Page 90 of The Rebellious Lady and the Phantom Lord
She whipped around to face him. “And did you truly expect me to stand by and let my grandfather pay for what I have done? Or maybe you thought we’d be long gone before he was ever arrested.”
He frowned, his eyes darkening as he studied her with uncertainty. “My only interest is in protecting you, Phaedra.”
“Your only interest is in destroying my grandfather. And you took my papers to do it, didn’t you?”
Anger flared in his eyes with a pain that matched her own. “Why do you ask me, when you obviously already know?”
She spun away from him. Shoving past Gilly, she stormed out of the box.
She heard James hard after her. “Damn it, Phaedra, I love you. That is all that should matter.” He caught her roughly, jerking her around to crush her in his arms. “You are leaving with me now, just as you promised.”
“Take your hands off her.” Phaedra heard Gilly’s menacing growl, but she had already wrenched herself free.
“No,” she said to James. “Our pact is ended, but it was you who broke it, not me.”
“Then you are choosing to sacrifice our love to that despicable old man?”
“What choice did I ever have?” she choked. “You made it for me!”
Tears spilling down her face, she ran blindly toward the stairs that led to the foyer below. As she half-stumbled down the carpet-covered length, she was aware of someone plunging after her. It was not James, but Gilly.
He caught up with her at the bottom of the stairs. His face looked pale but determined as he tried to soothe her. “Easy, Fae. I’ll not be letting you do anything rash. We have but to keep our heads, and we’ll see our way clear of this mess. No one will go to prison.
But she refused to listen to him. What odds did it make if she was flung into Newgate? It didn’t matter to her now. Nothing did. She ran out of the theater into the streets beyond.
Her grandfather and Jonathan stood beneath the portico, still arguing. Their raised voices drew more than a few curious eyes in their direction, linkboys lingering with their lanternsto escort theatergoers through the dark streets, a few ragged beggars, lightskirts offering some burly sailors an evening’s entertainment.
“You can take a hackney cab,” Jonathan was saying to her grandfather, “and hide at my house until?—”
“Damned if I will. I’m not some cowardly criminal, skulking away in the dark.” He thumped his chest, raging so half the street could hear. “Blast it all, I am Sawyer Weylin, a respectable man of property. I am not the flea-bitten writer who calls himself Robin Goodfellow.”
“For the love of God, Sawyer,” Jonathan said. “Keep your voice down.”
Dashing away her tears, Phaedra pressed forward. “Grandfather, there is something I must tell you?—”
Jonathan elbowed her aside. “Phaedra, leave this to me.”
She tried to push past him but her grandfather had already hobbled away from the portico and into the street, bellowing at the top of his lungs, “So where is Ridley with my damned coach? I’ll go to Newgate and throttle Jessym this very night.”
For the first time Phaedra became aware of the mutterings borne to her upon the night breeze. Where the gathering mob had come from, she could not have said. One moment the pavement had been filled only with innocent onlookers; in the next, the shadows had spawned a threatening cluster of some dozen angry faces. The grumblings got louder until she made out snatches of words. “Sawyer Weylin ... hear him say so ... he’s Robin Goodfellow.”
Apprehension gripped Phaedra. Somehow she and Jonathan had to get her grandfather away from here.
One coarse voice swelled above the rest. “Aye, he is Goodfellow. I heard Jessym attest to it, not three hours past.”
One of the sailors, a burly half-drunk fellow, shoved his way forward. The rest of the crowd surged after him into the streetuntil they stood but yards from Sawyer cursing and pointing accusing fingers.
“That’s the one as wants to raise up the Catholics to murder us all.”
Phaedra tried to rush to her grandfather’s side but was stopped by Gilly and Jonathan, who attempted to hustle her back inside the theater.
“Jacobite!” “Scoundrel!” “Go live in Ireland ‘mongst your papist friends.”
Despite the crowd’s taunts, all yet might have been well if Sawyer had ignored them. But he responded with characteristic aggression, brandishing his cane and shouting back, “Don’t dare call me a Jacobite, you gutter scum. I’ll have the streets swept of the lot of you.”
A sailor rushed forward, catching at Weylin’s cane, and the two men grappled for possession of it.
“Grandfather!” Phaedra wrenched herself free. She heard her cousin groan, “Glory in heaven.” She raced forward with Gilly by her side, down the stone steps of the portico, but neither of them was swift enough to reach the street in time.
