With a tight-jawed nod, the duchess accepted her drink from him and also seemed to accept his explanation. “We can send for Ian once the Bow Street Runners arrive. I do not wish to send anyone else out of the household until we have thoroughly questioned them as to their whereabouts, and what they might know about Friedrich’s disappearance as well.”
Ian?Elias noted the duchess’s intimate use of the physician’s first name but chose not to mention it. That was none of his affair, and now was not the time to put his interest where it didn’t belong. All that mattered was finding Celia. He settled in the chair beside the dowager, wishing he had poured himself a whisky instead of brandy. “You said Friedrich had been with you for over five years. In Germany?”
“Yes. At least that many. Likely more.” She kept her gaze locked on the hearth, as though mesmerized by the glowing coals of the dwindling fire. “Mrs. Thacker, our housekeeper there, recommended him after he lost his entire family to consumption. Celia felt quite bad for him, and so did I. We both believed him to be close to her age, but according to Mrs. Thacker, he was much older—at least ten years or more. As an act of charity, we chose to give him a chance to prove himself.” She slowly shook her head without taking her focus from the fire. “It would seem that no good deed goes unpunished, and misplaced trust is quite deadly.”
Elias shifted in the seat, wondering how much she knew of his and Celia’s trust issues, but now was not the time for that discussion. “How much does he know?” he asked quietly.
The duchess sipped her drink, then released a heavy sigh. “Servants tend to know a great deal more than we wish for them to,” she said. “That is why Celia and I always made a point of paying them well for their loyalty.” She locked eyes with him. “I fear he knows enough to force us to pay for his silence in exchange for Celia’s safe return.”
“Before I allow him to compromise Celia’s safety or yours—I will kill him.”
“Good.” The duchess lifted her glass in a toast. “I want my precious Celia back. No matter the cost.”
A light knock on the door made Elias turn. “Enter.”
Monty strode in with Jack Portney and Thomas Elkin, the two best Bow Street Runners, following in his wake. “The grooms report no horses missing. I’ve set them and our coachmen into combing the stables, grounds, and attached alleyways.” He nodded at the two Runners. “Forgive the interruption, but I felt sure you would wish to speak to these gentlemen immediately.”
“Indeed, we do.” Elias turned back to the duchess. “I trust Henry. Shall I send him for the doctor now?”
The dowager’s troubled scowl turned almost thoughtful and definitely calculating. She shook her head. “No. Now that I have thought more about it, Friedrich was the one who fetched Dr. MacMaddenly the night I collapsed. Until we are certain his finding the physician was a completely innocent happenstance, I do not wish for the man to be brought back into this household and be made aware of anything he doesn’t already know. My trust in anyone connected to Friedrich runs quite thin at the moment.”
Elias was beginning to understand how this shrewd woman had successfully pulled off such an intricate charade for so many years. “As you wish, Your Grace.” He rose to his feet, too knotted up with damned helplessness to sit any longer. The unknown tormented him. Was Celia alive? Was she injured? What had Friedrich done to her?
“You feel certain the footman took her?” Mr. Elkin asked the duchess.
“He is the only one in the household who did not report to the drawing room when called. Why else would he go missing at the same time that Celia disappeared from her bedroom?” The duchess turned back to the coals in the hearth, staring at them as if hoping to summon Celia into the library. “No one else could have taken her,” she said, almost growling out the words. “Because of my health, Celia and I have not exactly taken London by storm, and only our closest friends are here with us today.” She huffed a bitter snort. “I doubt very much the retired vicar and his family would even conceive of such a cruel kidnapping.”
“Friedrich seemed overprotective for a footman,” Elias said, more to her than the Runners. “I bloodied the man’s nose once when he burst in on a rather loud conversation between myself and Celia. Has he always been that way?”
The duchess resettled her grip on her cane’s ornately decorated handle, making her knuckles whiten with the effort. “Friedrich was always protective of us both.” Her mouth flattened into a hard line. “I once considered that a blessing. But now it appears to have turned into a curse.”
“Are you aware of any jib doors in the home, Your Grace?” Mr. Portney asked. When the duchess shook her head, then closed her eyes as though in dire need of silence, he turned to Elias. “Your brother said Lady Cecilia was last seen in her private suite. If there is a jib door in one of them, that would explain how the footman got hold of her with no one’s notice. Might even give us a clue where he took her, since they’re on foot—what with no horses or carriages being gone.”
“And on such a stormy evening,” Mr. Elkin interjected, “if he took to the streets with her, there would be few people to notice and far too many shadows he could put to good use. I shall send for more men to aid in the search. We must cover this area as quickly as possible. Time is of the essence.”
Elias crouched beside the duchess, loath to plague her with more questions but knowing it had to be done. “Forgive me, Your Grace, but do you know if any of the townhouse’s construction floor plans or drafts might still be here in the library? Master Hodgely said your husband commissioned this home to be built as a wedding present. Would he have kept the plans?”
She lifted her head and frowned at the memory. “Edmund would have kept them. But I have no idea where they might be.” She closed her eyes again, but a tear slipped free and rolled down her cheek. “Celia would know. This room was her haven.”
Elias flagged Monty over. “Her Grace needs comfort that I fear we men cannot give her. Would you be good enough to see her into the dining room? Her ladies are there. They will take far better care of her than we can.”
With a gentle nod, Monty bent and whispered something in the duchess’s ear that somehow drew a teary-eyed smile from her. She allowed him to help her to her feet and tuck her hand into the crook of his arm. Before moving to the door, she looked at Elias. “You will keep mefullyinformed?”
“I swear it, Your Grace.”
She drew herself up as if gathering every last shred of courage she possessed. “Very good. I shall be in the dining room.”
As soon as the door clicked shut behind them, Elias turned back to the Bow Street Runners. “Lady Cecilia has to be alive. How else could the man get a ransom?”
The men’s grim expressions offered him no comfort.
Mr. Portney ambled over to a cabinet that held at least a dozen or more narrow drawers—the sort of drawers that might hold collections of maps or large papers. “It depends on his intentions,” he said. “Or if he’s gone mad.”
“That is why we must work fast.” Mr. Elkins took the candle from the desk over to the unusual cabinet and held it above each drawer as Mr. Portney pulled them open. While thumbing through what turned out to be a collection of useless maps, he paused and scowled at Elias. “Do you have any notion how long the man was with them?”
“Over five years.” Elias lit another candle and headed for the door. “Send Henry for the additional men,” he told Mr. Portney. “I trust him. And in the meantime, I shall be upstairs, searching Lady Cecilia’s rooms again. The bastard has to have hidden her here on the premises. In this part of town, it would be too difficult to take her anywhere else without someone noticing.”
Without waiting for a response, he shielded the candle’s flame and hurried up the stairs. The storm’s gloom and the evening hours had brought a bleakness with them. Long, cold shadows shrouded everything. When he reached Celia’s sitting room, he lit every precious beeswax candle he could find. Damn the cost of them. He needed light, and prayed that wherever his Celia was, she had light too and was unharmed.
