Columbine (2 page)

“The dove it was, then. A pretty tale, that, and so much easier to tell him than the troth.” Sir Henry lightly stroked the bruise on the girl’s jaw, and she quivered beneath his fingertips.

“But then, you can’t help yourself, can you, Dianna? You like to meld your pleasure with pain, same as I do, don’t you?”

Sickened, Kit did not want to hear any more. He had known of men who claimed enjoyment in hurting their partners, but never a woman who enjoyed it, too, nor had he seen the results of such practices on a woman’s body. He’d been so eager to rescue her that he’d read her all wrong, seen only what he wanted to see. And she had let him hold her, so fragile and tempting, torn sill, skin like velvet, and her hair tousled, as though she’d just stumbled from her bed …. God, he’d been such a trusting fool, a naive idiot come stumbling from the Massachusetts forest, just as Sir Henry had said. So why did he feel so damned disappointed?

“You are your father’s legacy to me,” continued Sir Henry smugly.

“The best he had to leave, too, considering how the money lenders chased him. Poor Jack Grey! It was perhaps for the best that he broke his neck.”

The girl winced as if she’d been struck again.

“Don’t slander my father! He was a good man and loved me well!”

“Of course, he did, just as I love you, niece. But tonight you went too far.” The baronet’s hand tightened around her jaw, and his voice grew harsh.

“You would have killed me, you little chit, and I cannot forgive you that.”

The landing above them echoed with clattering footsteps and shadows danced from a dozen candles.

Lady Frances swept down the staircase, her purple wrapper flapping loosely. Behind her followed two hastily dressed footmen carrying candelabra, one still shoving his shirt into his breeches. Lady Frances peered crossly first at Kit, and then the candlelight found her husband, covered with blood. She shrieked and ran toward him, arms outstretched.

“Oh, Henry, what has happened to you?”

“It is a long story, Fanny, of no matter to you at present.” While his wife hung around his neck, Sir Henry’s gaze never left the girl.

“But you are injured, Henry, you are bleeding!”

cried Lady Frances, and frantically she gestured to one of the servants.

“Wilson, quickly now! Summon a physician for Sir Henry!”

Sir Henry shook off her embrace.

“My dear, first we shall need a magistrate,” he said, his voice icy calm.

“Our niece has tried to murder me.”

Dianna sat curled on the edge of the rough, wooden bench, her feet tucked beneath her petticoats and her fur-lined cloak pulled tightly around her. She was a lady, she reminded herself fiercely, a gentlewoman of breeding who could trace her family back to kings and queens. Nothing anyone did or said could change that. No one could take that from her. And here in the chill of Bridewell Prison, it was all she had left.

In the center of the cell was a small, smoky brazier, but Dianna hung back, uncertain what her reception would be from the other women who clustered close to its meager warmth. They were debtors and drunkards, prostitutes and thieves, but she was the only gentlewoman. And the only one of them charged with murder.

Dianna sighed softly. She’d been here scarcely a week, and already the desolation of the place seemed to seep into her bones with the cold. But what lay ahead would be worse. From listening to the other women, she had come to understand what a sentence of transportation meant. In the spring, they would all be chained together and herded through the London streets to a convict ship bound for the southern colonies.

She would be auctioned off like some heathen African slave, sold to a planter to work in his fields until she dropped from exhaustion. And the judge who sentenced her had pompously claimed to be merciful by not sending her to the gallows!

It shouldn’t have come to this. Her lawyer had assured her that Sir Henry’s case was not a strong one, his wound not severe enough, and that the matter would likely be dismissed as a family quarrel. But that was before Master Christopher Sparhawk had testified. He’d sworn she’d tried to murder her uncle, and the judge had listened. Inwardly she winced when she remembered how, that awful night, she had trusted him, how he had seemed like a fairy-tale hero come to save her. Taller than any man she’d known, he was a handsome, golden giant with kindness in his eyes and touch. Yet once he learned her name, she had watched the kindness vanish and his expression harden. There was no point denying her uncle’s lies, for no one ever believed her. She had seen it happen before with other people, and though the stranger’s rejection hurt her, she was not surprised by it. She had been foolish and weak to believe he was any different from the rest. But oh, how easily he had stood before the judge to damn her with those few careless words!

She pressed her cheek against the cold stone wall and squeezed her eyes shut. Like everything else, it all came back to her handsome, charming father.

Dianna’s whole life had been the Honorable John Grey, and she had loved him without question. The fifth son of the Marquis of Haddonfield, her father had always lived as if he had all the prospects of the eldest heir instead of the youngest. He was witty and amusing, with a gift for music that he’d passed on to Dianna, and because he was such good company, he and Dianna had been welcome at court and in every noble house in England. But then came the September morning when his bay gelding had balked at a stream. Dianna’s father was dead the moment his forehead struck the ground. The bankrupt estate of the Honorable John Grey left Dianna nothing except gambling debts and mortgaged properties and the condolences of fashionable friends who disappeared as soon as the will was read.

Of all her grand relatives, only her uncle, Sir Henry Ashe, had offered her a home, and he had expected considerably more than gratitude from his impoverished niece. By the time Dianna realized the truth, the rest of the world had already guessed, and no one believed she’d gone to Sir Henry quite as innocently as she claimed. After all, she was twenty-two, whispered the gossips, too old and too poor to make a fashionable match. What better could she hope for than the protection of a wealthy gentleman like Sir Henry?

Against Dianna’s will returned the memory of his squeezing hands upon her breasts, his mouth wet upon her throat, her own cries of terror as he struck her again and again in frustration at her refusal, and then her fingers blindly grasping the cool metal behind her, the polished whorls of the heavy silver that caught the firelight as she swung it through the air With a noisy creak, the ban door to the cell swung open and the turnkey peered inside. The other prisoners shuffled to their feet and stared at him belligerently.

“Ah, Master Will, ‘ave ye come for yer sweet Jenny again?” taunted one woman as she swung her hips lasciviously and hiked her dirty petticoats up her leg.

“Ye ‘ad a taste of’ what I can give ye, pretty fellow, and there be more awaitin’ if yer game!”

The other women ho ted and whistled at the proposition, but the man ignored it.

“Dianna Grey be wanted below. She be here, ain’t she?”

With every eye on her, Dianna slipped off the bench and stepped forward, and the others shuffled out of her path. The turnkey squinted at her and automatically touched his forehead and ducked as if she were still a grand lady instead of one of his prisoners.

“Ye come wit’ me, my lady. Master Potter, the keeper, wants words wit’ ye.”

“La, so it’s words old Potter be wantin’ with our gentry!” jeered Jenny. She caught Dianna’s sleeve.

“I fancy ‘e’ll be puttin’ his tongue to other uses.

Garnish, m’lady, garnish be what ‘e expects from his guests ‘ere, an’ you’ll be no different. On yet back on the’ floor, you’ll be no different from the’ rest of’ us!”

Her cheeks flaming, Dianna tried to ignore the woman’s warning as she followed the turnkey, leaving the jeering laughter behind. The warder’s quarters were scarcely better than the prisoners’ cells, but at least he had a fireplace and a tire. Potter himself rocked back on two legs of a mouldy armchair, his feet propped up on the table that served as his desk.

In one hand was a tankard of ale, in the other some sort of formal document at which he was scowling, his lips silently forming each word as he read it. For several long minutes, Dianna and the turnkey waited, until finally the turnkey noisily cleared his throat and Potter looked up.

“So this be the Grey wench, then, Allyn?”

Dianna drew herself up with what she hoped was dignity.

“I am not the “Grey wench’. I am Lady Dianna—” Potter slammed the tankard down on the table, sloshing foam across the other papers.

“Shut yer trap, hussy, or I’ll toss ye down amongst the’ men.

They’d make short work of’ a little mouse like yerself, they would. Or maybe me an’ Allyn’ll jcs’ take turns with ye ourselves. Ye be a bit scrawny for my tastes, but I ain’t never had a lady before.” He gestured impatiently.

“On with it now, Wench. Up with the petticoats.”

Her mouth suddenly dry, Dianna could only shake her head in mute refusal.

“Please yerself. It’s naught to Allyn if he must do the’ task his self Potter reached into the basket beside his chair and pulled out two iron rings connected by a heavy chain and tossed them to the turnkey.

Swiftly Allyn bent and grabbed one of Dianna’s ankles. She jerked flee and kicked his arm as hard as she could. The turnkey growled and swore under his breath, but deftly caught her leg again. This time he shoved her onto the floor and straddled her flailing legs as he clamped the irons around her ankles. Rubbing his arm, he let her go, moving quickly out of the range of her feet.

Panting from both fear and, exertion Dianna sat up and stared at her feet. Around each slender ankle was a dark band of iron. She straggled to rise and tripped on the short chain that held her legs together, pitching forward onto her hands and knees. While Potter and Allyn laughed, she awkwardly tried again, finally managing to stand.

Angry humiliation made her temper flare.

“How dare you treat me this way! You’re insolent rogues, the pair of you! My father never even chained his dog I” “Aye, but the’ dog was likely better bred, eh, Al-lyn?”

Potter guffawed.

“Eh, let her be. She’s no matter t’ us anymore anyways.” He leaned over Dianna and waved the letter he’d been reading in her face.

“You be leavin’ us tonight, my lady. That fine gen’leman ye tried t’ murder wants ye gone at once, and off ye shall go with the’ tide.”

“But why would Sir Henry want me gone so soon?” Dianna’s voice rOse with panic.

“What harm could I bring him where I am now?”

“Mebbe his lady wife caused a row and wanted ye gone. Mebbe he can hear yet yappin’ all the way to ‘is country house. How should I know why he done it? Ye should be thankful he didn’t jcs’ ‘ave you throttled. For the coin he offered, he might ‘ave, y’ know.”

“But tonight! I’m not ready to leave, not so soon—’ “Awh, yer fondness touches me, m’lady,” said Potter, smirking.

“But ye wouldn’t ‘ave suited me in the end. Guards!”

Dianna stared at him, unwilling to believe his words. As long as she remained in England, even though in prison, there was still a chance that she would be freed, that all this would run out to be some awful mistake.

“You’re lying, I know it! There are no ships to the colonies until spring, until April!”

From behind, two soldiers hauled her roughly to her feet. She twisted and turned, but even in her frenzy to break free, her strength was soon exhausted and the soldiers dragged her stumbling down the stone steps and into the courtyard. After a week in Bridewell, the sky overhead seemed impossibly blue, the sun blindingly bright, and, squinting, Dianna tried to shield her eyes.

“Come on now, up wit’ ye!” One of the soldiers prodded her with the butt of his rifle. She whirled around and tried to strike him, but instead he deftly caught her around the knees. Hoisting her effortlessly across his shoulders like a sack of meal, he tossed her into the back of a closed sided Wagon. With a thump that knocked the breath from her lungs, Dianna landed on the rough-planked wagon bed, her nose jammed into a pile of ancient straw reeking of chickens.

“Don’t be thinkin’ of tryin’ to escape, ye little baggage. The’ driver’s got a pistol bigger’n you, an’ he ain’t ‘fraid to use it. Never lost a prisoner yet, and he won’t be beginnin’ wit’ ye.” The soldier slammed the gate shut and turned the key in the padlock with a clank. At once the wagon lurched forward and jostled unevenly across the rutted courtyard.

Unsteadily Dianna sat up and leaned against the wagon’s rocking sides. From what she could glimpse through the slats, the wagon was travelling through streets she’d never seen before, narrow, crowded streets lined with gin shops and dilapidated taverns.

Dianna shivered, and not from the cold alone. She’d fare better in China than in this part of London. Not that she had any hope of escaping. Even if she could somehow elude the guard and shed the iron shackles,

she had no friends or family to turn to, no money, not even any clothes beyond those she wore.

With a sigh she reached down to rub her ankles.

The heavy cuffs had shredded the silk of her stockings and left the skin beneath raw and bruised. The lace on her petticoats had been caught and torn by the chain and now, stained with mud, it trailed forlornly beneath her skirts. She had worn the same gown since her trial, and the white lace cuffs and kerchief around her neck were also creased with soil.

At least the black mourning she wore for her father hid the worst of the dirt.

Finally the wagon slowed, then stopped. Dianna could hear the mewing of gulls overhead, and the air was heavy with the pungent scent of the river. She peered through the slats and saw the forest of masts and spars that marked the ships at the quays. So Potter had been right after all, and she would soon be carried away from England. Her heart pounding, she struggled to control her panic.

The driver opened the wagon’s gate, and clumsily Dianna climbed out. The man said nothing as he took her arm, but the long-barreled pistols he wore belted across his chest were warning enough, and the curious crowd along the waterfront melted away in a path before them. In a way, Dianna was grateful for the guard’s strong grasp, for she wasn’t sure she could walk without his help. With each step the irons dug farther into her ankles, and she pressed her lips tightly together to keep from crying out from the pain. Slowly the guard led her up the gangplank of a ship bustling with final preparations for sailing, and down the narrow companionway to the captain’s cabin.