Lucy squeezed her upper arms with her fingers. "Not in those words, no."
"But the gist?"
Lucy looked at her feet.
Mitford hissed. "No, this won't be easy."
Lucy watched the toe of her shoe push the dust on the floor. "I did not mean I had no use for him. What I meant was that I did not need him—I could get along without him."
"Not quite true, though, was it?"
Lucy stopped pushing dust. Her head snapped up.
An ironic smile pulled Mitford's thin moustache. "The courts of assize will be here in six weeks. If we mean to find him, we have not much time."
Lucy froze from the inside out. "Him?" she queried in a small, thin voice. "Find who?"
"Your husband." Mitford's eyes were suddenly much too perceptive. "Of course."
Lucy stared. "My husband is dead."
"The problem exactly."
A terrific rhythm took over Lucy's heart.
"Dead, Emile looks murdered. Murdered, it looks by witchcraft. But present a living Emile, and the whole problem goes away."
Lucy stared at the man as if he himself were a demon risen from hell. "What—? Excuse me. But what makes you think Emile is alive?"
Mitford looked disgusted. "I met your husband, Lucy. If ever a man knew how to avoid a whirlpool—or any other kind of trap—it would be Emile."
Lucy made herself breathe. "He is not going to ride up on a charger."
"Come again?"
She shook her head. The reality was quite different from the fantasy. "If—and I say if—my husband were still alive, he does not care about me." Indeed, she had made sure of that with her harsh words on the street.
Mitford's eyes slitted. "Does he care so little he would see you hang?"
Lucy choked.
Mitford leaned forward. "This is serious. You must tell me, Lucy, where Emile can be found."
Lucy's eyes opened wide. "You think I know?"
Astonishment flashed across Mitford's features. "But surely you know his friends, relatives, where he used to live?"
Lucy turned to stare at the small, barred window. "I know none of that."
Silence greeted this statement. "You made little inquiry into his past," Mitford then observed.
Lucy lifted a shoulder. "He would not have appreciated an interrogation."
"Diplomatic," Mitford said after another short silence. "Not indifferent."
Lucy kept her face turned.
"You were in love with him." Mitford snorted. "You still are."
Lucy felt a sharp spike drive through her heart. No, she could not afford to love Emile. She had to think, to plan.
Sighing, Mitford rose. "A peculiar circumstance. On trial for murdering the man you love. And when he isn't even really dead."
"You will find another way to fight these charges," Lucy assured him, turning. "Something that does not require the presence of Emile."
"Will I? That would be passing convenient as I have little hope of finding one petty scoundrel in a kingdom overflowing with the same." Mitford knocked on the door for the guard.
Lucy stood her ground. There would be no black stallion, no slashing sword of salvation. In fact, the mere idea of ever again seeing Emile in the flesh made her ill. She would come up with a plan, one that did not involve Emile. "The truth will out," she declared.
Mitford raised his brows. "Oh, I have no doubt it will. Either before or after you hang."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Emile managed to get them all drunk.
In the end, it wasn't so difficult a task to achieve. He begged a lute, plied a little of his famous charm, and then made a clever wager or two with payment in the form of glasses of ale.
"Ye're a goo' man." Weaving, Stone threw an arm about Emile's neck. "Al'ays like you, 'Mil."
Smiling, Emile directed Stone's considerable bulk to a nearby bench. "Always liked me, eh? So that's why you had me kidnapped and have held me prisoner for the past six weeks."
Stone sank onto the bench with a long sigh. "I coulda killed you." He wrinkled his nose. "Shoulda killed you. You stink."
"With your very own chicken shit." Genial, Emile took a thorough look around the room. The candles guttered low in the wheel chandeliers above Stone's tavern floor. Soupy and Fish cuddled in each other's arms, snoring. Carver lay spread-eagled on a tabletop, his mouth gaping. Yes, every one of Stone's formidable cutthroats was incapacitated.
"I know about the clothes," Stone said.
Emile whipped his head around.
Yawning, Stone propped himself upright, using the tabletop behind him. "I know about the way you faked your death. I even know about the purse of money you split among my men."
Slanting Stone a look, Emile leaned against the next table over. The game master was not as drunk as he'd been pretending. "You have a good spy."
"I have loyal men," Stone snapped. Finding a nut on his bulging chest, Stone put it between his teeth. "Which is why I had to punish you." Narrow-eyed, Stone bit down on the nut. "You were disloyal."
It had been so long—months—but Emile felt the angry heat grow under his shirt all over again.
With a strange fastidiousness, Stone removed the shell from his mouth with his fingers. He placed the empty carcass on the table. "What I want to know," he asked Emile, "is why."
Emile shrugged. A confession could hardly hurt now. "I felt more loyalty to a different party."
Stone squinted. "Who?"
"Her name is not important. What is important is that her husband lost every penny they owned on your games."
Stone's pale eyes flashed. "You blame me for that?" He heaved forward. "You blame me because some jackanapes comes in here and loses his stake?" He waved a hand. "I know just the fool you mean. Four children he had. Was it my fault he chose to impoverish his family and then die drunk?"
Emile pressed his lips together.
Stone laughed, leaning back. With some effort, he crossed the two ham hocks of his arms over his chest. "'Tis peculiar, is it not? 'Tis passing peculiar how men who claim to love their wives will turn around and do such terrible things to them."
It was passing peculiar, indeed, the image that then flashed into Emile's mind. It was of his fine gray-green doublet, folded neatly beside the river above the whirlpool.
But that had not been terrible. That had been considerate. Emile had given Lucy her freedom—her dowry. He had removed her from the disaster he had made of his life. What could be bad about that?
"Come on." Stone gestured to a tall pitcher. "Pour us some more of that ale."
Emile glanced around the room. Everyone was drunken asleep but Stone. It wouldn't take much to tie him up or make him otherwise helpless.
But when Emile turned back to look at Stone, he saw in the gambling master's damp eyes an old and bitter wisdom. "Do you really think she'll take you back?"
Emile sucked in a breath.
"Deserted her. Made it look like you were dead, but she'll know better, eh?" Stone gestured. "Pour the ale."
Emile was not hot under his shirt any more. Now he was cold. "She will understand. Once I explain—"
"Cockshit." Stone heaved himself up and reached for the pitcher himself. "And even if she does believe you, what good will it do?" He poured himself a brimming cup and lifted it toward Emile. "You will still be the same whoreson bastard you always were."
Emile stiffened.
"Go on." Stone pushed Emile with the tankard. "Drink."
Emile looked at the brimming cup. He had awaited for so long the opportunity to escape, craftily weaving his plans. But Stone's words made his eager anticipation look like idiocy.
The gambling master was right. What good would it do Emile to leave? What good to knock on Lucy's door? Even before Stone's men had abducted him, Emile had discovered she didn't love him. She didn't trust him—and with good reason. The period of time he'd spent working for Stone symbolized the whole of Emile's life: everything he did turned to shit. Look at Croc
kett...
"Birds of a feather," Stone said and rocked the cup he held in front of Emile. Liquid spilled from one side and then the other. Stone smiled a crafty, cunning smile. "We are birds of a feather, you and I."
Emile's gaze went from the cup to the florid, grinning face of the game master.
"Forget her," Stone whispered. "Forget that whole respectable world."
Forget her. Indeed. Who was Emile to demand forgiveness from Lucy, to expect her to take him back with open arms? A scoundrel, a rogue, a thief. If one included Crockett, Emile was a murderer, too.
Depression sank its sharp claws into Emile. The sunlight of hope faded under the truth.
Stone held forth the cup, a carefree, dewy-eyed Bacchus.
Emile's old mentor, Crockett, would have seen no difference between the game master and Emile.
"Give me that." Emile grabbed the tankard. Too-brightly, he grinned. "And get one of your own." Lifting the cup to his lips, he swallowed once, twice, three times. But the peculiar thing was that even as he drank, an image popped into his mind. He could see the look Lucy would give him sometimes...the look of believing him a hero.
He lowered the tankard and wiped his lips with a frown. How ridiculous. He was no hero. But...how badly he wanted to be with her again. He still could incapacitate Stone and escape. If he could only believe that were the right thing to do. Birds of a feather...
Stone chuckled softly. "Come, come. A tavernkeep who can't hold his liquor?"
Emile slit a gaze toward Stone. "I can hold it. I warrant I could drink you right under the table."
Stone's eyes glinted. "Is that a wager?"
Emile's tankard stopped on its way back up to his lips. A wager. God save— The man was a genius! A wager.
Emile glanced over the rim at Stone. 'Twould be the perfect way to decide. If he won, he would go back to Lucy. If he did not...
Emile's smile returned, broader than ever. "A wager, aye." The responsibility for the decision would not rest on him. It would be up to—to fate. "If you win, I work for you...forever. If I win, you set me free."
Stone gave a jolly laugh. "Done."
Smiling, Emile lifted his tankard. "Let the best man win."
~~~
"It is the hour, Lucy, to consider your immortal soul."
Lucy rubbed her chest and squinted at the legal document illuminated by candlelight. "I have not the time."
Gawain sighed.
Picking up a quill, Lucy dipped it in ink and began scratching out yet another letter.
Gawain came over and lifted the quill out of her hand. "'Tis dawn, Lucy. No one will receive that before it is too late."
Lucy's eyes rose and then narrowed at her steward. "I am not going to die."
She was unable to read the expression in Gawain's eyes before he turned away. But the turn of his mouth was clear as he looked down at the quill in his hand. "It is unfortunate. Most unfortunate that Lord Mitford was not able to find Emile."
Lucy's eyes widened. She cut a hand through the air. "Pah! Emile was never going to be of any help." But the pressure that had been weighing on her chest suddenly doubled.
To combat the sensation, Lucy jumped to her feet. "What of my father—any news?"
Gawain shook his head. "You know as well as I that his ship is not due in for another week."
"But we sent a message to Lisbon." Lucy paced and had to rub her chest again. "Surely he received it and is expediting his return."
There was a telling pause from Gawain. "Yes, perhaps he received it."
Lucy knew that it was just as possible her father had not received her letter. His ship could have come and gone from the port before her messenger ever arrived. "He got the message," she assured Gawain. She dropped the hand from her bodice as she gave a sharp, certain nod. "The love I bear my father would have made sure of it."
Gawain frowned at her. "You believe that?"
Lucy blinked. "What?"
"Do you believe that the love you bear has the power to send messages?"
Lucy stopped. "Well—"
"Have you sent such a message to Emile?"
The stone weight rolled right over her chest again. Lucy's jaw tightened. "What would be the use of that?"
Whatever Gawain might have replied was interrupted by the distant tramping of feet. Many feet, marching in military rhythm.
Gawain's eyes went wide as they met Lucy's.
The stone on her chest did not move.
The door slammed open.
Gawain's face went white. "I will pray for you," he assured Lucy before a double column of soldiers poured into the room. In an instant, Lucy was surrounded.
Two, three stones more moved onto her chest as she lost sight of Gawain.
She was alone. It was too late, and she was all alone.
~~~
Moll burst through the door of the tavern. She stared at Gawain, aghast. "What are you doing?"
His eyes were closed, his forehead resting on clasped hands. "I am praying."
"Praying!" With the shout, Moll's voice disappeared. She whispered, pointing out the window, "They are about to hang the mistress. Hang her dead!"
Gawain squeezed his eyes tighter shut. "It is in the Lord's hands now."
Moll stared at the man. He was utterly concentrated, in a world of his own. To think she had actually, for a moment, considered marrying such a slug.
"The Lord is not going to do a thing," Moll insisted in a whisper, unable to retrieve her voice. "Only a man can do something now."
Gawain rocked, eyes closed, fingers laced.
"Fine, then." Some volume returned to Moll's voice. "I will go out there myself. I will remind the crowd of just who they mean to murder."
Gawain's rocking motion checked as Moll threw open the door. But he did not move from his seat as she ran out.
~~~
Lucy was not alone. People crowded the sides of the street as her wagon jostled through the town.
With her wrists bound before her, Lucy swayed with the jolts of the wagon's wheels and tried not to look into their faces. It was hard enough simply trying to breathe. The pressure on her chest had grown tremendously.
But Lucy could hear them.
"A black witch."
"Hung until she dies."
"No quartering—a shame."
They wanted this.
The pressure on Lucy's chest increased tenfold as the wagon rumbled to a stop. She could not make herself look up, but she saw the thick column of wood to the side of her, the support for the crossbar of the gallows. To her other side, she knew there would be a rope.
"A town needs a good hanging now and then, to set an example."
A giant fist squeezed Lucy's ribs even harder. They wanted this. Not even her father, with all his influence and money, not even her father could save her now.
Nobody could help her now.
Lucy swallowed and tried to sidle away as a thickset man handled the rope by her side. In one smooth motion, he grabbed her around the waist and slipped the noose around her neck.
Quietly, Lucy whimpered.
The man tightened the cord.
Nobody could help her. Least of all herself, her hands bound, her head turned at an unnatural angle by the loop around her neck.
Yet it was not the rope but her heart that Lucy thought was going to kill her. Her heart felt like it was being ground under a millstone.
The heavyset man stepped away. The wagon rocked as he jumped from it.
In vain did Lucy try to catch her breath. The pressure on her chest was enormous. On it sat a big stone locking in one secret too difficult to face.
Disturbed by the motion of the wagon, the horse shifted.
With her neck stretching, Lucy choked and finally looked at her secret.
There was one person who could help her. There was in all the world one particular person who could turn this tide.
The heavyset man took hold of the horse's bridle. Around the wagon the crowd hushe
d.
But around Lucy's heart, the stone cracked. It shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.
Emile. Lucy's nostrils flared as she drew air into her lungs again. She needed Emile.
The horse lifted a hoof. The wagon creaked. When it moved, it would take the surface from beneath her feet. She would hang.
Lucy ignored that. She closed her eyes. Breathing deeply, she sent a message of love, the kind she had told Gawain would surely reach its destination.
I need you. The burden lifted; she felt light as air. I need you, I need you. But it was too late. Too late, of course, as the wagon began to move.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
This was a mistake.
Across the road from the tavern, Emile dropped his small sack of belongings into the dust. This was a big, big mistake. He let out a breath and regarded the place. It looked different somehow.
Emile shook his head. An illusion. The tavern was not any different. It was the same structure over which Lucy had sweated and labored. The same place in which she took a justifiable, honest pride.
Across the road from the building, Emile shifted weight from one foot to the other. On the night he'd wagered Stone, this idea had made sense. He'd convinced himself that somehow he could belong with Lucy.
Emile looked at the freshly whitewashed walls, the sparkling clean windows. The contents in his stomach rolled.
Yet when he shifted weight again, it was to set one foot in front of the other, to walk across the street.
Idiot, Emile cursed himself. What do you think she is going to do—rush forward to embrace you in her arms? Give a cry of welcome?
He stopped outside the double tavern door. His heart pounded hard against the wall of his chest. She would refuse to look at him. She would not even acknowledge his presence. She would not listen to a word of his explanation.
A shallow breath was all Emile could manage as he put his hand on the door. He pushed it open.
It was dark inside, very quiet. Emile frowned, stepping in. The dinner crowd would be upon them soon. Where was everyone? Servants should have been bustling, the kitchen a hum of activity.
Emile peered into the gloom. Only one figure was visible. Gawain sat at a table, stooped, his hands clasped together.
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