“But still, you will return home unable to speak anything of your time here. Even if you could speak of it, would they want to listen to you?”
“I wouldn’t want to tell them.”
“That is even worse, surely? Are you in the habit of wanting to keep secrets from your family?” Len passed the bottle to Lucia, and she took a drink of the fierce brandy without as much as a hesitation. Though it burned her throat, she welcomed the sensation. It complemented the anger stirring in her blood at Len’s words, seemed appropriate to mask the other fierce sensations, the ones she could not name, that talking with Len compelled in her. For Len to question her now, to risk the growing bond between them, was heartless. Lucia could not bear many more questions.
“It is not your concern.” Lucia’s expression was supercilious, her tone proud.
“True enough,” Len said, “except you are in your present predicament because of me. And I believe I can now convince William and Julian you have no responsibility for our new danger. Besides, we have other things to think about for the time being. You can return home.”
At her words, delivered so matter-of-factly, Lucia felt hollow. She did not understand where it came from. She had no reason to expect to remain with them for any considerable amount of time, and all of her common sense should have led her towards fear, homesickness, and anxiety. However, at that moment, the notion of returning to Foxe Hall, of never seeing Len again or learning what the outcome of her frame-breaking plan would be, was terrible.
“But I do not know the way to Foxe Hall from here.”
“Julian will go with you. We are closer than you probably think.”
“No,” Lucia said, more decisively. She felt angry and did not understand why. “I won’t go.” She turned, her eyes blazing defiantly into Len’s.
Len contemplated briefly before replying. “I could use force to make you ride home. Do you forget you are here because you were kidnapped at the point of a pistol, just last night?” No real threat coloured her tone. She could not bring herself to use fear to persuade Lucia to act. The sheer act of terrifying Lucia seemed to risk a betrayal of her own heart, her own sensibilities. She did not want Lucia to be frightened of her, and knowing she wanted quite the opposite was something she did not know how to respond to. Besides, she could not argue a case she did not favour. She did not want to lose Lucia’s company so soon.
“No, I do not forget,” Lucia answered.
Watching her reaction, Len knew she was, in fact, rather close to the truth. She was at once alarmed and pleased, the contradictory emotions waging a war in her heart but neither quite triumphant. The terror of Lucia’s abduction from her chamber had been eclipsed by her fascination with all she had discovered since. Lucia was caught up in an adventure. Len was profoundly aware of her own role in that adventure and in Lucia’s fascination. She could not ignore it, even as she tried to pretend she hadn’t noticed.
Lucia’s next words confirmed her new determination to continue in this thrilling new world. “Indeed, you will have to use force if you want me to return home now.”
Len was dismayed and yet oddly relieved to hear the passion of Lucia’s resolution. “I am not going to do any such thing, and you know it,” she said, looking at the ground. Concern made her feel exhausted. She was worried for Lucia, the dangers she was now exposed to, and for her own pathetic heart which would not listen to reason. On top of that she had the men to consider, almost surely betrayed by one of their number, the shadow of the gallows upon them all. Her wish to damage her father was bitter and heavy, and she knew that smashing his machinery would only give her slight satisfaction. She could not undo the years. She looked up at Lucia again. Why on earth would she want to see Lucia drawn into the life she had been cast into without seeking it? “But you must assure me, Lucia, when you return to them, to your world, you will forget me and all you have seen here.”
“Do you still think I would inform the authorities about you?”
Lucia’s words sounded somewhat desolate. Len knew then she had offended Lucia with her request. Oh, was the girl really so lacking in understanding? Lucia was far from stupid, that much was clear. What would it take for her to understand?
“No, I don’t.” She shook her head slightly. “You mistake my meaning. I worry for you and your place in your family.”
“Nothing will have changed with them,” Lucia replied. A slight waver in her words belied her certainty.
“You will have changed, I fear,” Len said. Her words apparently had the effect she wished, for Lucia fell silent as she digested them. Len allowed her think on it for a long moment.
“Surely I will know if that is the case?” Lucia said, in the end.
“But will you?” Len let the question hang. “And when exactly do you intend to return to them?”
Lucia hesitated, and Len knew she was right to challenge her in this way, to fight off the selfish urge to keep Lucia with her. It was not fair to allow her to be seduced by freedom and excitement, not when she would return to her cosseted life before long. Len knew she had the power in her hands to change Lucia’s perceptions entirely. To change Lucia’s world.
She could show her liberty and danger, how not to know her place but to fight against small minds and crushing traditions. She could show her what it was to love because, God knew, she saw the signs that Lucia was halfway there already. Len checked her thoughts before she lost control of them entirely. Such a change could destroy Lucia. Thief she might be, but she would not take Lucia’s life from her for the sake of a self-indulgent urge and a notion that Lucia was the same as she was.
“I would like to see the outcome of the attack on the workshop,” Lucia said.
“If you return home, I will send a messenger to inform you of it,” Len suggested. She knew it was an unacceptable scenario. Would Lucia sit at supper with her father and Isabella as night fell, then take to her chamber, imagining the crimes committed by shadows in the thick night, waiting to receive a message conveying the outcome? It was ludicrous.
“No!” Lucia’s firm refusal only confirmed Len’s expectations. “That will not do. I must be here.” To Len’s consternation tears sprang into Lucia’s eyes. Lucia wiped them with the back of her slender hand.
“And just what is it enchants you so, Lucia?” Her tone was soft, though she struggled to hide her scepticism. “Do you think, perhaps, you have stumbled into a novel? Are we like the mysterious bandits of the Apennines to you?”
“I do not read those novels,” Lucia countered, “and I am not enchanted.” Despite the twilight, Len saw the colour rise in Lucia’s pale cheeks.
“Do you find crime romantic perhaps?”
“No.” Lucia’s voice had thickened as though there was a lump in her throat. The cool air between them suddenly seemed filled with a new tension. Len’s gaze caught Lucia’s and neither looked away.
“Do you look for thrills not present in your day-to-day life?” Drawn by feelings she barely acknowledged, Len leaned closer to Lucia. Her shoulder touched Lucia’s.
“Do not mock me.” There was real pain in Lucia’s plea.
“I don’t mock you,” Len said gently. “I hope merely to warn you.”
“Of what?”
“You propose, Miss Lucia Foxe of Foxe Hall, to remain in the company of outlaws for another week and to have knowledge of a frame-breaking plot. It is probably enough for you to hang alongside the rest of us. At the very least, do you not think that Foxe Hall will seem a little mundane when you finally return to ease your father’s worries?”
Lucia’s eyes widened. “They wouldn’t hang me?” she asked, her stomach in a knot of disbelief. Even in her wakeful night-time hours, the chill of death had never seemed so close. A shiver ran the length of her spine.
“These days, they hang anyone,” Len said with a shrug. “Though I’m sure your father would vouch for you not being an outlaw yourself and save you from the rope.”
Len’s face was still very clos
e to Lucia’s, and she spoke in nothing more than a loud whisper. To Lucia she seemed to breathe magic into the air. For every warning, prediction of dire consequences, or reminder of the life from which she had been snatched, she only thrilled to Len more. As the night deepened, in that moment, in the dark ruins, she could believe herself truly enchanted as she kept her eyes on Len’s.
“I want to stay with you,” she said softly, her voice trembling.
“Then you may,” Len whispered back, as if she had never protested otherwise. She paused, her eyes locked to Lucia’s through the thickening gloom. A mist was beginning to rise from the plains around them and her breath was a cloud of vapour. Everything was obscure except her eyes and the pounding of Lucia’s heart. For a brief moment Lucia felt their hearts beat to the same rhythm, that they were not so different after all. Then Len looked away and said, more loudly, “I will insist on certain conditions. You will spin a more convincing story for your father to justify this unexplained absence. And you will learn to fire a pistol.”
“A pistol?” Lucia asked, horrified and thrilled in the same moment.
“Yes. I don’t expect you to turn robber or frame-breaker, but you are a liability if we have to defend you.”
“Oh.” Lucia was almost disappointed this was all Len required of her.
Len stood up and, with a brief glance down at Lucia, strode towards where Julian was perched on a higher fragment of wall, a shadow in the descending night. Lucia watched her go and felt her heart ache in a way she had never known it to before.
Chapter Ten
Lucia slept little that night wrapped in Len’s cloak, hunched into a corner of the ruined building in an effort to keep warm. The fog crept over their low hilltop and froze, encrusting the leaves and the moss-covered stones with a layer of white. She drifted between sleep and wakefulness. In her waking moments she seemed always to hear the screech of an owl or a rustling in the undergrowth nearby. She curled and uncurled her numbed fingers and pulled the heavy material of the cloak closer in around her.
Every time she opened her eyes, she looked for Len. Sometimes she saw her figure shadowy and distant, other times not at all. Once, she looked about her only to see Len sitting very close to her on the wall, brandy bottle in her hand, a thin wisp of cigar smoke rising from her other, and her eyes almost certainly trained on Lucia. To know Len’s gaze was on her, to wonder hopelessly what Len might be thinking, warmed Lucia almost enough to banish the chill of the night. To know Len was thinking of her was oddly exciting, having Len watch over her remarkably comforting. Len never slept, not that Lucia saw at least.
When the first signs of dawn crept murkily into the sky and she knew she could abandon the pretence of sleep, Lucia was filled with relief. She rose stiffly to her feet and, stretching her arms, looked in the direction of the sunrise. Her breath steamed from her mouth in the bitter cold air, and the grass and cobwebs were jewelled with frost, but the growing daylight warmed her.
“Breakfast, miss?” Lucia heard a voice beside her. She turned to see Julian offering a piece of bread. He was hatless for once, his dark hair hanging in loose waves to his shoulders. She took the bread, aware how hungry she was, but eyed him warily.
“Thank you.”
“Do I worry you, Miss Foxe?” he asked, that vaguely sardonic tone still in his words. Lucia reminded herself he was Len’s closest friend and tried not to be quite so alarmed by him.
“The first and last times we properly met, sir, you pointed a pistol at me.” Lucia took a bite of the bread.
“I cannot apologise enough,” he said, with a slight bow of his head.
Lucia did not believe him and did not reply, merely went on eating the bread.
“Len tells me she trusts you have not—and will not—betray us,” he said, more seriously.
“I would not. And have not.”
“I trust her judgement.”
“I am glad of that.” Lucia wondered if this conversation would reach its point soon.
“She also tells me you wish to stay with us for now.”
“Yes.”
“You see this as a form of country jaunt I suppose. Similar to a fox hunt?”
Lucia resented his insinuation. “I have never hunted,” she said, “and you are wrong about me.”
“Maybe you will explain it to me, Miss Foxe? We are suddenly a small company, we thieves and frame-breakers. We sleep in the cold and do not have enough to eat. I can see no reasonable cause for you to remain one of our number. We will travel more quickly without you and will not be forced to consider your safety.”
“I am to learn to fire a pistol.”
“Excellent!” He laughed bitterly. “But why put yourself through such an unusual lesson? Why not return to your dancing and novel reading and pianoforte tuition?”
“Do you ever ask Len why she does not return to her father?” Lucia did not hide her hostility.
“Do not speak of what you do not understand,” he returned.
“I understand more than you think.” Lucia saw the realisation dawning in his expression, as he comprehended that Len had chosen to confide in her. His expression was somewhere between wounded and surprised. He certainly did not seem pleased.
“Your life at Foxe Hall was happy, I believe, Miss Foxe. Why would you abandon it?”
“It is not abandoned, sir.” Lucia was alarmingly aware she doubted her own words as she spoke them. “It is merely that I do not intend to return to it just yet.”
“How will you explain it to your family?”
“It is no matter to you.”
“No, miss, you are correct. But the safety of the men, of myself, and of Len are of great import to me.”
“Len does not need you to protect her.”
“Nor does she need you to bring her danger.”
“Nor does she need either of you to be discussing what she does or does not need,” said a voice behind them. They both turned quickly to see Len, dark circles beneath her eyes which were yet as sharp as ever, regarding them evenly. “Good morning,” she said, with a wry smile.
“Morning,” Julian said. Lucia remained silent. She was still offended by Julian’s words, worried by his hostility. In truth, he had made her consider the reality of what she was taking on in more stark colours than she cared to. Len glanced at Lucia and addressed her words to Julian.
“We are to go to the frame-breakers’ hideout in the forest,” she said. “It is the safest option, whether I would assist them in their raid or not. We can’t spend a week on this hilltop, too exposed to make a fire. They have some food and shelter. We will be outlaws together.”
“I’m sure Miss Foxe will be glad of the food and shelter.” Julian turned hostile eyes on Lucia.
“I shall be glad of it myself,” Len said sharply.
Julian looked angry to be spoken to that way. Lucia felt uncomfortable as the cause of hostility between friends. Julian turned away from her. “Can we speak alone for a moment?” he said to Len.
“Of course.” He strode away and Len followed. Lucia could not hear what they said, but she saw his angry gestures, his constant glances in her direction. Equally she saw Len’s determination, the way she stood straight, looked him in the eye, and did not lose possession of her temper. It was ludicrous to Lucia to believe Len was defending her and her decision to remain with them, yet it had to be the case. Eventually Julian’s shoulders seemed to relax. She saw him slap Len on the back in a friendly fashion and then make his way over to the horses.
Quickly, Lucia turned away, although she could not explain why she did so. Having watched Julian walk away, Len had turned back towards her. Suddenly Lucia felt shy of her in a way she had not in the gathering darkness of the previous night.
“Of course, if I was sensible, I would listen to Julian,” Len said, as she reached Lucia’s side. Lucia turned quickly to look at her, hoping she had not decided to be sensible in that way. “Don’t look at me like that. If you were sensible, you would listen
to him too. You were not unhappy at home, after all.”
“No, I was not. Only I was waiting for something to happen that never seemed as though it was going to.”
The sky was beginning to clear, and the early morning sunshine was breaking through in places. Lucia looked up to the scattered cloud rather than into Len’s eyes.
“What were you waiting for?”
“That’s what I asked myself. I have no idea. I merely thought something else was bound to happen, that life must be more than what it is.”
“What if there is no more?”
“But there is,” Lucia said, looking back to Len. “I knew it as we galloped across the fields yesterday. I even knew it whilst I shivered in the night. I’m living it now, and even if after I return to my home it feels as a distant dream, I will at least have tasted it for a short time.”
Lucia saw Len’s comprehension of her emotions. She saw the clouds of doubt in Len’s eyes. All Len said was, “This is why I do not choose to be sensible as Julian suggests and send you home.”
They stood in silence, the bond of empathy tenuous between them, and watched as the last of the fog melted away and the morning became bright. Len appeared to shake herself out of her reverie. “It is ten miles across country to the edge of the forest. They will not tell us how deep into the forest their hideout is, though since it is hardly the forest it once was, it cannot be more than a mile or so. Will you ride with me?”
A small thrill swept through Lucia’s body as she remembered yesterday’s ride. “Yes.”
“And have you thought how to reassure your father for another week?”
Tension rose in Lucia’s stomach at the notion of lying further and bringing additional concern to her family. Yet they seemed distant, and it was remarkably easy to give Len the answer she required. “Yes, I have. If you can give me paper, I will write another letter to him. I will tell him I am on my way home and quite safe, only that I have taken ill with a head cold and want to wait for it to pass before I go on with the journey. I will inform him I have found a kindly lady to stay with. I will neglect however to tell him of the village I am writing from or the route I am taking. He will be concerned, of course, and I will have many questions to answer upon my return, but at least he will be reassured of my safety.”
The Locket and the Flintlock Page 13
