The Locket and the Flintlock

by Rebecca S. Buck

  “It is her hand but my words. You may tell the others of the situation, and you will warn them Miss Foxe may be a prisoner, but she is also a guest and to be respected. Or I will deal with them personally.” Len met Julian’s gaze evenly and her words allowed no arguments. Lucia held her breath as she waited for Julian’s reaction. He did not look pleased but nor did he seem inclined to cross Len.

  “Of course,” he said. “Hope you know what you’re doing, Len.”

  “As always, Julian,” she said, with a small smile but a hardening of her eyes. “You should go, there are not many hours before dawn,” she told him.

  “Yes. Until later then.” He turned to Lucia and bowed his head slightly, “Miss Foxe.” With that, he left the room.

  Lucia watched his retreating back with curiosity, wondering just how it was that this articulate and physically strong man had come to respect Len so greatly and bemused by what seemed to be a friendship between Len and Julian. Such a thing was unheard of in her world, and she found herself almost envious.

  “He is a handsome man,” Len said, with a slight narrowing of her eyes.

  Lucia flushed as she realised she had been caught gazing after Julian and that Len had taken her curiosity as something quite improper. “I had not considered such a thing. I was merely wondering how it is he obeys you so faithfully.” Candour was remarkably easy with Len despite the tension between them. Perhaps it was the unusual situation, or maybe it was the casual confidence Len herself exuded. Lucia felt able to admit to her curiosity.

  “He trusts me.” Len shrugged slightly. “That is all a good leader needs.”

  “But how did it come about in the first place?”

  “I can see you have many questions on your tongue, Lucia, and I’m tired. I will show you to your bed now.”

  “But I—”

  “I will give you some of the answers you seek. Take breakfast with me.”

  “Yes.” Lucia acquiesced, as though she had a choice in the matter. Len’s manner almost made her feel she did. The notion that she would now try to sleep, and wake a hostage of outlaws still, was one she could barely comprehend. As Len rose, Lucia followed suit and allowed herself to be ushered from the room towards the wooden stairs in the centre of the building.

  The chamber Len showed her to on the first floor of the house was small and shadowy, with a narrow bed smelling of damp. However, Lucia was tired, and despite the extraordinary situation she found herself in, she fell asleep remarkably quickly.

  *

  Len slept little that night. She waited for Julian to return from Foxe Hall before she even contemplated her rest. His report that all was calm at Lucia’s home gave her some peace of mind, though she could well imagine the uproar Lucia’s disappearance would cause in a few hours. She knew the note she had dictated to Lucia would do little to relieve Lucia’s family’s fears, and for that it was difficult not to feel remorse.

  She could not take the men’s questions and suspicions tonight and scorned even Julian’s company to be alone in the night with her thoughts. It was not long before those thoughts drove her from the oppressive silence of her private room and out into the dark woodland. She leaned with her back against the rough bark of an aged oak and allowed herself to feel part of nature, not something abhorrent and strange within it. There was peace in the world, away from the rules and conventions of society, away from the ludicrous constraints she had never had the ability to withstand. How did women such as Lucia manage it and appear to be so happy? And how was it that she had been born to be so different? An outsider. An outlaw. Sometimes she could scarce believe her own choices. To live a life of violence and terror, of crime and villainy, and to know her end was, like as not, to be on the gallows. This had been her choice? What had the alternative been? Could Miss Helena Hawkins have lived the life of Miss Lucia Foxe? Impossible.

  And now Lucia saw a glimpse of the alternative in Len. Len saw the spark of excitement in her captive’s blue eyes. Dangerous. Too dangerous. Part of Lucia was already drawn towards the freedom she saw here. But she did not yet recognize it. Hadn’t there been a time when Len herself had not known just what it was she longed for? And yet still she had craved it. It would be far better for such desires never to be awoken in Lucia. The longing for liberty was an ache like no other. In Len’s experience, only one other pain had surpassed it, that of loving as she was not allowed to, desiring someone she could not according to all the laws and conventions she had been taught. To love a woman was surely the most bittersweet of experiences. Was it possible Lucia, still unmarried, had felt something of that yearning? And could Len herself be its object? There was a glimmer in Lucia’s gaze, behind the fear and confusion, something underlying that secret excitement. If unrecognised desire was the cause, Len could not encourage it.

  Len clenched her fists in frustration. A woman’s reputation was so delicate. Lucia had shown remarkable bravery when she had left her bed and ridden out on the turnpike. She did not deserve to be repaid by the shame and possible ruin that always waited around the corner for a respectable woman who deviated from the norm. Len had escaped that fate herself. Instead of disgrace and humiliation she had sacrificed that life forever and now dared the hangman to take her life in the name of justice. Such an escape was not one she could countenance for Lucia. Len was so far removed from Lucia’s world now. It was not fair to draw a brave but delicate woman into her own fateful existence.

  Yet some part of her wanted Lucia to remain here, to begin to understand. She knew all too well the kind of questions Lucia had for her. An intelligent woman, courageous and beautiful. Life could suffocate such a woman. But she was safe in her constrained existence. Len had to remind herself that it was not her duty to liberate womankind. Lucia could not be made discontented with her own life. She must be glad to return to her cosseted existence, her warm chambers and plentiful meals, the round of social engagements and expectance of a marriage proposal. Len’s choices exposed Lucia to dangers she had never even contemplated. However much her heart yearned to free Lucia—and selfishly longed to keep the woman here—she knew she must be guarded in their conversation in the morning. She could not allow the yearning in her own foolish heart to sway her. Lucia was beautiful and looked at Len with something secretive, thrilling, and not quite understood in her gaze. To unravel that was an excruciating temptation. But, outsider though she was, there were rules and responsibilities in this life too. To keep her men safe. To keep her own heart and soul safe. Lucia was her prisoner through necessity. There could be nothing else between them.

  *

  Bright sunlight shone outside when Lucia awoke the next morning, although all she could see of it were the rays which crept around the edges of the heavy curtain obscuring the window. Although she was instantly aware she was not in her own bed, she did not realise quite where she was and looked around her with confusion. Recollection returned with a jolt of nervous alarm. Her father would have read the letter by now. Miss Lucia Foxe was the prisoner of a gang of robbers. Only she did not feel quite as she supposed a prisoner should and wondered at her own contrary nature.

  Lucia rose from the bed and wrapped the worsted shawl about her shoulders. She had gone to bed fully dressed. Looking down at her crumpled skirts, she reflected that it barely mattered how she appeared here. It was the first morning in memory she had not had to bother herself about how she was dressed for breakfast or to receive morning visitors. She wondered what time it was. There was a cobweb-covered clock on the mantelpiece in the chamber, but it read four o’clock and looked as though it had not kept the correct time for some years.

  She went to the window and lifted the curtain, heavy with dust, and peered out at the bright day. If she had hoped to orientate herself as to where this house was located, she was disappointed. All that could be seen beyond the small plot of cleared land in which the house stood were the bare branches of winter trees. There were many patches of woodland within the vicinity of Foxe Hall, and since Lucia h
ad no clue in which direction they had travelled, it was impossible even to guess at where she was.

  The snow of the previous day had entirely melted, and today the sky was clear. The pane of glass she looked through, which was cracked clean across, misted with her breath upon it. Lucia gazed at the jagged outlines of the branches against the blue of the sky and thought of her father and sister. They would be torn apart with worry. She missed them suddenly, and a surge of recrimination swept through her. How could she have done this to them? It was only a moment later it occurred to her that she had not had an option in the course events had taken. She was a prisoner, after all. How odd that she had been considering the matter as though she had chosen her fate, as though she had made some decision which had led to her waking here, in a robber’s hideout. It was not her fault. Not at all. And yet she was not reassured.

  She let the curtain fall, plunging the room back into deep shadow. Through the gloom, Lucia inspected the chamber a little more closely. There was little furniture, and it did not appear to be regularly used. The cobwebs suggested it was unlikely a fire had been laid in the hearth for some time. She shivered and pulled the shawl closer around her shoulders.

  Standing in the centre of the room, Lucia wondered if she should wait until she was summoned, or whether she could venture to leave the chamber. She did not like the idea of blundering into the kitchen only to find the men who had robbed and abducted her there. The notion that they harboured suspicions she had betrayed them made her anxious to the extreme.

  Her indecision was cured by a firm knock on the door a moment later. Lucia went to the door and opened it, to find Len leaning against the door frame. She was dressed as the night before, only her collar was fastened, she wore a white necktie, and she had donned a gentleman’s blue frock coat over her shirt. Lucia could not help but stare. “Good morning,” Len said with a slight smile.

  “Good morning,” Lucia stammered back. She had not seen Len in daylight before. The light from the large, dusty window at the end of the passageway was plenty to illuminate her. It lent an edge of reality to Len’s appearance the guttering candlelight could not, and in this she was rather more extraordinary than she had been before. Lucia could see the tones of rich brown in what had seemed to be black hair, the faint rose in the otherwise pale cheeks, the mole on her left temple.

  “I trust you slept well?” Len asked, rather formally.

  “Yes, thank you.” Lucia looked into Len’s brown eyes and questioned her own sanity. She was not remotely afraid. At the very least she should have been angry, indignant, humiliated by Len’s power over her future. She was not so brave as to be careless of the danger she was in. Yet standing facing Len in the doorway, all that filled Lucia’s mind were the questions she burned to ask. She felt an emotion she had no name for but which made her senses heighten and a tension form deep inside her. It seemed to make her reckless, hoping Len would not send her away, glad to be in the company of thieves. She would have sworn she saw the same tension in Len, that something between them entwined inextricably. Something that told her Len was not so very different from her, after all.

  “Would you like some breakfast?” Len asked. The words were stiff and she looked away from Lucia’s eyes and over her shoulder.

  “Yes, please.” Lucia marvelled at the mundane nature of the conversation and wondered why Len seemed suddenly so uncomfortable. Silently she followed Len across the landing and down the stairs, across the hallway, and into the kitchen.

  The kitchen was warm, the fire in the hearth blazing already. Lucia was surprised to see it was empty of men. She wondered where they were and, comprehending suddenly what the nature of their activities might be, felt a lurch of tension in the pit of her stomach.

  Lucia sat down tentatively on one of the wooden chairs by the table. Moments later Len placed a plate in front of her, upon which were a slice of bread, a boiled egg, and a thick slice of fatty bacon. She was aware suddenly that she had quite an appetite and began to eat at once. Len took a seat opposite, eating a slice of bread spread with bacon dripping. Lucia watched her eat, pulling the crust from the bread with her fingers, pushing it hungrily into her mouth, before eating the softer part of the bread in large mouthfuls.

  Lucia sliced off a small morsel of bacon, which she chewed thoughtfully. All of her upbringing and education told her she should despise Len, for her table etiquette if nothing else, and yet she did not. An intriguing puzzle.

  “The bread’s fresh,” Len said at last. She looked vaguely perturbed by Lucia’s contemplation of her.

  “Yes.”

  “I suppose fresh bread isn’t uncommon in Foxe Hall, though?” There was an edge of bitterness in her tone, but Lucia did not think it was directed against her personally.

  “No. Jones, the cook, bakes bread every other day.”

  Len snorted disconcertingly and took a drink from the cup of water in front of her. Lucia was offended by her hostility yet, at the same time, felt a strange and previously unknown shame at the privilege she took for granted in her life. However, Len was educated and well spoken. Surely she had not been born into poverty. There were questions which needed to be asked.

  “There seems to be food aplenty here too,” Lucia said. She did not mean to sound defensive of her own privileges but managed to all the same.

  “We don’t starve,” Len said. “But have you stopped to think about what we must do for that food?” She pushed the last of her bread into her mouth and raised her eyes to Lucia’s.

  “You steal food too?”

  “No, we steal money. The money we steal allows us to buy food.” She spoke as though she was explaining the facts to a child or simpleton, and this fired Lucia’s temper.

  “Forgive me for not understanding the way thieves operate,” she snapped. “I understand a world which works for its money to buy food.”

  “You, of course, work very hard for your food.”

  Lucia’s face flushed. “I am fortunate. But there are many not so fortunate who do not turn to robbery.”

  “True enough. But there are also many starving to death because the work they cling to no longer feeds them. Do you know how much a quartern loaf costs, Lucia?”

  “No.” Lucia did not meet Len’s searching glare.

  “In town, it costs one shilling and eight pence.”

  “Oh.”

  “Which means very little to you, doesn’t it?” Len’s tone grew sharper. “Do you know how much your precious work earns a man?”

  “What sort of man?” Lucia’s confidence was faltering as her ignorance was exposed.

  “Say a skilled man, a stocking weaver, there are plenty of those in these parts.”

  “No, I do not know.”

  “A stockinger earns around seven shillings a week.”

  It did not take Lucia long to calculate how scant such wages were. She did not have a reply. Len’s anger infused her words and made her eyes shine. She was frightening and somehow enchanting all at once.

  “And he needs more than bread to live. His family need more than bread. And that’s a skilled man. Imagine the plight of a labourer. Is it any wonder there are more and more men turning to thievery and violence?”

  Lucia swallowed a piece of bread and laid her knife aside. She could not answer to the poverty of the masses. But she was determined to learn more about the woman across the table from her who spoke with such knowledge and conviction. “You talk of men. But you are not a man. I cannot imagine you were ever a labourer.”

  “And you ask why then I have turned to thievery?”

  “Yes.” Lucia took a deep breath, calculated that Len was not truly angry with her, and dared to continue. “You are educated, you are no labourer’s daughter.”

  “You are educated, Lucia, and no labourer’s daughter. Yet if your father cast you from the house and refused you a penny of aid, how would you make your living?”

  “Is that your story?” Curiosity and unexpected compassion competed in Lucia’
s heart. She wanted so badly to know more of Len, to understand what drove this woman into her unconventional life, what fired her passion, and what sank her into despair. It was partly through wishing to comprehend more of such a woman, and it was partly out of that strange, tight empathy which came upon her again. Even the slightest hint of Len’s story told her she had experienced things Lucia had never contemplated. And yet, somehow, she felt that connection between them and needed to know why.

  “It does not matter if that is my story or not.” Len was clearly not going to expand, and Lucia was disappointed. “The point is, Lucia, a woman has virtually no chance of earning money. Yes, she can sell herself as a slave into the factories and, for the risks she takes with her life, earn less than her male counterparts. She can take in needlework and buy a loaf a week, enough to survive and know the pains of her hunger more acutely. An educated woman can go as a governess, an uneducated woman as a housemaid, but only if there is someone to speak for her character and reputation, and such work is only another form of slavery. All women are dependent on their fathers, husbands, and masters. If her father refuses her admittance to his house, and she has no wish to marry herself off even if she could find a man with money enough to support her, what is she to do? Prostitute herself?”

  Lucia stared at Len in silence. There were no words to answer her. Of course Lucia knew there was such a world as she spoke of it, but she had never confronted it before, never had it seemed so immediate. There was such fierce anger, such a hint of desperation in Len’s tone, yet her words were eloquent and effective. Lucia felt a spark ignite in her own soul, a fury at the injustice, which combined with a longing for Len to go on, to share more of this raw passion so uncommonly seen in Lucia’s world. She held her breath as she waited for Len to continue.

  Len seemed to be watching her reaction, and Lucia was dismayed to see her sigh. It was as though she feared dwelling on so emotional a subject in Lucia’s presence, and her next words were not infused with the same enthusiasm and became bitter. “You would be surprised, Lucia, how many women turn to thievery. The gaols will soon be full of them. At least the crowd always enjoys seeing a woman hang.”