by Holly Newman
Janine looked from Cecilia to Lady Meriton and back, confusion written on her face. Cecilia looked over at her and smiled wanly.
"I'm sorry, Janine. That was rude to talk of things you know nothing about. I'm afraid I'm not good company as I am obsessed."
"I don't mean to be nosy," her friend said carefully, "but I have often observed that a fresh insight on a problem aids in resolution."
"I do not think a fresh insight could solve this situation," Cecilia said.
"It will not change the facts, but it may change how you view them," Lady Meriton suggested pensively. "Let me order refreshments while you consider. She needs to talk," she told Janine.
Janine looked uncertainly from one to the other. "Please, I did not mean to cause a problem. I just thought—"
"It's all right, Janine. Perhaps Jessamine is right. We're so caught up in everything, maybe we can't see things clearly any longer. Though I'm not certain you could be any more objective than we are. But you must promise that what you hear today will not go beyond this room."
"I am not my mother. You have my sincere word on it."
"All right then," Cecilia said sighing heavily. She waited while Loudon served them, using the time to gather her thoughts. After he left, she took a sip of tea, drew a deep breath, and told her how she came to marry Mr. Waddley and what she assumed were her brother's motives for arranging the match. The tale took some telling. There was some things Janine did not understand, and much that sickened her, for her life had been insulated against such atrocities. But when Cecilia told her of Mr. Thornbridge's revelations about Lord Havelock and Sir Elsdon, she would not accept Lord Havelock as the guilty party.
"I will grant you he has changed, but nothing could undermine his basic good nature to that extent. No. I refuse to believe it of him. It has to be Sir Elsdon."
"But Janine, Angel Swafford as much as said it was Lord Havelock."
"She didn't name him explicitly, did she? And you said yourself you only saw a dark silhouette of the man who took Miss Swafford. It could have been Sir Elsdon. They are of the same height."
"Janine, Janine, see how hard it is not to allow one's emotions to color one's judgment?"
"He could not have changed that radically! You didn't know him as I did. To change in the manner you're suggesting implies insanity."
"I don't know how anyone could enter into this spice trade, as they call it, without being insane," said Lady Meriton softly.
"It can't be Havelock. I could more believe him to be this government infiltrator than I could the perpetrator of such horror."
"Cecilia, I have a thought. You say you only saw his silhouette. Do you think you would recognize that silhouette if you saw it again?" Lady Meriton asked.
Cecilia nodded slowly, the light of comprehension shining in her eyes. "Yes, I believe I would. Do you have silhouettes of both gentlemen? Preferably ones I have not seen before? That way I can avoid prejudice."
"I believe I do," Lady Meriton said rising and hurrying toward the door. "I'll not be but a few moments."
"And I promise, should it prove to be Lord Havelock, I'll not make objection," said Janine.
"I should never have told you. It's not fair to burden you in this manner. I dislike burdening others in any way."
"No. Don't feel that way. I've lived too sheltered a life. I think, maybe, all of us in society lead sheltered lives. To us, evil and crime are out there somewhere, apart from our world. It's like they're enacted on stage and we sit in our protected little boxes watching it all, untouched by reality. That's not right."
Janine's face shone with an intentness and conviction that startled Cecilia. She'd not thought of the matter in the global manner Janine did. To do so hinted at a growing corruption within the very fabric of their society, regardless of any personal relationship with the perpetrators. She found herself idiotically wishing the entire matter would disappear in a puff of smoke. She chided herself for her weakness, but the wish remained.
"Here," Lady Meriton said, coming through the door. She stopped to close it carefully behind her. "I have brought four pictures. Two are Havelock and Elsdon. The other two are not. Their names are written on the back. I shall place them on this table over here," she said, clearing a space on the cluttered table behind the sofa. "Now, Cecilia, come here and identify Miss Swafford's abductor."
Cecilia came around the sofa hesitantly, nervously. She was followed by Janine who peered around her at the four silhouettes.
She thought she recognized the man instantly, but she took an extra moment to study them all carefully. Finally she pointed to the second one from the end. "That one."
Lady Meriton flipped it over. HAVELOCK.
Janine went white, but steadied herself on the table edge. Cecilia put an arm about her and together they stared at the damning silhouette.
A soft knock on the door pulled their attention away from the black profile. "Begging your pardon, my lady, but Sir Elsdon is here."
"Send him up," Cecilia said peremptorily.
"Do you think that's wise? Though we may believe Havelock to be the leader, that does not mean he works alone," Lady Meriton said as she gathered up the pictures.
"True, but I doubt he'd have more than one in the same social circle," Cecilia said. She led Janine back around the sofa. "Sir Elsdon, my lady," announced Loudon.
"Mrs. Waddley, I am sorry to intrude on you in this fashion. Hie ho! but it seems the world is falling down around me. I shall never get my play produced. But that is not important now. Dear Mrs. Waddley, I have just come from Cheney House. I went to pay my respects to your brother. While I was there the baron suffered some sort of seizure and collapsed."
"No," whispered Cecilia. She turned to Lady Meriton. "Didn't I say I had no idea what form papa's reaction would take? I should have gone to him this morning!"
"This morning you were in no condition to be of help to anyone," her aunt said, her expression considering, her eyes never leaving Sir Elsdon.
"The place is in an uproar. The duke is yelling at everyone and the baron is asking for you," he said, holding out his hand toward Cecilia. "I said as my coach was just outside, I'd fetch you. But you must come quickly. I don't know if he has much time left."
"I'll fetch my shawl and bonnet," Cecilia said, hurrying out the door.
"Perhaps I'd best go with her," said Lady Meriton.
"Excellent idea," said Sir Elsdon. "Better yet, why don't you pack Mrs. Waddley a portmanteau and follow with it. She's bound to want to stay the night at Cheney House."
She nodded as Cecilia appeared in the doorway.
"I'll see you to the carriage," Janine said, running ahead of Sir Elsdon to Cecilia's side. She put an arm around her and led her downstairs and out the door.
Sir Elsdon's carriage was standing just outside. Quickly, Janine hugged Cecilia and saw Sir Elsdon hand her into the carriage. She stood on the step and watched as the carriage drove down the street and turned south at the corner. Slowly she turned to reenter the house, aware of shouting and scurrying as servants ran to do Lady Meriton's bidding. She asked a passing footman headed toward the servants' quarters to fetch her maid.
Something was bothering her, but she couldn't say what it was. She stood uncertainly in the hallway, trying to puzzle it out. Behind her came a loud banging of the door knocker. With the butler and footmen vanished into the nether regions of the house, she stepped forward to open the door.
On the other side stood Lord Havelock! He grasped her by the shoulders and half-pushed, half-led her into the house.
"Is Miss Swafford here?" he asked anxiously. His clothes were in wild disarray and liberally smeared with dirt.
"Loudon! Stephen! Grab that man!" ordered Lady Meriton uselessly from the top of the stairs. The two servants were not about.
He abruptly raised his hands from her shoulders, but made no move to bolt for the open door. "Wait, Lady Meriton—"
The sunlight streaming in the door was cut off by th
e broad-shouldered figure of Sir Branstoke. He held a pistol in his hand aimed at Lord Havelock.
Suddenly what had been bothering Janine surfaced in her mind. "The carriage went the wrong way!" she blurted out. She grabbed Lord Havelock's arm. "You're the government agent, aren't you?"
"What?—"
She shook his arm angrily. "You're the one investigating white slavery, aren't you?"
"Yes, damn it, I am! Is Miss Swafford here?"
"But Cecilia identified you as abducting Miss Swafford," said Lady Meriton, confused and increasingly frightened.
"I did. But she didn't trust me and ran. And I'm sorry for hitting you, Branstoke," he said, glancing his way. "In the dark I took you for one of Elsdon's men.'.'
Sir Branstoke lowered his gun slightly and came into the hall. He remembered Miss Amblethorp mentioned a carriage. "Where's Cecilia?" he asked in a dead voice, for he feared the answer with every particle of his being.
Lady Meriton moaned and sagged down on a stair step. Janine's hand gripped Lord Havelock's arm tightly, her nails digging into the wool sleeve. "With Sir Elsdon," she whispered past parched lips.
For a heartbeat, the hall was silent, then everyone began talking at once. Lady Meriton- tried to explain what happened, but her words were disjointed and punctuated with asides to Janine that she was right. Finally Branstoke and Havelock abandoned their efforts to get any sense out of Lady Meriton and turned to Janine.
She gulped and clung to Lord Havelock. "He said he was taking her to Cheney House, for her father was ill. But I watched them as they drove away. They should have turned north at the end of the block to go to Cheney House. They turned south!"
"South!" exclaimed Branstoke.
"Where could he be taking her? From my information his cargo is to sail this afternoon with the tide," said Havelock. He looked up at Branstoke. "The admiralty is waiting downriver to intercept the ship."
"South, you say," repeated Branstoke. "Damn it, of course! He's not using that ship. It's a decoy! He's headed for the other side of the river!"
"What?" Havelock asked, his eyes intent upon Branstoke, though he kept an arm about Janine.
"I've had a man watching Waddley's. Last night he told me of lighter activity in and out of there to the other side of the river. He said the ship docked at Waddley's looked like it was riding curiously high in the water for a fully loaded cargo ship. Cecilia and I concluded he was only going to take his human cargo which wouldn't weigh the ship down as much. But what if those lighters were transferring the cargo to another ship, to a smaller one, perhaps, anchored across the river? To a type of ship that would not be stopped by the admiralty?"
"You mean something like a hoy, which sails the river between London and Margate?"
"Precisely. It gets by your planned reception committee and meets with a ship anchored somewhere beyond Gravesend. Probably along the coast between the Isle of Sheppey and Margate."
"Yes, if he is suspicious at all, which Elsdon is, that is something he'd do. Particularly as I believe he's leaving the country with this, his last cargo. We'd better get a message out using the semaphore towers. My horse is fresh yet." He looked inquiringly at Branstoke.
"As is mine. If we ride hard, we should be able to beat them downriver for the tide's not turned yet."
They bid the ladies good-bye, assuring them they would do everything in their power to rescue Cecilia. Janine and Lady Meriton watched them ride off in the direction Sir Elsdon's carriage took, nearly causing an accident with a heavy traveling coach that was turning the corner. The driver pulled hard to the side, fighting to keep his startled horses from rearing and tangling the traces. He got them settled, though they still danced a bit, and drove them forward only to stop in front of Meriton House. A tall, angular figure with grizzled sideburns framing an ascetic face descended the coach step and looked up at the house. Lady Meriton squealed and ran down the steps.
"Meriton!" she exclaimed before throwing herself into his arms and bursting into tears.
Cecilia studied the face of the complacent gentleman seated across from her. Sunlight through the carriage windows caught the red-gold of his hair where it curled about his collar. It was odd, she thought in a detached manner, how a man moderately good-looking on the outside could be entirely cancerous and vile inside. He was unequivocally a facile and talented actor and decidedly correct when he claimed that if he'd been born a lesser man he would have been a greater man. That certainty prevented her from berating herself too severely for her predicament. Though she was wrong, again, she felt no guilt, only a strange floating feeling of fatalism.
That detached feeling had overwhelmed her when the carriage turned south, away from Cheney House. She remembered Sir Elsdon studying her with a tense set to his posture. He was waiting for her to discover his lie and either grovel at his feet begging for mercy or fight for her freedom. She did neither. She merely raised an eyebrow and praised him for his acting ability.
He had been for a moment surprised and taken back by her reaction. That pleased Cecilia, and she filed that knowledge away carefully in her brain. Recovering swiftly, he smiled at her in a manner she'd never seen him use. It was more of a leer, and spoke volumes for the depth of his self-confidence. She filed that knowledge away as well.
He in turn had praised her for her perspicacity for which she demurred, saying if she had intuitive talents, she would not find herself in the carriage with him at that moment.
He demurred. He assured her that she would have been right where she was because that is where he wished her to be. She begged that he accept that they were doomed to disagree, and the conversation slackened there. Cecilia turned her head to look out the window and desultorily followed their journey through the changing landscape.
Now, with the smell of fish, timber and tar redolent in the warm afternoon air, she knew they were approaching the river from a direction she'd never come. The carriage was slowing as it picked its way through narrowing streets. She wondered if she dared try to bolt, then decided to husband her energy for a more auspicious time. Sir Elsdon, though now more relaxed, was wait-ing and watching for her to make a break. Besides, she didn't see how he could escape the net being cast for him by both Bow Street and the government agent. To do anything untoward would likely result in her early demise or worse, an early induction into the trade he planned for her.
No, it was best to remain calm and clearheaded. Strong emotions would muddy her thinking. Furthermore, calmness on her behalf would likely disconcert him more and perhaps lead to errors on his part. One could only wait, hope, and fervently pray.
Sir Elsdon glanced out the window then turned to address Cecilia. "You surprise me, Mrs. Waddley," he said, pulling a bottle out of his pocket. "You have exhibited none of the reactions I expected on the realization of your abduction. You have not fought and screamed, nor collapsed in a prostrate bundle of pathetic tears and pleas for mercy."
"Indeed, sir. I shall take that as a compliment."
"Nor, curiously, have you fainted or complained of bodily failings as so often society has been audience to."
"It has been my good fortune to have my health improving daily."
"If I were you, I would call it misfortune," he said smiling evilly. He looked at the bottle of brownish liquid that he held. "Almost you convince me that this is not necessary."
She stared at the bottle and wished she'd fought him and tried to escape earlier. It was laudanum. He was going to drug her. She looked from the bottle to his grinning face, tensing her muscles.
"Almost,” he repeated in a soft murmur before his free hand shot out to grab her around the throat, choking, forcing her mouth open.
Cecilia bucked and flailed at him, twisting and turning against his weight as he leaned on her, using his body to anchor her while he guided the bottle to her lips. She jerked her head aside, only to feel his fingers cruelly digging into the soft white skin of her throat. She gouged his face with her nails drawing pinpricks of blood.
He swore viciously and jammed the open bottle between her teeth. She gagged on the liquid, trying to spit it out, but she had no breath. It ran out the sides of her mouth. Tears squeezed from the corners of her eyes. Her eyes blurred and her head began to swim. Spots of gray-blackness danced at the edges of her vision then rushed to close against consciousness. She went limp.
Cecilia regained consciousness slowly, her first awareness a fiery pain in her throat and the aching muscles of her neck. She moved fitfully, as if to escape the relentless pain only to discover the slightest movement intensified her agony. A damp cloth touched her brow, her face, and then her neck. She relaxed and listened to the deep, husky murmur of a voice above her head that seemed to accompany the soothing progress of the cloth. In the background she heard soft crying, creaking wood, and the dim echoes of shouting from somewhere above.
She opened her eyes, then blinked as they grew accustomed to a gloomy world. A tangle of dark red curls slid into her field of vision. "Angel," she whispered in a thin, croaking thread of sound. She tried to smile, but only managed a grimace. She swallowed painfully and parted her lips to speak again when a finger lightly pressed against them.
"Hush, don't try to speak yet," said Angel. "Have some water first. Here, let me help you sit up."
It was then Cecilia felt the unfamiliar cold weight about her wrists and heard the clank of chains. Iron manacles around each wrist were joined by a length of chain two feet long. She quickly struggled to sit up, ignoring the wave of dizziness that assailed her. Angel handed her a small jug of water. She drank some thankfully, the tepid liquid remarkably cooling to her battered throat. Each swallow was painful, but less so than the last.