Chapter 24
The fourth day tasted of damp limestone and despair.
Thelma walked the length of the small, whitewashed room.
Four steps to the heavy oak door. Turn. Four steps to the narrow, barred window.
Turn. She had been doing this for hours, the worn soles of her boots dragging across the uneven floorboards in a slow, hypnotic rhythm that was the only thing keeping her from screaming.
Against her chest, Liliana let out another dry, rattling cough.
The sound tore through Thelma like a rusted nail. She hitched the baby higher on her hip, pulling the coarse yellow wool blanket tighter around the small, shivering shoulders.
"Shh, my love," Thelma murmured, her lips brushing against Liliana’s dark curls. "I have you. I am here."
Liliana’s skin was pale, her usual boundless energy replaced by a heavy, lethargic exhaustion. She rested her head heavily in the hollow of Thelma’s collarbone, her breathing labored.
The cold of the stone house had seeped deep into the baby’s chest, and with no fire, no warm milk, and only the drafts howling through the window, the cough had settled in the night before and refused to leave.
If she takes a fever again in this freezing hole, she will die.
The thought was a cold, hard stone sitting in the pit of Thelma’s stomach. She paced faster, trying to generate friction, trying to transfer whatever heat remained in her own exhausted body into the child.
Downstairs, the house was utterly, terrifyingly silent.
Silas and Cobb had been arguing constantly for the first two days, their voices traveling up the chimney breast in angry, jagged bursts. But since yesterday evening, the shouting had stopped. There had been no heavy boots on the stairs this morning. No tin pitcher of water shoved through the door.
Have they left us? Thelma squeezed her eyes shut, fighting down a wave of pure panic. Did they realize the ransom was too dangerous? Did they simply lock the door and walk away?
She stopped by the barred window, looking out at the driving gray rain that turned the moors into a blurry, desolate ocean of mud.
She had no idea where they were, no idea how far the closest village might be.
Even if she managed to break the iron lock on the door, she had no food, no dry clothes, and a sick infant to carry across miles of flooded tracks.
Liliana coughed again, a weak, wet sound that made her small frame shudder.
Thelma sank onto the edge of the wooden cot, burying her face in the baby’s neck. She had no tears left. She had cried them all into the dusty ticking of the mattress on the second night. Now, there was only a hollow, scraping endurance.
Please, she prayed to a gray, empty sky. Please, let him have read the letter. Let him know I did not abandon him.
The afternoon dragged on, the light in the room dimming as the heavy clouds pressed lower over the roofline.
Then, she heard it.
The sound was faint at first, muffled by the relentless drumming of the rain. The deep, rhythmic thud of hooves striking mud and gravel. Not one horse. Two. And they were moving fast, pushing hard despite the treacherous terrain.
Thelma’s head snapped up. She held her breath, her heart executing a fierce, painful stutter against her ribs.
Downstairs, a chair scraped violently across a stone floor. Silas’s voice barked out a sharp, panicked oath.
The horses slid to a halt in the courtyard directly beneath the window. Before Thelma could even move toward the glass, a heavy, resounding crash shook the entire foundation of the house. It sounded as though the front door had been kicked entirely off its iron hinges.
"Where are they?"
The voice tore through the floorboards, booming with a raw, lethal fury that made the dust shake loose from the ceiling beams.
Thelma stopped breathing. She clutched Liliana so tightly the baby let out a small squeak of protest.
Roman.
"Get back!" Silas roared downstairs.
What followed was the chaotic, terrifying symphony of absolute violence.
Thelma heard the sickening thud of bone connecting with bone, the shattering of timber as what sounded like a heavy table splintered against the stone wall.
A man screamed—a high, wheezing sound that had to be Cobb—followed by the heavy crash of a body hitting the floor.
"I asked you a question!" Roman roared, his voice stripped of every ounce of aristocratic restraint, reduced to the pure, primitive rage of a man ready to kill.
"Upstairs!" Silas choked out, his voice strangled, as though a hand was crushing his throat. "Tower room!"
A deafening crack split the air, the unmistakable report of a flintlock pistol.
Thelma shrieked, pressing her hands over Liliana’s ears and backing into the furthest corner of the room, her knees giving way as she slid down the cold stone wall to the floor.
Did they shoot him? Did Silas shoot him?
Footsteps pounded on the spiral stairs, rapid and desperate. The heavy iron lock on her door rattled violently. A key scraped into the mechanism, turning with a frantic click.
The door was thrown open.
Thelma braced herself, pulling her knees up to shield the baby.
But it was not Silas. It was Meg, the timid, half-starved kitchen maid from the local tavern, who Silas had dragged along to boil their water and sweep the grates. The girl was trembling violently, her eyes wide with absolute terror, a heavy iron key clutched in her bleeding hand.
"Oh, miss!" Meg sobbed, throwing herself into the room and pushing the door half-shut behind her, pressing her back against the oak panels. "Oh, God save us, the giant man in the velvet coat, he’s tearing them to pieces! He threw Mr. Cobb through the trestle table, and Silas pulled a pistol, but the other gentleman, the blond one, shot the gun right out of Silas’s hand! There’s blood everywhere! "
Thelma stared at the girl, her chest heaving. "Are they... is the duke unharmed?"
"I don't know, miss, I just ran!" Meg wept, sliding down the door. "He looked like the devil himself, he did. He had Silas by the neck against the hearthstone!"
Downstairs, the terrible crashing ceased.
A heavy, ringing silence fell over the house.
Thelma’s breath caught in her throat. She stared at the oak door, her arms locked around Liliana, every muscle in her body pulled as tight as a bowstring.
Slowly, the heavy, deliberate sound of boots began to ascend the stone stairs.
Meg scrambled away from the door, crawling into the opposite corner and throwing her apron over her head.
The oak door swung open, the rusted hinges groaning into the quiet room.
Roman stood in the threshold.
Thelma let out a broken, ragged gasp.
He was a ruin of his former self. His heavy riding coat was soaked through with rain and mud. He wore no cravat, his white linen shirt torn at the collar and stained with smears of dirt and something darker.
A fierce, bleeding cut sliced across his cheekbone, and his knuckles were raw and split. His dark chestnut hair was plastered to his forehead, and his chest heaved as he dragged the damp air into his lungs.
His gray eyes swept the dim room, wild and frantic, until they landed on the corner where she sat curled on the floor.
The lethal, violent tension drained out of his body in a single second.
"Thelma," he breathed.
"Roman," she sobbed, the tears finally breaking, pouring down her face in a hot, uncontrollable flood.
Liliana, hearing the deep, familiar timbre of his voice, poked her head out from beneath the yellow blanket. The baby blinked her swollen eyes, let out a wet, rattling cough, and then stretched both of her small, chubby arms directly toward the doorway.
Roman dropped to his knees.
He crossed the distance between them not by walking, but by dragging himself across the dirty floorboards, collapsing into the corner beside them.
He reached out, his large, shaking hands gathering Liliana into his chest. He buried his face in the baby’s dark curls, his broad shoulders trembling with a deep, shuddering release.
Liliana patted his dirty cheek, entirely unfazed by the mud and blood, letting out a small, contented sigh as she settled against the solid warmth of his chest.
Roman shifted his weight, his right arm remaining locked protectively around the infant, while his left arm swept out and pulled Thelma entirely into his side.
He pressed her against him, crushing the damp wool of her gown against his torn shirt. He buried his face in her tangled hair, pressing his mouth against the crown of her head. He kissed her hair, her temple, the side of her forehead, his lips hot and desperate against her freezing skin.
"I have you," he whispered fiercely into her hair, his voice rough and broken. "I have you. You are safe. I swear to God, you are safe."
Thelma buried her face in the curve of his neck, her hands gripping the lapels of his ruined coat as if she would drown if she let go.
She cried until her ribs ached, pouring four days of terror, cold, and despair into the fabric of his shirt.
He did not let go. He held them both in the freezing, dusty corner of the cell as though they were the only things tethering him to the earth.
He came, her mind repeated, a litany of sheer, disbelieving gratitude. He read the letter, and he came.
Downstairs, the authoritative voice of Orson Mercer drifted up through the floorboards.
"The constable is waiting at the crossroads, Roman," Lord Ashmore shouted, his tone remarkably calm considering the carnage he was likely standing in. "I have bound them with the carriage traces. The house is secure."
Roman slowly pulled back, his hand coming up to cup Thelma’s pale, tear-stained cheek. His thumb brushed away the moisture under her eye, his touch incredibly gentle despite the bruised, bloodied state of his knuckles.
"Can you walk?" he asked softly.
Thelma nodded, sniffing hard as she wiped her nose with the back of her wrist. "Yes. I just... I want to leave this room."
"You will never see it again," Roman promised.
“Roman…I’m sorry…I…”