by Mia Marlowe
“Liar,” Oddbody hissed.
“If she says she hasn’t seen him, you may believe her,” Isabella said. “And you, sir, will not insult my daughter in my own home.”
“Quite right,” he turned and shot her a leering smile. Isabella knew she’d made a tactical blunder. “I have more potent methods of interrogation at my disposal elsewhere. Lieutenant Hathcock, arrest this young woman on the charge of harboring and concealing a condemned felon.”
“No!” Isabella said, but before she could gather the sheets about her to rise in protest, the mattress beneath her began bucking like a stallion. Gabriel Drake threw off his place of concealment, sending Isabella to the floor in a tangle of bedclothes.
“Belay that!” he roared. Drenched with sweat from his long concealment between her mattresses, anger roiled off him like a vengeful Poseidon rising from the waves. “I’m the one you want. Leave her out of it and I’ll go without a fight. Otherwise, you have my solemn promise I’ll make my capture very costly for you. A condemned man has little to lose.”
Jacquelyn broke free of the men who held her and ran to Lord Drake. She threw her arms around him. “What are you doing here?”
“I had to come, Lyn,” he said as he allowed the constable to bind his hands behind him in a heavy shackle. “You know why.”
“Oh, Gabriel.” Jacquelyn’s face crumpled before she pressed it against his chest.
Her daughter’s despair lanced Isabella’s heart. She could do nothing more for Gabriel Drake, but she could make certain that little weasel, Cecil Oddbody, didn’t leave with more than one captive. Isabella hitched her sheet around her body and tucked a trailing end over her breasts. She rose and hurried to Jacquelyn, gently disengaging her from Lord Drake.
“Come away, lovie,” she whispered urgently. Jacquelyn allowed Isabella to lead her to one side.
“Well, madam,” Oddbody said, stopping her in her tracks. “What have to say for yourself? Hiding a felon between your mattresses. No matter that he’s a baron, Lord Drake is still a criminal. Aiding a fugitive from the Crown is a hanging offense in its own right. No matter how well-placed your friends may be, I doubt they can save you from this!”
“I invaded this house and hid on my own initiative,” Gabriel said. “The lady knew nothing of my presence between her mattresses.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, Your Worship,” Lieutenant Hathcock said with a squeak, “but I expect that’s about the size of it. After all, Lord Drake’s just a baron. Everyone knows Isabella Wren don’t take no one to her bed, ‘less he be a viscount at the least. We’ll all swear to it, won’t we?”
The constables nodded vigorously.
“Very well,” Cecil Oddbody said with a huff. “But mind how you go in the future, madam, and rest assured I shall be watching you. Take him away.”
As Gabriel was led away, he passed Lord Curtmantle. Quick as lightning, Lord Drake swept his leg at the baron’s knees, bringing him crashing to the floor. Before the constables could muscle him away, Gabriel had planted his foot squarely on Curtmantle’s chest.
“I should have killed you when I had the chance, Hugh,” Gabriel spat. “You’ve traveled a long way to play Judas.”
Several billie clubs pounded his shoulders and the constables pulled him off the downed man.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Curtmantle said. “You’re a far cry from a spotless lamb and you know it.” A flat smile spread across his face. “But you’re right. You should have killed me. Just think how much it’s going to pain you when you see me doing a jig at your hanging.”
Jacquelyn tried to tear herself from Isabella’s arms, but she wouldn’t let her go.
“Hush, child. Not now,” Isabella whispered fiercely, then she raised her voice. “I assume you’re taking him to the Tower. When might we bring food and other necessities?”
Oddbody sneered at her. “Do you imagine I’ll see him in the comfortable chamber Raleigh languished in? Not for a moment, madam. For the likes of Gabriel Drake, a more suitable lodging is required.”
Now that Gabriel was shackled and a welt was rising from his cheek where one of the constables had clubbed him, Oddbody was feeling braver. He strutted a step or two.
“You see, a pirate has the blackest of hearts, cold, unfeeling and utterly beyond redemption,” Oddbody explained. “His prison should reflect that. If there was a darker hole than Newgate, rest assured I’d make use of it. However, since this is the worst we can do until his date with Madame Gallows, Newgate Prison will have to suffice. Come along.”
Two men dragged Gabriel away and the rest filed after them.
When the room was empty, Jacquelyn collapsed in a heap. “Oh, mother, what happened? Gabriel had been pardoned for his piracy.”
“So he really was a pirate? That is a tale I shall want to hear.” Isabella sank down beside her. “Evidently, one of the conditions of his pardon was that he not be found in London ever again. I take it he failed to mention that tidbit of information to you.”
“I had no idea.” Jacquelyn stared at her upturned palms in seeming fascination. “Then, it’s my fault he’s been taken.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Isabella said. “Lord Drake is not a child. He knew the risk in coming here and he was willing to take it. You can’t blame yourself for his actions. You can only accept responsibility for your own decisions, which for most people is quite burden enough without assuming anyone else’s.”
“But they’re going to hang him!”
“Not until the end of the month, so that gives us a little time,” Isabella said. “They’ll wait until then because the populace expects it. London likes a good hanging and the more the merrier when it comes to the hempen jig.”
Jacquelyn erupted in sobs.
“Go ahead and cry, dear,” Isabella said, running a motherly hand over Jacquelyn’s head. “It’s best to get such things out of your system, but when you’re finished, dry your eyes. We have work to do.”
Jacquelyn sniffed and shook her head slowly. “What can we do?”
Isabella took her daughter’s chin in her hand and kissed her. “Oh, my dear. Even as a child, you were so grave and proper. You always knew the right thing to do before.” Something inside her was pleased that she could finally be a help to Jacquelyn. “Well, for starters, you should go down to the kitchen with Nanette and make up a food basket. By all accounts, prison meals are both scanty and unpalatable. The man is still alive. If he’s alive, he needs to eat.”
Jacquelyn wiped her face with her skirt and nodded.
“Once we’ve spoken to your Lord Drake, we’ll know what else he needs. Send Jerome to fetch me when you’re ready to go to Newgate and I’ll come with you. We’ll need something to take for a bribe,” she said. “I hope those hairless baboons didn’t steal all my silver.”
Jacquelyn started for the door. “What will you be doing?”
Isabella forced a smile. “What I always do this time of day—catching up on my correspondence.”
And writing the most important letter of my life, she added silently.
Chapter 32
“Och! Me big toe aches something fierce!” Meriwether pulled off his boot and stared at the toe protruding from the hole in his striped stocking. The nail was cracked and blackened, but that was not related to the pain. It was because he hadn’t seen fit to wash more than strictly necessary the last time Mrs. B. required him to bathe.
“You’ve got the gout, old man,” Mrs. Beadle said without looking up from the chicken she was denuding of its feathers. “The rich man’s disease. It’s all them sauces and pies you’ve been eating. And you’ve been making a sizable dent in the meat larder around here. Too much time as a trencherman and not enough in useful employment. It’s the gout.”
“No, it ain’t gout,” Meri said, trying to wiggle the stiff joint. “And if it were any but yourself blaming your fine cookin’ for me misery, he’d be looking for his ears afore long.”
“Hmph!” Despite her sn
ort, Mrs. Beadle’s lips spread in a brief smile at his praise. “Try less gravy on your potatoes and see if it don’t improve.”
“No, this has happened afore,” Meriwether said, rubbing his foot. “It does this from time to time and what I’ve put in me belly don’t signify in the slightest. I remember once . . .”
He stopped in mid-sentence. A niggling suspicion chewed at his brainpan like a terrier worrying a rat.
“Well, go on,” Mrs. Beadle said as she laid the chicken out on her chopping block.
“It don’t happen but what the Cap’n ain’t in some spot o’ trouble or other,” Meri said. “The first time was the night before we sank the Defiant and I fished him out of the deep.” Meri went on to describe several incidents where his toe had warned of impending calamity.
“Then there was that time off St. John when this French captain was after hanging ‘im. Even had him locked up in the gaol there in Charlotte Amalie, but we sent a volley of nine pounders through the walls and broke him out. Replenished the crew with the other prisoners in one stroke so it turned out for the best, ye see, but if the Cap’n had only listened to me big toe afore he went ashore that night—”
Meri stopped abruptly and pulled his boot back on. “I’ve got to hie meself to Londontown and no mistake.”
Meriwether explained what he knew of the captain and Mistress Wren’s whereabouts.
“Well, I thought she was over-long at choosing silks in Bath,” Mrs. Beadle said.
“It ain’t only that they’re not in Bath.” When Meri told her of the condition placed on Gabriel’s pardon, Mrs. Beadle was mad as a kettle at full boil. Meriwether tried to placate her, but Mrs. B. wouldn’t even listen to him. He decided to let her rant.
A woman wielding a meat cleaver was not to be trifled with.
“And you stood there and watched him ride off knowin’ the trouble he could be getting himself into,” she accused. “Of all the slack-brained, puddin’-headed—”
“Well, I can either let ye talk me to death or chop off me head, but I’ve one sure way to shut ye up for a mite.”
Meri grabbed Mrs. B by the waist and swung her into his arms for a smacking kiss right on the lips.
“Oh!” she said. “Oh, my goodness!”
“I hope not, old woman,” Meriwether said. “Generally when a man kisses a woman, her goodness is the last thing on his mind.”
The meat cleaver clattered to the floor. The sharp blade missed Meri’s foot, but the thick maple handle whacked his big toe a good clout. He yowled and hopped on his good foot, cradling his throbbing one with both hands.
“Well, I can let you scream your fool head off or I can shut you up, old man,” Mrs. Beadle said. She grabbed both of his ears and pulled his face to hers for another resounding kiss.
The fact that he even had a big toe was momentarily forgotten.
“I suppose this means you’ll be callin’ me Joseph,” he said when their lips finally parted.
“I suppose I’d better.”
“And what might I call ye, Mrs. Beadle being rather long and unhandy. And the way ye make me feel like a young buck, ‘old woman’ don’t seem to fit exactly, do it?”
“Well, my Christian name is Hagitha.”
“Hagitha, hmm? Don’t suppose ye have an un-Christian one to use as a spare?”
She swatted him but he wrapped his arms around her ample middle and gave her a squeeze.
“Now then, how about we compromise and I call ye Mrs. Meriwether?” He drew her into another whiskey-tinged kiss.
Neither of them called anyone anything for a good long while.
* * *
Of course, Meriwether still had to go to London. He couldn’t ignore the warning of his big toe. And he wasn’t about to arrive empty-handed. He figured a chest or two of gold might come in handy, so he dubbed Hyacinth, Daisy and the twins honorary pirates, swore them to secrecy and led them down to the hoard of treasure Gabriel told him about. They made dozens of trips up and down the winding stone stairs, their aprons filled with as many doubloons as they could carry.
Once Mrs. Beadle learned Meri intended to go to London, she wasn’t one to be left out of such an important journey. She insisted that she should go with him in case Mistress Jacquelyn needed her. And in truth, Meriwether was loath to leave Mrs. B. after discovering that her lips were soft as her ample hips.
And sweet as her cherry pies.
But then there were the children to consider and Father Eustace didn’t feel up to the task of keeping track of the little dears by himself. By mid-afternoon when the heavily provisioned wagon rolled over Dragon Caern’s drawbridge, Mrs. Beadle was driving the pair of matched bays with the girls chattering in the back. Loping along as outriders, Meri was mounted on his pie-bald cob and Father Eustace rode what he assured everyone was a steady, reliable mule.
Before the first five mile marker, Hyacinth was cross with everyone. The twins were refusing to speak, even to each other. Lily seemed only able to ask “Are we there yet?” and Daisy bedeviled Mrs. Beadle every other rise in the road to be allowed to take a turn driving the wagon.
“I’ve never been to London except by ship,” Meri said to Father Eustace as they plodded along keeping pace with the wagon. “Is it a far journey by land?”
“If we’re fortunate, it’ll take a week,” Father Eustace said morosely. “If we see foul weather, or a broken axel, or a horse goes lame or highwaymen . . .”
“I take yer meaning, Father,” Meri said with a sigh. “God help us.”
“Amen to that,” the priest agreed. “Amen to that in spades.”
Chapter 33
There had been a prison on the same site, hard against the ruins of an old Roman wall, since the time of Henry I. Its reputation for cruelty and hideous torments made Newgate a byword for suffering. The prison had been torn down or burned countless times, always resurfacing in the same spot like a festering carbuncle on London’s backside.
Jacquelyn was surprised to see that Newgate’s latest incarnation was an impressive stone edifice complete with statuary, a place of unlikely tranquility. A small candle of hope glimmered in her chest.
But once inside the gate, Jacquelyn and Isabella were assaulted by the stench of ancient misery, a potent mix of urine, vomit and excrement. Jacquelyn raised a scented hanky to her nose and bit the inside of her cheek to keep from adding to the miasma.
Only slightly less offensive than the smell was the din. Shouted obscenities, piteous wails and even a few growls Jacquelyn was sure couldn’t be human pierced her ear. It was like the choir of the damned warming up.
The post of warden was extremely lucrative and Mr. Pinckney, the current occupant of that position, drove a hard bargain for the favor he was about to grant, even though Isabella turned her considerable charm on him. Coin of the realm seemed to be the only inducement Mr. Pinckney was disposed to respect.
It was customary for prisoners to pay not only for their keep, but also for food and whatever niceties they requested, like soap or a warm blanket. Once an inmate had served his sentence, release was not assured. Until he’d paid Mr. Pinckney for his stay, he wasn’t going anywhere. Most unfortunates condemned to Newgate were there for life.
And it generally wasn’t that long a stay.
After Isabella parted with an exorbitant bribe, the warden escorted them to see Gabriel. Pinckney led them to a large common room in the central hall, enclosed with iron bars on all sides with a narrow walkway for the jailers and any visitors who might dare to bring sustenance to the inmates. Scores of prisoners—men, women, children, entire families along with a few farm animals—were penned in the large space, whose stone floor served as bed, dining table and latrine for all.
“I don’t see him here,” Jacquelyn said.
Mr. Pinckney consulted his ledger. “Drake, Gabriel. Condemned pirate. Central Holding. He’s here all right. Look closely. People are not generally at their best here in Newgate. You may find him somewhat . . . altered.”
/> “There,” Isabella whispered as she pointed to a figure chained near the far wall of bars. “This will absolutely not do.” She handed Jacquelyn the basket of food and bedding and turned a falsely bright smile on the warden. “Good sir, perhaps you and I can return to your office where we might discuss a change of accommodations for Lord Drake.”
Isabella took the man’s arm as if he were one of her opera-loving friends instead of a money grubbing parasite who prospered through lessening the suffering of others by only the smallest of degrees. She led him away chattering as she went, her tone as gay as if she were in a fine salon.
If her mother could put a brave face on things, Jacquelyn decided she could too. She squared her shoulders and marched around the pen, trying not to notice the pitiful cries of the other prisoners who had no one to bring them needful things. She promised herself she’d bring two baskets next time.
She managed to control her rising panic, but when she drew near to Gabriel, a scream clawed at her throat. She swallowed it back. She’d be no comfort to him if she allowed herself to crumble.
He was manacled at the ankles and wrists, the heavy chains tethering him to a ring in the floor. Gabriel was sitting slumped down, faced away from her. The back of his jacket was streaked with brown stains and a small pool of red was spreading by his left hip. He’d been caned or whipped and the jacket forced back on him, blood caking on his open wounds.
A sob escaped her throat.
He turned at the sound. With a clank of iron, he rose unsteadily to his feet. “Lyn, you shouldn’t be here.”
She extended a hand through the bars. “My heart is here. Where else would I be?”
He strained toward her as far as his bonds allowed. With effort, he was able to brush her fingertips with his.
“Mother’s arranging for you to be moved from here.” First things first, she ordered herself. If she concentrated on improving his conditions now, she could shove away the thought of him hanging later. It was a less than successful attempt, but the mental discipline helped steady her.
