Lydia entered the drawing room, her eyes immediately drawn to Isabella, who was pacing in the center of the room like a vexed cat trapped in a rainstorm. Gently depositing the cup of tea she'd been cradling on the side table, Lydia eased herself into the sofa. "So, what's your grand scheme for Lewis's belongings?"

     Isabella's face twisted into a scowl at the familiar question, an unwelcome echo of Lewis's inquiry the day before.

     "You never did divulge the endgame to all this tomfoolery, you know,"  Lydia prodded. "You asked me to undo what I did to him so he could remember you."

     "So he could remember me when I trampled him underfoot," Isabella corrected defensively.

      "Which you have now accomplished. Now what?" Lydia's question hung in the air, but Isabella remained as tight-lipped as a clam at high tide. 

     Lydia recognized the look on her young charge's face all too well – the girl was still in love with the man who had left her high and dry. It was a feeling Lydia herself knew all too well, having been scorned by a man with a flair for the dramatic and heavenly ambitions.

     "You've enlisted an actor to masquerade as your husband to show Lewis that you found happiness in spite of him. But have you? Have you truly found the bliss you're seeking?" Lydia tried to pierce the veil of Isabella's stubborn silence, but to no avail.

     Deciding to be blunt, Lydia pressed on. "It's alright to confess it, you know," she said gently. "You're still in love with him, aren't you?"

      Isabella looked away, her silence a tacit acknowledgement of Lydia's suspicions.

      Just then, the drawing room door flew open with a suddenness that made the occupants jump, and a breathless maid stumbled in. "The master... the young master has been taken, mevrouw," she gasped, her voice quivering. Isabella and Lydia sprang to their feet, their eyes wide with terror.

      "What do you mean he's been taken?" Isabella demanded, her heart pounding like a war drum.

      "A man... he snatched him on our way back from the market. I'm sorry, I couldn't keep pace with him," the maid wailed, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I chased after him, mevrouw, I swear I did."

      Lydia moved quickly to the maid's side to offer comfort, while Isabella stood petrified in shock, her mind racing down dark and twisting paths of fear and unease.