“What of yours?”
“Diana encouraged me to go.” Owen smiled a little, reminded of what he and Diana had shared that morning. After breakfast, he had stolen a minute alone with her, telling her what he had discovered about Mr Alfred Potts and this friend of his.
She had kissed him with such passion that they had ended up pressed against the wall of the dining room together, with hands passing over each other’s bodies. Between kisses, she had talked of her devotion to him, how she longed for a world that only had the two of them in it, and no duke at all.
If only I can make that dream a reality.
“Then I’m coming too. Come on, shift along; I will not take no for an answer.” Jessie sat proudly in the seat beside him, waving impatiently on the road. “Shall we be going, Mr Arnold?” He laughed and flicked the reins, thinking it was possible that if all went well, he could perhaps give not only Diana the life she wanted but perhaps the justice Jessie longed for as well.
***
“Who are you two?” the man snapped as he looked up at them between the bars.
“The smell,” Jessie whispered at Owen’s side. “I think I am going to be sick.” Owen was tempted to agree with her. He was doing his best to breathe through his mouth as he looked through the bars at the communal prison. There were many men behind those bars, some crouched in corners, others leaning on benches, while a few were strewn across straw matting.
The man they had come to speak to was sitting on one of these straw beds, with beady blue eyes peering out from above a matting of black hair around his jaw and tickling the underside of his nose.
“Are you Mr Ellis Truman?” Owen asked. In answer, the man sniffed and wiped his lips with the back of his hand, spreading dribble across his fingers.
“That I am. Now, answer my question.”
“We work for a man I believe used to be your employer,” Owen said, nodding his head at the man. “The Duke of Somerset.”
The man scrambled to his feet. It was so sudden that others in the prison cell jerked and flinched at the movement. Truman scuffled across the floor until he reached the bars, latching his fingers around the iron strips.
Owen found his feet moving in front of Jessie, shielding her from his view, to which she peered around him, raising her eyebrows.
“You do realise there are bars between us?” she asked with humour.
“Call it taking precautions,” he whispered to her.
“You came from the duke?” Truman asked, his expression betraying his excitement. “Is it time then?”
“Time for what?” Owen asked.
“Time for my release. He said he’d come, eventually. All he needed was time. So? When will I be released?”
“How long have you been here?” Owen asked, scared to hear the answer.
“Four years.”
“Ah,” Owen sighed, realizing what he was expecting from them. “We have not come at the duke’s bequest.”
“You mean to say –” Truman broke off sharply. “He’s still leaving me here?” Owen didn’t have time to answer, for the man swore and cursed so loudly that all those around in the prison cell sniggered, apparently humoured by their cell mate’s misfortune.
“He promised you he’d come for you?” Jessie asked, peering over Owen’s shoulder.
“He did,” the man said, nodding vigorously. “At the trial, all I needed to do was keep his name out of it. He’d see things were put right.”
Owen felt his fingers ball into tight fists. Everywhere he looked, there was more blame to lay at the duke’s door. Now it seemed he had practically conned a man into lying to the magistrate for him and spending time in prison.
“What did you do for the duke?”
Truman laughed; it was short and sharp, barely there at all, as if he took no real humour in the question.
“What didn’t I do? Everything. Any time he wanted something doing, it was me and Alfred he called.”
“Alfred Potts?” Owen asked.
