The Delicate Matter of Lady Blayne (44 page)

Chapter Thirty-One

Sunny awoke and glanced at the china clock on her night table.

One in the afternoon.

She ought to call for her lemon and hot water, the replacement for her formerly customary hot tea or chocolate in the morning. She ought to rise and face the day with more courage than she’d had of late.

She started to push into a sitting position but fatigue assailed her. Fatigue that was more of the spirit than the body. That was something one didn’t appreciate until it was gone—the will to go on that pulled one from the bed each morning.

She groaned and pulled the covers back over her face to shield her eyes. She willed sleep to overtake her.

Instead she slipped into a half-sleeping state where thought and memory tormented her.

She could see James scowling at her.

I can certainly stop you. I control your trust. I won’t give you access to a penny-piece.

His cold tone echoed in her mind.

She couldn’t stay here in James’ house, and yet she didn’t have access to her own money to leave. She thought about contacting Frances and asking for help. But James might well be right, Frances couldn’t be trusted not to turn her over to Dr. Meeker.

She had to find a new protector.

But, raised to be a good girl, she had no idea how courtesans found their protectors. Additionally, she wasn’t quite herself, not yet the old cheerful, witty Sunny. She didn’t think many men would be as patient as James, listening to her cry over her late husband in their beds.

Would James really kill her new lover.

Beware, Catriona. I will kill him.

Sunny shivered. Yes. She was trapped, hopelessly trapped. Weariness dragged her down.

Down into a deep, dark well of despair.

“Milady, wake up, wake up now, please!” Mrs. Taylor’s voice, broke through Sunny’s troubled dreams.

Sunny sat up. “What is the matter?” she mumbled sleepily.

“It is Lady Ailise. She’s gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?”

“I mean she’s vanished.”

Sunny bolted upright. “How? When?”

“She went for a walk in the park with her lady’s maid and neither of them has been seen since. All her things are still in her chambers but she is nowhere to be found. His lordship is long gone to Wyndwick Court. You must go to Greythorn House right away.”

Sunny’s heart beat hard, her stomach knotted. “Call for Alice.”

“She’s waiting to dress you now.”

As soon as Sunny arrived at Greythorn House, she learned that the servants had searched the park and surrounding streets. Ailise had no friends that they knew of. The magistrate had been alerted and now they were at a loss about what to do. Sunny rushed up the stairs to Ailise’s chamber and began rifling through her things, certain that she could find some item, some clue as to what the girl had been thinking or doing before she disappeared.

But she found nothing.

While she was looking, tray came for her with a light repast but she couldn’t manage to choke any of it down. She sat there, trying to think, hard, of something she might have missed, something that would tell her what to do next. The food began to congeal on the plate, for the servants, who were either all atwitter over Ailise or out actively searching, had not returned. She picked up her napkin and shook the linen square out, intending to cover her tray.

A folded note fell from the cloth.

She picked it up and unfolded the paper. The style of writing and the small, neat print were familiar. Feeling sicker than she had felt a moment before, she quickly read:

Don’t worry about the young Lady Ailise. She is with me now and I know that you have some appreciation for my competence and skill in handling young ladies of a delicate nervous nature. She shall provide a charming replacement for you—unless you would care to come back to me. Go for a walk in Hyde Park today at four in the afternoon. There will be a man, holding a posy of violets. He will bring you to me.

I’ll wait a day or two before starting her treatment. As you know, I like to focus my attentions on one patient at a time and you, my dear, are my patient of preference. But don’t wait too late and don’t make the mistake of telling anyone of this. I would hate to see your previous exploits become public knowledge, especially in light of your lover’s recent investiture as an earl. Polite society can be so intolerant of newcomers.

M.

Sunny dropped the note and put her hand to her lurching stomach. Oh, mercy, no.

In the turmoil of the past weeks, she had forgotten Meeker.

She drummed her fingers on her lips, with shocks of pure fear and panic beating through her blood, thousands of tiny, silent screams echoing inside her.

She had no choice. Even if she dared ignore Meeker’s warning and alerted James about this, he wasn’t here and it would take too much time to get a message to him. She couldn’t wait. Innocence once taken could not be replaced, and she would rather die herself than allow Ailise to suffer at Meeker’s hands.

****

A lone candle lit the small, dirty room where Sunny sat on the only decent piece of furniture, a small bed. She had walked the main path in Hyde Park twice before the man, who called himself Sam, had appeared, holding a posy of violets as promised. The man was stout with one eye that sagged at the corner, dragged down by scar tissue. He had brought her here to this chamber, in a broken-down house in Whitechapel.

The door burst open.

A matron with a weathered face entered.

Sunny gasped.

“All right, you miserable chit.” The matron reached behind her and with a mighty tug and dragged a smaller form from the shadowy corridor into the chamber. She flung the girl to the wooden floor.

A mass of dark auburn hair hid the girl’s face. She jerked her head back and, snarling, bared her teeth in a horrible grimace. “Bitch!” she screeched.

She leapt to her feet and launched herself at the matron, biting and clawing like a wild, cornered creature.

Sunny gasped. “Ailise.”

“Sam! Sam!” The woman cried, and backed toward the door whilst trying to fight the girl off.

Sunny shoved to her feet and lunged toward them.

Sam rushed in and reached her before Sunny did. He grasped the girl by the shoulders and pulled her away from the matron. “Remember what we told you,” he growled. “Things can go soft for you if only you obey.”

With a horrified last glance back, the matron fled to the corridor.

“Go to the devil!” the girl screamed and launched herself at Sam.

Sam seized her arms and yanked them behind her.

Sunny grabbed the man’s arm and yanked. “Release her!”

“Aye, be a braw man! Subdue a woman!” Ailise shouted.

He looked at Sunny. A fierce scowl twisted his damaged eye into a sinister squint. “Talk some sense into her. Dr. Meeker doesn’t want either of you to come to any harm. But neither will he stand to have his servants abused.”

Sam shoved the girl to the floor.

Sunny dropped to her knees at her side and hugged her close as Sam slammed the door behind him. Fear twisted through Sunny as the key turned in the lock.

Ailise lay panting on the floor. Tears streaked her face and she drew her knees up to her chest. “Oh God, oh God! Never again, never again! No one beats me, no one beats me. Never again.”

Sunny couldn’t believe that this wild, fierce creature was Ailise. She couldn’t reconcile her with the timid girl she had coaxed from the carriage at Brownwood.

She looked about the chamber for some spirits or something, anything, to offer Ailise to calm her. But there was nothing and Sunny ended up gently stroking the girl’s hair while murmuring words of comfort.

At last, Ailise looked up her with lucid eyes. “I am sorry you saw that.”

“I think you were very brave,” Sunny said. “Foolish, but brave.”

“I am quite mad. I lose control sometimes. This is why Mama sent me to James. No man in the Highlands will marry me now. Everyone knows I am unhinged.”

Sunny didn’t know what to say to that. But she did know that Dr. Meeker could not be allowed to hurt this troubled and confused child.

Sunny smiled at her. “We are going to leave this place.”

Ailise straightened away from her. “How?”

“Through that window.” Sunny had done a thorough inspection of the room when Sam had first left her there. Aside from the door that led down the corridor of the house the window was their only escape.

“Can you climb trees?” she asked.

Ailise frowned in confusion. Sunny stood and pulled the girl up with her. She hurried with her to the window. Sunny grasped the window and heaved upward with all her might. It moved with a loud squeak. She winced and paused, then moved it more slowly, holding her breath and hoping there wouldn’t be any further loud squeaks.

She drew Ailise closer. “See that tree?” She nodded to the elm to the right of the window.

Ailise glanced at the tree, then leaned out a bit and looked at the ground three stories below. She returned her attention to the tree, and said, “It is a rather pathetic looking tree.”

Dread gripped Sunny’s heart. The girl was right. What had she been thinking? They could never make the climb. How could she ever face James if she failed to protect his half-sister?

“You’re right,” Sunny said. “We can no’ risk climbing down such a rickety tree. There has to be another way.” Though the hour she had waited in the room had brought no plan—other than to use the one shot the muff pistol strapped to her thigh would offer. But she was saving that bullet for someone special.

“Forget the tree,” Sunny said.

Ailise gave a soft laugh. “I could scuttle down that tree, neatly as a cat.” She grinned, her small white teeth gleaming in the moonlight. But her lips trembled and Sunny’s heart ached to see how hard the girl was trying to be brave and spirited in the face of their situation.

Sunny placed an arm around her. “I was wrong. I can no’ allow you to risk it.”

Ailise snorted. “Many times Douglas berated me for being thin as a reed. Why, they say I am light as a feather. And Mama despaired of my tree-climbing ways.” She nodded at the tree. “I
can
make it down that tree.”

“Oh, I can no’ allow you to risk yourself like that. You could break your neck.”

Ailise pulled off her slippers. “Who said anything about
allowing
?” She grinned again and stashed the slippers in her bodice. She wiped her hands on her dress, then stepped up onto the sill.

Sunny grasped her arm. “We can find another way.”

Ailise turned and placed a kiss on Sunny’s cheek. “No need to worry. I’ll run like the hounds of Hell itself were on my tail.”

The unexpected affection startled her. “Child,” she began, but Ailise cut her off.

“I do not want to be his prisoner. Do you?”

“No, but—”

“Good.” Ailise threw first one leg, then the other, over the sill.

Sunny held tight to her arm as Ailise reached for the nearest branch. Sinewy muscle flexed beneath Sunny’s fingers and she marveled as Ailise leapt onto the branch and alighted as deftly as a squirrel.

Sunny stifled a cry when the branch wavered in the light breeze and Ailise seemed suspended on nothing but air. Then Ailise grasped an overhead branch. She released a soft whoop and glanced over her shoulder, flashing a grin.

“Mind yourself!” Sunny warned, and fought the impulse to close her eyes.

Ailise moved gracefully down the branch, her white dress flowing around her, putting Sunny in mind of a fairy or a large butterfly. She was transfixed, frozen by that tingling fear that she would see the girl fall to her death. She mouthed a silent plea to God to watch over the girl.

A thud sounded in the corridor, followed by a squeak.

She jerked her head to face the door.

Another thud and another. Boots on the stairs.

She turned and saw Ailise clinging to the tree, and this time there were no grins, no bravado. Terror was etched into her girlish features as the wind gusted suddenly, rocking her and the branch.

Oh God, please, please watch over her.

She swung the curtains closed. Then she ran to the bed and pulled the pillows into a line, lengthwise, under the covers.

The rattle of keys sent her heart leaping into her throat.

She blew out the lamp.

A loud creak sounded as the door came open. The stout man stood there. “Where’s the other?” he asked.

She gestured to the shadowed lump in the bed. “She was exhausted.”

The man grunted. “The doctor wants you.”

She nodded. “Of course.”

****