Abigail willed her stomach not to revolt. There were children among the women in that cell. What could a child have done to deserve this? Tears welled into her eyes, not just for the children, but for Dominic, who had endured this torment for the past week. When she recalled how he delighted in the breeze blowing in his face, she knew the punishment must be doubly severe for him.
She looked at the turnkey. “Please take me to Captain St. Clair.” As she slid away from the grasping fingers, others clutched the back of her skirt. She whirled to see another prison cell behind her. This one was filled with men as ragged as the women. More children peered through the bars, their slender arms unable to reach far.
Pritchard laughed again and lifted his lantern close to her face. As her hair caught the light, a man called out, “Put ’er in ’ere, turnkey. Treat ’er real nice, we will. Just for the night. Give ’er back to ye in the morning.”
“No!” she cried as the man seized her arm. Her hands curled around the bars as she tried to push herself away. Rust cut her palms.
With a snicker, Pritchard said, “Seems like yer pennies have gotten ye ’bout as far as ye are going, missy.”
Escaping to the middle of the corridor, she tried to straighten her gown. Her trembling fingers refused to work. “You have been paid to take me to Captain St. Clair.”
“Seems to me any friend of that Frenchie pirate must be a criminal as well.” He grinned. “Might be doing everyone a favor to lock ye away.”
“You must be insane!” She glanced at the skeletal women. “You cannot put me in with them!”
“Not over there.” Grasping her arm, he twisted her to face the cell where the men shouted lustful obscenities and crooked their fingers at her. “In here. How long do ye think ye could survive with them? Yer choice, missy. Ten shillings, or in ye go.”
“Ten?” Her voice was faint in her ears.
“Ten,” he repeated.
“Put ’er in ’ere, turnkey! We’ll tend to ’er right nicely.” The man who had grabbed her leered as his broad hand reached for her.
With fingers that shook so harshly she did not know if she could open her bag, Abigail withdrew the coins. Tessie had warned her to take at least a guinea with her. Now Abigail understood why. Pritchard chortled as she counted the coins into his hand. She would worry about how she would pay for another visit later. Right now, all she wanted was to escape this abyss.
Pritchard’s clawlike fingers tightened on her arm as he hurried her up a flight of stairs. Shouts and curses followed them until he closed a door behind them at the top.
It was as if they had entered a different world. Although the doors still had bars in small windows covered with sliding panels, the passage was lit with candles every few feet along the wall. Some doors had the panels pushed aside. At them, the faces pressed to the bars did not look as cadaverous as the ones below. These were the fortunate ones whose friends and family could afford to bribe the guards.
Pritchard paused before a door that looked exactly the same as the others. Peering in, he called, “St. Clair!”
“Shut up, Pritchard!”
“Dominic,” she whispered, not sure if, until now, she had believed she actually would see him again.
“St. Clair, ye’ve got company.”
“Begone!” Dominic’s voice set her heart thudding against her breastbone.
“Ahoy there, Cap’n! Prepare to be boarded.” Pritchard guffawed.
Footsteps and the clank of metal came from beyond the door. The small panel slid aside. Dominic looked out the narrow opening and gasped, “Abigail!”
“Dominic.” She wanted to say more. She had so much she wanted to tell him, but she could only whisper his name.
“Are ye goin’ to stand here or go in?” Pritchard asked.
“Open the door, please,” she said, her gaze still held by Dominic’s. “Don’t ask for more money. I have paid you all I can today.”
Her suggestion of future bribes brought a smile to his lips. He sought along his key ring for the key for this door. “Back away, St. Clair. If ye try anything, yer pretty lady will be the one to suffer.” He added to Abigail, “Ye have half an hour. That should give ye time to complete yer business.”
Abigail knew she was blushing, but said nothing as he pulled out the key and the door swung back with the hushed whisper of well-oiled hinges. Pritchard’s hand in the center of her back shoved her inside. She gasped when she heard the key jangling again in the lock.
“He will come back for you,” Dominic said with a tight smile while he slid the panel closed so the turnkey could not spy on them.
“Are you sure?”
“How else will he get the bribe you will pay him to take you out of here?”
“Tessie’s money did not buy much here, did it?”
“Tessie?”
“A friend.” She did not explain further as she looked around the small room. A table, a rickety chair, and a bed frame heaped with straw were the only furnishings. A slit allowed in some light and fresh air. She flinched when she heard Pritchard’s laugh fading down the passage and wondered what it would cost her to get out of this prison.
Dominic cupped her chin and brushed her lips with a gentle kiss. She flung her arms around him. When she heard the clank of iron as he stepped closer, she pulled back in horror. Manacles weighed heavily on his ankles.
She could not look away. The chain between his ankles forced him to walk awkwardly and ensured he could not outrun any guard. Impotent fury filled her, but she forced it deep within her. Anger would not help him.
“I should thank both you and Tessie for this luxury,” he said, startling her out of her shock.
“How are you faring?”
He curved his finger along her cheek. “As well as any man who has spent the past week rotting at the bottom of a black well.” His voice grew raw with need. “How could I have forgotten in a single week how truly beautiful you are? I have thought so often of you, wondering if you are well, fearing what Fitzgerald would do to you.”
Dominic frowned when Abigail turned away. Her face had closed up when he spoke her father’s name. What had the bastard done to her now? He knew he should ask, but he did not want to waste a moment of this short time arguing. Instead, he yearned to relish her beauty and listen to the soft lilt of her voice, the very voice that had sifted through his dreams that had pulled him out of this living nightmare. Even more, he ached to pull her into his arms and savor her soft touch.
When she shrugged off her cloak and folded it over the chair, he clenched his hands at his sides, knowing that the torment he had suffered before was less than what he felt now when he saw her in a dress of golden silk that accented the highlights in her hair. The neckline scooped lower than what she had worn on the Republic. Her slender profile teased him to pull her into his arms and love her as he had dreamed of doing during the week they had been separated.
He took a single step toward her, then froze when the chain on his ankles clanked. If he tried to hold her now, the clank of his manacles would provide the melody playing through their rapture. No, he would not taint their pleasure with that horror.
“Being in the pit downstairs was not so bad once I subdued those who thought they could subdue me,” Dominic said when she turned to face him.
She shivered. “They are beasts.”
He frowned. “How do you know?”
“Pritchard took me there.”
“To get more money from you?”
When she nodded, his hands knotted more tightly into fists. He wanted his fingers around Pritchard’s throat. “How much did it cost you to get here?”
“Eleven shillings.”
He forced his anger aside. It would do her no good if he infuriated the turnkey. “Then sit down, Abigail. You have paid highly for this visit and this luxury. The least I can do is be a charming host. You will, of course, be polite and not mention the clank of these irons around my ankles.”
“Dominic, stop it!”
She grasped his forearms. “Please stop making this sound like a joke. I am trying to help you. Can’t you be serious for one moment?”
“Why? If I take this seriously, I have to believe I will soon hang.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Do you still need to ask?”
Abigail smiled shyly and lowered her eyes. “Anything else, I mean?”
“Can you come back again?”
She nodded. His intense tone warned that he already was planning something. Mayhap it would be the very thing that could free him.
“I can come into the village as often as I wish, and I can come here as often as I wish,” she replied. “As long as I pay the turnkey, of course.”
“Of course,” he repeated grimly. Stepping away from her, he paced the narrow room. At the clatter that matched each step, she shuddered. He scowled. “Do not waste your sympathy on me now, Abigail.”
“I hate seeing you here.”
He paused in front of her. His broad hands settled on her shoulders, then rose so his fingers spread along her face in a gentle caress. “I hate being here,” he whispered. “I hate being away from you, chérte.” He frowned as he tipped her arm toward him. “What is this?”
“Just a bruise.”
“A bruise? There are several here. If Fitzgerald—”
“This is not his doing.”
“Then whose?”
“It is just a bruise, Dominic.” She forced a smile. “I have not been as cooperative as others would wish.”
“That is no surprise, chérie, but no one should hurt you like this.”
“I will be fine.” She took a deep breath, then lied with a smile. “It shan’t happen again.”
He hesitated before nodding. “Then tell me where you are living.”
Abigail was not so quick with this answer. Although no one in the prison might know of the abuse she was suffering, it must be known throughout the village where she was living. She did not want to burden Dominic further. He could not help her, and she feared he would do something foolish if she revealed why Captain Fitzgerald had brought her to England. She must answer his questions, so he would be satisfied and ask no one else.
Quietly she said, “I am a guest at the home of Sir Harlan Morris.”
“Sir Harlan Morris? That traitorous mercenary?”
“You know of him?”
Dominic nodded. “Aye, as does any man who sails between the Continent and America. He has a fleet of ships, but he seldom engages in normal shipping. He prefers higher profits, so he works for whichever government will buy his loyalty.”
“Then why isn’t he in prison?”
“Because right now, I would guess, it is more convenient for the British government to have him working for them.”
“That would explain why he and Captain Fitzgerald are friends.”
“Captain Fitzgerald?” Dominic frowned. “Why are you calling your father that?”
Abigail quickly told him the truth that Captain Fitzgerald had delighted in divulging. Wrapping her arms around herself, she whispered, “I wish I could remember my mother.”
“As I wish I could recall something of my father.”
“I hope I can someday go to my aunt and tell her how wonderful she was to take in a child she could have hated. But she loved me as if I were her own. How I would like to thank her for that.” She gazed up into his eyes. A sweet warmth seeped from her center. She leaned forward, and her hands swept up his arms to grasp his elbows. “Most of all, I wish to help you.”
“What I need is information.”
“I can try and get it for you.”
Dominic smiled, but his expression chilled her. “Captain Fitzgerald is not the only one interested in seeing me dead.”
“I know.”
“The Americans and the English would send me to hang.”
“I know.”
“But you will still help me?”
“How can you ask me that? I thought you realized that I want to help you.” Her voice rose with her pain. “I suffered the horror of coming here to see you, so I could help you. Now you accuse me of wanting to help those who wish to see you dead.”
With a groan, he pulled her into his arms. “Chérie, forgive me for doubting you, but I had to ask.”
“I know.” She hid her face against his chest. Here was where she wanted to be. In his arms, where she could think of nothing but the joy of his touch.
Reaching up, she drew his mouth to hers. Their breaths mingled, growing strained, but he raised his head with a remorseful sigh. She reached for him again. Shaking his head, he said, “This is not the place for what is so sweet.”
Abigail nodded. Anything she might say could convince him that she feared he was doomed. She would not believe that. There must be a way to save him.
“Have you heard when my trial is?” Dominic asked as he began pacing again.
“No one can tell me that. Or they will not tell me.” Sighing, she sat on the bed, ignoring the prickly hay. Her shoulders sagged.
Dominic halted. The clatter of the chains echoed in the room as he looked at Abigail waiting on his bed. The fantasy that had kept him from madness was now real before him. Non! He would not hold her here. If he did not survive this, he wanted her to remember the joy they had shared at Sudley Hall, not a desperate coupling in a jail cell before he was sent to hang.
Sitting next to her on the straw, he put his arm around her. She quivered like a sail in a fickle wind. When she leaned her head against his shoulder, he raised her hand to his lips.
Softly he said, “We must contact La Chanson de la Mer. You will have to do that.”
“Me?” She pulled away, her eyes wide with shock.
He smiled. “Can you travel whenever you want?”
Abigail thought of how she would have to be cooperative about spending time with Clive in order to be granted such a favor. Looking up into Dominic’s eyes which glowed with enthusiasm, she knew she had no choice if she wished to help him. “I can find a way.”
“Good.” He looked about the room and cursed. “Do you have a coin or two?”
She opened her bag and placed two shillings in his hand.
Sliding open the panel and pounding on the door, Dominic got Pritchard’s attention. “I want paper and ink and something to write with,” he ordered.
Pritchard sneered, “And I want a carriage and four.”
“I can pay.”
“How much?”
“Two shillings if you bring them now.”
Pritchard’s eyes sparkled with greed. “I shall have them here in no time.” He rushed away.
Dominic turned and asked Abigail about what was happening beyond the prison’s walls. He was interested in news on any subject. Only then did Abigail realize how he had been cut off from the world here.
A knock intruded. Dominic passed the coins through the bars in exchange for the paper, quill, and ink. “Give her another fifteen minutes, Pritchard. You cheated her enough already.”
“She just paid me to keep her away from yer friends. Yer old buddy Chapman was right interested in yer pretty lady.”
Dominic’s hushed voice did not hide his fury. “Bring her directly here next time.”
“I will bring her any way I wish, St. Clair.”
“Will you?” He leaned his elbow on the small window and smiled. “Take her any way but the most direct route here and I will find myself talking to Captain Josephy about how you do not pay him his share of your bribes.”
Pritchard’s face paled.
“Do we understand each other?” Dominic continued. “Take any other visitors I have any way you wish and charge what you wish to help them find their way out, but not Miss Fitzgerald.”
“Ye are wasting the time she has left today,” Pritchard answered, but the fear was bright in his eyes. “Fifteen minutes; then she must leave.”
Dominic nodded and crossed the room to where Abigail was struggling not to smile. She should
have realized Dominic St. Clair would end up being in command, even in jail. He spread the paper across the table and began to write. When she stood, intending to read over his shoulder, he said, “No, chérie, do not read it. You will be safer if you remain ignorant of what is in it.”
“If you are writing in French, I cannot read it.”
“Some words are similar enough.” He folded the page, sealed it with wax, and pressed it in her hand. “See that it is delivered to Ogier on La Chanson or my friend Evan Somerset.”
“How?”
“In London you can find a man named Red at the Brass Fish, a tavern near the Pool. I was on my way to speak with him when I received the message that brought me to Fitzgerald’s house. Red can arrange for the note’s delivery.”
“In London? You want me to go back to London?”
He chuckled. “Chérie, I told you once that I would be a fool not to know every man in England whose loyalty can be bought.”
Abigail shivered. Loyalty was no longer clear-cut. Sir Harlan had bought his son a bride not only with cash, but with guns which would be turned against Americans. “I have learned that. But how—”
“Try.”
“I will, Dominic, but we are almost five hours from London.”
He frowned. “Five hours?”
“By coach.”
“So far? Are you certain?”
She nodded. “When you were brought here—”
“I slept.” His lips twisted at the memory. “Fitzgerald’s men must have drugged the wine they gave me. I have had no idea where we are.” He sighed. “Can you get from here to London, chérie?”
“I will try. I will try as soon as possible.”
His hand curved along her face. “Come back soon.”
“I will as soon as I have some information for you.”
Standing, he drew her to her feet and into his arms. “Or sooner, chérie. Your smile brightens my eyes, wiping away the darkness of despair.”
Unsure how to reply to such surprising honesty without revealing the pity which he would despise, she nodded. “I will.”
When he tilted her mouth beneath his, she welcomed his kiss. She sighed and pressed more closely to him as she rediscovered the tender torment of being close to him and not being able to share their passion. As his lips glided across her face, teasing, taunting, daring her to surrender, she clung to him. His fingers moved along her, cupping her breast. Against his mouth, she gasped when rapture threatened to overwhelm her.
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