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Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

S eb held the door open for Ben who tumbled in like a wet puppy and shook his spindly limbs. The lad was growing fast now he was getting better meals. Ben headed for the fireplace and piled logs on the coals, poking it up to get some warmth. Chattering all the while.

"Mrs Tate arrived at Mr Lovell's all soaked to the skin and babbling about her sister being missing. Mr Lovell wants us to find her. Here -" He straightened and passed over a damp, folded note.

Seb opened it, and lighting a candle, read Mr Lovell's thick black hand.

Mr Rooke,

Mrs Tate's sister, Miss Bethany Whittaker, has gone missing from her home. Her stepfather has attempted to force her into marriage with his manager Neeps. You will recall Neeps, I had you keep an eye on him some time back. She appears to have left sometime between four and half past eight this evening. Mrs Tate has ascertained that she attempted to board the stagecoach for Bath that leaves from the George and Blue Boar on High Holborn but missed it by several hours as it leaves at 4:00 PM. Miss Whittaker then left the premises when she was unable to afford the cost of a night's accommodation at the George. Mrs Tate further discovered that Miss Whittaker did not attempt to board the Mail coach.

You and Ben are charged with finding Miss Whittaker. Use all available resources. Mrs Tate has supplied a likeness of the girl, which Ben has. In form and appearance, she is of slender build and approximately five feet tall. Her hair is a deep honey blonde in colour, and she has blue eyes and a fair complexion. She is most likely wearing a cloak of navy blue over her gown and is carrying a small leather valise.

Miss Whittaker is seventeen and innocent. I do not need to stress to you the kind of trouble she could fall into alone in London at night in weather like this. I rely upon you to find her with all speed and take whatever measures you see fit to accomplish this. Once you have retrieved Miss Whittaker, keep her safe until you receive more instructions. On no account is she to return to her home, she is not safe there. Mrs Tate is unwell and requires my attendance here. Keep me informed of your progress.

Garmon Lovell

Seb looked up from the note. "Show me Miss Whittaker's likeness."

Ben scrabbled in a pocket and produced a locket with a miniature portrait of a young girl. Seb took it to the candle and examined it.

The portrait was winsomely pretty. The mouth full and the cheeks rounded wi th youth. But it was the eyes that arrested his attention. The artist had captured not only their vivid blue colour, but something of the girl's soul. The tantalising glimpse of a deep sadness teased him and caught at his jaded heart.

He would feel sorry for any innocent girl alone and undefended in London at night, but this girl was exceptional, something precious to be protected at all costs. The thought of her being pushed into marriage with the likes of Josiah Neeps, made his blood curdle. He resolved immediately that he would find her, come hell or high water, and visit holy vengeance on any who might seek to harm her.

"Right," he said looking up. "Get word out to the mudlarks, I'll rouse the men. Any information on the whereabouts of a honey-blonde lass of seventeen, blue eyes, five feet tall, slender build wearing a dark blue cloak and carrying a small leather valise. Last seen in the vicinity of the George and Blue Boar Coaching Inn on High Holborn, between five and half past eight this evening.

"She is pretty enough to be noticed, work outwards from High Holborn. She is likely to be on foot but may have taken a cab. Leave no stone unturned. Report back to me on the hour, I'll be stationed at the George to begin with. If I move, I'll let you know."

"Aye Mr Rooke. Real pretty is Miss Whittaker."

"Yes, innocent and defenseless, Ben. We must find her."

"Mr Lovell said as much, you can rely on me Mr Rooke. "

An hour later, saw Seb ensconced in the George having frustratingly been unable to speak to the man who had apparently spoken with Miss Whittaker, as he had gone off for the night and wouldn't be back until morning. He had set the men to scouring the streets round about for any sign or sighting of her. He chafed at the need to stay put; his every instinct was to be out there himself looking, but someone needed to coordinate the effort of their resources and Mr Lovell was relying on him to do that job. The men and mudlarks were armed with sufficient funds to lubricate reluctant tongues, and he had high hopes of more information shortly.

Within half an hour, he had two sightings of her, one from The Red Lion and one from The Dagger. The information from The Dagger sent him down the road to that hostelry where he met with the garrulous Mrs Kent, who was full of the story of the young lass who came in for a pie and paid, then left without eating it.

"It were one of our regulars that spooked her! Mr Neeps. No sooner had she clapped eyes on him than she squeaks and runs. And lawd, he takes off after her. In the rain and all!"

Having established that Mr Neeps did not return to The Dagger, Seb grimly asked for Mr Neeps direction and hailed a cab for Great Russel Street, with murder on his mind.

Mr Neeps, dragged from his bed by a big fist in his night shirt, goggled and spluttered while Seb shook him like a dog might shake a rat. It didn't take long to elicit the inform ation that he had chased Miss Whittaker into an alley and lost her in the dark and the rain.

"And you left her to fend for herself in the dark? Did you go to inform her family that you had seen her?"

"No. It was wet, and I was soaked through." Neeps shrugged uncomfortably as if recalling his earlier discomfort.

"You contemptible worm! And you professed to want to marry her."

"If Hiram Robinson thinks I'll marry the chit now, he's dreaming. Behaving like a hussy traipsing round London at night alone! Her reputation is ruined, and so I shall tell him." Blustered Neeps, straightening his night shirt.

Seb, who had reached the door, rounded on him and said menacingly, "You'll do no such thing! If one word about Miss Whittaker passes your lips, I will return here and remove your tongue. Do I make myself clear?"

Neeps went pale and swallowed. "Aye well-"

"And you will surrender any pretensions to the lady's hand in marriage too. It's obscene a man of your age contemplating marriage to girl of seventeen!"

"As I said, I'd not marry her now anyway," replied Neeps sulkily.

"And you will not speak ill of her either! Do I need to break your fingers to make my point?" said Seb advancing on him, grasping his hand and twisting two of his fingers until Neeps cried out.

"No! No! I promise, not a word. Not a word!"

Seb let him go reluctantly and left. Sending a message via the mudlark attach ed to him, to Ben, he gave him the update and set off for the alley where Neeps lost her, his stomach roiling with fury and worry in equal parts.

Neeps was a contemptible worm, but Hiram Robinson was worse. Offering up his sweet innocent daughter to that creep. Neeps was forty-five, if he was a day. As he had said it was obscene. Never mind that she was Robinson's stepdaughter, she was in his care. Seb was a stepson to the man who had raised him and never once had the man done anything less for him than he had for Hetty his own daughter. But then Mr Rooke senior, was a vicar and a genuinely good man. Seb had many occasions to be thankful for his upbringing, this was another one of those. It was one of the things that brought him back from the abyss he plunged into after Corunna.

The identity of his real father was a mystery. His mother had never divulged the man's name and the topic was forbidden in the house. The only time he had attempted to ask papa about it, the reverend had come as close to losing his temper as Seb had ever seen him. He had gone quite purple in the face and forbidden him to ever speak of it.

"You are my son and that is the end of it!" he said firmly, and Seb had bowed his head. "Of course, papa, forgive me." But he knew he wasn't, apart from the fact that the reverend didn't meet and marry his mother until Seb was five, he looked nothing like him.

Mr Rooke senior, was a spare man, of light build, with blue eyes and fair hair, which he had bequeathed to his daughter. Sebastian was dark, with hair and beard as black a s coal and eyes to match, with a huge frame, over six feet tall and broad through the shoulders, an ox of a man, as he had often been labelled in the army where he served for close on five years.

Holding the lamp, he had taken from Neeps front door to light his way, Sebastian, flanked by two mudlarks who had come to join the search, made his way down the alley carefully looking for any sign that might give him a clue to Miss Whittaker's whereabouts.

The only thing they found, was a scrap of fabric in a recessed porch in a narrow alley off the main one. The fabric was smirched with mud and the colour impossible to determine in the poor light, but it was of good quality. Could it be from her gown? And if so, how had it become torn?

Scenarios tripped through his head, and he burned with frustration to find whoever may have hurt her. He could almost laugh at himself if the situation weren't so dire. His normally protective instincts were in overdrive. He took out her portrait and looked at it again in the light of the lamp. He had to find her. He must.

"Hang on little flower. We will find you," he muttered.

The only recourse he had was to begin to widen the search around this last point of contact, and they searched until daybreak, with no further clues .

With the emergence of people onto the streets he hoped that some word of her would be easier to find. He returned to a systematic checking of all the Inn's on and off High Holborn but none of them had a guest meeting Miss Whittaker's description.

It was as if she had entered that alley and vanished. If he was of a fanciful disposition, he might think she had been whisked away by pixies. But he feared, with a sick feeling in his stomach, she had been whisked away by something far more sinister. The only thing that gave him hope was that they hadn't found her body–yet.

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