"The Blessed Virgin's answered my prayers!" George backed into the rectory and collapsed onto the stairs behind him, covering his eyes with a hand as if in prayer. He probably was praying. Lucky had been doing plenty of it himself. Once the door was firmly closed behind the men, George crossed himself and looked up at them, his face drawn and solemn. "Mary-Michael's been sentenced to hang in three months."
"For what?"
He shouted the words, disbelieving what he was hearing. He collapsed onto his knees, unable to understand how this could have gone so far, but incredibly thankful to have received George's letter when he did.
"Gideon's gone to see the governor as he was a friend of Spenser's, and Baxter's gone to Baltimore to file an appeal. He also mentioned filing an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States."
For the first time since coming ashore Lucky could take in the words of the men with him. "Get the ambassador up here," Michael said. "Tell Fox we need his help again."
"What's the fastest way to Washington from here?" Ren asked.
"Even with the new train, boat is still the fastest," Ian replied.
"Let's get Lia and Marcus," Ren said. "Once they are safe at an inn, we sail. I'm sure Her Grace will appreciate terra firma."
"Her
Grace?"
George looked at Lucky, confusion spreading across his brow.
Quickly, Lucky introduced the priest to his brother-in-law, His Grace, the Duke of Caversham. He added, "The duchess of whom he speaks is my sister.
"And this gentleman here, is my brother-in-law as well," Lucky motioned toward Michael. "This is Michael Brightman, Earl of Camden, but more importantly, a barrister of many years' experience and practice."
George rubbed his eyes, dark-rimmed from lack of sleep. "And Gideon and I were wondering if the bishop could help." He gave a look first to Lucky, then his two older brother-in-laws. "Who is it you were planning to fetch down in Washington?"
"A classmate of ours from Eton and Oxford," Ren said. "Henry Fox. He is our ambassador to your country."
"The man might be a bit enamored of his plants," Michael said, "but he's helped us with sensitive issues before. Especially when we had to deal with the inheritance of Lucky's title in the Vatican States." Michael shook his head, as though remembering the incident Lucky hardly recalled. "We had to produce documentation regarding Lucky's parentage, their marriage in the church, his baptism, as well as mountains of other documents to satisfy Rome before they would confer the title upon him."
Lucky knew it was wrong of him to have hidden this information from the priests during his visits, but he couldn't go backward in time to change that fact now. He only hoped the two men of the church would forgive him.
And Mary. He needed Mary to forgive him for everything. He was the reason she was sentenced to die. He was the one who led Mary astray. He'd wanted her in a way he'd never wanted a woman before. The way he
still
wanted her.
George crossed himself, and turned his face heavenward. "Thank you, Lord."
"Where is Mary? How is she?" That was the most important thing. Mary.
M
ary-Michael heard the nuns begin to stir as she lay wide awake on the cot in her tiny cell in the convent wing of the children's home. In the cradle next to her, sound asleep, lay her sweet miracle, Lucy. Her eyes were showing signs of turning brown and with her thick black hair standing straight up and her olive complexion, she was every bit her father's daughter. The baby had virtually no resemblance to Mary-Michael's red-haired Irish ancestry. As the day began to lighten the sky, she lay on her side, watching her little one breathing. She feared one thing only now, Potts taking her babe after her death and harming her. She planned on writing a letter to Lucky and give it to her brother to forward to Lucky after her death. In it she needed to apologize for what she'd done, and beg him to care for their daughter.
He would love Lucy, Mary-Michael knew this as she knew nothing else about him. She swiped at the tear rolling down her cheek. Occasionally, Lucy's pouty little mouth with her tongue sticking out just a tiny bit, would move as though she nursed in her baby dreams, and Mary-Michael would smile. Lucky wanted children, so much that he had almost adopted an orphan handed to him on the streets of Lisbon. He'd ultimately given the child to Ian and his wife when he realized how ill-equipped he was as nursemaid. Mary-Michael remembered him telling her that a babe needed a mother.
As much as she wished it, she was likely never going to be a true mother to her baby. The choice was taken from her by a jury of twelve men, mostly her neighbors and former employees here in Indian Point. Men who likely had issue with her in a position of leadership. And if not the men themselves, then their wives.
The trial had been a blur. Mary-Michael had told Mr. Baxter early on, when she was first charged, that there was to be no shaming her deceased husband during this trial. She would not admit to Mr. Watkins' encouraging her into an affair with Lucky specifically to beget a child. Her marriage, such as it was, was her business and not fodder for the town gossips. And now, because she was unwilling to name anyone other than her husband as the child's father, she would die. Because it was blatantly obvious to all that Spenser Watkins could not be the father of Lucy.
The jury had returned a quick guilty verdict for the capital offense of adultery five days ago. Two days after that, they sentenced her to death by hanging. The judge set the date for three months from that time. The judge said her death was to be an example to all who choose to willfully disobey the laws of their state.
Mary-Michael didn't wish to die, especially for a lie told by someone as abominable as the former constable for Indian Point, Nelson Potts.
Mr. Baxter had immediately announced their intent to appeal, and that's what she now waited for. A date for an appeal. Mr. Baxter, as good a friend as he was to Mr. Watkins, tried his best to get her to reconsider telling the court about her husband's desire that she go outside their marriage if she wanted a child. Because Mary-Michael was unwilling to shame her husband in this way, her attorney said there wasn't much more he could do for her.
From the beginning, Mary-Michael sensed that there was someone behind Potts' claim against her. Initially she'd thought Nicholas Barlowe, but Baxter's investigators had been unable to find proof of the two men consorting before Potts claimed to be the father of her child. He said he had been Mrs. Watkins' lover for several years, and had used the fact that Mr. Watkins' asked for his removal from his post as proof that Watkins knew of their liaison. Nelson Potts wanted custody of the girl child as Mrs. Watkins was unfit to parent 'his' daughter. The grand jury charged Mary-Michael with adultery, because she was married at the time of the child's conception. After Potts' claim of parenthood, Barlowe hired his step-cousin because he felt the man needed a way to support the daughter he wanted to raise.
Mr. Nicholas Barlowe was appearing to the entire village to be the compassionate step-cousin to a man who wanted to be a father.
Mary-Michael should pray for a miracle as her brother had implored her to do, but she would rather watch her daughter sleep. There was nothing that looking at her daughter's sweet face couldn't make better. She almost didn't fear dying now, knowing Lucky would want his child. Mary-Michael hoped Lucky would not be upset to learn their daughter's full, true name, which he would discover when he gathered the birth and baptismal records to take her back to England. She had given their daughter a feminine version of his name, Luchina Antonia Francesca Watkins.
She thought about Lucky raising their daughter, dreaming about the life of the daughter of a dashing sea captain, sailing the world and having adventures. It was something she'd often fantasized about herself when she was younger, especially after her parents died and her brother had been taken from her.
That was when she began drawing the ships she remembered seeing in their port. She drew them as a way to escape her reality. The more detail she gave her drawings the more into her daydreams she would venture.
On the night before Lucky left almost two years earlier, they'd stayed awake the entire night talking. He'd told her of his large and loving family–one any little girl would be fortunate to be a part of. That was what she wanted for Lucy. A family. Cousins, aunts, and uncles. Perhaps another mother one day. Someone Lucky loved and someone who might eventually come to love Lucy as much as Mary-Michael did.
She smiled to herself in that grayish first-light filling her cell. She didn't want to get out of bed just yet, because to do so might wake Lucy.
Mary-Michael asked herself many times if she'd had the chance to go back and do it differently, would she? Each and every time, she knew without a shadow of a doubt she would not change one minute she spent with Lucky. She'd fallen under his spell initially because of his charm and good looks. She loved being with him, and the more time she spent with him, the more she learned about him. It wasn't long before she realized she was hopelessly in love with him.
Except she'd been married to another.
Now, when she looked at her precious child, and smelled that heavenly scent that was her babe, she wished things were different for them. She wished she could have had a future with Lucky. How different Lucy's life could have been.
Of course, when Lucky learned of her duplicity in her original intent, he would hate her. Which was fine because when he learned of it, she'd be dead and wouldn't have to face his hatred—or worse, his disappointment. He would think she'd used him only for siring her daughter, when in fact she loved him. She knew the exact moment she fell in love with him. It was the day they hung the sails on Ian's boat, when Lucky had risked his life to protect her, covering her body with his when the block broke free and struck him in the back. A few inches higher and it could have killed him. Yet his first thought was for her well-being.
A soft knock at her door startled her, but the babe slept right through the slight sound. Mary-Michael quickly wrapped her robe around her sleeping gown, went to the door and acknowledged the early morning visitor. Each time she heard the sound of the key turning in the lock, it reminded her she was not free, and neither was her daughter. Sister Agnes entered the room on quiet feet, and whispered, "You have guests, Mary-Michael."
"At this hour?" For a fraction of a moment, fear gripped her heart.
Sister had to have sensed it, because she replied with a smile, "You will want to see these guests, my dear. Dress and come to the parlor immediately. I'll send Rachel to come and sit with Lucy while she sleeps. We'll fetch you when she wakes so you can nurse her."
"Who...?" Mary-Michael didn't have a chance to ask her anything because the elderly nun was gone as fast as she'd arrived, and the guard locked the door behind her.
Who were these people? Had Mr. Baxter returned with more people to ask her questions? That must be it. And now she would have to go over her entire testimony again—every sordid detail and her reasons for her actions.
She dressed in her simple black mourning frock and tapped on the door, letting her new guard know she was ready, then followed the man to the reception room in the dormitory residence for the sisters. The hulking brute of a man who showed her the pistol he was armed with at their first meeting, led the way down to her guests.
When she entered the room, her eyes landed first on the beautiful, splendidly-garbed lady and the two imposing men on each side of her, and then off to the side... Lucky. Her captain stood there, looking just the same as he always did—tall, broad, his beautiful dark eyes gazing back at her, impossible to read. She was suddenly awash in shame. Ashamed of how she looked, ashamed of meeting him this way, ashamed of everything she'd done, and ashamed even of her thoughts.
When she'd first fell into the affair with Lucky, she had no problem with using him for the seed he could provide. Thinking to discard him when the deed was done and confess her sin, as though confessing would wipe the blackness in her heart away for wanting to commit the sin to begin with. Oh, how naive she was. She deserved everything that was being meted out to her.
She pushed the hair off her face and took a deep breath before straightening her spine and raising her chin.
"Hello, Captain." Her voice betrayed of her lack of strength with a slight tremble. Rather than saying something personal reflecting on their relationship, she brought up his boat. "Did your lady give you the speed and maneuverability I said she would?"
"She was everything I ever dreamed, and more, Mary." His voice sounded strong and confident, with not a quaver to it. Unlike hers.
She choked back a sob. "I'm so very proud of them, Captain, and I'm happy you are pleased." She didn't want to cry in front of the three strangers. "But you should go."
Mary-Michael motioned toward Lucky's relatives–at least she presumed that was who they were though it didn't matter. "All of you. There is nothing more for you to do here, except take your daughter with you back to England."
"A daughter!" He appeared shocked at the news. Surely he knew? Someone had to have informed him, else why did he come? "Mary? We have a daughter?" He immediately stepped forward, only to be warned away by the guard behind her.
Lucky backed off, eying the guard warily. "George mentioned you carried a child in the letter, but no one mentioned the babe. I thought... It doesn't matter what I thought. I came because you needed me. You needed my help, and I came straight away."
At this Mary-Michael's eyes gave over to the tears. He'd been worried for
her.
Without knowing if their child survived her birth, Lucky still came. He'd come for
her.
She didn't deserve his concern. Didn't deserve his affection.