Christmas Day, 1736
He sat with his granddaughter in his arms. The baby was sleeping, her head resting in the crook of his arm, tiny fists bunched together as if she was fighting rest. The day, all the people, had overwhelmed her. Soon enough Emily would gather up little Mary and take her back to the wet nurse. But she’d become a regular visitor, slowly growing used to her home, her new family.
Family. He had them around him. His rag-tag family, not built on blood, but something more solid. Emily and her lover. Lucy the servant. Annie, coming out from her shell now she was starting to believe that no one would send her on her way. Lizzie and her children, James and Isabell, playing by the fire, a sudden flare-up of argument between brother and sister quieted with a mother’s word. And Jem, snoring away now he’d paid for his supper with a few tales to hold everyone spellbound.
They’d dined well on a piece of beef, a gift from one of the butchers in the Shambles. It had surprised him, gratified him; he’d brought it back yesterday for Lucy to cook. She looked at him thoughtfully and asked, ‘Where did you steal it?’
‘Get away with you,’ he laughed. ‘Any decent constable would catch me if I tried to run these days.’
He’d returned from York three days before, after testifying against Nick the cutpurse for murder. He stayed for the verdict, although it was never in doubt. The judge put on the black cap and Nottingham glanced around the courtroom, half-expecting to see Kate there, waiting. But there was no girl, only Nick, no flicker of an expression on his face as he listened to the sentence.
Only two nights away, and fine company at the Starre Inne, but it felt good to be home, to be surrounded by everything he cherished. Some were missing, but they’d never be too far from him. And with Annie and tiny Mary, there was new life, the wheel revolving.
‘I think your daughter needs changing,’ he said to Emily, and she took the baby from him.
‘I can do it,’ Rob offered, and the constable saw her stare at him in astonishment. ‘I ought to know how, at least.’
The lad’s knee had mended without harm; a few days of rest and he was good as new. But the young healed quickly, he thought. Their hearts as well as their bodies.
They’d barely mentioned Meadows or the night in the churchyard. What was there to say, anyway? They both knew what had happened.
Things had been quiet in Leeds, nothing more than petty crimes that were solved by the end of the afternoon. It was as if a hush had descended on the town with winter.
Nottingham had searched Meadows’s rooms above the Talbot. He’d found plenty of papers from Warren’s office, but never Tom Finer’s ledgers. The man had never asked for them again.
Lizzie yawned, stretched, and stood.
‘We’d better go home before I fall asleep,’ she said as she gathered her children. ‘Thank you. For everything.’
‘Believe me, it was my pleasure,’ he told her. ‘You’re always welcome here, you know that.’ He dug two farthings from his breeches pocket for James and Isabell.
‘We’ll walk with you,’ Emily said. ‘Mary needs to go back to Mrs Webb.’
The door closed. All that remained was the sound of Lucy and Annie washing the pots in the kitchen and Jem snoring softly in the corner.
Peace.