Chapter Text
Two months.
It had been two months since Nell had faced what seemed like sure-death at Broadwater Hall. Two months – give or take a few days for travel – since she had heard Billy’s voice or sensed his presence. Two fucking months – give or take a few more days to account for the growing number that had been lost in the fog of her unending boredom. Two months since she had banished the rotten Blancheford siblings to the same uncertainty and discomfort she and her sisters had faced, thanks to their actions.
All right, that last thought brought a small smile to Nell’s face.
It was the first time she had smiled that week. Of course, it was only Tuesday. It was only Tuesday, so why did it feel like another whole week had passed?
Her smile faded as quick as it had come.
She had forgotten how time dragged on in sleepy Tottenham. She had forgotten how neatly most people fell into their comfortable little routines. For instance, John the weaver would come into the Talbot for a pint just after sunset, and he’d always greet her as Nelly, no matter how many times she’d correct him. He’d just wink and ask her for his drink, grumble about the price, and then find his usual place to sit by the fire.
Another John – this one a tanner, who of course always came in smelling like piss – would wander in not long after the first John. This John would always tell whoever was serving him to give him two beers right away, then always make the same joke about how maybe he should start asking for the third right away, too, because he won’t feel nothing until he’s on his fourth. Just the thought of the bad joke made Nell’s eyes roll.
And it was like that nearly every day: the same cast of characters, the same conversations, always in the same environment. Already, they had stopped inquiring about her recent escapades; she hadn’t minded at first, since she was getting mighty pig sick of telling the story, but now she had been left remembering just how much worse small talk was in Tottenham.
Nell suddenly groaned in frustration and chucked aside the handful of pebbles she had been throwing into an empty barrel for the last – well, she didn’t even know how many minutes it had been. The little stones clattered against the packed dirt, then were swallowed up by the patchy grass which peeked out from under the fence.
So, this was Nell’s hard-earned happy ending. The Queen herself had given Nell’s family back their pub. At least nobody had been singing as they had ridden home with the sunset lighting their path. Charles had told her there were already ballads being written about her, which was a thought that made her cringe.
‘Fuck,’ Nell whispered loudly. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck. Why am I here again? What have I done?’
She had said the word ‘fuck’ so many times in the last month alone that George had decided that it was a valuable enough word to learn how to write. She told Nell it was like ‘luck’ but with an F – whatever that meant. Roxy found it embarrassing. Amadin tried to hide his amusement, so as to not encourage her. Nell knew that if she herself had learnt how to read and write, she’d have spent her whole childhood scratching that word and others into trees and tables and the like.
George and Roxy. They were the only reasons why she hadn’t left the town full of dead legs – not yet. It was rotten of her, she knew, to be so eager to abandon the sisters she had only just rekindled a relationship with. Especially George, who had been too young to know her at all when she left – but especially Roxy, who had known her enough to miss her.
Then there was Amadin. She liked him enough, but seeing Roxy and him whispering to each other, holding each other close in quiet parts of the house – sometimes even kissing, revoltingly enough – was altogether too much for Nell. She could have gone her whole life without walking in on him holding Roxy’s face and staring adoringly into her eyes, her looking up as if he was the only person she ever wanted to look at.
Nell got to her feet, shaking the disgusting image out of her head; she brushed her hands against each other to get rid of some of the dirt on them.
It felt as if there was nothing she could do to get out of her situation, not without hurting the people she loved. It was one thing, leaving home, when their dad had still been alive – before that bastard Thomas Blancheford had killed him.
Scowling at the thought, Nell turned her head in the direction of Broadwater Hall – or where she knew it lay, anyway, for it wasn’t as if she could see it from there. The thought of that big, horrible house and what had happened there to her – to Billy – made her heart hurt.
When she had come back to Tottenham from London, the first thing she had done was go alone back to Broadwater Hall. It had been left empty after the Blancheford siblings had fled; the servants had not yet returned and whatever squabble there was over inheritance of the estate seemed to be taking place elsewhere. She was sure that some equally rotten family would end up in the house, eventually, as was always the case. But for that one night, Nell had wandered through that gloomy place, hopelessly calling for Billy. The only soul she had seen that night was in her own reflection, another Nell trapped within a mysterious broken mirror in one of the bedrooms. She had lowered herself into the seat across the narrow room from it and watched her shattered double weep with her for her friend’s fate.
For Billy never did return to her after he fought off the wicked magic that was killing Thomas. He had been the best parts of her – the strongest, the soundest, the most selfless parts. He was the one who deserved all the praise and rewards she had been given for his sacrifice. Yet nobody knew he had even existed.
Now, Nell wasn’t special at all, really. Sure, she could still beat most of the fellas around town in a fight, but not like she could with Billy – not even close. She didn’t have the strength of ten men and the speed of a cat; she could not hope to dodge a bullet, never mind catch one or bat it out of her way.
As a girl, she would have been more-than-satisfied with what skills she had picked up while travelling with Captain Jackson; she could, after all, still throw a mean punch and tackle most people to the ground. Rarely did she keep her pistol loaded after the Battle of Blenheim, nor was her sword finesse anything to boast about; but still, she could fight well enough with such weapons, if pressed. But it was an ordinary talent for fighting, at best.
If she hadn’t gotten a taste of the power she had with Billy’s magic, maybe she wouldn’t be so miserable to have lost it. But she’d still have just lost her most faithful friend; the only one she never had to worry about protecting; the only one who would never leave her, not until her last breath, or his – if he had even needed to breathe. It wasn’t like she could ask him now.
Never before had Nell struggled so much to accept death.
And never had she felt more like she was dying – but this was was from boredom.
‘I’m really going to die here,’ she groaned, kicking at the dirt. ‘Here, in fucking Tottenham.’
Sudden anger surged through her. She picked up the crate she had been sitting on, held it high over her head, and flung it as hard as she could across the garden; it tumbled through the air and landed nowhere near as far as she had hoped.
‘Fuck!’ she shouted.
Coming from the open window above her, she heard hurried footsteps. She looked up in time to see Roxy’s face appear in it. Nell watched her sister’s wide eyes scan the back garden for danger.
‘What’s going on, Nell? Are you all right?’
‘Banged my shin, that’s all,’ she said, lifting one hand from her hip and giving her a dismissive wave, then turning away from her sister. ‘Nothing to worry about.’
‘And that’s deserving of shouting that word for everyone in town to hear?’
‘Mm-hmm.’ Nell nodded earnestly, looking back up at Roxy. Very seriously, she said, ‘Absolutely. I probably should have been even louder, just to be safe, don’t ya think?’
‘Right, that’s certainly what you should have done.’ Even from down there, she could see the whites of Roxy’s eyes as she rolled them.
‘Think it’s too late?’ Nell said, then abruptly tilted her head back and took an exaggeratedly deep breath, as if readying herself to shout. But Roxy called her bluff and disappeared from the window before she could bother. Nell’s brattish smile faded once her sister left.
She stood there in the garden in which she had played as a child. Usually it had been some game where she was a soldier, nobly fighting with whatever boys she could rope into playing with her. Once she had seen firsthand the discipline and the less-than-idealistic requirements of an actual soldier, she’d found it humorous that she had as a child so badly wanted to be one.
Alone in the garden with old, childish, dead dreams, that familiar feeling of emptiness seeped almost wetly into her, as if she was standing under a raincloud of her own misery.
‘I’m going to die in bed, after all,’ she sighed.
So miserable was she at the thought, it took her a while to even notice the annoying chanting that had begun to spill through the windows of the pub, slowly getting louder. It was even worse when she recognised the tune.
‘Oh, not that bloody song again,’ she groaned. ‘George!’
She rushed inside just in time to hear a whole chorus of people singing, ‘So don’t blame Nelly, she’s brave and true!’
‘George! I told you to stop teaching people it!’ she shouted as she burst through the door. ‘No calling me Nelly!’
‘Nelly!’ cried a familiar voice.
She skidded to a halt, searching the crowd of half-drunken singers. She caught sight of a hand which waved over the heads of the other patrons. Or rather, it was the shimmering of a ring on that hand which caught her eye; it was large enough, she reckoned, that its weight would have been felt in each sway of the hand. Beneath it, she was not sure whether she’d see the white puff of a wig or dark hair, but she had a specific face in mind to match the gaudy piece.
‘Devereux?’ she called, pressing between a couple of patrons.
‘I think you mean Sir Devereux,’ he said, coming into view as he side-stepped around one of Roxy’s friends, one of the girls she used to wash clothes with; she looked him up and down, apparently with some interest. He didn’t have on his stupid toff wig; his brown hair was neatly tied back, leaving his large smile in plain view.
‘Aw, kiss my arse, Dev. I’m never calling ya that.’
Despite her words, she beamed as she made her way to him, weaving between patrons. When she came face-to-face with him, for the first time in at least a month, she hesitated. Even if she liked him enough to call him a friend, she wasn’t keen on hugging him.
Her hesitation was one-sided. Charles flung his arms around her, trapping hers at her sides. His grip wasn’t viselike or nothing, but it still made her feel a bit like a captive. She patiently waited, groaning, for him to let go, then gave his shoulder a clap, to return the friendliness in her own way.
‘Come here,’ she said, hand on his shoulder so she could guide him to one of the tables.
‘Ah-ah, just a moment.’ She frowned as he pulled out of her grip, disappearing again into the crowd; his reason for leaving became clear when he came back with a full glass. ‘Now you may do as you please with me.’
‘Just don’t start singing again and we’ll be fine.’
To Nell’s pleasure, her favourite table was empty – if only because someone had, by the looks of it, spilt beer on it. Charles made a disgusted noise when she wiped it with her sleeve. She took a seat, kicking under the table at the chair across from her – her own way of courteously pulling it out for him. He took his seat, leaning back in his chair so he could take her in.
‘Look at you!’ Nell said, speaking first; she gestured at his stupid face. ‘Is that moustache real? And the chin whiskers? I didn’t think you could grow a proper one.’
‘We aren’t all as blessed in that area as you are,’ he said with a vague gesture to Nell’s lower face. She rolled her eyes and rubbed at her chin; there was only peach fuzz, of course, but it had still given her a pause, and made her a little self-conscious as he continued to appraise her with open fondness.
‘It’s good to see you again, Nell.’
She returned the sentiment with a smile, but wasn’t willing to say it back.
‘What've you been up to, hmm?’ She tried unsuccessfully to keep from sounding too eager. ‘What’s the news in London?’
‘What’s the news in Oxford, more like.’ He raised his eyebrows expectantly at her, as though she should know what he was talking about.
‘Well?’ she sighed, playing along. ‘What’s the news in Oxford, then?’
‘Oh, just some highway robberies,’ he said, trying to sound mysterious. He drank from his glass, his eyebrows raised, awaiting her response.
‘Oh, so you’re back to that, are ya?’ she said, unimpressed, after a few seconds; a scowl had formed on her face. ‘Isambard Tulley strikes again? After everything? After you’ve been –’
‘Knighted, yes. I’m so glad you brought that up!’ He flashed his teeth. ‘But no, no. Nobody quite so dashing and lovable.’
‘Uh-huh,’ she said, reaching to take his drink from him. She used her dirty sleeve to wipe at the rim before taking a sip.
‘Such standards of cleanliness,’ he tutted, patting searchingly at his breast. From the inside of his jacket he fetched a news-sheet. He gave it a little wave before placing it between them on the table.
‘Still can’t read,’ Nell said dully, shaking her head.
‘If you bothered to look...’ He gave a meaningful glance downwards. She rolled her eyes before obliging.
On the paper between them was a two-person portrait: a pair of sharp faces – one a man’s, one a woman’s – scowled up at her. The man had been given slightly pointed teeth. The woman had been given enough frown lines to age her twenty years, at least. Both had spotted faces and overgrown eyebrows. Under both their eyes were dark circles; yet it was their eyes, of all things, that gave Nell her initial clue as to their identities; even without colour, the eerily pale blue was easy for her to envision. The man’s sneer and the shape of the woman’s lips were characteristic enough to give her more certainty. Had the portraits been shown to her separately, however, she might not have even known who they were meant to depict.
‘Them two are supposed to be the Blanchefords, are they?’ She raised her eyebrows. Charles nodded. Nell looked down at them again and found herself frowning. ‘Not aiming for accuracy, by the looks of it.’
‘Not all artists can capture a person’s likeness as well as Honthorst –’ (Nell interrupted to say she never heard of him.) ‘– or van Dyck –’ (Nell chuckled at the funny name.) ‘– or whoever it was that made you look so appropriately ratty in your – Ow!’
She had kicked him under the table.
‘Nor whoever it was that managed to capture just how much your nose looks like a dog’s cock. I mean, really, it’d be impressive if it wasn’t so unsightly.’
His delighted reaction surprised her. ‘Oh, I missed you! No, I did!’
She couldn’t help but grin back at him. Giving a humble shrug, she was about to finally admit that maybe she had missed him, just a little.
But then he ruined it.
‘You’re my kind of woman.’
For a moment, she just stared at him, waiting for him to spin it into a joke. He took too long, and the apparent sincerity made it far too awkward for Nell; she grunted in disinterest and quickly pulled the news-sheet closer to her.
‘So, what have these two shit-sacks been up to, Dev?’
‘It seems being Jacobites wasn’t exciting enough for them,’ he said, with an insincerely-sombre shake of his head. She appreciated his willingness to carry on with their previous conversation. ‘It seems they have made a hobbyhorse of – if you’ll believe it – highway robbery.’
‘I’d believe it.’ She shrugged. In fact, she would believe a lot worse from them.
‘Oh, with menaces!’ came the voice of a nearby stranger. ‘And grievous bodily harm!’
Charles jolted with a little cry, whipping around in his seat to stare at the interloper; Nell leant to look around him, fixing the man with a disgruntled stare. He gave a friendly little wave, blind to their bafflement.
‘Wicked pair, I’ve heard,’ said the man – a logger, whose name escaped Nell. ‘Old man Blancheford must be rolling in his grave, seeing what his children have become.’
Charles turned back to Nell, his expression comical. ‘Is he talking to us?’ he mouthed, which she ignored.
‘Yeah, well, their old man weren’t exactly a saint, neither,’ Nell told the man defiantly.
‘I suppose I’d believe it about the boy, rotten as he was,’ the man continued, as if he had been invited to give his opinion. ‘But Miss Sofia had always been very polite – kind, even. Why, when she was a girl, she would sit with my Anne and have conversations with her sometimes when her family came through the village. Treated her like an equal, my girl always said, and seemed interested in whatever silly things Anne liked to talk about back then.’
‘Why is he talking to us?’ Charles whispered, intentionally loud enough to be overheard by the man.
‘Listen, can’t you find another seat?’ Nell asked the logger. He got up, giving her a questioning look, so she urged him on: ‘Go on, now. Yeah, over there somewhere. Bye-bye.’ She scoffed disbelievingly and looked back at Charles. ‘I’m bloody sick of these people here. I’m not certain they think I’m a person anymore. I’m not just some spectacle who doesn’t need no privacy!’ She raised her voice enough so the logger might hear the last sentence.
‘Sick of them, are you?’ he asked, fixing her with a cunning look. ‘Just how sick, exactly?’
Nell glanced over at Roxy, who was manning the bar; she could tell by the swinging of her long, let-down hair that she had just turned away – no doubt trying to hide that she had been watching them.
‘Sick enough to come with me on a short adventure?’ he continued. But he already knew her answer, and his smile showed it.
Nell looked down again at the ugly drawings of Thomas and Sofia. She imagined the pair scaring travellers, beating them and taking their belongings. Somehow, she doubted they would stop at taking only what they needed, like she at least tried to when she was in their position.
‘Witchcraft, too, has been attested,’ he whispered, trying to sound enticing.
‘Wilmot,’ Nell disdainfully said. ‘Typical. Of course she’s still using magic.’
‘Then wouldn’t you agree,’ he said slyly, ‘that like must be fought with like?’
Her heart sank. Billy. Without him, she could do little to fight Sofia’s magic – and even Thomas might give her trouble in a fight. But she wasn’t going to let Charles know that, and she wasn’t going to let it stop her.
‘Oxford, you said?’ She tried not to sound as interested as she was actually.
‘Those are the latest sightings, anyway. The pair seem to have stuck together.’
‘Of course they did,’ Nell said dismissively. If she had to give Sofia anything that could be taken as a compliment, it was that she was loyal to her brother. ‘She wouldn’t leave him, even when...’
In her mind’s eye, she saw Billy diving into Thomas’s wounded chest to save him from Poynton’s cursed pendant. She could recall vividly the wrenching pain as her connection to him was severed. The loneliness she felt ever since she lost him throbbed within her like a scar.
But then came a thought.
What if Billy was still with Thomas Blancheford? Would that not make sense?
What if he was trapped? What if he was held hostage? Those were chilling thoughts – ones that made her hate Blancheford even more.
If he was still with Thomas... Was there a way in which she could get Billy back?
Her heart began to race at the thought. She cast an agitated glance around the room, her eyes landing on Roxy, whose face she caught a glimpse of before it was again turned from her; so she stared at her hair instead. Her mind was racing even faster than her heart now.
‘Charles, I need to find him – them. I need –’ she muttered like a madwoman. She slapped a hand against the table; there were still a few drops of beer that she had missed, but the wetness made no impression. She looked up at Charles, eyes wide. ‘Let’s go. Let’s go right now.’
‘Right now?’ he scoffed. He was looking at her just as strangely as if she had begun to undress in the middle of the room.
She nodded emphatically. ‘Right now. It’s too important to wait.’
‘I just got here!’ he laughed. ‘No, Nelly, no! We’ll go tomorrow.’ When she opened her mouth to protest, he cut her off: ‘In the morning. I promise. Besides, don’t you need to – I don’t know – say your good-byes?’
Nell cast a guilty look at Roxy. George’s heart-broken face came clear in her mind.
‘Right,’ she said, sounding disoriented. ‘Of course. You’re right.’
‘Of course I’m right.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ Her eyes were still stuck on the back of Roxy’s head. ‘Let’s just hope they take it well...’