Harriet gave a strangled sob, and then before Jenny could blink, it seemed, she had been pulled to her feet and they were the three of them clinging together in a tangle of arms. Somehow she had ended up comforting them, these women she had grown to think of as something more than justfriends. Something more like sisters.
“Oh, I wish—I wish you would havetoldus,” Harriet sobbed. “We could have done—”
“Nothing,” Jenny said, gently. “There is nothing you could have done. You cannot hold yourself responsible. It was never your burden to bear.” But she owed themsomething, these ladies who had risked their very reputations for her sake. “Iwilltell you,” she said. “Only, not tonight, I think. Tonight I must prevail upon you for something else entirely.”
“Anything,” Lottie whispered into her shoulder. “You have only to ask. You know that.”
Jenny felt her breath shudder out on a sigh. “It’s a ratherbigrequest,” she said. “I find myself…in a predicament.”
“In a—” Lottie broke off on a gasp. “Thatbastard. I’ll hit him again!”
Well, she supposed that explained the fading bruise that had ringed his eye when first he had come to interrogate her, since she had not cared to ask. But fair was fair, and so she said, “He was hardly the only one involved, and I—I didn’t think Icouldconceive.” She took a breath and forged ahead. “I have some money saved,” she said. “Will you—when they hang me, will you—”
Harriet uttered an incredulous laugh. “Jenny, you won’t behanged. We would never allow it. Even if you are brought to trial, we’ve devised at least three ways to smuggle you outside Ambrosia unseen. It is only that—well, if wedidhave to avail ourselves of them, you could not possibly stay in London. You might have to leave England entirely, and we would have little opportunity to see you.”
Lottie added, “Simon is looking into property in Italy—somewhere on the Mediterranean, I thought. Unless you would prefer France?”
Jenny shuddered, pulling herself free of the clutch of arms. “No, I thank you. My childhood there was…not pleasant.” An odd little laugh rose in her throat as she settled once more into her chair. “I told Mr. Knight that I would not be exiled. But it seems as if it will be my only choice.” Not that she held altogether too much hope that shecouldbe successfully smuggled out. Hope was a resource in short supply—she had learned not to trust in it.
“Well,” Harriet hedged. “Perhapsnot.”
“Harriet,” Lottie chastened.
“She deserves to know!” Harriet pushed some pastries onto a plate and shoved it in Lottie’s direction. “You get waspish when you are hungry,” she said. “Eat, anddo notinterrupt.” And as Lottie begrudgingly took a tiny slice of sponge cake and began to chew, Harriet said, “Mr. Knight is determined to come to the truth.”
“And how does he intend to do that?” Jenny asked, unable to keep the bitterness from leaching into her voice. “Thetruthhas never mattered much—I was tried in all the papers long ago.”
“I don’t know,” Harriet said. “But he would like you to speak with him—”
“No.”
Harriet winced at the stridence in her voice. “Even if only a few moments?”
“Notever.”
“Not even to save your life? Your place in England?” Harriet hesitated just a moment before she suggested, “Not even to seetruejustice done?”
“It won’t be,” Jenny said, because that was a lesson she had learned over and over again—the wealthy, the powerful; they never paid for their sins. Always someonelesserwas left holding the blame, bearing the burden. “It would be impossible.” At so late a date? With not a shred of evidence?
Then again, Mr. Knighthadfound a duchess in hiding. When nobody else had, not for years and years. When even Nerissa Amberley had failed to recognize her.
“I think,” Harriet said slowly, “that ifanyonecould, it would be your Mr. Knight.”
But he wasn’therMr. Knight. And he never would be again.
Chapter Twenty Two
“Charlie, come.” Sebastian patted his thigh, and the dog—who had trotted a bit too far ahead of him—came loping back, his trembling whiskers and large eyes giving him a sorrowful expression. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, hm?”
“Cor, he’s a love, though.” The croaky voice emerged from the shadows of the nearby alley, and Sebastian managed to crack a smile.
“Hello, Louisa,” he said. “Have you—”
“’Deed I do,” she said. And then, as an aside to someone unseen, he heard her say, “Go on, then, gel. The gennelman’s a right arse, but he won’t hurt you none.”
From the darkness emerged a woman, lingering at just the very fringes of light spread by a nearby lamp, her dress marking her as notquitethe lowest of the lower classes, but somewhere close to it. A washerwoman, he supposed, given the chapped look of her hands. Perhaps a seamstress also, if she had the time. Her age was impossible to guess—the ruin that had been made of her face made it impossible to say.
The woman sidled back as he stepped closer, flinching from him—but then, he supposed that it had been a man who had done this to her, and he was larger than most. He gave her a wide, respectful berth as he headed for Louisa, reaching into his pocket to withdraw a coin, which he dropped into the woman’s outstretched palm. “Thank you,” he said.
