Page 80 of Dark Tidings on the Thames
Royston paused again. “Well, that much is true. Everyone in the stables of that tavern was eager to give their opinion on the wicked sorts of things you and your friends get up to out here. They warned me not to follow you, but they were happy enough to take my money and give me a mount.”
“That is nonsense,” Beth declared. “What is wicked is the way they feel free to gossip about and judge us, without even trying to understand the truth.”
In a flash of movement, Royston grabbed Beth’s chin. “There it is again. That mouth,” he snarled. “How freely you give your opinions and defend your unladylike ways.” Pushing away from her, he took a step back. “Do you know? I almost passed you by. I thought you were a proper woman. Quiet and meek. Keeping to her legitimate place, inthe background. Not like that Foulger woman. So loud! So insistent! She would not be silent when she was told. Shewouldput herself forward. Always pushing, pushing.”
“You killed Glynn,” Beth whispered. “You truly did it.”
“Well, didn’t I have to? It was her own fault. She saw me with Lily. More than once, I gather. She said she wasn’t having it. She was going to tell the Duchess of Rowledge. Tell her I was messing about with one of our charity recipients, that I was using my authority within the organization to exert myself on the helpless and vulnerable. Well, I couldn’t allow it. I couldn’t let them start asking questions. I warned her, but she would not back down.” His voice grew distant. “She wasn’t like the others, though. She wasn’t susceptible to my flatteries. There was no time for preparation, nor time for all the steps of the dance.”
“You bashed her head in! And you squeezed the life out of Lily!”
“Yes, Lily. She had me tied in knots, that one, for I could not decide. Was she a child? Or another scourge of a mouthy whore, like the rest of them? I could scarcely decide—until she came to me and said she’d seen the smock, the one Glynn was making for her. I had it tucked away in a drawer in my office. Lily had been sneaking about where she did not belong. She had wondered if I could be the man seen leaving the Wardrobe that night, and so she felt free to touch my things, invade my privacy.” He sneered. “Then I knew. She was a filthy, self-serving termagant, like so many of you.”
“She was just a girl!” Beth cried. “She had her entire life ahead of her—and you stole it!”
“That girl was surelynotlooking forward to anything in her future,” Royston said bluntly. “She scarcely fought me at all! It hardly felt like a punishment, in all honesty, and I admit, it worried me.” He put a hand to his brow. “Is it a sin, I wonder, if it doesn’t truly become a punishment for her crimes?”
“Crimes?” Beth scoffed.
“She stepped out of her place, didn’t she? She asked for things she’d done nothing to earn. She made herself into a threat.” He stepped closer to Beth again. “Like you.”
Kara saw Beth’s chin lift. “In what way have I threatened you?”
“You brought those friends of yours into the charity, pulled them right into the midst of Glynn’s death! Yardley would surely have been on his way to his hanging by now, had you not interfered. Hadtheynot interfered. You stepped out of your place, too. You started the nonsense of hosting a memorial service, when Glynn Foulger should have just faded quietly away. You are drawing public attention to the charity, which will make it horribly harder to kill! It’s not just my plans you’ve ruined.”
Lifting his hands to her shoulders, Royston shook the girl. “Why do you think I came for you in the open yesterday? You ruined any chance of the usual game, the lovely dance. I heard of the police who were at the Waif’s Wardrobe yesterday. They were asking questions about me. They came to my home. They questioned my neighbors.” He shook her again. “Do you know what that means? I shall have to start over. Again. Under an entirely new identity this time.”
Royston turned his head then, and looked back the way they had come.
Kara shrank down.
“Your friend must have turned tail and run for her husband, leaving the lantern as a marker.” He laughed darkly. “Much good it will do her. He’s in the same shape as your man.” He let go of her and puffed his chest out a bit. “No one else knows what an effective weapon a wooden bobbin can be. One good blow to the temple, with just the right amount of force, and you can quash a man good and proper. I learned it from a mill doctor, you see. He told me about it after one of the boys got coldcocked, cleaning beneath the looms. Something about knocking the brain into the side of the skull drops them quick.”
“If Rob dies…” Beth seemed unable to finish her sentence.
“They usually do not. But it is no concern for you. We will go on before your friends return. You will cooperate, or I will use my bobbin onyouand carry you out.” He turned to glance back again, and this time Beth was ready. She wrenched free and turned to run.
Shouting, Royston reached for her and missed.
Kara stood as Beth leapt over a downed tree.
Royston lunged out and reached again. He caught the back of Beth’s skirt and held on, pulling her up short. She tripped and went down.
Huffing out his anger like a bellows, Royston dragged her back across the log, spun her around, and propped her up so that her back lay against it. Leaning in close, he screamed in her face. “Now see what you have done! You are a betrayer. A cheat! Everything is your fault, do you hear? Just like her! Why do you get above yourself? You are a woman, a vessel of original sin. You are weak. Inferior. Inconstant. Just like Father told you! Everything bad, ugly, and evil in this world can be traced back to you. If only you had just behaved, kept quiet, kept your opinions to yourself, none of this would have happened. It’s your fault. All of it, laid at your feet.”
Something was happening to Beth.
She’d been defiant before. She’d met Royston’s anger with fire of her own and used his inattention to try to get away. But something had changed. Perhaps the horrid words and terrible accusations he was flinging at her? Perhaps it was her position, stretched out beneath him with her skirts half rucked up, while he knelt over her?
Kara couldn’t know, but something had doused Beth’s fire. She huddled with her face turned away, her eyes closed, and her shoulders hunched defensively. She was flinching, as if every angry word was a blow.
And Royston was loving it, reveling in her obvious fear, relishing her capitulation. “Yes!” he yelled. “You know I am right! You are fickle and weak.”
And he was distracted—and facing completely away from Kara.
Now was her chance.
Gripping her longest lockpick, she stood and charged forward, aiming to drive it into the curve of his neck.
