Pushing herself up from the bed, Lisa stumbled to the door and searched for a doorknob, but there was none, at least not on the inside, so she grabbed and pulled then pushed on the bars but that did nothing. The door didn’t budge at all. Teeth grinding together, she peered through the bars into the room beyond and stared in horror at the scene. It looked like an ancient torture chamber with shackles everywhere: hanging from the ceiling, affixed to the walls at intervals, and even fitted on each corner of a table in the center of the open area. But it was the various whips and straps also hanging from the walls that made her blood run cold. She swore the ends of some of the items were painted with dried blood.

Swallowing, Lisa backed away and returned to sit shakily on the bed. Mrs. Morgan had understated things when she’d said that the suitor liked it a bit rough. Charles Findlay was obviously one of those twisted individuals who enjoyed inflicting pain, and in many and varied ways. Well, she wasn’t going to sit about awaiting the fate he had planned for her. She would escape, Lisa decided, standing up. She just had to figure out how.

“Findlay?” Richard repeated the name with a frown.

“Yes,” Robert said grimly, pacing to the parlor window and peering out at the street for the umpteenth time since finding Lisa missing.

“Bastard,” Daniel muttered. “I’ve heard some gossip about him abusing prostitutes, but I didn’t think he’d go after a woman of the gentry.”

“Hmm,” Robert muttered, staring at the empty street in front of the house and willing the hack Lisa had left in to roll up and for her to step lightly out, healthy, happy and well. It didn’t happen of course, but then it hadn’t happened any of the other times he’d willed it either.

“And Lisa has been gone all afternoon?” Daniel asked.

“Yes,” Robert growled. “She had Harry hire a hack to take her out to hire a runner.”

“What?” Richard asked with surprise. “Why is she hiring a runner?”

Robert ground his teeth together and then reluctantly admitted, “Bet says she wanted to hire a runner to guard her so that I didn’t have to.”

There was silence for a minute and then Daniel asked, “And she went by herself? She didn’t even take Bet?”

“Apparently she was supposed to take Bet and a footman, but she ran off without either of them.”

“Are we sure she went willingly and wasn’t taken?” Richard asked grimly.

Robert sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Handers saw her leave. He said she ran out of the parlor and charged out the front door straight into the hack. He said she seemed upset.”

“Why would she be upset?” Richard asked solemnly.