She had never been forced to defend herself in her life.
Let alone someone else.
Why had Simon chosen her? Was he so destitute of friends and companions that he should call upon such a weakling to protect his children?
Something snapped to her left.
Her heart slammed, her fingers loosened on the frayed rope, and the bucket kerplunked back into the well before she spotted a small brown creature disappearing into a bush.
A hare.Some of the tension drained. Despite everything, a smile pulled at her lips as she hoisted the bucket upward again. What would Mamma say to see her this way? What would Agnes?
Agnes.She latched on to the name, the face, with a longing so deep it cut. She remembered too many things at once. The careless conversations. The nonsense and laughter. The faint and hazy blur of children turning into women, and the indistinct line between what was real and what was pretended. How long had Agnes harbored such contempt? How long had her smiles been feigned and her sweet words insincere?
A sobering grief expanded across her chest, as she hurried the sloshing bucket back inside.
The children sat just where she’d left them.
Mercy at the edge of the cauldron, making a bed for her doll inside the dusty cast-iron hole. John at the hearth, stacking the wood he had chopped this morning, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his hair falling into his eyes.
With a wary look, they both glanced up at her with caution. Questions raced across their faces, but she had no more answers than they did.
She thudded the bucket to the dirt floor with a smile. “Perhaps we might make dinner now. I could eat most anything.”
Mercy nodded and John stood. Neither spoke.
Indeed, in the last two days, they had hardly said anything to her. How long was she supposed to hide them away like this? How long before they realized she meant them no harm, that she was only doing as their father asked?
She closed the door behind her with a sigh. More importantly, how long before the danger discovered where they had run?
Simon was not certain of the hour, but the bread Sir Walter had brought yesterday had long ceased to satisfy the claws of hunger. Somewhere in the outside corridor, the bang of wood echoed against stone, as if someone was scraping a hard object along the wall as they approached.
The closer the sound came, the more lights dimmed.
Keys jangled. The door slung open, and a muscled figure filled the doorway, his lantern revealing ragged blond hair and a familiar face. Where had Simon seen him before?
“They say I’m to be letting the likes o’ you free.”
Simon nodded, took a step forward.
The cudgel lifted. The turnkey kicked the door shut behind him. “Not so fast, me little dandy. Mebbe you can be paying off the barrister and the lady you soiled, but a bloke don’t be coming in and out of Newgate without something what will keep it in his memory.”
Simon pulled his fingers into fists. “I don’t think you want to do this.”
“Methinks I do.”
“You may just regret that.”
“You may not get out of here to regret anything.” Hanging his lantern on a peg, the turnkey spread his legs and glared.
Recognition trickled through Simon.
Here at the prison. The day of the hangings. The turnkey with the distinct scowl who had waited with the Scotsman outside the door, listening as if—
The cudgel swung in Simon’s direction, the wind a buzz by his ear.
He ducked, brought his fist into the man’s prickly chin, and sent him flying into the opposite wall.
The turnkey bounced back with a grunt. He charged, cudgel slicing empty air, as Simon threw another punch and knocked him flat. The cudgel rolled out of reach.
