“Aye, they’ve heard,” Cait said softly. “I told them.”
Kendra’s stomach felt leaden, and tears threatened to leak from her eyes. “How can this have happened now?” One tear did leak, running hot down her cheek. “He promised he was finished playing that game.”
Though Jason’s eyes were compassionate, his mouth was set in a grim line. “I warned him.”
“He must have gone out and done it anyway. Stubborn fool.” And more fool she, for believing him when he said he’d stop. She sat and swung her feet off the bed. “I must go to him.”
Ford put a hand on her arm. “I thought you wanted to be rid of him?”
“I thought so, too,” she said, her voice rising in a wail. Her earlier anger seemed to have vanished, replaced with a fear that clawed at her insides. “But I never wanted to see him dead!”
Jason sat beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, patting her back as she sobbed against his shirtfront, wetting his shoulder. “Perhaps he’ll be acquitted.”
Accused outlaws were rarely acquitted, but she clung to that thin thread of hope. “I must go watch the trial. Take me to the trial.”
“Think, Kendra.” Ford crouched by the bed, looking up at her, his bright blue eyes filled with the calm reason that seemed to evade her but came so easily to him. “Why would the Chases attend the trial of a common criminal? What will you tell those who ask? Especially if you look…distraught.”
Od’s fish, he was right. As far as they’d heard, no one had connected the Duke of Amberley with the Black Highwayman, but if anyone discovered she’d been married to the notorious outlaw, her reputation would be in tatters—along with those of the rest of her family.
But this was Trick. No matter how badly he’d treated her, no matter what offenses he’d committed behind her back, she would go to him. Her heart left her no choice.
“I’ll wear a disguise,” she said. “But I’m going.”
SEVENTY-FIVE
NEVER IN HER life had Kendra thought she’d find herself outside the Justice Hall at the Old Bailey. After nearly two days spent in a sleepless fog of wrenching misery, endless tears, anger, and self-doubt, she’d thought that actually getting here and seeing this trial through would be something of a relief.
But she knew now that nothing could be further from the truth.
The courtyard viewing gallery was mobbed with Londoners hoping to get a glimpse of the notorious accused, and even more people stood outside the spike-topped iron fence. Wearing Dulcie’s gray skirt and plain blouse, with her telltale red hair stuffed under a mobcap, Kendra grasped Ford’s hand and pulled him through the masses toward the front.
A light rain was falling, making the spectators—no polite crowd to begin with—even more surly. “Whyever do they make us stand outside?” she grumbled, dodging a sharp elbow as she made her way to the three-walled open courtroom.
Ford pushed back the straw hat he’d borrowed from a stableman. “It reduces the risk of prisoners infecting the spectators with gaol fever,” he explained in his usual matter-of-fact manner.
She returned a tradesman’s dirty glare with one of her own, tugging her sleeve down to cover her amber bracelet as she pushed her way to the rail. “Dear heavens,” she breathed, her heart clenching when she reached the front. She gripped the rail with both hands to keep her knees from buckling. “There he is.”
Gazing at Trick, she slowly jockeyed herself over to the right, nearer to where he sat in the enclosed dock, chained to eleven other men.
He was wearing black velvet and the long brown periwig that she hoped would keep any spectators from recognizing him as the Duke of Amberley. But the wig was a tangled mess, the usually immaculate black suit all rumpled, and he looked more exhausted than she’d ever seen him. His head was bowed, and his hands hung limply between his spread knees.
A guard reached a pike through the bars to prod him to stand when the red-robed judge walked in, followed by jury members who shuffled to two long benches. The dock’s door swung open with an ominous creak, and the prisoners began making their way to the bar, their chains clanking as they dragged on one another.
Watching Trick, Kendra felt as though her heart might burst. Literally pulled along by the others, he stumbled and had to be righted. Dark blood crusted his wrists beneath the iron cuffs. A sheen of sweat slicked his features, and he seemed to be having trouble simply drawing breath.
He was ill.
She pressed against the rail as though she could reach him. So close, maybe ten feet away, but oh, so far with the law between them.
So very, very far. And ill.
“Dear heavens,” she whispered again, suddenly shivering though she wasn’t particularly cold. “Can he have caught the gaol fever already?”
“Hush.” Ford’s hands gripped her shoulders, and she felt incredibly grateful for his familiar presence at her back. “It’s starting.”
The prisoner’s names were called one by one, and they identified themselves by raising a hand. The charges were read in Latin before each of the accused pleaded either guilty or not guilty.
“But they cannot even understand the charges!” Kendra whispered in horrified protest.
With unbelievable swiftness, witnesses were brought forward and evidence was presented by the prosecution. Prisoners were not allowed counsel. Of the eleven men brought to trial before Trick, one was acquitted when no witnesses appeared. The other ten were all sentenced to death, for felonies ranging from stealing an orange, to setting fire to an outhouse, to murdering a neighbor.
By the time Trick’s turn arrived, Kendra had lost all hope. Tears swam in her eyes, and her body felt like a single, heavy mass of dread.
“The Black Highwayman,” the clerk read, and the crowd hissed gleeful disapproval. They had saved the best for
