Page 4 of Kidnapped (The Browns of Butcher’s Hill #1)

P hillip took the streetcar toward the Wiest mansion, appropriately called Shellington, glad he’d worn his heavy coat and scarf. He jumped off and walked the half block, careful of the ice and snow on the crushed-shell drive, to the double front door painted a glossy black.

“Mr. Brown. Do come in. Miss Wiest said you would be arriving,” the butler said. “May I take your coat?”

“No, but thank you, Mr. Smith. I’ll not be long.”

“Here is Miss Wiest now,” the butler said after turning to a rustling on the curved staircase.

“Miss Wiest,” Phillip said, noting her heavy coat, buttoned to her throat. “It is an ugly day out there. You should let a servant fetch what is needed.”

“Thank you for your concern, Mr. Brown,” she said and turned to Smith. “Has the carriage come around yet?”

“He should be pulling up now, Miss Wiest.”

“Good, then,” she said and looked at Phillip. “Come along, Mr. Brown.”

“Come along? Come along where?”

“To the Durmands’, sir. Where did you think we were going?”

Phillip shook his head and put out his hand. “No, miss. Just hand me the address.”

She stared at him long enough that he shifted from one foot to the other and her maid, Miss Hughes, coughed delicately. “No,” she said.

“No?”

“No. How will you ever gain admittance to the Durmand household? My impression after meeting the daughter is that they are high sticklers. You’ll need an introduction, which is why I’m going with you.”

Phillip glanced at the butler and lowered his voice. “Just give me the address, miss. I’ll find out what I need to know from the staff more than the family.”

She shook her head and looked up at him from under dark lashes. “No, Mr. Brown. I’m coming with you.”

“No, you’re not,” Phillip said, his voice growing louder with each word, wincing inwardly at the tone he normally used with his sister when she was at cross purposes with him. “This is not your business, Miss Wiest.”

“I detest pettiness, Mr. Brown, but in this case, find the Durmand address on your own, then. Mr. Durmand is a city councilman and a very public figure, as I’m sure you’re aware. You’ll be able to obtain his address from someone.”

“Yes, I will, but I’ll spend the day finding it, and then I work the next five days and won’t be able to travel to the other side of the city after work when the streetcars stop running early in this bitter weather.”

She turned toward the staircase and signaled Miss Hughes to follow. “I’m sorry to hear that. Good day, Mr. Brown.”

My God! This woman is a terror!

Phillip took a deep breath. “Fine. Come along, then. Time is wasting.”

She turned neatly and walked past him, head high, without even a glance at him. “I fear the horses are stomping as you’ve kept them waiting in this weather. Mr. Turnbull will not be pleased.”

Phillip followed, fully aware he’d been bested by a slip of a woman, pale and fluttery, not weighing more than a fist full of feathers. He seated himself in the carriage, back to the horses, which rocked forward as soon as he’d closed the door behind him. Miss Wiest and Miss Hughes were covered in a thick fur pelt over their laps and legs. He could feel the hot bricks on the floor even through his heavy leather boots. This was undoubtedly a more comfortable ride than if he’d taken the streetcar, although he’d never admit it to a soul.

The carriage rolled to a stop, and he jumped down and turned to hand down the women. He followed them up several marble steps and through the door, opened by a uniformed servant, to a foyer with two matching fireplaces opposite each other, both blazing.

“May I help you?” another man said as he approached them.

“Yes,” she said in her soft voice. “I’m Miss Virginia Wiest, and I was hoping to speak to Miss Durmand. Miss Alice Durmand.”

“I’ll see if she’s in, Miss Wiest,” he said as they looked up to the patter of steps.

“Ginny?” a young woman asked.

“Alice! Splendid! Do you have a moment?”

“Of course!” the woman said. She glanced at the butler. “Have refreshments sent to the blue parlor. Miss Wiest’s servants can go below stairs.” She reached an arm through Miss Wiest’s and guided her down the hall.

He was ready to protest that he was not Miss Wiest’s servant when she glanced over her shoulder at him and smiled. He supposed he was going to be doing exactly what he’d intended to do, except he didn’t have to knock at the delivery entrance near the kitchen.

Phillip found himself seated at a long wooden table with benches on either side where servants sipped coffee and talked, some reading a newspaper from the previous week, he noted. Colleen was speaking to a few young women holding brooms and rags and buckets. A cook was directing others in their chopping or slicing when she noticed him. She plopped a steaming cup of coffee in front of him, and the man across from him lowered his paper.

“Where you be from?” he asked.

“Butcher Hill,” Phillip said, surveying the older man’s clothes. “You been here a while?”

“Worked for the family nigh on twenty years. Manage the grounds and stables. Who wants to know?”

“Phillip Brown.”

“Gerald Austraw.” He aimed a calloused thumb to the steps leading to the family’s quarters. “What brings your mistress here?”

“I don’t work for Miss Wiest. She’s a friend of Miss Durmand, and I’m trying to find out about a poor woman who was dumped on my front stoop a week ago, still not awake. Found out yesterday she worked for Miss Durmand as a personal maid.”

The cook’s eyes widened. “Greta!”

Austraw glanced over his shoulder. “What does she look like?” he asked as others in the kitchen began to gather around.

“She’s got blond hair, thin, probably five foot and some. Never saw her standing up. She’s been in bed since I picked her up off our front porch. Nasty crack on the back of her head.”

The staff erupted into loud chatter, and Phillip was unable to distinguish one conversation from another. Austraw stood up, and the room was quickly silent.

“Back to work,” he said. The staff scattered, and it was soon just him, Miss Hughes, Austraw, and Mrs. Newcomer, the cook.

“I said all along that man she’s been seeing is no good,” the cook said vehemently.

“What man?” Phillip asked.

“He works for Mr. Durmand at City Hall,” a young woman said who’d come to stand beside Miss Hughes. “His name is Matthew Finkle.”

“You think he would hurt her?”

“He already has. Didn’t she always have to cover up the black eyes and busted lips, but it weren’t from her falling or being clumsy. That man done hit her.”

“Don’t be talking like that, missy,” Austraw said. “What if what you said got back to someone upstairs. They won’t like it.”

The girl bit her lip and hurried away.

“So, Ginny, what brings you out in this miserable weather today?”

“The strangest thing, Alice. The tall man who came in with me? He works for the cannery and he told me that a woman had been hurt and left on his porch a week ago. She’s been unconscious, so they had no idea who she was but I visited his home today and my maid recognized her as your personal maid, Greta Adamsen.”

“You visited an employee’s home? That’s rich!” she said with a laugh.

“Are you not concerned that Miss Adamsen has been hurt, Alice?”

The woman shrugged. “I hardly can control what servants do on their days or evenings out.”

Virginia had found little to recommend Alice Durmand when she’d visited her home last summer to meet with her old friend, Virginia’s cousin, but she hadn’t thought the woman this cold and unfeeling.

“Had you reported her missing? It’s been a week at least.”

“To whom would I report her for not showing up for her employment? Myself? I employ her!” Alice said with laugh.

“Surely it would have been worthwhile to call the police or hire a detective of some sort. There’s an obligation to persons in our employ, and Miss Adamsen was a personal servant.”

Alice shrugged. “She was in a relationship with a man far above her reach. Some women get what they deserve.”

Virginia stood, too disgusted to continue even feigning any pleasantry. “No woman deserves violence. I’ll see myself out.” The door to the room had been opened by the butler when Alice spoke again.

“Don’t step in the gutter, Virginia. I wouldn’t want there to be any unsavory talk about your family.”

Virginia paused but did not turn back, well aware of the threat that had been made against her reputation. Thankfully, she saw Mr. Brown and Colleen waiting in the foyer. She was seated in the carriage when she realized how very angry she was. Virginia worked to calm herself, taking slow, even breaths and forcing her fingers to unclench.

“Are you well?” Phillip Brown asked her.

“I am well, just undone by the lack of care exhibited by Miss Durmand for her staff. She was aware that Miss Adamsen did not show up for her duties but did nothing. She felt no obligation to find out what had happened to the woman. That some women get what they deserved because of this man Miss Adamsen was seeing. Unconscionable!”

She saw the glance that passed between Colleen and Phillip Brown. “What? Why are you looking like that at each other? What have I overlooked?”

“It’s not that you overlooked anything, Miss Wiest. You are different, though, than most employers. Most are not as . . . unconcerned as Miss Durmand, but that does not mean they would worry or put themselves out for an employee. Perhaps they would direct a butler or secretary to look into a missing servant, but many would not even do that much,” Colleen said.

Virginia glanced at Phillip Brown, who was looking out the glass window of the carriage, indicating with his silence that he agreed with Colleen. However, she could not stop herself from asking, “Does your opinion match Miss Hughes’s?”

He turned and looked at her, and she felt the weight of his gaze. “I have no wish to upset you, Miss Wiest.”

“That answer is more upsetting than the truth.”

“I have to agree with Miss Hughes. As a general rule, employers are not usually concerned about their employees’ tragedies or mishaps. I’m fortunate to work for the Wiest family, who has always done right by their staff. Just last year, your father authorized the money to rebuild the Wilkenses’ house when it burned down.”

Was she so unaware of the real world around her? Was she naive? A sickly, motherless child rarely exposed to life’s cruelties by a loving and overprotective father? Yes, she imagined she was. Well, she intended to make some changes in her life beginning this very day.

“Miss Durmand said Miss Adamsen was in a relationship with a man who was far out of her reach,” Virginia said.

“Matthew Finkle is his name,” Brown said. “The staff below stairs say he’d been violent with her. He works at City Hall for Miss Durmand’s father.”

“And nothing’s been done about his violence?” she asked.

“One of the maids said she tried to hide her bruises and claimed she’d been clumsy, but she hadn’t been believed, at least by that maid,” Colleen said.

“How will we talk to this Matthew Finkle?” Virginia asked.

Brown looked at her. “You will not be talking to him. I’ll find out what I can about him from other sources and then confront him. Alone.”

“Mr. Brown, you have no right to instruct me?—”

“We already know Finkle is violent. He may have intended Miss Adamsen to die, which would make him a murderer too. I cannot allow you to speak to him and put yourself in the way of a violent man. I will not be manipulated again as you did today.”

“Well,” she huffed and turned her head away, knowing her cheeks were pink with embarrassment. Mr. Brown certainly was high-handed. She had no intention of allowing him to dictate her behaviors.

He jumped out of the carriage as soon as it rolled to a stop and helped Colleen down the narrow, icy steps. She waited a moment and was irritated enough to refuse his help, but hadn’t her favorite governess always told her to outdo others with kindness, not spite?

She stepped down, the wind blowing against her skirts as she hung on Brown’s steady arm. She glanced up.

“Mr. Turnbull? Are the horses well enough to take Mr. Brown to his home, and are you warm enough?”

“No, thank you, miss. I’ll catch the streetcar on the next block,” Brown said and turned to walk away.

“We’ll be fine to Wolfe Street and back,” Turnbull said. “Get in the carriage, Mr. Brown.”

Phillip turned as a gust of frigid, icy wind hit his cheeks like needles. “Get inside, Miss Wiest. I’ll take your kind offer.”

Once home, he thanked Turnbull, who nodded and put his fingers to his tall hat in a salute. Phillip went inside, thankful for the warmth and the smell of Eliza’s baking, and headed straight for the kitchen. He sat at the stool beside the high table where she was chopping vegetables and dropping them into a large pot on the Troy stove they’d purchased several years ago. Eliza wrapped a towel around a crusty loaf of bread sitting on a long pan on the table near the wall oven. She sat the bread, a knife, and the butter dish in front of him, and he needed no other encouragement.

He wiped his face and hands after several slices of the hot bread, feeling warm from the food and the heat of the fireplace and stove, making his eyes drift shut.

“Best find your bed before you fall asleep in my kitchen,” Eliza said as she slammed a cleaver on a large onion. The halves tumbled away from each other as she wiggled the knife out of the worn wooden table.

“Yes, ma’am.” He stood and stretched and thought about the sofa by the fireplace in the sitting room. “Any change in the patient?”

“You’ll have to ask your sister or the doctor.”

“The doctor? When was he here?”

“Think he’s still here. Haven’t heard the front door othern than when you come home.”

Phillip glared at Eliza and hurried up the stone steps, past Uncle’s room and up the stairs after a quick glance in the sitting room and some longing for the sofa and the knit blanket draped over its back. He turned toward the back bedroom and stopped. Sarah stood against the wall, her hands behind her back, smiling up at Prosperi, who was leaning on his forearm near her head.

“How’s the patient?” he asked, causing Prosperi to back away and pick up the leather case by his feet. How they hadn’t heard his heavy tread on the stairs was unfathomable, but they clearly hadn’t—or didn’t care if he saw them standing so close to each other.

“I believe she’s recovering. I removed the stitches from her head today, and your family’s care of her has been excellent,” Prosperi said.

“Her eyes have been fluttering, and she squeezed my hand this morning. Not tightly, but I could feel the pressure,” Sarah said as she walked toward the stairs. “Speaking of which, it’s time I gave her something to eat.”

Prosperi followed her down the stairs, Phillip watching them as they made their goodbyes at the door. He hurried down and followed her to the kitchen. Sarah pulled a crockery bowl from the shelf and dipped a ladle into a small pot warming on the stove. She cut a piece of bread, ripped off the crust and ate it, and tore the remaining pieces into the broth in the bowl.

“Jenny, can you help me prop Greta up?” Sarah asked.

“I’ll help,” Phillip said to Jenny, who nodded and picked up the paring knife and a potato. He followed his sister to the spare bedroom. “Jenny still won’t look me in the eye. You would think after three years she’d be used to me.”

“She’ll never be ‘used to’ any man, I don’t think,” Sarah said as she opened the bedroom door. “Eliza and I rarely ask her to go to the market. She is terrified to leave the house.”

“What do you think happened to her?”

“A ‘man’ happened to her,” Sarah said and pulled a chair beside Greta’s bed. “Lift her by the shoulders so I can put these pillows behind her.”

Phillip stood there watching his sister dribble spoonfuls of soup into her mouth. He imagined a man had happened to this woman too.