Chapter 2
Hawke crashed into the uneven stones of the cell wall with his face.
He shook his head, blinking at the flashes in front of his eyes as the door slammed shut behind him.
The guard who had shoved him inside, Cragan, seemed to find a deranged joy in causing both pain and humiliation to the prisoners, and for some reason, he’d set his sights on Hawke.
Hawke supposed the man’s cruelty was why he had been hired as a prison guard in the first place.
It certainly had nothing to do with a winning smile.
Cragan’s few remaining teeth reminded Hawke of maggots in the flesh of a rotting fish, and the smell of his breath only furthered the similarity.
Now that he thought about it, mentioning the assessment of his oral hygiene to the man himself might explain his particular disdain.
But really, one shouldn’t be so sensitive.
Some of the cell’s other occupants gathered around him.
“You poor dear.” Mrs. Foster brought a lantern close to study him, then wiped his face with a damp rag while her husband untied Hawke’s wrists.
The woman’s cloth smelled horrid, and Hawke thought his face would be even more filthy after her ministrations, but he appreciated her kindness nonetheless.
He felt his nose, relieved to find it was tender but not broken.
“I saved some vittles for ye,” Mrs. Foster said, producing a small, hard bun from her apron pocket. “Knew they’d not ’ave fed ye in the stocks.”
“Saved some o’ mine too,” Tim Kelly said in nearly a whisper, pressing a hunk of beef and the end of a boiled potato into Hawke’s hand.
Tim was older than Hawke, perhaps in his fifties, but his small build, slow wits, and nervous disposition made him seem much younger, almost childlike, setting him up for nearly constant harassment from those who saw vulnerability as something to be taken advantage of.
Hawke spent a good amount of his time watching out for Tim, defending him from prisoners and guards alike.
Tim looked down at the ground, apparently unable to meet Hawke’s gaze. “I’m sorry as ye went into the stocks on my account.”
“Not to worry,” Hawke said, clapping the older man on the shoulder and smiling in reassurance.
“It was a welcome change from breaking rocks. Besides, I enjoyed the courtyard’s fresh air.
” In truth, the stink of the Thames in the summer was worse than a dank windowless cell crammed full of unwashed people, but Tim didn’t need to know that.
“And I thank you both, but they did feed me,” he lied, handing back the food scraps.
They needed the nourishment much more than he.
Hawke was touched by the gesture. As he had so often found, those who had the least gave the most.
Once they were assured of his well-being, Mr. and Mrs. Foster returned to the corner of the cell where their two small children lay sleeping on a cot.
Mr. Foster had been imprisoned months earlier for a debt, and as his family had nowhere else to go, they had come with him.
He, along with the other men in the prison, performed the most menial of labor to earn a wage that went directly to the prison as payment for their room and board.
The young mother took in mending, sitting on the stone floor and sewing by candlelight, her pennies chasing a debt whose interest grew faster than her meager earnings could ever hope to overtake.
To say the British penal system was inefficient was a profound understatement. Privately owned prisons made their wealthy owners even more wealthy while the poorest members of society were ground into the dust. Extortion of the highest degree.
Ignoring his empty stomach, Hawke sat in his usual place beside Tim and rested gingerly against the wall.
His back was a mess of bruises from Cragan’s truncheon.
He massaged his neck and leaned his head from side to side, trying to stretch out the stiffness from two days spent in the stocks.
In the dim light, he could see where his wrists had been rubbed raw by the rough wood.
He was sure his neck must look the same.
He closed his eyes, wanting nothing more than to sleep for the few moments remaining before the guards came to collect them for a morning of drudgery.
“Found a new rock yesterday, Hawke,” Tim said.
Hawke cracked open his eyes to see a rugged chunk of stone about the size of a cork being extended toward him.
He took the offered stone, tipping his head and making a show of studying it in the scant lantern light.
“If ye look close,” Tim said, leaning in and pointing, “’ere’s a twinkly bit just there.”
Tim’s ability to find beauty amidst the bleakest of circumstances never failed to impress Hawke. “Splendid,” he said, carefully returning the rock. “It will look exquisite with the rest of your collection.”
Tim beamed. He set the rock carefully alongside half a dozen others onto a shelf made by the uneven bricks.
Hawke didn’t have a chance to close his eyes a second time.
The banging of billy clubs on the cell doors and the sounds of moving feet roused the cell’s occupants as quickly as any warning signal.
Any of the men still sleeping—or even sitting for that matter—when the guards arrived would be punished.
And Hawke had had enough of that for one week.
The men moved through the doorway, heads bowed, lest they catch the attention of any of the guards, and trudged through the rainy morning to the prison yard’s rock pile.
At noon, a bell clanged, signaling a recess for the midday meal.
Hawke straightened, cracking his back. He fell into line with the others, ears still ringing from the blows of metal against stone.
The men returned their tools and straggled inside, too exhausted for conversation.
Hawke scanned the line, looking for Tim.
He found him near the rear and fell back to join him.
When they passed through the prison door, Cragan gave Tim a shove that sent him stumbling over his feet and into the doorframe, much to the enjoyment of the other guards.
Hawke caught his friend, holding him by the arms until he was steady. He shot a glare at Cragan, but knowing it would cost him yet another meal, and possibly a beating to boot, he did not challenge him.
“Hurry along,” Cragan sneered as Tim cringed away from him. “Not you, Hawke.” He pushed his truncheon against Hawke’s chest, stopping him. “Governor wants to see you.”
Hawke didn’t allow the surprise to show on his face.
He had never heard of the prison governor personally meeting with any inmate.
Uneasiness moved through him as he wondered if his sentence was going to be amended somehow.
Hanging was the standard for most people convicted of crimes on the high seas—not that the barristers had been able to prove anything—but there was always relocation to a different prison, or even into a disease-riddled prison hulk.
He wouldn’t be opposed to transportation if offered the choice.
He ached to be on the sea, missed it as if it were a lost limb.
And if being sent to the American colonies was the only way for him to return to a ship, he’d accept any discomfort the journey entailed. Well, almost any.
Hawke nodded to Tim, signaling that all was well, and he allowed Cragan to bind his hands in front of him. He was told it was a usual precaution when a criminal met with a prison official, but Hawke thought the man just enjoyed doing it.
“You’re in trouble now, Hawke.” Cragan grinned, showing the splotchy gums and crumbling teeth Hawke had come to despise. He pulled the rope tight around Hawke’s raw wrists. “Knew ye was no good from the first moment I saw ye.”
“Funny, that.” Hawke pulled his bound hands away. “I didn’t notice anything special about you at all. Aside from your spectacularly horrendous smell. Are you sure you’re not diseased?”
The wisecrack earned him a clap on the side of his head from the truncheon, but even as lights flashed in his vision for the second time that day, Hawke didn’t drop his smile, knowing how much it irritated the man.
Cragan jerked on the rope binding Hawke’s wrists and led him from the common side of the prison toward what the inmates referred to as “the master’s side,” where those who had the means and inclination to pay for lodgings were able to wait out their sentences in relative comfort.
Another guard, Smollett, followed behind. Hawke’s feeling of foreboding grew. Were the guards simply being overcautious? Or was Hawke being marched toward an unfortunate fate? His gaze darted around as he searched for some means of escape.
The trio passed the prison’s main entrance where a man in servants’ livery stood against the wall. Hawke hardly had a moment to wonder at the man’s presence before they stopped beside a closed door.
Cragan knocked, and hearing a response within, opened it. “In for it now, aren’t ye?” he muttered as he gave the rope around Hawke’s wrists another tug.
They stepped into a surprisingly spacious room with a desk at one end beneath a window. A fire crackled in a large fireplace on one side of the room, and large bookshelves occupied the other. Thick carpets covered the floor.
Sitting behind the desk was a man who must be the prison governor, but Hawke hardly noticed him because perched in a chair in front of the desk was a woman whose beauty made the rest of the room utterly inconsequential.
Hawke wondered if he was hallucinating. He blinked, unable to look away or think clearly.
The woman had dark curls and deep blue eyes.
She wore a satin dress with a tight bodice and layers of skirts and frills that prevented her from fully resting back into the chair.
She was a member of high society, without a doubt, and by her bearing, and the way she studied him, Hawke assessed her as confident bordering on arrogant.