Chapter Seven

WHERE’S GENEVIEVE?” DEMANDED JACK, HIS LUNGS heaving for air as he burst through the door.

“Sweet Saint Columba, just look at the snow ye’re troddin’ all over my clean floor!” scolded Doreen, who was on her knees scouring the floorboards at the end of the hall. “Do ye not know to take off yer boots when ye come inside?”

“Genevieve!” shouted Jack, ignoring Doreen as he threw open the doors to the drawing room. He spun around in frustration on finding it empty and ran to the stairs. “Genevieve!”

“What’s all this commotion?” demanded Oliver, appearing from the door to the kitchen with a boot in one hand and a greasy brown rag in the other. His gaze fell upon Jack’s panicked face. “What’s happened, lad?”

“Here now, all of ye, stop and take yer boots off!” commanded Doreen, tossing her brush in her bucket in frustration as Annabelle, Simon, Grace, and Jamie stampeded into the house, depositing muddy snow everywhere. “Have ye all taken leave of yer senses?”

“Oliver, where is Genevieve?” Jack’s pale face was glistening with sweat and his eyes were wild and frantic.

“Why, she’s in the cellar, lad,” said Oliver, realizing that something was terribly wrong. He glanced at the children to be sure no one was hurt, then frowned. “Where’s Charlotte?”

Jack tore through the kitchen and sprinted down the cellar stairs. There he found Genevieve sitting on a crate, wearily rifling through the contents of a trunk that lay open before her. She appeared to have been analyzing the contents of the cellar for a considerable length of time, and was surrounded by a veritable mountain of musty-smelling boxes, paintings, chests, and discarded furniture.

“You’ve got to get her back.” Jack’s voice was curt and desperate. “She didn’t do anythin’—she just went along because she wanted to help. I was the one who stole the jewels.” He wrenched the stolen jewelry from his pockets and shoved it carelessly into Genevieve’s hands. “That’s all of it—I swear I didn’t take anything else. Just take that to Mr. Ingram and make him let her go.”

Genevieve looked in horror at the beautiful pieces glittering in her hands. “My God, Jack,” she whispered, suddenly feeling as if she couldn’t breathe, “what have you done?”

He blinked hard, fighting the tears threatening to spill from his eyes. “I stole this jewelry from Mr. Ingram’s shop,” he confessed miserably. “I was goin’ to sell it and give you the money, so you could pay the bloody bank and keep your house and no one would be put on the street. But Mr. Ingram spotted me before I had left the shop and everyone started to run and then Charlotte tripped and fell and he wouldn’t let her go.”

The other children came racing down the cellar steps, followed by Oliver, Doreen, Eunice, and Haydon.

“I don’t understand.” Genevieve fought to remain calm as she tried to make sense of what Jack was telling her. “Why would Mr. Ingram detain Charlotte?”

“Because she was the only one of us that he could catch.” Grace’s face was drawn and pale against the dim light. “I know I should have made her go before me because of her leg, but I was closer to the door and I thought she was following right behind—and she was—but then she tripped and—I’m sorry, Genevieve.” She brushed angrily at the tears pouring down her cheeks.

Suddenly all the children began to speak at once, the voices shrill with fear and agitation.

“We thought we would go in and out without any trouble—”

“But when Mr. Ingram saw Jack by the jewelry case, I knocked the knight’s armor over—”

“—And then that fat old man tripped Jamie with his walking stick and his wife went down like a top—”

“—And I told him to let Jamie go, but he wouldn’t, so I hit him in the legs with his stick—”

“—And I broke a painting over Mr. Ingram’s head and he started to chase me—”

“—So we threw a tablecloth over him, which made him sorely mad—”

“—And then we all ran out—”

“—Except for Charlotte.”

Genevieve stared at her brood in shock. “You attacked Mr. Ingram?”

“It was my idea,” said Jack adamantly. He wanted to spare the children from Genevieve’s anger and disappointment. “I made them come with me.”

“That’s not true!” protested Grace.

“We all wanted to go,” Simon assured Genevieve.

“And we had to make Jack see that it would be better if he didn’t do it alone,” Annabelle elaborated.

“They were going to leave me behind, but I wouldn’t let them,” finished Jamie.

“I see.” Genevieve knew she should be angry with them, but there was no time for that now. Later, when Charlotte was safely back home, she would find the strength to be utterly furious with all of them. All that mattered in that moment was that she return the stolen jewelry and bring Charlotte home.

“Come, Genevieve.” Haydon’s voice was reassuringly calm and steady. “We shall return the jewels to Mr. Ingram, apologize profusely for the trouble the children have caused him, agree to pay for anything that was damaged, and bring Charlotte home.”

Genevieve shook her head. “She won’t be at Mr. Ingram’s anymore,” she said with dull certainty. “The police will have come and taken her away. She is at the prison.”

“Then we shall go and retrieve her from there. Come.” He extended his hand to her.

“You cannot accompany me.” She slowly rose to her feet, unable to accept his help because her hands were still clutching the stolen jewels.

“Of course I can,” Haydon argued flatly. “As your husband I’m sure they will expect me to be at your side.”

She shook her head, overwhelmed by her fear for Charlotte. “We have already courted disaster by letting you be seen by Governor Thomson and Police Constable Drummond. We deceived them once, but that doesn’t mean they will be misled a second time. There is also the risk of having that awful warder recognize you—or an officer of the court, or even another prisoner in the jail. We cannot take that chance.”

“I’m afraid the lass is right, lad,” said Oliver soberly. “’Tis a strange fact that those of us who have spent time in prison have a far keener sense of things than bumbling lackwits like Governor Thomson, or even that suet-headed Constable Drummond.”

“’Tis a skill that comes from sitting all day and night in a dirty, cramped cell with naught but yerself for company,” explained Doreen. “It makes ye more aware of yer surroundings, and of people as well.”

“I hardly think one of the other prisoners is going to recognize me,” objected Haydon. “I look entirely different than I did when I was there.”

“They won’t have to look at you,” Eunice assured him. “They’ll be able to tell who ye are just by listenin’ to your voice, or the sound of yer steps as ye walk down the hallway. That’s something even I learned to do during my time there. Ye start to pay attention to all the little things, like who scrapes the edge of their heels as they pass, or how heavy a person’s step is, or what a voice sounds like as it bounces off the cold stone walls. It helps to pass the time.”

“Then I shall disguise my voice and alter my stride,” said Haydon stubbornly.

“No.” Genevieve’s tone was resolute. In truth, she would have taken comfort in Haydon’s strong presence at the jail, but the possibility that he might be discovered as Lord Redmond and hauled back into his cell was too great. “I already have one member of my family in jail, Haydon—I won’t risk having you arrested as well.”

“Then I’ll go with you,” said Jack. “I’ll tell them Charlotte had nothing to do with the robbery. They can arrest me instead. Old Thomson is just dyin’ to have me lashed and sent away, and so is that bastard Constable Drummond. Whatever they do to me, I can take care of myself far better than Charlotte can.”

Genevieve looked at Jack in surprise. His gray eyes were glittering with determination and his hands were clenched at his sides. She had always known he was capable of empathy for others. The fact that he had risked his own freedom to help Haydon escape had been ample testament to that. Even so, his willingness to sacrifice himself for Charlotte moved her deeply.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Jack. I know you want to help Charlotte, but I don’t believe the Governor will let you trade yourself for one of his prisoners. If anything, you’ll be arrested along with Charlotte, and then there will be two of you to worry about. I will go on my own, I will return these jewels and I will make Governor Thomson and Constable Drummond see that they have no reason to detain Charlotte further. And after Charlotte is safely at home once again,” she finished, raking her gaze over her dejected-looking children, “we shall further discuss the matter of your trying to rob Mr. Ingram.”

 

CONSTABLE DRUMMOND REGARDED GENEVIEVE WITH spurious sympathy over the skeletal steeple of his fingers. His hands were unusually large with a taut sheet of pale skin stretched over them, and his fingernails were long and not quite clean. Given his hands and the greasy length of his hair, it was clear he was a man who did not concern himself overmuch with his personal ablutions. Of course, there was the black swath of hair that he curried and combed alongside each cheek, but even that was in need of a good trimming. Genevieve had long assumed that he had neither wife nor mistress, but until she sat across from him in Governor Thomson’s office, uncomfortably aware of his musky, unwashed odor, she had not realized that he had no interest in attracting a member of the opposite sex into the narrow, cheerless parameters of his life.

“I’m sure you must realize, Mrs. Blake, that the accused’s involvement in the brutal attack on Mr. Ingram and Lord and Lady Struthers completely nullifies any arrangement you may have with Governor Thomson regarding her custody.” Constable Drummond didn’t quite smile, but Genevieve knew he derived intense satisfaction from making the statement.

“It is my understanding that Charlotte neither stole anything nor actually attacked anyone,” Genevieve argued. “Since I have returned all the missing items and intend to fully compensate Mr. Ingram for any damages he may have suffered, I believe the matter is largely resolved. I therefore see no reason why Charlotte needs to be detained further. If you will just take me to her, I will escort her home and deal with the matter privately.”

“Unfortunately, Mrs. Blake, the situation is not quite that simple,” said Governor Thomson, who was nervously scratching his beard.

It did not reflect well upon the governor to have one of the children he had released but a year earlier into Genevieve’s care commit a serious crime against three of Inveraray’s most influential and upstanding citizens. When this incident was combined with the recent escape of Lord Redmond from his prison, it seemed clear to Governor Thomson that he would imminently be called before the prison board to explain his extravagant failures. It was absolutely critical, he realized soberly, that he demonstrate to all that he realized the gravity of these recent mishaps, and that he take steps to ensure that they never happen again.

“The gang of thieves who attacked Mr. Ingram’s shop stole jewelry that was extremely rare and of great value. In the process of doing so, they attacked Lord and Lady Struthers, two of our most distinguished citizens in Inverary. Lord Struthers has sent word that his wife is severely traumatized by the incident. She has been examined by Dr. Hayes, who has prescribed that she be confined to absolute quiet and bed rest for at least a month, to help her overcome her hysteria and any other injury to her person.”

Genevieve bit down hard on her lip, fighting to refrain from making any comment. Jamie had told her how he had accidentally barreled into Lady Struthers after Lord Struthers tripped him with his walking stick. In her opinion, any woman who could afford the luxury of taking to her bed for a month after being knocked on her backside by an eight-year-old boy did not have enough responsibilities to keep her out of it.

“There is also the matter of the accused’s unwillingness to assist me with my investigation, which clearly demonstrates the weakness of her moral fiber,” added Constable Drummond. “She refuses to give me the names of her accomplices, despite the fact that I have indicated that the judge might view her case more leniently should she do so. Of course, we have deduced from Mr. Ingram’s descriptions that the other children involved in this attack were your wards, but it would be helpful if the girl would confirm that.”

Genevieve regarded him in disbelief. “Are you saying that you expect Charlotte to accuse her brothers and sisters?”

His jaw tightened with contempt, as if he found Genevieve’s description of the other children as siblings both distasteful and ridiculous. “I am saying that should this girl demonstrate even a modicum of remorse by assisting me with my case, I would be more inclined to believe that there was some hope of your rehabilitating her. As it is, however, I can only conclude that a substantial length of time spent in prison and then reformatory school will be the best course of action for all concerned. Although I have decided not to pursue the matter with the other thieves, this girl must be made an example. Society cannot afford to let dangerous criminals inspire fear and unrest without due punishment.”

“We are talking about an eleven-year-old child.” Genevieve’s outrage was tempered with her rapidly swelling fear. “She is scarcely a dangerous criminal.”

“On the contrary, we are talking about a young woman with a criminal past who, despite all that you have misguidedly offered her by way of a home and a fine moral example, cannot seem to overcome her own corrupt instincts,” Constable Drummond retaliated. “As I have told you before, Mrs. Blake, these things are in the blood, passed down from one generation to the next. No amount of coddling or comfort will cleanse the impure souls of the children in your household. It is best to treat them with a hard hand. Your unwillingness to do so has resulted in the unfortunate incident that has occurred today, in which several innocent citizens have suffered.”

“I don’t deny that the children were wrong in what they did today, Constable Drummond,” Genevieve allowed, trying to mollify his unsparing attitude by agreeing with him. “But they were not doing it out of greed or any inherent need to steal. They were doing it solely because they wanted to help me—”

“Whatever the accused’s reasons were can be presented at the time of her trial,” Constable Drummond interrupted.

“Her name is Charlotte,” said Genevieve, fighting to maintain a civil demeanor. She disliked the way Constable Drummond kept referring to Charlotte as if she were bereft of an individual identity, like a dog or a pig. “And you cannot possibly believe that anything good will come from imprisoning an eleven-year-old child in this foul place and forcing her to stand trial—”

“Unfortunately, Mrs. Blake, there is nothing more that we can do.” Governor Thomson’s voice was shadowed with regret. “If it were the lass’s first offense, perhaps we could afford to be somewhat lenient. Unfortunately, the girl has a well-documented history of stealing—that is what led her to be incarcerated in my prison in the first place.”

“It was her father who was stealing,” Genevieve corrected, feeling the taut threads of her composure begin to snap. “He was forcing Charlotte to show her crippled leg as a way of distracting a crowd while he picked their pockets—a leg that is malformed because he beat her so severely in one of his drunken outbursts that he broke it.”

“There is no question that the lass has had a difficult time of it,” Governor Thomson acknowledged. “But as you are aware, one of the conditions of your arrangement with the prison is that once the children are released to your custody, they must not break the law again, or else you will lose custody and the child must suffer the full punishment of our justice system. It is only by enforcing this provision that I am able to provide some assurance to both the court and to the citizens of Inveraray that the children will pose no further threat to our society. Charlotte has broken the law, and I am therefore bound by our agreement to relieve you of custody and pursue the matter through the court. I’m afraid there is nothing else to be done.” He looked as if he wished it were otherwise. “If we were to overlook this matter, the citizens could dispute my arrangement with you and insist that all the children currently serving the remainder of their sentences under your roof be returned to the prison system immediately. I’m sure Lord and Lady Struthers would be among the first to instigate such a petition.”

He was right, Genevieve realized. Sick despair tightened around her chest.

“The Sheriff Court will sit again in three days,” continued Governor Thomson. “At that time you will be able to plead your case on the lass’s behalf. Perhaps you can appeal to the sheriff for lenience.”

Three days. An eternity for a child to spend trapped in a prison. But it was time enough for Genevieve to try to get Mr. Ingram and Lord and Lady Struthers to view Charlotte sympathetically, and to provide testimony on her behalf. If the victims were willing to be compassionate, she did not see how the sheriff could not be.

She swallowed her fear and slowly rose from her chair. “I would like to see her now,” she said, forcing herself to appear calm. She must give Charlotte the impression that everything was going to work out just fine.

“Of course.” Governor Thomson rolled out of his chair and jerked the creased fabric of his black waistcoat over the swell of his belly. “I shall escort you to her myself.”

 

LEADEN STRIPS OF LIGHT WERE FALLING THROUGH the narrow bars of the tiny window, casting the frigid cell in a somber caul.

Charlotte sat upon her wooden bed with her back against the wall and her crippled leg stretched out stiffly before her, the foot resting upon an overturned chamber pot. She was wearing her hat and coat, and had taken the two thin blankets that the governor’s wife had provided her with and wrapped them tightly around herself in a desperate effort to stay warm. She knew she should try to walk around a bit to restore some heat to her flesh, but her leg was aching, so she did not think she could manage it just yet. Her injured limb was always worse when it was cold, or damp, or when she first awoke in the morning and it had grown rigid from repose. It also pained her badly at night after she had forced it to drag after her all day.

She could not remember a time when it had not hurt, although she knew that she must have once enjoyed the luxury of being whole and free of pain, for she had not been born this way. The memory of her actual injury had waned, however, and she was infinitely glad of that. That was the advantage of being young, she supposed, although there were times when she felt far older and wearier than her mere eleven years could account for. When one was a child, a year or two seemed nearly a lifetime away. While that made the wait for the privileges of being, say, thirteen, almost unendurable, it did have the benefit of blunting at least some of the sharp torments and cruelties of the past. The memory of her father’s brutality seemed less immediate to her now, and although the dreams still haunted her, she no longer wakened to find her heart racing and her sheets soaked with a mortifying combination of urine and sweat.

“Stop yer starin’, ye wicked whore of Satan, or I’ll cut yer heart out and crush it in my hand!”

Charlotte glanced uneasily at the woman with whom she shared her cell.

Margaret MacDuffie was a short, sturdy woman of some forty years, with a plain, masculine face that scowled from beneath a filthy brown scarf which she wore tightly wrapped around her head. Her nose was large and misshapen; it started out between her eyes well enough, but then it rose in a stiff knob before flattening into a listless pulp just above her upper lip. In one of her slightly more lucid moments Margaret had told Charlotte that her husband used to beat her regularly, and that he had broken her nose more times than she could remember. This had aroused a great deal of sympathy on Charlotte’s part, for she knew what it was to be at the mercy of a man who drank, and spoke with his fists.

She had tried to imagine how Margaret might have been before her husband began to brutalize her. Surely she could not always have been the raving madwoman she was today, or else he would never have married her. It was possible that Margaret had once even been somewhat attractive, although that required a rather substantial leap of the imagination. Charlotte was wise enough to know that most marriages were not based upon the romantic love that Annabelle described when she rhapsodized about her actress mother and the Scottish noble she claimed was her father. Even so, it seemed to Charlotte that when two people married, even if they did not love each other, they had to like each other, at least a little. In the case of Margaret and her husband, it seemed clear that they had not liked each other quite enough. Duncan MacDuffie drank and pummeled his wife nearly every day of their marriage, until one morning Margaret refused to tolerate his poor treatment of her any longer. On that particular day she rose before her husband awakened, washed her face and hands, then laid a fire in the stove and put a kettle on to boil. Then she went back into their bedroom, sliced open his throat with his own razor, dragged him into the barn and left him for the pigs to feed on. After she had washed away the blood, she sat at her kitchen table and enjoyed a strong cup of tea, a boiled egg, and two thick slices of oat bread spread with strawberry preserves. It was nae but a fitting end, she had told Charlotte, for a man who had been nothing but a swine his entire life, and certainly not worth missing breakfast over.

Unfortunately, Margaret was unable to bring the judge and jury presiding over her trial round to her way of thinking. In its wisdom, however, the jury did sense that there was something about Margaret that was not entirely sound—perhaps because of the way she wept so pitifully when she described how one of the poor pigs choked to death on a rather tough piece of her husband. Her ability to feel empathy for that animal, but see nothing wrong whatsoever with what she had done to her spouse, persuaded the jury to find her insane. Thus her life was spared, but she was sentenced to be confined as a prisoner for all the remaining days of her life. She had spent nearly two years in the Inveraray jail, and if her healthy appetite and robust constitution were any indication, it seemed she would spend many more there, although she was slated to eventually be transferred to a prison in Perth with a separate criminal lunatics section.

“I know what yer thinkin’,” Margaret hissed, eyeing Charlotte suspiciously. “Yer thinkin’ to have my share when the warder comes. Well, I won’t allow it, do ye hear? I’ve a farm to run when I leave this place, and I need to keep myself well and fed. The pigs are waitin’ on me,” she concluded, nodding happily.

Charlotte drew her blankets tighter and dug her chin into her chest, ignoring her. It was better to ignore Margaret when she ranted or talked nonsense. Charlotte had learned that answering her just seemed to make her further agitated.

There were footsteps coming down the hall, and a jangling of heavy keys. A pale waver of candlelight seeped into the dark cell as the door creaked open.

“Genevieve!” cried Charlotte, nearly tripping over the chamber pot in her haste to rise.

Genevieve swiftly crossed the cell and wrapped her arms tightly around the trembling child.

“Charlotte, my love,” she breathed, kissing the top of her head before pressing her cheek against Charlotte’s soft hair. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” She buried her face into the reassuring warmth of Genevieve’s cloak, which smelled like soap and cinnamon. “Can we go home now?”

Genevieve swallowed thickly. She wanted to say, “Of course we can,” and turn around and lead Charlotte out of the dark, cold little chamber, and away from the strange woman crouched in the corner who was staring at her with such unnerving fascination. She wanted to march past that vile Warder Sims, who was watching her embrace her daughter with such obvious derision, and by Governor Thomson, with whom she was unaccountably angry, even though she understood that he had been put in an impossible situation. She wanted to take Charlotte home, see that she had a soothing warm bath to wash away her fear and the foulness of this place, and then send her to bed with a tray laden with all of Eunice’s specialties. And tomorrow morning Charlotte would be allowed to rest as long as she wished, and then she would join the rest of the family by a fire in the drawing room, and she would tell them about her terrible ordeal, and they would all hug her and tell her how good and strong and brave she had been to have endured such an awful thing.

Instead she held her child fast, stroking her hair as she desperately tried to think of what she was going to tell her.

“I’ll leave you to visit, then,” said Governor Thomson, placing the candle on a small wooden bench. He stroked his wiry beard a moment before adding, “You may stay as long as you like, Mrs. Blake,.” It seemed he was at least trying to be accommodating. “Just call for Sims when you are ready to leave.”

The door slammed shut.

“Where’s my supper?” screeched Margaret, lunging at the door like a wild animal and banging on it with her fists. “I want my porridge! Ye’ll nae steal it from me, ye greedy whoreson. I’ll have it if I have to kill ye first—do ye hear? The pigs are waitin’ on me, Sims, and they’re waitin’ on you, as well, unless ye bring me my pissin’ supper!”

Charlotte burrowed her face even deeper into Genevieve’s cloak, trying to lose herself in its warm shelter.

“Let’s sit down over here,” said Genevieve, steering Charlotte toward her wooden bed. “There, now,” she said, drawing her into the cradle of her arm and kissing the child’s forehead. “That’s better.”

“That’s better, that’s better,” cackled Margaret, scurrying back to her corner.

“I’m not going home, am I?” Charlotte’s face was pale as she looked up at her.

Genevieve’s heart clenched. “Not just yet,” she replied softly. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to stay here for a few days—but I shall come to visit as often as I can, and we’ll find some way to make them go fast. We have to wait for the next session of the Sheriff Court. Then we shall be able to talk to the sheriff and make him see what a dreadful misunderstanding this whole thing is. Once he realizes how terribly sorry you are for what happened in Mr. Ingram’s shop, I shall able to take you home and everything will be all right.”

“I’m going home too,” Margaret said, tying and untying the oily scarf around her head. “My pigs are waiting for me.”

Charlotte trembled. “I stood before Sheriff Trotter once before, and he sentenced me to prison and reformatory school.”

“That was because he believed you had nowhere else to go.” Genevieve’s voice was soothing. “After I have explained to him that you now live with me and that except for this unfortunate incident your behavior has been absolutely faultless, I am certain he will see that the best thing for everyone is for you to come home.”

“Come home, come home, come home,” chanted Margaret before bursting into giggles.

Genevieve tightened her grip on Charlotte. “I am also going to speak to Mr. Ingram, and see if I can get him to speak kindly on your behalf.”

“I don’t think he’ll be willing to say anything good about me,” reflected Charlotte soberly. “He was sorely mad after Annabelle broke a painting over his head. Grace and I had to throw a tablecloth over him to stop him from grabbing her, and that just made him even angrier.”

“After he has had a little time to calm down and consider the situation, he may see things differently,” said Genevieve, although she feared the possibility was remote. “At any rate, I don’t want you to worry. I just want you to try to eat and stay warm and think about how all this will be over in a few days. When I come tomorrow I shall bring you some books and some food, and we shall have a nice long visit.”

Alarm flared in Charlotte’s eyes. “You’re not leaving now, are you?”

“No,” Genevieve said, giving her a reassuring squeeze. “I shall stay for as long as you like.”

Charlotte relaxed a little and settled herself against Genevieve once more. “Is everyone else at home all right?”

“Everyone is fine. Of course, they were horribly concerned when they realized what had happened to you. Your brothers and sisters came crashing through the door like a herd of mad elephants, flinging mud and snow all over Doreen’s freshly washed floor.”

Charlotte managed a wan smile. “That must have made Doreen upset.”

“I do believe she was far more distressed by the fact that you had been arrested than a bit of wet mud on her floor. Poor Jack was particularly shaken by it all. He wanted to come down here and offer himself to Governor Thomson in exchange for your release. Oliver had to practically chain him to the stove to stop him from doing so.”

“Oh, you mustn’t let him do that, Genevieve.” Charlotte regarded her imploringly. “I know he thinks he could stand prison better than I, but Jack is far more likely to make the warder or the governor angry, and then they might lash him. At least they won’t lash me, because I’m a girl.”

Genevieve regarded Charlotte in surprise. When had this special, selfless bond developed between Charlotte and Jack, she wondered, and why had she not been able to see it? Charlotte was an extremely gentle, reticent child who was typically wary of new people. And Jack was a detached, suspicious, angry young lad who seemed determined not to have feelings for anyone, lest it interfere with his jealously guarded independence. Yet here the two of them were, each apparently determined to sacrifice themself for the sake of the other.

“I’m not going to let him do it,” Genevieve assured her, feeling a sense of wonder that these two abused children could be so protective of each other. “I made him realize that he would be very lucky not to have Constable Drummond arrest him as well, and then I would have the both of you to worry about in here.”

Regret shadowed Charlotte’s gaze. “I’m sorry for what I did, Genevieve. It’s just that Simon overheard you saying that the bank was going to take our house from us, and then we would all be sent away. None of us wanted that to happen. We thought that if we could just find enough money to pay the bank, then you wouldn’t have to worry anymore.”

“I don’t want you to concern yourself about that, Charlotte. I will find a way to pay the bank, and no one will take you or any of your brothers and sisters away from me. Do you understand?”

Charlotte nodded.

“Good. Now I want you to lie down and try to sleep.”

She helped Charlotte to pull her legs up onto the hard slats of the bed, then arranged the thin blankets over her. Seating herself once more, she placed Charlotte’s head on her lap and began to sing in a soft, lulling voice as she gently caressed the child’s cheek.

“Sing to me,” pleaded Margaret, who was watching her from her corner. “Sing, sing, sing.”

“If you want me to sing to you, then you must lie quietly upon your bed and promise not to yell out or frighten Charlotte,” Genevieve said. “Can you do that?”

Margaret obediently crawled onto her bed and closed her eyes.

“Sing, sing, sing,” she pleaded softly.

Genevieve resumed caressing Charlotte’s cheek and began to sing once more, and did not stop until the candle had burned down low and both prisoners in the barren little cell had drifted into the fleeting sanctuary of slumber.

 

HAYDON PROWLED THE CONFINES OF THE DRAWING room like a caged beast.

He never should have permitted Genevieve to go to the prison without him, he realized furiously. It would have been dangerous, but the threat of being discovered and thrown back into a cell would have been far better than this goddamn interminable waiting. She had been gone for hours now, the streets were pitch-black and it was taking every shred of his self-restraint to keep himself from going out to find her. The fact that she had not returned immediately with Charlotte could only mean that bastard Drummond or whoever the hell had been responsible for her arrest had refused to release the terrified girl. Haydon could only imagine Genevieve’s horror when she realized that one of her children was going to be detained in the foulness of that jail. She had probably decided to stay with Charlotte, to try to calm the poor child’s fears. Perhaps she even intended to remain with her through the night—or until Governor Thomson had her bodily dragged out of Charlotte’s cell. It would be just like her to do something like that. Genevieve MacPhail was not a woman who would easily leave the side of a child whom she knew to be in jeopardy. Her determination to help others was a trait he had respected and admired in her from the first moment he saw her standing in his cell.

He wished he had possessed the same indomitable resolve with Emmaline.

He cursed and downed the last of his whiskey. Thank God Oliver kept a bottle in his room, “for medicinal purposes.” After watching Haydon restlessly pace the drawing room for nearly an hour, the old man had suggested that perhaps Haydon needed a wee drop to help calm himself. Haydon had drunk well over half the bottle and still didn’t feel the least bit calm. If anything, the need to take action was like a fire in his gut. If Genevieve was spending the night in the jail, then she should have sent word to him so that he wouldn’t worry, he decided furiously. How was he supposed to be calm with Charlotte in prison and Genevieve wandering the streets of Inveraray alone in the dark? The streets were crawling with all kinds of vicious scum at this hour, a fact to which he could well attest. For all he knew, she had set out to come home hours ago, and on her way home had been attacked or abducted.

He banged his glass down upon a table and strode toward the front door, determined to find her.

Before he had reached it, a key twisted the lock and the door slowly swung open. Relief flooded through him as he saw Genevieve standing before him, her face shadowed by the brim of her bonnet and the dim light spilling from the single lamp burning in the hallway. Paradoxically, the realization that she was safe and whole only fueled the wrath now blazing within him.

“Where in the name of God have you been?”

His voice lashed at her like a whip. She did not flinch, but tilted her head up, until the small, pale oval of her face was exposed to the dusky light.

“They refuse to release her,” she murmured, her voice a wisp of sound against the stillness of the night. “They have locked her up in a cell with a murdering madwoman who screams and babbles constantly. They intend to keep her there three days, at which time she will be made to stand trial. I went to plead with Mr. Ingram to speak on her behalf, and he refused. He said Charlotte must serve as an example to all the other undesirables in our society. Then I swallowed my pride and went to Charles, to beg him to hire a good lawyer for us. And he said it was up to my new husband to pay for my brats, and that I had made my choice the day I chose to keep a whore’s bastard over wedding him. He said he has always known that my life would end in disaster. He knows about the bank, you see, knows that I am in grave danger of not only losing my home, but my children as well. And he doesn’t care. He thinks that this is what I deserve.”

Pain was etched with haunting beauty upon her delicate features. Rage churned through Haydon at Charles’s cruelty, but in that moment it was Genevieve’s suffering that mattered most. Ashamed for speaking to her so brusquely, unmanned by his own inability to be at her side to help her endure all that she had been through that night, he stood there, paralyzed.

And then, not knowing what else to do, he held out his arms to her.

For a long moment neither of them moved. The air between them hung frozen, suspended by fear and grief and need. I can bear this alone, thought Genevieve, desperately grasping at the last vestiges of her composure. I have endured worse. But she could not remember ever feeling so lost, so heavily burdened by the responsibility of saving Charlotte from the fate that was swiftly unraveling before her and all the rest of her children. She was losing control, she could feel it, and she knew that if she did so, all would be destroyed. And so she stood utterly still, feeling as if she were about to shatter, terrified that if she shifted or spoke or did anything at all, the carefully constructed facade of her brave independence would begin to crumble.

Haydon watched her as she struggled with her emotions. It had not been his intent to add to her burden, and the thought that he had apparently done so wounded him more than her obvious rejection of him. He lowered his arms.

And then Genevieve cried out and flew to him, burying her forehead against his chest as she broke into agonized sobs.

He clamped his arms tightly around her, encircling her with his strength.

“It’s all right, Genevieve,” he said, his voice low and sure as he held her fast. “Everything is going to be all right.”

He had no grounds to make such assurances, yet he continued to murmur it over and over, soothing her the way he might a small child. He guided her into the drawing room and closed the doors so that no one else in the household would hear her weeping, knowing her distress would only increase if the other children were witness to it. He gently removed her hat and cloak, which were cold and soggy with snow, then seated her on the sofa before the fire. Her flesh was chilled, as if fear and weariness and all the hours spent at the prison and arguing with Ingram and Charles had sapped her blood of heat. He went to the hearth and threw two logs on the fire, then blew upon the coals, quickly coaxing fresh flames to life. Returning to her side, he pulled her into his arms once more, vainly wishing he could somehow wash away all the terrible things she had been through.

“We will hire a lawyer without Charles’s assistance,” he began firmly, stroking the soft silk of her pale hair as he spoke.

“We cannot afford to hire a lawyer,” sobbed Genevieve, “and the ones that the court provides for those who are unable to pay fully expect the children they are defending to go to jail. They imprison eight-year-olds for taking an unripe apple to fill their bellies, or a pair of old stockings to warm their raw, blistered feet. And then they send them to reformatory school, where they are forced to work and are starved and beaten and only learn more about violence and stealing. But no one cares about their fate, as long as they are not sullying the streets and threatening the precious welfare of fine, upstanding citizens like Lord and Lady Struthers.” Her tone was bitterly scornful.

“It is not the same with Charlotte,” Haydon argued. “She has a fine home and a mother who loves and cares for her—and there is also the matter of her injured leg. Surely the judge will demonstrate compassion, and realize that it is far better for Charlotte to return here than to go to jail.”

“Sheriff Trotter is due to preside over the court that day, and he has sentenced Charlotte once before,” Genevieve informed him. “She was only ten, and had been arrested with her father for stealing. The drunken brute used to force her to hobble about and lift her skirts to show her crippled leg and beg people for money. And while they shook their heads in false sympathy and crowded round with cruel fascination, her father would slither in and out amongst them, picking their pockets.”

“Where is her father now?”

“He was sentenced to four years in prison, which he is serving in Perth. And for the crime of being a victim of his greed and violence, Charlotte was sentenced to forty days in prison, to be followed by three years in a reformatory school.” Her voice was ragged as she finished, “How can we expect compassion from a sheriff who could be so cruel?”

Haydon said nothing. He was appalled that any judge could impose such a harsh sentence on a girl who was so obviously at the mercy of an abusive father. On the other hand, perhaps Sheriff Trotter had genuinely believed that he was doing the best thing for the girl. At least in prison and reformatory school she would have a roof over her head and three meals a day, however meager and unpalatable they might be.

“But you took Charlotte before she was sent away,” he surmised.

She nodded. “Over the years I have worked out an arrangement with Governor Thomson, and the court has always agreed to it. He lets me know when there is a child in his prison who has no parents or family willing to intervene on their behalf. Providing the child is not guilty of a violent crime, he has permitted me to assume custody.”

Haydon thought of how anxious Governor Thomson had been for Genevieve to take Jack out of prison. “And what benefit does Governor Thomson extract from this arrangement?”

“I pay him a fee for his trouble.”

“You mean a bribe.”

She sighed. “I suppose you could call it that. I sign an agreement assuming full responsibility for the child for the remainder of his or her sentence. The document stipulates that if the child breaks the law or runs away while under my care, our arrangement is void and the child must be returned to the jail to serve the full extent of their original sentence. Governor Thomson said that was why he and Constable Drummond couldn’t release Charlotte. He fears there will be a public outcry, because everyone knows Charlotte has violated the terms of our agreement.”

“More likely he fears that there would be an investigation and someone might find out that he has been, in effect, selling these children to you,” reflected Haydon.

“Either way, Charlotte is shivering upon a hard wooden bed tonight, and there is nothing I can do to save her.” Fresh tears welled in her eyes. “I have failed her,” she whispered, her voice breaking.

“No, Genevieve, you have not.” He laid his hands upon her slender shoulders, forcing her to look at him. “From the moment you retrieved her from the prison you have provided her with a warm home and decent food and a loving family. You may not realize it, but by doing so, you have armed Charlotte with something she did not have before, and that is hope. You have also shown by your own example that women can be strong, courageous, and persevering, which will help her to endure the next few days.”

“But what about the next few years? Charlotte cannot endure the hardships and cruelties she will be made to suffer in reformatory school—”

“Tonight you were unsuccessful in your pleas to have her released, but the matter is far from finished,” Haydon vowed. “If we cannot afford a decent lawyer, then we can at least assist the one the court gives us in the preparation of Charlotte’s defense. We will show the court that until this incident, Charlotte has been the very model of gentleness and lawful behavior. While we have to be careful not to implicate our other children, I will argue that Charlotte’s role in this incident was in actuality very small, and that this is a matter best resolved by her parents. I will also argue that society will not be served by sending her to prison, which will cost public money and compromise any hope for her future, and therefore the wisest judgment would be for her to be returned to her home, where she will be shown the error of her ways and disciplined accordingly.”

Genevieve regarded him through a veil of tears. “You cannot accompany me to the court, Haydon—someone might recognize you there.”

“I will take that chance,” Haydon told her flatly. “As your new husband and Charlotte’s stepfather, the court may be willing to listen to me—out of perverse curiosity to hear what I have to say, if nothing else. Because I was charged with murder, I was tried before the larger Circuit Court, which I understand meets here but twice a year. While some members of the local Sheriff Court may have attended those proceedings, I can assure you that between my beatings, my illness, my prison uniform, and my unkempt state, I looked very different from the man who now appears before you. Also, I did not speak in my defense, at the suggestion of my lawyer, who felt that I was more likely to antagonize the jury than elicit any sympathy from them. Therefore, there is little danger that anyone present will have heard me speak.”

“But—”

“The matter is settled, Genevieve.” Haydon was adamant. “I have no intention of permitting anyone to jail Charlotte, and no intention of letting you go down to that courthouse alone. We will deal with this matter together, and we will see that Charlotte is brought home safely. Is that understood?”

His face was harshly cut in the flickering firelight, a rough sculpting of shadows and light. The lines between his dark brows were deep, as were those creasing his forehead and webbing the skin beneath his eyes. There was pain there, and a rawness of emotion that surprised her, for although she had sensed that Haydon had grown fond of Charlotte, she would not have expected him to be so agonized over a child he had only known for over a week.

As she stared at him, she suddenly sensed that he was reacting to something that had happened long before he had ever come to Inveraray. Something that had wounded him deeply. There was so much about him Genevieve didn’t know, yet in that hushed, firelit moment she felt she knew him better than he perhaps even understood himself. It made her want to lay her hand against his cheek and feel the heat of him beneath her palm, to trail her fingers along the dark bristle shadowing his jaw, to lean close and feel his warm breath upon her skin, just as she had during those long nights when he had solely belonged to her.

Unable to restrain herself, she leaned into him and pressed her mouth to his.

Desire shot through Haydon. It was just an uncertain little kiss, he understood that, an inexperienced pressure of one mouth to another, but he could not remember ever having been so aroused by one simple touch. Of course he had been impossibly stirred by Genevieve during all the long hours she had tended him and bathed him, soothing every inch of his aching body with her skillful caresses and unbearably soft hands. His body was aching now, but it was with the rigid need to be touched again, to be stroked and kneaded and clutched, not gently, but with desperate, gasping hunger. He fought to control himself, struggled to endure the sweet graze of her mouth and the clean scent of her hair and the feathery brush of her fingers against his clenched jaw. If she would but pull away he might be all right, might be able to maintain the tightly shackled control he had been exerting over himself every time he saw her, or thought of her, or inhaled the lingering summery fragrance of her after she had left a room. But she did not pull away. Instead she increased the pressure of her lips, as if she was trying to elicit a response from him and was not quite sure how to go about it.

With the fragile uncertainty of a woman who had never been properly kissed, she parted her lips ever so slightly, inviting him to taste her.

Haydon groaned and crushed his mouth to hers, wrapping her in his powerful arms as he dragged her against him.

He plunged his hands in the strawberry-gold of her hair, plucking away the pins until the heavy mass poured like liquid silk into his rough palms. His tongue swept along the coral of her lips and then slipped inside, tasting her deeply as his hands roamed the elegant curve of her jaw, the fine silk of her cheek, the slender column of her throat. Much to his pleasure, she did not fight him, but instead moaned and grasped the back of his neck, pulling him even closer as her own desire flamed.

Her gown was a primly buttoned affair of slate-gray, unadorned and inexpensive and well-worn, yet as Haydon cupped the soft swell of her breast, he thought it the most mysterious and erotic fashion he had ever seen. One by one the tiny black buttons at the front were freed, until finally the creamy expanse of her breasts was exposed, barely veiled by the transparent fabric of her chemise. His tongue twined with hers as his hand wandered over the lush mounds, aroused by the flimsy barrier of linen separating his rough skin from hers. He rained a hungry path of kisses along the pulse of her throat, over the delicate structure of her collarbone and down into the valley below. Her chemise was loose and dipped in a low crescent over her, enabling him to slide it across her skin with little more than a sigh, releasing the beauty of her breasts to the shifting coppery light of the fire.

Genevieve felt as if she were melting, as if her skin and flesh and bone had been transformed to molten honey. She wanted to taste Haydon’s mouth again, to swirl her tongue around the whiskey-sweet wetness and heat, and feel the low rumble of him moaning against her as his hands laid claim to her body. She tried to pull him up to her once more, but he was consumed with circling his tongue across her tingling skin, setting it afire with slick little caresses. And suddenly he closed his mouth over the peak of her breast and began to suckle, sending a deep shiver of pleasure surging through her. She gasped and threaded her hands into his hair, tilting her head back as she held him at her breast and shamelessly offered herself to him. She felt her nipple tighten into a taut bud of pure sensation, and just as she thought she could bear no more he broke away and flicked his tongue over the other peak, licking and suckling until both breasts were full and aching.

He eased her back against the cushions of the sofa and continued to worship her, trailing up and down from her breasts to her mouth, while his hands roamed across the ample layers of padded crinolines and skirts that cocooned her belly and hips and thighs. Suddenly his fingers were circling her ankle, and then they were trailing up, along the thin wool of her stocking, barely grazing her calf as they found the edge of her drawers. Up and up they moved with swift certainty, and then they stole through the opening of her undergarment and began to caress the downy soft mound between her thighs.

Genevieve gasped, but Haydon only kissed her more deeply as he stroked the intimate triangle, awakening it to a myriad of glorious sensations. Hot, dark pleasure bloomed inside her, and when he lightly traced his finger along the cleft of her womanhood, he found her slick and anxious to be touched. He eased his finger inside, fondling the slippery folds of her with slow, patient strokes, teasing her and rousing her as he devoured her mouth. His own hardness was pressing against her, and she tentatively laid her hand against it. He groaned and drove his finger deeper, shocking her, exciting her, filling the terrible void that had begun to throb from the very core of her body. In and out he moved as he suckled from breast to breast. His fingers circled the honeyed petals of her in swift swirls before slipping ever deeper inside again. He altered his rhythm and his touch, teasing her, coaxing her, distilling her awareness until it was nothing but a ripple of ever-increasing pleasure, tightening and intensifying until she couldn’t move, couldn’t think, could only take the smallest sips of air.

Her modesty forgotten, she gripped his hardness through the wool of his trousers and restlessly shifted her hand up and down, wanting to torture him as he was torturing her. But it was impossible to concentrate on what she was doing, because the sensations swelling within her were growing hotter and deeper and tighter, until she was certain she could bear no more. And then she was shattering into a thousand sparkling pieces and she cried out, a cry of ecstasy and wonder, and Haydon crushed his mouth to hers and held her tight.

It took every fragment of his self-control to keep himself from taking her right there on the sofa, with her breasts spilling wantonly from her spinsterish gown and her ruffled skirts tangled in frothy disarray about her thighs and hips. Genevieve had ignited a desire within him that had long lain dormant, and he wanted to slake it, here, now, quickly, before the flames of her passion cooled.

He had no right to her, he reminded himself.

She was innocent and pure, a woman who had devoted her life to saving lost children from a bleak and unforgiving world. What could she possibly want with a selfish bastard like him, who had wasted most of his life in a drunken orgy of pleasure, gambling and drinking and rutting? He had carelessly permitted his family’s fortune to dwindle until it was less than half of what he had originally inherited from his staid, thoroughly responsible brother. He had recklessly copulated with a married woman and created an unwanted child who was doomed to a life of loneliness and misery, until she finally decided she could bear the cruelties of this world no more. Now he was running from the law, accused of murdering a man he did in fact kill, albeit in self-defense, afraid to be known by his own name, without so much as a penny for food or shelter. In the midst of this appalling situation, he was selfishly ravishing the woman who had risked everything in her world to try to help him.

Hating himself, he rolled off of her. He stood and began to straighten his clothing, staring morosely into the fire.

Genevieve’s senses began to return. Her heated flesh was suddenly cold and shockingly bare now that the comfort of Haydon’s powerful body stretched over her was gone. Mortified, she rose from the sofa, pulling down her skirts before she clumsily began the task of buttoning up the gaping bodice of her gown.

“Forgive me,” said Haydon tautly. “I should never have touched you.”

What could she possibly say to that? she wondered miserably. Obviously he was trying to spare her feelings, for surely he could not have forgotten that it was she who had kissed him. But she had never imagined that a simple, tender kiss could burst into such a frenzy of heat and lust, of wanting to touch and taste and grope and feel, deep within, the sensations that had flooded her body with such glorious abandon. No kiss that she had shared with Charles had ever exploded into such a breathless, spinning vortex of erotic desire. And even though her skin was now chilled by Haydon’s abandonment of her and her own shame, the area between her legs was still mysteriously wet and aching for more.

“I must go,” she managed in a tiny voice, wishing the floor would open up and swallow her whole. And then, because her breeding and her irrevocably instilled civility would not permit her to do otherwise, she added awkwardly, “Good night, Lord Redmond.”

Haydon closed his eyes as he listened to the door close behind her, excruciatingly aware of her summery citrus fragrance upon the air, his clothes, his skin.

He would never touch her again, he vowed fiercely. He had already destroyed one innocent life by following the torch of his lust, and he’d gladly burn in hell before ever doing so again.