Page 21 of My One and Only Duke
The gallows was a simple crossbeam with nooses dangling from it. Under the crossbeam was a plank floor that dropped when a lever was pulled. The whole contraption was drawn out into the street for public executions. In the bare expanse of the courtyard, the same apparatus loomed like an obscene altar.
Ned wiped at his cheeks. “I wish he’d let me starve.”
The length of rope was such that the condemned dropped eighteen inches at most, not enough distance to develop the speed that would assure a quick end.
“I’d starve right along with you,” Davies said, wrapping an arm around Ned’s shoulders. “But first I’d kill a few guards, the warden, and if I ever learn who put Mr. Wentworth’s neck into that noose, I’d make very sure to kill them too.”
Thus did Newgate turn a decent man murderous. “And I’d help you.”
Up to the gallows Mr. Wentworth went, despite the hood. He was in no hurry, but certainly not dawdling either, damn him.
Damn them all, and damn this stupid, starving life.
The rope was snugged about his neck. He wore only a shirt and breeches, not even a waistcoat, because the waistcoat hanging in the wardrobe would fetch a pretty penny.
The whores had come up behind Ned and Davies at the window. They stood in a semicircle, some of them sniffling. An ominous quiet settled over the group, in a prison that tormented with noise as much as with dirt and deprivation.
“This is wrong,” Penny said. “This is bloody, damned wrong.”
The guards lined up, as if standing straight and tall could contradict Penny’s truth. Davies’s arm tightened about Ned’s shoulders, and still, Ned could not look away.
* * *
Quinn had started to drink the laudanum Joshua had purchased for him, then thought better of it. Laudanum was in precious short supply among the incarcerated, and others needed it more than Quinn did.
Besides, why make this killing any easier for those taking a life? Why provide them a dazed, distant victim, one beyond pain, beyond reality?
So Quinn had been marched out into the courtyard only a little the worse for medication. Ned and Davies would find the laudanum in the wardrobe along with clothes and coin. No soap, though. That bequest had gone to Mrs. Wentworth.
Quinn pushed thoughts of Jane aside as the shackles were struck and the guards began arguing about the hood. Whose job was it to bring it out? Where was the damned thing? Why was this damned show taking place in the courtyard rather than on the street like a proper doin’?
The gallows were in the courtyard because Quinn had spent a thousand pounds to make it so. The warden had quietly told him that fifty thousand would not be enough to buy a commutation.
“So save your coin for your family, my friend.”
The jury had been kind as well, observing the courtesy of finding that Quinn was without resources, and thus preserving his wealth from forfeiture to the Crown. In the usual case, that had become a formality decades ago. Quinn’s was not the usual case.
The sun on Quinn’s face was kindest of all, a gentle warmth that hinted of a beautiful day.
Jane would see the end of this day. Quinn would not.
The ordeal ahead no longer troubled him, perhaps because of the laudanum, perhaps because of a fatigue of the heart. He’d suffered physically on many occasions. He’d wished to die, the pain had been so unrelenting. His dignity had been ripped away just as often, his pride left in tatters.
Quinn had spent years at the foot of the gallows; now he was to learn the view from the top of the steps. A minor shift in perspective.
And yet…Jane would mourn him, which was both a comfort and a torment. A child would have the Wentworth name and a bit of the Wentworth wealth. An innocent child, one who’d have a mother’s love from the moment of birth.
A mother’s love, and a killer’s name.
The hood was twitched into place over Quinn’s head. “Up ye go, lad. It’s time. They don’t count to three or say any more prayers. Just drop the rope, then drop you. You’re almost done.”
This was intended as encouragement. That the guard spoke with a heavy Yorkshire accent was fitting.
Somebody took Quinn’s elbow and guided him gently toward the steps. He was given time to navigate the stairs on his own, one of the guards quietly instructing him as the top step approached. This ritual was surrounded with etiquette, of all the ironies. Couldn’t have the condemned plunging down the steps and breaking his neck.
The rope was dropped over Quinn’s head—new from the smell of it, and rough against his skin. New ropes were stiffer, and thus undesirable under the circumstances because they resulted in death by suffocation rather than a broken neck.
Quinn did not want to die. He’d known that since the farce that had been his questioning at the magistrate’s office. Life was not sweet—life was a relentless challenge—but being brother to Althea, Constance, and Stephen had been sweet. Being a partner to that bufflehead Joshua had been sweet.
