Chapter 1 #2
“The sheriff has sentenced him to be lashed,” explained Governor Thomson, as if that somehow absolved him and the warder of any responsibility in the matter. “Thirty-six stripes, in addition to forty days imprisonment here. Then he is to spend a further two years in a reformatory school.”
“For what crime?”
“The lad’s a thief,” Governor Thomson reported.
“Is he, now?” The woman’s tone was blatantly caustic.
She turned and approached Haydon, releasing the ties of her bonnet as she did so.
The dark headpiece slipped down her back, revealing a woman of far greater youth and beauty than he had initially suspected.
Her face was pale against a mass of honey-colored hair tinged with red, which was carelessly escaping the pins she had used to try to contain it.
Her eyes were large and dark against her milky skin, her features small and elegantly carved.
Her beauty was as luminous as it was out of place in the foul darkness of the cell, as if a glorious flower had suddenly bloomed between one of the cracks in the filthy floor.
Untroubled by the prospect of dirtying her clothes, she knelt beside Haydon, her brows drawn together with concern as she studied his pain-etched face.
“Are you badly injured, sir?”
Haydon regarded her in silent fascination.
She was not so young after all, for the fine web of lines around her eyes and across her forehead were testament to a life lived at least twenty-five years, perhaps more.
She had known trouble in those years, the faint shadows beneath her eyes and the furrows between her brows made that clear enough, but he sensed there had been much laughter as well.
In that moment he longed for nothing more than to see her smile, to watch the warm light of amusement drift across her lovely face, and see the sweet lines around her eyes crinkle with pleasure.
“No,” he murmured thickly. For all he knew, inside he was bleeding to death.
It scarcely mattered. Dying upon the floor with this magnificent creature looking down upon him with such tender concern was vastly preferable to being hanged the following day before a jeering mob.
He stared at her intently, willing her to stay near, afraid that if he so much as blinked she would be gone and he would be left to finish whatever remained of his miserable life alone.
She laid her hand against the rough growth of beard on his cheek, then placed it lightly upon his fevered brow. Her touch was soft and cool and sure. Somehow, it filled him with a kind of fragile hope. It must be the fever, he realized with vague disappointment. There was no hope for him.
“This man is gravely ill,” she announced, her eyes never leaving his. “He is almost afire with fever and he has been badly beaten. You must send for a doctor immediately.”
The warder snorted with laughter.
Governor Thomson was only slightly more courteous, regarding her as if she were utterly innocent in matters that were best handled by men.
“I am afraid, Miss MacPhail, that this man has been found guilty of murder and is sentenced to hang tomorrow. Since his crime is of the most serious nature and his punishment but hours away, I’m afraid I cannot justify troubling the prison surgeon to examine him—especially considering he will not live long enough to benefit from any treatment that might be prescribed. ”
Her body stiffened, although she was careful to keep her expression composed. Clearly the mention of murder and hanging had affected whatever her previous assessment of him had been. She withdrew her hand and Haydon felt lost, as if the gentle thread of compassion joining him to her had snapped.
“No,” he protested, grasping her wrist and pulling her toward him again.
Alarm flared in her eyes, and he realized his mistake.
He could well imagine how he appeared to her; a battered prisoner sprawled on the floor of a dank cell, filthy and unshaven and perhaps crazed by fever, trying to hold her against her will.
He closed his eyes in despair, still clinging to her slender wrist, but his grasp was gentle now, and she could have broken free if she wished.
She remained where she was, the skin of her wrist clean and cool against his grimy fingers.
“I am no murderer,” he murmured, unable to fathom why it should matter to him that she know this.
She hesitated a moment, studying him soberly. “I am sorry, sir,” she finally said in a soft voice, “but that is now a matter between you and God.” Gently she extricated herself from his hold. “Jack, would you kindly help me move this man to that bed?”
“I’ll move him,” growled the warder.
“Thank you, but I think it would be best if the boy and I did it,” she returned firmly.
Jack obediently went to Haydon’s side. Together he and the woman helped him to his feet and onto the remaining bed.
“If you will not call for the surgeon, perhaps you will permit me to send my maid to tend to this man this evening,” she said, adjusting the coarse folds of a foul-smelling blanket over Haydon. “I see no reason why he should not be permitted some measure of comfort on his final evening.”
Governor Thomson stroked his thick gray beard uncertainly. “It really isn’t necessary—”
“It would scarcely reflect well upon you or your prison were he not fit to stand during his execution tomorrow,” Miss MacPhail pointed out. “It might give cause for some to question the treatment he received while he was entrusted to your care.” She cast an accusing look at the warder.
“On the other hand, I see no harm to your maid paying him a visit,” Governor Thomson relented.
“Very good.” Satisfied that she had done all that was within her power to help Haydon, she turned her attention to Jack.
“Permit me to introduce myself, Jack. My name is Genevieve MacPhail, and I would like to speak with you—”
“I never stole nothin’,” he spat vehemently.
“I don’t care whether you did or not.”
Surprise flickered in his gaze, but he was quick to shroud it with sullen indifference. “Then what do you want?”
“I live in a house in Inveraray with some other children who, like yourself, have been through some rather difficult times—”
“I’m not a child,” he interrupted rudely.
“Forgive me. Of course you aren’t. You must be what—fifteen?”
He straightened his posture, pleased that she had overestimated his age. “About that.”
She nodded as if greatly impressed by this. “Well, I was wondering, Jack, if instead of staying here in prison and then proceeding to a reformatory school, you would be willing to come and live with me for the duration of your sentence.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “You mean like a servant?” His tone was openly scornful.
“No,” she replied, untroubled by his hostile attitude. “But you would have chores to do, the same as everyone there does.”
He regarded her skeptically. “What kind of chores?”
“You would be expected to help with cooking and cleaning and washing, and all the other things that are necessary to run a busy household. And you would be required to spend part of each day learning to read and write and cipher numbers. You don’t know how to read, do you?”
“I get by,” he assured her tersely.
“I don’t doubt that. But my hope would be, Jack, that after you finished staying with me, you would be able to get by far better than you have been.”
He was silent a moment, considering. “Could I come and go as I pleased?”
“Unfortunately, no. Should you decide to come with me, you would then become my responsibility. That means that I would have to know where you were at all times. I’m afraid I would have to insist that you agree to that,” she added, as a scowl twisted his sharply chiseled features.
“And your days would be structured, so you would not be permitted to simply wander off and do as you wished. I can assure you, however, that you would find your situation far more tolerable than what awaits you at reformatory school. You would be well fed and cared for. The others who have come to live with me actually find it quite pleasant.”
“Fine.”
His answer was just a touch too quick, thought Haydon, to be genuine.
It was clear to him that the boy had decided that going with this Miss Genevieve MacPhail was infinitely preferable to getting thrashed by the warder and spending any more time in jail.
Once he had relieved her of a warm set of clothes and a decent meal, he would steal whatever he could and be gone, by tomorrow at the very latest. Haydon wished he had time to speak to the boy alone, to make him understand the incredible opportunity he was being offered.
“Can you get him out as well?” Jack inclined his head toward Haydon.
Haydon looked at the lad in surprise.
“I—I’m afraid not,” Genevieve stammered, startled by the question.
Her dark eyes were veiled with what appeared to be regret. Haydon thought that rather amazing, given all that she knew of him was that he had been convicted of murder. It was scarcely the kind of credentials that roused the more tender sensibilities of a gently bred woman like Miss MacPhail.
“Excellent,” said Governor Thomson, pleased that the two had come to an agreement. “Let us retire to my office and work out the necessary details of this arrangement, shall we?” He scratched his beard in anticipation.
So that was it, Haydon realized. This Miss MacPhail was securing Jack’s release in exchange for payment of some kind to the prison governor.
She wore no jewelry, and a closer inspection revealed that her cloak was void of ornamentation and the fabric was cheap and somewhat worn.
Whatever she was paying for the dubious privilege of taking on the responsibility of a half-starved, lying, thieving urchin, it was clear she could ill-afford it.
The certainty that Jack was planning to take advantage of her well-meaning intentions and then abandon her made him feel sad for both of them.