Bodice Ripper

He took a deep breath and opened the door.

15

Mary

The room was small and shabby. Mary knew it, and she wasn't exactly afraid to admit it, but it had seemed like it would be rude to say so in front of James. He was young, though, she thought. It wasn't as if he'd had years to make his fortune. Her eyes fell on an envelope with his name on it, and the sign of a hospital.

She shouldn't pry, it was awfully rude. But it seemed so terribly tempting, and he shouldn't be home for a little while now. After all, he'd need to go over quite a bit of material, she was sure, with the solicitor. The two of them both had quite a few questions, and James had the best hope of finding the answers.

But at the same time, the place was quite bare. She hadn't even thought to bring a book along, an oversight that she hadn't realized until she was sitting alone in the room. She couldn't go out; she hadn't any proper money, and she didn't know where a bank could be found. Certainly not her bank.

Her biggest hurdle, though, was what she was going to do when James got back, and later in the evening. She wanted to be near him, to spend time with him, but she knew that he was trying not to pursue her, and she could understand why.

She'd been in the middle of a fight, it seemed, and yet when he had come along she'd felt intensely relieved. She sat down. There would be plenty of time to sort out her feelings, later. She could smell James's scent softly as she lay in the bed, and she thought about him.

Then the doorknob turned and her heart leapt out of her chest. She heard the door open from the bedroom and snapped back up out of bed. How on earth could he be home so soon?

Mary rushed out into the front room just in time to see James slump back into a large cushioned chair. He had a blank look on his face. She wasn't sure that she should be less or more worried that he didn't look defeated. He looked…tired.

"What happened?"

He didn't answer. He didn't even look up at her, and that was when she knew that she should be more worried. Her chest felt tight, and she couldn't breathe. She couldn't think clearly. Whatever she could do, she needed to get James back to normal again. She needed him to be there for her.

If she could help, then she would, but she'd need to have the explanation from him first about what had happened at all. He looked like he was having trouble, though, with finding the words, or with finding the energy to express them.

She sat back and tried not to panic, but it was a lost fight by then.

"James!" He looked at her, but he didn't see her. "What happened with Mr. Stump?"

He slumped lower in the chair. Whatever it was, he clearly didn't want to talk about it. That wasn't an option, not for Mary and not for him.

She stood up and grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him as violently as her tiny frame would allow, throwing her full weight into it.

"Snap out of it!" She let go and nearly fell backwards onto her bottom, stumbling across the room into a bookshelf. "Snap out of it, and tell me what's going on!"

"He's gone," he answered vaguely.

"What do you mean, he's gone? Surely you can call on him at home if his office is closed, for whatever reason."

"No," James said, finally looking at her. "He's left the country. Gone to Europe. Spain, I think."

Mary had never seen him like this. He had always looked so certain, powerful and confident. Now he looked like a lost child, or like a puppy that is waiting for his master to feed him. She didn't want to, couldn't, be his master.

"What? When?"

"I don't know exactly. The landlord was there, standing guard, since the place was abandoned. Apparently, the last time anyone saw him or his staff was yesterday. Yesterday afternoon. Then the place was left emptied out of anything important or useful. Someone locked up, but I don't know if that was done later."

"What are we going to do now?"

"I don't know."

James didn't look like he wanted to give up, she realized, but he looked like someone who didn't know what could be done any more. She thought that sounded about right. Neither of them had turned up any new information since the first, and they were overdue for a win.

"We'll go back to Dover," Mary said softly. "We've made it this far, there has to be another option, and once we find it, we chase that down, as well."

James looked up. His jaw was clenched, and she could see the muscles flexing.

"We're past that, Mary. We've already done everything we could, and we've lost. Your uncle's been ahead of us every step of the way, and this has just been another in a long series of failures." He looked back into his lap, staring at the palms of his hands. When he continued, it was soft enough that Mary could barely hear. "I've failed you."