by Laura Parker
He edged a little nearer, his eyes constantly moving between the lounging prisoner and the bottle. “Best let old Fletch share a spot with ye. Folks is expectin’ a proper hangin’, come the mornin’. Wouldn’t want a riot on account ye spoiled things for the crowd. Ye have too much of the devil’s spirits in, ye’ll not strut up the steps o’ the scaffold like ye promised.”
Merlyn let the man come close enough to touch with an outstretched hand, but he did not move until the turnkey bent to grasp the bottle. Then his action was swifter than the poor gaoler had thought possible.
One moment the cool glass of the bottle was under Fletch’s fingers, the next he was dangling in air, his feet six inches off the ground as the prisoner lifted him up by a handful of his shirtfront.
“’Tis not polite to help oneself without asking,” Merlyn said in a deadly whisper, ignoring the violent struggles of the man who was beginning to choke. “A condemned man is to be left in peace on his last night. I will have peace, one way or—”
The woman’s screams began again, suddenly, whipping Merlyn’s attention toward the open door of his cell. “Who the devil is that?”
Fletch, finding himself released, sank bonelessly to his knees. Immediately he gained his feet and staggered toward the door, out of the reach of the prisoner’s chains.
“Hold!” Merlyn called after the turnkey and bent to scoop up the brandy bottle. He waved it enticingly at the man. “Wasn’t this what you wanted?” His smile grew cunning. “Who’s the woman?”
Fletch pulled himself up straight, tugging his long red coat with the brass buttons into order, but his rummy stare never left the bottle. “That’d be the young lady they brought in this afternoon.”
“Why is she here?” Merlyn took the cork but of the neck and poured a small amount between his lips before giving a satisfied sigh.
It was all the prompting Fletch needed. Speech poured out of him. “Wanderin’ the road north o’ London, she was. Got no purse or jewelry or nothing. Says she can’t even remember her name. The magistrate locked her up in the debtor’s cell till inquiries is made. ’Cept, guv’nor, ye knows well as me, she ain’t lost. More like she’s come for to enter the trade. Mother Tess is makin’ her rounds after—” The turnkey swallowed, unsure that he should mention the hanging again. “Leastways, she’s young enough for Mother Tess to take an interest in.” Fletch cackled with laughter. “She didn’t like above half givin’ her gown to them bawds in the common room. She’s got a bit o’ spirit.” He winked at the prisoner. “Dowerty says he’s goin’ to have a look for himself, just to make certain.”
Merlyn’s expression did not alter. The turnkey’s snickering meant only one thing. Dowerty would rape the girl before turning her over to Mother Tess, one of the most notorious madams in the district.
“Is that why she’s screeching, because Dowerty’s in there with her?”
Fletch shook his head, the long greasy locks of his hair trailing over his coat collar. “Not a bit o’ it, guv’nor. The lady’s scared. Reckon she ain’t familiar with the inside o’ a prison cell. She’s the kind I seen set up to a champagne breakfast in a tavern window across the way to watch some poor blighter kick at a rope’s end. A real genteel whore.”
Merlyn said nothing for a long while. So long, in fact, that the turnkey began to shuffle anxiously in the doorway. Finally, Merlyn raised himself up to his full height, and the look in his one good eye made the turnkey fall back another step.
“You asked me how I’m holding, Master Fletch. I’ll tell you, not well. Aye, I’ve had a bath and a fresh change of linens, brandy and a full belly. But there’s one appetite left me.” He leaned nearer, his one good eye glittering like the icy emerald on his finger. “I want the girl.”
Merlyn felt no compunction about his action. The girl probably earned her keep as a slut. If not, he was merely claiming the right to teach her the skill Mother Tess would demand of her. There were worse ways to learn the trade.
He stretched out the hand with the brandy bottle until the length of chain around that wrist checked him. “Bring me the girl, Fletch, and you’ll have your brandy, and gold besides. I want her untouched. If Dowerty’s been at her, then our bargain’s off. I’ll not have another’s leavings. Understood?”
Fletch nodded rapidly. He had earned a pretty penny bringing the prisoner brandy and tallow; the girl should earn him even more. All he had to do was sneak her out of her cell before Dowerty was any the wiser. If the chief gaoler found her missing, he could always say he didn’t know the girl had been marked special. Besides, Jack Commoner offered gold for her.
Fletch reached for the brandy, to have it drawn back from his reach. “How’s a body to know ye’re to be trusted?” he complained. “This here is Fletch ye’re dealin’ with. I know what’s o’clock, guv’nor, and I’ll be takin’ somethin’ handsome for me trouble.” His avaricious gaze dropped to the magnificent ring the prisoner wore.
Merlyn smiled, a steely cold smile to match the chilling fire of his green eye. “Would a thousand pounds open these fetters and set me free?” he demanded.
“A thou—” Fletch’s tongue stammered to a halt as a delirious, delicious moment of pure greed shivered through him. The greed died quickly. He had seen the color of the prisoner’s gold before. The man did not possess the means in hand, and he doubted a note to the outside world could procure the coinage before morning. His greedy eyes weighed the ring’s gold. The ring alone was not worth the risk.
“Sorry, guv’nor. Ye know as well as the next ’tis a dozen barred doors ’twixt here and freedom. Was I to be caught, they’d string me up beside ye, quick as light.”
Fletch shook his head with a regretful sigh. ’Twas not fair, a thousand pounds offered when he could least afford to gamble on it. A sulky look further drooped his thin features. “Should’ve asked sooner, guv’nor, afore the case came before the courts. Ain’t much a thousand pounds couldn’t buy, not then.”
He turned on his heel, dragging the cell door closed behind him until he remembered that Commoner had offered him gold for the new female prisoner. A smile flickered on the turnkey’s face. It would not be a thousand pounds, but it would be enough to buy a few more bottles of brandy. “Ye still of a mind for the lady, I’ll see to it,” he called as he turned the key in the lock.
Merlyn flung himself back among the bedding. He knew what the turnkey thought. The irony of it was he did have the thousand pounds. They were sewn into the lining of the velvet coat he had worn when arrested. He had not thought of it before because, until this night, he had not truly believed that he would die. A tremor close to fear rippled through him. It was not death he abhorred but the thought that only jackals would profit by it.
Merlyn looked down at the ring on his hand. The emerald and sapphire jewel was his talisman, the key to his secret lives. The gold meant nothing, but he would swallow the ring before he left it to ride the bloody hand of the hangman.
He eased his heavy frame lower in the bed, realizing the girl’s screams had subsided. It had been a long time since he had felt a woman beneath him, even longer since he had truly enjoyed it. What would she be like, this wandering lady of the highway? Perhaps, he thought, raising the bottle yet again, she could make him hate less his impending loss of the world. He had been too little loved in this life. It was the grudge he bore the world. It was all he would regret in dying. But he was not a man given to wasting precious hours in bitterness. He would take what was offered and ask nothing more.
Chapter Two
Her screams having run their course, Cassandra stood rigid in the center of the room. The hysteria had released the pent-up fears of the last hours, but as the terror retreated so did her strength. Her mind, bruised and aching, resisted any effort to flex or operate.
A tremor shook her, but she felt disembodied as she stood in the blackness. Without conscious thought, she wrapped her arms about herself, swaying slightly from side to side as if com
forting a crying child.
“Miss? Ye awake, miss?”
She had not heard the shuffling footsteps moving along the corridor, but the sound of a human voice at her door sent her spinning around. The grille hatch was open and she saw a pair of eyes staring into the darkness of her cell.
“Ye be the wench Dowerty brought in afore dark?”
Cassandra’s heart began to pump, slow thick thuds that shook her as she remembered the gaoler’s promise to return before the night was over.
Don’t answer! her mind urged. Don’t move and he’ll move on!
She knew it was a futile hope even before the key scraped in the lock. In full panic, she threw herself against the far wall, pressing her slender body to the cold, slimy stones as if she could force herself into the mortar that held them together.
Fletch moved cautiously into the room. He had made certain that Dowerty was sitting to his evening meal before coming for the girl. Even so, he did not trust candlelight. It would cast suspicious shadows along a corridor that should be quiet this time of night. The smoking torch on the hall wall stretched dull yellow fingers of light into the cell and Fletch followed them with his eyes until he found the girl.
“Here, miss. Ye’ll catch yer death, pressed up agin’ them stones.” He took a step forward, but a whimper from her made him halt. “Sh!” he cautioned softly. “Ye’ll get the pair o’ us in a mort o’ trouble. ’Tis only Fletch with a bit o’ good news. There’s a gentleman waiting for ye.”
“A gentleman?” Cassandra turned her face toward the light, and Fletch swallowed an oath in astonishment.
She was as pale as linen and some woman’s nails had left thin red trails along her left cheek, but these did not detract from her youthful beauty. The delicate planes of her face, even though muted by shadows, proclaimed that she was no common slut. His eyes moved from her face to her slender throat, then to the tempting roundness of her bosom where the soft sheen of her skin slipped out of his sight into the low, square-cut neckline of her shift. She did not wear her dark hair powdered and dressed high in ringlets like London ladies, but he doubted the prisoner would mind. The heavy fall tumbled nearly to her waist.
Fletch expelled his breath in a greedy chuckle. One look at the girl and Jack Commoner would pay through the nose. “There’s aplenty o’ gold to be had tonight, and don’t I know it!” he murmured delightedly to himself.
“Come along, be a good girl, and I’ll have ye to a warm, dry place afore Dowerty knows what’s what.”
Cassandra narrowed suspicious eyes on the man. “There’s a gentleman to see me?”
“Aye! That’s the ticket. Asked special for ye, he did.”
Who had come for her? Was it rescue? Had she remembered a name, sent for someone, after all? Cassandra closed her eyes briefly as drowsiness washed over her. The minutes were blending together, confusing her. “How—how did he know I’m here?” she questioned softly.
Fletch threw a worried look to the open cell door. Dowerty was not the sort to linger over a meal, especially if he had marked a female for his attentions afterward. “Time’s awastin’, miss. Ye don’t come, Dowerty will, that’s a fact.”
Cassandra started in fright when he stepped up to her, but she did not pull away when his hand slipped under her elbow to guide her from the cell. Anything was better than remaining where Dowerty might find her, she told herself.
“Well? Come on!” Fletch hissed when the girl moved reluctantly into the corridor. “And quiet, mind.”
They moved through a serpentine maze of corridors that never seemed to end. One after the other, the darkened doorways of many cells passed through her vision. So many that she finally lowered her head to shut out thoughts of the misery that lay behind each.
“Here we are, miss,” Fletch said finally, pausing to reach for the ring of keys at his waist. He fitted one into the lock of the nearest door and it opened.
Cassandra watched the yawning opening of another cell in disbelief. “You said a gentleman wanted to see me.” Her heart hammered painful strokes as hysteria began working like fermenting yeast through her veins, rising to the surface of her mind once more. “I thought I was to go free!” she whispered faintly.
Irritated by her reluctance, Fletch reached out to take her by the arm, but she struck him in the face with the flat of her hand and swung wildly away.
“Cor!” Fletch cried. “Ye can’t do that! Come here, ye sneaky little slut!”
The cry did not stop Cassandra. She tore down the hall, only to nearly collide with the burly figure of the chief gaoler who suddenly appeared in the end of the corridor. The light from the torch in his meaty fist briefly illuminated his gross features and what she saw made the bile rise to her throat. He was grinning at her, the black stubs of his rotten teeth revealed within thick lips. “Come here, girlie,” he said, raising his arms to her.
Sickened by the possibility of being swallowed in his filthy embrace, she turned to run in the opposite direction, but Fletch blocked her path. Fear hung like an icy splinter in her throat as she realized she was trapped. Then, suddenly, she saw the open cell door, inviting her to seek shelter in the darkness it offered. In desperation she launched herself across the threshold and into the blackness.
“Had I realized my offer would be so repugnant to you, I could have saved us both the trouble.”
The deep masculine voice, as soft as velvet, sounded in the darkness as strong arms reached out to halt her headlong flight. A moment later she was enfolded against the firm hard warmth of another body. In speechless surprise, Cassandra looked up to the man towering above her.
Shadows dulled the details of his features, but she had the impression of a harshly handsome face striped by a leather patch which hid one eye. And power, a power so strong that her fear momentarily subsided. Yielding once more to instinct, she stayed within the stranger’s embrace. She felt no fear, no inkling of danger, as she accepted the heat of his body against hers, his dark form like a mast about which sailors lashed themselves in a storm. There was only the feeling of power, of security, of safety, that she had felt once long ago in the arms of another stranger. Without conscious thought she spoke the words forming in her mind.
“Please, have mercy! Save me!”
Two loud belches rumbled up from his belly as Dowerty moved into the dim cell. He did not like interruptions at mealtime and his natural inclination to dyspepsia flared at the sight that greeted his eyes. There before him, her slender arms locked about the waist of a condemned prisoner, stood the flighty bit of muslin he had labeled his own this night.
“What’s this?” Dowerty swung around and grabbed Fletch by the collar. Twice the size and weight of the turnkey, Dowerty shook Fletch with the tenacity of a bulldog with a bone. “Try to cozen me, will ye?” He thrust the man’s head against the wall, and it made a sickening thud as it connected with the stone.
Fletch shrieked out his pain, blood gushing from his broken nose, as Dowerty cast him bodily into the corridor. “Out! Ye scum! Out!” Scrambling to his feet, the turnkey fled into the dark.
Dowerty hoisted his breeches with a hand and turned back into the cell, his torch lighting the way. He recognized instantly the prisoner’s posture of challenge, and his eyes slid from the man’s broad shoulders to the fetters circling his right wrist. His gaze lowered to the iron ring around the prisoner’s right ankle, and he smiled for the first time. The prisoner was hampered by the weight and length of his chains.
All of this passed quickly through the gaoler’s mind. His real interest was the girl. A frown scored his narrow brow as he realized that she now was nearly hidden by the barrier of the prisoner’s tall frame.
“Stand free o’ the prisoner, wench!” he ordered.
For a moment Cassandra held her breath, in expectation of a challenge from her defender, but the tall man said nothing, his shadow the only comfort offered. Swallowing her bitter disappointment, she forced herself to step beyond the
shadow, her fingers tightening into white-knuckled fists.
“Aye, that’s better,” Dowerty exclaimed in smacking satisfaction as the girl’s half-dressed figure came into his view. He watched as the torch’s flame slipped up and over the curves of her breasts, dancing in the valley between and seeking the places where his own fingers would soon delve. Lust swelled his dirty breeches, increasing his impatience.
“Come along quiet, girl. We’ve a bit o’ business to pass between us.” He reached out grinning for her, but Cassandra drew back out of his reach, a shiver of revulsion sweeping her.
Dowerty’s gaze narrowed, the puffy flesh about his eyes nearly swallowing them. “So! ’Twill be that way.” A malicious grin drew back his thick red lips from a jumble of blackened teeth. “I’ve showed better tarts than ye how to give a man his due.”
“No!” Cassandra whirled on the silent chained man, despair making her bold. “Please, sir, can you do nothing?”
Merlyn turned his emerald gaze on the young girl who did not quite reach his shoulder, and the smile he offered her was bittersweet. “You ask for my help,” he said gently. “What you truly expect is protection for your virtue. That I will not promise, but I can spare you this.”
Dowerty’s piggish eyes darted from one to another, understanding at last why the girl had been allowed out of her cell. A cunning look came into his muddy brown eyes. “The bitch’s mine, and there’s an end to it.”
Merlyn knew what was expected and reached into the pocket of his breeches to withdraw a coin purse. His gaze never left the girl’s panic-stricken face as he said to the gaoler, “’Tis all I have. Take it and leave.”
Dowerty’s eyes moved mockingly over the prisoner and a sly grin creased his features. “I could bash yer head in with this torch and take yer gold and the wench to boot.”
Merlyn shrugged. “If you wish to cheat the hangman of his fee, ’tis no matter to me.”