"Orange! Lemon! Please monsieur, all must be gone by end of the day! Orange, lemon! For one to eat on the return home!" hawked the fruit monger on the dock.
The accented voice of the thirty-something-year-old was was lost in the noises of crowd that bustled past her, glad to be finally be back on solid, English soil after their disaster at sea. A cabin boy and a few other sea hands waded through the fray in the opposite direction, fighting to board their own ships.
The Midfords moved through the crowd, unperturbed by the chaos. Elizabeth followed behind her brother, her mind elsewhere.
She hadn't seen Ciel since he and his butler were dredged out from Atlantic, huddled and covered in grime in their battered life raft. The pair and their footman had been the first to disembark the rescue ship and were most certainly already on their way home.
Her nose caught an orange's sweet, invigorating scent and she suddenly became cognizant of her own body. The fruit seller was presenting to her the unblemished citrus, extending it out to her with both hands.
"Mademoiselle, they are much beautiful and have good smell, do they not? You want to have?"
Elizabeth opened her mouth to politely refuse, but before she could manage a single utterance, the woman deposited the orange into her unexpecting hands.
It was cool, and fragrant, and … cute.
"It is said they bring many good things—hope to the living, health to the sick, and life to the ones we think to have lost. Two pence: that is all."
Hope. That's what she needed. Hope that Ciel would see past the side of herself that she wished he never had to know about. Elizabeth reached into her purse to pay for the item.
"Elizabeth, come along," her mother's stern voice commanded.
"A sixpence, si possible. I give you back four."
"Elizabeth Midford!"
Elizabeth let the bronze coins fall back into the bottom of her bag in favor of a silver one. She fished it out and payed the woman, who held the coin to the inside of her wrist for a moment, before smiling hospitably.
"Merci mademoiselle. May the rest of your day be well," she said, pressing the change into Elizabeth's palm.
...
Elizabeth continued to ponder her predicament concerning her fiance up until she and her family had arrived home. She was prepared to retire for the night, when footsteps alerted her to the presence of an intruder.
The only light in her chamber filtered in from a window on the opposite extreme of the room, but she knew her way around from memory alone. Two steps took her to the rapier mounted on the wall of her bedroom, and it was in her hands ready to fend off an attack in a matter of seconds.
Click.
A cool ring pressed against the back of her neck.
"Quite the wrong thing to bring to this fight, girlie," said the man behind her. "Drop it, or or I'll leave you arranged on the carpet for that pretty bitch with the jiggle bells to find."
One attacker? She was a Midford, how dare they underestimate her.
Elizabeth ducked to the side of the gun, her free hand snatching her attacker's wrist and digging a thumb nail deep into a nerve. The man snarled a torrent of profanities as he was disarmed.
She spun to face him, wrenching his wrist around while slashing the tip of her blade down to strike his shoulder in one fluid, practiced motion.
Her forearm was caught in a large, calloused palm before she could even pierce his flesh.
Elizabeth's technique was impeccable, but it still didn't change the fact that her attacker towered over her by a good eight inches and out weighed her by at least sixty pounds.
He pushed her away, forcing her to keep staggering backwards. He didn't relent, not even when her spine rammed into the wall. Her free hand was pinned down, and the back of her other one was slammed against wall, hard. Once. Twice. A cry escaped Elizabeth as her grip gave out and her sword clattered to the floor.
He pulled her from the wall, flinging her down on her stomach easily, like a rag doll. His knee drilled into her back to hold her in place. Elizabeth tried to push herself back up, but her jaw was instantly shoved back into the carpet. Blood flowed into her mouth from her bitten lip as a rag slipped over her head and fastened into a gag.
"Don't you dare scream through that. You got a brother sleeping in the room we passed, don't you? You want us to show you how we punish bad girlies who don't cooperate?"
A second intruder started shouting from the corner. "Monsieur, please! You have promise to bring her no harm! Please!" That voice. Elizabeth knew that voice.
"Love, did I give you permission to talk?" the man sneered at the second intruder. "Silence her," he commanded, and the fruit monger's continuing pleas were instantly garbled.
"You have nothing to fear, my pet," he whispered to Elizabeth as he slipped a black hood over her eyes. "You're worth your weight in silver alive and unharmed."
A pungent scent entered her nostrils and she quickly lost conscious.
Ciel stands in he middle of Elizabeth's disarrayed room. The door swings on its hinges because it had been locked from the inside and had to be forced open. There is a busted window on the far side of the room. A splotch of dried blood on the carpet. A sword on the floor. Lizzy.
Edward had come by earlier to explain to him everything that his family knew about the attack, which wasn't much. He had then left to join the rest of his family and their servants, who were on search party combing the city for his missing sister.
The sound of the one of the reapers fiddling with his phone aggravates Ciel. It's bad enough that the Scotland Yard had gotten word of Elizabeth's abduction and he would have to deal with Lord Randall later today. His patience can only bear so much incompetence.
Without meaning to, his mind drifts into thinking of what he'd do if Sebastian was with him. Not that the demon would have made much of a different difference, anyway. There are virtually no leads, and with Undertaker gone and Lau giving him the cold shoulder, none of his connections to the criminal underworld remain.
"Will you get off that damn thing already?" Ciel complains. Ronald looks up from the phone in his hand.
"I'm just trying to make myself useful, that's all. Staying in constant communication with the boss to make sure Bassy didn't kill him yet. That's what you'd want, isn't it?"
"Sounds more like plotting to me," Ciel says with a huff. "Don't presume to know what I want, reaper."
"Oh but we do know," Grell pipes in. "After all, there is a reason why you're here instead of working the case for the queen. Isn't Her Majesty is supposed to be your first priority, darling?"
"Eh, sempai, the boss is calling me back. I'll catch you up later," Ronald says as he ducked out of the room.
"I didn't give you permission to leave, you … ugh he's gone." Ciel sighs. He'll have Sebastian skin both reapers alive once he returns.
"Dear, you have that lost face to yourself right now," Grell coos. "Are you forgetting you still have one acquaintance involved with the not so nice dealing of London?"
"Who exactly do you mean … oh no, NO! I'm not! I refuse!"
"I've been looking forward to wearing one of the loveliest dresses I've acquired to the ball he's hosting tonight. I haven't received an invitation like yourself, but I've been meaning to crash that party anyhow."
"I'm not going to any ball hosted by that man."
Grell shrugged. "Suit yourself then, Earl. I supposes your fiance will be just fine with you being so proactive about finding her. Doing everything in your power to—"
"Fine. We'll go. That means there are preparations that need to be made. Get to them. I want to be ready to leave at quarter to six for the Druitt Estate."
Ciel strides out of the room, passing by Elizabeth's vanity as he leaves. On it is an orange, and beneath it is a handwritten note of only two words: For Ciel.
Elizabeth, I swear … I will find you.