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“Beds are much nicer than brandy, wouldn’t you agree? So many wonderful things happen in beds.”
“Chair.” He pointed at a chair. “Now.”
She slid off the bed. He pulled a white shirt over his head, leaving it open at the neck. She wanted to pull it right back off.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“Oh Lord, here we go again.” She took a seat. “What are the new rules?”
“I’m going to answer a question you asked me when we were in Rafe’s red room.”
She sat up straighter. “About the kidnapping.”
“You asked me how I rescued myself.” He sank to his heels and lifted the poker. He stirred the embers until they caught the edge of a piece of wood, licking into flames. “I told stories.”
“What do you mean?”
“At first I was too scared to talk. The man who kidnapped me was desperate. I could see it in his eyes when he chained me to the wall. He thought of me as a symbol, not a person. A symbol of the extreme inequality of the wealth distribution in our country.”
“He was your father’s tenant?”
“Former tenant. He’d lost everything. He had children to feed. He demanded that my father pay a ransom—it wasn’t even an extravagant amount of money—for my return. Every day my captor became angrier, more irrational. He said that my father refused to pay because if he paid one kidnapper, ten more would take his place.”
“How cruel.”
“The days stretched on. It was the uncertainty that was the worst. I was held in a ship’s hold. At any second the ship could set sail and I might never see England or my family again.”
“Why would a farmer hold you in a ship?”
“He struck a bargain with an unscrupulous privateer to split the proceeds of the ransom money for the use of his ship.”
“I can’t imagine, Drew. I can’t imagine how scared you must have been.”
“I was terrified. He only fed me a thin gruel and it wasn’t nearly enough for a growing boy. I began to grow weak. My kidnapper left for several days and a boy about my own age came to feed me. I realized that this was my one chance for escape. He’d been instructed not to speak to me, but I talked until he started listening. I talked about anything that came into my mind. Anything to make him see me as a human being, and not a symbol, or an animal.”
“That must have been the best thing you could have done.”
“It was. The boy and I became... friends, of sorts. His name was Silas. He was the kidnapper’s middle son. He told me all about his life. I told him about mine. We forged a bond and I was finally able to convince him to unlock my chains. I was too weak to run very far, but a constable found me and returned me to my father.”
“You rescued yourself.”
“No one else was going to. When I arrived home, my father immediately wanted me to lead him to the kidnapper but I pretended to be too weak to talk. I wanted... I know this is going to sound strange, but I wanted to give the man and his son time to escape. I didn’t want Silas to be arrested, to be tried and hung for something that wasn’t his fault. I don’t understand it to this day, how I could have forged a bond like that with someone who was keeping me captive.”
“You sympathized with their plight. That’s why you’ve devoted yourself to improving conditions for the tenants on your estate.”
“It’s almost some strange penance I must do. To expiate the sins of my father. Who will create change if not those at the top? The tenants will riot if we don’t find a better system.”
He finished his heated brandy. “I’ve never told anyone about all of this, Mina. You’re the only person in the world who knows about Silas and how I escaped. I never told a soul about him. Eventually his father was caught, tried, and sent to Australia. They would have hung him if I hadn’t pleaded his case in court.”
“What happened to Silas?”
“I don’t know. He disappeared. I’ve never heard anything from him or about him.”
“Quite possibly, you saved his life by never disclosing his role in your imprisonment.”
“He saved mine. My father was ashamed of the whole ordeal. He told me never to speak of it.”
“You had to be so strong. After it happened, you had to hide your emotions and pretend everything was normal. You don’t have to pretend with me, Drew. Trust me. I’m strong enough to share your pain.”
