Both Sam and Mrs. Putnam were uneasy. To Sam it looked like crystal that whatever was intended on Deborah would by long ago have been achieved. Margery, more cynical, thought the younger of the two men must be drunk, or slightly mad. Whatever as she told it later he was living proof that love existed, being so distracted he could hardly walk straight; although maybe, she conceded, he was merely saddle-sore. She could also see a customer at the end door to her corridor, and needed them away.
"La, sir!" she said to Sam. "Go down to the stable and see Rich. If you've rid so far you'll need new horses, and he'll find a patch of straw for you, no doubt. If I was you I'd go and have a drink instead. Now shoo away. There is a gentleman."
She indicated a door beside her and almost pushed them through it to a stair. On the second or third tread Will stumbled, which Sam seized on for his argument. They needed sleep, they needed rest, to go on was absurd.
"If it's done it's done," he said, trying not to sound unkindly. "If it ain't we'll get there just as soon tomorrow if we've had a rest. We don't know where this justice lives, if that's where Dennett's taken her, but Sir Arthur's Tony might have found it out, and we can't arrive at Langham in the middle of the night, can we? It's help we need, not getting shot."
"But will you come?" asked William. "What of Kaye? What will he do to us?"
This cheered Sam up, apparently. The thought of thwarting Kaye appealed.
"There are more important things than Captain Kaye," he said.
"Anyway, he don't know where we are unless Eaton's back, which I severely doubt, and the journey could have took us longer, couldn't it? Let's get our heads down in the straw, get two hacks, and be away first light. Whatever way it goes, we'll be back on Biter by tomorrow night or so. Let him call us liars if he dares!"
From Rich they got makeshift beds, some bread and cheese, and a trade-off for their nags which suited all of them. Will did not think to sleep, his mind was filled with Deb and awful possibilities. But he slept, and did not even dream.
Amelia Wimbarton, wife of a justice, a learning lady, not long ago a beauty, had only this to hold on to now: her husband loved her, oh yes he did indeed. When she found out it was not true, the effect it had was terrible. For the while at least, however, it did save Deborah's teeth.
Deb reached the house unconscious in Marcus Dennett's cart, because finally it was the only means by which he could transport her. He had tracked her down without enormous difficulty, although it had cost him dearly and risked him meeting several men he would have avoided at all costs, one reason for steering clear of London as he did with assiduity in the normal way. He had hired locally for the raid on Dr. Marigold's, as Jeremiah had his own reasons for avoiding certain parts and Dennett his for keeping dark his destination. He gave the steward gold as a collateral an arrangement Jeremiah forced on him to keep him waiting with the cart south of the river while the mountebank and his hired posse went by horse. One of the men was badly cut, and Dennett himself had to shoot poor Cecily when she ran screaming at him, but the expedition was a quick enough success, with Deborah clubbed nearly senseless early on, so quiet as they came across the bridge.
It was afterwards, when the London men had got their pay and gone, that she came round sufficiently to give them trouble. They had decanted her from off a horse into the wagon before setting out for south, and Jeremiah and Dennett, having settled the cash questions, were talking almost amicably. Fiske, Jeremiah's deputy, had stopped off at some bushes luckily, and as he rode to catch them up he saw the girl bound but not inactive slip-sliding off the tailgate of the cart. She hit the ground heavily but with little sound, and was struggling to climb on to her feet when the horseman made himself known to her, grinning fit to crack his face. Deborah, in pain and furious, let out a shriek and tried he swore to bite his leg before the horse's shoulder knocked her flat into the mud. Then, hobbled like a grazing mare but her determination not a whit diminished, she bounced up once more and tried to jog and hop away towards the roadside and some cover. Retaken, she set up a screeching and a bellowing that could not be borne, busy as the road was at this time of evening. Despite her face had earlier been battered, but thinking she would no longer need her beauty anyway, Dennett clubbed her harder than before. Which saved her in one way, for Fiske had been so taken with her wild spirit, he had half a plan to creep in with her at some later stage for business underneath her skirt, but was put off by the quantity of blood and bruises.
Madly, though, Chester Wimbarton was not which led Mistress Wimbarton to a despair far greater than the one she suffered from her rotting mouth. She was rotten by this time, in a state of self-disgust and pain that a weaker vessel, man or woman, could simply not have borne. When she had demanded of her husband that he track down the mountebank and get the second teeth, she had been able to face him. His love was her only touchstone, and dressed in black she had thought to impress him with her bravery, to achieve some transcendental beauty through her naked suffering. She had seen him flinch, his eyes slide sideways, the muscles round his mouth go rigid, but he had recovered, he had set the search in hand and would succeed, he promised it and quickly. By the time Jeremiah returned home with the prize and hope, however, Mistress Wimbarton could not face even Dorothy and the other women with her face uncovered. She was in her room, fully clothed before the fire, a bowl of water by her for her weeping gums, a pomander and some burning cloves beside. She did not hear the horsemen coming home.
The wagon, by arrangement, was taken to the carriage house, where it could be kept from general eyes. This was not the only reason, for above it was a suite where the girl could be safely kept until everything was ready for the operation, and where Dennett could stay with her to get all set. While he and Jeremiah carried her upstairs, Fiske went to see if the master was astir and wished to come and see. He was, and did. Before he went, he crept to his wife's door and listened, where he heard no sound.
Deb, laid on the bed, was not a lovely vision, but the master found himself dry-mouthed. She was dressed in a shift and cloak as they had picked her up and wrapped her at Dr. Marigold's, she was shoeless, and she was caked in mud and dirt. Her face was pale as death, with dark patches round her eyes and darker bruises where the mountebank had struck her senseless. Dried blood caked her hair and ear and neck, and she was scarcely breathing. Chester Wimbarton, magistrate and man of standing in the parish, had a wild idea.
"How is Milady?" asked Dennett, at last. He had stood ignored for moments while the man had stared, and he had noticed Jeremiah's look of sly contempt. The master turned his eyes reluctantly to him, then flapped his hand impatiently to dismiss the steward. Dennett, with an inkling of what was going on, also had a need to lick his lips. He smelled money.
"You see," he said, 'if she is too ... far gone, it could turn out a little ... difficult. Will you permit I... ?"
Wimbarton did not reply, but his eyes were hard and pitiless. Dennett, checking that Jeremiah had closed the door, went to the bed. Deb was breathing shallowly, and for an instant he was afraid that she might die. Hurrying, he turned the simple knot in the neck cord of her cloak into a mess of hard twists and loops, but hardly dared to bring a knife to bear. The smile he cast across his shoulder was rather sickly.
"My wife fears it is too late, they will no longer take," said Wimbarton, levelly. "I told her that can not be so, I have your bond."