“I told them to take Phillip,” Hugh’s voice continued, still petulant. “I never mentioned Sophia. How was I to know she’d be there?”
Phillip arched a brow. The look on his face indicated that he, too, recognized his cousin’s annoying tone.
“You knew she’d be there because I told you she would,” came the other man’s voice. “You read the note Roberts showed us. She asked him to meet her in the park.”
Sophie gasped again before quickly whispering to Phillip, “Roberts is Valentina’s awful butler.” Sophie narrowed her eyes. If she lived through this, she would find a way to kick that hideous man out on his arse for his betrayal.
“What’s done is done,” Hugh replied. “The question is, what are we going to do now?”
“We don’t have any choice, you fool,” came the first voice. “We must kill them both.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Phillip expelled his breath. Hugh was upstairs, but who was he talking to? Phillip couldn’t place the second man’s voice. It sounded vaguely familiar to him, too. Could it be the unknown man Sophie had heard her stepmother speaking to? Was it Lord Vining? He’d only spoken to Vining for a few minutes at the Cranberrys’ ball. And his voice had sounded anxious and weak, nothing like this voice.
Damn it all to hell. The look of stark terror on Sophie’s face when the voice had uttered the word ‘kill’ a few moments ago had made Phillip doubt the logic of his plan. He hated to see her so frightened. Perhaps he should have taken Sophie to safety first. But then their captors might discover her gone and think she’d run away to get help.
Meanwhile, Sophie had gone pale and sank to the cot. She sat staring at the wall as if in a trance. “Did you hear that?” she breathed, gesturing upstairs with one hand.
Phillip nodded. “The first voice is Hugh’s. Whose is the other?”
She startled out of her trance and shook herself. Frustration quickly replacing the fear on her face. “I don’t know. I still can’t place it.”
Phillip lowered himself to the cot to sit next to her. He squeezed her hand. “I can’t quite place that voice either. Though I’m certain I’ve heard it before.”
Hugh’s wheedling tone sounded through the floorboards again. “Do you plan to go down there and shoot them both right now?” This time, there was obvious fright in his voice.
Sophie sprang up as if to run or hide. Phillip’s hand grabbed her arm to still her. “Wait,” he whispered.
She uneasily lowered herself back to the cot to listen to the rest of the men’s conversation.
“No,” came the first man’s reply. “We can’t go off half-cocked. We must make a plan. This has become far too complicated. I’ve already sent a note. The Jackal will arrive in the morning. Tomorrow will be soon enough.”
“Tomorrow,” Sophie breathed after the two men had walked off, their footsteps echoing on the floorboards above. “They’re going to kill us tomorrow.”
“I won’t allow anything to happen to you,” Phillip promised, squeezing her hand. He looked her deep in the eyes, wanting her to believe she could trust him to keep her safe. “I give you my word.”
Sophie nodded. “I hate being confined to this cellar.”
Phillip met her gaze, his countenance solemn. “I’m sorry, Sophie. Close your eyes. Pretend you’re anywhere else but here.”
She managed a smile for him and promptly did. “Very well. I’m in a rowboat in the middle of a pretty lake. Now, what are we going to do?”
Phillip stood and paced away from her. “That second voice, was it the same one you heard talking to your stepmother?”
She nodded vigorously, her eyes still closed. “Yes, I’m certain of it.”
Phillip planted his fists on his hips. “I suspected as much. You need to tell me everything you know about Hugh and his friends in London.”
“Very well,” Sophie replied, taking a deep breath, “but I can tell you right now, I’ve never heard of anyone called The Jackal.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Earlier that afternoon, while Sophie was sleeping, Phillip had moved the flour sacks in front of the hidden door in the shadowed part of the cellar and climbed up the small staircase that had been his favorite place to hide as a child. The space seemed tiny now. He’d barely squeezed through it. It had taken all his resolve to breathe—Three. Two. One.—as he’d climbed through the close passageway.
Once at the top, he’d pushed up the trapdoor set into the floorboards in one of the empty storage rooms in the kitchen and made his way stealthily through the servants’ hall until he’d come to Mrs. Jarvis’s office. The imposing lady had a desk inside, from which she ruled the house alongside the butler.
Phillip had stolen into the room and put his finger to his lips to keep Mrs. Jarvis silent. He let his gaze rove over his old friend. The housekeeper had more gray hair than he remembered and perhaps a few more lines near her mouth. Her familiar dark eyes had filled with tears the moment she’d looked up and seen him. “It’s true?” she’d whispered. “The rumors are true. Yer alive, and yer back.”
