“We shall leave you then,” Hope began.
“No. Come with me—with us. Please.” He sent her an intense look and said in a low voice. “I need you, Hope.” In his arms Dorie stirred, and with a pleading look, held out a hand to Hope.
It was all she needed. Her eyes shimmered, and she said, “Of course. Faith, Grace, you don’t mind, do you?” They shook their heads. “And James shall take my horse back for me.” She lifted a booted foot over the saddle and jumped lightly down.
Handing her reins to James, she came to Sebastian and put her arms around Dorie and him, gathering in Cassie with her other arm. “Safe now,” she said. “Let’s go home.”
Chapter Eighteen
Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is . . .
SAMUEL JOHNSON
“NOW DORIE, I THINK YOU NEED TO TELL US WHAT ALL THAT business at the park was about,” said Sebastian. They were seated in the snug back parlor at Sebastian’s home. A fire blazed in the hearth despite the mild spring weather. The girls were drinking hot chocolate with biscuits while Hope and Sebastian drank coffee laced with brandy.
Cassie’s head came up sharply.
“Dorie?”
She looked bewildered.
Hope nodded. “So you did hear her before.”
“Oh yes, I heard her. It was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard—as well as saving my life,” Sebastian replied. He said to Cassie, “You sister spoke, Cassie. She warned me of Albert Watts’s second attack and saved my life.” He touched Dorie’s cheek gently.
She gave him a quick, uncertain smile, looked at her sister sheepishly, and gave her an apologetic grimace. “Sorry, Cass.”
Cassie’s jaw dropped. “You can talk! That’s wonderful, Dore.” She gave her a hug.
Sebastian asked, “How did he snatch you? I mean, with all those people there . . .”
“He didn’t snatch me,” said Dorie. Her voice was small and thready with nerves, but she was speaking perfectly normally.
Her lower lip quivered, but he had to ask. He needed to know. “You mean you went with him?”
She bit her lip and nodded.
“Why? You knew I was only a few feet away.”
“H-he had his knife. He was behind me when I was looking at the puppies. He pricked me with his knife,” she whispered. “And he said in my ear that if I didn’t come with him quietlike, he’d knife me then and there.” She shivered, and Sebastian tightened his arm around her.
Hope said, “It was very brave of you, Dorie. And it was the right thing to do.”
Dorie stared at her and looked at Sebastian for confirmation.
“Yes, it gave us a chance to rescue you.”
Cassie said, “But why would he want Dorie to go off with him?”
Sebastian prompted her, “You knew something about Albert, didn’t you, Dorie? Something that Cassie didn’t.”
She nodded.
“You can talk now,” he said softly. “He’s locked up safe in prison, and he’s never coming out again. I’ll see to that. He can’t hurt you now. It’s all right to speak.”
“He killed our Mam,” she whispered.
He put his arm around her. “Did you see him do it?”
Her face quivered, and she nodded. “Mam was sick, up in her bed. I was upstairs, too. I saw Uncle Albert sneak up the stairs, all quiet.” She looked at Cassie. “You were downstairs, working. He picked up a pillow. I thought he was going to make her more comfortable—but he put it on her face and held it down. Hard.”
Hope put a hand over her mouth in horror.
Dorie went on in a thin, flat voice, “She kicked and struggled . . . but he held it down on her face, pushing and pushing . . . And then she went quiet.” She gave a jerky sob. “I was scared. I didn’t move or make a sound. He put the pillow back under her head. That’s when he found me. I had a cup of tea in my hand, and it rattled.”
“What happened then?”
She was silent a moment, then said shakily, “I tried to run away, but he hit me. He knocked me down the stairs.”
“I remember,” Cassie interrupted. She explained to the others. “I heard something smash and came running. The teapot and cup. It was a really loud crash.”
“Louder than Mam dying.” Dorie gave another choked sob, and both Cassie and Sebastian put an arm around her.
Cassie said wonderingly. “You hurt your head. It bled and bled. There was blood everywhere, and you had to go to bed for a couple of days.” She opened her mouth in surprise and said slowly, “And when you woke up again, you couldn’t talk. Uncle Albert said the fall had turned you simple.” She looked at Sebastian. “I didn’t even remember that until now. Why didn’t I remember?”
Hope touched her arm. “Your mam died. That probably overshadowed everything else.”
“But you’re not simple, Dorie, so—”
“Uncle Albert told me if I said a word, he’d kill me, and Cassie, too.” She looked at Sebastian and Cassie and said, “So I didn’t.” She shivered. “I never said a word.”
Sebastian held her tightly, his eyes closed in mixed anguish and relief. To think that all this time she’d taken the bastard’s words so literally and simply not spoken again.
“I think he killed Uncle Eddie, too.”
“Uncle Eddie?” Sebastian said.
“Mam’s other brother. He was the oldest. He owned the inn.” Cassie explained. “After he died, the inn went to Mam, and after she died—”
“Uncle Albert got it,” Dorie completed the sentence.
Now Sebastian truly understood why the girls had rejected him so roundly at the beginning. Their matter-of-fact use of the word “uncle” for these strangers, one of whom was a murderer, had instantly become abhorrent to him.
“You stayed at the inn for how long, after Mrs. Morgan died?”
“A while,” Cassie explained. “More than a year. But Albert was no good with money—not like Mam or Uncle Eddie. That’s why he kept us on. He didn’t like us, but I’m good with figures and money and stuff, and Dorie is good in the kitchen. We kept the inn going for him.” She added wryly, “That’s when I started carrying my knife.”
Two little girls, slaving away to survive and keep a business going for a murdering swine! A child of twelve running an inn and having to carry a knife to protect herself! Sebastian tamped down on his deep rage and managed to say, “Aren’t my sisters marvelous, Miss Merridew? To be able to handle such a difficult situation so bravely and competently—and so young!”
She smiled mistily. “I think all the Reynes are special in that way.”
There was a lump in his throat, and he could not talk.
Cassie continued, “We left the inn when Albert came in one day and said he’d lost all his money. He had to sell everything, even the inn.” She shrugged, “So he did. That’s when—” Dorie nudged her, and Cassie broke off. There was a long, private, silent exchange between the two children, then Cassie looked down, as if ashamed and mumbled. “You might not want to hear where we went next. The lady at the Tot told us we weren’t to tell a soul.”
Oh God, no.
Sebastian thought. He didn’t want to know. He’d pushed aside the knowledge ever since Morton Black had broken it to him where the girls had been found. He didn’t want to hear where his sisters went next. He couldn’t bear to hear their childish lips telling him that. He stood, almost knocking the chair over in his haste. “You’re right, Cassie. You’ve told us quite enough. We’ll—”
“I’d like to hear it,” said Hope quietly.
“They’re tired. They need to—”
“They haven’t finished their story,” she said softly, firmly.
“
No!
You don’t know what you’re asking!” Sebastian said in a low, desperate voice. He stared at her, trying to convey a silent, urgent message.
No more. The girls have said enough.
She gave him a long, clear look. “May I speak to you alone?”
“Very well.” He led her from the room, into his office. “You don’t know what you are asking. They know. I know. It is enough.”
“I can see it must be very bad, but have they actually told you what happened?”
He shook his head and said bleakly, “They don’t need to. I know all about it. My agent, Morton Black, made a very full report when he found them. For some reason he thought, given the circumstances, I might not want them back, after . . . After.”
She smiled then. “He does not know you well, my love, does he?”
He hugged her then, hard, the anguish in his heart showing. “You can guess what—”
She pulled back and took his hands in hers. “Sebastian, you must let them tell us. Everything. No matter how ugly, or painful, or horrifying. Those children need to get it all out in the open. Then they can heal.”
He pondered her words, his face twisted with grief. He shook his head. “I cannot,” he said brokenly and collapsed in a chair. He put his head in his hands and said in a jagged voice, “I cannot . . .
bear
to hear it. It does no good to rake up the pain of the past. Best to leave it lying.”
She put her arms around his bent head and pressed it to her breast. “No, my love. If you do, it will only fester inside you and in them, and your guilt and their shame will grow. And a gulf will remain between you and your sisters that will never be breached. You must hear them out, love, for all your sakes.”
“You cannot know what it’s like, knowing
I
am responsible for what happened—me! It was
my fault
!” He groaned.
She sighed. “Yes, just as it was Cassie’s fault when Dorie was kidnapped.”
He looked up, horrified. “No! It wasn’t Cassie’s—”
She shook him. “You were the same age as Cassie when your sisters were lost, Sebastian!”
He was silent.
She caressed his hair. “You need to forgive yourself, my love. Everyone else has.”
“Perhaps,” he said slowly. “But I cannot stand to listen to the
details
. They are my
sisters
.
Children!
”
She caressed his face and kissed him on the top of his bent head. “Then, my darling, stay here. I will listen for you. For those girls need to tell it all, and someone needs to listen.” She kissed him again. “Stay here, love. I’ll fetch you when it is over.”
She had taken six paces toward the door when a heavy voice behind her spoke. “No. I will come.”
He stood. “You are stronger than I gave you credit for.” He gave her a shaky smile. “What was it you said at the orphan asylum? ‘If these children can survive the depravity inflicted on them by others, then I can certainly endure hearing about it!’” He took her hand, and they returned to the sitting room, where the girls awaited them, their faces anxious.
“Tell us everything, Cassie. Miss Hope has convinced me we all need to get it all out in the open. And whatever you tell us here will make no difference, Cassie. You and Dorie are my sisters, and I love you. Nothing that has happened can ever change that, nothing.”
Hope came out of her seat and knelt in front of the settee. She took Cassie’s and Dorie’s hands in hers and said with warm intensity, “And I have come to love you both like sisters, and whatever you tell me here will go no further, I promise you.”
He stared at her. What had he ever done to deserve this miracle of a woman? He came and knelt beside her. She took his hand, and they sat back and waited. Cassie glanced at Dorie and hesitated.
“Albert didn’t just sell the inn,” said Dorie in a clear little voice. “He sold us, too.”
It was like a kick to his chest. He’d known for months, but hearing it in raw, bald words like that hurt more than he would have believed.
Cassie said, “He brought us down to London on the stage. He told us he was getting us a job, since we were such good workers.”
“But he sold us to a lady who owned a brothel.”
Dorie’s matter-of-fact tone horrified him. Few twelve-year-old girls would even know what a brothel was. Sebastian braced himself to hear the rest. He’d long suspected it, after all. The moment he’d found that many of the girls from the Tothill Fields Institution had come from child brothels, he’d known. And the knowledge had eaten away at him.
He set his jaw and waited. If they could bear it to happen, he could bear to listen. He held Hope’s hand tighter. His love, his lifeline.
Cassie explained, “We tried to run away, but Auntie Sadie—that was what the lady said to call her—had brought two men with her, and they grabbed us and hung on to us.”
Dorie said, “They took us to the brothel and gave us each a bath. That’s when they found Cassie’s knife and took it off her. She got it back later. And then they made us put on these awful dresses, and then they locked us in a room. It was really high up. In the attic, right under the roof.” She tilted her head, remembering, and said reflectively, “The roof sloped down like this, with a little window set into it. You could see out over the rooftops of the city.” She grimaced. “I didn’t look much. I’m scared of being too high up. But it was nice to see the sky.”
Sebastian ran a shaking hand over his face. Hope put her arm around him and squeezed. With his other hand, he held her even tighter.
Dorie continued, “But Cassie likes being up high. That’s when she got the idea.” She grinned at her sister and hunched her shoulders in excitement.
Sebastian waited tensely. “What idea?”
Cassie said, “There was a trunk at the foot of the bed. Dorie’s good at squashing into small places, so I told her to hide in there. We threw the things in it out of the window.”
“I fitted perfectly,” said Dorie proudly.
“And I climbed out of the little window,” said Cassie. “It was a really steep roof, and slippery because it was slate, but in bare feet it was all right.” She grinned at Sebastian. “You know me and roofs.”
He tried to muster a smile, but failed.
“I climbed to the top bit, where you can sit with your leg on either side.”
“The roof ridge,” Sebastian said numbly.
“Yes, that bit. It was very high up, and I could see right into the street from there.” She smiled at each of them.