Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

Seconds passed. They felt like days. Georgina clung to Mercy tighter, burying the child's face, seeping her fingers into the soft curls.

Her muscles coiled tighter, prepared for a bullet to explode, but it never did. Instead, the silhouette limped closer to the hearth. Light washed over him. He was stooped, clad in patched clothes, with a matted white beard that reached low on his chest.

From across the room, John picked himself up. Everything about his movements was stealthy and slow, as he inched his way back toward the pile of quilts. He braced himself between the invader and his sister.

As if, even without the rifle, he would not allow harm to come to her.

Georgina prayed that was possible.

With a scratchy grunt, the stranger pulled one of the knapsacks toward him with the end of the gun. He crouched, glared over at the three of them, then tore into the bags.

Mercy whimpered.

John shuffled backward a step.

With growls and smacking sounds, the stranger ravished the chunk of cheese, then the bread, then the small pasties. Crumbs littered his beard. His fingers glistened with spit.

Then he pulled himself up, stumbled closer, eyes crazed in the shadows and firelight. "Money." He slammed the butt of the rifle on the dirt floor. "Gimme the money."

Words clogged in Georgina's throat. None of them escaped.

"Now!"

She flinched, aware that John was yanking Mercy from her lap, dragging his sister away as the man edged closer. "I—I do not have any with me."

"Fine clothes. Good horses. Ye have money."

God, help us. A prayer. Please.

"Gimme." Towering over her. Breath hot, putrid. "Gimme now—"

"John, run." The plea shrieked, one second before the stranger's hand throttled her throat, shoving her backward onto the quilts. Feet pattered. The door opened and slammed. The children were gone.

God, please. Help me.

The rifle fell across her neck, the man's body on top of hers, as the cold wood and metal cut off airflow. Her arms flailed, but he pressed harder. "Liar," he rasped. "The money. Gimme the money."

The edges of her vision blackened.

He seized her left earbob, yanked off the pearl jewel, as hot pain speared her earlobe. No. The second earbob ripped from her skin. His face dimmed. Please —

Something lunged on the man's back.

John.

No. He was supposed to run. He was supposed to take Mercy and hide. They needed to be safe…needed to escape, to disappear, for Simon…

A loud thump, as if John had been thrown, but the rifle on her neck loosened. Georgina rolled, lurched to her feet, everything spinning.

The stranger was over top John's small frame. He lifted a fist.

In one frantic movement, Georgina seized the gun and swung. The crack was sickening. The old man's back arched, lips sputtered, then he slumped over top of John with blood trailing down his neck.

Georgina slid to her knees next to them. She shoved off the body, pulled John free, grasped his face. "Mercy."

"Outside."

"You should not have…why did you…"

The door flew back open. Both of them flinched, turned, as a dead silence fell and her mind spun into the next plan of action.

But when the figure in the doorway entered, her panic faltered.

Mercy was in his arms, hugging his neck. John was already racing for his legs. The air was easier to breathe and the world easier to bear.

Simon Fancourt was here.

They were safe.

"He is gone now." For the second time, Simon stepped back inside the cottage, a blade of guilt already slicing through him.

Wind whistled through the broken windows. Glass shards glistened on the dirt floor, and the animal droppings and nests lent the air a stifling, musty scent.

He should not have sent them here.

Not alone.

He should have known the cottage would not be the same. That years, like everything else, had eroded what was once intact.

Mercy ran to him again. He swept her up, fought the urge to squeeze when her wet cheek pressed into his neck. "It is too late to travel," he said. "We will stay here until dawn."

John nodded, as if he had suspected as much, but Miss Whitmore rose from her pile of quilts. She glanced about the cottage, opened her lips, blinked hard, but said only, "Of course."

Then she brushed past him and outside, the door thudding shut behind her.

Simon knelt next to his son by the hearth. "Are you hurt?"

"No." Even so, his left hand cupped his right elbow, and the set of his jaw was tight. "Did you kill him? That man, I mean."

Simon pushed up his son's sleeve. "Turn so I can see."

"It doesn't hurt."

"Let me see."

With a sigh, John angled his elbow upward. A purpling bruise already discolored his skin, but it was no worse than those he'd procured from climbing trees along the creek back home.

"I think that's one you can be proud of."

"Did you kill him?" The same question. As if John hoped he had.

"No."

"Why?"

"They call him Tookey in the nearby village. I remember him from boyhood. He has not all his mind and steals most of what he eats. I sent him back into the woods and will inform the constable in the morning."

"Him ate all the pasties." Mercy sighed her disappointment. "Now we have nothing."

"We shall get more tomorrow, but tonight"—he swept her to the pile of quilts—"you must rest. You too, John."

"I don't want to sleep. I want to have the gun again. In case he comes back."

"He will not come back."

"Please?"

Simon lifted John and settled him next to Mercy. He pulled the quilt over them both. "Sleep."

"Sir?"

"Hmm?"

The shadows were deep across John's face, the hearth light just faint enough that it illuminated his small dimple and furrowed chin. "I didn't run this time. I helped the lady."

Emotions simmered through him. Pride for the courage inside one so young. Fear that it could have injured him. Heartbreak that he need fight at all. "You did good, John." He bent over his child and kissed the salty tears on his cheek. "Mama would be proud."

She had not the strength to bear a night with him.

Not here—where the forest was black and enclosing, the air soundless, the world she knew too far away from her. She could not breathe when she was close to him.

She could not breathe now.

Pain stung both of her ears, and though she'd dabbed the blood with her sleeve countless times, they were still cold and wet and throbbing. Calm. She hugged her arms. An owl's disconcerting whek-whek-whek echoed throughout the trees, mimicking the panic straining her chest. God, give me calm.

The door opened before she was prepared.

She'd known he would come.

Of course he would. Had he ever been anything but kind to her?

And gentle to her? Even in his indifference?

With slow movements, he stepped near enough that if she swayed half a step to the right, she would touch him. He stared at her. She wondered how much he could see—if he knew her terror, if he realized that she had almost failed him.

"Come inside and rest."

She shook her head because she did not trust her voice.

He nodded as if he understood. "I will remain out here. No one will get in again."

Her fear was not an assailant. Her fear was him. Didn't he know that? No, he never knew. He never suspected anything. Even on the carriage rides, all those years ago, he had been as clueless as he was right now.

"You're bleeding." He lifted a hand, but she stepped away from him.

She smeared away the blood herself. She looked anywhere, everywhere, but at the tall shadow edging closer to her.

"Georgina."

She slipped another step away from him, rubbed her arms with fierceness. "Tomorrow, if you shall be so kind, you may permit me use of a servant and carriage from the hunting lodge. I imagine it best we do not arrive in London together, and though my reputation is likely still uncompromised, I should not like to tempt fate by riding horseback in the company of—"

"You believed me."

The force of his words, the poignancy, dropped her stomach.

"You believed me and you aided me in something I had no right to ask." Silence rippled, save for the trees swaying in the darkness and the night bugs chirping and the owl shrieking from some faraway perch. As softly as he'd ever spoken to her came the word "Why?"

She did not know. Agnes would scold that her motivation stemmed from obsession. That this was yet another futile attempt to gain the attentions of the one man who did not praise her beauty and proclaim his heart.

Yet it was more.

Despite every fear and dread, she turned her face back to his. She stared at his outline in the blackness, the broadness of his shoulders, the strength and mystery and determination in his stance—before hurrying to the door without answer.

She closed herself inside the cottage. Perhaps she had merely hoped, even for a day or two, that Simon Fancourt needed her as much as she needed him.

Dew seeped through his clothes, moistened his skin. Have to get back. Running, dodging trees, shedding the animal pelts that weighted him down. Ruth. The cabin loomed ahead, golden in the first light of morning, and the door was open.

Waiting for him.

Always waiting for him.

Ruth, I'm coming. Running inside, slinging his rifle to the corner and praying. Ruth. He need not have prayed with such fear.

She was strong.

The strongest woman he knew.

"There you are." She waited on the bed, drained but smiling, a tiny naked creature cradled at her chest. John stood close. He hovered over the infant, patted the tiny head, then climbed next to the baby's mama with gentle curiosity.

"Her name is Mercy," Ruth whispered. "Because God showed us mercy today and gave us one more miracle to love."

With a groan of yearning, Simon startled himself awake. "Ruth." A whisper, but only the dark and shivering trees interwoven with fog stared back at him. He pushed to his feet. Weak morning light settled into the forest—a harsh reminder that this was not the woods he knew so well, where the cabin he loved awaited him.

All the duties, the guilt, the danger shackled him anew as he turned to the cottage door. He stepped inside, but pulled to a halt.

Ruth.

The dream must be haunting him still, because a woman lay curled on the quilts, Mercy in her arms, John on the other side of her. But her hair was not straight and brown, like the forest leaves in the lull of winter.

Instead, the tresses were blond and messy and framing a flushed, sleeping face. He saw her in brushstrokes. Pink, shapely lips. Elegant, defined features. Perfect lashes. Delicate chin. Shadows and light and angles and strokes of a dripping brush against white canvas…

He looked away. Something simmered within him. He told himself it was an ache for Ruth, a longing to return to the dream he'd awaken from and the wife he loved.

Even so, he glanced back at the near-stranger with his children. Tenderness stretched through him. Why was the sight so undoing? So terrifying and yet…precious to him?

Blinking hard, he approached with soundless steps. He crouched next to them—his little ones and the woman who had risked her own safety to protect them—and nudged her shoulder. "Miss Whitmore."

A sigh of protest, but with the second nudge, she squinted her eyes open. They stayed on him, confused, for several seconds before they widened. She leaned up. "What is the matter?"

"Nothing. It is morning. Time to depart."

"Oh." Relief brought her head back onto the quilts. She seemed uncertain what to say and even more unable to glance up at him a second time.

"I shall await you outside." When she nodded again, he departed the cabin and prepared the horses as he waited. When she joined him moments later, valise and quilts on one arm, his children in tow, she wore an uncertain smile and a look that tingled an odd sensation through his fingertips.

The urge to paint.

A feeling he had not felt since Ruth.

The sight of her town house struck a strange chord within Georgina. She should have rejoiced to be home, where she need not fear for her life and the responsibility of others no longer encumbered her.

Yet—

"Shall I carry this in for you, miss?" The driver, whom Simon had secured at the village near the hunting lodge, pulled out her valise.

"No, thank you." She took the bag herself and handed him extra coinage, then turned up the walk to the entry door. She untied her bonnet ribbons as she stepped inside.

The hall was quiet, the butler absent, the afternoon air warm and stale.

From the tulipwood hat rack against the wall, Agnes' colorful hats still hung, as if at any moment she would come downstairs and slip one on.

Georgina forced her eyes away from them. She would instruct Nellie to box them and have them delivered to the Gilchrist residence. Agnes would want them. She loved them.

At least, she used to love them. Did she still care for any of the things she had before?

"Ah, you are home, miss." Sweeping down the stairs, Nellie smiled at her with pinkened cheeks of relief and welcome. "I am so glad to see you returned. I cannot say why, exactly, but I felt sort of worrisome at your going. Did the visit with your aunt go well?"

She had run into the forest like a frightened highwayman escaping the law. She had slept in filthy, destitute lodgings, and she had lost both of her earbobs in the grip of a revolting maniac.

"Yes." The answer should have been a lie, but it wasn't.

Because as she climbed the quiet stairs in the too-quiet town house, her mind lingered back to last night. When she had looped an arm around little Mercy. When young John had smiled at her, dimples in his cheek, before she waved him goodbye this morning. When Simon had opened the carriage door, sending her home, the gratitude he could not speak a fire in his strong, kind eyes.

If she thought for one moment she could belong in such a family, she would accept Simon's proposal and marry him as soon as the banns could be read.

But the children did not love her.

Simon did not love her.

And nothing in this world could keep them from leaving her, one day, even if they did.

She knew.

"We must talk."

"If I thought telling you I was otherwise occupied would make a difference, I would." Sir Walter finished sealing a letter and handed it to his clerk. He dismissed the man with a quick hand motion. "I see it would not. Come in."

Simon strode into the room and planted himself before the desk, the confines of the wood-paneled office suffocating after a night in the forest.

"Well? If you are here to scold me yet again for my lack of scruples in saving your life—"

"Someone tried to kill me." Simon dug into his pocket. He smacked the crumpled note onto the desk. "And I think the same person is behind Miss Simpson's lies."

"What is this?"

"I found it tacked to my horse's stall this morning."

Sir Walter smoothed the paper as he read, expressionless, though a vein bulged at his forehead.

The words still smoldered in Simon's brain: "You shall lose more than your reputation if you do not cease your questions. The game is just beginning. Prepare for casualties."

Lowering the worn note, Sir Walter's jaw tensed. "Suffice it to say, you have a lot of explaining to do."

"I would keep the matter to myself if I did not need your help."

"I am flattered I rate so highly in your confidence."

Simon rubbed the back of his neck, moved to the window, where the view of fresh, symmetrical gardens made him tempted to unlatch the pane. He needed air. He needed answers. "Someone in London is releasing condemned prisoners under the Crown's nose."

"A steep charge."

"But true." Anger sizzled. "A ship of convicts arrived in Marwicktow. Two of them killed my wife. I killed them."

"I see."

"I intend on stopping it."

"Assuming, of course, it is a reoccurring crime."

"That proves"—Simon swept a hand to the note—"it is."

"Hmm." Sir Walter reclined in his chair, scratching his chin, as if this was merely another case he could sort out. "I suppose this is the true reason you have returned home."

"Mostly, yes."

"Does your mother know?"

"No."

"And you do not intend on telling her the truth?"

"I would not inflict her with worries."

"Yet your morality suffers no pains at burdening Miss Whitmore." Sir Walter stood. "Do not look so surprised, Fancourt. I know she visited you at Newgate, and I further know she arrived home when you did. How much did you tell her?"

"Nothing."

"I can hardly believe a woman who has rejected you in marriage would go to such extremes on your behalf did she not know the truth. You have likely provided her with a most interesting crumb of gossip to feast on with her idle-minded friends—yet another careless outlet in which you are risking your reputation." Sighing, he shrugged and walked around his desk, lines creasing his face, eyes narrowing in the same disapproving way Father's always did. "I do not suppose I can discourage you from pursuing this dangerously noble endeavor."

Simon shook his head.

"You realize, of course, that such accusations would be outlandish in court without tangible proof."

"Which I intend to get."

"And you further know, I hope, that more is at stake than your own safety and standing. You have children to consider. Your mother."

"I do not have a choice."

"We always have a choice." Sir Walter shook his head, lips flattening, though a hint of amused admiration lifted his eyes. "I hope this is not a choice I shall regret myself."

"Then you shall assist me?"

"If I can without landing myself in the deadhouse, yes."

Relief softened the painful pounding of Simon's temples. He moved to the desk, ripped a blank sheet of paper from the ledger, and scribbled down nineteen names. "This is all I have. I suspect many of them are false names, else I would have given them to you sooner, but these are the nineteen men who arrived in the settlement."

"I shall check my files and those of other barristers. If any of these men were convicted at the Old Bailey, I shall know of it."

"Good. I need to speak with their families, their friends, anyone who might lead us to the devil who was paid to free them."

"Very well. You shall hear from me the moment I discover anything."

Simon nodded and started for the door—

"Fancourt."

He paused and glanced back.

Sir Walter leaned against his desk, arms crossed over his chest, all the humor and nonchalance drained from his face. Only tightness remained. Mayhap a hint of emotion too, as peculiar as that seemed. "You did right in coming to me. I like to think myself the best friend your father ever had." His eyes moistened. "I can be the same to you." Some of the loneliness ebbed and flowed from Simon's chest. He nodded again, lips lifting with a smile of gratitude.

Between himself and Sir Walter, perhaps they had a fighting chance.

Perhaps they could win the game, after all.

"You did not visit your aunt, did you?"

She had expected many declarations from Alexander Oswald—compliments on her dress, delights in seeing her again, disappointments concerning her hasty departure.

But not this.

"One thing I am learning to expect from you, Mr. Oswald." She swept further into her town house parlor, still rankled—if not a bit amused—that he had arrived without warning. "The unexpected."

"Your praise of me is music." He stepped around the tea table, wearing an unusual red floral coat, a silk cravat, and a smug grin on his face, as if he knew something she did not know he knew.

Which was likely true.

"Yet still, you leave my question unanswered."

"I would not deign to defend myself against someone who deems me a liar."

"We are all liars, to some degree, Miss Whitmore." He stepped nearer. In one swift movement, he caught her hands and pulled her closer, his clothes scented of cigar smoke and traces of vanilla. "Even you."

She wanted to pull away.

She should have.

But something kept her still. Perhaps because he was right. She lied about everything. She had secrets no one knew about, and the lies bubbled forth like hot water ready to evaporate into listening ears.

"What are they?" Closer, a breath away. His eyes sought hers, then dipped to her lips, then followed her hairline before they settled back to her gaze. "How many are there?"

"I do not know what you are talking about."

"You know better than I do."

"Mr. Oswald—"

"Do not tell me." His eyes laughed at her. "Let me discover them myself. It shall not be easy. Complicated souls, like you and I, never are." For the second time, he glanced at her lips. "But I will know your secrets, Miss Whitmore." He leaned forward—

She stepped backward into a chair, withdrawing from the hands clasping hers.

His fingers tightened.

Her gaze snapped to his in question, heart gaining uneven speed.

Then, as if realizing his blunder, he grinned the same time his hold released. "Forgive me, Miss Whitmore. I fear passion is an attribute all Oswalds must battle. With a less endearing object, it could have been reined in more easily. You are a feat."

She should have been flattered.

Mayhap she was.

But the need to escape the room—to escape him —overwhelmed her thoughts. Had she truly been ready to trust him with her secret? Was she so lonely? Was she so much a fool?

"I have upset you."

"No." She weaved around the chair the same time a maid entered the parlor.

"A visitor for you, Miss Whitmore."

"Thank you. Excuse me, Mr. Oswald." With a hurried curtsy and a burn of embarrassment prickling beneath her cheeks, she left the parlor and followed the maid into the hall.

Lady Gilchrist turned with a handkerchief pressed to her nose. She dabbed twice, then fluttered it into the air with a mild noise of distress. "Oh, Miss Whitmore, this is simply terrible. Utterly unfathomable."

"What is it?" Alarm weighted Georgina's legs. "What is wrong?"

"Miss Simpson." Lady Gilchrist said the name with a sob. "She is gone."

Sir Walter was right.

The last thing Simon should have done was involve Miss Whitmore in his troubles. He should not be here now. The more he stayed away from her, the better for them both.

Inwardly, he lashed himself for the insanity of what he was doing. Outwardly, he knocked anyway.

Her town house door swung open before he could change his mind, and the butler stood on the other side, a fraught look to his age-spotted face.

"I am here to see Miss Whitmore, if you please."

"Err, I fear she is not"—the butler glanced over his shoulder—"she is not home, sir."

Simon nodded and urged his legs to move. After all, was this not yet another sign he should not have come? Yet something niggled him. Something amiss on the butler's face, an unsteadiness in his shifting glances. "Is something the matter?"

"Oh, tell him!" A voice from inside the hall, young and shrill. A maid tiptoed over the butler's shoulder. "Miss Whitmore has done something dreadful. I fear she did not even take a manservant."

"Miss Nellie, you forget yourself—"

"Let her finish." Simon pressed the door farther open, until the butler moved aside and the girl hurried closer.

Her wet lashes blinked fast. "I fear poor Miss Simpson ran away four nights ago, and Lady Gilchrist only now gained the courage to tell someone. It seems Miss Simpson was spotted going into the East End—a sort of disreputable street called Seeley Lane—but was lost before anyone could haul her back."

"And Miss Whitmore?"

"She related her intentions to no one." The butler shook his head, as if in disbelief. "Indeed, after she sent away a guest, we imagined she had retired to her room until just moments ago when—"

"It is nearly dark," said Nellie. "Something must be done."

"Something will be done." An unexpected wave of determination rushed through him. "See that you keep the candles burning in their bedchambers."

"Their, sir?"

"I'm bringing back both of them."