A great uproar sounded in her ears. People shouted, and someone banged on her door. She tried to crawl toward it, but her eyes burned, her throat ached, and her head spun.
Then a thunderous crashing sound filled her ears, followed by the sound of footsteps, voices, and men running. Suddenly, someone pulled her up to a sitting position.
The room swayed.
“Where’s Nate?” One of the men shouted.
Annabel shook her head.Where’s Nate?The words reverberated in her mind.
She didn’t know.
The man clutched her by the shoulders and gave her a sharp shake. “Is Nate inside his hut?”
I don’t know. I don’t know!
“What are you doing?” Someone pulled the man away from her. “We have to get out of here, all of us. This hut is about to blow.”
Then there were two of them, dragging her out of the hut, out into the bright night.
Orange. The sky was bright orange.
Annabel was back on the sand, gulping for air.
“I’m going back inside to look for Nate,” a man’s voice sounded nearby.
Annabel blinked the man into focus. He was a fishmonger—one of Nate’s friends.
“It’s too late for Nate,” a second fishmonger yelled, and Annabel turned to see the hut collapse in a heap of flames. “But there are others to save; let’s go.”
The men sprinted away, and Annabel sat alone in a world of chaos. People ran in different directions, screaming instructions, screaming for help, screaming, screaming.
Annabel staggered to her feet and stumbled toward Main Street.
Great billows of black smoke poured from buildings, and people filled the street, huddled together, watching their homes and shops destroyed.
The fight to end the flames carried on all night. Horse-drawn fire pumps lined the street, and muscled men churned the handles, pumping water high into the air to douse the flames. They must have come from nearby towns to join the Whitstable Fire Brigade. Firefighters were still fighting the flames when Annabel stumbled down the road to Canterbury at the earliest light.
She’d spent hours trying to work out what had happened before the fire. At first, she had no memory beyond her walk on the beach with Nate. The men had dragged her out of the hut well past eleven o’clock at night, but she’d walked with Nate on the beach early in the morning. The back of her head ached and felt tender to the touch. Had Nate hit her? Why? And how had she lost so many hours? She’d sat on the sand with the fire roaring on the Main Street behind her—thinking, trying to remember. Then it came to her—the newspaper headline:Lord Hudsyn To Stand Trial for Murder of Confectionary Merchant’s Daughter
Someone had hit her from behind then—Nate. But why?
After, she remembered someone—him?—putting a bottle to her lips and a dark, bitter liquid that had pooled in her mouth.Laudanum.She knew the taste. But she’d never swallowed that much. Nate must have wanted her to sleep for a very long time. He’d drugged her, and then he’d left. What time, she did not know. Yet she felt certain it had something to do with Henry.
That’s when she knew she had to take the chance to escape. Wherever Nate had gone, he’d be back once he heard about the fire that ravaged Whitstable, burnt his fishmonger’s hut to the ground, and taken all his possessions. It had taken Annabel’s carpetbag too. She was left with nothing but the sooty besmirched dress she now wore. Yet, she had to save Henry. She had to see Ottilie.
“I’m Annabel Leonard,” she whispered over and over as she stumbled through her trek through the countryside.I’m Annabel Leonard.If she dropped down, unable to walk a step farther, she wanted whoever found her to hear those words so they could save Henry.
When Greyson Manor finally came into view, Annabel’s legs almost gave way, but she forced herself to keep going as she stumbled in a daze toward the house. She grabbed the knocker, slammed it once against the door, and then collapsed.
I’m Annabel Leonard… Annabel Leonard.
*
On the secondday of his trial, Henry sat wearily on his stool at the bar. The proceedings from the day before had left him deflated. After Hobsworth, the Attorney General had called Burdington and repeated the same line of questioning. He’d also called Madame Katrina and the young harlot as witnesses, both of whom had clearly been either paid or frightened into keeping silent. Unfortunately, Mr. Upwey had failed in his quest to secure proof of such. The only thing Henry had to be thankful for was that neither his cousin, mother, nor Anne had been called to testify against him—yet. He dreaded the thought of them being forced to hear, or worse, give testimony that maligned his character. He only hoped they’d stayed away from the newspapers as well but that was wishful thinking.
The first witness of the day was a regal-looking woman wearing a fashionable green dress, who sashayed across the courtroom to the witness box as though she were promenading in Hyde Park.
She identified herself as Lady Boothe and testified for the prosecution that she had witnessed a frightened Miss Leonard run from Lord Hudsyn in the garden at Lady Dawley’s residence on the night of 23 July.
