Lady of Greystoke (Sequel to "At all costs")

Richard Coldon

After 2 months with very few additional clues concerning Alice's whereabouts, John had become nothing short of a powder keg. In the time Alice had been missing, many windows, mirrors and other parts of the Greystoke manor had been broken or demolished in a different way. He had spent many hours running around the garden, climbing trees and punching the bark, letting out his anger and adrenaline. Christopher spent many hours talking with the police and trying to discover what happened to his sister. Today, he walked into his father's office, finding his father staring out the window, a serious and distant expression on his face.

'Father, I have news from Charles.'

John's head snapped towards the sound of his son's voice. He quickly sits down and motions for his son to do the same.

As Christopher sat down he laid down a few photographs on the desk.

John picked up the photos and analyzed them. The photograph showed 3 people, 2 men and one woman. Two of them were likely a married couple, and the other a middle-aged grumpy looking man.

'Those are Lord and Lady Delaney, William's parents.'

John looked up, a small fire starting to burn behind his eyes. He put down the photograph in front of his son, facing it his way. 'Who is this man?' He asked, pointing his finger at the middle-aged man.

Christopher sighed. 'According to Charles he named Coldon. Richard Coldon. He was the youngest son of a rich Lord and was set to inherit a smaller piece of land owned by his father, but he disgraced the family and was exiled. In exchange for him changing his name and breaking every contact he had with his family, his father would give him enough money to live an easy and lazy life.'

John nodded. 'So he is a lazy rich man who has never had to work for anything one day in his life...'

'Yes.' Christopher nodded. 'But there's more.' Christopher dug up a bunch of papers out of his briefcase and put them on the desk in front of him. 'These are documents obtained by Charles from the police, listing multiple people having gone missing around the area where he lives. There have been accounts of people he knows, claiming that the man not only barely pays the staff that willingly works for him, but that has men working for him who kidnap people and then keeps them as slaves.'

Christopher looked up at his father and could see the mask of "Gentleman" and "Lord" fading, giving way to the survival instinct of Tarzan.

His father took a deep sigh and looked at his son. 'What was the disgrace he created, and cause him to get exiled from his family.'

Christopher took a deep breath, and looked away from his father's piercing gaze, slightly afraid to tell him the truth. Eventually after a minute of silence he took a deep breath and faced his father's gaze. 'Abusing a 17 year old servant girl....'

A somewhat short chapter, but adding some more drama, because why not?

I got some time off from college right now, so I hope to be able to write some more in the next 2 weeks.