“Get the men a cordial.” Walsh’s gimlet gaze fixed on her with all the charity of a hawk spotting its prey.
“Yes, sir,” Rachel moved down the stairs. Two guards stood next to the front door, their interest in her insulting. She slowed her progress to give Jimmy and Simon time to escape. Her palms sweated as she gripped the railing, hoping the rest of the Copperheads remained in the library. She passed Mr. Walsh whom she’d met earlier in the afternoon when the doctor came. She felt his eyes on her. She skirted around him to the kitchen. He grabbed her arm.
“You’re not the regular maid.”
“No, sir. She’s sick and gave me her job while she recovers.”
“You’ve heard nothing,” he demanded.
Knees shaking, Rachel pasted on a blank look then looked where he pinched her arm. “Am I in trouble for falling asleep? Please don’t fire me. I have seven brothers and sisters to feed.”
He pushed her. “Get the cordial and be quick about it.”
She hurried to the kitchen and stopped cold, a gasp locked in the back of her throat. Two guards barred the back door. No way could she escape. She took her time arranging glasses to surround a decanter. She bobbed a curtsy to the two guards, picked up the serving tray and headed to the library.
The door was ajar. She glanced to the guards at the front door lost in conversation and took a deep breath. She backed in and placed the tray on a side table. Blank papers next to the tray aroused her interest. Like a magician, keeping her stagehand moving to keep the audience busy, she let her other hand do the trick. The papers were in her skirt pocket, neat and tidy before anyone noticed. She finished filling the glasses from the decanter.
“Walsh, I thought you said no one was about,” demanded one of the men.
Rachel felt twenty pairs of eyes on her backside.
Mr. Walsh’s tone was resigned but chilly. “Weren’t you paying attention? I told you I hired a maid to care for Edwards.”
Rachel kept her head bowed and moved to leave.
“Hold there, don’t I know you?”
Rachel counted the steps to the library door. Never would she forget the deadly quiet of the room. She could hear the muffled clatter of horses and wagons with the jangling of harnesses passing down the street. A woman spoke sharply to a child, producing a solid wail. In the room, the clock ticked loudly. Rachel was by herself with a despicable group of men who would slit her throat on the spot.
Jenkins, a troll-like man with a pointed gray beard swaggered up to her. With tiny, button eyes, he stared. The scar across his right eye brightened to a deep red.
“I do know her. Why this is—”
Rachel moved fast. She hit him over the head with the decanter, and then hurled the tray into the crowd. Cordial splashed. Glasses splintered. Shouts of fury and surprise, and the cry for vengeance curdled her blood. Rachel ran. Headed off by two stunned guards, Rachel sped up the stairs. At the top, she heaved her mop bucket on the guards, hitting one square on the forehead. She heard the crack of his skull as he fell on his companion. Together they crashed and tumbled down the stairs, blocking the rest of her pursuers.
“Get her,” screamed Walsh. “She’s a spy!”
Rachel knew the rambling house like the back of her hand and forced herself into an all-out run. Suddenly, a hand shot out, grabbed her, and yanked her into Edward’s room. Rachel smothered a shriek. “Jimmy O’Hara.”
Jimmy locked the door, and then threw up the window, the sash violently vibrating. “Jump.”
She looked out. Too far. The idea of jumping evaporated with the likelihood of breaking her neck. She shook her head.
“We have to, it’s the only way.”
Boots pounded down the hall. They searched every room.
“Go, Jimmy, and get help.”
“No way, mum. You’re the Saint. I ain’t leaving you.”
He’d heard Simon’s comment in the storeroom.
Edwards moaned in delirium. The mattress the man slept on was a massive, bulky boxlike affair set up on cross-ribbed slats and possessed an air space equal to the deepness of the supporting box.
Rachel whipped out her knife and slashed open the side of the mattress. “Hurry, Jimmy,” she urged then squirmed inside. “Either get in or jump out the window.”
She scored an opening in the bottom of the ticking to breathe. Jimmy joined her.
