Chapter Fourteen

THE DAY HAD WITHERED INTO MURKY COLD SHADOWS by the time Genevieve and her band were making their way through the putrid maze of Devil’s Den. A tattered quilt of clouds was sifting icy snow upon them, fine as salt, which beat against their faces like a thousand sharp pins. It was not thick enough to suffuse the filth and muck that lay in a great, oozing mantle over the haphazard streets, a stinking swill of human waste and sour ale. Shattered glass lay everywhere, a testament to the scores of men and women who crawled home each night with a bottle of whiskey mashed against their mouths, and after licking up the last fiery drop hurled the vessel against the nearest wall, briefly filling the dark with the sound of their impotent rage. The streets were a combination of cesspool, refuse heap, and thoroughfare, and Genevieve had to resist the impulse to instruct the children to make their way carefully as they trudged after Jack. She had sworn upon her beloved father’s soul that she would not speak, and therefore she remained silent and concentrated on being as inconspicuous as possible.

In truth, she thought that the transformation in her appearance had been nothing short of extraordinary. Draped in Doreen’s stained, shapeless dress, with her hair dulled beneath a generous application of ashes and her face and hands smudged with grime, she looked every inch the miserable young mother she was emulating, right down to the ragged bundle she carried in her arms. Oliver had insisted on her upper front teeth being masked in yellow wax, even though Genevieve had argued that as she wasn’t going to speak, it wasn’t necessary. The result was a lumpy, uncomfortable mold that pressed between her teeth and her inner lip, giving her mouth a misshapen appearance, almost as if she had been recently struck in the face. Doreen assured her that most of the women in Devil’s Den were cuffed with brutal regularity, and that her swollen lip would help her blend better into the surrounding wretchedness.

Smoke spewed in greasy streams from the chimneys, adding the redolence of sputtering fires, wilted cabbage, and charred meat to the fetid air below. Genevieve’s throat convulsed as the stench assailed her nostrils, and for a dizzying moment she thought she might vomit. She adjusted her scarf against her nose and forced herself to take tiny sips of air, fighting the quick lurch of her stomach. She had thought herself accustomed to the reek of misery, for she had spent enough time within the walls of the jail to know it intimately. But somehow, the closed stink of the prison was not nearly so overpowering as the noisome odors that assaulted her now. In prison, chamber pots were occasionally emptied and rinsed, and prisoners were required to tidy their cells each day and take a bath once a fortnight. The wretched stew that lined the streets and filled the overcrowded buildings of Devil’s Den had been steeping for decades, until the very ground was rotten. As for bathing, Genevieve doubted whether any of the inhabitants here had ever enjoyed that luxury, save for the bairns that were still small enough to be hastily dunked in a battered dishpan of gray water.

“It’s that one.” Jack inclined his head toward a crumbling building at the end of the street.

“Ye’re sure?” asked Oliver.

He nodded. “They took him through that door. I waited a bit, then slipped in after them. I think they went to the second or third floor, but before I could be certain they had disappeared into one of the apartments. It was too noisy for me to try to make out which one. Lots of screamin’ and bawling goes on in these places.” He gave Genevieve a hard look, trying to prepare her.

“Look!” gasped Jamie, pointing at a shifting pile of rotting scraps.

“Stay back,” Doreen warned, protectively grabbing him by his shoulders. “It’s a rat. The streets here are full of them.”

“Really?” Jamie stared in fascination at the moving refuse. Suddenly a little orange-and-vanilla-striped head emerged from the slimy mound.

“It’s a cat!” He watched with delight as the mangy creature shook off an errant bit of onionskin. Its fur was matted with grease and filth, and one ear had been torn into two pink flaps.

“Poor thing—she looks half-starved.” Charlotte leaned upon her crutch and held her hand out to it. “Here, kitty.”

The cat lifted her nose into the air and studied Charlotte, trying to ascertain if there was something of interest in her palm.

“Here now, dinna go touchin’ that vermin-infested creature,” scolded Eunice. “Lord knows what kind of nasty things are crawlin’ in its fur.”

Charlotte smiled as the cat came close enough for her to kneel down and stroke its sticky head. “Poor thing—she must be hungry.”

“Well if she is, ’tis no concern of ours,” Eunice informed her, shepherding Charlotte forward. “We’ve enough to worry about today without having some skinny, louse-ridden beast traipsin’ after us.”

Charlotte regarded her unhappily. “But if we leave her here she’s going to die.”

“Nonsense,” scoffed Doreen. “Between the mice and the rubbish there’s enough here to feed her for a year.”

“Does everyone remember what our plan is?” demanded Oliver in a low voice.

The little group nodded solemnly.

“All right, then. Stay tight, and none of ye speak unless ye have to. Doreen and I will do any talkin’ that’s to be done. Let’s go.”

They trudged across the street, which was now covered with a fine, sandy snow, and bitterly cold against their roughly shod feet. Each of them had been garbed in the dullest of rags, with crushed hats and frayed coats, and they all carried a satchel of some sort. The exception to this was Genevieve, who was feigning carrying a bairn in her arms, and Charlotte, who was hobbling along with the crutch she typically tried not to use. They gave the appearance of a destitute family limping through the cold, desperately searching for a place to stay. It was far from an uncommon plight in Devil’s Den. No one troubled them or asked them any questions. If anything, the people they encountered on the street made a point of quickening their pace and looking away as they tramped by. It occurred to Genevieve that they probably feared being asked for a crust of bread or a place where the bedraggled family might be able to rest and get warm.

A sickening brew of odors assailed them as they opened the door to the building. The stink of guttering fires and overly full chamber pots melded with the immediate stench of burned meats and vegetables, but there was a thicker underlying smell that permeated the very walls and floors around them. It was the reek of decades of bodies existing without benefit of bathing, a near-choking aroma of sweat and skin and scalp, and all the accompanying bodily fluids that had seeped into the clothes and mattresses and furniture around them. It was the smell of poverty and misery, but it was also the smell of defeat. Jamie wrinkled his nose in disgust. None of the others seemed to react to it. Perhaps, Genevieve reflected, they had each known that stench too well at some point in their lives to be easily offended by it.

“Yer pardon, sir,” Oliver began, addressing a pinch-faced young man who was swiftly descending the stairs. “I’m lookin’ for my son—”

“Go to hell.” He shoved past the group and heaved open the door. “Bloody Christ!” he swore as the scrawny striped cat darted in between his legs. He drew his foot back to kick it, causing Charlotte to cry out in dismay.

“Leave it be!” snarled Jack, leaping forward to scoop the scabby creature up.

The man’s eyes narrowed into dark slits. “Are ye thinkin’ t’ order me about?”

“Here now, we dinna want trouble,” Oliver said, deftly inserting his spindly frame between Jack and the glowering tenant. “That’s the lad’s cat, is all. Nasty wee thing, to be sure, but good for the mice, all the same. Ye’d nae want to be rid of a good mouser, now, would ye?”

The man scowled. “Just keep the skinny bastard the hell away from me.”

“I will for sure,” Oliver said, not certain whether the man was referring to Jack or the cat.

The tenant stomped out the door and banged it shut behind him.

“Here,” said Jack, depositing the writhing cat in Annabelle’s arms. “Hold that for Charlotte.”

Annabelle’s eyes widened in horror as she struggled to restrain the twisting little beast. “But it’s so dirty!”

“Please, Annabelle,” implored Charlotte. “I’d hold her myself, but I don’t think I could manage with my crutch.”

“I’ve an idea.” Simon removed his scarf and wrapped it tightly around the cat until the filthy creature resembled a small mummy. “That should keep it from moving about.”

“If we’re quite finished playin’ with cats, could we get on with it?” demanded Doreen, growing agitated.

Oliver quickly scanned the hallway and selected an apartment that was situated close to the stairs. The sounds of children wailing and fighting could be heard behind the door, and, somewhere deeper within, a woman was screeching at them to clapper their bloody traps.

“Over here,” Oliver said, directing his ragged family around him. He raised his fist and rapped upon the door.

“Dinna open it!” the woman inside shouted, but it was already too late. The door swung open and six dirty little faces stared up at them.

“I told ye nae to open it, ye bleedin’ wee buggers!”

A heavily pregnant woman waddled forward, lugging over one hip a delicately boned child of about a year of age. She swatted the children away, then glared at Oliver and the others with naked hostility. Her eyes were small and set close together, and the skin around one of them bore the faded blue-and-purple mottling of an ugly bruise.

“What do ye want?” she demanded sharply.

“Forgive me for troublin’ ye, missus,” said Oliver, politely removing his cap. “My wife and me are lookin’ for my son, ye see—”

The door slammed shut.

Unperturbed, Oliver herded the group to the next door. This time a gaunt woman of about twenty answered. Her narrow body had been squeezed into a tight corset so that her small breasts were plumped up like two lumps of boiled dough, and her ashen face was heavily smeared with rouge. She had arranged her oily hair into a drab coiffure, and the sickly sweet odor of cheap perfume wafted from her, intermingled with the smell of old perspiration. Surprise registered upon her face as she opened the door. It was clear to Genevieve that she had been expecting someone else.

“Yer pardon for troublin’ ye, miss,” Oliver began again, “but my wife and myself are tryin’ to find our lad, and last we heard he was livin’ in this building. Perhaps ye’ve seen him,” he rushed on, sensing that she was about to close the door. “Built like an ale barrel, Harry is, with a nose laid flat from his taste for brawlin’. Or mayhap ye’ve seen his mates—George is a big brute with a belly like a swine’s, while Ewan is skinny as a weed, with hair the color of smashed turnip.”

A flash of insight lit the girl’s wary gaze. Clearly she knew something about the men Oliver was describing.

“This is Harry’s wife and bairns,” Oliver pressed on, pointing to Genevieve and the children. “This poor wee bugger has never seen his da,” he added, gesturing at the ragged bundle in her arms. “Harry dinna ken that he’s gone and made another,” he added, slipping into a broader Scots than he normally used. His bony shoulders were hunched with defeat as he finished, “I’m old, and canna go on carin’ for her and her brood. ’Tis time Harry come home and did right by them.”

The children stared at her mournfully, except for Jack, whose sullen indifference seemed entirely appropriate for an abandoned lad of fourteen. Even the motley cat let out a pitiful meow as it tried to extract itself from Annabelle’s tight hold.

The girl hesitated, debating whether or not to speak. Suddenly a door banged open on a floor above them, causing her to jump.

“I dinna know nothin’,” she blurted out, her eyes flitting nervously toward the staircase. She hurled the door closed.

“She knows where they are,” Jack said, infuriated. He raised his fist to pound upon the door.

“Aye, o’ course she does,” hissed a crackling voice.

A decrepit old woman with a sparse scraggle of white hair peered at them speculatively from a doorway across the corridor. “The scurvy hoor knows every pair o’ trousers that rubs together in all o’ Devil’s Den!” She laughed, revealing a dark cave of slippery gray gums, like snails, intermittently spiked with the occasional yellow tooth.

“A shame.” Oliver shook his head as he shuffled over to her. “That’s what happens to a lass when she’s got nae family to help. I dinna know what’ll become of these wee cubs if I canna find their da. End up on the street, most like.”

“Filled yer belly and left ye to rot, did he, dearie?” The woman’s watery eyes were nearly swallowed beneath the limp folds of her eyelids as she studied Genevieve. “Poor lassie. Lads today have nae honor. A quick toss of the skirts and they’re off again, never mind the mess they’ve left behind. ’Tis a disgrace, to my way of thinkin’. If ’twere my son, I’d nae spare the whip!” She glared at Doreen, as if she bore responsibility for the transgressions of her supposed son.

“And so I shall, if I ever find him,” Doreen assured her fiercely. “I dinna know where he gets it from—his da is as fine a man as ye’ll ever know. He’d sooner starve himself than see one of these wee chicks go hungry.” She cast a fond look at Oliver.

“Well, pleasure comes from doin’ good, and that’s God’s truth,” the woman said approvingly. “As for yer son, a wolf may lose his teeth but ne’er his nature, so even if ye drag him home by his boots, ye canna expect him to change.” She studied Oliver a moment, considering. “Ye say ye think he’s livin’ here?”

“With friends,” Oliver elaborated. “Maybe ye’ve seen them? Harry’s short but strong as an ox, with a nose that’s been walloped one time too many. Then there’s George, with gray hair and a bloated belly, and tall, skinny Ewan—”

“With orange hair and red spots.” The old woman nodded. “Aye, I’ve seen them. Not many rooms here are kept by three lads with nae lasses tae warm their beds. But they dinna get cold—not with all their visits tae that hoor across the hall.” She cast a sympathetic look at Genevieve. “Yer husband’s nae better nae worse than most, lassie,” she assured her. “All they do is sleep and drink and fight. Today they brought yet another one home—so guttered he could nae walk, an’ ’twas still practically mornin’!”

Genevieve’s face grew pale.

“Where are they?” demanded Jack tersely. His hands tightened into fists.

“Angry at yer da, are ye, lad? An’ so ye should be.” Her scant white brows puckered together in a frown as she studied him. “Ye must have started birthin’ when ye were barely weaned,” she decided, turning her gaze to Genevieve.

“If ye dinna mind, missus, I’d like to find my lad an’ make him come home,” said Oliver, interrupting any attempt to draw Genevieve into conversation.

“’Course ye would,” the old woman agreed. “He’s up the stairs and to yer left, the last door at the end. Should be in there now, for I’ve nae heard any of them leave. Sleepin’ off their whiskey, most like.”

Oliver clamped a restraining hand on Jack’s shoulder to keep him from tearing up the staircase and breaking down the door. “Thank ye kindly, missus. I’m sure Harry will be most pleased to see his family again. Most pleased.”

The old woman looked doubtful. “I dinna know about that—what wi’ all these bairns tae feed. But I expect he’ll be fair surprised!” She cackled, her collapsed mouth opening to expose her slick gray gums once more.

“Right,” began Oliver in a low voice, struggling to stay abreast of Jack as he led the little mismatched band up the creaking staircase. “Like any job, the most important thing is, we’ve got to work quick. Get in, get his lordship an’ get out. Me and Jack will do any bashin’, if necessary. The rest of ye just keep ’em scurryin’ about while we free his lordship. Use yer weapons if ye must, an’ be sure to work together. There’s but three of them and ten of us. If we keep a quick hand and a sharp eye, they’ll be on the floor and beggin’ for mercy afore they know what they’re about.”

Doreen nodded in agreement. “Remember, ’tis nae the size of the dog in the fight, but the fight in the dog!”

“Sweet saints,” gasped Eunice breathlessly, clutching the rickety banister, “how many more steps are there?”

Genevieve’s heart began to beat wildly against the cage of her ribs as the group made their way along the dimly lit corridor. The din of men and women shouting at each other and children squealing and crying was much the same as it had been on the floor below. Jack had been right, she realized. The families trapped behind each of those decrepit doors were too immersed in their own miserable lives to take any notice if someone was being beaten or murdered in the next apartment. She unconsciously clutched the bundle she was carrying tighter to her chest. Whatever happened, they could expect no help from the other inhabitants of the dilapidated building.

Oliver motioned for them to be quiet. He pressed his ear against the door and listened for a long minute. Apparently satisfied with whatever he did or did not hear, he raised his gnarled fist and rapped upon the battered wood.

A hush of tense anticipation fell over the group. Even the wretched cat in Annabelle’s arms quit struggling. There was the sound of a chair scraping against the floor and booted feet moving toward them.

Then nothing.

Oliver knocked again. There was a moment of strained silence.

Finally a heavy bolt grated across the wood and the door creaked open. Smoky light spilled from the hearth and lamps in the room beyond, illuminating the emaciated form and pimpled face of Ewan in ghostly shadows. He regarded the bedraggled assemblage in bleary confusion, showing no sign of recognition. Muffled within their ragged hats, scarves and heavy coats, their faces streaked with grime, the tatty gang bore little resemblance to the pristinely attired family whose home he and his accomplices had raided that morning.

“Yer pardon, lad, we’re here to show Harry his new bairn.” Oliver stepped aside to gesture at the bundle Genevieve carried, deftly inserting himself into the doorway as he did so.

Ewan gazed stupidly at the parcel of blankets. “Harry’s bairn?”

“Looks just like Harry, he does,” Eunice assured him cheerily. “Right down to his wee mashed nose. See for yerself.”

Genevieve raised her “baby” slightly, offering Ewan a better view. Unable to restrain his curiosity, Ewan leaned forward to peer at Harry’s progeny.

Quick as a whip, Doreen withdrew a heavy flatiron from her bag and brought it crashing down upon poor Ewan’s head. The gangly lad stood for an instant, apparently frozen, staring blankly at Genevieve’s arms.

Then his eyes rolled up into his skull and he crashed to the floor, forcing the children to scatter to make room for his crumpled body.

“That was a bloody fine blow,” said Oliver, nodding at Doreen with approval.

A charming flush rose to Doreen’s wrinkled cheeks. “Why, thank ye, Ollie.” She girlishly adjusted a gray strand of hair that had tumbled down from her hat.

“Ewan!” growled a drunken voice from within, “what the devil’s goin’ on out there?”

“Here, kitty,” whispered Annabelle, unraveling the cat in her arms, “go find a nice, fat mouse!” She tossed the squirming creature just beyond the door, then raced in after it, shrieking at the top of her lungs, “Come back, kitty!”

The other children charged through the door after her in a clamorous mob, screeching and shouting as they chased after the thoroughly agitated cat.

“What the hell is goin’ on here?” demanded Harry, startled by the unexpected invasion. He shoved his chair out from the table at which he and broken-nosed George were eating their supper, and stared at them in drunken confusion.

“My kitty,” wailed Annabelle, leading the children in a frenzied dance around the squalid little apartment.

“Come back, come back!” they all screeched, causing the terrified cat to race about wildly.

“Here now, ye canna be in here!” George’s battered face contorted with fury as Grace and Jamie scampered beneath the table. “Come out o’ there, I say!”

Feigning compliance they obediently rose, causing the table to overturn and sending a greasy mess of fish stew and warm ale sloshing to the floor.

“What are ye thinkin’, ye wee scoundrels?” demanded Eunice, storming angrily into the room, with Oliver, Doreen, and Genevieve chasing behind. “Come away from here at once, ye rotten little—”

“It’s under your skirts!” Simon cried. “I think it’s gone mad!”

Eunice screamed and began to whirl about, creating a tornado of petticoats as she pretended to try to evacuate the cat. “Help! Help!” She wrapped her bulky arms around George’s neck and held tight, using him for support as she clambered heavily onto a chair. “Save me!”

“I…canna…breathe,” George rasped, fighting to extricate himself from her strangling grip.

“Nae, he’s over there!” shouted Oliver, pointing behind Harry.

Harry’s eyes widened in panic as the children surged toward him in a tumultuous wave, smashing him to the floor. “Get off me, ye bloody monkeys!” he swore, trying to protect himself from their flailing arms and legs.

With the two men utterly distracted by the roiling commotion, Jack, Genevieve, and Oliver raced toward the door of the small bedroom at the back of the miserable apartment. Jack pushed it open to find Haydon lying upon the floor, bound hand and foot to an overturned chair, a length of bloodstained rag cinched tightly over his mouth. It was obvious he was trying to get closer to some fragments of shattered glass that were scattered in a pool of kerosene, the remnants of a lamp that he had managed to knock from a table. Shocked disbelief flared in his eyes as the bedraggled trio rushed toward him.

“So this is where ye be hidin’.” Oliver produced two thin lengths of metal from his pocket and bent down so he could pick the lock of the manacles securing Haydon’s wrists behind his back.

“You’ve looked worse,” Jack assured Haydon tautly. He slipped a sharp dirk from his boot and sawed at the bonds lashing Haydon’s ankles.

Genevieve choked back a sob as she swiftly unraveled the bloodstained rag from Haydon’s bruised mouth. He is alive, she told herself, fighting the tears blurring her vision. Beaten and bloody, but alive. Now all they had to do was get him out of there.

“For Christ’s sake, Genevieve,” Haydon swore, his voice a harsh rasp as he tossed the ragged lengths of his bonds aside, “what the hell are you doing here?”

“Well, lad, she had her heart set on comin’ to fetch ye, an’ there was no way we were goin’ to stand by an’ let her do it alone,” Oliver cheerfully explained. “Now, if ye dinna mind, I think we’d best take care of Harry and George so we can all go—”

“I’ll kill ye!” roared George, his enormous frame blocking the bedroom doorway. His expression contorted with savage rage, he withdrew a gleaming dagger from his belt. “I’ll kill all of ye!” He raised his dagger and barreled toward them.

Charlotte appeared suddenly and thrust her crutch between his ankles, causing him to crash to the floor. Quick as a whip, Jamie darted inside and dumped a blinding blizzard of flour from his satchel onto George’s head. The enormous brute howled in fury and turned on Jamie, his eyes two glowering black nuggets beneath a terrifying chalk mask.

“Ye’re dead now, ye pissin’ little piece of—”

Eunice sailed into the chamber wielding her rolling pin and briskly cracked it against his powdery head, putting an end to both his threats and his foul language.

A floury cloud billowed into the air as George toppled nose first into the floor. Jack was on him in an instant, pinning him down with his knee as he roughly secured his hands and feet with the very same manacles and rope that had been used to bind Haydon.

“Right—just one more to attend to and we can all go home.” Oliver rubbed his gnarled hands together with anticipation, looking as if he was enjoying himself immensely.

In the other room Grace and Simon were running circles around Harry, who might have been better able to foil their dizzying attack if not for the vast quantity of ale swashing through his veins. Doreen stood at the ready with her flatiron, poised to bash Harry on the head the moment the opportunity presented itself.

“Take that, foul knave!” shouted Simon, prodding and thrusting at Harry with the brass poker he was wielding as a sword.

“And that, and that!” cried Grace, handily whacking him in the arse with a brass warming pan.

Provoked beyond endurance, Harry let out an infuriated bellow and wrenched the instruments of his torture from the pesky children’s grasp.

“I’ll teach ye a lesson ye’ll nae soon forget, ye sodding little bastards!” he raged, charging toward them.

“Harry, quick—save your bairn!” Genevieve pitched her ragged bundle at him.

His expression teetering somewhere between astonishment and panic, Harry instantly dropped the poker and warming pan in favor of catching the flying bairn.

“I got him!” he bellowed, triumphant.

Confusion washed across his face as he looked down at the disheveled blankets cozily swaddling a plump, ten-pound sack of oatmeal. “What the hell—”

Haydon’s fist smashed into his jaw, cracking his teeth together in a sickening crunch. Harry regarded him in a daze, still protectively clutching the swaddled oatmeal. Haydon struck him once more, and Harry fell back like a tossed caber, the oatmeal still warm and secure within his beefy arms.

“Right—that about does it, then,” said Oliver, nodding with satisfaction. “These lads will sleep ’til morn.”

“Mind ye remember to take yer things with ye, children,” instructed Doreen as she put her trusty iron back in her bag. “There’s no sense in losin’ a perfectly good warmin’ pan.”

“Where’s the cat?” asked Charlotte, looking about the littered room.

Jamie pointed toward the door, where the traumatized little beast was surreptitiously trying to make its escape from the mayhem. “He’s over there.”

“Come back, kitty,” called Annabelle, scampering toward it.

The cat meowed in protest and streaked into the corridor.

“No, kitty—come back!” Annabelle flung the door wide to chase after it.

And crashed directly into Vincent.

The sight of Ewan lying in a scrawny heap in the corridor had alerted the earl of Bothwell that all was not going according to his plan. And so he grabbed Annabelle and pressed his pistol firmly against her head, pragmatically deciding he might need some sort of leverage in dealing with Haydon.

“Let me go!” she shrieked, kicking him hard in the shin with her worn boot.

“Be still,” Vincent hissed, wincing with pain, “or I’ll blast a hole through that pretty little head of yours!” He wrenched her arm behind her back, forcing her to comply. Once she was satisfactorily subjugated, he raked his infuriated gaze over the stunned assemblage before him.

“Good evening, Haydon,” he drawled, his voice coldly formal as he forced Annabelle back inside and closed the door. “I must confess, I had not expected to find you entertaining quite so many guests. I would have preferred to settle this matter between us without an audience.”

Haydon regarded Vincent with an air of carefully constructed calm. He gave no hint of his concern for Annabelle’s welfare, or for any of the others within the crowded chamber. To do so would only enhance the perverse pleasure Vincent was currently enjoying and place them all in even greater danger. Haydon had seen that chillingly satisfied look before, on the day he had pleaded with Vincent to grant him custody of Emmaline.

He had erroneously believed that Vincent had exacted his revenge upon him by tormenting Emmaline until she couldn’t bear to live. He had thought that must have been enough for him—the horrendously lonely death of the child whom Haydon had wanted so desperately to help, and the subsequent disintegration of Haydon’s life into the ashes of alcohol, guilt, and shame. Vincent knew about his appalling financial losses, and his reputation for drunkenness and brawling had become legendary. But in that frozen, hideous moment, it was clear that for the man whose wife Haydon had so selfishly bedded and gotten with child, Haydon’s suffering had been wholly insufficient.

Only his death could assuage the humiliation and betrayal that Vincent had been forced to endure.

“Hello, Vincent,” Haydon said pleasantly. “I must say, I didn’t expect to find you traipsing about in a sordid place like this. How have you been?”

“The ever urbane marquess of Redmond.” Vincent’s tone was laden with bitter contempt. “No matter how unpalatable the situation, you always had a proclivity for being unfailingly polite. Even when you were ramming yourself between my wife’s thighs all night beneath my own roof, you were excessively courteous and droll with me over breakfast the following morning. I suppose that made the game all the more amusing for you, didn’t it.”

Haydon said nothing. He had no desire to further antagonize Vincent. Moreover, there really was no adequate excuse for his contemptible behavior.

“I believe I would prefer it if all of you would toss whatever weapons you might be holding onto the floor,” Vincent instructed, raking his gaze over the others.

His brow lifted as Eunice’s rolling pin, Doreen’s flatiron, Simon’s poker, and Grace’s warming pan clattered heavily to the floor. Oliver hesitated a moment, then reluctantly dropped a knife he had tucked inside his belt.

Vincent regarded Haydon and Jack expectantly.

“I’m afraid I don’t have anything.” Haydon raised his empty hands.

Vincent shifted his attention to Jack, who had deftly slipped his dirk up his sleeve. “Me neither.” He regarded Vincent with barely contained loathing.

Vincent’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying.”

Jack glared at him. “No, I’m not.”

“I believe you are,” Vincent asserted calmly. “And unless you produce your weapon within the next five seconds, I shall be forced to blast a hole into your pretty little friend here.”

A tiny, frightened whimper escaped Annabelle’s throat.

Realizing he had no choice, Jack reluctantly allowed the dirk he had been hiding to slip through his fingers and clatter to the floor.

A triumphant smile lifted the corners of Vincent’s mouth. “Very good.”

“Let her go, Vincent.” Haydon’s voice was low and remarkably mild. “This is between us.”

“You really have been most tiresome, you know,” Vincent informed him, not relinquishing his hold on Annabelle. “I thought when I arranged for your little investment excursion here that these idiots I had hired would kill you and that would be the end of it. Instead you managed to slay one and scare these other imbeciles away. I must say, I found that rather vexing.”

“Forgive me for disappointing you,” Haydon apologized dryly. “I had no idea you had gone to so much trouble.”

“After you were sentenced to be hanged, it ceased to matter. I decided that having you dangle at the end of a rope on the scaffold was infinitely better than having your chest swiftly split in some dark alley. There was also the added enjoyment of the scandal your trial created, and the ugly stain you had brought upon the Redmond name. It was a most appropriate ending to what has been, by my accounting, a perfectly worthless life.”

Haydon did not argue.

“Unfortunately, however, you had to go and interfere.” Vincent cast an irritated look at Genevieve. “Of course, you cannot be blamed entirely for your feminine weakness, Miss MacPhail. I understand you have a bizarre penchant for helping worthless criminals, as is evidenced by the scum with which you have elected to surround yourself.” His lip curled with faint disgust as he swept his gaze over the unkempt children and elders crowding the room. “Moreover, the marquess here does have, what my slut of a wife took great pains to describe to me as, exceptional abilities when it comes to rutting—as I’m sure you have discovered.”

Eunice gasped in horror.

“Keep yer filthy tongue to yerself afore I rip it from yer mouth!” Oliver’s voice was quivering with fury and his ancient hands had knotted into fists.

“Did yer ma nae teach ye not to speak so in front of children?” demanded Doreen, looking as if she wanted to slap him. “I’ve a mind to wash yer mouth with a good chunk of lye soap!”

“Forgive me.” Vincent tipped his head in mannerly apology, amused by the elderly trio’s scandalized reaction. “I had forgotten that there were children present. They are such mysterious, fragile creatures, aren’t they, Haydon?” He adjusted his hold on Annabelle while he studied the anxious faces of Jamie, Grace, Charlotte, and Simon. Jack was glaring at him with poisonous loathing. “Although these children, I suspect, are not nearly as fragile as little Emmaline was.”

Despite his resolve not to antagonize him, Haydon found he could not keep silent. “You would know best about that, Vincent. After all, you tormented her to death.”

“Shut your mouth, you goddamn bastard,” Vincent snarled. “You, who crawled between my wife’s legs night after night in a drunken haze of lust, with no thought whatsoever to the fact that a child might result from your sordid couplings! A child who was nothing more to you than spilled seed, and whom you passed off as my own while you sniggered behind my back about how clever you were! You haven’t the right to speak her name, do you hear?”

His eyes were burning with rage. But there was something more there, buried deeper, masked within the swirling depths of fury and loathing. Haydon was far too consumed with his own wrath and his fear for Annabelle and the others to see it. But Genevieve recognized it instantly. All the years of ministering to the lost and broken souls of her children, each of whom had been so cruelly wounded before coming into her gentle care, enabled her to see beneath the suffocating layers of Vincent’s hatred for Haydon. However much she despised him for threatening Annabelle and wanting to kill Haydon, she could not help but be moved by the raw pain she saw twisting deep within the shadows of his gaze.

This, she realized with piercing clarity, was a man who was drowning in agony.

“Do you dare think that you are better than me, Redmond?” Vincent continued savagely. “That your actions are above reproach? Or have you deluded yourself into believing that you are somehow the hero in all of this, and that you actually loved Emmaline because you accidentally planted her in my wife’s womb?”

“I loved her enough to want to save her from you, Vincent,” Haydon retaliated, finding it increasingly difficult to maintain his calm facade. “I loved her enough to be willing to acknowledge her as my own, and to care for her and support her for the rest of her life. But you refused me—not because you gave a damn about Emmaline, but because you despised her very existence, and wanted to punish her for the fact that she was mine and not yours.”

“She was never yours!” Vincent’s voice was hoarse, like the cry of an injured animal. “She belonged to me!”

“And that’s why you treated her so cruelly, isn’t it, Vincent?” demanded Haydon. “You wanted to show the world that she was your possession, to revere or destroy as you wished. And that’s exactly what you did, you goddamn heartless bastard. You tortured her by denying her even the simplest acts of kindness and care, until finally she couldn’t bear your cruelties a moment longer. You murdered her, Vincent, as surely as if you had thrown her into that pond and held her head down while she thrashed about gasping for air—”

“That’s enough, Haydon.”

Genevieve’s voice was sharp, cutting through his tirade with the efficacy of a razor. Haydon stopped and looked at her in surprise. But Genevieve’s attention was riveted on Vincent, who had tightened his grip on Annabelle as if he needed her for support, his pistol still positioned precariously at her head.

“Forgive me, Lord Bothwell,” Genevieve began, her tone infinitely gentle. “I don’t believe Lord Redmond understands. You did love Emmaline very much, didn’t you?”

A mantle of deafening silence fell over the room as Vincent stared at Genevieve in bewilderment.

“I can see it,” she persisted quietly. “And I can feel it. You loved her terribly, and when she died, you didn’t think you could bear it.”

The room was frozen as everyone waited for Vincent’s response.

“She was…everything,” he finally managed, the words breaking from his mouth like painful, shattered fragments.

“That’s a bloody lie,” countered Haydon. “If you loved her, then you never would have spurned her the way you did.”

“It was terrible for you to discover that she wasn’t your own child, wasn’t it?” Genevieve continued softly, her gaze locked upon Vincent as if he were the only other person in the room.

Vincent didn’t reply.

“And in your anger and your pain, you couldn’t bring yourself to be near her, could you?”

His mouth tightened.

“And so you tried to cut her from your heart.”

He stared at her in silence, fighting the demons clawing at his soul. And then a helpless, pained sound, part laugh and part sob, escaped his throat. “My wife laughed when she told me. She said I was a fool, and that she and Redmond would spend the rest of their lives laughing at me, because I had not been able to see that the child I had so willingly claimed as my own for five years was not really mine at all.”

“That doesn’t make you a fool, Lord Bothwell,” Genevieve told him adamantly. “You loved her. She was your daughter.”

He shook his head. “I wasn’t her father.”

“Not in blood, perhaps. But blood is not what forges the strongest bonds of love, nor is it what makes a family. Just ask any of my children.”

He looked about helplessly at the children’s faces before him.

“Emmaline could not be held accountable for the circumstances of her creation, any more than any of us can,” Genevieve continued. “It was wrong for you to punish her for something in which she was a victim, just as you were. But I don’t believe you intended to drive her to such sorrow. I believe you found your love for her too painful to endure, and so you erected a wall and tried to push her to the other side. And she couldn’t bear it.”

“I didn’t understand how delicate she was,” he confessed, his eyes shadowed with regret. He loosened his hold on Annabelle slightly, as if he suddenly feared that she, too, might be more delicate than he had imagined. “I thought she would simply turn away from me and focus her attention on other things. I convinced myself that was best, because I feared that one day she would learn the truth. I thought it would be easier for her to bear if she hadn’t spent her whole life clinging to my hand. But instead I destroyed her.” He turned his gaze to Haydon. “And so did you, Redmond. You carelessly created her with a woman who was incapable of having any tender feelings toward her own child, which is why it was inevitable that I would someday learn that you had sired her. Cassandra cared nothing for how that piece of information would affect Emmaline. Instead of loving her and wanting to protect her, she was jealous of her own daughter’s relationship with me. She wanted to punish me, and on some despicable, incomprehensible level, she wanted to punish Emmaline as well—I suppose because she was a constant reminder of you. And I was too blind with fury to see it.” His voice was ragged with emotion as he finished, “You should have bloody well grabbed her and taken her with you that day. Had you done so, my beautiful little daughter would still be alive.”

Haydon stared at him helplessly, feeling as if he had suddenly been set adrift. He had hated Vincent with a sickening intensity for two long years. He had nurtured that hatred freely, for it had helped to mitigate the crushing weight of his own responsibility in Emmaline’s pitiful existence and tragic death. But as he looked at Vincent in that moment and saw how broken and haunted he was, he found he could no longer summon the loathing he had once felt toward him. He could not despise a man who was so filled with anguish over the death of his only child. Vincent was lashing out at Haydon because he believed Haydon was the architect of his suffering.

And he was right.

“I’m sorry, Vincent,” he began, the words rough with remorse. “I failed her, and I am deeply ashamed for that. But Emmaline is gone, and there is nothing left but her memory. Let us not mar it with any more hatred and misery and death. Let us bring this matter to an end.” He took a slow step forward and held out his hand. “Give me your gun, Vincent.”

Vincent regarded him helplessly, looking trapped. “You will kill me.”

“No,” Haydon assured him solemnly. “I won’t.”

“But I tried to kill you—”

“And you failed.”

“Then you will turn me over to the authorities so that I will suffer the same indignities you were forced to suffer—”

“No. I won’t.”

Vincent stared at him, bewildered.

“It is over, Vincent,” Haydon told him adamantly. “Let Emmaline rest. Release Annabelle and give me your gun. She is only a child herself, Vincent. I know you do not really want to frighten her.”

Vincent looked down at Annabelle in surprise, as if he had forgotten that he still held her. Her enormous blue eyes were wide with fear, and her face was pale against the soft spill of lamplight in the room. He lowered his pistol.

“Emmaline,” he murmured, gently laying his hand against the silky blonde length of Annabelle’s hair. “Forgive me.” He leaned forward and pressed a tender kiss upon her forehead.

Then he straightened, raised his pistol to his temple and squeezed the trigger.