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“One of the servants!” Cecey said, indignation stirring in her breast.

He nodded.

“Do you know who it might be?”

“I don’t know, but I suspect . . . Falconbridge was embezzling funds. It seems likely that he had accomplices, but there was no proof—”

“Who is Falconbridge?” asked Hereward.

“He was the steward until recently. He absconded with the till when Lord and Lady Kenrick arrived here,” responded Reynolds grimly.

“Who could be his accomplice? The Baineses?” asked Cecey. “Or do you suspect someone in the house?”

“Yes. I do suspect someone in the house, and it would seem the Baineses are in on it, too, and acting the role of enforcers.”

“To keep everyone too scared to say anything,” added Mrs. Rawlins, nodding.

“So, if the Baines brothers took Rick, where would they hold him?” asked Hereward.

“Possibly their barn?” suggested Mrs. Rawlins.

“Why there?” asked Pagette.

She flushed. “It is well known that much of their less savory business is conducted from there.”

“But why would they hold him for this long? What would they hope to gain?” asked Reynolds frowning.

“They wouldn’t,” said Cecey, darkness narrowing her vision. “Oh God, they have killed him!” And she swayed where she stood. Hereward caught her as she fell, the darkness closing in as she lost consciousness.

When she came around, she was lying on the couch, and Mary was bending over her. The men and Mrs. Rawlins were standing at a distance, talking earnestly.

Cecey struggled to a sitting position as Hereward turned toward her. “Cecelia, we have a plan to find Rick; you must stay here and rest. Pagette will remain with you. Be assured, I will not return without my brother.” He spoke grimly, but gently.

She swallowed the tears that threatened. “I wish I could go with you!” Her heart ached with fear for Rick.

He shook his head. “Rick would have my neck if I put you in danger!”

She sighed. She yearned to go with them but knew her body was not cooperating. She felt ill, and her head was pounding. She needed to think of the baby. If it were just herself, she would shake off the malaise and insist upon going with them. But she could see that foisting herself on them in these circumstances would hinder them and possibly endanger her child. The reality of her situation made her think differently, she realized with a shock. She was an expectant mother, and her child’s safety took precedence over everything else.

She nodded and seized his large hand in both of hers. “Bring him back to me, please!”

“I will,” he said with a relieved expression, squeezing her hand for comfort.

Chapter 31

Rick curled into a ball in the cramped space, the manacles on his hands and feet clanking as he moved. His stomach ached with hunger; they had barely fed him enough to keep him alive, and even the water they had given him wasn’t enough to fully slake his thirst. He was weak and light-headed and had lost track of time, kept in the dark as he had been.

He was mercifully free of the bag over his head and the wretched gag in his mouth. But that was because no matter how loudly he called out, no one came to his aid. He had given up yelling in the past day or so. How long he had been incarcerated he didn’t know.

The transport they spoke of had arrived after dark, and they did feed him some bread and water before bundling him into a carriage, where he lay trussed up on the floor, in which cramped conditions he had traveled for hours at a time, broken only by short stops in the dark to pee and be given a drink of water. He had tried to resist at first, fight back, but that just got him knocked about. His body was a mass of bruises now from the blows he had received for his efforts to escape, and the broken ribs he had suffered in the fall from Helen Rawlins barn roof ached abominably. He had managed to duck and evade and shuffle a few steps the first time they’d stopped, but in his haste, he had lost his balance and gone crashing to the ground. He was retrieved and stuffed back into the carriage where he was poked occasionally with the long nose of a rifle and told to be a good boy or he’d get a bullet somewhere he didn’t want it.

They traveled at night, only, holing up somewhere in daylight, which he never saw, because they put the damned bag over his head when they moved him. At the end of the third night’s travel, they conducted him to his current cell, a small, square box, with a ceiling too low to enable him to stand upright and too short to enable him to stretch out fully. So less than 6 feet square, and with no light, except for what came through the door when they opened it to feed and water him and take away the piss pot to empty it.

The mattress beneath him was made of grubby ticking, lumpy, and stank of mold. He was cold, and his body hurt all over. But worse than this current physical distress was the pain in his chest. Guilt and remorse warred for dominance over fear that by leaving her, he had exposed Cecey to some form of danger. For he had concluded that this must be happening because the men who had been defrauding the estate and were no doubt responsible for Sparrow’s death believed he had uncovered their criminal activity and had been about to take action against them for it. It was the only explanation that made any sense of this situation.

His assumption, in his more lucid moments, was that they were killing him slowly. His only hope was that Victor Reynolds would somehow figure it out and find him. But in the pit of despair that he found himself in, he feared this was a frail hope. For how could Victor work out what had happened to him, let alone trace him to his current location?

He sighed and rolled over, facing the wall of his cell.