How the Hangman Lost His Heart (7 page)

Alice nodded mutely but Ursula, standing with her hands splayed over her cheeks as if to prevent her head from taking off, was loud in her consternation. “Prison? Damp? Oh no! The child will catch her death and then I'll somehow be to blame. It's too bad. Alice, I really think—” But Alice never learned what her aunt thought, for Hew took a firm hold of Ursula's bony elbow, hustled her out, and shut what remained of the door.

As soon as their footsteps faded, Alice grabbed a candle, flew to the wardrobe, and tore down the clothes. Dan was slumped on the floor. “Dan Skinslicer! Dan! Oh, Dan!” She tried to pull him into her arms, but he was too heavy. As she tugged, he groaned and opened his eyes. Alice rocked back on her heels. “At least you're alive,” she wept. “Oh Lord! That terrible sword. It is all my fault. I'm so sorry!”

Dan lay there, a red stain spreading pointed fingers down his shirt. The sword had sliced into his shoulder, causing a gaping flesh wound. Once he realized that by great good fortune he was not dying, however, and that the injury, though unsightly, was relatively light, he began to enjoy Alice's tearful remorse, so took his time before rolling out of the wardrobe and into a sitting position. Alice set down the light and began tearing strips from her ruined dresses, bringing bowls of water from her ewer. She cleaned the wound, packed it with wadding, and bound it up. Dan followed her every movement, liking the cool, expert touch of her hands, and when she had finished, he had to make quite an effort to give a grimace of pain.

Alice narrowed her eyes, then jumped up, flushing rosily. “Now then, Dan Skinslicer.” She wrung out the cloths. “Let's not waste any more time. You heard Captain Ffrench. They're going to arrest me any minute now and God alone knows what they will do if they catch you. There's only one way to go.” She ran to the door to see if she could block it up to give them a little longer, but it was too badly broken. She ran back to Dan. “If you feel up to it,” she said, “we must get out of the window.” She hesitated. “Or perhaps you should go alone, taking Uncle Frank of course, and I should give myself up.” She crumpled a little. “Or perhaps we should just leave Uncle Frank
here. Help me, Dan Skinslicer. I don't know what to do.”

Dan pulled his shirt back over his shoulder. “We may disagree about thieving and paying people,” he said at once, “but I'm not leaving you to be taken to Major Slavering, that I'm not. We'll try the window.”

“And Uncle Frank?”

“We'll take him with us. If we don't and they find him, your grandmother and aunt'll be for the chop. We can't let that happen, can we?”

There was only a moment's pause. “Of course not,” said Alice. It was an effort to sound absolutely firm. Dan frowned at her, but let it pass. “Right then, we'd best be going.” He got up, winced, and with one heave threw open the heavy sash. “These newfangled things really do work,” he said. “Now, come on.”

Alice took a deep breath as she looked down. The darkness blurred the height but she could hear the dog whining in the yard far below. Using Dan's strong arms for reassurance, she slid out and, using his hands as a stepping stone, pulled herself up into the guttering. From there she could lean down, shaky but not insecure, to take Uncle Frank's wig bag. Dan came hastily after her, ignoring the stabs of complaint from his shoulder. It was not easy, but the thought of Major Slavering and the dragoons was enough to give him extra spring.

Carefully, they began to make their way across the sloping slates, feeling every inch. Several times Alice slipped and was saved from falling only by the solid mass of Dan behind her. He grunted slightly as her heels dug into him but did not give way. Alice was filled with gratitude. Never had she met anybody so dependable.

Even before they reached the lead part of the roof, which was easier and flatter, they could hear the commotion caused by the discovery of both Dan's bloodied rags and their escape. Shouts and roars spilled out and lamps were waved around. Hew's voice was very clear as he stuck his head briefly through the window sash. Alice and Dan froze. If Hew chose to swing his light upward, he would surely see them. But Hew steadfastly looked the other way. “They're both gone,” he called to his men. “Outside, quick. We may find them yet.” And with that he vanished. Alice leaned against a chimney pot, almost tearful with relief. Then Dan was pushing her on.

They climbed the whole way along one side of Grosvenor Square before stopping, too tired to struggle further when they seemed, for the moment at least, secure enough. It was a warm night and the sky was dotted with stars. As they flopped down, Alice squeezed Dan's good arm. “He let us go, that Captain Ffrench,” she said.

Dan resented the admiration in Alice's tone. “His men damn nearly killed me,” he reminded her. “My shoulder's still bleeding. It's going to be a dratted nuisance until it heals and we aren't clear yet, missy, not by a long way.”

“Are you in a lot of pain?” Alice was full of commiseration and Dan's heart softened.

“I dare say I've hurt some of my clients more.” He sounded much more conciliatory as he opened his shirt so that she could have another look. Alice unwrapped the wound, inspected it, then dextrously bound it up again. “Who taught you that?” Dan asked, admiring.

“My nurse,” said Alice. “She taught me almost everything I know.”

“I'm sure your mother wouldn't like to hear you say that.”

“Oh, she wouldn't mind,” said Alice with a happy smile. “She spends most of her life saying the rosary. She really wanted to be a nun, only inheritance and all that meant she had to marry somebody. All her brothers died, you see, and her sister, Ursula—well, you've seen Ursula. Who'd marry her? Mother was lucky, really, ending up with Father. He spends so much time measuring rain that she can pray all she wants. She makes cheese too. It's a very fine arrangement.”

Dan listened as Alice wittered on. They made themselves comfortable. Only when the chatter
stopped did he begin to think, a little guiltily, about his own wife, now abandoned and penniless. Johanna was a nag and a millstone, but she was his wife. He owed her something. But then he felt Alice's fingers, light and dainty on his brow, testing his temperature in case his wound brought fever with it. “I can't go home yet,” he said to himself quite reasonably. “Everybody will know by now that it was me who got missy here and Colonel Towneley away from Temple Bar. We're in this together. When I've got Mistress Alice safely to Towneley Hall, then I'll send for Johanna.” And with that he put his conscience uneasily but thankfully to bed.

He must have dropped off for a few moments because he was woken by Alice digging him in the ribs. It was still dark, but Alice no longer felt safe. From below, the shouting of the troopers was increasing in volume. Dragoons were stationed all over now, in the knowledge that their quarry must at some stage descend. Alice knew that Hew could hardly order them to leave without putting himself under fire for neglecting his duty. “If we are going to get home, Dan Skinslicer,” Alice was thinking aloud, “we'll have to get into somebody else's house and see if we can get out from there.”

Dan's shoulder was throbbing but he responded to Alice's prodding as best he could. Cautiously, they made their way to the parapet and peered over. It was impossible, from this angle, to see if any windows were open, so Alice, raising her eyebrows, pulled off the two underskirts she was wearing, then ripped and twisted them into the longest rope they could make.
She tied one end around her own waist and the other end around Dan's. Now she could lean over a little farther.

The nearest windows were tightly closed, but one a little way along was open at the top, with heavy curtains drawn over it. She tugged the rope and, when Dan pulled her back toward him, whispered that this was the one.

The plan seemed full of danger to them both, and by Alice's calculations they also needed more rope, so to Dan's acute embarrassment, since the petticoat rope was almost too much for him, Alice hitched up her skirts again and took off both her stockings. Using one to attach the wig bag to her belt, she gave the other to Dan to wedge anywhere he could find to help him climb down after her.
Thank goodness Johanna can't see me now
, Dan thought.

Even though firmly attached to Dan's immovable middle, it was perilous easing onto the window ledge, particularly with Uncle Frank swinging beside her, and Alice's fingers scrabbled against the wall as she bumped her knees. It seemed ages before she found the comforting solidity of the ledge. The wig bag bruised her hip as she steadied herself, but Alice made no sound. Carefully, she put two hands on the sash and leaned her weight against it. It slid down so smoothly that she momentarily lost her balance and her feet swung up behind her. Then she righted
herself and slithered over, dragging Uncle Frank behind her. She could not get farther into the room because the petticoat rope was not long enough, but through the divide in the curtains she could see that she was in a bedroom. What was more, the snores that were causing the oak four-poster to quiver were louder than any noise two fugitives were likely to make breaking in. Luckier still, the bed's occupants, clearly nervous of drafts, were cocooned behind thick hangings garishly embroidered with naked cherubs.

She turned to see how Dan was getting on. After a moment or two, she heard his toes scuff the window ledge. Alice grasped an ankle and guided it toward the sill. Dan was grunting terribly and Alice longed to tell him to be quiet, but before she could put her fingers to her lips she herself cried out as she was almost whisked back through the window. Dan's other foot missed the sill and, with a terrible “Oio! Oio!,” he began to topple backward. At once Alice found herself jerked upward by the petticoat rope. Clinging to the curtains until they threatened to come down on top of her, she just managed to spread-eagle herself against the window frame, praying that this would give Dan enough leverage to pull himself back. Every sinew objected as she stretched out, muscles pulled beyond endurance, to provide a bulwark for Dan's body, which was now
swaying like a bag of flour. She could hear him swearing, but what good was that? The pressure around her middle grew intolerable. She was going to be squeezed in half! Tighter and tighter grew the rope until Alice saw only red. Surely her waist could get no smaller? But it did. Then, just as her legs dissolved into mush, the pressure relaxed and she found Dan on the other side of the glass, his mouth open and his eyes wide. He trembled like a great tree in autumn as he fumbled his way clumsily over the window frame and into the bedroom. It was not a noiseless maneuver, but Alice no longer cared. When he finally galumphed onto the floor, she threw her arms around his neck as though she would never let him go. The couple in the bed snored on.

When they managed to regain some composure, Dan undid the petticoat rope and hid it under a large commode. Then he took the wig bag from Alice because her arms felt too weak to carry it and they crept together across the room. A floorboard creaked and Dan and Alice crouched down as oaths were muttered in a deep, throaty voice, followed by higher-pitched womanish grumbles. Somebody belched but nothing more. When the snoring was firmly re-established, Alice scrutinized the monograms embroidered on the clothes draped untidily over an overflowing laundry basket. She began tugging them out, pointing excitedly. Dan looked unconvinced but Alice nodded her head vigorously and
soon both they and Uncle Frank were buried deep inside the basket under mounds of aristocratic dirty linen.

“I know the people in the bed—or at least one of them,” Alice whispered, her lips against Dan's cheek. “This is the Duke of Mimsdale's house. I don't know who is in bed with him but it's certainly not his wife. She's away. So I bet the maids will come in the morning and load anything that might tell a naughty tale onto a cart for the laundryman. If we're lucky, this basket will be transported miles away from here. We might even be able to jump out as it goes on its way.”

“And what happens if the duchess isn't due back for weeks and the housekeeper decides the laundry can wait?” Dan hissed back. Alice never seemed to think of these things. “I don't think I can stay scrunched up in here for days, with all these unsavory undergarments and sweaty sheets, even if they do belong to a duke.”

“Well,” Alice said, taking the wig bag and making a nest for it as she settled herself against Dan's shoulder, “I think it is our best chance.”

Dan could not dispute this and after a while, in the peaceful warmth of ruffles and petticoats, both of them fell into a much deeper sleep than either would have thought possible under the circumstances.

A good jolting woke them. It was broad daylight and the laundry basket was being pushed across the floor by two female servants, amazed at its weight.

“What's the duke put in here?” one asked the other, “'er Grace's body?”

The other, between pants, bade her friend be silent. “Never joke about that sort of thing in this house,” she snorted. “Old Mimsy hates his duchess. She may well be in here for all I know, but it won't do us any good to find her.”

There was no more chat as the basket thudded down the stairs and sailed across the marble floor toward the front door, where it took four footmen to load it onto the flat wagon waiting to receive it.

Hew's troopers, scattered all over the square, were immediately suspicious. “Open it,” one ordered the laundryman.

“What for?”

“Just do as I say. We're looking for two criminals who escaped around here and they might be inside.”

The laundryman shrugged and beckoned to the footmen. “Open it for the king's dragoons,” he said. “They want to see if the duke has criminals in his washing.”

The footmen were reluctant, but the troopers were persistent. One, with youthful arrogance, flicked his sword lazily against the wicker. “Do you want me to open it?” he asked.