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“We have to wait for things to settle,” their leader had said. Now that they had decided to keep the women alive the men were careful not to use names and to keep their faces covered in the females’ presence. “We can’t risk any of this being tied to us, especially not the duke. Every watchman in England will be searching for them for at least a month. When it calms down, and there is less interest, that is when we make our demands.”
“What are we supposed to do with two ladies for a fortnight?” one of his cronies had asked with incredulity.
“We’ll take them to her house,” he had replied. Again, that ominous reference. “She can keep them with her birds until we are ready.”
Birds? Caroline thought with a sudden rush of dread. Her eyes met Marilee’s, and she knew that her maid was thinking the same thing. They were being taken to a brothel.
CHAPTER7
They arrived in the dead of night. Caroline was unloaded from the carriage with a musty felted bag over her head. Her wrists were bound behind her back and a forceful hand kept shoving her along until they had entered a house, passed down a long hallway, and she was shoved down onto a plush bench while the door clicked shut on the other side of the room. The room smelled of perfume and cigar smoke. Marilee’s whimper and then the clumsy pressure of her shoulder at Caroline’s side revealed that her friend had been brought along as well. There was music playing at the front of the house and a series of moans and noises on the other side of the wall that Miss Caroline refused to identify. An unfamiliar, sickly-sweet scent, opium she guessed, permeated the place.
This was a whorehouse to be sure.
A short while later the door opened and slammed with such force that Caroline flinched.
“Lawks! What were you thinking?” a female voice exclaimed in a harsh whisper. “What if one of my patrons had seen?”
“We brought them in through the back,” the raspy-voiced leader explained, “like the others.”
Others, Caroline wondered? So, they had not been the first women kidnapped?
“The others weren’t highborn ladies!” she hissed. “No one would be looking for them.”
“We thought you could keep them here until things settle down,” one of the men said. “Then we’ll say we found them, lost in the woods or something.”
“I can’t keep them here!” The woman shrieked. She was pacing now. “My rooms are full. My girls are working. The last thing I need is some bold young lordling wandering in and finding this! You know the gentleman would have our heads if he found out. Get them out, now.”
“We got nowhere to take them,” the leader spoke again. This time, Caroline heard panic in his voice. He had truly thought that this woman would help them. It was clear that she had taken poor indentured females before, had no qualms about that. Please, Caroline sent up a fervent prayer, please don’t let them discover that Marilee is a maid! For the time being, her friend’s best protection was the illusion of her status.
A soft huff, the clink of glass and the glug glug of a bottle being emptied into the glass was all that could be heard for several long moments. Nails tapped against the drink as if the woman were thinking. More pacing, and then the glass was thumped down on a table. Empty.
“They’ll have to be split up,” she declared. “Each will go to a different house through my… connections.”
“No!” Caroline cried.
The woman’s footsteps led right up to their bench and Caroline felt a swift, booted kick to her shins.
“You will keep your mouth shut, Missy, if you know what’s good for you. You’ll both work as maids,” the woman hissed. “Your income will come to me for the benevolence of permitting you to live. If you speak a word of this to anyone, identify yourself; try to escape… I’ll have the other killed before you can say m’lady. If you do as I say, without incident, then I will release you to your families for the appropriate fee. If even the slightest rumor surfaces before or after that time, I will send my hounds to hunt you down and finish what these dimwits should have done from the off.” Caroline had a very distinct feeling that the Madam’s hounds were not mere hunting dogs, but cold-blooded assassins. “Do I make myself clear?” She said, one claw-like fingernail under Caroline’s chin.
Caroline nodded, the nail digging into her skin, and she guessed that Marilee did the same beside her.
Another pair of kicks had both the captives gasping with pain. “That won’t do. How do you address your superiors?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Marilee said quickly.
“Yes, ma’am,” Caroline parroted. The subservience felt foreign on her tongue but Caroline willed herself to get used to it. Fulfilling this role would come easier for Marilee than pretending to be a lady had. For Caroline, she was going to have to retrain every instinct that had been drilled into her since birth.
She would do it. She would do whatever it took to keep them both alive. She could not risk Marilee’s life by defiance.
A soft boot slipped under the hem of Caroline’s skirt, this time from her side. Hidden beneath the piles of fabric, Marilee pressed her foot ever so slightly down upon Caroline’s toes. Escape if you can, even if it means my death, the gesture said. Marilee would always put her lady first. The knowledge that once they were separated, it would be more difficult to get Caroline’s father to understand that the second captive was not some random impersonator of Lady Katherine, but someone important within his household who also needed to be rescued, hung between them. If he revealed, before Caroline could speak with him, that Lady Kate was on holiday and that the second female could not possibly be she, then Marilee was doomed. Caroline lifted her toes in return and applied upward pressure. She would do what she could, but in her heart, she knew that she must be very careful not to risk her dearest friend’s demise.
Caroline had been given a simple,dark dress and a cream apron with a yellowish stain on the front. Caroline could not tell if the dress was a worn black or a very dark brown. It was well-made and sturdy, but far too large for her thin frame. She was told she could take it in if she ever had a spare moment. The Madam, a buxom woman with fiery red hair and a bosom pushed so high she might have been able to rest her chin on it, had laughed at that.
“You’ll be far too busy to even think,” she had been told. “I’ve arranged for a position as a maid of all work in a house where I have many eyes.” The look she had leveled upon Miss Caroline threatened untold punishments if one of those eyes reported that anything was amiss.
Marilee had been taken away a half hour before. She had been dressed and given a similar speech, before she left. Caroline only knew that she had been placed as a laundress.
“It’s tinted with red ochre,” the Madam said when she caught Caroline looking at her vibrant locks and trying to determine if they were natural or not. “If you’d rather stay here, we can try it on yours…”
