A gray dawn broke, the sky weeping a thin drizzle. They rattled into the yard of the Red Lion at Winchester, the horses drooping. The coachman had driven them hard, a substantial bonus resting on achieving the seventy miles to Winchester in seven hours. Twice the speed of a stagecoach. George stuck his head through the window.
"Change the horses. We'll not stop for more than that."
"Flask is empty," Lucien muttered through clenched teeth. "Get it filled." He leaned to open the door and was seized with another paroxysm, doubling over, the reddening handkerchief pressed to his mouth.
"Here, give it to me." Impatiently, George snatched the flask from his limp grasp. He left the carriage and hurried across the yard to the taproom. "Fill this, and give me three extra bottles." At the rate Lucien was drinking, he reckoned that three bottles should last for the rest of the day.
He returned to the chaise, returned to his watch on Juliana. He couldn't understand why she hadn't regained consciousness. She was breathing. Her face was deathly white, it was true, but her complexion was always milky pale against the vivid flame of her hair. He leaned over her, touched her cheek. Her skin was reassuringly warm.
Juliana knew that she couldn't keep up the pretense for much longer. Her muscles screamed for relief, and worst of all, she had a pressing need for the privy. How she would express the need with the gag in her mouth she didn't know, but if they didn't stop soon, she was going to have to make some effort to communicate. She'd been given no clues to their destination during the changes, but she guessed from the length of the journey, and from what she knew of George, that he was taking her back to his house. To the scene of the crime. Was he going to haul her before the magistrates immediately? Or did he have a more devious plan? The chaise jolted violently in a pothole, and her discomfort magnified. She closed her mind to it, forcing herself to remember, room by room, the physical plan of the house. To envisage the windows, the doors, the outbuildings, the lane that ran behind the stables.
The chaise turned up the drive to the Ridges' squat redbrick house and came to a halt before the front door. George jumped down, reached in for Juliana, and dragged her out feet first. Her head bumped on the floor, and she opened her eyes.
"Ah, my sleeping beauty, that woke you," he said with satisfaction, toppling her forward over his shoulder again. "We're going to amuse each other, I believe." He carried her up to the door. It opened as he reached it. An elderly housekeeper curtsied, her eyes startled.
"Eh, Sir George, we wasn't expectin' ye."
He merely grunted and pushed past her. Lucien followed, hunched over the deep, deep chill in his body, teeth chattering, limbs trembling.
"See to my guest, Dolly," George ordered as he strode to the stairs. "The man needs fire, hot water, bed."
"Cognac," Lucien declared feebly, raising the flask to his lips.
The woman stared at him in horror. She knew when she looked upon the dying. "This a-way sir." She took his arm, but he shook off her hand with a curse.
"Just bring me cognac and hot water, woman." He stumbled into a room to the side of the hall, handkerchief pressed to his mouth as the bloody phlegm was dredged from his lungs.
Juliana, listening to this, felt a smidgeon of hope. Lucien was clearly too ill to be capable of serious violence. That left only George. But trussed up as she was, George was quite enough to deal with.
George kicked open a door at the head of the stairs and threw Juliana down onto the bed. "Remember this room, my dear? Your wedding chamber." He pulled the cloak loose, flinging her onto her belly as he dragged it away from her.
Juliana was conscious of her shift riding up on her thighs, the air cool on the backs of her legs. With a jerk she twisted onto her back, trying to push down her shift with her bound and bandaged hands.
George chuckled and twitched it up again. "I like it just the wav it was."
She moved her hands to her mouth, trying to pluck at the gag, her eyes signaling frantically. At this point she had only one thing on her mind.
"Want to say something?" He smiled. "You'll be doing a lot of talking soon, my dear stepmother. You'll be giving me a full confession of murder. You'll write it out for me, and then we'll visit the magistrates, and you'll be able to tell them all about it, too."
Juliana heaved her legs over the side of the bed and kicked her feet backward under the bed, trying to locate the chamber pot. George looked puzzled for a minute; then he smiled again.
"Ah, I understand. Allow me to help you." Bending, he pulled the pot out and pushed it with his foot into the middle of the chamber. "There," he said solicitously. "I trust you can manage. I'll be back when I've breakfasted."
Juliana's eyes spat green fire. But at least he'd left her to struggle alone. And her hands were tied in front rather than behind. There was always something to be thankful for, she thought wryly, standing up and hopping across to the chamber pot.
She managed somehow, and with little shuffles also managed to push the pot back beneath the bed; then she hopped over to the windowsill and took stock. The gag was so tight in her mouth, she couldn't work it loose with her fingers and, with her wrists tied, couldn't get at the knot behind her head. The strips of silk stocking were tight, and she couldn't slip her bandaged hands free.
Her eyes roamed around the room, saw Sir John's razor strop hanging on the wall by the washstand. Where there was a strop, there was usually a razor. She hopped to the washstand. The straight blade lay beside the ewer and basin, waiting for Sir John, as it had every morning of his adult life. No one had touched the room since his death.
Gingerly, she picked up the blade with her fingertips and tried to balance it on its edge, the cutting blade uppermost. She slid her hands forward until the silk at her wrists was directly over the blade, then sawed the material against the edge. It was blunt, in need of the strop, but she was too impatient now to attempt to sharpen it. It fell over. Carefully, she rebalanced it, holding it steady with the tension of the silk. Began again. Little by little the thin, strong silk began to fray. Twice the blade fell over when the tension of the silk lessened. Patiently, she replaced it, her heart thudding, ears strained to catch the sound of a footstep outside, the creak of a floorboard. Her throat hurt so badly, she wasn't sure she would be able to talk even if she weren't gagged. Then the material parted, the razor clattered to the washstand.
Juliana shook out her wrists, cramps running up her arms, clawing her fingers. Then she struggled with the gag and freed her mouth. Wool stuck to her tongue and her lips, reminding her vividly of Ted's ruthless lesson in the dangers of the London streets. Sleeping in one's bed seemed to be as hazardous as anything else, she thought, slashing the razor through the bonds at her ankles.
She was free. Her hurts were forgotten under a rush of exhilaration. She had heard George turn the key in the lock of the door as he'd left. She ran to the window. It was a long drop to the soft earth of a flower bed beneath. But the ivy was strong. Or looked it, at least. Whether it would bear her weight remained to be seen. There was no other option.
She pushed up the casement. The wind blew cold and wet. pressing her thin shift against her body, but she ignored it. Twisting sideways, she dropped from the windowsill, gripping the edge with her fingers, ignoring the pain in her torn palms. Her feet scrabbled for purchase in the ivy. Found a toehold of brick. Heart in her mouth, she let go of the sill with one hand, moved it down to clutch at the creeper. It held. She brought the other hand down, and now her entire weight was supported by the ivy and the toehold. Hand over hand she inched downward, feeling the creeper pull away from the wall. But each time she managed to move her hands and feet to another site before the vine gave way.