She stopped. She’d had the presence of mind to drop the rags, but she still held the tinder box under her cloak. “Bread.”
He lifted his lantern and the light picked out the pile of faggots and rags. “Bread?” He didn’t believe her. “Show me.”
She tried to dash by him, but had no luck. The big man called out for help, and in moments she found herself in the street, surrounded by curious by-passers and suspicious police.
The guard said, “Looks like I stopped her just before she got to light the fire. Pile would have sent everything up.”
The policeman looked sharply at her. “Who are you.”
Kate opened her mouth to speak and then stopped. If she said her real name, then they might look with suspicion on Sean. Or trace it back to Bridget. So she lied, “Mary Duffy.”
She caught sight of Bridget in the crowd. The girl was pale and silent. Kate tried to signal her silently to slip away. There was no use both of them being caught up in the mess.
“What were you doing here?”
She decided the truth might serve her best here—if she omitted Bridget’s name and description. “I saw someone acting suspiciously and I followed..him.”
“No sign of anyone else, that I saw,” the burly man said with a shake of his head. “Just her.”
“He ran away when he saw me,” she improvised.
“And handed you the tinderbox?”
“Yes.” It sounded foolish to her ears. As the men glared at her and moved closer to close off any hope she had to escape, she wished she’d thought to come up with a complete—and believable—lie.”
The guard took her hands roughly in his and held them up to his nose to sniff. “Oil. Just like on the rags in there. She’s the one I saw. The only one.” He shook his head and sneered at her. “Out to cause mischief were you? Well you have—for yourself.”
“This is a mistake.”
“Surely it is.” He grinned, a bloodhound who’d managed to tree his quarry. “Yours.”
He seemed to recognize the terror that weakened her knees and revel in it. “Thought you were going to warm yourself by a fire tonight and instead you’ll be shivering in a cell.”
She knew she should be afraid for herself, but somehow she felt she would be fine. The duke would straighten everything out if she couldn’t do so herself when she faced the magistrate. He’d be furious with her, of course. But he would set her free. She had no doubt.
So, even though the unfriendly crowd jeered at her she couldn’t find room in her heart to worry for her future, she was too worried about Bridget. As they carted her away, Kate swept the crowd for signs of the girl. There was no sight of her. She didn’t know whether to be glad the girl had gotten away, or worried about what she would do next. Hadn’t she threatened to kidnap Jamie?
“Have you seen this woman?″ Sean showed the miniature of Bridget to the men loading cargo on the dock. He had missed the Daisy’s Pride. It had sailed the day before, with a full complement of passengers and cargo.
The man didn′t glance long before shaking his head.
Damn. Where was she? He glanced around the teaming dockside. She hadn’t wanted the ship to sail, he knew. But more importantly, she hadn’t wanted Kate or Jamie to sail with it. Had she found them? What might she have done to prevent them from sailing?
He cursed his foolishness. He should have seen Kate to the coast himself. Should have put her on the ship. Should have locked his sister in a tower and thrown away the key years ago—for her own good. For all he knew she could have been taken up by white slavers and be long gone.
He started toward the closest inn. He’d check them all if he had to. He’d show them Bridget’s miniature—and the one of Kate that her sister Helena had given him. Someone had to have seen one of them.
The cell they tossed her in was filthy, and cold as promised. But she had barely time to let the reality sink in before the door squeaked open and the guard said gruffly. “Visitor.”
She expected Bridget, but smiled when she saw who had come instead. She was surprised at the temptation to throw her arms around him. She barely knew him, after all. “I take it she didn’t manage to kidnap you, then?”
Jamie Jeffreys looked around the cell grimly and then at her. “She tried, but when she told me what happened, I pointed out that getting you out of here would require that I have some freedom.”
Kate felt a sweep of relief to know that there was someone who would help, even if he were a boy of eighteen. And then she panicked. “Does your father know?”
He looked at her as if she’d asked him a foolish question. “My father believes I sailed on the Daisy’s Pride.”
“I’m sorry. I’m grateful you’d even be willing to help me, considering—“
“Why did you give a false name? I can’t believe they’d hold the wife of an earl in conditions like this.”
She had no intention of confessing that she was afraid the authorities would find out about Sean’s illegal activities. After all, his father was one of the authorities and she would not test his loyalties to such an extent. “I didn’t want my husband to know.”
“I thought it might be something like that. Bridget seems quite upset at his decision to divorce you.” He shifted his feet in the dank straw. “You must tell them now.”
“I can’t.”
“You—“
“I know it seems unwise to you, but I would rather that no one ever know my true identity. If you could get word to the duke, he will help me, and no one will be the wiser.”
“I can send a message, of course, but it will take some time.” He glanced around the cell, not hiding his distaste. “You will not be comfortable.”
“I cannot help that.” She still remembered how Sean had accused her of betraying him. To have his wife arrested for arson would, without doubt, be a betrayal of him.
“If I spoke to my father—“
“Absolutely not.” Though she suspected Jeffreys would help her, she wasn’t certain he wouldn’t use her situation against Sean somehow. “There must be some other way.”
“Bridget will not be happy. She told me not to come back without you.” He looked unhappy. “I can’t promise that she won’t tell her brother—“
She grasped his arm tightly. “You must not let her. Tell her that she risks her brother’s reputation.”
“Surely—“
“Tell her that.” Bridget would understand the whole of it, she trusted, despite the cryptic nature of her words. “Tell her exactly that. She will not go to her brother.”
The guard came to the door. “Time’s up.”
Jamie glanced at her regretfully. “I cannot bear to think of leaving you here.”
“I can do this.” She wasn’t certain she could, but she would not show weakness to him. He might tell the truth himself to help her if he thought she was not strong enough to survive this trial.
“If only--”
She said, as forcefully as she could while whispering to keep her words from the guard’s ear, “You must find a way to release Mary Duffy without revealing that I am the wife of the Earl of Blarney.” Especially to the earl himself.
“It will make freeing you more difficult.”
“They cannot believe I would do such a thing.”
His young face held only disbelief that she could be so naïve. “They can, and they very well might.”He patted her hand. “We will get you out, my lady.”
The guard approached and put his hand on Jamie’s shoulder. In a moment, he was gone, leaving her alone to hope she was as strong as she had said she was.
Kate found herself brought into the court with very little ceremony. She had hoped to present a dignified presence, but it was difficult when she hadn’t even been able to wash the dirt of her cell from her face or clothing.
At first it seemed that the magistrate would simply listen to the testimony of the man who had found her in the shed.
Frightened, she dared to ask, “May I speak?
”
The magistrate, his eyes cold and unfriendly frowned at her. “What lies would you like to pour into our ears like vicious poison?”
“I frightened away the person who meant to start the fire. I meant only to prevent a fire, not cause one.” She tried to meet his eyes, unfriendly as they were, and to speak in a steady, calm voice that bespoke complete honesty.
“Lies, my lord.” The man who had caught her cried out in outrage. “I saw the wicked shift of her eyes when she was caught. There was naught but guilt in them.”
“What reason had you to be there?”
“I thought the man suspicious.” Her voice faltered, revealing that she realized the weakness of her own excuse.
“Your hands smelled of oil—and probably still do,” the man grumbled.
The magistrate ruled in a thunderous voice, “Mary Duffy, you are found guilty of mischief and intent to do murder.”
“Murder.” Kate was astonished. She had heard them read the charges when she entered, but she had not been able to make out the words for the buzzing of dizziness in her ears—she had not managed to eat the gruel they had served to her and had only forced herself to drink the brackish water because she knew she must.
The man who’d caught her called out angrily, “There were two lads set to guard the merchandise. If you’d been successful in setting your fire, they would surely have perished.”
Kate protested faintly, “I was trying to stop the fire.”
The magistrate, his limited patience exhausted, banged down his gavel. “The court will hear no more from the criminal.”
“But--” Kate felt as if she were floating above herself.
The horror of what he said made her vision darken until she could not see the man, but only hear his terrifying voice. “Silence! You are sentenced to hang by the neck until dead.”
Kate felt her knees buckle and gripped the worn wood of the rail in front of her, not caring that the splinters dug deeply into her fingers.
When the judge said calmly, “ Sentence to be carried out at dawn tomorrow,” her vision suddenly cleared from the shock. She saw, in the sea of condemning faces, the horrified stares of Jamie and Bridget.
Tomorrow. The sentence passed through her like a shock, leaving her incapable of feeling anything, though her vision was acutely focused on Bridget and Jamie. The boy’s face was white and his lips mere half open, as if to reveal her identity then and there.
She shook her head and cried out, “No!”
Everyone else in the courtroom no doubt thought she was reacting to the harshness of her sentence. But he knew what she really meant and pressed his lips tightly together.
They rushed her back to her cell roughly and she tried not to wish that Sean had been there to save her. No doubt he would be glad to discover she had spared him the expense and scandal of a divorce. A man was received so much more sympathetically in society if he was a widower.
Sean found someone who had seen them both at an inn not far from the dock. They had not seen Kate recently, but expected Bridget and her husband to return in the evening, as was their usual habit.
“Husband?”
The serving maid looked at him sympathetically, “Young runaways are they?”
He thought that the best cover for him. “I had hoped to get to them before—“
She shook her head. “They don’t act like lovers, I’ll tell you that. But they share a room and what red-blooded man, young or not, wouldn’t take advantage of that?” She made her own willingness to take advantage of a room with him, but he paid her for her information and declined to take a room. “I won’t be staying that long,” he declared. Just long enough to collect Bridget and kill Jamie Jeffreys.
He sat in a dark corner of the inn’s tavern, waiting and watching. When the entered, he stood too soon. Bridget turned and saw him, her eyes widened in alarm. Without a word to Jamie she disappeared back out the door.
Jeffreys, without a glance at Sean, followed her.
By the time he made his way through the crowded room, they were nowhere to be seen.
Damn. He’d have to search all over again. But they were fools if they thought they would elude him.
Kate didn’t want to die.
She paced her the cell they had placed her in after the trial—careful not to come too near any of the other inhabitants, who in the gloom were somewhat difficult to see. Despair and dirt had grayed their features and clothing until they faded into the walls and dirty gray straw.
She might have been afraid of them in other circumstances. But her mind could not focus on anything but the dilemma. She might get a new trial, if she divulged her identity. Or she might not. Most likely, either way, she would implicate Sean and ruin him.
One of the women in her new cell moved away from the wall where she had been a mere shadow, and smiled at her—a horrifying vision of diseased gums and rotting teeth. “What a pretty neck to be stretched.”
She grimaced, “I still have hope that my friends shall intervene before then.”
“Before tomorrow?” The woman cackled. “Are the fairies your friends then? Because you’d need fairy magic to escape here.”
Kate felt an unpleasant jolting reminder of Bridget. Would the girl have become like this woman if she’d been charged with trying to murder Jamie? Or would she, like Kate have had her sentence so efficiently scheduled?
“I know they will do their best,” she whispered, more to herself than to her curious cellmate.
“It’s a shame you’re not breeding. That would give your friends a few months.” The woman cackled. “Not that it’s likely to do you any good.”
Could she be? “I suppose that is a possibility.” The thought wasn’t particularly pleasant.
“You’ve been with a man?”
Kate blushed, unexpectedly embarrassed by the salacious glint in the woman’s eyes. “My husband. We were hoping to have a child soon.”
There was a gleeful liveliness to the woman’s crooked gait as she shuffled to the small window in the door. “Guards! This one’s to be a mother. You’ll have to wait to stretch her neck.”
Kate was surprised at the quick response. A guard came in and pushed the old woman away. “Get back, Annie and stop your cackling. You don’t know anything.”
“She’s been with a man—her husband at that. And she’s not had her courses since.”
The guard looked at Kate. “That the truth?”
She nodded. If telling such painfully personal information would give her more time to decide what to do, she would do so gladly.
He sighed and the old woman cackled yet again. “Too bad, too bad. One less neck to stretch tomorrow.”
“If you’re lying it will go ill with you.” The guard gestured her out of the cell.
Go ill with her? Was there a worse situation than being hanged until dead tomorrow? She shuddered. And then she realized that there was. What if she was to have a child, and then have it ripped from her arms so that she could be hanged? No, she calmed herself. There would be ample time for the duke to intervene in such a case.
She was interviewed several times before they brought her to yet another cell with a warning that she would be examined for signs of her condition frequently and if it was determined that she did not carry a child her sentence would be carried out forthwith.
Jamie came to see her that evening. “Bridget has a plan to save you tomorrow.”
“I am not to be hanged tomorrow, it seems.”
He seemed surprised. “What has happened? Have you told them—“
Aware of the guard close to the door, she interrupted him. “There is a possibility that I am to be a mother. They’ll not hang me until I have the child.” Or until there was proof she was not pregnant. But she would not think of that.
He flushed darkly. “I see.” And then he frowned as he looked around him. “Is that not even more reason to tell them—“
“No. The duke will receive your message and send help soon.�
��
“You hope for miracles, still.” He rose, looking grim. “As does Bridget. I will not tell you her plan, then, as it will not work until you are on the scaffold…if it works then.” He shook his head. “I’ve promised her I would not give up on you, but think of your child if you are not willing to consider yourself. Tell them who you are and you could be out of here within the day.”
“I will not.” No child would benefit from having his mother hanged, she knew that well enough. But having his father’s title attainted and his father hanged would, she realized, be infinitely worse.
“Very well then. We must hope for word from the duke very soon.” His parting glance held more desperation than reassurance.
Three days later, she found out for certain that she would not have a child.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Course I know who she is. She’s the arsonist who’s due to be hanged today.” The man seemed pleased and held out his hand for the coin Sean had promised him.
Sean stared at him in disbelief. The words cut through him like a knife. He had seen her only days before, was it possible?
The man wiggled his fingers. “I told you what you wanted to know, my lord.”
Bridget was wild, but was she that wild? He knew, instinctively, that she was, but still he asked, “Are you certain it was she. Look again.” He held out the miniature to the innkeeper.
“Won’t forget that one. Mary Duffy. She seemed like a lady, but she wasn’t any better than the lowest ruffian. She even lied to say she was with child, just to postpone her jig with the reaper a day or two.”
Sean, confused by the false name, glanced down at the miniature of his sister and felt the shock run through him. He had shown the man the portrait of Kate in his haste. “Mary Duffy? Are you certain that is the name she gave?”
“Saw her took up myself. Heard her say it. Even went to the trial to give witness, but they didn’t need me.”
Kate. Why had she given a false name? “Where is the hanging to occur?”
The man wiggled his fingers again and Sean dropped the coin into his waiting hand. After a moment of waiting, he dropped another. The man grinned as he gave him explicit directions. “But you’d best hurry if you want to see her fall, since it’s nearly time.”
A Very Romantic Christmas Page 39
