Chapter Four
Inside the townhouse, Zella Hopkins dropped all pretense. Her voice came out harsher, her true accent more pronounced and significantly less genteel. “Damn you, Dylan! Damn you! You know that we never book appointments without being certain who will be attending!”
“She never said anyone else was coming with her,” the young man insisted. He reached for her, his hands stroking her arms gently, dropping lower to take her hands in his.
Abruptly, she pulled away. She wasn’t truly angry with him, but she was frightened. Failure was not an option. The consequences would be swift and ugly. “Did you ask?”
“She came in alone,” he protested. “I asked her if the appointment was for her and she replied, ‘who else would it be for’! What was I supposed to think?”
She wrung her hands as she paced the length of the room. Despite her diminutive stature, her strides were long, her movements brisk. “This is a disaster. We’ve lingered too long here.”
“We’ve had better luck here than anywhere. The number of young, gullible women in this city is rivaled only by London! We’re better off here, in fact, because they are more gullible. Women in London are too suspicious, too aware that things like this can happen!”
“And if any more women disappear in Bath, how long do you think it will take them to become just as suspicious here?” she fired back.
“We promised him the girl. It has to be her. He was very clear about that. What do we do? If we don’t deliver her to him—”
Fear had been her constant companion and, to some degree, she was accustomed to it. But it made her heart ache to hear it in his voice. She turned toward him, reached out her hand and cupped his face. “My handsome love, do not fret so. We’ll get him the girl but, in the meantime, we’ll give him a peace offering. She may not be the one promised, but you’ll find one. Go to the taverns. Find one young enough to still be moved by your pretty face, and pretty enough that he won’t mind she’s not an innocent.”
He gripped her hand, holding it tightly to him as he turned to kiss her palm. “It won’t cancel the debt.”
“No. It’s simply an olive branch to appease him. One to keep him happy until we can deliver what we promised… Miss Masters. We’ll need to work this very carefully. And above all, we need to find out who her dashing hero was.”
“I saw him. Earlier in the day, he was walking up and down the street, paying particular attention to our front door,” Dylan said. “If we’re lucky, he’ll die from his wounds and cause us no more problems.”
“I doubt we’re that lucky. It doesn’t tend to favor people with souls as dark as ours,” Zella answered in a hushed tone. “We can only assume that he’s connected to one of the others. After you’ve procured the girl, find Fenton and ask him what the man said. We need to know who he is and why he’s asking questions.”
“When this is over and we’re free of him—”
Zella placed her fingertips to Dylan’s lips, marveling as she always did that he could have been blessed with such beauty. It was a pity his wit was not so worthy of exultation. “We will never be free of him. And thank heavens for it. As long as we are useful, we live. The moment he no longer has need of us, then we’ll simply vanish… and there will be no one to ask where we’ve gone. Do you understand that, Dylan? We’re in this for as long as he lives or we die.”
*
The room was pitch black when she awoke. The darkness was so deep and impenetrable that she couldn’t see her own hand in front of her face. Swallowing a moan of despair, forcing herself to work through her fear, Mary sat up on the narrow cot that was her only respite from the cold and damp that surrounded her. She couldn’t even be certain she was alone. Was it preferable to be alone in the darkness? What if she wasn’t alone? What if whoever or whatever was in the darkness with her meant her harm?
Summoning her courage, she called out tentatively, “Hello? Is anyone there?”
Her own voice echoed back to her, distorted and strange to her ears. Alone then, she thought grimly. Perhaps it was for the best. Blinded as she was by the inky blackness surrounding her, she would never be able to differentiate friend from foe.
She moved her hands experimentally and found that the bonds she’d worn before were gone. Though sore and tender to the touch, her wrists were now free of the ropes that had held her fast the last time she’d awoken. Her ankles were freed, as well. She took neither as a good omen. If her captors believed there was any possibility of escaping whatever dungeon currently held her, those bonds would never have been removed. Despair welled up inside her, but she tamped it down. She would not give up and she would not give in.
“I’m not like other girls,” she said softly, her voice little more than a whisper. “I survived the Masons and their torment, didn’t I? I can get through this, too! I’m not going to just sit here and wait for whatever fate they have in store for me.”
With those hollow words of encouragement ringing in her ears, Mary struggled to her feet. She swayed, still dizzy from whatever substance had been on the foul smelling cloth they’d held over her mouth and nose as they dragged her to a waiting carriage. Using the edge of the cot as a guide, she followed it to the wall. With her hands pressed against the wet and sometimes slimy feeling stone, she inched carefully, one painful step at a time, around the periphery of the room. The aches and pains of having been manhandled, bound, tossed in a carriage and then dragged into whatever pit she currently found herself in had taken a toll on her.
Her foot struck a loose stone on the floor and she gasped with the sudden agony of it. Disoriented by the dark, stiff and sore from being bound for so long, she lost her balance and pitched forward onto the hard floor. The rough stones scraped her palms and the jolt of it made her shoulders ache. Tears threatened, but they were a useless indulgence. Forcing them back, swallowing past the lump in her throat and the metallic tang of fear, she rallied.
Struggling once more to her feet, she placed her abraded hand against the wall and moved forward again. More carefully than before, she patted the ground in front of her with her foot to ensure that the way was clear.
The texture of the wall changed, giving way from stone to wood. It wasn’t quite relief as Mary was unwilling to give herself leave to hope just yet. But wood meant a man-made structure, and a man-made structure meant there was likely a door or window. Based on the absolute blackness around her, she had to assume that she was underground or hidden away well within the confines of another building.
Running her fingertips up and down the boards, she kept moving until she encountered the rusted metal of a hinge. Taking a deep breath, she sighed into the darkness and let the feeling of relief swarm her for just a moment. Whether she could get out or not, at that time, remained a mystery. But at least there was a way out and now she knew where it was.
More investigation revealed a second hinge and several inches further, she encountered the heavy latch. It was locked, of course. She hadn’t expected anything less. Sinking back against the wood, she allowed herself a moment’s reprieve. After catching her breath, she reached up to her hair, hoping against hope that one of her pins had managed to snag in the tangled mass. Luck, in that respect, was with her at least. Plucking the one remaining pin from her hair, she carefully lowered herself to the floor once more and began working on the lock.
A soft shuffling noise sounded on the other side of the door and Mary stilled immediately. She dared not even breathe. After what seemed an eternity, when no other sound was heard, she leaned forward again and pressed her face against the wooden door, listening for any hint of who might be on the other side.
Suddenly and without warning, a fist pounded heavily on the door causing her to jump back. She landed on her bottom, terrified and feeling as if she were being toyed with.
“I hear you in there, little mouse!”
The words were called out in a soft sing-song fashion, taunting and cruel. “Who are you?” she shouted back. “Why am I here?”
“You’ll find out soon enough, my little mouse,” the man answered in that same childish fashion. “All in good time.”
Mary could hear him laughing as he moved away. She wouldn’t give up. She would find a way out of that room and a way to avoid whatever fate her cruel captor had in store for her.