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In Which John Pickett Expounds His Proposal
She stared at him speechlessly for a long moment, then her eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”
You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Aloud, he merely said, “Never mind that.” He glanced at the slit through which the guard might be listening, and although it was closed, he lowered his voice nonetheless. “I’m going to help you escape, and then I’m going to the scaffold in your stead.”
“But—but Mr. Pickett, this is madness! Why should you do such a thing? Why, you don’t even know me!”
He could have set her straight on this point, but did not. In fact, he did not answer at all for a long moment, and when he spoke again, it was haltingly. “I must do this, my lady, in order to—to right an old wrong. There was once a lady I—I cared for very much. I was the only one who could save her; in fact, I believed I had saved her, only—only it proved not to be the case.”
“And this lady,” she said thoughtfully, “was her name Julia, by any chance?”
For the first time since he’d cracked his head in Covent Garden, Pickett felt a faint flicker of hope. “It was,” he said, while inwardly he pleaded, Please know me... please say you remember.
But no. “Mr. Pickett, I am truly humbled by your willingness to make such a sacrifice, but I cannot ask such a thing of you!”
“You didn’t ask,” he pointed out. “I make the gesture willingly.”
She shook her head impatiently, and her cropped hair swung back and forth, caressing her sunken cheeks in a way Pickett could only dream of doing. “Even if I were to allow you to go to the gallows in my place, how could such a scheme possibly work? The guard could not fail to notice such a switch!”
“Perhaps; perhaps not. No, hear me out,” he said, when she opened her mouth to argue the point. “The brazier doesn’t give off much light. If the guard should open the door and see two ladies, one kneeling with her face buried in her handkerchief and the other standing over her with her face averted, attempting to console her, who is to say which is which?”
“There is the little matter of height, you know. You would be obliged to crouch all the way to the gallows!”
Pickett shrugged. “I daresay it wouldn’t be the first time a woman indulged in strong hysterics on her way to such a fate. Between bouts of tears and pleas for mercy, who among her executioners would notice a little thing like bent knees?”
To his surprise, he succeeded in coaxing a little laugh out of her. “ ‘Strong hysterics’? Really, Mr. Pickett, you might at least let people say of me that I met my fate with a little dignity!”
“If I’m willing to die in a skirt and mobcap, you might at least agree to a few hysterics, at least until the switch is discovered.”
“And what happens then? When they realize they’ve hanged the wrong person, I mean?”
“By that time, it’ll be too late. You’ll be long gone.”
“But gone where? There will surely be people searching for me.”
Recalling the mob at his heels only a few hours earlier, he could not deny it. “Very likely. And so you must be well away before the deed is done. As soon as the guard comes for me—for you, that is—you are to bid ‘Lady Fieldhurst’ a tearful farewell, bury your face in your handkerchief, and get out before he has time to get a good look at you. Go straight to Denmark Street, number seven—it’s in St. Giles; do you know it? Hardly a place for a lady, but needs must when the devil drives. Ask for the mistress of the house. Tell her I sent you.” His mother was familiar enough with the details of his life that she would surely not deny him this, that she would protect the woman he loved—the woman who, under different circumstances, would have been her daughter-in-law and the mother of her grandchild.
“It seems wrong, to run away and leave you to face the consequences alone,” Julia protested. “If you are determined to do this, the least I can do is honor your sacrifice by remaining with you until—until the end.”
“No, you mustn’t,” he insisted. “If you lo—” If you love me, he had almost said. But she did not love him. She didn’t even know him. “If you linger, someone may recognize you, and then the fat would be in the fire! In the meantime, if there is anyone else you might send for in order to say your goodbyes, it might be helpful if the guard forgets exactly who and how many he admits to your cell over the next few hours.”
She regarded him steadily for a long moment, then said, “I almost forgot: while you were gone, I was informed that the time of my execution has been pushed back. Instead of being at noon, it will be at three o’clock.”
“I shall return no later than two, then.” And then, although he hated making such a request of her, he asked, “Do you have any money I might use to purchase a dress and a mobcap in Petticoat Lane? I wouldn’t ask, but I”—he made a gesture that took in his lack of coat, waistcoat, and anything else of value that might be pawned in exchange for ready money—“I haven’t anything on me.”
She lifted one corner of the dirty straw mattress and withdrew the few coins concealed there. “I can see how one would want a new gown for the occasion,” she said with a pathetic attempt at humor.
“Yes, for my maid spilled tea all over my Sunday best, the silly girl,” Pickett replied as she poured the little store of coins into his hand, and had his reward when she looked up at him with a swift, fleeting smile. In the absence of a coat pocket, he tucked the little stash of coins into his shoe. “I shall give you back anything I have left over. In the meantime,” he added, suddenly serious, “in case I have no opportunity to tell you later, please know that when you make your escape, you will carry with you my best wishes for your future happiness.”
Her eyes took on a moist sheen, and she blinked rapidly several times. “Thank you.”
The words were little more than a whisper, but as he turned to go, she said quite clearly, “Oh, and Mr. Pickett—”
“Yes?” he prompted, when words apparently failed her.
She held out her hand to him, all the while looking at him as if she were trying to commit to memory the features of the man who was to be her deliverer. “I should have liked very much to have known you, Mr. Pickett.”
It was almost, almost enough. He raised her hand to his lips. “Goodbye, my lady,” he said, then turned and rapped on the door for the guard to let him out.