The Price of Hannah Blake (33 page)

“I will try.”

“If you are well enough, Doctor, I understand the ordeal…”

“I am entirely well, Mr. Prime Minister, First Lord. It is only a question of time, but, yes, yes I think I can.”

“Take a man of mine with you,” said the prime minister, gesturing at a nearby security man. “Perhaps he can assist, and, when the group is assembled, fetch me?”

“That would be helpful, indeed,” said Dr. MacLeod, and turned to go.

“Sir,” said the first lord. “A moment more. You must know that the duke and the Countess Wittke have perished in the fire. This seems a certainty.”

The doctor seemed upset not in the least. He said, “I am available, of course, to treat any of the more fortunate, who may have suffered injuries.” And he turned and walked away, the security man close behind.

“Well,” said the prime minister, the word a sigh, most unusual for him, “admittedly this has solved certain problems. Not all, not all, but some.”

The first lord nodded. “Yes, the mysterious attackers at least in that regard have done us a favor.”

“They must be pursued, captured, and punished, of course.”

The first lord said, “Yes, and unfortunately that will mean that this story—” his arm swept across the wall, the mansion beyond—”must come out in court in all its detail. These men seem to have come to seize the young woman from the duke’s very chambers. Doubtless, they will testify to her state and all they observed.” He turned to look at the prime minister.

The prime minister said, slowly: “You know, First Lord, I become more conscious, each day, that the supposed great powers of the prime minister of the realm are hedged about on every side. I wish to prosecute these men, but all our attempts to contain this scandal would be quite swept away in court.”

“I am afraid that is true,” Prime Minister. “
Very
true.”

They turned. Angry arguments had broken out between the police and the increasingly frantic guests. The prime minister made a face. “I suppose I must see to this,” and he walked toward the small group, followed by the first lord. When he reached the police officers, he said, “Ask them to line up, officers. I will address them and then they may be on their way.”

In a few moments, the Prime Minister was walking back and forth before a ragged line of about a dozen men and women with shocked, bewildered faces—although some disguised this with an assumed indignation. As the prime minister walked, he looked at each face and said a name aloud, and added, “I know you, sir.” Or “I know you, madam.”

And then he was saying, “The reason for your presence here, what occurred earlier in the evening, and what the duke routinely offers his guests are known to us.” He fixed them with the eyes that cowed opponents In Parliament for decades. He said, “Known to us in
all
details. All. And when we have interviewed the young men and women who are imprisoned, here, we shall know still more details, more names.”

He went on, with bowed head, the bald patch reflecting the last wavering flames, “I do not know if this scandal will become public and so forever blot the history of the royal family and. quite possibly,
quite
possibly, this nation itself. Judging from your behavior, I cannot persuade myself that you care in the least, but it is my sworn duty to care. You will be most fortunate, undeservedly so, if no dreadful scandal attaches to yourselves.”

He paused and seemed to draw a long breath. “You may leave, now, in whatever way you can, but you cannot leave behind your disgrace. That will follow you everywhere.”

With that, he turned on his heel and strode away. A few made to followed him, calling, protesting, but were halted by the police and advised to make good their exit before the press arrived.

Less than half an hour later, the prime minister was led into the mansion by the security man he had detailed to Dr. MacLeod. As they passed along the corridors, through the rooms, he noted the aspect of a school: classrooms, dining hall, gymnasium facilities. Then they passed through what appeared to be a locker room, with showers to one side, and stepped out into a large, high-ceilinged hall with a brightly polished hardwood floor.

The great hall was well lighted. Fully three dozen men and women—more perhaps—were there. All were dressed in loose white garments that revealed necks and shoulders, calves and ankles, in a way he found disturbing in the case of the women. All were neatly seated on the floor, legs crossed, backs straight, heads lifted and attentive. And they were in even rows.

The prime minister glanced toward the front of the room. Two chairs had been placed there. He walked toward them, but, when he reached them, did not sit down. He would stand to address his audience. He always did, without exception. For a moment, he faced them without speaking. Astonishing, it seemed, but these men and women, all prisoners subject to ordeals he still could scarcely credit, were among the most striking—handsome, beautiful, sitting gracefully and at ease—he ever had seem assembled. Above all, perhaps, the prime minister, who had long been expert at discerning the signs of anxiety, intimidation, or outright fear in both opponents and allies, saw faces studying him with a profound and self-contained calm. What should be his tone, his appeal?

He began. “I am the prime minister of these islands, our home. It is my duty, trust, and lifelong concern to use my power and position to protect its people from harm. In this, I have failed you, failed utterly, and, as a consequence, you have endured an ordeal I could not have imagined—never would have imagined—before this”—he gestured about him—”terrible place came to my attention at last. I doubt I ever will recover the attitude and estimate of this realm and its people I once enjoyed.”

They were attentive, posture erect but at ease, hands folded in laps. As he talked, he paced, but never looked away from them. Often, he stopped to face them, punctuating his words. “Now, belatedly, you are free, all free. I must report that the duke, along with the Countess Wittke, perished in a blaze that utterly destroyed his residence.” The faces showed no reaction.

“Tonight, you will stay here. I have asked Dr. MacLeod to assume responsibility for your safety and he will command sufficient officers to ensure that. He also will interview each one of you to identify who you are, where you were kidnapped—for that is what it was, and worse—and how long you have been prisoner. Every facility will be available to you to return home as soon as possible.”

He paused. Now, he must make his appeal, but what? If ever he had contemplated an insinuated threat, some reference to the power of his office, he had abandoned the idea. He seldom had seen faces less susceptible to such an appeal. He reflected that he should not be surprised. What more could they fear to suffer?

He said, “This nation, and my government, have at their discretion the financial resources to try in some small way to compensate you for losses you have suffered—even knowing, as I do, that nothing could compensate for the years, the liberty, and the security that is every citizen’s right, but of which you have been deprived. We will be generous, very generous, in this way and in others.

“I know that it will be your highest concern that your reputation and regard among those to whom you return—and for the rest of your life—be protected from the taint of terrible scandal that hangs over this place. It has been no fault of your own, but we must endeavor to protect your reputations from association with it.”

He paused and looked from face to face. He noticed a woman, slightly older than the rest, with short dark hair and a figure unusually lean and fit-looking even in this company. She had fixed him with large, expressionless eyes. Was she moved by this appeal? He could not tell.

“I pledge my utmost efforts to prevent this scandal from becoming public and so casting a shadow over the remainder of your lives. I cannot demand, only request, only urge in the strongest terms, that all in this room, tonight, consecrate themselves to a policy of confidentiality that will protect themselves and others in this room who have endured far, far more than anyone should be asked to endure.

“I personally will be made aware daily of the progress of your restoration to your homes, your compensation, and your safety. For all your country has failed to do for you, in your need, this is what I am able to offer to make some small amends.

“I will hope in days to come, and as long as I may live, that from here you will go forth to the life that you desire and deserve. My respect to you all, and goodnight.”

The prime minister wondered if ever in his career he had addressed an audience with such personal intensity and at the end heard no applause, no urgent questions, not even whispered discussion. They sat utterly silent. He bowed and turned to the security man who stood waiting for him. Immediately, the white-clad figures rose, silently, and filed out of the room. He watched them go, astounded. Since he entered the room half-an-hour earlier not one had spoken a word.

‘Well,” he said, when he had returned to the first lord’s side, “I have made the best appeal I can to them and I have no idea, none at all, if they were moved or what they will do. I have never in my memory addressed a more attentive and less responsive crowd. What can you possibly make of it?”

The flames had subsided; it was darker, now, much darker, although the security men had lit torches. No one remained but himself, the first lord, his security detail, and one police officer—the rest having been assigned to Dr. MacLeod. The first lord frowned, gazing at the dark wall. The entire section that formed the back of the duke’s residence had collapsed toward the end of the fire. The firemen and police officers who rushed to view the devastation saw an arm thrust from beneath the rubble. With the intensity of the heat, they only could poke away some debris, for now, but it appeared the victim was a guard. It seemed baffling. Had the guard been on sentry duty and trapped by the fire, succumbing to smoke? Or perhaps tried to rush into the building in hope of rescuing its occupants and been overcome while still on the roof of the residence? Whatever the cause, the fire had claimed another victim. The first lord reflected that in the attack earlier in the evening, apparently only one guard has been injured, and that not gravely, but the fire now had claimed at least six victims—the duke, the countess, three of the duke’s personal guard, and now this sentry.

“Well,” said the prime minister, a shade of indignation in his voice, “What do you think, first lord? Or is my question unanswerable?”

“Pardon, Prime Minister, pardon,” said the first lord quickly. “Of the audience you addressed, I only can suggest that all, while still young men and women—scarcely the age of our university sophomores—learned under most dire threat to hold their counsel. Who knows, perhaps that early habit is ineradicable and will undergird your appeal for a silence that must be lifelong.”

The Prime Minister shrugged.. The great face, lined by years and hard lessons in the white-hot crucible of politics and power, gave no hint of hope or doubt. He said, “Well, if that is so, then one of the most improbable and shocking episodes of my career—indeed, of the great Age of Victoria itself—may never be known to history.”

On the worn wooden steps of a cottage in Devon, Hannah Blake sat with two small children on her knees—her youngest brother and youngest sister. She was bouncing them a little, one knee at a time, and they laughed and kept turning to grin into her face. David sat beside her in the gold-tinged light of a late September afternoon. He had been watching Hannah’s mother bend and straighten to pluck the few remaining carrots from the tiny garden. He reflected that she was a remarkably good-looking woman—like the one beside him.

In just two weeks, Hannah’s body had mostly healed, the ferocious lashing administered by the countess had been with a whalebone switch, an instrument that stung to the soul but did not leave scars. When he had seen Hannah in that awful first moment he glanced into the duke’s chambers, she had succumbed to the accumulated load of more than l00 blows, many on her breasts and belly, but also to the horror and shock of watching the flogging of Miranda. Apparently, at that moment, the duke considered Miranda, but not Hannah, dispensable. Interruption by the guard had come while Hannah’s brutal rape was in progress. What would have happened later no one now living could know.

Yes, her body appeared unmarked but, often, in her distant gaze, or brooding, David glimpsed a mind still seeing the duke’s crimson chamber of horrors. He asked her about it, though not often, and she acknowledged her thoughts, “I shall never forget how poor Miranda accepted it so long, only at the end she begged to be killed.” And she would add, her look again inaccessible,, “That is what Maria said I would do, when she offered me the only escape she knew.”

And David, who had broached the subject, suddenly longed to change it. Once, he asked: “Will you ever think about your body, your pleasures, as you did growing up here?” She turned to him, startled, and exclaimed, “Of course not. I don’t want to think that way. Sometimes, I frighten myself, I want so much from you in bed, but I do. I always will have to be alone, mostly alone, with my secrets and my passion. No one would understand as once I would not have understood.”

David nodded. How to disagree? He wished it were not so. He loved the saucy, sensual, openly erotic Hannah Blake. But he recalled a conversation with her father aboard the trawler as it cut the coastal waters racing for London. Hannah had been sleeping on desk, wrapped in blankets; she had refused to be left in a cabin.