He tried to push Jonathan's hands away, but the man would not release him. "Sawyer, you must leave London without delay and hide."
"What the devil's amiss?" Gilly said.
"Burnell's gone completely mad," Weylin groused, at the same time as Jonathan blurted out, "Jessym's been arrested."
Phaedra went cold. She avoided meeting Gilly's eyes.
"Jessym?" her grandfather huffed. "That scoundrel of a publisher? Why, that’s nothing to me."
But everything to me, Phaedra thought. She tried to shrink against James, seeking the support of his arm about her. But he seemed to have gone suddenly rigid.
Jonathan wrung his hands. "Blast it, Sawyer, don't you understand? Jessym has been taken before the magistrates. To save himself from imprisonment, he has attempted to strike some sort of a bargain by offering them proof."
"Proof of what?" her grandfather asked impatiently.
"The proof that you, Sawyer Weylin, are Robin Goodfellow."
Chapter Twenty
Somewhere in the distance, Phaedra heard a rich baritone filling the theater with haunting notes of despair. But the tragedy unfolding on the stage below seemed remote, lost in the impact of Jonathan's dramatic statement. Sawyer Weylin began to bluster, "Why, I'll see Jessym hanged. The lying rogue. "
But Phaedra shot to her feet, cutting him off. "What sort of proof could Jessym have possibly produced against my grandfather?"
Jonathan gave her a pleading glance, as though begging her not to interfere. "I believe Jessym had packets of original drafts with Weylin's seal upon them."
Her missing drafts with her grandfather's seal on them? No, this was madness. She glanced at Gilly to gauge his reaction and found him staring hard at James.
Her stomach tensed. James's facial muscles had gone rigid, a strange light glowing in his blue eyes ... a light of-triumph?
"James." His name escaped her lips in a despairing whisper.
But he didn't seem to hear her. He was lost to her, as she had feared he would be, swept away by the dark currents of his revenge.
She bowed her head, trying to stem her tears. What a fool she had been, to ever think she could stay his hand! It was all painfully obvious now. He had taken her drafts, forged the seal, and then given them to Jessym, even while he had made arrangements for their elopement. Her love had not been enough for him.
Lost in her misery, Phaedra was only dimly aware of Jonathan dragging her grandfather out the door of the box. Weylin protested furiously enough to draw the attention of the entire theater.
"I'll not skulk off anywhere. Damnation, I'm an innocent man."
What vicious satisfaction her grandfather's declaration must be giving James, Phaedra thought unhappily.
"But Weylin," Jonathan said. "If you had but seen the crowds gathered outside the bailey. Many are still angered by that article Goodfellow wrote about the Catholics."
"By God, I'll roast the lot of them, starting with Jessym and his impertinent forgeries-" The rest of Weylin's angry words were lost as Jonathan managed to hustle him into the hall.
"Not forgeries, Grandfather," Phaedra said grimly as she started to go after him.
But Gilly barred her path, scowling. "Hold-your tongue, Fae."
“Aye, your cousin is right." Phaedra heard James's steely voice near her ear. She felt him grip her arm. "This is not a prudent time for confessions."
She whipped around to face him. "And did you truly expect me to stand by and let my grandfather pay for what I have done? Or maybe you thought we'd be long gone before he was ever arrested."
He frowned, his eyes darkening as he studied her with uncertainty. "My only interest is in protecting you, Phaedra."
"Your only interest is in destroying my grandfather. And you took my papers to do it, didn't you?"
Anger flared in his eyes with a pain that matched her own. "Why do you ask me, when you obviously already know?"
She spun away from him. Shoving past Gilly, she stormed out of the box.
She heard James hard after her. "Damn it, Phaedra, I love you. That is all that should matter." He caught her roughly, jerking her around to crush her in his arms. "You are leaving with me now, just as you promised."
"Take your hands off her." Phaedra heard Gilly's menacing growl, but she had already wrenched herself free.
"No," she said to James. "Our pact is ended, but it was you who broke it, not me."
"Then you are choosing to sacrifice our love to that despicable old man?"
"What choice did I ever have?" she choked. "You made it for me!"
Tears spilling down her face, she ran blindly toward the stairs that led to the foyer below. As she half-stumbled down the carpet-covered length, she was aware of someone plunging after her. It was not James, but Gilly.
He caught up with her at the bottom of the stairs. His face looked pale but determined as he tried to soothe her. "Easy, Fae. I'll not be letting you do anything rash. We have but to keep our heads, and we'll see our way clear of this mess. No one will go to prison.
But she refused to listen to him. What odds did it make if she was flung into Newgate? It didn't matter to her now. Nothing did. She ran out of the theater into the streets beyond.
Her grandfather and Jonathan stood beneath the portico, still arguing. Their raised voices drew more than a few curious eyes in their direction, linkboys lingering with their lanterns to escort theatergoers through the dark streets, a few ragged beggars, lightskirts offering some burly sailors an evening's entertainment.
"You can take a hackney cab," Jonathan was saying to her grandfather, "and hide at my house until-"
“Damned if I will. I'm not some cowardly criminal, skulking away in the dark." He thumped his chest, raging so half the street could hear. "Blast it all, I am Sawyer Weylin, a respectable man of property. I am not the flea-bitten writer who calls himself Robin Goodfellow."
"For the love of God, Sawyer," Jonathan said. "Keep your voice down."
Dashing away her tears, Phaedra pressed forward. "Grandfather, there is something I must tell you-"
Jonathan elbowed her aside. "Phaedra, leave this to me."
She tried to push past him but her grandfather had already hobbled away from the portico and into the street, bellowing at the top of his lungs, "So where is Ridley with my damned coach? I'll go to Newgate and throttle Jessym this very night."
For the first time Phaedra became aware of the mutterings borne to her upon the night breeze. Where the gathering mob had come from, she could not have said. One moment the pavement had been filled only with innocent onlookers; in the next, the shadows had spawned a threatening cluster of some dozen angry faces. The grumblings got louder until she made out snatches of words. "Sawyer Weylin ... hear him say so ... he’s Robin Goodfellow."
Apprehension gripped Phaedra. Somehow she and Jonathan had to get her grandfather away from here.
One coarse voice swelled above the rest. "Aye, he is Goodfellow. I heard Jessym attest to it, not three hours past."
One of the sailors, a burly half-drunk fellow, shoved his way forward. The rest of the crowd surged after him into the street until they stood but yards from Sawyer cursing and pointing accusing fingers.
"That's the one as wants to raise up the Catholics to murder us all."
Phaedra tried to rush to her grandfather's side but was stopped by Gilly and Jonathan, who attempted to hustle her back inside the theater.
"Jacobite!" "Scoundrel!" "Go live in Ireland 'mongst your papist friends."
Despite the crowd's taunts, all yet might have been well if Sawyer had ignored them. But he responded with characteristic aggression, brandishing his cane and shouting back, "Don't dare call me a Jacobite, you gutter scum. I'll have the streets swept of the lot of you."
A sailor rushed forward, catching at Weylin's cane, and the two men grappled for possession of it.
"Grandfather!" Phaedra wrenched herself free. She heard her cousin groan, "Glory in heaven." She raced forward with Gil
ly by her side, down the stone steps of the portico, but neither of them was swift enough to reach the street in time.
The sailor wrenched the cane away from Weylin and cracked it with bone-shattering force upon the old man's skull. As Weylin staggered back, Phaedra caught him, but she could not support his weight. He crashed to his knees, his wig askew, blood flowing down his face.
Phaedra saw Gilly's fist smash into the sailor's jaw, but after that the scene descended into a whirl of violence. As Phaedra tried to stem the blood gushing from Weylin's head, the rest of the crowd surged forward. Gilly was swallowed up in a press of struggling bodies and a flurry of fists.
It was all Phaedra could do to keep her grandfather from pitching forward onto his face when rough hands seized her.
A grizzled male face distorted by an ugly sneer, pressed close, the reek of his fetid breath sickening. "Eh-this must be one of those Irish whores I've heard tell of."
Phaedra struck out blindly, leveling her fist at the man's eyes.
A bellow of rage followed, and a hand smacked hard against her cheek, making her dizzy with fear and pain. She struggled against the hands she felt trying to thrust her downward, tearing at the bodice of her gown.
She was released so suddenly, she fell back upon the pavement. She had little time to comprehend what had happened when a whisper of steel flashed past her line of vision. The man who had assaulted her reeled back, clutching his bloodied shoulder and yelping with pain.
She gazed upward to see James providing a barrier between her and the madness erupting on all sides. His eyes narrowed to deadly slits, he swept his sword in a protective arc, ready to cut down the next man who approached.
He spared her not so much as a glance, barking a command over his shoulder. "Get her out of here."
She did not know to whom he had spoken until she felt Jonathan trying to help her up. But she pulled away, staring wildly about her. She could not find Gilly. Her grandfather lay sprawled on the street near the curb, his coarse features ashen beneath the smearing of blood.
Phaedra crept to Weylin's side just as Ridley drew up with the carriage. In the midst of such mayhem, Phaedra didn’t know how they managed it, but somehow she, Jonathan, and the footmen hefted her grandfather's inert bulk onto the floor of the coach. She looked frantically about for some sign of James and Gilly, and she saw them by the rear of the carriage, providing a protective shield for her grandfather's escape, the dark-haired Irishman with fists upraised, and the silk-clad James, the glint of his sword as lethal as his expression.
Before Phaedra could protest, Jonathan thrust her into the carriage after her grandfather. "No!" she cried out. "We can't leave-" But her words were lost as Jonathan vaulted in after her.
Gilly and James vanished from view as Jonathan slammed the door and the coach lurched forward into the night.
As her unconscious grandfather was carried into Jonathan’s house, Phaedra refused to follow. "Damn it, Jonathan. We've got to go back."
"Please, Phaedra." He caught her by the wrist, pulling her toward the door of his town house. "Didn't I tell you that I saw the marquis and Mr. Fitzhurst escaping just as we drove away? Your cousin grabbed up a horse and pulled Varnais up after him. Don't you believe me?"
"Aye, but..." Phaedra turned to peer down the street, praying to see Gilly and James materialize out of the darkness. How she wished she had seen them ride off herself. She would not breathe easy until she was sure they were safe.
Feeling helpless, she followed Jonathan into the house. While the doctor was summoned to attend Sawyer. Phaedra was ushered into one of the spare bedchambers. She washed away the blood that spattered her hands and changed into a drab gown provided for her by Jonathan's housekeeper. She was overcome with guilt. In the next room lay her grandfather, unconscious- perhaps dying-and yet she could think only of Gilly and James.
She had all but decided she had to go back to Covent Garden to search for them, even if she had to steal one of Jonathan's horses to do it, when she heard a commotion down below. The banging at the front door heralded someone's arrival.
Her heart constricted with both fear and hope. She raced to the front door, thrusting aside Jonathan's elderly servant. Phaedra choked back a cry of relief as Gilly staggered across the threshold, but her relief quickly turned to alarm when she realized he was supporting James.
"Don't be so damned stubborn, man," Gilly said, gritting his teeth with the strain of his efforts. "Lean on me before I am obliged to carry you."
"James." She spoke his name softly, her voice constricting. But it was her cousin who glanced up at her, his face caked with dirt and blood. They might have been two old friends, staggering home after a drunken spree, if James's face had not been so deathly pale.
"Gilly. What ..." she faltered.
"Now don't start to fret, Fae. We did just grand until his lairdship broke his sword. Quite a dab with his fists, he is. If it hadn't been for that blasted sailor pulling a knife-"
"Knife!" she cried out as James's legs threatened to buckle beneath him. She strove to support him on the other side, but he managed to regain his balance and thrust her aside. The sting of his rejection was lost in fear as she saw the blood soaking his shoulder.
Tersely she summoned Jonathan's manservant, and they managed to get James up to the spare bedchamber. The room was austere, as sparsely furnished as all the other rooms in Jonathan's house.
As James was eased onto the bed, his head sagged against the pillow. He appeared to have lost consciousness, and his face was so drained of color that Phaedra was paralyzed with dread.
She forced herself into action, her fingers working the buttons of his shirt. As she eased the fabric away from his shoulder, his eyes fluttered open. He regarded her through an agony-filled haze, then mumbled to Gilly, "Get her out of here."
He tried to sit up, but Gilly forced him back to the pillows. "Steady, man. You're better off with her care than that of some doctors I've known."
James ground his teeth as she finished peeling the shirt away from the wound, exposing an ugly jagged gash.
Gilly pursed his lips. "He'll be needing a bit of stitching, I'm thinking."
Phaedra nodded, barely able to speak past the lump in her throat. "See if the doctor has finished with my grandfather."
As Gilly left the room, Phaedra sought to apply pressure to the wound to stop the bleeding. Although James no longer tried to move, she felt his eyes upon her, their clear blue depths beclouded with pain. When his lips parted in an effort to speak, she hushed him.
"Don't try to talk. It will be all right." She wished she could believe so herself. He had lost so much blood.
"Phaedra." He managed to whisper the one word, making it sound so sad, so full of regret, she felt as though a knife had been thrust into her own breast.
It seemed an eternity before Gilly returned with the harried surgeon. The short, bustling man shoved her aside, but Phaedra continued to hover over James until she was satisfied as to the man's skill. The doctor knew his trade, and he stitched the wound with a brisk efficiency. From time to time, as James flinched with pain, Phaedra felt the sting herself. His face had drained as white as the bed sheets.
Phaedra pressed her hand to her lips, unable even to utter words of prayer. When the doctor had finished, he stepped away from the bed, rolling down his sleeves and snapping out commands. "Keep him quiet. Watch for signs of infection, and he'll do. He's young. He bears a far better chance of recovery than the old man."
Phaedra tore her eyes from James. "Aye, my grandfather. How is he?"
"Still unconscious. He suffers from shock as much as the blow to the head." The doctor shook his head, giving the impression that he bore not much hope for Weylin's recovery.
The rest of the night passed with agonizing slowness for Phaedra, who was torn between her fears for the man she loved and her guilt over the pass to which her writings had brought her grandfather. She paced from one bedside to the other, where both men lay deathl
y still.
Despite his bulk, her grandfather looked somehow shrunken upon the pillows, as though he had aged years. But the timeworn lines of pain and grief upon James's brow appeared smoothed, making him look younger. Phaedra had heard that it was often thus with those who hovered on the brink of death.
Morning's light found her with eyes raw from unshed tears, her senses giddy from exhaustion. When Gilly discovered her upon her knees, being sick into the chamber pot, he led her firmly to bed.
"Enough of this, Fae," he said sternly, "or you will soon be the one needing the doctor. I will watch over Lethington. And Jonathan has hardly left your grandfather's side. You've got to sleep."
She tried to protest, but she had no notion how exhausted she was until Gilly forced her back into the pillows. She consented to a few moments' rest merely to appease him, never intending to close her eyes.
But the next she knew, the soft shadows of evening were drifting into the room. She heard someone moving about beyond the bed-curtains and sat up with a frightened start. But it was only Gilly, bringing her a cup of tea.
Gratefully, she gulped down the honey-sweetened brew, then started to fling aside the covers to rise. "How could you have let me sleep so long?" she asked reproachfully.
"Because you needed it," he said, gently restraining her. "You don't have to dash off in such a fret. Your grandfather's improving. He's even got a bit of his color back. And as for Lethington, he's resting easy as a babe in his mother's arms."
Phaedra murmured a prayer of relief, although she could not be content until she saw James for herself. Yet Gilly refused to let her go until she choked down some toast. She ate without tasting, for the first time noticing how haggard Gilly looked himself. Deep rings had settled beneath his green eyes, and a purple bruise swelled his cheek.
She touched his face. "I am so sorry, Gilly. I hadn't thought. No one has been looking after you."
"No one has to." He gave a soft laugh. "I came out of this fray far better than usual. See?" He leaned forward, indicating his eye.
"For once no black eye, although ... " He grinned widely,revealing a tooth missing in the back. "I think I swallowed the blasted thing."
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