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Chapter 38
Olivia slowly opened her eyes. There was a hammering in her head and her mouth was dry. She could not remember anything. Desperately, she scoured her mind. What had she been doing?
She looked around slowly. She did not know where she was. It was a small, dark room with an overpowering smell of dust and mould. She was lying on a narrow bed in the centre of it. The mattress was lumpy. The only things in the room apart from the bed was a dirty chamber pot in a corner and a wooden tray on the floor next to her, which held a lump of bread and a pewter mug filled with water.
Gingerly, she reached up, wincing as she touched a large lump on her head. Now, it was all coming back to her, rushing into her mind. The whole terrifying ordeal.
The carriage. The kidnapping. The head injury. Oh, my dear Lord, where am I?
She tried to sit up. Her head spun. She must have been knocked out entirely. She did not remember a thing about getting to this place, nor going inside. One minute she had been in the carriage, the masked man hurtling her back from opening the carriage door, and the next she had woken up here. In this foul room…wherever it was.
What did they want with her?
She managed to get to her feet. On unsteady legs she walked to the door, rattling the knob. It was locked tightly. A sob escaped her lips as she rattled it harder, desperately trying to open it, but it was no use.
Suddenly, her composure snapped. She pounded on the door, over and over, screaming at the top of her lungs.
“Let me out!” Her voice was filled with hysteria. “Let me out! I demand you release me!”
Eventually, she wore herself out. No one was coming. She heard no footsteps on the other side of the locked door. It was as if she had been taken here and simply dumped, like a piece of rubbish. Perhaps there was not anyone on the other side of the door at all.
She leaned against the door, sliding down it, so she was sitting on the floor. She blinked dully as she gazed around the room. Her prison. And she had no idea why, nor who had taken her. It was all a mystery.
The tears came abruptly. They streamed down her cheeks. She did not bother to wipe them away. What was the point? No one was here. She was all alone.
She crawled into a ball on the floor, hugging herself tightly. She was so terrified she could not think properly. All she wanted was for Alexander to kick down that door, sweep her up into his arms, and save her. She longed for him with such fierceness that her bones ached.
Did he know she was gone? Was he aware yet she had been kidnapped?
She had no idea of how much time had passed. It could be an hour or a day. Perhaps she had been unconscious for days. Her husband might never find her. He might have already given up, thinking she was lost forever.
She sobbed, hugging herself tighter. Would he care? She knew that he would try to find her. But if he failed after a while, would he simply give up, and sail away to the Caribbean? Would he think of her and their marriage fondly but shrug his shoulders, carrying on with his life regardless?
If he loved her, it would be different. If he loved her like she loved him, he would move heaven and earth to find her and never stop looking. He would scour every country in the world for her.
Her heart clenched in anguish. But he did not love her. He liked her, he desired her, but he was not in love with her. He had not wanted to marry her. Would he feel a small kernel of relief that she was no longer his responsibility, and he could just return to his seafaring life without a backward glance?
She stopped crying. The tears simply dried up. She sat up, staring into the space, with dull, vacant eyes. He might not find her. He might give up. He did not love her.
She must rescue herself.
***
Alexander leaned down over the horse, spurring it on, through the unfamiliar streets of the Devil’s Acre. It was one of the most sordid, squalid areas of London, filled with thieves, cutthroats and blaggards.
The second note had arrived just after breakfast that morning. He had spent a sleepless night pacing the floor in their hotel chambers, debating whether he should just go to the Watch. Find a Bow Street Runner. He had vowed that if he had not heard from the kidnappers by morning he would do just that. But after he had finished drinking down a tea laced strongly with brandy—he had not been able to eat a single thing—the note had finally arrived. He had ripped it open with shaking hands.
It had not said much. Just a scrawled address. He had raced out of the hotel, saddling a horse quickly. And now, here he was, trying to navigate the narrow, dirty streets of this hovel, desperately searching the street signs to find the one he wanted.
Eventually he found it. It was more of a lane than a street. Grimly, he noted how narrow and dirty it was. There were piles of rubbish everywhere. Laundry blackened with soot flapped desolately from lines strung between high windows. A thin, orange cat that looked like it was starving glared at him from a pile of rubbish, but otherwise, the lane was deserted.
This was a god forsaken place. It sent shivers down his spine to think of Olivia being held here.
His feet slowed as he reached a small door. It was the number in the note. He stepped back, taking in the house. It was decrepit, with small, shuttered windows. His heart turned over in his chest, imagining her inside, alone and terrified. He vowed that if they had touched one hair upon her head, he would kill them all with his bare hands.
He was just about to knock on the door when he saw a figure emerging down the lane from the way he had just come. A man. His hat was pulled low over his head so he could not see his face. Alexander turned back to the door, rising his hand to knock, when something stopped him. That figure was oddly familiar.
He turned back to the man, just in time to see him push the hat back. Alexander gasped. It was Lord Bertram Langley, the man who had once tried to marry Olivia. What the deuce washedoing here in this squalid lane, in this shocking area of London?
