Marcus looked up after quickly reading the letter. ‘It is not a very well written letter and the paper is of a quality—’
‘Damn the quality of the writing or the paper, Marcus!’ Christian exploded angrily. ‘They have Lisette, and that is all that is important.’
‘Yes, but who are “they”?’ Marcus turned the letter over, studying Christian’s name and the address written on the front of it. ‘Do you think this can be connected with the kidnapping of Maystone’s grandson and the abduction of Bea?’
Griffin Stone had almost run Bea down with his carriage after she had escaped her abductors. The two of them were very recently married.
‘It is too much of a coincidence for it not to be,’ Christian bit out grimly as he recalled that young lady’s harsh treatment during her incarceration. The thought of Lisette being treated harshly was enough to turn the blood cold in Christian’s veins.
‘But we already have those responsible in custody—’
‘Not all of them.’ Christian’s hand shook as he raised the glass of brandy to his lips and took a much-needed swallow of the fiery liquid before speaking again. ‘We—I did not apprehend Helene Rousseau.’
‘You were not sent to Paris to apprehend her—’ Marcus broke off, eyes widening. ‘Do you believe that she is capable of arranging something so abhorrent as the abduction of her own daughter...?’
Christian recalled the pistol that had been pressed against his spine that very first evening at the Fleur de Lis, when Helene Rousseau had thought he was paying far too much attention to Lisette. She had seemed like a hen protecting her chick that night—albeit a steely-cold one!—and yet it really was too much of a coincidence to believe there could be two sets of kidnappers in so short a time. Helene Rousseau had to be involved in Lisette’s disappearance.
The alternative was too disturbing to contemplate.
Christian’s jaw tightened. ‘It clearly says in the letter that Maystone is to be at Westminster Bridge at midnight tonight if we want to see Lisette again. Why else would they involve Maystone if this was not connected to the kidnapping of his grandson and the abduction of Griffin’s Bea?’
Why else indeed...?
* * *
How could she have been so stupid, so naive, Lisette admonished herself as she looked about the windowless room in which she was being held a prisoner, a dirty handkerchief secured about her mouth, her wrists and ankles bound with thin but strong cord; she knew it was strong because all of her efforts to free herself had proved to be in vain.
As if Davy would really have just been strolling in a London park, when the last time she had seen him had been at the Portsmouth dock as she and Christian departed The Blue Dolphin. She should have guessed—known—the moment she saw Davy again that it was too much of a coincidence for him to now be in London.
Instead, she had been so pleased to see a familiar face, after realising she was lost, that she had not questioned why she was seeing that face.
Lisette had assumed, even as Davy directed her through an unsavoury area of London that she did not remember walking through earlier, that he knew the capital so well that he was taking a shortcut back to Sutherland House. Instead, another man had suddenly emerged from a dark alley, throwing a sack over her head while Davy bound her wrists, and she was then bundled into a smelly cart and taken to the house in which this windowless room was situated.
The sack had not been removed from her head until she had stumbled into the room, Davy remaining in the background as the other man, hat pulled low over his eyes, a kerchief about the lower half of his face, had secured the gag and then bound her hands and feet, before they both departed, Lisette assumed, to another part of this hovel.
She had no idea if Davy was acting alone with his accomplice, in an effort to extract money for her release, or if her abduction had a much deeper significance.
Whichever of those it was, Lisette knew that Christian would be very displeased with her when he learned what had happened; he had tried to warn her of the dangers of leaving the house alone. She, with her usual stubbornness, had thought she knew better and had refused to believe there could possibly be anyone in England who might want to harm her.
Her reward for that naivety was to be held prisoner in this dark room, gagged and bound.
With the added worry that, as she was nothing more than a rebellious nuisance to Christian, he may not feel inclined to pay a ransom for her release even if one should be demanded.
The situation was dire enough to make her sit and cry. If self-pity had been in her nature. And if she thought it would have done any good.
It was not, and she knew crying would only make her feel more miserable when her mouth was gagged and her hands tied.