An Untitled Lady (37 page)

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Morning did not bring renewal to the broken and battered families of Manchester, much less hope.

Maddie wasn’t sure what woke her. She heard nothing unusual, only the shuffles and murmurs of people in the yard, and not much of that. The residents had barricaded themselves in, closing off the street to avoid clashes with both constables and mobs. No, it was the absence of sound that had woken her. The loom upstairs had stopped.

She started to stretch her arms, but shooting pain forced her back into a hunch. She unbuttoned the coat. The bruising now stretched across her chest, but her ribs did not hurt when she pressed on them. Nothing broken. She said a prayer of thanks to whoever had invented the corset. Little did they know it could act as armor in battle.

She heard Moore’s heavy tread down the stair. Had he not slept at all?

He drew up to the table on which Kitty lay, his face dark, a piece of thick buff linen draped over his arm. He pulled it taut and stretched it over and under her body, from head to crushed foot.

His hands fell heavy to the table. His bruised eyes leached tears. She knew he would wish to be alone with her. She rose, and he startled, crystal eyes shining confusion and aching pain. He didn’t seem to know her.

“She can wear the blue dress. Upstairs.”

“No. Like this.”

Maddie swallowed her own pain. “I’ll fetch breakfast. Want I should call the rector?”

“She’ll take my place, next to her Ma. Happen they can comfort t’other.”

“But where will you rest?”

“As far away from here as God sees fit.” He scanned the small but tidy cottage as if its very air poisoned him. “Sell this piece; use the coin to get out.”

“And leave them here, alone?” Maddie’s voice broke. Would he not even consider making a family with her?

“They’re God’s kin now. I have no family.” His gaze snapped to hers. The pain of it, the hurt should have burned her to her black-bruised heart, but she was too tired to even whimper. Instead she shuffled to the back of the cottage.

She found dried oats for porridge, and used the rest of the water to get it to cooking. Fetching yet another pail of water from the pump, she spied a lady with chickens, and bought an egg to crack over the gruel.

Moore took the meal without comment, just as he’d taken her efforts at setting Kitty to rights.

He never would call her his daughter, not now. She would never be welcome here. He would rather leave and desert them all than stay and admit he was wrong.

She almost dropped her spoon in her shock at the thought. If he took her back, he would have to admit he’d made a grievous mistake in letting her go, all those years ago. He’d sold her. Over the past nearly two decades, he’d built such a wall around his heart against her she could never scale it, and he, clearly, refused to tear it down.

He was lost to her. He always had been. Perhaps she could have made her way with Kitty, but never him.

She tipped the lid on her roiling cauldron of emotions, opening it just a crack. Deep disappointment spilled out. She’d thrown away the opportunity to build something lasting with Nash to grasp instead at the slicked rope of this family’s love. Now she had neither. Maddie expected these thoughts would crush her, but she breathed easy for the first time in a day. At least now she knew. She’d tried and failed, but at least she’d tried.

She would see Kitty off, and then leave Manchester to its hard-driving ways. She’d already said farewell to life as a countess, as a town wife, and now as a daughter of reform. Surely something equally surprising was in store. She would survive it, a shard of her at least.

Her body’s tension now released, sleep overtook Maddie so quickly she nearly fell into the cook fire. She stole up the stair to the bedroom and lost herself in the exhausted slumber of a motherless child.

* * * *

The turnkey unlocked the door into the jail yard and Nash stepped out, again a free man. The air here was not yet free enough, but as he started to hurry his steps through the tunneled opening, he stopped short.

Deacon, resplendent, lounged in the shadow of the gate. Top to toe the earl, if the colors were a shade more muted than usual. He’d be bearing some of the king’s crowns, Nash expected, as did the weasel-faced turnkey fawning over him.

His brother raised an eyebrow, asking if Nash would wish to be recognized here, among these men. Nash had no time to worry over what jailers and radicals thought of his relations. He did not fully embrace the man, but he did clasp both his hands.

“Where’s Maddie?”

“I’m not the dunderhead who lost her, and yes, you are quite welcome for my having to rise before I’ve even slept to come and rescue you.”

“Didn’t need it. Magistrate released me immediately.” The words tasted bitter.

The turnkey spat. Deacon gave him the Quinn stare until he shuffled a few more steps away. “Some might argue that justice is not always so accommodating,” he said. “Or quick.” The factotum Ethelston had presided, hurried in from his breakfast, it appeared. Thanks to the last of his good coin slipped to the chief jailer, Nash was the first prisoner he saw.

“My god, man, you are supposed to be standing in my place.” Ethelston fingered the page before him. “I should be having a fine cup of coffee, not sitting while you stand before me.”

“I hit a man who was killing a lady.”

“So it says. Birley. He was plenty hale enough to meet up with another scuffle along Shude Hill by evening. No harm done. Release him.”

The jailer undid the metal cuffs, and Nash chafed the life back into his wrists and hands. “Is the town in riot?”

“Riot? We won, man. Or did you miss it in the scuffle? Malbanks has written Home Office such a report as will win us all medals. The papers sing our praises.”

“Take care to release the man Bragge today, then. He writes for
The Beacon
.”

“I’m sure they won’t have missed him.”

That portly cherub of a man himself stepped into the yard, blinking at the light just as Nash had done.

“No worse for wear, Mr. Bragge?”

“Like a ship at sea, Mr. Quinn. And I a landlubber.” He tipped his cap to them. “Good voyage, shipmate.”

“Good quarters.”

Deacon watched him pass with interest. “Your constables imprisoned an unusual quality of men yesterday.”

“That’s the least of it. What do you hear?”

“Britannia is safe from the likes of you, reports the
Observer
. Its august editor seemed to expect mayhem from all counties, but could find none to report by deadline.”

“What of my people?”
Where the hell is Maddie?

“Your man, the gawky one, Jem? He came to the castle ahead of your letter, full of news of your adventure. Brave man.”

“Was he hurt?”

“No. He took his family to the warehouse to ride out the storm. He also kept your chattel safe, of course.”

Nash couldn’t care less about the warehouse. “Everyone is safe.”

“All accounted for, he says.” Deacon’s gaze slid behind Nash. The turnkey had sidled closer. “Let’s take this conversation outside.”

Nash matched his steps “Can’t say the same for the Moores. Kitty is dead.”

Deacon stopped still, directly under the heavy iron gate, mouth agape. Nash pushed him a step forward. Bad luck to stand in the path of a falling gate.

“Kitty? Impossible. She carried more life in that saucy body of hers than my entire family. Are you sure?”

“I watched it.” The images replayed again in his memory. Blood and sweat and terror and she was fighting. Falling but not falling. Fighting for honor, fighting for life.

Nash’s vision blurred. Sweat broke over his brow and he started to shake.

Deacon took his arm. “You thought she was Maddie.”

The shaking heat spread through his face and neck. He choked the words out. “She was dead. And I—I—”

“Broke your heart.”

“No. When I saw it wasn’t Maddie, all I felt was relief.” The joy had shot through him like heat lightning.

“Bad, little baby brother, cheering at another’s grave. Don’t we all dance when the reaper takes another?” Deacon patted his arm awkwardly. “Miss Kitty does deserve better, though.” He thought a moment, mouth pursed. “I know. Here and now, in the shadow of this grim shelter, I pledge to continue her quixotic fight. Suffrage cannot hurt me. I’ll take my seat in Lords and agitate from the inside. And when I have my great victory, I’ll call the bill the Kitty Moore Act.” He raised his arm, a petty, pretty Caesar.

Despite himself, Nash choked out a guffaw. “You do know Lords sits in London?”

“Right. Well, maybe I won’t then.” He winked. “The cause will carry without me.”

Not bloody likely. The cause was dead, its leaders jailed or slaughtered. “Has her blasted father seen her?”

“That part of town is blocked off. Martial law. If she didn’t get there immediately, she’s not there now.”

The turnkey was at their shoulder, even as they neared the carriage. “The ’Change is shut another day. Best for you gents to go straight on home, if you value your goods.”

Nash turned on him, the frustration of a night in the clink and his fears for Maddie adding to the venom in his voice. “You think I care more for coin than mine own wife?” The man blinked and jumped back as if struck in the face by a lash.

“Don’t assault another man, brother.” Deacon’s tone carried both warning and appeasement. “Remember where you are.” He held out a sovereign; the man slipped past Nash to take it, and then fled. The coachman opened the carriage door, and Deacon stepped in.
“It’s not as if he’s far wrong, either. You do know where your goods are, after all.”

Nash ignored his implication, pushing him to the side so they could both sit facing front. “What are they thinking, to close the ’Change? No one is fighting against trade. Are the mails shut as well?”

“Delayed, since the weekend. Here.” Deacon pulled out Nash’s letter to Maddie.

He took it, dumbfounded. He’d spent the day and the night wondering if she would listen to him, or if she would still choose her family over what they had together. It had never occurred to him that she wouldn’t have the choice at all.

“Astray?”

“This one stopped first at Wetherby’s.”

“Why?”

“You have had a busy few days if you haven’t heard this. His workers left him, but not before they burned the crops in the field. I believe they may have heard the story of how he mistreated his ward, and I hear there were others as well. The mail coach was called into service to fight the blaze, or at least to enjoy the spectacle. Arson, obviously. The fires started on the edges and burned inward. Nothing of mine or Egerton’s was touched.”

“He’ll be ruined.”

“I’d say. He’s crazed at the moment. Works out well for us, though; Shaftsbury might acquire more land, at fire-sale prices, so to speak.”

“Maddie would be glad.” Even as he said it, he knew she would not; she would feel scant joy at such ruin. Perhaps she could feel no joy at all, anymore.

“No sobbing. You’ll make me cry and muss my powder. Who’s to say our Maddie is in any trouble? She’s landed on her feet before. Come to the castle, and we’ll drink to the Navy’s failure to cure your rebellious ways.”

“No. Take me home. I have to find her.”

Deacon sighed theatrically. “So be it. I’ll need to send for my things, of course. May as well collect another sturdy man or two, to help with the footwork.”

“You’re coming home with me?”

“What is family for, if not to butt into all your adventures?”

* * * *

On what felt like her hundredth trip to the water pump and back, Maddie surprised an old man about to rap on the Moores’ door. He jumped back from her too nimbly, his hands in the air.

“Mrs. Quinn,” he said with a sigh, resting a hand on his heart. “You gave me such a turn.”

Under an old felt hat and long gray locks, his eyes seemed familiar.

“Your father knows me.” He winked.

“He doesn’t know me.” Seeing the pitying look in those eyes, she wished she could wrench the words back. She led him into the cottage. Kitty’s box lay against the near wall, her father crumpled on the stool beside it.

The stranger knelt beside the box, the hem of his long-waisted jacket wiping the floor. Pulling off the hat and hair—it was a wig—and pulling the kerchief about his face down, he became Mr. Bamford again.

“She was the spark to our flame.”

At his friend’s touch, a fresh wave of sobs overtook Kitty’s father. Bamford rocked onto his heels and waited out the storm of grief.

Maddie tried to feel compassion for his loss. All she felt was weariness and anger. How could he turn away as if she did not feel pain, too? She settled by the fire to make some tea. He was still human, and despite her hurt and dismay at his betrayal, she must be charitable. She didn’t have to like it, though, or him.

She could not stay here. Once martial law was lifted, she would need to find a place to live. Another new life. She was not as strong as Kitty, though, and look what had happened to her.