Winifred took a deep breath and tightened her grip on the girl's hands. "Portia, dear, you must listen to me, please. Those men who came and broke into your house and tied me up and took your father… those men were asking about you. We believe that they were sent by Charles Locke… Thomas's father. Do you understand, Portia? He is an angry man, Portia, grief-stricken in his own way, just like you, and he wishes revenge for his son's death!"
She turned and looked at Winifred.
"You understand now, don't you?" Winifred continued earnestly. "We simply cannot remain here any longer. We have already tarried far too long. 'Tis growing late, and there is a chance that they may find us here, that they may find you here. Please, Portia, please.! We must leave now."
Portia looked down, nodded, then slowly stood.
"Good," said Winifred, feeling enormously relieved. "Come now, I shall help you with your cloak."
A short while later, they came downstairs, with Elizabeth carrying her bag.
"Is the coach still waiting?" Winifred asked nervously.
"He had better still be waiting, or he shall not receive the extra wages that I had promised him," Elizabeth replied, handing Winifred the bag. "Go on, I shall be with you presently. Let me first instruct the servants what to do and what to say should anybody come."
A few moments later, she pulled up the hood of her cloak and ran out into the rain. The coach was waiting, and Winifred and Portia had already climbed inside. The door was open, and the coachman was already up and waiting in his seat, prepared to leave the moment she got in. Thank Heaven, she thought, we are still in time.
She called out their destination to the coachman, stepped up into the coach, and shut the door behind her. At once, the coachman gave a yell and whipped up the horses, and the coach moved off with a lurch and gathered speed.
With a shock, Elizabeth suddenly realized that both Winifred and Portia were sitting blindfolded in their seats, their hands bound together in their laps. And they were not alone.
"Good evenin'," said a dark-cloaked figure, sitting in the seat across from her, next to Winifred. Elizabeth gasped as she felt her bodkin quickly plucked from her belt inside her cloak. "yell not be needin' that, methinks."
It took a moment for Elizabeth to get over her initial shock. Winifred sat beside the stranger, pale and frozen with fear. Portia sat stiff and immobile.
"Nice little blade, this. Bit small for serious work, else I just might be tempted. Tell ye what… be a good lass an' give me no trouble, an' I just might give it back to ye when we are done."
Elizabeth stared at her captor with sudden realization. "Why, you are a woman!" Winifred gasped with disbelief.
"I was last time I looked," Moll Cutpurse replied. "But then he is not," she added, jerking her head toward the coach window. Elizabeth looked and caught her breath as she saw a swarthy face grinning in at her. There was a man hanging on to the outside of the coach. "An' neither is he," Moll added yet again, jerking her head toward the other window, in the coach door where Elizabeth had gotten in. There, too, a man was clinging to the outside of the coach, leering in at them. "An' there are three more up top," said Moll, pointing at the roof. "So be a good lass an' put this on, eh?" She tossed a blindfold onto Elizabeth's lap.
Elizabeth hesitated, then picked it up with resignation and began to tie it on. "I know who you are," she said. "You are the infamous Moll Cutpurse. I have heard about you. And I believe I once saw you, at a wedding I attended."
"I do believe ye did," Moll replied, in her lilting Irish brogue. "'Twas a lovely double wedding, too. You were a friend 0' the first couple, as I recall, an' I was a friend 0' the second. I do not believe that we were ever introduced on that occasion, but 'tis nice to be remembered, just the same. And now hold out yer hands, if ye would be so kind?"
"We have a mutual friend, as well," Elizabeth continued, moistening her lips nervously as Moll finished tying up her hands. "I . I believe you know my friend Tuck. Smythe?"
"I do, indeed," Moll replied, leaning back against the seat cushions. "That's him up there, drivin' the coach."
Elizabeth stiffened abruptly. "What?"
"Aye, he's drivin' the coach," repeated Moll. "We gave your coachman the rest 0' the night off. So just relax an' enjoy the ride."
Elizabeth shook her head. "Nay, he could not be a part of this," she said. "He could not! You are lying!"
"If ye had taken a closer look afore ye got in, ye would have seen that I am tellin' ye the truth," said Moll. "But yer kind never do look at the workin' classes very much, do ye? Beneath yer notice, as it were. However, ye can rest assured, Tuck did not have any choice in this. We have his friend Will. We took them both, just as we took you."
"I thought you were a friend of his," Elizabeth said.
"I am," said Moll. "He's a fine lad. Strappin' young man like that, he should have been born Irish."
"Then why are you doing this?" Elizabeth asked.
"Because one O' our own was murdered," Moll replied. "An' we want justice."
"Justice," Elizabeth repeated softly, thinking back to what the cards had said at Granny Meg's. Disillusionment, bonds broken, misery and sorrow… it was all coming to pass.
"What will happen to us?" Winifred asked fearfully. "Where are we being taken?"