From Ruin to Riches

Will was not conscious of any plan at all in that wild ride, only the knowledge that he must be in time, that if he lost her he would not be able to bear it. The cab pulled up in the middle of the bridge and he leapt out, stared along the length of it. And saw nothing. No hubbub as there surely would have been if a woman had jumped off in broad daylight. No sign of anyone resembling Julia.

‘Well, guv’nor? What about my fare, then?’

Will pulled out his pocket book and handed up a note without looking at the driver, his eyes scanning the northern approaches of the bridge. ‘Wait.’

‘For that money, guv’nor, I’ll sit here all day.’

Will gripped the parapet and tried to assess what was best to do when all he wanted was to rush on to Blackfriars Bridge. She did not know London, but she had read the guidebooks, would know that Westminster was the nearest bridge to Mayfair. And she could expect to get here before he found the note. But she should have arrived by now, even at the normal pace of a cab horse.

He would have to risk leaving his post here. ‘Blackfriars. As fast as you can make it.’

Up Whitehall, along Strand, down the hill to the foot of Ludgate Hill and then down to the river and the bridge. Again, only the bustle of everyday life greeted him. Will stood looking down at the dark water rushing beneath and thought about his first sight of Julia, a pale grey ghost in the moonlight, leaning on the bridge over the lake. And he had feared she would jump and drown herself, of all the ironies.

It was as though he could hear the nightingale again, feel her arms around him, holding him against her warm body. And as if she spoke in his ear he heard her voice.

I cannot imagine ever being desperate enough to do that, she had replied when he told her he had thought she was about to jump. Drowning must be such terror. Besides, there is always some hope.

Will dragged the note from his pocket and smoothed it flat on the worn Portland stone. The threat to kill herself was a feint, a clever bluff, all implication. And no lies. And he had fallen for it. The hope that surged back into him made him dizzy for a moment until he realised he still had no idea where to find Julia.

‘You all right, guv’nor?’ When Will looked up at him the driver scratched his stubbled chin and frowned back. ‘Not choosing the best bridge to jump off, are you?’

‘No. I have lost someone,’ Will said. He needed help. Rushing about like a headless chicken was not going to answer in a city the size of London. ‘Take me to the Bow Street offices.’

*

A busy coaching inn was the ideal hiding place, Julia realised as she closed the door of the cramped chamber and listened to the bustle and racket from the yard below. It was the one place where a woman alone was not conspicuous, for it was full of them, some modestly bonneted and cloaked, clutching their battered portmanteaux—servants and governesses, she supposed. Some were fine ladybirds, dressed to the nines and out to attract attention, others were harassed wives and mothers with a baby in their arms or fractious children at their heels.

The coaches came and went, the tide of passengers ebbed and flowed and she felt safe from detection for the first time in hours. Desolate, lonely, heartbroken and frightened. But at least no one would find her here.

What was Will thinking now? How was he feeling? Betrayed, of course. He believed she had deceived him and she had. He believed she had lied about loving him and that, Julia realised, hurt more than anything. And he loved King’s Acre and he was having to face the fact that the woman he had thought would help him save it would smear it with the stain of blood and disgrace.

She wanted to write to him, to justify herself, to try to convince him that she truly loved him. But that would not help him, all it would be was a small, selfish, balm to her smarting conscience. Now she had to plan for where she would go to if she could silence Arthur and Jane and what she should do if she could not.

*

Bow Street was home to the Runners, and they would be a danger, but it also attracted a motley crowd of thief-takers and informants who hung around in the hope of commissions, legal and semi-legal. They would think nothing of being sent to every coaching inn in search of a carefully described woman who had bought a ticket and left town that day.

Will had paid twenty of them better than they asked and promised more for results, then went to the hotel to wait. The inaction was hellish. Worse was the nagging fear that he might be wrong, that Julia might even now be floating in the muddy waters of the Thames.

No, he told himself for the tenth time. She would not give up, she was a fighter. But man after man came to him and reported nothing. Women answering her description had been seen, but not buying stage or mail-coach tickets. Nor had any of the carriers sold places on their slow, heavy wagons. She was still in London and that, he was all too aware, would make her far harder to track.

Will paid them, then sent them back out to check again in the morning, pushed his dinner around the plate, left it away uneaten and tried to rest. He could not let her hang, he knew. Whatever the cost, whatever the consequences, he would find her and get her out of the country.

Why? he wondered, suddenly shaken out of his circle of dark thoughts. Why risk everything, his good name, King’s Acre? The answer came with shocking clarity. Because I love her and nothing else matters.

He needed to rest because Julia needed him. Will took off his boots and his coat, lay down on the bed, tried to come to terms with that shattering piece of self-knowledge and attempted to sleep through nightmares of Newgate and the gallows, the look of stunned misery on Julia’s face as he had hurled those bitter words at her that morning, the smug, blackmailing faces of her cousins.

There was something there, something his mind fretted at and yet could not quite grasp. In the floating state somewhere between sleep and waking Will lay still and let his thoughts chase the puzzle. Something had not been right, something had been out of kilter. But when? The answer flicked out of sight whenever he seemed close, like a shadow vanishing from the corner of his eye when he turned to confront it.

Surprise. It had something to do with surprise. Shock. No, that was not quite right, he was missing the point somehow. Frustrated, Will thumped the pillow, turned over and, somehow, mana

ged to sleep.

*

The sun was bright on the gilded cross atop St Paul’s as the Mail clattered on to the yard of the General Receiving Office. Julia joined the crowd of travellers emerging from the numerous inns all around making their way towards the Receiving Office to take the morning coaches out, or to continue their journey by hackney carriage or on foot. A restless night had left her aching and weary, but Julia set off towards the great dome, thankful at least for a landmark. Once she found the cathedral then she only had to go down Ludgate Hill and turn into the Old Bailey and there would be the inn where she had seen her cousins watching the execution.

Her tired brain went over and over the arguments she had worked out during the long night. Firstly she would appeal to their good nature, then to the threat of scandal to themselves, tarred by association with her. If neither of those worked, well, then she would threaten to hand herself in at Bow Street and to implicate them as accessories.