Forever changed by his capture at the hands of the French, Viscount Carlisle is no longer the naive, carefree idiot who left the shores of England. He has spent eight years trying to find the man who betrayed him, but his plans are thwarted by the t...
"Hello?" A tentative voice called out from the foyer and Raphael felt himself go cold with dread. "Is anyone there? Thomas, why did you leave the front door wide open?"
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
What was she doing here?!
"Honestly this is no way to live, Thomas. You must hire a footman at the very-"
"DON'T LOOK!" Raphael's body burst into motion, pushing her away from the door, practically shoving her out of the way but he was a second too late. Her gaze was fixed at a point over his shoulder. Her mouth dropped open and Raphael could not even brace himself for the way she began to shriek.
"Sylvie!" Raphael grabbed her and tried to drag her away, but instead, she crumpled into him. He braced himself to catch her, her shouts dissolving into sobs as she refused to look away from the corpse.
"Sylvie, Sylvie, look at me," Raphael's voice cut through the maelstrom of horror and disbelief and heartache that was churning in her mind. "Look at me!"
She somehow managed to turn her head towards him instead of Thomas's corpse, her body trembling from the shock. She turned her tear-stained eyes to him, her face pale, terror painted on every feature. "Rafe. Rafe, he's dead. Oh, that poor, poor man. He's dead. My brother is dead."
"Oh, my heart, I am so sorry," an anguished sound tore from his chest as he pulled her into him, letting her cry against him. "I wish you hadn't seen that. Oh, Sylvie, I am so sorry."
Her sobs quieted after a few minutes, though her body still trembled in his hold. He felt her freeze and let out a horrified gasp.
"Where is Jane? Where is Jane?!"
In a savage movement, she wrenched away from him and she was sprinting away, Raphael on her heels. The worst-case scenario playing through his mind.
"Jane?!"
Whoever had killed Thomas was a professional. Very professional. The kind of finesse that belonged to The Collective.
You cannot trust The Collective.
If one of his colleagues had Jane, she was as good as dead. Fear and horror tore through him as Sylvie wrenched open the door to the nursery and they were confronted with the sight of Jane's empty bed.
And the window hung wide open.
"No, oh god, please. Jane. Jane?!" Sylvie shrieked as she made to hurtle past him and he caught her by her arm forcing her to stop even as she struggled out of his hold.
"Sylvie! We will not accomplish anything if we do not have our wits about us!" He shook her, trying to break her out of her panic. He did not want to resort to striking her to get her back to her senses.
"Rafe, you don't understand! She's never-" her voice broke as fresh tears spilled over her eyes. "She's never been to London! The front door was o-open. She could have wandered out, she could be lost. She can't hear anything other than very l-loud sounds. She can't speak. She could be anywhere. Please. Please help me. I'll do anything. Please, find her. I beg you."
"Alright, I need you to breathe. We need to think with a clear head. When did you and Jane arrive?" Raphael fought to keep calm as a terrifying thought began to formulate in his mind.
"Just this afternoon. I only went out to buy some things for dinner, we've been settling in otherwise."
Thomas never had anyone in his home. He kept a few people for the stables, but there had not been an interior staff for years. He had no guests, no family, no visitors. If someone had come to assassinate him, they would have not thought that there might be witnesses. And if Jane had seen something she was not supposed to.....there were people who could make her disappear.
"Alright. Sit. Breathe. Let me fetch you some water, then we will start looking, yes?" He forced his voice to come out steady only with years of training in hiding his emotions. He led her to the chair in the nursery and fetched her something to drink. "Drink it slowly, don't choke on it. There we are, my dear. Calmer?"
She nodded, though her face was still pale.
"When did you last see her?"
"She was playing with Thomas in the study when I left for the market. She really wanted to go out with me but I was tired and I didn't have the energy to watch after her," Raphael took her palms in his hands, rubbing circles into her skin with his thumb. "I should have just taken her with me. Rafe, that girl is all I have in this world. My heart beats only for her. If something's happened to her. If Thomas hurt her-"
"No!" The denial burst out from Raphael's mouth. "Thomas would never harm you or Jane. We will find her. I will find her, do you understand? I will send for my own staff, they can deal with the body. In the meantime, I'm going to ask the servants and residents in the neighborhood if they have seen anything. While I do that, you must start looking inside the house. Maybe she's asleep somewhere and can't hear us. I was the one who left the door open, so it's unlikely that she slipped out. Can you manage that, Sylvie?"
She took a bracing breath, wiping the tears from her cheeks, and nodded. "Yes. Of course."
He pressed a kiss to her forehead, taking the glasses from her face, wiping them clean, and then placing them back. "I promise you, I will find her."
And Raphael St. Alexander was a man who kept his promises.
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"You do not rest until that girl is found, understood? Anyone who helps find her, consider your debts repaid," Raphael reclined against the chair in one of the private rooms in Madame Dumont's brothel, where he had assembled a good number of his contacts in the underworld. "Anyone who gives me information leading to her recovery gets ten thousand pounds."
A sharp murmur went through the crowd at the outrageous sum. Ten thousand pounds was enough to carry a man through a lifetime several times over.
"But if any one of you dares to bring fraudulent information to me, if anyone here thinks that they can waste my time and get away with it, let it be known that the consequences will be dire, swift, and severe." A blanket of tension fell like snow over the assembly. "Dismissed."
As the men and women that belonged to the underbelly of London shuffled out, Rafe dropped his head into his hands and let out a weary sigh. His head hurt, his neck hurt and his heart would likely wear itself out soon, it had not beat a steady rhythm ever since he had discovered Thomas' body.
Jane had been missing for over seven hours, the sun would be rising over London soon. Seven hours may as well be a lifetime to the people who ran the darkest, most evil circles of London. The longer Jane remained missing, the farther their chances of finding her alive dwindled.
He took out his pocket watch, tracing the dent in it's gold lid with his thumb as his mind worked for a way to make sure Jane was found.
Christ have mercy.
There was no option for failure. Raphael would find her, no matter what it took.
But first, Raphael thought with increasing dread, he had to answer a summons from The Major.
