Part 28 (1/2)

I forced myself to look at her. Her dark lashes closed. Her lips tinged blue. The girl who just a few moments before had been so alive. Who had wanted so much to live. Poor Judith. Silenced for ever.

I spoke at last, the words heavy on my tongue. 'Your father will be proud of you.'

He smiled up at me, black eyes s.h.i.+ning. 'I didn't do it for him, Mr Hawkins.'

epilogue.

Dawn in London, but there will be no sun today. A carriage whisks its way through the rain-soaked streets, water hissing beneath the wheels. The windows are closed and covered with thick black curtains. The cus.h.i.+ons are of black velvet, trimmed with gold.

And I too wear black; fitting clothes for a dead man. Kitty sits at my side, watching me in that new way she has. Careful. Concerned. I wish she would shout at me instead. I miss it.

Five days have pa.s.sed since my hanging. The newspapers are filled with stories about Judith's confession and her suicide. The town is horrified and fascinated and can speak of nothing else. Broadsheet writers indulge themselves with lurid fictions of her life and death. They tell of her final moments, imagine her weeping with guilt as she drinks the fatal draught of opium. There are fresh ill.u.s.trations too, of Judith attacking her father, blade held high. Swooning at the trial. Attending my hanging with a secret smile upon her face.

Poor, tragic Thomas Hawkins, hanged for a crime he did not commit. How quickly I have been transformed from monster to blameless victim. I could walk into any tavern or coffeehouse in London and be declared a miracle. A saint. The thought turns my stomach.

I had declared my innocence for weeks, and no one would listen, even as they put the noose about my neck. Now at last the town believes me. Now, when the guilt of Judith's death presses so hard upon my shoulders that I can barely lift my head.

I had walked from that room without a word. Left Judith lifeless upon the bed, her skin turning cold. I found Kitty on the landing, her face pale. She had guessed, too. Her eyes softened with pity as she saw my expression. No need to ask. Dead.

'Leave now, Tom,' she'd said, touching a hand to my bruised throat. 'Let me take care of this.'

And she did. Somehow she convinced Stephen that the note was true, that Judith had suddenly transformed from the fierce, defiant woman who had mocked him from the room, to the weak, fragile girl, too racked with guilt to continue living. He did not ask how she had broken free of her bindings or when she could have written the note. He turned away from the truth, just as he had turned away before when he realised Judith had killed their father. In time the memories of this night would fade, and he would be left clinging to this comfortable lie.

I walked back up into the attic and its smell of dust and camphor. Sam trailed behind me with a candle. I put a hand lightly on his chest and his face dropped.

'Mr Hawkins?'

'Go home, Sam.'

I slipped back through the attic door. I don't suppose I shall ever see him again.

I spent the next few days hiding in our close-shuttered bedroom. Smoking, thinking. Alice and Neala kept the visitors away. Alice thought I was the most wondrous creature in the world. I'd saved her from the gallows and now here I was, alive and well after my own hanging. Neala thought it was G.o.d's work. Kitty knew better.

'You shouldn't grieve for Judith.'

I couldn't explain that I was grieving for Sam, too. Everything he might have been. Everything he now would be. His father's son.

One slight comfort, that first terrible day Ned returned home. He came to visit me, squeezing himself through the attic door. He looked haggard and sick with grief, but he shook my hand and smoked a pipe with me, and promised not to tell the world I was alive. We didn't speak of Judith. What could be said, after all? But he promised that he would look after Stephen.

'He's my brother,' he said, simply.

I had begun to think, lying in that darkened room, that I should remain dead. I had no desire to become the city's latest wonder the hanged man who cheated Death. And then there was the chance to free myself of all those old debts, to James Fleet, to the queen. To invent myself afresh, a new man. We had enough money to live contentedly in another country. Somewhere I could feel the warm sun on my skin, breathe fresh air. Drink the water. Imagine such a marvel.

It was time I paid attention to the lessons I had learned last autumn, in the Marshalsea. The lessons I had learned riding the cart to Tyburn. Life was adventure enough. There was no need to go about prodding the d.a.m.ned thing with a stick.

'Are you sure you would not grow bored?' Kitty asked.

I yawned, stretching out upon the bed. 'I should love to be bored.'

And so it was settled. Alice and Neala would take care of the house and shop. Kitty and I would travel to the continent. I would write to my father and sister to let them know I was alive. The rest could believe what they wished. Perhaps we would come back one day. Perhaps not. I began to dream of sunlight and orchards instead of graves and gaols.

We gave ourselves a month to plan. Foolish. We should have left at once. I have said it a thousand times before, and one day I shall take the care to listen to myself. There are no secrets in this city.

This morning I heard voices raised in the shop, Kitty cursing and Neala shouting at someone to leave. And then a lazy, drunken drawl I recognised at once. Charles Howard. I grabbed my dagger and ran downstairs.

'I thought you should know, Miss Sparks. I stopped the royal pardon. D'you understand?' He was standing in the middle of the shop with a bottle in one hand and a sword at his hip. Drunk as ever, and a dangerous look in his eye. 'He is dead because I demanded it of the king himself. And who will protect you now, eh?' He sneered at Neala. 'This Irish invert?'

'Mr Howard,' I said, softly.

He spun on his heel. I took some satisfaction in watching his beetroot face drain white.

'Not . . . not possible,' he slurred. 'I watched you hang. What the devil . . . What are you?'

Even as I stepped towards him, he hesitated. The man was wild enough to fight anything, even a demon from h.e.l.l. But then the soldier's training saved him. He'd fight a ghost, but not a ghost with a dagger, supported by a woman with a double-handed blade. He backed out of the shop and ran up Russell Street, cursing us all.

He was gone, but I had been seen, and the rumours were spreading across the town. We kept the doors closed and I returned to my hiding place upstairs, hoping the story would fade. A few hours later a black carriage drew up outside the house, and a guard with a battered face jumped down. Rapped upon the door until Alice was forced to open it.

'Hear there's been a resurrection,' Budge called up the stairs. 'Hurry down, Mr Hawkins. And bring Miss Sparks with you.'

The carriage slows and turns sharply. I draw back the curtain. We've arrived. I settle back against the seat and reach for Kitty's hand. A squall of rain spatters on the roof and I flinch, remembering the road to Tyburn, the stones clattering about my head.

Budge appears at the window, holding up a large umbrella. He beckons me out of the carriage. Kitty picks up her gown and slides to join us, but Budge shakes his head. 'Just you, Hawkins.'

'You asked for us both.'

'Her Majesty wishes to speak with you alone.'

Kitty slams the carriage door closed and drops back against the seat. Folds her arms. 'Her Majesty can kiss my rain-soaked a.r.s.e.'

I follow Budge up the back stairs to the queen's rooms, leaving a trail of muddy footsteps behind me. In the antechamber, Henrietta Howard waits in a lilac gown, tightly corseted and hung with jewels. Her expression is light and composed, her hands loose at her side.

I bow. 'Madam.'

Budge glances anxiously at the door to the queen's room. 'My lady,' he warns.

'One moment, only.' She draws me to one side. 'Mr Hawkins. You have survived after all. How remarkable.' She smiles, but she does not seem so very pleased.

Perhaps, indeed, she loathes me with an exquisite pa.s.sion. It is impossible to guess from her countenance. For eleven years she had dreamed, desperately, that she might see her son again. She had hoped that as he grew older, Henry might realise the truth about his father, and forgive her for abandoning him. I wonder what she was forced to write in her letter to him, and I feel ashamed, again, for my part in it. 'I am so sorry, madam, about your son.'

A flash of pain crosses her face. It is gone as fast. 'I had a son. For ten years, I had a son. That much alone I can say.'

'But you are free now. You may leave your rooms, visit your friends. Walk in the park without fear.'