“You there.” He glared at her attacker. “An extra fortnight for you. And you, come with me. There is someone to see you.”
A fortnight? Olivia thought dumbly. That is all my life is worth?
Relieved to be leaving the lockup, she asked no questions. With a trembling hand, she tentatively reached up to survey her burning throat. She thought it a miracle her neck was not broken. As it was, her legs shook from the shock and violence of the ordeal. When she stumbled, the constable took her arm and pulled her along. She would not have remained upright otherwise.
“Lord Bradley wants to question you.” The constable sighed in a long-suffering manner. “Wants to see the trespasser properly punished, no doubt.” He whistled low. “Looks dreadful fierce, he does.”
He led her back into the Swan, pushed open the door to the same parlor, and propelled her within.
She shrank at the sight of the tall man in full evening dress, his blue eyes intense with scrutiny and suspicion, but not, she thought, recognition. She, however, recognized him at once. The haughty young man from the hunt. Lord Bradley. His father was an earl? Theirs was the conversation she had overheard?
She looked down, hoping he would not remember her. She imagined she appeared quite altered with a clean face, her hair neatly pinned back—at least it had been—and a proper bonnet over all.
Olivia could feel his glare on her bowed profile. She registered his finely shod feet, then slowly raised her head. I am not a dog to cower in the corner, she encouraged herself, forcing her gaze to meet the man’s icy blue eyes. He scowled, his countenance darkening. Had he just recognized her from the spoilt hunt?
Staring at the slight figure before him, Edward Stanton Bradley bade his heart rate to slow and his anger to calm. His mind still reeled, not only with the stunning sledgehammer of news he had barely had time to assimilate himself, but with the terrifying prospect that someone had overheard the tidings he hoped with all his being to bury forever. He fisted his hands, ineffectively trying to quench the irrational desire to squash this unknown foe, to silence her before she might open her mouth and devastate them all.
When she looked up at him, Edward felt the barest hint of recognition, but it quickly flitted away. He knew not this sorry creature. Good heavens, what had befallen her? She seemed barely able to walk, let alone stand. Had Hackam not held her arm, she seemed certain to fall. Her face was ashen, her neck . . . What the plague?
“Hackam, what have you done to the chit?”
“Nothing, my lord.”
“Did my man do this to you?” he asked her directly, knowing Hackam would not hesitate to lay blame at the gamekeeper’s feet.
Eyes glazed, the girl shook her head.
“Dash it, Hackam. Punishment before a hearing?”
“No, my lord. It was another prisoner. Gordon didn’t tell me he’d put a poacher in the lockup. I thought it empty.”
Biting back an oath, Edward grimly shook his head. Still, he believed Hackam. He was not a cruel man, but he was busy with his inn and held little patience for his secondary role as constable. The quarter sessions and more frequent petty sessions brought business to his establishment, so he begrudgingly took up the unpopular duty year after year when no one else stepped forward.
“Do you not wish to hear about the poacher, my lord?” Hackam asked. “Likely to be one of the lot what evaded us all summer. Is that not good news, my lord?”
Edward ignored the man’s attempt at diversion. “The next session is not for a fortnight, and there is no question of calling an early hearing. My father is leaving the country on the morrow, and Farnsworth is already on the continent. If this is what happens in half an hour, what would become of her in a week?”
“I plan to send her up to Northleach. Let the justices up there deal with her.”
Hackam referred to the new house of corrections—a fortresslike prison only about as old as Edward himself. An improvement over the gaols of old, where men and women were held together, but a prison just the same. “That will not be necessary.”
“ ’Course it is. Your man said she were trespassing, maybe even a thief.”
The young woman swayed, and Hackam tightened his grip.
“Have you any evidence she meant to steal anything?” Edward asked. He knew trespassing was a petty offense, unless accompanied by theft, nuisance to the land, or injury to a person. But could not great personal injury come of her eavesdropping? Not to mention the repercussions his father would face should his deception be made known?
“Well, she weren’t an invited guest, now, were she? What else would she be doin’ there?”
“That is what I should like to know.” Edward turned to the pale-faced woman. “What is your name?”
She opened her mouth to speak, her small lips forming a silent O. Wincing in surprise, tears swamping her bright blue eyes, she raised thin fingers to her rapidly discoloring throat.
Could she really not speak, or was she a consummate actress?
“Could have her flogged on the pillory,” the constable jovially suggested. “That would loosen her tongue.”
The girl’s pale skin blanched nearly white.
“Or hung in the stocks on the village green. An example to other would-be thieves.” The constable rocked on his heels as he considered. “Or ducked on the ducking chair. Haven’t used that contraption since my first term.”
The woman’s eyes flared, then drooped, her posture rigid. She was falling forward before he realized it, her eyes open but unseeing. Hackam’s grip was insufficient to stop her fall, and she crumpled to the ground.
Returning to her senses sometime later, Olivia peered through her lashes to find a bespectacled middle-aged man leaning over her. She shrank back instinctively, only to realize she was lying flat while he sat peering down at her, touching her throat in the gentlest of palpations. An apothecary, she guessed. Or a surgeon. She closed her eyes once more and listened to the conversation above her.
“Such an injury could indeed render a person speechless for a time. Have you reason to think her pretending to muteness?”
“She was caught trespassing on our estate.” Lord Bradley’s voice.
“A great many people were at Brightwell Court this evening. Why do you think her intentions nefarious?”
Lord Bradley did not respond. Instead he asked, “Can she be moved?”
“I think so. Doesn’t seem to have any broken bones. Even so, I have given her laudanum. That neck injury must be dreadfully painful.”
“Moved, my lord?” The incredulous voice of the constable. “Moved where?”
“Clearly I cannot leave her here, Hackam. Nor do I wish her taken to Northleach for mere trespassing. Release her to my custody for now.”
Hackam’s voice rose. “Are you certain that is wise, my lord?”
“She doesn’t look dangerous to me,” the medical man offered.
“Is that your professional diagnosis?” Bradley’s tone was acerbic. “I shall hold you to it.”
“But—” Hackam tried once more. “She might turn out to be a thief, after all.”
“Then you shall have your chance to flog her yet.”
Olivia sank into darkness once more, from a hefty dose of laudanum. And fear.
Edward and the constable helped Dr. Sutton settle the young woman into the back of Sutton’s cart.
“Speaking of moving,” the doctor said. “I dearly hope the trip to Italy does your mother good.”
“Thank you, Sutton. As do I.”
“Many in my profession attest to the benefits of a warm Mediterranean winter for their patients.”
“Do you concur?”
“What I can attest to are the benefits of avoiding a damp English winter. That I heartily recommend. When do they depart?”
“Tomorrow.”
The doctor nodded. “Then I wish them Godspeed.”
The constable had just bid them good-night and returned to the Swan, when the Reverend Mr. Charles Tugwell crossed the cobbles toward them. “Bradley. Sutton.” His gaze flicked from the men to the prone girl, concern drooping his hound-dog eyes. “I say, what is happening here?”
“Mr. Tugwell,” Edward said quickly. “I am afraid you have come upon me at an inopportune time. Might I come round the vicarage next week?”
“Of course. But that young woman. I know her.”
Edward was stunned. “Do you?”
“That is to say, I met her today near the river. What has befallen her?”
“She was caught trespassing at Brightwell Court and, I am afraid, was injured in the lockup by a male prisoner.”
“Good heavens!”
“Sutton here believes she will shortly recover.”
“Thank God.” The clergyman shook his head. “A young lady such as she, locked in with a criminal!”
“We do not know that she is not a criminal as well.”
The clergyman shook his head. “She seemed a genteel, well-spoken young lady to me.”
“Lady?” Edward sneered. “What sort of lady lurks behind trees, unchaperoned at night, eavesdropping on private conversations?”
“A desperate one, to be sure, but let us not be too quick to judge. I myself escorted her to Miss Ludlow’s to replace the gloves she had lost in some mishap. I believe she said she was on her way to St. Aldwyns, seeking some post or other.”