Wedding Matilda (Redcakes Book 6)

by Heather Hiestand

  She was carried through a yard smelling of wet earth and privy, then into a dark room with a stone floor.

  “Wot’s she doin’ wi’ you?” asked a woman.

  “Had to bring her. It’s Plan B.”

  “Bleedin’ fools. You can’t have her in here, for when we’re done,” said the woman in front of them.

  “Where do you want her, then?”

  It struck Matilda that these men, while sounding coarse, did not actually have uneducated accents. It was as if they were playing at being low kidnappers.

  The idea of them acting was enhanced by their ridiculous clothing. Either way, they were still criminals. They’d taken her at knife-point, and for what purpose? They had the money. Even if they killed her, someone would run Redcake’s. Her father would return to Bristol and train Greggory, probably. Gawain, though in full protest, would help as well.

  “Bring her in here,” the woman said.

  “We’ll use her to get more money from the family. No point in killin’ a rich woman,” said a man.

  The man behind her pushed. She stumbled forward. He pushed again, and she moved through a low doorway, following the woman’s voice. Then the overcoat was pulled from her head. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them cautiously. Not much light illuminated the room. A small fire burned, and a couple of candles flickered. She could see a rocking chair by the fire. A cupboard on the wall hung open. It had a stack of stained but clean clothes on it. Clouts? She could smell milk in the air, and unwashed infant. A baby must have just been taken from the room, for no one was here, not even the woman who had spoken. She whipped around, suddenly wondering where the man who’d pushed her had gone, but no one was there, and the door swung behind her.

  Somewhat hysterically, Matilda hoped no one had kidnapped her to be a wet nurse. Her milk had dried up when Jacob was only five months old. Too much anxiety, her mother had told her, and had revealed that her milk had done the same when Arthur was a baby. This led to fears that Arthur had been unhealthy as a result of being weaned early, and Jacob might suffer the same fate. So far, however, he’d been a hale and hearty boy.

  When her eyes had adjusted to the light, she moved closer to the fire and warmed her hands. Her entire body felt clammy and damp from standing in the park for so long. The tree she’d been under hadn’t protected her entirely. Her skirts had soaked up moisture from the ground and her leather boots were dark with water. She pulled off her gloves with her teeth and put them on the fire screen, then held out her pale, bloodless fingers to the coals. Somehow, the thought that they were holding her for more money made her calm.

  As her fingers warmed, she noticed the door leading out of the room was covered in green baize, indicating a desire to keep noise and smells from this room separate from the rest of the house. Why? What couldn’t she hear, or what was going to happen to her that the rest of the household shouldn’t hear?

  She went to the door, putting her ear to it. Could her son be on the other side? Nothing; she heard absolutely nothing. She wondered where the money for Jacob was going to end up. It hadn’t come into this room with her.

  She tried the door, but it was locked. Out of pure, foolish curiosity, she went back to the room door and pushed it open. However, no one was in the space, and the air was freezing besides. She closed the door and cursed the cold air that had reentered the room. When she touched her gloves they were still soaking wet, of course, so she tucked her hands into her somewhat less damp pockets and began to pace, trying to warm herself.

  She walked along the featureless walls, noting uneven plaster, a lack of decorations. The candles were fresh and threw interesting shadows along them. She was standing behind one candle, trying to decide what the shape of its shadow was, an angel or a tree, when a key rattled in the lock, and she saw the baize-covered door open.

  Her heart, so chilled, thudded in her chest. Was she about to be saved? Or be told her fate? Or her son’s? Her knees all but buckled when she heard fast, light footsteps, and a blur entered the room at the level of her hip and launched itself against her skirt.

  “Mummy!” shrieked the familiar and beloved voice of her son.

  Her knees betrayed her completely, and she sank to the ground, reaching for him. Jacob flung his arms around her neck and burrowed his head into her shoulder. She could smell him, her boy. All the usual scents of shampoo and familiar food were gone, but that faintly spicy scent of his skin was the same, and the oily scent his hair developed when not washed a couple of times a week. She didn’t recognize his shirt, and it smelled musty. She could see a repaired rip on one arm. Secondhand or worse. Who had dressed him?

  His small arms all but strangled her, and she took on his full weight. She struggled to her feet and headed toward the back door, resolved to walk home if she must. Could she remember the way? It didn’t matter. She merely needed to find some main thoroughfare and hire a hansom. No one would pass a well-dressed woman and a child in this beastly weather.

  She hoped the overcoat that had been thrown over her head was still in the room. She could use it to cover Jacob. Otherwise, she’d have to button him into her own coat somehow. She unwound her muffler, which was still dry in the parts where it had been tucked into her coat, and wrapped the dry bits around her son’s torso.

  “Where going, Mummy?” Jacob asked, lifting his small face.

  “Home.”

  He kissed her cheek with a smack and tucked his cheek against her neck again. She smiled for the first time in what felt like years as she turned her back to the swinging door and began to push her way through.

  The door hit her back and she stumbled forward. Someone had been coming through behind her. She growled in protest, moving out of the way, then headed back toward the door.

  A figure came in through the green baize door, moving quickly, and grabbed for Jacob. He cried out, trying to hold on, but the figure wrenched his arms from her neck. Matilda screamed his name, grabbing for the muffler ends to try to keep him close even as he was pulled away. Something came down over her head, a burlap bag. She raised her hands to strike, to scratch, to rip, but a sweet, heavy odor filled the air, and when she opened her mouth to scream again, she got a lungful of the stuff. The room spun and she stumbled, going to her knees again. She only vaguely felt her head hitting the floor. The bag had blackened the room, but now everything, even her baby, swirled away, out of reach.

  A cat’s hiss woke her. She felt a tail brush her eyelashes, smelled the odor of wet feline, then felt raindrops hit her face. Wind sent the remains of last fall’s leaves rattling.

  Blinking, she tried to turn her head, to see something more than rain, but the insides of her head rocked in a liquid fashion. Instead, she rolled to her side and then to her stomach, then tried to get up on her hands and knees. Heavy, sodden skirts trapped her legs until she tugged the fabric away, sluggish in her movements. At least her hair was taking the rain now, instead of her face. She’d lost her bonnet and could sense most of her pins had gone, too. Her hair swung in a wet rope across her shoulder, the braid still intact.

  She coughed, wondering if she was ill. How long had she been unconscious? Was it still the same night? It felt like the same rain, the same spring night that reminded one of autumn more than the coming summer.

  She sniffed and sneezed, realized her neck was frozen stiff, remembered where she’d last seen her muffler. On Jacob.

  Her lips opened in a half scream, half yawn, and she started to cry uncontrollably, deep, racking sobs that made her chest hurt. She couldn’t even feel her tears on her half-frozen, soaking-wet face.

  A thought struck her, and she began to scrabble on the ground, searching for a small body near her. Could they have dumped him, too? Was she in the courtyard where the old coach had pulled up? She picked up her skirts and crouched, then rose uneasily to her feet, swaying like a drunkard. Moving tentatively, slowly, she searched the area with shuffling steps and outstretched arms, but there seemed to be nothing but grass, unli
ke the dirt of the courtyard she’d seen earlier. As her vision cleared, she noted trees, just starting to bud. They looked familiar. She turned, noting the configuration of fruit trees, and realized she was in her own garden, behind the Redcake house.

  A door opened, probably her own tradesmen’s door. She stumbled forward, forgetting caution, calling out. “Hello? It’s Matilda.”

  “Matilda?” A woman rushed forward, heedless of the rain and slippery grass.

  Matilda moved forward and all but fell into her sister Rose’s arms. She felt the slender bones of Rose’s arms as she closed them around her coat. Her sister exclaimed, and a warm shawl was dropped over her head and shoulders. She was towed toward the house.

  Her sister only said one word. “Jacob?”

  Only the most important thought came for now. “He’s alive, Rose.”

  “You saw him?”

  She nodded, feeling her wet hair snake up the back of her neck, then drop again, a ticklish sensation. “Yes, in a house somewhere.”

  “I don’t understand,” Rose said, pulling open the door and pushing her in.

  As the door shut, Matilda said, “They etherized me. How did I get back here?”

  “We didn’t hear anything, but the back garden is quite large. They must have brought you in through the mews, and the sound of the storm muffled everything.” An oil lamp flickered over her sister’s flushed face.

  “That coach wouldn’t have fit through the mews.”

  “Maybe they left it on the main street and carried you.” Rose cupped her cheeks, her hands feeling hot on Matilda’s frozen cheeks.

  “How long?” Matilda asked.

  “Three hours, darling. You were missing three hours.”

  They could have taken her anywhere in the city, then. But she had been in that room, waiting, for quite a while. She had warmed up twice: once before she went exploring, and again after she’d closed the swinging door. She’d been there for at least an hour, she estimated. Still, that gave the kidnappers plenty of leeway. The coach ride had been sickening, she recalled. So many turns, as if they had been going about in circles. Had she actually been nearby, the ride intended to confuse her? She knew she’d never been in that home before, though.

  Rose closed the door behind them and latched it, then started to unbutton Matilda’s coat. Matilda grabbed her sister’s hands.

  “We need to search the garden,” she insisted. “What if Jacob is there, too?”

  The door to the corridor leading into the house opened, and Gawain poked his head in. “Rose?” His eyes widened when he saw her, as light from the hallway illuminated the room. “Matilda? Oh, thank God.”

  She let him hug her for a second, then stepped back. “Find some lanterns. We need to search the garden.”

  He nodded and disappeared.

  “We’ll search,” Rose said, her voice strangling into a cough. “You need a bath. I’ll have Daisy start one for you.”

  “I need to find him.”

  “You’re shaking, and we need to know everything that happened. A quick bath and a change of clothes, while we search the garden and the mews. There might be tracks that will be obliterated by the rain soon.”

  The door opened again, and their parents burst in. Their mother gave a cry of joy and threw her arms around Matilda.

  “I’m soaked to the bone,” she protested, but her mother held her close anyway.

  “Jacob?” her father asked in an unsteady voice.

  “They brought him to me, then knocked me unconscious,” she said. “I don’t think they meant to take me. But he’s alive and well. I was hoping he was outside, too.”

  “What happened?”

  Rose shook her head. “She needs to warm before she becomes ill.”

  Gawain came in with two lanterns, Mrs. Miller behind him. The housekeeper took one look at Matilda and wrestled her away from her mother and bustled her down the corridor and upstairs to tidy up.

  She could hear the sounds of voices in the garden while Mrs. Miller helped her undress. The doors opened and closed in the house. She only allowed herself ten minutes in the bath, wrapping a towel around her hair to soak up the moisture rather than wash it, then Mrs. Miller helped her into dry clothes. The shaking had stopped, though she still felt icy to the bone.

  “A hot bowl of soup will do wonders,” Mrs. Miller said. “Let’s go downstairs so you can share what happened while you eat.”

  Matilda passed the clock in the hallway as she followed her housekeeper into the dining room and was shocked to discover it wasn’t quite nine P.M. While it had been a good six hours since she had left home for the park, it seemed like so much longer.

  By the time she had eaten half of her soup, the family had gathered around. Daisy and Mrs. Miller ladled out more bowls to the searchers, but before Gawain took his first bite, he shook his head with regret at Matilda.

  “I didn’t really think they’d sent him back with me,” she said, setting down her spoon. She still felt cold, but her mind had the kind of quiet that came before exhausted sleep.

  “You saw him, though?”

  Matilda watched her father’s hand shake as he picked up his spoon. She felt a surge of affection for him. “Yes, Papa. And then they ripped him out of my arms and etherized me. They’ll want more money, now.”

  “What do you mean, they won’t see me?” Ewan asked Mrs. Miller, cradling his aching arm.

  Gawain had asked him to stay on the streets after Matilda was taken, leading the search for signs of the coach along with the factory men. He’d done that for half an hour, but then he’d circled back to Gawain. The former soldier had seen the blood on his arm and had sent him to Mrs. Miller for repair. The gash had been bad enough to require some sewing. His knee had only been scraped, though his trousers were tattered. He’d taken a glass of brandy to help with the pain, but that had been hours ago.

  His arm throbbed, but he had returned to the street, walking a circuit that allowed him to interact with the men who moved farther into Bristol, reporting back any findings to Gawain. Nothing the men had seen had helped. The old-fashioned coach had vanished into the storm, like a hallucination.

  A few minutes before, he’d heard voices shouting and run toward the Redcake house, realizing that the noise had come from the back garden.

  Daisy, meeting him at the front door, said Matilda had been found, but not Jacob. He’d told the factory men they could go home, distributing the money Sir Bartley had handed him earlier so he could thank the men when appropriate.

  Now his duties were complete, and he expected to be welcomed into the family home to see the woman Gawain knew he wanted to marry.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Hales, but she was drugged and so frantic about Jacob. She made us search the back garden just in case they’d left him as well.”

  “I hope Gawain’s wife didn’t drug her again.” His physical exhaustion had him all but beyond emotion.

  “No, but she is dizzy enough from the ether. She’s had a rough night, if you don’t mind me saying so. And you lost a lot of blood. Go home and return in the morning. You need your rest as much as she does.”

  He nodded and turned away, half-forming plans like throwing rocks at Matilda’s window, above the front door, in the hope she would come to it, or going to the back garden himself. If he did that, though, Gawain might shoot him by accident, assuming it was the kidnappers returning.

  So, he went to his hotel, wishing he’d brought a flask or bottle of his own. Despite the throbbing of his arm, though, he fell asleep almost instantly, and slept until the sun had risen. When he opened the curtains, he saw sluggish rays of light between clouds. So far, this day appeared to be an improvement over the previous one.

  Still, they were missing one small two-year-old boy. As he dressed and shaved, he wondered what the kidnappers would do next. Demand another five thousand pounds? Would they expect the Redcakes to follow through, or imagine their refusal would make their choice to kill him easier? Who could think lik
e such an outright villain?

  As he walked over to the Redcake house after breakfast, he wondered about those men at the coach. The factory men had admitted sheepishly that they had not been watching the park because bewigged and costumed associates of the men who’d actually taken Matilda and the money were doing a performance down the street, juggling and tumbling and that sort of thing. Very well calculated to keep people away from the park and distracted.

  Too clever by half.

  But that coach; where could it be hidden? The exterior was anonymous enough, but the old-fashioned nature of the conveyance made it not so easy to hide. Still, Bristol was a big city. If it hadn’t been for the rain, they might have spoken to people on the street, costermongers and the like, and followed the coach’s path to somewhere, but in that rain, there hadn’t been many out of doors.

  He reached Matilda’s home and knocked. After a minute, Daisy opened it, and with a roll of her eyes she allowed him to pass inside.

  “Rainin’ out?” she asked pertly.

  “Not right now. You haven’t been out at all?”

  “Run ragged with all the people in the house. We need another maid if they’re going to stay much longer.”

  “They will stay until we have some resolution,” he said.

  Daisy sighed. “I could box Izabela’s ears for all this nonsense. If I’d had any idea what she was up to, I’d have tattled to Mrs. Miller.”

  “Tattled about what?”

  “She had men in her room, a couple of times. Miss Redcake didn’t mind Jacob creeping downstairs into her room, so Izabela was alone sometimes.”

  “How did Izabela let her followers know she was free?”

  “With candles in the window.”

  Ewan stared at the maid. Could they call the follower to the house using the same system? But no, the follower was probably the kidnapper and would know Izabela wasn’t in residence. “How did the man get inside the house?”