Page 16 of A Countess Captured for the Captain
“You gave no care for your daughter when she was under your roof, Your Grace,” Nox had replied, but he had been shouted down by angry voices from the public gallery.
It had taken no time at for his guilt to be determined. Nox, according to the judge, was a dangerous man, a scourge of the British Empire and her future prosperity. Pirates, he had said, looking down haughtily from beneath his horsehair wig, deserved only one sentence. The black cap had been placed upon the judge’s head, and with a solemn voice, he had passed the sentence.
“For crimes against the King and Nation, for offenses too numerous to list, but which include the certain death of many, I sentence you to be hung by the neck at a place of execution. There can be no mercy for those who do not show mercy,” he had declared, bringing his gavel down hard upon the bench.
A cheer had gone up from the public gallery, and cries of “Good riddance,” and “See him hang,” were muttered. The crowd had got its satisfaction, and now Nox sat wearily in his prison cell, awaiting his fate.
“Nothing but scum,” the guard repeated.
He was a tall, thin man, with a narrow face and beady eyes. Nox had nothing but contempt for him, the way he lorded himself over the prisoners, taunting those who were to be hanged. In the cell next to him was a man guilty of killing a dozen men in Whitechapel, and opposite was another driven mad by syphilis who had set fire to the hospital as St Bart’s, killing twenty of the patients. All night long they moaned in protest against their sentences, as the guard taunted them.
“Water, guard, I need water,” Nox called out, the dry piece of bread sticking to the roof of his mouth, dry and cloying.
“Water? I shall give you water,” he snarled, and opening the cell door, he threw a bucket of cold water over Nox, who charged forward, ready to strike the man dead where he stood.
But the cell door had banged shut and the key turned in the lock, the guard’s footsteps echoing back down the passageway, his laughter bouncing off the walls. Nox cursed him, soaked to the skin and shivering.
“You can only accept it, only accept it, you can,” the man in the cell opposite called out, “we are all going to die, all going to die.”
Nox slumped down to the floor, putting his head in his hands and sighing. He wanted it over and quickly. Death would be a welcome end after the hell he was enduring in the prison. His thoughts turned to the others, to Strap and the pirates on boardThe Rosa Mystica.He knew nothing of what had become of them and cursed himself for being so bold as to come to London, thinking no one would recognize him. It was his bravado which had been his undoing, and now he was all alone, awaiting his fate.
In the long night before the day of his execution, Nox thought of Samantha, and that last anguished look she had given him before he was dragged away. Would she even remember him in the months ahead? At first it had seemed like a game to return the daughter of a Duke to London, to collect a reward or ransom and to return to the Caribbean triumphant, but he hadn’t reckoned on falling in love with her. But she would soon be married, and he would soon be hanged. Those feelings mattered not at all, not now, in the darkness of his prison cell, awaiting the hangman’s noose.
“The priest will see you,” the guard said, disturbing Nox from his musings.
“I do not want to see a priest. I have made my peace with God. I do not need some cleric whispering his words over me and assuring me of forgiveness in repentance. I have nothing to repent of,” Nox replied, but the door of the cell was opened anyway, and he looked up to see a stooped figure, with a cloak wrapped around him, his hood pulled closely up over his head, partly obscuring his face.
“You must be prayed for, my son,” the priest said, in a rather deep and odd sounding voice.
Behind him, Nox could see a woman, dressed like a washerwoman, holding a large basket full of clothes. She was young, perhaps no older than Samantha, and the sight of her roused memories in Nox, memories he would rather have forgotten.
“I do not need a priest,” he growled, and the guard laughed.
“You shall need this one. Only a moment, La… Reverend,” he whispered, closing the cell door behind the priest and the washerwoman.
“What is all this? I told you, I do not need a priest. Be gone with your comforting words. How can a man be comforted when he is about to be hung by the neck?” Nox growled.
He was growing angry now. He would face death as he chose, not with the words of some priest ringing in his ears. He wanted to be left alone in his final hours, contemplating the life he had lived – the life he might have lived if things had been different.
“Then it is fortunate I am not a priest,” the priest whispered, and throwing back the hood of his cloak, Nox was astonished to find Samantha standing before him.
For a moment, he could not believe his eyes, and he let out a cry, backing away as though he had seen a ghost. Pirates were superstitious people, and the transformation from hunched old man to Samantha was almost too much to believe. She smiled at him, turning to the other woman, who set down her basket and rummaged in it, pulling out a set of clothes.
“Hurry now, there is not much time. Put on these clothes, you are to leave the prison as we entered it, dressed as a priest. We are your helpers, charitable ladies come to help relieve the sufferings of those poor inmates,” she said, tossing him a pile of clothes, as Nox stood there openmouthed.
“But the guard? How did you–?” he began, and Samantha laughed.
“Every man has his price,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.
“Quickly now, change into these clothes,” the other woman said, and Nox hurriedly pulled off his shirt and breeches, causing Samantha’s friend to blush.
“This is Catherine, she thought of the whole thing. You have her to thank for seeing you rescued. I have thought about nothing else from the moment my wicked father had you arrested. Can you ever forgive me for leading you back here? I was so naïve to think that he would welcome you with open arms. Now I know precisely what kind of man he is,” Samantha said, shaking her head, as Nox pulled on the set of robes they had brought him.
“But where am I to go? SurelyThe Rosa Mysticais–” he began, but Samantha interrupted him.
“Gone, it is all gone, but fear not, we have a plan. You shall go to the home of our good friend, Rebecca. She is terribly excited about it all. You can hide there until we can smuggle you out of England and back to the Caribbean,” she said, as though the whole thing was some remarkable game that they were involved in.
Nox shook his head, astonished at what he was hearing. Could he really escape from his fate at the gibbet? He had now dressed himself in the priest’s outfit, and Samantha looked him up and down, smiling as she did so, and turning to Catherine, who nodded approvingly.
