Señora Alvarez knelt and put her lips to the keyhole of the last door. “Odile?” she murmured. “Sonia? Maria? Jeanne? Êtes-vous là?”
“Qui est-ce?” came the reply.
“Shh. Parlez trés doucement.”
There was a stir beyond the door. Someone inside came closer. The señora conversed with her very quietly in French.
As she did, Arthur tried the key he had in one of the locks. It didn’t work. He hadn’t really thought it would.
After a bit, the señora came to stand beside him. “All of the dancers are here,” she murmured. “As well as two other girls. They have had little chance to speak to each other. These…monsters keep them alone and afraid. Some of them are hurt as well.”
Arthur’s fury was mirrored in her dark eyes. “Breaking down the doors would bring them down on us,” he said. “We must find the keys.”
“They bring food two times each day,” she replied. “We could wait and take the keys from that person.”
“That could be hours. I don’t want to spend so much time here. And it could be more than one person.”
“We must do something!”
“I have an idea,” Arthur said.
“What?”
“It is an unpleasant one,” he added.
“Nothing could be worse than this!” She gestured at their surroundings.
“I could ring, from the room we were given, and ask for another girl. To…join us. I could insist upon choosing her myself.”
The señora grimaced. “I suppose they would do that.”
“Particularly if I offer more money.”
“And then we overpower the woman and take her keys.”
He nodded.
“Very well.” Before they left, she whispered at all the locked doorways, addressing each dancer in her native language. The two strangers were English, wary but wild for escape.
When Arthur unlocked the door on the floor below, they found the bedchamber as they had left it. “We must set the scene,” he said.
“And be certain of our plan,” she replied.
A few minutes later, Arthur pulled the bell rope. When the “hostess” arrived in response he made his request, with another payment ready to tempt her. There was no difficulty. She left briefly and returned with a ring of keys to lead Lord Macklin upstairs.
Teresa waited until the sound of their footsteps had died away before slipping from the room and following. The corridor was empty. The stairway was empty. She lingered behind the door at the top, cradling the heavy vase she carried. The flowers it had held lay on the washstand in the room below. She could hear the woman speaking to the earl, but not what she said. “That one might do,” said Lord Macklin in a loud voice.
This was the signal they had agreed on. Teresa surged forward. The earl stood beside an open door. He had maneuvered his companion so that her back was to the stairwell. Teresa ran forward and hit the woman on the head with the vase as hard as she could.
She fell in a heap, hitting the floor with a loud thump.
They waited, poised and tense. There was no reaction from below.
“Espero que la hayas matado!” said a voice from inside the room.
“Tranquila!” replied Teresa. At Macklin’s inquiring look, she added, “Sonia hopes I have killed her.” Did she care if she had? She supposed she didn’t wish to kill any person, but this woman had surely deserved a knock on the head.
“Unlock the others while I bind her,” said the earl. He took the ring of keys from the woman’s inert hand and gave them to Teresa, then took out his pocketknife and began rapidly cutting the coverlet from the narrow bed into strips.
Teresa went from door to door, freeing the girls. The opera dancers greeted her with soft cries of gladness. The two strangers were wary at first and then grateful. Teresa would have felt triumphant, had not all of the girls showed signs of violent usage.
She asked the names of the two girls she did not know—Jill and Poppy—and then introduced all the girls to each other. “We must work together as we go.” Teresa stepped back into the bedchamber, where the earl now had the hostess securely bound. She uncurled the woman’s fingers, took the money Macklin had just given her, and distributed it equally among the former captives, knowing this would be a comfort and reassurance. A babble of thanks rose. “We must stay very quiet,” she reminded them.
Lord Macklin emerged. “I will go and call for my curricle,” he said.
“Won’t they ask about her?” Teresa gestured at the bedchamber where the woman lay.
He assumed a haughty expression. “What has she to do with me? I am profoundly uninterested in their opinions.”
“You do that manner all too well,” said Teresa. She rather wished he did not.
“I have heard it often enough in my life,” he replied.
“We will not all fit in your curricle.”
“We couldn’t think of a way around that problem,” the earl reminded her. “I could not drive a coach myself.”
He hadn’t wanted to bring his coachman here, Teresa knew. He was careful about those who were dependent on him. It was one of the things she most admired about him.
“I will see what vehicles they have in their stables,” he added. “Can you drive?”
“Well enough,” answered Teresa. She had only twice handled the ribbons of a carriage, but she would do what she had to do.
“Then we will steal one,” he replied.
“Yer a right one,” said Poppy. She showed bruises on her face and down her arms that hurt Teresa’s heart, but her blue eyes gleamed with defiance. “I know horses,” she added. “I’ll help ye.”
A moan came from the bedchamber. Lord Macklin went to stand over their captive. The rest of them crowded into the doorway. He pulled down the strip of cloth he’d tied over her mouth. “How many people work in this house?” he asked when she blinked back to consciousness.
She glared at him, Teresa, and the huddle of girls. “Ye’ll rue the day…” she began.
“I shall rue nothing,” Lord Macklin interrupted. “This house will soon be receiving a visit from the local magistrate and his men, which I doubt you will enjoy. It might go easier if you answer my questions. How many people work in this house?”
She writhed in her bonds, but they were secure.
“Let me hit her,” said Poppy. “I’ll make her tell ye.”