The Landlord's Black-Eyed Daughter (20 page)

With a sigh, Elizabeth dismounted in front of a small inn. Several floral arrangements graced the bay windows overlooking the court, and she felt mollified by the brightness. From the shadows at the edge of the yard, a thin wail emerged.

Tentatively, she approached the shadows and bent over. The noise came from inside a bundle of rags. “Dear God, 'tis a baby!”

“Don't touch it!” Rand slid from Prancer.

Elizabeth straightened. “But we can't just leave it here. We can't just let it die.”

“London is filled with abandoned babies, Bess. Children are often maimed for begging purposes, or simply deserted. 'Tis not pleasant, but nothing can be done.”

She stared down at the tiny, pinched face. “It seems so unfair, especially when I've been so long barren.”

“Barren? What are you talking about?”

A fist knotted inside her stomach. “I don't know why I said that. I didn't mean to. What should we do with the baby?”

“We can't take it with us.”

“But you saved Old Fife's baby.”

“That was the Dales. London has her own ways,” he said, attempting to explain the unexplainable. “Should you try and rescue all the children, you would find yourself the mother of fifty thousand.”

“I don't want to rescue thousands. I want to save one. How much money do we have left from the sale of the duchess's diamond ring?”

“Thirty guineas. Why?”

“Hand over ten… no, twenty guineas.”

Puzzled, he drew the coins from his purse and pressed them against her palm.

She scooped up the weightless bundle, then backtracked toward the milkmaid. “Here,” she said. “I'll give you ten guineas if you take this little one home with you.”

The milkmaid shook her head. “I have three at home already.”

“Fifteen guineas.”

“Your master don't care,” the milkmaid said. “Why should you?”

Momentarily, Elizabeth had forgotten that she was garbed as a man. Deepening her voice, she said, “Twenty guineas and that's my last offer.”

“For twenty guineas I'd take the devil's own spawn. 'Tis a bargain.”

“My master has spies all over London, so if you leave the baby on another street I'll find out. Then I shall find
you
and run a sword through your gullet. Do you understand?”

The milkmaid snatched up the guineas. “That I do, sir.”

Elizabeth returned to Rand, who led her to their room. Once inside, she tossed her mantle upon the bed and sank down beside it. She felt as if she had just run a foot race. Would the milkmaid grow to love the child? Or would she discard it when the guineas were spent? Elizabeth thought she heard a thousand baby wails, blending with the rain that drummed upon the tile roof. Rand was right. She couldn't save them all.

“London is a brutal place,” she said mournfully. “I don't like it here. I remember the dancing and the theatre and the pleasant strolls. I remember London as magical.”

“Poor Bess. Tomorrow, just before we meet up with my cousins, I shall take you boating. That should revive your spirits.”

“Are you insane? We must visit Southwark Cathedral and Charles Beresford. I should think you'd be anxious—”

“No, love. First an outing, then Southwark.”

His mouth tightened and she knew from experience he could not be swayed. “All right, I'll boat with you. I'll even ply the oars. Does that make you happy?”

“Yes. But 'tis
your
smile I crave.” Tossing her hat aside, he removed the pins from her tightly coiled hair. Then he combed the silken strands between his spread fingers.

“Could you have left the baby all alone?” she asked, resting her head in his lap. “I mean, had I not been along?”

“No, Bess. I would have delivered it to a foundling home. Yours was the better solution, I think.”

Elizabeth heaved a deep sigh. If circumstances had been different, she would have kept the abandoned baby. After all, she had petitioned God with a thousand masses, a million prayers, begging him to cure her barrenness.

A shudder coursed through her. The Protestant Elizabeth would never petition God with masses. But the Lady Jane would. Once again, Elizabeth realized that she had melded five hundred years into the present.

Rising from the bed, she crossed to the window. Black beads of water slipped down the glass and blurred Rand's reflection as he crept up behind her.

“I wonder what we shall find at Southwark,” he said, slipping his arms around her waist. “Will the sight of Ranulf Navarre's tomb provide us with what we need to know?”

Elizabeth removed her neckband and fingered the golden coil of rope upon her neck, thick as a hangman's noose. She had betrayed Ranulf, that much
she
knew. Rand didn't. If he found out, would it destroy their love?

Lady Jane's betrayal had occurred five hundred years ago, and yet Rand was obsessed with the past. Once they left England, would the ghosts that haunted them remain in Evesham? “If you truly loved me, Rand, we would pay Charles Beresford a hasty call, then flee London.”

“I truly love you and we shall visit Southwark on the morrow. Don't fret, Bess. If we cross paths with your bloody lawman, I'll protect you.”

What about Ranulf Navarre? Will you protect me from him? Who shall protect you, my love? Not Lady Jane. She betrayed you, though you know it not.

A log popped in the fire. Elizabeth felt Rand remove her shirt, then her breast binding. Bunching her hair with his hand, he rained kisses down upon her neck and shoulders.

Outside the window, London's black rain fell. But at least it would not fall on the face of one nameless baby.

Elizabeth sighed.
I cannot save them all. I wish I could. Just as I wish I could save Rand from himself.

“Oars! Oars!” the boatmen called out, as Elizabeth descended the stairs below the Tower of London. Garbed in natty uniforms, swarming over the docks, the watermen tried to solicit rides along the Thames. All wore embossed plates on their doublets, displaying the arms of their various protectors. Rand motioned to a young man who wore the arms of the Lord Mayor. Other boatmen castigated their rival by shouting good-natured obscenities.

Rand's choice possessed a lanky build which had very nearly outgrown the gawkiness of adolescence. “My name is Davey, sir,” he said, his ears red. Davey's voice insisted on changing octaves, and Elizabeth kept her laughter at bay by biting down hard upon her lip. “I charge sixpence for two,” the lad continued. “Double that if you would pass London Bridge.”

“What say you, lass?” Rand winked. “Dare we risk the tide? Some consider it dangerous.”

“Yes, I know.” She adjusted her green silk hood so that more of her face was visible. “Why not take the risk? I seem to enjoy dangerous things.”

After Davey had helped them into his brightly painted red boat, Rand said, “I trust you can swim, Bess.”

“I never learned.” She squeezed his hand. “I shall let you save me.”

“I never learned, either. I guess that means we sink or swim together.”

“Hasn't it always been thus, my love?”

Davey removed the tent overhead and Elizabeth glanced around. The turrets of White Tower, belonging to the Tower of London, thrust above the bank on the opposite side of the river. City roofs peeked above the Tower walls. Thousands of red and green boats glutted the shoreline.

Rand looked toward the Tower. “That's where I first found out about Ranulf Navarre.”

Before Elizabeth could question him, he changed the topic. “Thirty thousand watermen work the Thames, Bess. It was even worse during the war. Watermen can't be pressed into naval service so everyone wanted to navigate the blasted river. I swear I saw the Prince of Wales himself haunting the docks.”

They glided into the main flow of traffic. The Thames was so densely populated, Elizabeth couldn't see the water, though she certainly smelled it. Davey said that trout, lampreys, porpoises, and salmon were caught from its depths, but Elizabeth could scarce credit the lad's veracity. The stench alone would kill any living thing.

Lowering her hood, she settled against Rand's arm and tried to ignore the enormous vessels on both sides of their small craft. Davey was now singing, “Row the boat, Norman, row to thy leman.”

Her stomach felt hollow. Davey was so young. Surely someone so young couldn't be wise in the ways of the river. “I trust you were teasing when you said you couldn't swim,” she murmured, turning her face toward Rand.

He merely grinned.

She gazed upwards. Just like her hopes and dreams for a bright future, the sun shone intermittently. Following their boat ride and a midday meal, she and Rand would visit Southwark Cathedral. Then they would pay Beresford a call. Tonight, God willing, they'd be bound for Dover.

Until recently, London Bridge had been the lone bridge across the Thames, and Elizabeth knew from her first visit that the rise and fall of the tides flowing through its narrow archways produced wicked rapids. Six months ago she had firmly refused any offer of a boat ride. Why had she accepted today? Because Rand admired courage?

As they neared the bridge, she fancied she heard screams. “Rand!” she cried. “People are drowning!”

“No, Bess. 'Tis the various songs of the watermen.”

The roar of the river heightened while the boat increased its speed. Truly frightened, Elizabeth buried her head beneath Rand's somber wool coat. Waistcoat buttons dimpled her cheek and brow. A spray of water drenched her cloak and her gown's hem flounces. The boat lurched and jumped. A wave slammed against her body. The boat shuddered.

This is the end,
she thought, clinging to Rand. They would drown. Her unidentified body would be washed up on the shore and be buried in a pauper's grave. She heard the mocking echo of Rand's words:
Just think what you missed, Bess, living all those years on the moors.

“'Tis over, my love.” With an exultant laugh, Rand lifted the front of his coat. “You can come out now.”

“I honestly thought we might drown.”

He shook his head. “We live a charmed life. Our fate is not to breathe water until we breathe our last.”

“Of course. Your fate is to run with the hart,” she said, remembering his statement outside her father's inn. She wanted to ask him what
her
destiny might be, hart or hearth, but she bit back the question. Perhaps he wouldn't have the answer. Perhaps she didn't want to know.

Finally, mercifully, they disembarked at Westminster Bridge, then strolled across one of the bridge's two pedestrian paths. Rand had made plans to join his London cousins, Billy and Thomas Turnbull, Zak's younger brothers. Elizabeth tried to summon enthusiasm, but she still felt shaken by the boat ride. And even though she was surrounded by so many people, she experienced a sudden vulnerability. Walter might be ensconced in one of the scrolled and gilded carriages forever rattling along the roadway.

Midway across the bridge, she and Rand met Billy and Tom. During the subsequent conversation, Elizabeth kept thinking Billy looked familiar. Since he was short, stocky, and possessed a thatch of wheat-colored hair, he didn't resemble Rand, so she couldn't attribute her notion to a family resemblance.

“I've a good eye for faces,” she said, staring at Billy, “and I'm certain I've seen yours before.”

“Billy's a pugilist.” Rand grinned. “He's hoping to make the Championships next year. He's been the subject of several newspaper articles and written up in the
Gentleman's Magazine.
Perhaps that's where you saw him, Bess.”

“You don't look at all like your cousin, Mr. Turnbull,” she pressed.

“I'm the spittin' image of me father, Miss Wyndham, more's the pity.”

“Pity?”

“Me dad was a thievin' bastard.”

“If Billy scores at the Championships, his future will be assured,” Tom said, unperturbed by his brother's epithet. “Billy will make a fortune… handkerchiefs, mugs, statuettes, all with his gruesome face painted on 'em.” Tom nudged his brother good-naturedly, then grinned at Elizabeth. “On the other hand, I plan to make my fortune in a less hurtful manner. I'm employed as a croupier at one of London's finest gambling establishments, Shepherd's. Perhaps you've heard of it.”

“I believe my publisher mentioned Shepherd's. He visits often, with his wife.” Elizabeth studied Tom from beneath her lowered lashes. He might be a good five years younger, a shade prettier, his build less powerful, his clothes more foppish, but at first glance his resemblance to Rand was startling.

“I expect my job to be a stepping stone to wealth,” Tom said, stroking his beard. “I'm tired of poverty. I'm tired of living in some flat over the buttock bawds at Covent Garden. Nightly I see the richest lords and ladies drop thousands of pounds in one sitting. Why them and not me, I ask myself.”

“And wot's yer answer?” Billy teased.

“No reason, I tell myself. I've refined my tongue, and Mr. Shepherd gives croupiers a percentage of the take. Someday I'll have enough to buy my own establishment.”

“I applaud your honest ambition, Mr. Turnbull.” Despite Tom's resemblance to Rand, despite his friendly personality, Elizabeth mistrusted him, though she couldn't say why. Due to recent tribulations, her instincts had become more sharply honed, or maybe it was because Tom shared Walter's unctuously sincere manner.

They lounged at the side of the bridge, above the glittering Thames. Gaily dressed couples strolled past, the women sheltered beneath frilly parasols. Admiring one such parasol, Elizabeth felt her nape prickle—something was amiss in Rand's disposition. Turning slowly, she saw that his hand pressed hard against the stone railing. His gaze was riveted on a large vessel moored nearby. Gray from lack of paint, the vessel sported a splintered mast, a total absence of rigging, and a hull blanketed with barnacles.

Rand gestured toward the abandoned ship. “Whenever I cross this bridge, I cannot help but think of Zak. He was imprisoned in that hulk. When I left for the American War, he went there for robbery.”

Elizabeth wrapped her cloak more tightly around her, as if the green silk might somehow provide some warmth against the chill of Rand's disclosure. “There are people in that wreck?” she asked, appalled.

“London might seem a fine place t' you, Miss Wyndham,” Billy said, “but for the rest of us…” He shrugged. “'Tis a truth that England don't believe in prisons. She would rather rid herself o' scofflaws by shippin' 'em off t' the American colonies or Australia, places far away. When the American War came along and transport was scarcer than hen's teeth, the law mewed up convicts in old ships. 'Twas less costly than buildin' new prisons.”

Elizabeth's hands tightened on the balustrade. A sudden wind off the Thames tugged at her sodden cloak and whipped her hair across her cheeks.

“To save space, prisoners are packed together on three decks,” Rand said. “The newest arrivals are put on the lowest and those few who survive on top. The air is foul, of course, and I needn't tell you about the food. At night the hatches are screwed down and the men left to kill each other in the darkness, or plot revenge against those who put them there.”

He sounded so caustic and bitter, Elizabeth wanted to take him in her arms and comfort him. God's teeth! No wonder Rand was so contemptuous of authority.

Overhead, seagulls circled and screeched. The shoreline was cluttered with beached pleasure craft, tumble-down shacks, fishermen casting their nets, and washerwomen pounding clothes against the rocks. Billy and Rand's attention remained on the prison hulk, while Tom ogled passing ladies.

“Soon after I returned from the war, Zak was released,” Rand continued. “Our grandmother, who had taken it upon herself to raise all the Turnbull boys, managed to nurse Zak's body back to health, but his soul was scarred. Zak and I were a pair. He hated everyone and I hated everything.”

Elizabeth could understand Rand's impotent rage toward a system that was so uncaring, so unjust, but she asked her question anyway. “Knowing that you could end up in such a place,” she said, nodding toward the ship, “how could you have stolen so much as a shilling?”

“Because they'll never catch me.”

“I would imagine that's what Zak said.”

“I'm not Zak.”

“'Tis true we Turnbulls are the black sheep o' the family,” Billy said, “which on the whole is fairly respectable. Our downfall began with our mother, Franny.”

Tom removed his attention from the passing parade long enough to say, “Do not bother Miss Wyndham with the sordid tale of our past, Billy. The day is far too lovely, and so is she.”

“I don't mind,” Elizabeth said. While Tom might be far younger than Walter Stafford, he had effectively learned to ape the bored, arrogant manner of the upper classes.

Billy launched into his tale of Frances Remington's march to perdition. Although Franny had died during his infancy, Billy knew all about his mother's infatuation with, and marriage to, a handsome ne'er-do-well who persuaded her to share in his illegal activities.

“Includin' prostitution,” Billy said. “At least till she was twenty-three and past a good age. Then Father involved Mum and Zak in petty thievery. When Mum was twenty-nine and Zak fourteen, they was caught and sentenced t' die.”

“Our mother was beautiful, so they tell us,” Tom said. “With long dark hair, much the color of yours, Miss Wyndham. Our grandmother, who repeated the story more times than I care to count, said Mother remained gay and lighthearted, even up to the time they pulled the bucket out from under her.”

Billy's powerful hands balled into fists. “For part of Zak's ‘instruction,' the authorities forced him to watch Mum kick the bucket. Zak was supposed t' be hanged, but he cried. The crowd yelled at him for his cowardice and the hangman had to chase him 'round the scaffold.”

No wonder Zak had developed such a careless bravado, thought Elizabeth. He wanted to wipe out the scorn he had endured when he was only fourteen.

“My family had ridden up from Cornwall for the execution,” said Rand, “so we witnessed the entire event. I was a mere lad, but I remember it well.”

Rand could scarcely be heard above the scraping of the iron carriage wheels or the music of the street musicians playing below. Elizabeth had learned that when he was agitated, Rand's voice became deceptively low-pitched.

“Zak scurried about that scaffold for what seemed like hours,” he continued, his voice bitter. “When Zak was finally caught, the hangman threw him to the ground and strangled him with a silken cord. Near death, Zak was pulled to his feet, splashed with a bucket of water, then tied to the tail of the very same horse that had pulled Franny's cart.”

“How dreadful!” Elizabeth knew she could never reproduce the scene for one of her novels. Unfortunately, the majority of her readers would be delighted rather than sympathetic.

As if to confirm her last thought, Tom said, “Grandmother told us the crowd didn't care. They were overjoyed.”

“After Mum's death and Zak's release, our grandmother stayed in London t' help raise us,” said Billy. “Our father, God rot his twisted soul, died some years later.”

“He was hanged?”

“No, Miss Wyndham. He was knifed by a Bow Street Runner. They say that when the blade pierced me dad's gut, gin flowed from his belly and soaked the street.”

Elizabeth's hand closed over Billy's fist. She had meant her gesture to express compassion, but the words she summoned surprised her. “I know I've seen you before, Mr. Turnbull. Have you ever visited the Dales?”