After several minutes’ walk over gravel, Beefy ordered, “Up these stairs now.”
Phillip carefully made his way up a small flight of stairs. A door was opened, and he was pushed inside a building, Sophie still making the occasional noise beside him. They walked through what sounded like wooden hallways for several more minutes before another door creaked open.
“Down them stairs,” Beefy ordered.
The musty smell of a cellar hit Phillip’s nostrils. He made his way cautiously down the steps. “Be careful,” he warned Sophie in a whisper. The steps were rickety. He ensured his body was in front of hers and he would break her fall if she were to trip.
“No talkin’, ye!” came Beefy’s voice from in front of them. The second man was breathing heavily behind them, nudging them down the stairs with some sort of club.
Once they descended, Phillip heard a flint being struck and just as one captor ripped the blindfold off Phillip’s face, a lantern sprung to light.
Blinking against the light, Phillip quickly glanced around, taking in the large room. Barrels and wine bottles lined the closest wall. Bags of flour and wheat were stacked nearly to the ceiling along the opposite wall, and wooden crates, ostensibly also filled with foodstuffs, lined the wall behind them near the staircase. The far end of the space was cast entirely in deep shadows.
Phillip turned to look at his captors. He could finally size up the other man who had traveled with them. The second man was shorter than Phillip and much smaller than Beefy, though he had nearly as questionable teeth. Sophie was right. Both men looked as if they could use a good bath. There was no way these men were the ones who’d wanted Malcolm dead. They were definitely hired lackeys.
The smaller man was busily pulling off Sophie’s blindfold. When it was gone, she gave him a narrowed-eyed stare and ire flashed in her eyes.
“I’m gonna remove yer ties, me lady,” Beefy said next. “On order o’ me master. But don’t be trying nuthin’. I’ve belted a lady afore and won’t think nuthin’ o’ doin’ it again.”
Sophie narrowed her eyes on Beefy even further. “Charming,” she replied in a scathing tone.
Beefy pulled a huge knife from somewhere in his voluminous breeches and sawed at Sophie’s wrist ties for a few moments before the ties fell away. Sophie sighed and rubbed her wrists, which were red and had obviously been bleeding. Phillip would see these two blackguards rotting in gaol for what they’d done to her.
The smaller man set the lantern he’d been holding at the bottom of the stairs, before saying, “Ye’ve got a cot, and some things ta wash up wit in the corner. Courtesy o’ the master.”
After that pronouncement, the two men scurried back up the staircase.
“How long must we stay here?” Phillip called after them.
“Until the master arrives,” came Beefy’s unsatisfying reply.
“Who’s the mast—?” Phillip attempted just before the cellar door slammed shut, darkening the room further.
The unmistakable sound of a key being turned in a lock followed.
Phillip stood there and blinked at Sophie. He was still tied at the wrists and ankles while Sophie was only tied at the ankles. She immediately lowered herself to sit on the dirt floor and began tearing at her ankle ropes. It took her a few minutes to free one foot, and she kicked the rope away from the other. Without saying a word, she jumped up and ran toward the stairs, grabbed the lantern, and began searching the room.
“What are you looking for?” Phillip asked, staring at her calmly.
“A knife, or something to cut your ties,” she replied, without slowing down or stopping her search.
“There should be a knife hanging on the wall near that barrel, over by the flour sacks,” he said, nodding toward the space.
She stopped immediately and frowned, turning slowly to look at him. “How do you know?”
“I know because when I was a child, I used to play here daily. We’re in the cellar at Graystone Manor, the Harlowe ancestral estate.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Sophie stood close to Phillip while she cut off his wrist ties. Even though they’d just spent the night rolling around in a questionably clean coach, he still smelled good. And how the man managed to look barely mussed after being kidnapped at knifepoint she would never know, but he had accomplished both. The slight stubble that had grown on his face only served to make him look a bit roguish and dangerously handsome. Good heavens. How could she be thinking such thoughts when they were clearly in danger? She needed to focus.
“If this is Graystone Manor,” she breathed, trying to reconcile that fact with their abduction, “then…”
“Hugh is almost certainly a part of this,” Phillip finished for her. “And there’s no doubt as to our location. I knew the moment we entered the house. I’d recognize that specific mixture of the housekeeper’s rosemary and mint cleaning oil anywhere. It’s Mrs. Jarvis’s special concoction.”
Sophie nodded. It wasn’t particularly surprising that Hugh was part of whatever was going on, but who was he working with? Who was the man she’d heard in the salon with Valentina? Not that it mattered at the moment. The only thing that mattered now was finding a way out of here. The cellar wasn’t as close as a carriage, but the ceiling was low and the space made her uneasy. Not to mention, even if men from the Home Office had followed them, there was no guarantee they’d be saved.
As soon as Phillip’s wrists were free, Sophie left him to remove his own ankle ropes while she continued to search the room.
