Page 14 of Kidnapped (The Browns of Butcher’s Hill #1)

“ M iss Adamsen said she remembered smelling a barnyard when Campbell’s men took her off the street that Thursday before she was left on our stoop,” Phillip said.

Virginia sipped her tea. “This Orville person who she gave the copied documents to worked as a groom at the Durmands’. Could he have hidden her at their stables?”

“But if Campbell is the man responsible for her copying the papers, then Orville works for Campbell, not Bucciarelli,” Sarah said. “I assumed Bucciarelli was behind all of this, otherwise why did he take her son?” Sarah stood and went to the parlor door, calling for Jenny to ask Miss Adamsen to join them.

“Miss Adamsen,” Virginia said as the woman glanced around warily. “You’re looking well.”

“Sit here, near the fire,” Phillip said as he stood. “Would you like some tea?”

Greta Adamsen shook her head and seated herself at the edge of the sofa, staring down at her hands as she did.

“Greta?” Sarah said. “Would you mind answering a few of our questions that might help Phillip find your son?”

“I’m not sure what I can tell you,” she said.

“You say you have no idea who asked you to copy the papers in Durmand’s study. I find that hard to believe,” Phillip said. “I think you have a good idea who approached you in the beginning.”

She shook her head and looked away.

“Miss Adamsen,” Virginia said softly and waited until the woman faced her. “We realize there are things you are not telling us. And that you are frightened. But we cannot help you if you do not tell us the truth.”

Adamsen stared at Virginia before whispering. “He stopped me one day on my afternoon out.”

“Who stopped you?” Virginia asked.

“A man I’d never met before or seen. He was tall, large, and very handsome. His hair was pulled back with a ribbon and his vest was red-and-black plaid. I’d dropped one of my purchases, and he bent to pick it up. He smiled at me.”

“What did he say to you?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. But then I saw him again. He was seated on the trolley I was taking back to the Durmands’. He stood up and gave me his seat.” She looked up. “No one had ever done that for me before.”

“Did he speak to you then?”

“No. But then a few weeks later, he walked into the coffee shop I sometimes stop at. There were no tables open, and when I glanced up at him, he smiled and walked to me. He asked if he could share my table. He sat down, his back to the crowded room, and I thought . . . oh, I thought, maybe, just maybe here was a nice man.”

Virginia had some experience with men letting her down. Not her father, other than his ridiculous attempts to wrap her up until she was old and gray, but other men whom she’d be friendly with or formed some relationship with. She’d been so very disappointed by them—or bored by them, which was worse. That, and the fact that she was independently wealthy, was why she was twenty-six and unmarried. She glanced at Phillip Brown. He hadn’t been a disappointment. Yet. But that kiss. That was definitely not a disappointment, other than how brief it was.

Greta looked up clear-eyed and glanced at each one of them. “Then he said, ‘I know where your little William is, and I know where your Auntie lives.’ I was so shocked he knew my son’s name and about my mother’s sister, who had raised me, I just sat and stared at him. I finally asked him where William was. He laughed, as if my son’s life was a joke, and said I wouldn’t get something for nothing.

“He said it all with a charming smile and a Scottish accent. I asked him what he knew about William. He said he would get my boy back for me if I would just write down a few things I’d find in Mr. Durmand’s study,” she said as tears streamed down her face. “I’m a fool and always have been. I believed him.”

Sarah Brown stood up, sat down beside Greta, and put her arm around the sobbing woman. “Oh, Greta. Men can be dreadful, but there are a few good ones. Such trouble finding one, though.”

Virginia looked at Phillip. “Very true, Miss Brown. But there are a few good ones around.”

“I think I need to have a conversation with Orville,” Phillip said. “I do have one more question, though, Miss Adamsen. If you were doing what Campbell told you to do, why did he dump you on our stoop to freeze to death?”

“I told him. I’m such a fool,” she said and shook her head. “I wrote him a note with the last set of papers I’d copied. I told him I’d copied all the papers I could find and that I wanted to know how he was going to get William back.”

“And when you said you’d finished what he’d asked you to do, you were no longer any use to him,” Virginia said.

Greta nodded as her shoulders shook and tears flowed to her chin. “My baby wouldn’t be any use either. Who would sing him ‘Over in the Meadow in the Stream So Blue’?”

“But Bucciarelli has your child, not Campbell. Maybe Bucciarelli doesn’t know anything about this. Maybe he’s keeping William for another reason,” Virginia said.

Greta looked away. “Perhaps.”

“What would that reason be?” Phillip asked.

“He did not care for me seeing Matthew Finkle.”

“I thought he didn’t mean anything to you. That’s what you told us,” Sarah said.

“Matthew? He doesn’t. But he didn’t mind showing a girl a fun time at a dancehall or dinner out.”

“Why would Bucciarelli care? What aren’t you telling us?”

Greta shrugged. “It’s personal.”

“Are you in a relationship with Mr. Bucciarelli, Greta?” Virginia asked.

“I was.”

Phillip set out on the following morning to speak to this Orville person after arguing with Virginia. She did not want to hear that it would be too dangerous, which it could be, depending on how the conversation went and whether Phillip’s fists needed to make themselves known. But he’d finally convinced her to get a description or a drawing of Greta’s son. They would need to know what the boy looked like if he had to be rescued by force.

Phillip found a path that led to the stables behind the Durmand mansion and spotted Gerald Austraw coming from the back of the house, a steaming mug in his hand. Austraw saw him and stopped.

“Is your mistress here to see Miss Durmand again?” he asked.

Phillip shook Austraw’s hand. “No. I was hoping to speak to one of your stable men. Orville. Don’t know his last name.”

“Biggs. That’s his last name,” Austraw said and ran a hand over his jaw. “What in the world do you want with him?”

Sometimes the truth was the best way forward, and he had a feeling Austraw was a straight and narrow man. Although Phillip had been fooled a time or two. “Greta Adamsen was spying on your boss because someone is holding her son. She put what she found in a leather satchel on a bench in the garden and thought Orville was the one who picked it up.”

Austraw turned to the elaborate stone-and-timber stable and stared for a minute before heading to the door. Phillip followed him through the door, the earthy smell of horses and hay hitting him through the warm air. They walked down the center, horses to either side studying him or nickering at Austraw, to a group of men talking and drinking from enameled cups until they saw Austraw coming their way. Before they could scatter, he called out.

“Biggs. Get over here.”

A dark-haired man scowled over his shoulder and returned to Austraw, many of the other men loitering nearby, surely hoping to hear what was said.

“You have anything to do with Greta going missing?”

“No.”

“I know you didn’t like her. Complained about her.”

“She’s an uppity bitch.”

“Turned you down, huh?” Austraw said to some sniggers from the other men.

“Yeah, but I didn’t know nothing about her leaving. Glad she was gone.”

“So you don’t know anything about a pouch on a garden bench?” Phillip asked. As he spoke, movement among the men gathered caught his eye, and he looked up to see a younger man hurrying through a door at the far end of the stable. Phillip followed him, pushing his way through the other men and out the same door.

“Jackman!” Austraw shouted and followed.

Phillip skidded past a steaming pile of manure, losing sight of his quarry for a moment until he saw the man pulling himself over a tall fence. Phillip followed up and over the fence, seeing Austraw veer off to a door nearly hidden by shrubbery. He spied Jackman racing down the alleyway, and Phillip took off in pursuit, making some headway but not enough until a man on horseback came out of a property at a trot, nearly colliding with Jackman and causing him to slip in the mud and snow. The man pulled his skittish horse to a halt as Jackman jumped up started off again, but not quickly enough as Phillip had caught up and flew into him, taking him to the stones and gravel and slush.

“Give it up, Jackman,” Austraw shouted.

Phillip pulled the man to his feet and caught a well-aimed blow to the chin for his trouble. Before he could recover, Jackman turned to flee.

“Stop where you are, Jackman and put your hands where I can see them,” Austraw said.

Jackman slowly raised his arms to the side while Austraw kept his gun steady on the man’s chest.

“Why are you pointing a gun at me? I didn’t do anything wrong,” Jackman said.

“What do you know about a leather pouch on a garden bench?” Phillip asked.

Jackman continued to stare at Austraw.

“What do you know about Adamsen’s son?” Phillip asked.

“I don’t know anything,” Jackman growled. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

Phillip twisted his arm around his back and pushed him toward the Durmand property. “Can you keep him until I can get to one of the police stations or find an officer?”

“There’s likely to be one walking the street up ahead at this time of day,” Austraw said. “I’ll get this one tied up.”

Phillip walked quickly to the street ahead, rubbing his jaw, sorry he hadn’t gotten a slug in himself, and passed a man, not really paying any attention to him while wondering what information he could get out of Jackman without killing him or going to jail. He stopped abruptly and looked back at the man’s hands, one holding a knife.

“Austraw!” he shouted. But not in time.

Jackman was folding to the ground, Austraw still holding his arm, probably wondering what had happened. Phillip looked up in time to see the stranger turn the corner onto the busy main street at the other end of the alley. Phillip dropped to his knees, surveying Jackman and the thin blade handle sticking out of the man’s chest, his eyes wild and searching.

Phillip picked up Jackman’s hand and held it tight. “Who? Who did this? Where is Greta’s son?”

“Me wife and me bairn,” he whispered.

“We’ll guard them,” Austraw said. “I know where you live.”

Jackman was fading quickly, his eyes cloudy and distant now. Phillip squeezed his hand. “We’ll guard them. Where’s Greta’s boy?”

A breath went out of Jackman’s lungs, and Phillip thought it was his last, but he whispered instead, “The flour bi . . .”

“What? Flour? Hang on, Jackman!” Phillip shouted, but he knew the man was gone. Austraw ran a hand over his eyes to close them and looked up at Phillip.

“Daylight. In a well-used alleyway, with riders and workers coming and going, and they stabbed him to death right in front of us. My God,” Austraw said and crossed himself.

“We’ve got to get to his wife before they do,” Phillip said. “How did they even know I was asking questions?”

“Let me get in my papers and find his address,” Austraw said and hurried through the hidden gate.

Phillip remained where he was, crouched on one knee, holding the hand of a dead man.

Phillip tried his best to appear as if he knew what he was about on the back of a horse, although he was certain Austraw was aware that he was a novice. He kept his horse pointed toward the one Austraw rode and was glad there were too many carriages, wagons, and other horses to go very fast. They turned a corner onto a narrow street filled with tall buildings and laundry hanging from lines that went from a building on one side of the street to a building on the other side even in the bitter weather. He focused ahead when he heard a woman screaming and saw Austraw haw his horse through a crowd, sending women and children apart. Phillip slid down the side of his mount, thinking he could run faster than he’d be able to navigate among the people gathered.

A man was holding a woman around the waist as she screamed and reached toward another man holding a crying baby. A large woman climbed on the back of the man holding the baby, clutching at his face, and another was trying to wrench the child free of his arms. Bowls and pans came flying through a window on a lower floor. Austraw flew at the man holding the woman, taking them both to the ground.

Phillip charged past them, up the steep stone steps to the door of the building where it stood open. The door to his left was open too, and a man sat on the floor leaning against the wall, holding his head where he was bleeding.

“Get out,” Phillip said softly. “Crawl if you have to. When I give you the signal, say ‘The police are coming.’”

The man nodded and pulled himself up and through to the building entranceway.

Phillip went through a room with a sofa and a chair that was missing a leg and was propped on a piece of wood. The walls were papered and faded but clean other than what the men in the room ahead of him had destroyed. The three men were busy pulling everything out of the drawers and turning the kitchen table over and did not notice Phillip. He stopped shy of the doorway, out of sight, and pointed at the man in the hallway, sagging against a wall.

“The police are coming.”

“Jimmy? Go shut that arse up. Ain’t no police coming here.”

Jimmy came through the door at a good pace, a young man, lean but wiry. Phillip had him around the neck before the boy realized what had happened. “I’m going to break your neck,” Phillip whispered as Jimmy struggled, panicked, and began turning white. Phillip was tempted to twist the boy’s neck and break it, so very tempted, hearing the baby cry and the mother scream through the broken window, where the snow and cold air blew in.

It was difficult, Phillip had long admitted, to control his temper once it got away from him. To suppress the hunger to hurt someone or destroy something. To manage his temper and act in a way his father and mother would be proud of. But sometimes the red heat in his gut threatened his reason. This was one of those moments. He pulled on the boy’s chin to wrench his neck from his spine and saw a tear tumble down the young man’s cheek.

“Get out of here,” Phillip growled instead, pushing him toward the door as Jimmy held his throat with both hands. “Go, or I’ll kill you.”

“Jimmy!” someone screamed from the kitchen. “You dumb arse! What are you doing? Get the hell in here!”

Phillip pulled the knife from his boot and charged into the small kitchen. He slammed the blade into the man closest to him, bringing the point down on the man’s upper arm, leaving him howling, bleeding, and one-armed. The second man had turned by then.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m the guy who’s going to cut you up,” Phillip said and yanked the knife out of the first man’s arm, making him scream and then scream louder when Phillip punched the wound.

The second man came at him, climbing onto a chair and launching himself through the air, hitting Phillip square in the chest and taking them both to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs, his knife flying out of his hand. Phillip was hitting his assailant but didn’t have room to swing and get power behind his fist. They rolled as one, knocking over other chairs and bringing the table down over their heads in a crash. Phillip got to his knees and grabbed a chair that had tumbled over. He jammed it down over the third man’s neck and arms, the rung against the man’s neck, making his eyes wild, his feet and legs kicking out, trying to reach Phillip.

Phillip sat on the chair pushing the rung tighter against the man’s neck and leaning down to see him face-to-face. “Why are you here? Who sent you? Which one of you killed Jackman?”

“Can’t breathe,” the man whispered.

“I’m going to kill you soon anyway for terrorizing a woman and her baby and for making her a widow. Do the right thing before you see Saint Peter.”

The man shook his head, his eyes wild with fear. He would lose consciousness soon, Phillip knew, and be worthless to find out about the mysterious Scotsman who had tempted Greta with news of her son. He stared into the man’s face, wondering if he could get any more out of him when a hand landed on his shoulder and pulled him from the chair.

Phillip was not prepared for the fist that hit his chin and made his eyes roll back in his head or the crunch of a chair leg hitting his ribs. He dropped to his knees and covered his head with some instinct still alive in his muddled brain. A hand lifted him from the floor by the hair.

“Stay out of my way, boyo,” a man growled with a Scottish accent. “You don’t know who you’re up against.” He dropped Phillip to the floor and leaned down to whisper in his ear. “That sister of yours is a pretty one. She’d be pretty naked and begging for her life too.” Then the big man kicked him in the gut.

Phillip shook his head, clearing some of the fog, tasting blood, and guessing several of his ribs were broken. What hadn’t cleared was his willingness to injure himself further in defense of his sister. Nobody would talk about Sarah that way. He could see the big Scotsman standing in the next room, his back to the kitchen area where the man he’d caged with a chair lay on his side holding his throat a few feet away. The one-armed man was at the Scotsman’s side holding his shoulder as blood trickled down his arm. The Scotsman turned to him with a laugh and slapped the man’s shoulder, eliciting a howl from him and nervous laughter from the other two men who stood nearby.

Phillip turned on his side, closing his eyes momentarily and gathering his strength while ignoring any pain he felt. He pulled himself to his feet, let the last of the dizziness fade where he stood out of sight of the men in the other room. He heaved a breath and launched himself through the doorway and onto the back of the Scotsman. He dug his thumbs into the man’s eyes and kneed him in the small of his back. Phillip slid down as the other men in the room backed away. The Scotsman turned, growled, and lunged. Phillip stepped aside at the last minute, latching on to the back of the man’s coat and helping to send him headlong into the corner of the doorway. He dropped to the ground with a thud and didn’t move.

Austraw was in the doorway then, looking worse for wear himself, when Phillip glanced at the other men who were staring at him and backing up. He walked up to the man who’d killed Jackman.

“Tell your boss he’d better never threaten, bother, or even speak of anyone in my family or in my home again,” he said quietly. “I’ll kill him if he does.”