Billy had disappeared a mere two days ago, so Rand might not remark upon his absence. Even when Billy had been free, Rand’s plan had contained far too many flaws. Now it was doomed.
“Doomed,” she whispered.
A bolt slid back on the door. Dorothea minced into the room, her skirts swaying. She was followed by two servants, clothed in the Stafford livery, bearing a virtual cornucopia of food. Rather than the usual breakfast of bread, butter, and tea, Elizabeth inhaled the scent of ham, pastries, and sausages.
By way of greeting, Dorothea said, “You look simply dreadful, my dear. So thin. Lord Stafford sent for me. He says you haven’t eaten in two days and he wants you strong so that you may attend the festivities.”
“Walter may think to keep me prisoner inside this flea-infested hovel,” Elizabeth said, glaring at her stepmother, “but nothing will induce me to watch Rand’s execution. I won’t give his lordship the satisfaction.”
“Yes, you will.”
The servants and Grosley withdrew. Dorothea eased herself onto the bed, then reached for a plate. Between bites of stewed tomatoes and ham, she mumbled, “I’ve been spending most of my time at Wyndham Manor. ’Tis a lovely place now, cozy and prosperous, so much more peaceful than the White Hart.” Lifting a silver lid, she inspected a rice pudding dotted with raisins.
“How is Father? Is it true that Horace Exe is running the White Hart when he has a reputation for cheeseparing?”
“The White Hart turns a small profit.” Dorothea stuck her finger into the pudding. “Your father and I have shut one door and opened a new one.” She licked her finger, made a moue of disgust, sliced a portion of ham, chewed it, then spit a piece of gristle into her napkin. “After the execution, you really should visit Wyndham Manor, Elizabeth. Perhaps you might rearrange your life.”
“Without my highwayman I have no life,” she stated. “Where, may I ask, is Billy Turnbull?”
Dorothea picked up a sausage and sucked it through her lips. “Lord Stafford plans to keep Turnbull occupied until after the hanging.”
Elizabeth peered out through the window again. With Billy gone, nobody would make certain Master Hodges followed instructions, and it was disastrous to rely on Tom.
The sunrise had faded completely, leaving the morning dun-colored, with a dreary feel to it. Perhaps it was only the time following dawn, where the sun seemed to hesitate before taking hold. Perhaps it was a harbinger of a forthcoming storm.
’Tis so hard to predict how the weather will unfold, or even our fates, she thought, blinking back tears.
As if she had read Elizabeth’s mind, Dorothea said, “I married your father, knowing full well his gambling problems, thinking I could change him. I couldn’t, and you can’t change your highwayman. I learned long ago that we always dig our own graves. You made your choice when you decided to fall in love, and please don’t fool yourself, Elizabeth. Love is a conscious choice. Now you must suffer the natural consequences of your ill-fated decision.”
“But all I have ever wanted was to be left alone and live with Rand. Happily. Peacefully.”
“Is that what he wants? To live peacefully?”
“I don’t know,” Elizabeth confessed, almost inaudibly.
Wiping her mouth with a linen napkin, Dorothea tossed it on the bed, then stood. “Lord Stafford has selected a gown he wants you to wear, a festive gown, not unlike the blue silk you wore at Shepherd’s. Do as he says, Elizabeth. You must stop fighting, for you cannot win, and in the process you shall only be destroyed.”
As she swept through the doorway into the hall, Dorothea’s last words seemed to echo. You shall only be destroyed.
***
Walter led Elizabeth up the stairs of an inn situated along the execution route. He had bound her hands and held one end of the rope.
“This room has a perfect view of the Minster,” he said, “which will be the first stop on the thieving bastard’s journey.”
Entering, he jerked her over to the window. Below, the streets were packed with bodies. Atop the surrounding roofs, spectators perched like brightly colored birds. Leaning from the windows, people laughed and waved and shouted to one another, enjoying the public holiday and the joyous atmosphere.
The Minster bells tolled. Through the inn walls, Elizabeth could feel their reverberations and the excitement of the city. She heard the noise increase as a contingent of peace officers came into view, followed by the City Marshall, the Under Sheriff, and a posse of constables.
“Look, Elizabeth!” Walter pressed against her back, his belly denting her tightly corseted waist. “Here he comes!”
The prison chaplain stood at the rear of the cart. Rand had been placed in front, forced to squat atop his own coffin. He was clothed in a coat of claret velvet, a white shirt fronted with lace, brown doeskin breeches, and high boots.
“My, doesn’t he look the gentleman? Plain yet elegant,” Walter said sarcastically. “Listen to them cheer, Elizabeth. The crowd loves him, though not as much as you do.”
The cart inched past. Elizabeth prayed that Rand had managed to smuggle the knife inside his shirt, that even now he was severing the ropes around his wrists. Once they reached Tyburn, it would be too late.
A troop of soldiers followed the cart. Their coats were scarlet, like blood.
Walter continued pressing against her. Elizabeth struggled for breath, struggled for control, struggled to keep from screaming.
The procession stopped at York Minster. Rand stood up. His coat was more purple than the coats of the soldiers, the color of a bruise rather than blood. While the Minster bells continued tolling, a bellman intoned a prayer.
“All good people pray heartily unto God,” Stafford mouthed against Elizabeth’s ear, “for this poor sinner who is now going to his death, for whom this great bell doth toll—”
“Stop it!” she cried, trying to maneuver away from him.
Walter laughed. “I’ve been to more executions than I can count, but I’ve never enjoyed myself as much as today.” He tapped the window pane. “Look at the young women throwing your lover nosegays and kisses. Don’t they know they’re making love to a corpse?”
Below, the spectators showered Rand with flowers, petals, ribbons, and confetti. He acknowledged their attention by raising his arms over his head. His manacles glinted in the feeble rays of the sun, and it took Elizabeth several moments to realize that Rand had not been allowed the customary rope. If he had smuggled a knife inside his shirt, it wouldn’t do him any good.
“And now our little procession will be making its way toward Tadcaster and the gallows. Shall we follow?” When Elizabeth didn’t respond, Stafford jerked her as he would a dog. “Come along, dearest. I’ve a carriage waiting, and a special place roped off for us at the site of the wooden mare.”
“I won’t go.”
“Yes, you will.” Stafford yanked the rope.
“I won’t watch.”
“Yes, you will.”
***
Walter’s carriage lurched along, following a human stream. Elizabeth sat next to him, her voluminous skirts crushed against his thigh. She felt as if she were the one traveling to the gallows. She felt as if she were viewing somebody else’s dream. She felt as if she would soon start screaming and never stop. She felt nothing at all.
“Almost there.” Walter squeezed her knee. “We’re moving a bit slower than the death cart, but we haven’t missed much.”
The carriage finally halted.
“A perfect view,” Walter exulted.
The gallows dominated the area. Grandstand seats, reserved for the wealthiest people, surrounded the scaffold on three sides. Constables and soldiers had formed a ring around it to force back the crowd, which undulated for what seemed like miles.
Rand was already on the gallows. A breeze ruffled his black hair and the lace at his thro
at. From the carriage window, Elizabeth looked at that handsome face, a face she loved with all her heart. She stared at the arms that would nevermore hold her and the hands that would nevermore caress her. She would never again hear the sound of his laughter nor see the flash of his teeth against the darkness of his beard. She and Janey had both betrayed the men they loved.
“God!” The sound was torn out of her before she even knew it. Her fingernails dug into her palms as she began to shake. “I killed Robert Whitney,” she whispered. “Rand only kept silent because of me, as you well know. Tell them to stop the hanging, my lord. I want to confess.”
“You’re too late, Elizabeth. Nobody wants to hear.”
The minister opened his Bible and read several passages. Then, as he began the Fifty-First Psalm, the crowd joined in.
“Have mercy upon me, O God…” the hanging song began. “…Behold, I was shapen in inequity and in sin…”
Elizabeth’s teeth chattered. “Stop them, I beg of you. You can do it. Stop the execution.”
“Join in, Elizabeth. Pray for your lover.”
She turned her face away. “I’ll take his place. If the crowd wants to see someone hang, let it be me.”
“Watch, Elizabeth. You’re not watching.”
She shook her head.
“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,” sang the crowd, “a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise…”
“I despise you,” Elizabeth hissed.
“I told you to watch.” Walter pushed her face against the window. When she turned her head aside, he grabbed her cheeks between his palms and forced her head straight.
“No!” She struggled wildly, her arms flailing, but Walter grabbed a handful of hair and pulled her head back until she thought her neck would snap.
“Look, damn you, look!”
Her eyes watered with pain. Through her tears, she saw Master Hodges tie the noose around Rand’s neck, then fasten a handkerchief around Rand’s forehead. One corner hung down. When Rand was ready, he would signal by grasping the corner and pulling the handkerchief over his face.
She stopped struggling and Walter released her. Mesmerized with horror, she couldn’t look away. She couldn’t even close her eyes.
As if moving through water, Rand’s hand slowly drifted upward, toward the handkerchief.
Elizabeth began to scream. She screamed until she could no longer feel the pain which had imbedded itself like a spear point in her brain, until she could no longer hear Walter’s curses or feel him shaking her and slapping her, until she could no longer see or hear or feel anything at all.
***
They were back at the inn before Walter successfully revived her.
As he splashed brandy on her face, then tried to force it down her throat, Elizabeth made an effort to maintain her state of darkness.
“Wake up, you little fool,” Walter muttered, kneeling beside her.
Elizabeth turned away from the sound of his voice. She wanted to shut out Walter. And reality. As long as nobody mentioned what had just happened, she wouldn’t have to face the fact that Rand was dead.
Walter pressed his lips against her ear. “You should have seen it. My, but he was slow to die. I watched every jerk of the rope, every agonized contortion. But I shouldn’t have to tell you. You should have seen it for yourself. Damn you and your woman’s constitution. You managed to cheat me out of my ultimate revenge, Elizabeth, and I am not pleased.”
Opening her eyes, she rolled away from him. She must gather her wits about her and clear the numbness from her brain. But then she would have to face the truth.
Walter placed his hands beneath her armpits and pulled her to a sitting position. Thrusting his face in front of her, he said, “Not only did they hang him, but afterwards they covered his body with tallow and fat, dressed him in a tarred sheet weighted with iron bands, and hung him in chains. Then they returned him to the gallows, and there he shall remain until he falls into dust.”
As if to negate Walter’s words, Elizabeth shook her tangled curls. “He never had a chance, did he?”
“What do you mean?”
“You conspired with Thomas Turnbull from the very start, didn’t you? There was never any hope of resurrection, was there? You directed the entire scenario from beginning to end, even provided all the money Tom so generously donated to the cause. I’ll wager Master Hodges was never even approached with a bribe.”
Walter’s features contorted until he looked more like one of the Minster’s stone gargoyles than human flesh. “I don’t care what you say, you scheming bitch. Your lover is a ghost. Try lying with him now!”
Thirty-one
Through the carriage window, Elizabeth glimpsed a second coach, coming up fast on the outside. The coachman and guard, all bundled against the weather, perched like gnomes atop the coach box. Lamps pierced the darkness like dragon eyes. As the coach flew past, Elizabeth heard the creak of springs, the thud of wheels, and the snap of the driver’s whip. She saw sparks spray from the horses’ hooves, like fireflies on a summer night.
A motion inside the carriage caught her eye. Across from her, Walter’s snuff-stained fingers raised a flask of whiskey to his lips.
Knees tightly clenched together, she stared out the window again, but this time the view was as dark and formless as her thoughts. What was today? She struggled to remember. The days blurred together, so it was difficult to believe that Rand had only been dead three… nay, four days.
“There’s a hound called Padfoot that haunts the wilds of Yorkshire,” she said. “He has fiery eyes and appears on nights like this, on country lanes and lonely roads. He lopes alongside solitary travelers who should be at home. I wonder if Padfoot might be out there, watching us.”
“Don’t be so macabre.” Walter sneezed luxuriously. “I’m not in the mood for it.”
The coach began the steep climb up the hill to the White Hart. In a few more minutes she would be rid of Walter forever, but Elizabeth couldn’t even muster the appropriate relief.
Opening his snuffbox, Walter removed yet another pinch. He sniffed, leaned back, and closed his eyes. In a quiet voice, he said, “I still envy him.”
“Who?”
“Your highwayman. I’m jealous that he could arouse such devotion in you. I wanted to make you appreciate me, perhaps even love me. I never meant you any harm.”
Elizabeth winced.
“I feel old,” Walter continued, “old and tired. So tired…” His voice faded. “I’ve battled criminals for more years than I can count, lived by my wits so long I’ve forgotten how to relax. I’ve fought my way to prosperity, but I’ve done things for which I’m ashamed, especially concerning you.”
Unaccountably, Elizabeth’s eyes misted. It was so easy to apologize, but how could Walter take back all the humiliations? How could he take back Rand’s strangulation?
Not that Walter alone was to blame, she reminded herself, feeling once again the dread that had kept her from confessing her guilt. Yet she knew that Rand had entered into a love affair with Death long before she—or even Walter Stafford—happened along.
“What will you do now?” Walter asked.
She rubbed a hand across her forehead. “I don’t know.”
“I received the customary forty pounds for Remington’s capture, Elizabeth. I’ll give it to you.”
She was too exhausted to feel insulted. “I don’t need money. And even if I did—”
“I’ll bring the money by tomorrow.”
“Please don’t.”
They approached the White Hart. A lamp burned inside the stable, its light spilling into the yard. The coach that had earlier passed them was parked nearby. A preoccupied Tim was leading the fatigued horses toward the stable, conversing with them in a soothing manner. Tim’s footprints and the horses’ hooves disturbed the du
sting of snow upon the cobblestones.
Elizabeth quickly stepped down from the carriage before Walter had a chance to help her. Leaning out the window, he said, “Until tomorrow.”
“No!” she cried, but her voice was lost in the clatter of hooves and the scrape of wheels.
Once alone, she allowed the feel of the inn to settle upon her. A chill wind off the moors whipped her cloak, unbound her neat club of hair, and stung her cheeks. It had been a long time since she’d smelled such a wind. The scent, fresh and familiar and brimming with memories, brought tears to her eyes as she stared into the darkness. Out there was the peel tower. She longed to run her hands across its crumbling stones, lie upon its dirt floor, and wait for her highwayman to come riding, riding—
“Mistress Wyndham!” Tim stood at the barn door. “Blessed Mary and the saints! Is it truly ye, come back t’ us?”
“’Tis me, Tim.” A tired smile tugged at her lips as she walked toward the stable. Her ostler’s fiery blush and gap-toothed smile warmed her. She even knew how he would smell—like the barn, like solid animal things that were simple and good. “How does Rhiannon fare?”
“She’s missed ye, but I told her every day ye’d come back.”
He led Elizabeth past the largely empty stalls, while she tried to still her questions concerning the White Hart’s obvious demise. Only one other stable boy was there, rubbing salve into the neck of an off-wheeler. Reaching Rhiannon, Elizabeth swung her arms around the mare’s neck. “He’s dead,” she murmured, pressing her face against Rhiannon’s throatlatch. “Rand is dead.”
“Yer friend?” Reaching out as if to comfort Elizabeth, Tim hesitated, then brushed back the mare’s forelock. “I saw ye ride with him months ago, an’ the next thing ye’re in London.”
“They hanged him.” Elizabeth’s voice broke. She felt safe here with Tim and Rhiannon, but even a snug harbor could not soften reality. “Then they tarred him.”
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