Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
She managed to calm down enough after Mungo’s rude behavior to teach Fred that cussing in a social setting was unacceptable and Matilda that she could not take a book and sit in the corner at a ball.
She then ran through several scenarios of what was acceptable behavior and conversational openings.
Then the dance tutor arrived, so they all trooped to the largest room in the house and practiced.
Theo was elegant and light on his feet. Matilda and Anna were the same.
Fred tended to stomp loudly and scowl a great deal.
Eliza would need to spend some time alone with her to help her with the coming transition.
It was never easy to make changes to one’s life, and as the eldest of the three girls, it was harder for her.
After two hours of dance practice and etiquette lessons, the girls were more than ready to take a break for a meal, and as it was Eliza’s afternoon off, she decided to take a walk and see Sylvie.
She missed her friend dreadfully and wanted to talk with her about everything that had happened since she’d arrived here.
“What are you doing with your afternoon off, Miss Downing? You’ve not left this place or Crabbett Close since you arrived, unless it is with a member of this family,” Ivy Nightingale said when she reached the entranceway.
“A walk, I think, and I’m hoping to see my friend. We lived together before coming here. She is a seamstress.”
“How lovely. You enjoy your time with her, then.”
She liked this woman. Kind and sweet but also had a backbone when required, and no doubt that was needed with this family. Eliza admired what she and her husband had done. They’d given up everything for their nieces and nephews. It took strong people to do that. Good people who cared.
“And if you ever wish to have a visitor here, Miss Downing, then please do. We do not stand on ceremony and would love to meet your friend.”
She didn’t know what to say to that because she was sure there weren’t many who would be so generous.
“Now, off you go. No point in standing about here when it is your afternoon off. Where does your friend work?”
“At the House of La Rue, in Porter Lane, and thank you for your kindness, Mrs. Nightingale.”
The words were waved away, and then Eliza pulled on her outer clothing, wrapped her scarf tight around her neck, and left.
“Miss Downing!”
She looked toward the park in the middle of the close and saw several hands raised. It was freezing out, but the men were playing bowls.
Waving back, she shook her head. This street, she thought.
It would be good to put some space between herself and Mungo. The man was too much of everything for her, and he’d kissed her—twice, which told her he felt the attraction between them even though, like her, he was fighting it.
What did that mean for them?
Worry about that another day, Eliza. She purchased some nougat from a sweet shop and looked in windows as she passed, as she had nowhere she had to be at a specific time. It was liberating.
She’d lived so many years on someone else’s time clock. Today was for her.
She clutched her coat tighter around her shoulders and turned toward Porter Lane. The fog swirled low again, as it had that night Mungo had saved her. It wasn’t as thick, she could still see, but it was there, winding around her legs like a silent cloud.
A prickle crept up her spine. Was someone behind her?
Eliza stopped. Slowly she turned and saw a man. She smiled, and he responded in kind. One of his hands then reached out to grab her.
“What do you want?” She tried to shake free, but his grip was punishing.
“Make a scene, and I’ll shoot someone. Do you want to be the cause of a stranger’s death, Miss Downing?”
Her stomach turned to ice at his use of her name and the pistol she saw as he opened his coat.
“How do you know my name?”
“We know all about you and what you’ve done.” He kept his eyes on her, while Eliza tried to find someone, anyone, who would help her. “You’ve made a powerful man very unhappy.”
“No! I haven’t done anything.” She tried again to get free.
“You’ll regret it if you make a scene.” He spoke the words calmly, conversationally, and his smile never slipped.
“What are you going to do with me?”
“You’ll find out soon enough. Now be a good girl, or someone will die because of you.”
There were people close by. She could hear their footsteps and the sounds of conversations going on around her. If she screamed, if she ran, if she fought… the gun would go off. Someone would fall. Someone who’d done nothing more than walk down the wrong street on the wrong day.
“That’s her.” A second man had arrived. Bigger. Older. His face looked harder, with deep lines, harsh angles, and a mouth that never smiled. His eyes slid over her in a way that made Eliza’s skin crawl.
“Aye,” the man holding her said. “And I want her after.”
The bigger man grunted. “He don’t care whose she is afterward. He just likes collecting the pretty ones for his parties. Then you can have her. But we have history with this one. Don’t we, Eliza?”
She studied his face, but it was the eyes that she recognized.
“That’s right. Your father caused us a lot of trouble once, but we dealt with him. You were a brave little thing, demanding justice outside our headquarters, until Jessie sent me out to talk to you.”
“You killed my family,” Eliza whispered.
He nodded. “Along with a few others.” Then addressed his friend. “It was her father who put some of us behind bars, and he was the reason we had to change our name from Black Harridan’s Boys to Baddon Boys.”
The other man looked from his friend and back to Eliza. “She’s Downing’s daughter?”
“She is, and likely has his spirit, so watch her.”
“Murdering bastard,” Eliza hissed, fear warring with rage inside her.
But this man had played a part in ruining her life. She’d never show him fear.
His expression shifted into angry at her words. “You watch your mouth.”
“I’m not frightened of you,” she lied. In fact, she was terrified.
“Easy, Len. Let’s just get her in the cart,” the other man said.
“I’m not going with you.”
“Well then, which one of these people do you want dead?” he whispered, leaning close to speak in her ear.
Her gaze darted across the street and she saw people above the fog.
A man in a tall hat walking arm in arm with an elderly woman, perhaps his mother.
A young girl skipping, her braids flying, her tiny hand wrapped around her mother’s gloved fingers.
A pair of workers hauling crates. A hunched gentleman feeding crumbs to pigeons.
Her breath caught. She could not choose. She could not be the cause of any of their deaths. Eliza’s voice came out hoarse. “What do you want me to do?”
“Walk,” he said. “Straight ahead. You’ll see a narrow lane to the left. Take it.”
She started forward. He kept a bruising hold on her wrist, the bigger man following close behind like a dark shadow. Her mind spun as she searched around her, desperate for any gap she could run through, any chance to escape. But she saw nothing.
If she screamed, she’d be dead before the sound reached anyone, and she wasn’t ready to die.
Eliza was finally building a life. Yes, it had been turbulent, but she had a job she enjoyed with people she respected.
She was beginning to feel a sense of belonging with the Nightingales.
Even Mungo, with his broad shoulders and thick Scottish burr, had become someone she secretly looked for in a room.
Someone she grumbled at only to hide the strange flutter he caused in her chest. Someone she—
Stop. Surviving came first, and she was good at that.
Her boots splashed through a shallow puddle as she entered the narrow lane. A hand shoved her forward.
“Hurry up.”
She stumbled but kept walking, blinking away the tears. Crying helped no one. She had to stay strong.
At the far end of the lane waited a cart. A plain, unmarked thing with a canvas draped over the back. A man dressed like the others stood beside it.
The moment she reached it, hands seized her arms.
“No—”
She didn’t get another word out.
They lifted her and tossed her into the rear like she was a sack of flour.
Her shoulder slammed into the wooden planks.
Pain shot up her arm. Before she could scramble upright, someone forced her onto her front, a knee digging into her spine.
Her hands were then bound behind her before she was rolled onto her back.
A filthy rag was shoved between her teeth.
She gagged, choking, head jerking back and forth.
“Be quiet, stay still, and you’ll survive. But if you give us trouble, it will go worse for you, Eliza Downing,” the older man said.
Worse? How could it go worse?
Her lungs seized. The cold air felt too thick to breathe. Panic clawed up her throat as she tried to inhale through her nose.
“You won’t feel a thing soon,” another voice said, and then she heard their laughter. The cart was covered, and she was alone in the dark. It then rocked as they settled on the driver’s seat.
How was she going to escape? Why was this happening to her?
Who would come and find her when she didn’t return? Would the Nightingales think she’d simply left? No, her things were still in her room. They’d see them and notify the authorities. Someone had to come looking for her, surely?
She squeezed her eyes shut.
She was never going to see Sylvie or the Nightingales again. Never see Mungo or hear his deep voice barking orders in the household.
But the thought didn’t make her crumble. It ignited something.
She was not going out quietly. She was not going to be taken and discarded by these men. She had fought for everything she had, every inch of what she’d gained since leaving her uncle. Eliza would fight now too. These men would not claim the life of yet another Downing.
The cart lurched forward, wheels groaning, the sound echoing through the canvas-covered darkness. The smell of old wood and damp rope pressed in around her. The gag tasted of filth and despair.
But beneath the terror and the threat of the unknown, something hard and sharp formed inside her.
I will escape. I will survive. And I will make them regret the moment they touched me.
Even if it was the last thing she ever did.