Bella’s, or rather Beatrix’s, gasped statement was not what Griffin had been expecting to hear.
She had been so caught up in her nightmares still, so lost in those awful memories, that Griffin was sure she did not realise she had been talking out loud the whole time as she’d recounted the details of the visions that had caused her to wake screaming.
And as she’d remembered Griffin had felt himself becoming angrier and angrier at all she had suffered. It was a cold and vengeful anger, which he knew would only be assuaged when he found, and punished, the two people responsible for having treated Beatrix so cruelly.
Yet hadn’t he also been guilty of mistreating her? By refusing to trust her and treating her with suspicion?
Admittedly, his many years as an agent for the Crown had created a deep cynicism and distrust within him. To the point where he was now wary of anyone who was not family or a close friend. This left him with a very small circle of people: his grandmother, the Dangerous Dukes and their wives, and Aubrey Maystone. And recent events had only added to his distrust and wariness.
However, was it possible that she was innocently involved in his own reason for being in Lancashire? ‘Jacob?’ he repeated softly. ‘Could this man you refer to possibly be called Jacob Harker?’
She gave a pained frown. ‘I never heard his last name, only his first, and I believe even that was by accident.’
‘Can you describe him?’ Griffin prompted gently. ‘Did he have any distinguishing marks? A scar, perhaps? Or a mole?’ Recalling that Harker had a mole on the left side of his neck.
She shuddered. ‘I never saw him.’
Griffin frowned his puzzlement. ‘I do not understand.’
‘Usually there was a blindfold secured back and over my ears. On the day I heard his name they had been questioning me again, and had not covered my ears sufficiently, so that I could hear a muffled conversation, more like an argument, between the two of them outside of where I was kept prisoner.’ She swallowed. ‘The second jailer was angry, and remonstrating with the first, I think because they had once again failed to get the answers from me they wanted. One shouted that I would be dead before they had their answers. That is when I overheard one of them refer to the other as Jacob.’
Complete deprivation of sight, sound and touch, along with a minimum of food and water, with the added threat of dying a painful death; it was a standard method of torture.
That those things had been done to this helpless young woman made Griffin feel positively murderous.
If her parents were both dead, then where was her guardian, her closest male relative? Someone, somewhere had surely been entrusted with the care of her after her parents’ deaths? Whoever they were they deserved to be shot for their negligence.
Of course young ladies did sometimes run away in the middle of the night during or after the London season, but usually they returned several days or weeks later, either in disgrace or with a husband!
There was always the possibility that her guardians believed she had eloped.
‘Bella—Beatrix?’ Griffin hesitated over the name.
‘Bea,’ she corrected flatly. ‘I believe my parents referred to me as Bea.’
Griffin did not miss the past tense in that statement, or the look of pained bewilderment in Bea’s eyes. A pained bewilderment that he perfectly understood if, in fact, her parents were both dead, as she had dreamt they were. ‘Do you remember them?’
‘Only in the dream,’ she answered dully. ‘And only that one instance, when I was dancing giddily with my mother.’
That was, Griffin now strongly suspected, because shock and fear were responsible for causing her amnesia. The memories were obviously returning to her, even if only subconsciously, but her imprisonment, the harshness of her treatment, meant it would probably take time for all of her memories from before her abduction to return to her completely.
He might have wished she could forget her imprisonment and torture too!
Griffin’s attempts today, to see if Bea belonged to a family in the area, had come to naught.
On his way out this afternoon he had instructed Reynolds, his estate manager, to check on any of the empty cottages and woodcutters’ sheds within the estate, in the hopes that he might find some sign of where Bea might have been held prisoner. Her flight through the woods the previous night surely meant that Bea could not have run far dressed as she was and without footwear.
Bea.
How strange that he had chosen a name for her not so far from her own.
Tears dampened her lashes as she pulled abruptly out of his arms before standing up. ‘I do not know how or when my parents died, but it must have been recently I think, because in my dream I attended their funeral, and I did not look so different then, except for the bruises, from how I am now.’ The tears fell unchecked down the pallor of her hollowed cheeks.
‘I am sorry for that, Bea,’ Griffin consoled as he stood up to go to her, taking a light grasp of her arms as he looked down at her. ‘I am so very sorry for your loss.’
‘I do not remember them.’ She shook her head sadly as she drew her bottom lip between her teeth in an effort to stop any more tears from falling. ‘I only know of them at all because I saw myself standing at their gravesides, and knew that I loved and grieved for them both.’
How Bea had survived, even as well as she had, after all that had recently been done to her, Griffin could not even begin to comprehend.
She might have survived physically, he corrected himself grimly, but emotionally it was a different matter. It appeared now that Bea’s mind had simply shut itself down and refused to remember.
Except in her dreams.
But the things that Bea had now recalled about herself in those dreams were something Griffin might use in order to further try and identify who she was. She was obviously well spoken and educated, which indicated that in all likelihood her parents had been also. A further adage to that was they had, in all probability, been members of society; there could not be too many couples in society who had both died at the same time, and recently, and with a daughter named Beatrix.
Being so far away from London himself, Griffin now knew he had no choice but to write to Aubrey Maystone and ask him to look into the matter for him.
‘Bea, I hate having to ask you to dwell on this any further just now, but...’
‘If I have the answer I will gladly give it,’ Bea assured him sadly, the grief, the dark oppression of her dreams, obviously still weighing her down.
He nodded. ‘The questions the man Jacob asked. What were they?’
‘They were the same two questions, over and over again. How much did I overhear? Who had I told?’ She frowned as she gave a shake of her head. ‘I did not know the answers then, and I do not know them now.’
Griffin realised that someone obviously believed that she knew something they would rather she did not.
And it was in all possibility something to do with the reason why Jacob Harker had left Northamptonshire so suddenly several weeks ago, and travelled up to Lancashire.
Something of relevance to the foiled assassination plot of the Prince Regent just weeks ago?
Harker’s possible involvement in Bea’s abduction would seem to imply that was in all probability the case.
Griffin filed the information away in his head. ‘How did you finally manage to escape?’
She frowned. ‘The man, Jacob, had taken to unfastening my hands and feet when I was allowed to use—’ She gave a shake of her head, her cheeks becoming flushed. ‘I believe I struck him on the side of the head with the bucket before ripping off my blindfold and simply running and running. Does this man, Jacob, mean something to you?’ She looked up at him sharply.
Griffin frowned grimly. ‘It is not important.’
‘It is important to me!’ Some of her earlier fire returned as her eyes flashed darkly.
Griffin gentled his voice. ‘I believe the best thing for now would be for you to rest.’
‘No!’ Bea pulled out of the Duke’s grasp before stepping back. ‘I cannot. I do not wish to rest.’ Even the thought of going to sleep again, of having more nightmares, was enough to fill her with panic. ‘I should like to know what relevance this man Jacob Harker has to you. Why, upon hearing the name Jacob, did you immediately assume he might be this Harker you speak of?’
‘He is a known troublemaker in the area, that is all,’ Griffin soothed.
Bea was not fooled for a moment by that explanation. ‘That still does not explain why—’
‘Bell—Bea,’ he corrected apologetically. ‘It is not the best time for us to talk about him, when you are already so upset.’ He looked grim. ‘I am more interested in the questions that were asked of you, and what significance they— Damn it!’ he muttered in frustration as there was a brief knock on the bedchamber door. ‘We will talk of this again once we are alone again.’
‘I really do not think I can discuss my actual imprisonment any more just now, Griffin.’ Her voice broke emotionally. ‘It is too—distressing.’ She was slightly ashamed of this show of weakness on her part, but was unable, for the moment, to think any more of her imprisonment and what her dreams had already revealed.
Her worst fear now—a fear she dared not talk of out loud—was that she might also have been violated.
She did not remember it, did not feel in the least sore between her legs. But perhaps she would not have noticed that soreness amongst the other bruises, cuts and abrasions on her body?
Just the thought of that smelly and disgusting man laying so much as a finger on her—
The dreams, revelations, that she had already had, about her most recent life, before Griffin had found her in the woods last night, along with the things she had not yet remembered, made Bea’s position here now seem even more precarious than it had been previously.
If that were possible.
She was an orphan. And one whom no one seemed to have claimed or loved, for if they had then surely her sudden disappearance would have caused a hue and cry, and in all likelihood Griffin would now know exactly who she was.
Instead of which he was obviously as much in the dark as to her identity as she was.
Although the name Jacob had certainly meant something to him. Something he did not wish to discuss with her.
‘Come in, Pelham,’ the Duke now instructed impatiently as a second knock sounded on the door. The door opened and the butler entered with the tray of tea things, quickly followed by the housekeeper carrying a large box.
‘Some of Miss Bella’s gowns, Your Grace,’ she explained hastily as the Duke scowled at her presence.
‘My goddaughter would prefer that we call her Bea in future,’ Griffin announced haughtily.
Earlier today Bea had been almost excited at the prospect of new gowns, ones that actually fitted her. But the events since had reduced their arrival to mediocrity.
And Griffin’s claim now, that she was his goddaughter, further robbed her of speech.
Although she appreciated that their present situation must be as awkward for him as it was for her. If not more so.
He was a duke, and a widower, and this was his primary ducal estate, and Bea’s dreams now indicated they would not discover who she was, or to what family she belonged, as quickly as he might have hoped. Bea could hardly continue to stay here without some further offer of explanation being made to his household staff as to the reason for her sudden presence in their employer’s home.
But surely her late arrival last night with the Duke, wearing only her soiled nightgown, gave instant lie to the claim she was his goddaughter?
If Pelham or Mrs Harcourt found his choice of explanation in the least surprising, then they gave no indication of it. The butler placed the tray of tea things on the table in front of the window, and the housekeeper placed the box containing Bea’s new gowns on the bed, both acknowledging their employer respectfully before departing the bedchamber.
‘I am sorry I could not pre-warn you of my announcement, Bea.’ He grimaced ruefully once they were alone together. ‘As I am sure you can appreciate, following this afternoon’s upset, some further explanation for your presence here now has to be given.’
As Bea also knew, without his having to say it, that Griffin was a man who disliked intensely having to explain himself to anyone.
As the powerful and wealthy Duke of Rotherham he no doubt rarely felt the need to do so!
Except Bea needed some further explanations herself.
Since waking she had several times thought of her dishevelled state when Griffin had found her the previous night. ‘Who undressed and bathed me last night, and then dressed me in a clean nightgown?’ she prompted slowly; she had certainly not been wearing the soiled or bloodstained garment from her dreams when she woke this morning.
‘I did,’ he dismissed briskly. ‘I thought it best that none of my household staff be made privy to your bruises or abrasions,’ he added abruptly as Bea’s eyes widened.
Instead this breathtakingly handsome man had undressed her before bathing her completely naked body.
That he had seen her in that dirty and disgusting state was humiliating enough. To think of him stripping her, washing her, and then dressing her in a clean nightgown was far too intimate to contemplate.
‘And my old nightgown?’
‘I gave it to Pelham and instructed him to burn it this morning,’ Griffin said coolly. ‘Do not look so aghast, Bea; Pelham has been at Stonehurst Park for most of my life. He is and always has been the height of discretion, and you may rest assured he will not discuss the matter with anyone else.’
Bea was far more concerned with Griffin having seen her total humiliation, her unwashed and bruised body, than she was with the kindly butler’s sensibilities.
She kept her eyes downcast as she turned away to look at the laden tea tray, noting the two cups and saucers. ‘Will you be joining me for tea?’
‘I think not, thank you,’ Griffin refused stiffly, accepting that Bea was unwilling to discuss this any further just now, and knowing it was past time he removed himself from her bedchamber.
Despite her earlier upset, and his claim now of being her godfather, it was still not acceptable that he spend so much time alone with her in her bedchamber.
Even if a part of him wished to do so.
Being reminded of the intimacy of bathing her the night before, of kissing her, and holding her in his arms, listening as she talked of the nightmares, Griffin felt the tenuous strands of an emotional bond being forged between the two of them.
And it would not do.
He was not truly Bea’s godfather, but a healthy and virile man of two and thirty who was totally unrelated to her, and who had several times responded to her in a physical way that was definitely not in the least godfatherly!
They did not as yet know Bea’s true circumstances or age, but Griffin now felt sure she came from a good family, and that he was at the very least ten years her senior.
He had suffered through an unhappy marriage, and his experiences with women these past six years had not lessened that disillusionment in the slightest. He was distrustful of them at best, cynical at worst.
He had once believed that Felicity felt an affection for him, and that the two of them would be together for the rest of their lives. He had been fond of Felicity, if not deeply in love with her, and totally faithful and loyal to their marriage. Both had been thrown back in his face when Felicity had chosen another man’s affections and body over his own.
He would have to marry again one day, of course, if only to provide his heir, but Griffin was determined his second wife would be a woman for whom he held only respect, as the future mother of his children. Nor would he expect his duchess to feel any unwanted affection for him.
He had not been in the past, and he was not now, nor could he ever be, any young woman’s romantic image of a knight in shining armour.
Still, at the moment he was sure Bea must feel a certain gratitude towards him, an emotion based solely on his having rescued her the previous evening.
As such, his own physical response to her, as well as his growing feelings for her, were both totally inappropriate.
‘We will meet again at dinner, if you feel up to joining me downstairs?’ he asked coolly.
Did Bea feel up to bathing and dressing in one of her new gowns before joining him for dinner?
It would certainly be a normal activity, in a world that now seemed even more alien to her than it had before. Besides which, her afternoon spent alone had resulted in those mind-numbing nightmares, and she wished to avoid the possibility of experiencing any more of those for as long as was possible.
‘Dinner downstairs would be lovely, thank you,’ she accepted equally coolly, fully intending to ask Pelham if she might have a bath before then. She felt unclean after the vividness of her dreams, as if some of that filth and squalor in which she had been kept prisoner still clung to her.
Griffin gave her a formal bow. ‘Until eight o’clock, then.’
Bea kept her lashes lowered demurely as she gave a curtsy, and remained so until she heard the door quietly closing as Griffin left her bedchamber.
At which time she released a heavily sighing breath.
Her dreams had truly been nightmares.
Her fragmented memories, of her parents, her abduction and imprisonment, the frantic madness of her flight from her jailer, were even more so.
And there was still that lingering doubt that she might have been physically violated by her captors.
If so, was it possible she might have buried that particular horrific memory so deep inside her it might never show itself again?
Until such time as she married and her husband discovered she was not a virgin bride.
If she ever married.
And if she ever remembered who she truly was.
* * *
‘You are looking very lovely this evening, Bea,’ Griffin complimented politely once the two of them were seated opposite each other at the small round table in the family dining room.
Bea did indeed look very beautiful; the housekeeper had managed to find a gown the colour almost the same deep blue as her eyes. Her hair was fashionably styled upon her crown, with several enticing curls at her temples and nape. She was a little pale still, but that only added to her delicacy of appearance, which bordered on ethereal.
Griffin felt heartily relieved that it was not yet dark enough for Pelham to light the candles in the centre of the table; a romantic candlelit dinner for two would be the height of folly in the circumstances.
‘Thank you,’ she accepted lightly. ‘You are looking very handsome this evening too.’
They sounded like polite acquaintances passing the time as their dinner was served, when in reality they were far from that. After leaving Bea earlier he had gone immediately to the library to send an urgent letter to Maystone, prompting the other man to use his considerable influence and acquaintances to ascertain any and all information he could about a missing young lady named Beatrix.
It would take several days but Griffin had felt better in the knowledge he had at least done something positive in that regard.
His estate manager had also asked to see him earlier, as he believed one of the disused woodcutters’ sheds in Shrawley Woods might have recently been inhabited. Griffin had immediately ridden out to look for himself.
It was situated about a mile from where Griffin had found Bea, and whoever had stayed in the barely furnished shed had attempted to cover their tracks. But it was impossible to hide the stench of unwashed bodies, or the presence of a bloodstained bucket in the corner of one of the downstairs rooms—the same bucket Bea had struck Jacob Harker about the head with?
Griffin believed it was and his rage had grown tenfold as he’d stood and looked about him. The shed consisted of just two rooms, the floors were of dirt, just a single broken chair and table in one of the rooms, and no other furniture. The roof overhead sagged, and no doubt leaked in several places too. Several dark rags had been draped over the single square cut out of one of the wooden walls. No doubt to prevent anyone from looking in. Or out.
There was nothing else there to show recent habitation, no ragged blankets, fresh food or water, but it was impossible to miss the recent odour of unwashed bodies, or the stench of rotting food.
And the distinctive smell of fear.
Bea’s fear...
Griffin had given Reynolds a grim-faced nod before leaving the shed to ride back alone to Stonehurst Park, an impotent rage burning deep within him. And as he’d ridden the heavens had opened up, as if the angels themselves cried for all that Bea had suffered.
He had not told her as yet that he believed he had discovered the place of her imprisonment, and he was not sure that he intended to. She appeared so composed this evening, and was so elegantly attired, and Griffin had no wish to disturb that composure by once again taking her thoughts back to her imprisonment.
It was impossible to deny it had happened, of course; Griffin could still see some of the bruises on her shoulders and arms, although she had attempted to fasten a cream lace shawl over them in an effort to hide the worst of the abuse she had suffered. Matching lace gloves covered her bandaged wrists, and the length of her gown covered her bandaged ankles.
Covering signs of her abuse that once again incited Griffin’s displeasure.
‘I will ring for you when we have finished eating our soup,’ he tersely dismissed Pelham, finding even the butler’s quiet presence in the room to be an intrusion.
Griffin realised his mistake as soon as the older man left the room as the intimacy of earlier suddenly fell over the two of them like a cloak.
Bea knew a sudden discomfort at being alone with her dashing Duke. Well, he was not her Duke. Griffin was most certainly his own man. Self-contained, aloof, and demanding of respect. But he was her very handsome rescuer, and several times Bea had sensed an awareness between the two of them that was not avuncular. And earlier today he had kissed her.
‘The soup is delicious,’ she remarked to fill the sudden silence.
‘My cook here is very good.’ He smiled slightly, as if aware of her discomfort.
Because he felt it also? Bea would be very surprised if too much discomforted this confident gentleman.
‘Thank you for my new gowns.’ There had been three gowns in the box Mrs Harcourt had brought to her bedchamber earlier, two day dresses and one for the evening, the blue gown Bea was now wearing, along with undergarments, a shawl and slippers. ‘I hope—I hope that once I am restored to—to being myself again, that I shall be in a position to repay you.’
‘A few second-hand gowns altered by the local seamstress will not bankrupt my estate, Bea!’ the Duke rasped impatiently.
‘Nevertheless.’ Bea was not to be gainsaid on the subject; she had taken enough from this gentleman already, in the form of his kindness and hospitality, and she did not intend to be indefinitely in his debt financially too.
Griffin frowned his irritation with this conversation. ‘You must concentrate your energies on becoming completely well again, and not worry yourself over such trivialities.’
Her chin rose. ‘I assure you, they are not trivial to me.’
Griffin eyed her curiously. ‘I have a feeling that, whatever your true identity might be, you are an independent and determined young lady!’
The fullness of her lips curved into a rueful smile. ‘I would hope so.’
Griffin was sure that she was. He believed that many young women who had been as ill treated as Bea had would now be prostrate with the vapours. And possibly remain so for many days. Bea might feel that way inside, but outwardly she was calm and collected.
‘You have the courage and fortitude of a queen,’ he complimented huskily as he all too easily pictured the hovel in which she had been kept prisoner.
A blush slowly warmed her cheeks, lashes lowered over her eyes. ‘I do not feel like a queen.’
Griffin looked at her searchingly. ‘Something else is troubling you.’ It was a statement, not a question. ‘What is it, Bea?’ he asked sharply. ‘Have you remembered something else?’
Tears glistened in her eyes as she looked at him. ‘It is what I do not remember that now troubles me.’
‘Such as?’
She gave an abrupt shake of her head, no longer meeting his gaze.
‘I would rather not put it into words.’
Griffin frowned darkly. Bea had been physically beaten, emotionally tortured, what else could there possibly be to—? ‘No, Bea!’ he gasped harshly. ‘Surely you do not think—? Do not believe—?’
‘Why should I not think that?’ Bea dropped her spoon noisily into her bowl as she gave up all pretence of eating. ‘I was alone with these men, and at their complete mercy for goodness knows how long. Surely in those circumstances it would be foolhardy to assume that—that one did not—’ She could not finish the sentence, could not put into words this last possible horror of her captivity.
Once it had been thought of, Bea had been unable to put the possibility of physical violation from her mind. She had tried to appear calm as she’d joined Griffin in the dining room. Had been determined not to speak of her worries with him.
But the what-ifs had continued to haunt her.
To plague her.
Until it seemed it was all she could think of.
Griffin also looked suitably horrified at the possibility of violation as he now placed one of his hands firmly over both of her trembling ones clasped tightly together on her thighs. ‘Bea, I am sure that did not happen.’
‘You are no surer than I am!’ she instantly rebutted, eyes glittering. ‘I want these men found, Griffin. I want Jacob found and the truth beaten from him if he will not give it any other way!’ Two bright spots of fevered colour heated her cheeks.
‘Bea!’
‘If you will excuse me, Griffin?’ She pulled her hands away from his and threw her napkin on the tabletop before standing up noisily from the table. ‘I do not believe I am hungry, after all.’ She turned on her heel and almost ran from the room.
Griffin sat alone at the dining table, once again at a loss to know what to do where Bea was concerned.
Should he go after her and offer her more words of comfort?
Or should he leave her alone and allow her time to come to terms with her thoughts?
Was Griffin himself not in need of several minutes in which to fully take in the shocking implication of Bea’s suspicion regarding her treatment at the hands of the man called Jacob?