What about her life? She had thought she was making a new life at Bellerose. She loved Clayton, but he did not love her, or even want her.
Maggie slumped down in the chair at the window, head in her hands as the tears flowed. Sobs, heart wrenching and heart broken, would not abate. She didn’t even try to stem them. She cried for…everything. For her family, life, but mostly for the love she had for Clayton. It was one sided. Would always be, because Clayton Abbott was determined to shut out the world, including her, despite all she had tried to do.
Fisting her hands, she rubbed at her eyes. Crying would not help her. She had left her life once before to make a new start. She could do it again.
Her gaze shifted to the unmade bed and a hiccup tore from her chest.
Forget it. Forget him.
She jumped to her feet, tearing her gaze away from memories of last night, of making love with Clayton, and strode to the wardrobe. It was then she spied the piece of paper on the floor.
Bending to retrieve it, she straightened the scrap of wrinkled parchment.
Meet me at the Dinner Club. E.
Edward?
Had Clayton gone to meet with him? Edward was dangerous.
Clayton had promised they were a team and though he may not want her in his bed any more, she would not give up. She was stronger than that, and determined.
Racing to get dressed, she grabbed the first thing from the wardrobe, a navy blue dress and matching three quarter length coat. She eyed herself critically in the mirror. As with the other clothes Clayton had ordered for her, this dress fit as if it had been made for her personally.
“Enough!” She didn’t have time for such self-indulgence. She needed to find Clayton and be at his side—just in case.
In case of what?
Ice slithered the length of her spine. She wouldn’t think of the what-ifs. Snatching another of the handbags Clayton had purchased, tucking in the few pound notes he’d given her when he found out she’d lost her other bag and its contents, she didn’t waste any more time and hurried out of the hotel.
Out in the late morning sunshine, the doorman waved down a taxi. Thankfully, the traffic was minimal and she arrived outside the Dinner Club a short time later.
Opposite Whites in St. James, the Dinner Club was supposedly a more sedate eatery for gentlemen and somewhere they could take their lady friends. All very discreet. However, it was also the place that Charlie had mentioned, where Edward spent hours in the backroom gambling.
For what seemed ages, Maggie stared at the entrance, unsure if she could simply just walk in, and whether it was sensible. However, sensible seemed to have flown out the window lately, especially last night. She’d made love with a man who could not offer her anything of himself, and yet here she was charging to be at his side, when he had blatantly said he did not want her.
What a fool she was.
A fool in love.
Clayton believed he could not offer her a life, but he did not understand. His scars did not matter to her. It was what was inside the man, the loyalty, honesty, and integrity of the man that made him what he was. Not his scars.
Funny how her good name had meant nothing as she had listened to Clayton’s soft breathing, or when she’d been wrapped in his arms, or when he was inside her. Loving her.
Vivid memories played across her brain and a telling heat warmed her cheeks. She fanned herself with a gloved hand.
Clayton. He was what was important right now. Only Clayton.
Shoulders back, she entered the large foyer, noticed by the maitre’d as she headed toward the restaurant entrance.
“Can I help you, miss?”
She tipped her chin up, and offered a smile. Keep calm. You can do this.
“I’m here to see Mr. Abbott.”
The man’s gaze hooked with hers and she had the distinct impression he was summing her up—albeit reasonably discreetly as was his job. “Is he expecting you?”
“No, but I have to see him.”
“Mr. Abbott is already dining with a guest.”
“Yes, I know, with Edward, I mean, Lord Hindmarch.”
The man’s brows knitted and he glanced over her shoulder towards the dining patrons. “I think you are mistaken.”
“No I’m not, he left a note.”
The man raised a hand and pointed toward the guests behind her.
Dread souring in her stomach, she glanced towards the restaurant.
“Mr. Abbott is with Miss Elaine Forrester.”
Her dread turned to stone.
‘E’ for Elaine. Not Edward.
She couldn’t move, nor could she take her eyes off the both of them. She heard a trill laugh and witnessed the exquisite socialite smile. Elaine—Clayton’s ex-fiancé. So perfect. Rich. Pretty. Not a hair out of place. Perfect for him.
No wonder he did not want her. He’d taken what she’d so blatantly offered, and then left.
Elaine rested a fine boned hand over Clayton’s. It stayed there.
Maggie wanted to be sick and pressed a hand hard against her stomach and clamped the other over her mouth.
Clayton was with Elaine.
Last night he had been with her, making love to her.
Sucking in a steadying breath, she fought the need to cry. Damn the man. He’d used her and then returned to the arms of his first love.
Shutting out the haunting vision, she stumbled backwards.
“Miss? Miss? Are you alright?”
Maggie cast a dead-eyed look at the maitre’d. “I...no, yes.” Her hands dropped to her sides, shoulders slumped. She didn’t know really, only that she felt both numb and in excruciating pain at the same time.
She had to get away. Far away from the pain and the disappointment. In herself. In Clayton. In the hopes she had pinned on a future that didn’t exist, that never had, except in her mind—and never would.
Pivoting from the happy couple, Maggie ran from the building and stumbled down the steps into the street.
She ran. Ran helter skelter, uncaring where she went. Just that she had to put as much distance as she could between Clayton and herself.
He’d used her, abandoned her, and then gone to... Obviously the woman was no longer his ex.
Abandoned. Abandoned her. Why was it everyone left her?
Lungs bursting and screaming for oxygen, her hat fell from her head, hair unfurled and tangling around her face, blinding her.
She had nothing with her. Little money of any account. No clothes. But what did it matter, because the one thing she thought she’d had—her love for him—had been decimated in the wake of the morning. He’d done the one thing she could not accept.
Abandoned her.
Gasping, she came to a grinding halt. Her stomach ached with a stitch and she pressed a hand there hard, trying to stem it.
Leaning against the building behind her, she swiped at the fresh tears streaming down her face.
Where was she?
She glanced around, not recognizing a soul, nor a building or a street name. What was this about her lately that she wandered without thinking or knowing where she was going? “Fool.” Now what?
She began to walk and continued to walk.
It was a tiny stone in her shoe that at last made her stop. She leaned against the wall and slipped off her shoe, shaking out the stone, but as she put the shoe back on, she realized suddenly that more time had passed than she had thought. She glanced up at the sky, trying to estimate the time. It had to be about four p.m., the winter darkness falling.
As she orientated herself, something seemed familiar. Something she didn’t want to recognize. Instead of heading west, she’d gone east and by her calculations, she was not more than half a mile from the streets of Chinatown.
A shiver tracked up her spine, aligned to a sudden fear of the known. The winter sun had settled behind the buildings and cast a gray tone across all and a chilling pall took over. She couldn’t stay here. She had to keep moving.
But to where?
Pushing away from the security of her little hideaway, she began to walk back the way she’d come. She needed to find a landscape she recognized and hopefully by then she would come up with a plan.
But what about Clayton?
What about him?
He had Miss Perfect back in his life.
Footsteps leaden, and her head aching, she walked to the end of the street. She now understood what it meant to have a broken heart.
“Going somewhere?”
Maggie’s head jerked up, fear instant. She took a step sideways, but so did the
burly shadow in front of her.
She tried again. He imitated her.
“Get out of my way.”
She looked over her shoulder and blood froze to ice. Another man stood behind her.
“Look, I have no money.” She pulled out her pockets to prove it.
He said nothing, but stepped closer and she knew instantly that the man behind her did the same.
Suddenly she heard the sputter of an engine behind her and she made a dash into the street. “Help. Help.” She waved madly at the driver, praying he would stop. “Stop. Help me.”
A hand grabbed at her shoulder, but she shucked it off. He muttered something unintelligible. The vehicle halted and the door was thrown back. A man stepped out and Maggie bolted for him. “You’ve got to help...” Her words died as she recognized Wah Lee.
“You’ve led me a dance, Miss Francis.”
“Get out of my way. These men.” She again glanced over her shoulder. They stood not yards away, smirks on their grimy faces.
“Work for me.”
Her jaw dropped.
“What do you want?”
“You.”
“Me! I don’t have anything. I’m nobody.”
“No, but you will give me what I want.”
Realization set in. “I’m presuming you’re talking about your box of opium.”
His sleazy smile spread, though his eyes remained totally deadly. “You’re a clever lady.”
“I should say thank you for the compliment, but I won’t. You don’t deserve anyone’s thanks and definitely not mine. But as I said, I’m no use to you, I don’t know where your bloody poison is.”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter if you like or dislike me.”
“Oh, I don’t like you one little bit, Mr. Lee.”
“Which is just as well because fear works so much better, don’t you think?” He nodded towards the two men at her rear, muttering something in their familiar language.
Strong arms grabbed at hers, wrenching them back almost as if they were being pulled from their sockets. Intense pain overrode everything and for a moment her vision blurred. “Leave me. Please. Help. Someone help.”
Wah Lee stepped up close; the rancid smell of garlic and something else—something evil—assailed her nostrils. She tried to shrink from his approach, but his goons held her with her arms twisted up her back.
“No one will hear you, or help you, Miss Francis. This is my territory. Do it.” He spun away.
Do what?
Oh, Clayton. Clayton.
Suddenly a cloth smothered her nose and mouth, the stench asphyxiating and clogging her ability to breathe, to think. Her mind shuttered, every limb languid and unable to move.
Run, Maggie. Run.
But she couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything, or think...or...
Oh, Clayton.
***
From the corner of his eye he spied a whisper of auburn hair.
Maggie?
He spun around, but he saw no one.
Wishful thinking?
At last he felt free of Elaine. Free of…
About to exit the club, Clayton heard someone call his name. Frustration rode through him at being held up.
He turned to face Andrew Hardy. Lieutenant Hardy to be exact, and automatically Clayton stiffened to attention. “Lieutenant Hardy.”
The man came up to him and held out his hand. Clayton took it.
“None of that army stuff now, Abbott. We’re all in civvy street. I’m back in banking—in the City, you know. Bloody glad to be home. Bet you are, too.”
Clayton’s mouth shifted ever so slightly, but he kept his scarf firmly in place.
“Though I guess your...ah misfortune with those black-marketers trying to make an extra pound or two really was unfortunate, especially when it appears it was our own boys.”
Black market?
Clayton’s recent nightmare took flight in his head.
“Should never have shot you, though. A bit greedy I say.”
Shot me?
Clayton’s brain whirred, real time images blasting his consciousness. On automatic, he lifted a hand to his scalp and massaged his temple.
“I say, old fellow, you all right?”
“Yes, fine.” Like hell he was. “A bit of déjà vu.”
Oblivious to Clayton’s real state of mind, Hardy chuckled. “Well, I must be on my way. Nice chatting. We must catch up again. Whatever happened to those fellows, do you know?”
Clayton desperately needed clarity. “Which fellows?”
Hardy’s ginger brows rose. “The ones that shot you, of course. Nasty business, but I guess you stumbled onto their activities. Though they never quite owned up to shooting you. I heard a rumor someone was trying to bring them to justice, even now.” He offered a shrug. “Definitely a sorry business. Never mind, stiff upper lip and all that.” He lifted his trilby and offered a wave. “Again, Abbott. Must do this again.”
Shocked beyond numbness, Clayton charged outside and down the steps of the club and then came to an abrupt halt. The sun had edged out from behind a thick cloud and now glowed down on everything beneath it and for the first time in days the world took on a glorious radiance.
Just as his world had changed.
A vague clarity eked from behind the brain fugue that had clouded his consciousness for months. Suddenly the dreams began to made sense and were no longer fear-filled. Though shocking in the extreme, it had not been the enemy who had destroyed his face, but his own men.
He could not remember every thread of what happened. Snippets gathered. Stolen liquor. Reports of stolen artifacts. Church icons. Art. Jewelry. A conversation overheard. Then nothing.
As he stood under the portico of the club, a doorman waved up a taxi. The uniformed doorman opened the taxi door.
About to take his seat in the rear, Clayton halted and stepped back. “Thank you, but I’ve changed my mind. I think, since the sun is out, I’ll walk for a while.”
Things were starting to at last make some sense. Oh, it certainly wasn’t crystal clear, but there were hints – conversations - blurred faces and as Clayton walked briskly in the direction of the Savoy, excitement escalated in his chest.
***
Every inch of her ached, muscles contorted, and her head throbbed as if it had beaten repeatedly by a baton.
Wake up! Get up!
Her eyes fluttered open but instantly closed again, the investment in such an action too exhausting to contemplate.
Instead, she lay with her eyes closed, while her brain reactivated and her hearing was on full alert to listen to her surroundings.
At first she heard nothing, and then voices, all tangled together. She recognized the same sounds as when she and Clayton had visited the kitchen at Tiger’s Eyes.
Clayton?
Where was he? Was he safe? Did he know she’d been...
Abducted? Kidnapped?
But then why would he? He was busy rekindling a life with Miss Perfect. He didn’t need her now.
Tears welled. It was no use thinking of Clayton. Whatever they had was over before it had even started.
But it had started last night in his arms and with his kisses.
No. No. No. She had to forget him. Forget that beautiful moment. She needed to start again in a new life, and forget him just like he had so easily forgotten her.
But
Maggie wasn’t so certain she could forget him.
She needed to keep calm, plan. How long she’d been contained she had no idea. Or how much longer? But she refused to think those thoughts.
So why do I want to scream and scream and scream?
Because she was afraid. So very afraid.
Because...what if...
Stop! I can’t think like that.
The cold and damp from the stone floor seeped into her bones and as she tried to stretch out, every muscle screamed in protest. Biting back the pain, she crab walked her fingers along the floor, pulling herself to her knees. Then she did the same to stand resting against the dank wall for balance.
Finally the whirring in her brain eased and she could stand without feeling as if she were going to topple. She held one hand to the wall and walked along, trying to gauge the distance. It wasn’t much – two, maybe three yards at most. At each corner she did the same.
It appeared she was the only thing in the room. No bed, boxes. No light, nor a window. A coffin within a building.
Not even a toilet, which unfortunately was becoming urgent.
Stumbling to the door, she fumbled for the handle and wriggled it.
As expected, it was locked.
Urgent, now became a necessity. Fisting her hand, Maggie thumped on the metal door, again and again, calling out for attention. “I need to...”
Keys rattled in the door and she stepped back, wrapping her hands across her middle, fearful of who was on the other side.
“You!”
Chapter Twenty
Beneath the glare of a single bulb stood Edward Hindmarch, the Duke of Darlington, Clayton’s nemesis.
His brow rose. “You want something?”
“I need the toilet.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
She couldn’t help but sneer.
“You stole Josephine’s diary. You used Bellerose for your own gain, but the worst thing is, you betrayed your best friend.”
“Believe what you like. I told you that all was not what it seemed. Now, come with me and say nothing.”
She went to speak and he held up a finger. “Keep quiet, Maggie. Don’t make it worse.”
“How worse can it be when I’ve been kidnapped?”
“That’s just it. You are kidnapped, but at least you’re alive—still.”
Saving the Soldier's Heart (The Emerald Quest Book 2) Page 21