Fortunately Nelson suddenly decided to live up to his namesake. Jumping up, the dog stood on his two good hindlegs, and barked for all he was worth.
∞∞∞
‘You knew my mother?’ were the first words George whispered when she finally woke for the second time. She could see the woman’s face much more clearly in the weak daylight leaking through the small window. The woman nodded, seating herself again on the edge of the bed. Leaning forward, she picked up a glass of water from the small table next to the bed, but before she could do anything with it, George lifted herself up and knocked the glass out of her hand, listening with grim satisfaction as the glass crashed against the wall.
‘I ain’t drinking none o’ your bloody sleepin’ stuff,’ she ground out, collapsing back against the bed.
The woman pursed her lips for a second but didn’t attempt to pick up the shards of glass. Instead, she took a deep breath. ‘We haven’t got much time, she commented instead. ‘You won’t be aware of the importance of this, but your grandfather died last night.’ George simply looked at her blankly.
‘Do you know anything of your background?’ George shrugged.
‘I know me name’s Georgiana ‘Uxley an’ yours is Judith Linfield. An’ I know you wos s’posed to be a pal of me ma’s…’ she paused before adding harshly, ‘Who’s likely now pushin’ up bleedin’ daisies.’
Judith bit her lip and nodded. ‘Your grandfather is … was … the Earl of Ruteledge. My husband is his heir.’
‘Sounds like a bag o’ bloody moonshine,’ George spat. ‘An’ I ain’t interested in some stuck-up nob who let me live in a bloody ‘ovel fer eighteen bleedin’ years.’
The older woman shook her head. ‘The Earl was never aware of your existence.’
Georgiana stared, abruptly lost for words. Then she shook her head. ‘None o’ that matters. Right now the only thing I care about is Anthony Shackleford and whether your bloody ‘usband murdered ‘im.’
Judith Linfield twisted her hands together. ‘I doubt Simon would have left him alive. He wouldn’t have wanted any witnesses.’
‘Ave you asked ‘im?’ George demanded, fighting back tears. ‘Did the bastard tell you Anthony was dead?’
‘I haven’t spoken to him,’ Judith whispered. ‘He left as soon as the news about the Earl reached him.’ She paused and waved her hand around the room. ‘Naturally, he locked us both in here first.’
‘Why’d ‘e lock you in?’ George asked, intrigued despite her distress.
‘I suspect he intends to kill me at the same time as you,’ the matron replied simply. ‘Kill two birds with one stone as they say.’
George sagged back and stared down at her hands. She stopped trying to stem the tears. Anthony was dead. It hardly seemed real - but she’d watched him fall. Anguish welled up inside her, and to her companion’s shock, she put her head into her hands and let out a long keening wail.
‘For pity’s sake, stop,’ Judith cried, gripping hold of the younger woman’s shoulders and shaking her. ‘You’re acting like a child.’
George looked up, her eyes a blaze of fury. Abruptly, she drew back her hand and slapped the other woman across the face.
Sudden shock silenced both of them, and for the next few seconds, the only sound came from the birds outside the window.
‘I’m sorry,’ George whispered brokenly, ‘I…’ Judith grabbed hold of her hand and squeezed, shaking her head violently.
‘No, it’s I who should be sorry,’ she countered, her voice filled with shame. ‘I allowed him to leave you in that dreadful place. I should have taken you away from there years ago.’
George sniffed and sighed. ‘An’ if you ‘ad, we’d likely ‘ave been sharin’ a plot next to me ma.’ She touched the older woman’s red cheek. ‘You saved me life when I ran from Atkins. Wi’out those guineas, I’d never even ‘ave got out of Exeter.’ She forced back the memory of wrapping the coins around Anthony’s chest – was it only hours ago?
‘Tell me where I came from,’ she demanded. ‘Tell me how the granddaughter of a bleedin’ Earl ended up spendin’ eighteen years in a shit ‘ole.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘I’mnotabout to die, Mother. Will you please stop shoving those deuced salts up my nostrils.’
Agnes’s newly won bravado had immediately deserted her as she watched Anthony being carried into Blackmore by two burly footmen. He had refused to be put to bed, insisting on being placed on a chaise longue in his sister’s sitting room.
‘Where’s Nicholas,’ he’d asked without preamble as soon as his mother had satisfied herself that he was not about to die of heart failure, pneumonia or possibly even Dengue fever, which she assured the room was most definitely on the rise.
‘On his way home, I hope,’ Grace declared, taking charge of inspecting the nasty wound on her youngest sibling’s chest. ‘Ouch,’ she declared with a wince when she saw the mess the coin had made to his chest.’
‘That’s your professional opinion is it?’ Anthony quizzed. ‘Ouch!’
