Page 112 of Enslaved
The coach barreled across Pulteney Bridge and along Bridge Street. As it turned onto Barton, the coach driver was stopped by the watch. The watchman lifted his lantern to peer at the driver. “No carriages allowed in this part of town. What’s your business at this hour of the night, anyway?”
“Out of the way, man! Don’t you realize whose carriage this is?”
“I don’t care if it’s the Earl of Bath himself. No carriages allowed!” He shone his lantern inside the carriage and was taken aback. “Sorry, yer lordship, that were just a figure of speech, ye understand.”
“No, no, quite right. I’m most pleased you are doing such a diligent job.” He gave the watchman a sovereign and told his driver to carry on.
At Queen Square he hammered on the door, but no light went on inside, and after about ten minutes, he reluctantly accepted that there was no one at home. He decided to return at dawn and question the neighbors. In the meantime he directed his driver to take him to Charles Wentworth’s residence.
Fortunately the good doctor was used to being roused at odd hours of the night. The gentry cared little about a doctor’s sleep, when gout or indigestion prevented their own. When Charles came downstairs and found Mark pacing up and down his entrance hall, he asked, “Is it Lady Diana?”
“She’s gone, Charles. I was hoping you had seen her.”
“Come into the library, Mark. The embers of the fire should still be giving off a little heat. Let me get you a brandy; you look as if you could use one.”
“You do know something!” Mark said with hope.
“Not really. Two days ago I was summoned to Queen Square and went immediately to see Diana. Richard Davenport and his wife met me in the drawing room and said they needed to understand more fully what had happened to Diana and if she would recover. I again explained that their niece believed she had been transported back in time. I advised them to encourage her to freely express herself and not suppress her memories. When I asked to see my patient, they said she was still at Hardwick Hall.”
“That’s all that was said; nothing else?”
“Well, Prudence asked me to keep everything completely confidential. I gather she’d rather be buried alive than be the butt of gossip.”
“They want the whole bloody business kept quiet because they’re up to something!” Mark cursed vilely.
You’re in love with her,Charles thought.It’s finally happened.
Mark drank off his brandy. “I’ll find her.” He said it with such determined conviction, Charles believed him.
“If I can help in any way, just ask.”
By five-thirty, Mark was knocking on the other doors of Queen Square. All he found out was that the Davenports neither brought their own servants nor hired the staff that usually came with the rental property. No one had seen a young lady arrive or leave.
The earl’s next stop was the rental office. When they proved most reticent about answering any questions regarding their clients, he took another tack and rented the house for a month. With the keys firmly in hand, he returned to Queen Square and searched it from top to bottom, looking for some proof that Diana had been there.
He found nothing. There was, however, a peculiar odor in the downstairs rooms that he couldn’t immediately identify. He had encountered it before, but could not recall where. It was a medicinal smell, not exactly noxious but definitely unwholesome. With reluctance he locked up the house and slipped the key into his pocket.
When his hand touched Diana’s earrings, he closed his eyes, remembering the moment she had removed them. He wanted her back in his bed, back in his life. She had become a part of him. Deep down he was convinced she would not leave him of her own volition. If she had run away, it was not from him, it was to escape either her guardians or Peter.
Mark Hardwick decided to make the rounds of every coaching inn in Bath. Transportation to London, Bristol, and every other large city was available on a daily basis. If Diana had bought a ticket anywhere, he would find out. He began at the Christopher in High Street, then moved on to the Bear and the White Hart. By the time he questioned the coach drivers at the Saracen’s Head in Broad Street, he was beginning to think his quest was hopeless.
At the Angel in Westgate Street, where they had extensive facilities, he learned that the Davenports had stabled their own horses and coach there. No one, however, recalled seeing a young woman.
He ran a savage hand through his hair in frustration. Then suddenly it came to him. Opium! What he had smelled in Queen Square was similar to the cloying fumes of opium! God in Heaven, what had they done to her?
Chapter 35
Diana spent the night huddled against the wall. By morning she had tremendous difficulty breathing. The straitjacket crossed her arms over her chest so tightly, she felt as if she were suffocating. She swore that if it was removed from her, she would not behave in a reckless manner that would give them an excuse to put it back on.
Finally, the same two women who had attended her the night before unlocked the door and brought her wash water. They removed the straitjacket and left her naked. Diana waited until they left before she gave herself a sponge bath. She remembered the advanced bathing facilities in Aquae Sulis, reliving the laughter and joy she and Marcus had enjoyed in his bathing pool. Compared with the Romans, the bathing facilities of the Georgians were almost squalid.
The women had taken the straitjacket with them and she prayed she had seen the last of it. She much preferred being naked. To most people that might be humiliating, but Diana had learned to accept her unclothed body as beautiful. Nudity of herself or others no longer intimidated her.
When the women returned, however, they brought a brown smock and a pair of canvas shoes.
“What is this place?” she ventured in a calm voice.
The women exchanged a cautious glance, then one of them said, “It’s a private asylum.”
