothing, she would soon disappear completely. Her thinking slowed, her body felt weighted down, and she prepared herself for whatever awaited her in the foggy nothingness.
But then she caught a glimpse of him, off in the distance, the man who was her everything. He had been there a long time — she knew it in that way of dreams and nightmares — waiting for her to come to him. He was her happiness, her safety, her respite from any cruelty or loneliness or injustice.
She would fight her way to him. She would struggle against the fog and the fear and the doubt until she left it all behind forever when she finally reached his arms.
She needed him and he needed her, and she wouldn’t give up until they were together.
And so Del opened her eyes.
It took a moment for senses to clear, to determine if she was awake or still dreaming, to remember what had happened. Her stiff, cramped muscles, her difficulty in breathing around the rag in her mouth, the pain in her ankles and wrists, it all brought the reality of her situation back to her in a hurry.
She had been slipping away. The blow to her head was making it difficult to stay awake, and the rag in her mouth made it hard to get enough air. It made for a dangerous situation, and if she hadn’t fought her way back to consciousness when she did, she would have never awoken again.
She knew she needed to fight to stay conscious until she found a way out of this room. Until she could escape her bonds, or draw the attention of someone who could let her go, or convince Murphy to do it when he returned. One of those options would work. It had to. She was so clear now in what she wanted and who she needed. She loved Camden unreservedly and whole-heartedly, and that knowledge brought her serenity and strength rather than uncertainty and self-doubt.
She only hoped the opportunity for salvation appeared soon, because she didn’t know how much longer she could hang on.
Chapter Eleven
When Camden finally reached the shipping offices, both he and his horse were in a full lather. He had been working through his plan and that had helped to keep the anger and panic and bay, but he hadn’t been able to completely tamp it down. He would gather as many of his father’s men as he could, split them into several groups, and dispatch them to different parts of the city. While they were already on the search, he would go round to fetch Wittingham and his other friends and get them to join in the effort. He needed as many men as possible to be effective in finding Del. It was at least a small comfort that he knew where to start.
He headed straight to his father’s office. Camden needed his permission to pull the men from their labor and send them out on searching parties. He took deep breaths as he marched down the corridor, trying hard to regain some of his composure. He needed to be calmer and more collected when he faced his father, not appear the red-faced, wide-eyed, enraged maniac he was at the moment. Otherwise, his father would waste precious time reprimanding him for his lack of self-control when he really needed to be focused on finding Del.
He was relieved to find his father’s office door open. It meant he could be reasonably justified in striding into the office without knocking and waiting for an invitation to enter.
“Father.”
Mr. Camden looked up from his desk and frowned at his son and Camden knew from that expression that he had been largely unsuccessful in composing himself. He was still breathing hard, every muscle was clenched, his hands were fisted at his sides, and he could only imagine what expression he was wearing on his face. He was wild with worry, tense with anger, and he looked it. He was barely keeping himself in check. His father did not approve.
“You have finished with my prospectus?” Mr. Camden looked pointedly at his son’s empty hands and Camden understood the implied admonishment. He had no business being out of his office if he hadn’t yet completed his task. Already, his father was annoyed with him.
“
It is almost finished. I just — there is a situation, and I need — ”
“What are you blathering on about? What situation could you have possible run into while working in your office?” Mr. Camden’s voice hinted his words were only part question, part reprimand, and all impatient disdain.
Camden tried to quickly come up with the best way to describe what had happened and what he needed, as if there were specific words that would trigger a compassionate, helpful response from his father. Realizing that was futile, he settled on brevity. “Del has been kidnapped, and I need as many of your men as possible to help me find her.”
For at least the second time that day, Camden noticed a strange reaction in his father — a small jerk of his head accompanied by a dark glower. Camden could tell the man hadn’t meant to let his displeasure show so obviously by how quickly he schooled his features into an impassive mask. It confused Camden that his father would allow anyone to see such an involuntary reaction, no matter how briefly. Not that his father had any problem letting his anger or disapproval be known, just that it didn’t usually come in the form of small jumps and startles instead of a measured and purposeful response.
Camden brushed it aside. There was no time to worry about what his father was thinking. “I need your permission to gather the men from the docks and form searching parties.”
“Absolutely out of the question.” Mr. Camden sounded incredulous that his son would even suggest such a thing. “I am not pulling the men from their duties to send them off traipsing pointlessly around the city. Not when it will accomplish nothing but a wasted day of labor.”
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