“Is it true?” The woman who spoke straightened slightly.
“It is another of Farnham’s tricks,” said the other woman.
“No trick,” Mel assured her. “Come. Your warders are all unconscious, and the men in our party are locking them up, except those we are taking to question.”
The women remained huddled under the single blanket they shared. “What do you want us for?” demanded the woman who had suspected a trick.
“We want to rescue you,” Mel said. “We intend to bring Teign to trial for his many crimes. We brought witnesses who can give evidence of what Teign was doing here. But we cannot leave you to suffer. Come with us to have your injuries tended, and after you are well, we shall help you find safe places to live.”
The women exchanged glances. “If it is a trick,” said the suspicious woman, “may you burn in Hell.”
They got up from the bed on which they’d been sitting, and Mel realized something for which she and her friends had not planned. The women had no clothes. Each wore nothing but a grubby shift, spotted and striped with dark stains.
Mel went to the door. “Can you find these ladies some garments?” she asked Allan. She deputed one of the Moriartywomen to stay with the two and help them dress, and took the others with her to the next locked room.
A similar scene played out. Before she had persuaded the three women in this room, the two from the first limped in, dressed in shirts, trousers, socks, and coats that must have been purloined from the warders.
“Might as well come along,” said one of them to the three Mel was trying to convince. “At least they’ve given us something to wear. I’d risk a lot for clean clothes.”
Mel left all five women with the one guard and went to the next room, where she was faced with a new challenge. The three women in that room had all been badly beaten.
“Allan,” she said, when she emerged from the room, “these three are too badly injured to walk. Baldwin, can you come and see how we can safely move them?”
They were delayed a further ten minutes while Baldwin gave each of the three a drink of the doctored ale—a small one, since he was uncertain of the amount of laudanum in it—and prescribed temporary dressings and splints. “They will need a real doctor,” he told Allan, Mel, and Lord Somerville. “But this will have to do for the journey. We cannot leave them here.”
They had expected to have to fight their way out through the warder’s exit, but the cook’s reach had extended even to the guard post that prevented unauthorized entrances and exits. Two more warders joined the others, locked in a cell to sleep it off.
The transport Allan and Somerville had ordered was waiting, with a detachment of bodyguards on horseback. The five women who could still walk clambered aboard one carriage, clinging to one another and the Moriarty women. The men had made makeshift stretchers from doors, and they carried out the three with injuries too severe for walking. Baldwin climbed into a second carriage with them, to tend them on the journey. Therest of the men piled into the remaining two carriages, with the two warder prisoners, still unconscious but bound and gagged, thrown on the floor at their feet.
Mel mimed a kiss toward Allan and joined Baldwin in his carriage, to see what help she might be on the journey. It took only fifteen minutes, even at the slow pace they adopted to minimize the jolting. Mel and Baldwin tried to hold their patients still, but the trip could not help but cause further suffering. Fortunately, two of the three women were deeply unconscious, but the other moaned at every lurch. It was a relief when they finally turned into the stable-yard of Dellborough’s townhouse.
The other carriages had arrived already, and a reception party waited with stretchers and a doctor for the injured. Baldwin went along with them to explain what he had done, and Allan, who had waited for Mel, escorted her to Dellborough’s study, where a team of lawyers waited to take down everyone’s statements.
“Dellborough and Kempbury were in the next room when His Majesty saw Teign,” he told Mel. “Apparently, the King demanded that Teign answer to charges of abusing his power over his sons, sending assassins to set fires to kill his sons, buying and selling women, and keeping women prisoner. Teign lost his temper again and called the King a fat fool. The King is not pleased. He is currently determined to punish the marquess. One can only hope he does not waver.”
“I have been told that King George has a kind heart,” Mel replied. “If one of the lords were to tell him about the sad condition of those poor women, I am sure he would be touched.”
“I’ll suggest it,” Allan promised.
“If His Majesty supports us, we cannot lose, Allan,” Mel pointed out.
They were, for the moment, alone in a long passage. Allan tugged Mel into an alcove and kissed her until her head reeled. “Tomorrow,” he promised in a whisper. “Tomorrow, this shall be over, and I shall be free to propose to you, my love.
