Page 113 of A Baby to Seal the Duke’s Fate

Chapter 22

Honora stopped counting the hours. The locked room made time strange. There was daylight through the curtains the following morning, darkness at night, and very little else by which to measure the passage of hours and minutes.

By the second morning, she noticed the men came twice a day: once in the morning, and once toward evening. They opened the door only far enough to look inside, delivered a piece of bread and a cup of water, and left again without answering questions, never saying when she would be released, never explaining why she was there, and never mentioning Isolde.

Honora had eventually stopped asking. Cecily had not, voicing loud, shrill protests each time the door opened and then shut with her still inside the room. Each time, it became harder and harder for Honora to console the child. Cecily had become restless and very hungry. She had been given almost nothing besides the milk Honora had been able to stretch as carefully as possible.

On the second morning, Cecily woke up crying before there was enough light to see properly. Honora, who had taken a spot with the threadbare sheet on the floor so that Cecily could sleep on the cot, gathered her up and paced the room.

“There, sweetheart.”

Cecily cried harder.

“I know.” Honora pressed her lips against the baby’s damp hair. “You do not understand, and you are hungry, I know.”

There was nothing she could do. That was the worst part. At Belgrave, there had always been something: milk, food, warm water, a fire, someone to ask.

Even when she had been afraid, even when she had lied, even when she had not known how the story would end, she had always been able to put food in Cecily’s stomach and toys in her hands. She had been able to put her in a warm, soft bed, and a physician had been just an errand away. Right then, she had a crust of bread and a cup of water. Nothing else.

Honora sat on the edge of the cot and broke the bread into the smallest pieces she could manage. She softened the piece with the water and tried to coax Cecily into calming down enough so she could eat. The baby took it eagerly.

“There, darling,” she said, watching how hungrily the child ate the bread. She wished they would at least bring a little more bread.

Even men capable of something as atrocious as kidnapping could find enough compassion for a child to bring more food, she thought, more out of worried frustration than rational thought. They clearly want, or need us alive, or they surely would have killed us well before now. So why not bother to leave a little more food, if only to silence Cecily’s cries?

Cecily reached for another piece. Honora gave it to her. The child ate that one just as greedily. Honora looked at the remaining crumbs. There were not many. Cecily immediately reached for the last piece, and Honora gave it to her. She would go without. She was an adult, and she could endure hunger. Cecily could not.

The morning passed slowly. Honora tried to distract the child with the wooden rattle she had packed. Cecily shook it a few times, then dropped it and crawled toward the window. The room was too small for her growing curiosity. She tried to pull herself up against the bed. Honora caught her before she fell.

“No.”

Cecily protested.

Honora smiled despite the ache in her chest. “You are determined to make trouble even here.”

The baby gave a tired little babble. Honora sat on the floor and held her against her chest. She thought of Belgrave: the nursery, the fire, Martha’s tea, Mrs. Pritchard’s authoritative manner, the wooden floorboards outside the study, Leopold sitting on the floor with Cecily.

She tried not to think of him. That lasted perhaps a minute. Then, his face came back to her memory. Not the face from the night he dismissed her.

She thought of his face when he laughed, the way the tension in his expression melted and his eyes lit up. She thought of the way he looked when he was trying not to smirk, when he was feigning offense, and when Cecily filled his ears with her many incoherent opinions and declarations.

Honora thought of the way he had looked at her when their hands touched. She recalled the way his arm had felt around her when he had kept her and Cecily from falling at the slippery bank of the river, and the way the intensity of his eyes before he reluctantly released her had made her heart hum impossibly fast.

She squeezed her eyes shut. “I am so sorry,” she whispered, as if by some miracle, Leopold might hear her.

Cecily shifted against her and grunted. Honora kissed her forehead. “I am sorry to you, as well. This is all my fault.”

The child had no idea what she meant. Nor did she understand how serious their situation was becoming. Honora tried endlessly to pretend for Cecily’s sake that all was well. But Honora knew that unless they could get away, the lack of food would take its toll on both of them. And she did not know what would happen if either of them fell gravely ill.

***

That night, Honora could not sleep as hunger pangs gnawed at her stomach. Cecily lay curled beside her on the floor where she had fallen asleep, one hand fisted in Honora’s sleeve. The child had had more trouble falling asleep than the night before, and Honora was afraid to try to move her to the cot. The room was dark, but the house below was not silent. Honora heard footsteps first. Then, for the first time ever, she heard voices. She sat upright. The words were too muffled at first to make sense. Then one voice rose, and she pressed her ear against the door enough to feel the scrape of some loose splinters.

“…Said we would be paid.”

The other answered. “We were supposed to be.”

“Then where is it?”