Page 40 of A Duke in Pursuit of Passion
But it was clear from the little snippets of conversation she had heard that they wanted her alive, barely.
“You’ve got five minutes to eat,” the burly man snapped at her as he removed the gag from her mouth. “Don’t waste it.”
If Louisa had more energy, she might have scoffed at him. Instead, she simply glowered at him and began to eat, watching him move away to the edge of the room with the other guy who had entered the room.
They both remained there as they always did, clearly not able to leave her alone while she had one hand untied. It was almost as though they were scared she might try to escape again. Though she could still feel the nail she’d managed to pull free to unlock the door in her stay, she wasn’t sure it would do much to help her escape this time.
Besides, with the knowledge that Joshua had failed to come looking for her, and even more so the knowledge that her family seemed unphased by her kidnapping, she had lost all determination even to try to escape.
Suddenly turning herself away from them, Louisa tried her hardest to concentrate on eating the meagre portion of bread and stew they had brought her, feeling more than a little self-conscious at how they were watching her.
Though she had not meant it to affect them, the longer she looked away, the more she realized that their attention on her was slipping.
And before she knew it, the two were talking in hushed tones. Straining her ears as she ate, chewing slowly so that she could hear their whispered conversation, Louisa’s food almost stuck in her throat.
She heard one name uttered upon their lips, a name that was all too familiar.Joshua!
Why were they talking about him? Had they finally captured him too? Were they going to hold him to ransom too? After all, he was the son of a baron.
Bile rose in the back of Louisa’s throat and made her feel sick to the point that she thought she might be unable to stomach another bite of her food.
“Joshua said he was sending word back to London,” she heard one of them say, and her heart clenched tighter than ever. “But he hasn’t mentioned anything since.”
“He knows what he is doing,” the other said, and the confidence in the man’s tone made Louisa tense. “This isn’t the first time he’s got results.”
Louisa struggled to bite back a gasp.What were they saying?It didn’t bear thinking about. Her Joshua couldn’t possibly be involved in any of this.
And yet, the more she listened to their conversation, the more snippets she heard, she couldn’t help feeling a churning in her gut that told her she had been a total fool.
Closing her eyes and biting back the urge to vomit, she thought of all the conversations she had shared with Joshua and the times he had told her that he loved her and wanted to run away and marry her. She thought of how long it had taken him to get their supposed marriage license and the long hours he had left her in the tavern without even so much as a promise to take her out for a walk to stretch her legs.
No, it can’t be; he wouldn’t do this to me!she thought, but even as she thought it, she felt tension building inside her that said she wasn’t entirely right.
Just as the knowledge of what she had learned threatened to overwhelm her, one of her captors spoke loudly, “Time’s up,My Lady.”
Taking the only moment she had to quickly wipe the tears from her face, Louisa started to hold her breath, determined not to let them see that she was crying or that she had overheard their conversation. It would do her no good. Besides, what did it matter to them if she was feeling betrayed and if all she had ever known had been a lie?
The moment he approached, her captor wasted no time in slamming her hand back down on the wooden arm of the chair and tying her wrist back to it.
“Are you going to be a good girl, or do I need to shove this back in your mouth?” the second man asked, holding up the dirty rag still wet with her saliva.
Keeping her mouth firmly shut, her lips pursed, Louisa shook her head. After all she had just learned, she had lost all faith in anyone coming to find her. What use was screaming now?
Chapter 25
That night, Ella was entirely unable to sleep. All she could think about was her sister and all that could possibly be happening to her. She tried to think about the fact that Nate’s letter had suggested they would hurt her if they didn’t get their money, and surely that meant they hadn’t actually hurt her yet?
It was the only thing stopping her from entirely losing hope, and the smallest of threads that she felt might snap at any moment.
Tossing and turning in her bed, feeling the minutes tick by painfully slowly, Ella started to think about getting up and doing something. She wondered what might be productive enough to help her find her sister. And yet she came to nothing.
She was thinking about going downstairs to get herself a glass of warm milk in a last-ditch attempt to get some sleep when there was a gentle knocking on the door.
For a second, she wondered whether Alice might have come back to check up on her, but one glance at the clock sitting upon the mantlepiece across the room told her that it had been hours since her maid went up to bed.
Who could that be?she wondered as she sat up and slipped from the bed.
When the knocking came again, her skin began to crawl. Only when she heard a gentle whisper through the door did her concern turn to delight.
