He retreated rapidly up the corridor, opened a side door with fumbling urgency, and revealed a storeroom into which he wedged himself.Don’t knock anything down. Pull the door closed. Don’t sneeze. Don’t breathe. Don’t move.
He wanted to move: he wanted to run and run and not look back. He could feel the twitch in his muscles, the unbearable torment of enforced stillness, and the urge for escape was near-overwhelming. He dug his nails into his palms, held himself rigid, and waited, heart thundering so loudly that it would surely be audible to anyone passing.
After a moment, he heard the squeal of hinges from the kitchen, and then the sound of feet: several pairs, one dragging. He let them pass, then he made himself wait, and wait, and wait some more, teeth gritted, his muscles jumping with the urge to break out and flee. It felt like his entire body was holding its breath.
The feet returned at last, two sets of heavy tread, and he heard the kitchen door shut. He gave it another agonizingly long moment, listening to the silence, pulse racing, and then, once hewas absolutely sure the corridor was empty, he eased the door open with a long exhalation of relief and slid into the corridor.
Rachel was standing opposite, arms folded, waiting for him.
***
A man of action might have leapt at her, bound and gagged her with some handy twine and a handkerchief, and stashed her in the cupboard. Zeb just stared.
“Come on,” she hissed almost soundlessly, jerking her head, and set off down the corridor, back towards the main part of the house. Zeb followed, utterly bewildered. They went through another set of heavy doors, and then she unlocked the anteroom door and gestured him in.
Gideon was inside, tied to a chair with a gag in his mouth. His face was marked dark by a blow, and his lips were bloody.
Zeb wasn’t sure what he said. He just found himself on his knees, fumbling desperately with the gag. Gideon was making urgent noises at him and Zeb crooned, “Wait, wait, I’ll get you out, just wait—”
He pulled the gag free. Gideon coughed, choked, and said, “Get out of here, you fool!”
Zeb looked round to the door. The door of the room he’d run into, in which Rachel now stood with the key in her hand. He said, “Oh.”
“I’m not locking you in,” she said. “Unless you try to attack me. Don’t do that.” She shot a glance down the corridor, thenstepped inside and mostly closed the door, keeping her hand to it. “Come on, get him free. Hurry.”
“Er,” Zeb said. “Are you helping us?”
“I’m helpingyou. Can you get him untied?”
Zeb groped for Dash’s pocketknife. “Wait, wait—here. Uh, why are you helping?”
Rachel gave a mirthless sort of smile. “It hardly matters.”
“No, it does. It truly does.” Gideon’s hands had been tied tightly together, then lashed to the chair. His wrists were already red and puffy and the knots looked horrible. Zeb set to sawing at the thick, tough twine. “Because I think I know what Wynn’s doing. And if I’m right, that makes him frighteningly unhinged, and I don’t think you ought to be here in a house with him. It’s not safe for you.”
Rachel actually laughed at that, an incredulous choke. “Not safe forme?” she repeated. “Littlest Wyckham, you have no idea what’s happening here.”
“Probably I don’t,” Zeb agreed. “Could you tell me? And could you start with—what you said about my brother? Because he truly doesn’t seem to remember doing it, you see, and maybe that’s because he’s losing his mind but—”
“Of course he didn’t rape me,” Rachel said, voice hard and cold. “That was Hawley.”
Zeb looked up at her. She looked down at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m very, very sorry. But why did you say it was Bram?”
“Because a girl named Florence isn’t here to say what your brother really did.”
“Bram told me about her. Or, at least he said that he abandoned his expectant mistress when she had nowhere else to go, and she died trying to procure an abortion.”
“Proud of that, is he?”
“I think he probably feels very guilty somewhere inside.” A strand snapped. Zeb sawed away, concentrating on not cutting Gideon, his fingers cramping from his death grip on the knife. “Maybe quite deep. Did you know Florence?”
“Never met her in my life.”
“I don’t understand. Could you just tell me, please? Why are the staff helping Wynn to do all these horrible things to all of us? I can quite see that you would loathe Hawley, but the chauffeur, say—”
“Florence’s lover,” Gideon said suddenly. “Or brother, or father.”
