Page 23 of Taken to the Grave
“I don’t know,” she answered after it was safe to speak again. “She was invited, and I know that she had planned to go.” She still darted little glances around the shop with an edge of paranoia.
“When was this?” Hugh asked.
Gwendolyn frowned. “A week ago. The arrangement was for Mr. Comstock and his sister to fetch her for an evening at Vauxhall.”
“He does not have a sister,” Audrey said.
“But of course he does. Bethie met her. She said Miss Comstock was quite nice if a bit shy.”
Hugh met Audrey’s concerned glimpse. If Bethany had not known the truth about Comstock’s lack of a sister, what more had she not known?
“Were they truly to go to Vauxhall? Or was the real outing to the Sanctuary?” he asked.
Gwendolyn cast her eyes down to the table, as if shamefaced. “The Sanctuary,” she said, so quietly that Hugh had barely heard the words.
“Where is it?” Audrey asked, her impatience evident. Hugh felt the same; if this young woman had known all along where Bethany could be found, why had she stayed silent? To safeguard her own responsibility in the scandal?
“I don’t know.” At their mutual looks of disbelief, she leaned forward and more vehemently said, “Idon’t. It is secret. It’s hidden and known only to members. Bethie didn’t even know, but I expected her to tell me all about it the next day.”
A streak of alarm tempered his annoyance with Gwendolyn. “You mean to say she did not plan to stay away?”
Comstock’s letter, delivered to Mr. Silas, had arrived the day following Bethany’s outing to Vauxhall. What had changed in those twelve hours or so?
“No, she said she would tell me everything over tea the next afternoon.”
And yet, she had not returned. It was possible she had changed her mind and decided to elope with Comstock when he proposed the idea, but Hugh’s instinct—the thing he had always trusted, his inner compass—told him that she had met with trouble.
“I need to know absolutely everything you do about the Sanctuary, Miss Bertram. I believe your friend is in danger.”
His curt order was met with twin looks of alarm. Gwendolyn’s was touched with fright, Audrey’s, with understanding.
“She…she said she would need to be blindfolded for the ride there.”
Hugh’s gut clenched. “What do they do at this society?”
Pink suffused the apples of her cheeks, and she dropped her gaze from his. It confirmed his guess.
“I don’t know for certain,” she began. “Bethie only said it was akin to one of the gentlemen’s clubs, but that it was happy to admit women too. After an initiation.”
Grasping her meaning, fury rippled through him.
“Initiation of what sort?” Audrey asked.
He stayed quiet, allowing Gwendolyn to speak, even though he was already certain of the answer.
She finally did, though blushing fiercely. “They…they must permit...” She shook her head, unable to finish her sentence.
“She had to submit,” Hugh said, gritting his molars.
Audrey gaped at him, then at Gwendolyn as she comprehended. Blindfolded and led to a secret location, Bethany had been willing to pay the initiation fee into this society. A priceonly women were taxed with. Had she needed to submit to one man, or many?Hellfire. Was she still there?
“Why would she wish to be a part of such a vulgar thing?” Audrey asked.
Gwendolyn broke from her timidity to chuff a mocking laugh. “Tedium. Boredom. Why shouldn’t she want a bit of excitement before she is tied to a husband who will become her ruler? You’ve been in society, Your Grace, you know the rules, all the restrictions. We are treated as if we are at first dolls for our mothers, and then broodmares for our husbands.”
“And how has Mr. Comstock treated Bethany any better?” Audrey replied. “If what you say is true, he has used her most grievously. Mothers act out of love and care…most of the time,” she put in, likely thinking of her own mother, who had never acted toward her out of anything close to love or care. “Mr. Comstock and his fellow Sanctuary members hide behind secret locations with only their own pleasure in mind. They don’t care about Bethany at all.”
Gwendolyn, properly chastised, sealed her lips thinly.
