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But then he set sail to America. The last thing she heard from him was that he’d met another woman and was setting up shop in a place called Chicago. At least he’d had the decency to inform her of his plans. She wished him well. Her heart had been dented, not broken, though in a moment of weakness she’d cried about the end of her affair to Honey.
When she didn’t respond to her friend’s provocative comment about her prior beau, Honey returned to the subject of Wilder & Co.’s woes. Eryx’s troubles had the family’s name on everyone’s lips, and that meant the inevitable rehashing of her own mortification at Lady Pindell’s eleven years ago.
Cora sighed and picked a crumb off her skirt. All she wanted was for thetonto forget she existed. Instead, she was their perpetual punching bag. An endless joke. Eleven years, this had been going on. She would give anything for a truly fresh start.
For that, she might have to move to America, too, she mused wryly.
“What do you think Mr. Wilder will do?” Honey asked pensively as she was leaving.
“I am certain he will find a solution,” Cora said with all the reassurance she could convey, knowing that in a day’s time it would be repeated throughout the city, if not beyond.
She was right. Eryx did conjure a solution, though Cora found herself rather horrified at what it entailed.
* * *
Meanwhile, in France…
Bella had suffered in life,but never like this.
Her wrists ached. Her hands had gone numb after hours of pain. If she survived this ordeal she was going to have to wear long sleeves for the rest of her life to cover the marks from the ligatures. Her hips and back radiated pain from slumping awkwardly on the cold, damp, dirt floor. She had aged during her time in captivity. Undoubtedly, when and if she emerged alive, she would discover gray hairs threaded through her sable strands.
A sob burst past her cracked, parched lips.
I want to live.
She didn’t know where she was, or how long she had been here.
These were questions that could be answered if—when—she escaped.
Bella yanked at the rope holding her to the wall of this dank cellar and growled with frustration. She reeked of her own unwashed filth. Her stomach had given up complaining and settled into a constant aching hollowness. Her clothes hung loosely from her ravaged body.
Why hadn’t they killed her?
Helpless anger churned her empty belly. Bridget Ross and her loathsome toad of a son, whom she had christened Gibface in lieu of knowing his name, had taken her captive in her own flat in Paris, a place of many happy memories with her husband before his death. Now those memories were tainted forever.
Hawke had warned her she was in danger. He’d promised her that she would be safe if she left. Instead, he’d driven her straight into the arms of her enemies.
Her wounded heart ached. He’d sent her here to die in a dank cellar in unknown parts of France.
Had he done it on purpose?
The only thing keeping her alive now was her burning need to know the truth. If Hawke had been in cahoots with Bridget Ross, the wretched procuress of children called the Witch of St. Giles, then Bella was a great fool to have trusted him.
CHAPTERFIVE
CORA
“Icannot tolerate living with Lysander for one more minute,” Cora fumed to her sister-in-law one tense week later. With the holidays fully over and February looming, business had started up in earnest and the bank’s fate hung by a thread.
“The duke can be trying,” Annalise said diplomatically. “But surely he isn’t cruel?”
“Not to Titi.” Nor to her, in truth. Lysander treated her as any arrogant older brother might treat his younger sibling—patronizing at best. “He caught her sleeping in his slipper yesterday. He stomped away and has grumbled endlessly about dog hair sticking to his socks ever since. All we do is bicker about my pet.”
Annalise smiled, which only annoyed Cora further.
“I’ve caught him slipping her table scraps, even though I’ve told him not to. She’s gained a full pound since we moved into Gryphon House. Her little jackets barely fit anymore. I’m going to have to make her new ones,” Cora groused. At least it would be something useful to do.
“Teach the duke to knit. Maybe it’ll take his mind off more stressful things.”
