Yours, always,
Charity
Seth's reaction was immediate and visceral; the chair clattered to the floor as he jumped to his feet. He marched from the room, such panic filling him as he re-read the letter multiple times. She couldn’t be gone. She couldn’t leave him, not like this. She had done nothing wrong. She was innocent in all this. Oh, how hewished she was before him now so he could pry away this awful idea from her mind.
“I never saw him in you. I never did—not for a second!” he hissed into the air, as if she could hear him. She had been his respite from his past, a presence that freed him from those suffocating shackles. He had to find her, to tell her the truth, yet, as he descended the stairs, a heavy realization anchored his steps.
The prospect of convincing Charity to return sparked a new fear—would she ever look upon him now without a shadow of pity? The thought was unbearable, paralyzing him with indecision.
“Your Grace? Your Grace!” Bates’ voice broke through his turmoil, as the butler hurried into the hallway with Rufus barking at his heels.
Seth spun to face the man. “What’s the matter, Bates?” he managed, attempting to anchor his thoughts back to the present as he slipped Charity’s letter into his pocket. Rufus’ relentless barking made it difficult to hear much of anything. “Silence, Rufus.” Ordinarily, the hound obeyed his commands instantly, yet this time, his pleas fell on deaf ears. “What’s going on?” Seth repeated, raising his voice this time.
“Shelby is missing,” Bates revealed, attempting to calm Rufus with his hands. “Rufus has not ceased his howling for the past hour. I fear he has been trying to tell us something.”
This doesn’t make sense…
Seth knew that Charity wouldn’t have left with Shelby. She had said so often that the hounds were like siblings and belonged together—so for the both of them to go missing at the same time was a strange but unsettling coincidence...
“Hullo! Release me!” Charity’s voice was thick with desperation as she hammered against the door. “I demand you let me out this instant,good sir!”
“Hush now,” came a languid drawl from the other side. “No one can hear ya lass. So save us the megrim.”
Charity thought it a wise idea to test this theory.
“Help? Help!” she screeched the word as loudly as she could.
“Silence, I say!” The rebuke came sharper this time, tinged with irritation.
“Do you truly expect me to heed such a command? Have you taken leave of your senses?” she snapped at the man. “You may have abducted me and dragged me here, but do not be so great a fool as to think I will comply so meekly. I will find a way out of this.” She drove her fists into the door again and kicked at it, making the heavy oak rattle in the frame.
“And how in the blazes do ya reckon you’ll pull that off, considering you’re blind as a bat?” the voice jeered, followed by ascornful chuckle. “We're in the bloody boonies, lass. Yelling your head off won’t fetch anyone to your rescue, I can assure you that much.”
Charity pushed off from the door, her chest heaving. Never had she despised anyone so much in her life as she now did the man calling back to her.
Monty.
Previously, he had been nothing more than a peripheral figure to her—the man who was considered Luke’s silent companion and followed him around like a shadow. Now, she understood just how much she should have been aware of him, and how dangerous he was.
She backed up, determined to prove him wrong, to prove that even though she was blind, she could get out of this.
I will not be his victim.
Charity extended both her arms and slowly began exploring the space around her. She could feel cobblestones, occasionally supported by sturdy wooden beams. Beneath her, her feet kicked at rush matting and stacks of hay. She fell over one of the bundles, landing in it face first before she spat out the straw, cursing her misfortune.
It is a barn. Some tithe barn perhaps used for storage, or an old stable.
The absence of horses snorting suggested that if it had once been a stable, it no longer was.
Backing up from the hay, she stood again and moved around the space. She found a second door, far away from the first one where she had been calling at Monty. Tracing its contours, her fingers touched around the edges, where she felt a heavy iron ring. The handle was old, and rickety as she tried to turn it, but it was unyieldingly locked.
Oh, this is hopeless.
Letting go of the stubborn handle, she kneeled down, her hands sweeping the dirt floor in search of something she could use to break the handle open. Her thoughts, however, were ensnared by the events of the night before. How she had climbed into the carriage, thinking it safe, before Rufus scurried after her, barking madly. The moment Monty had pulled the gun on the dog and shot, she’d screamed, only for her mouth to be clamped shut by Monty’s gloves as he muffled her cries.
I will get out of this. I will!
She would find her way back to Seth, somehow, to tell him what had happened to his poor hound, and who to blame for it.
