Chapter Text
The chirping of birds. The distant gallop of a horse. A sharp intake of breath right by Thomas’s ear.
His sister’s face hovered close to him; she was always near and at the ready to catch him if, in his weakness, he stumbled – regardless of her own exhaustion.
The two of them could only hope that the horse was heading in their direction.
Thomas turned to face Sofia. She was paler than ever, except for her nose, which she had just been rubbing for warmth. Between her uncharacteristically wild, knotted hair peeking out from under the hood of her cloak and her reddened nose, it was only her pensive, sad-eyed expression which kept her recognisable as his sister.
‘That sounds like a single horse. Please, please let them be coming this way,’ she said, her eyes shut as if she was praying. Her voice was shaky from chattering teeth and gravelly from hours of waiting in silence by the roadside. Whenever Thomas had begun to doze, she would shake him awake. Judging by her shaky gasps of relief each time his eyes reopened, she was not punishing him for falling asleep, but rather, she was fearfully checking if he had silently passed away from his infection.
Part of him wondered why Sofia even bothered. Part of him thought that perhaps she needed the challenge to distract herself from her own misery. Without the burden of him, she would not have been half as conspicuous; she could have hidden her identity, found somewhere better to hide than forests.
His sense of self-preservation had begun to dwindle nearly a week ago. Regardless of all her efforts to keep him alive, he was no more useful than dead-weight; soon that would not be hyperbole. Yet here she was by his side, jaw quivering from the cold, with her face lifted anxiously to better listen for the approaching horse.
As the pounding of hooves drew nearer, the terrifying hunger in her eyes grew.
‘Up,’ she commanded, rising to her feet and yanking him with her, too hurried to be gentle. ‘If he rides right past us, we’re as good as dead.’
He was half-dragged by her into the middle of the dirt road – where the rider would have to either stop or else risk running them down.
‘And for the love of God, Thomas, let me do the talking.’
Thomas had not been convinced that they would get more attention as a pair than if she appeared to be a lone woman lost in the outskirts of the forest, but he was grateful for the body heat.
Brightness caught his eye. Shiny metal caught the morning light as she adjusted her grip on her pistol, exposing it temporarily from under her cloak. It was concealed long before the rider came into view.
They had been correct: one horse, no carriage. Not a great many supplies, then. At the sight of the lone rider, Sofia made to greet him; judging by the way she nearly lunged towards the stranger, Thomas knew that she did not care how meager the gains would be.
‘Good morning!’ she called, loud enough to be heard over the horse’s hooves; its rider had already slowed it to a trot at the sight of them.
‘And to you,’ the man replied, touching his hand to the brim of his hat. His voice was muffled by the handkerchief he wore around his lower face. ‘A little cold for a walk, however, no?’
‘We did not mean to come so far.’ Sofia’s chattering teeth, so easy to hear in her voice, could have been an affectation to draw more pity, but Thomas doubted it.
‘You been out here long, have you?’
‘All night,’ she responded miserably. ‘We’ve been hoping to find someone. You’re the only person we’ve seen. Please help us.’
The horse had been coaxed to a stop some feet away from them. The way he looked down on them from the top of his horse made Thomas feel even smaller and weaker, and he was in too much agony to straighten up.
‘I’m terribly sorry to hear that, miss,’ he said, although he did not sound all that sympathetic; he sounded like he was busy, like he had only stopped out of basic decency. ‘I wish I had something to offer, in terms of food or clothes, but I’ve only the clothes on my back and not a crumb to spare.’
‘Not even in your pack?’ She pointed at the bundle tied to the back of the horse’s saddle.
‘That’s a little presumptuous, isn’t it?’ His tone was quickly becoming impatient. ‘Besides, it ain’t mine to give. I’ll be taking my leave now. Good luck to you.’
When the rider commanded his horse to go around them, Sofia stubbornly moved to block its path. Thomas was pulled along with her, just like the stranger’s horse was by the reins, and he groaned loudly in pain. He suspected that if Sofia had the privacy to tell him to be quiet, she would have.
‘Please,’ Sofia said. Her tone made the word sound more like a warning than a request.
‘It isn’t my fault you stupid children got lost,’ the man spat, his sympathy gone due to their insistence. ‘Just follow the road, you beggars.’
‘Give us your horse,’ she growled.
The man only laughed at her.
Shaking his head in disgust, he lifted the reins and got ready to spur his horse into action. But Sofia and Thomas had both been waiting for a reason to draw their concealed pistols, and the man had finally given them one.
‘Hands up!’ Sofia’s sudden shout spooked the horse. The agitated movements of the large animal caused the two robbers to step back.
Once at a safer distance, Thomas returned his gaze to their intended victim, and this time found himself looking up at the muzzle of a pistol.
‘You want to re-think your fucking command, girl?’ the man yelled. With a hard jerk of the reins, the man was able to calm his horse back down. ‘This ain’t my first time dealing with highway scum.’ In a slow sweeping motion, his aim pivoted between Thomas’s face and Sofia’s, then landed on Thomas’s to stay. ‘Now, why don’t you put your bloody guns away before I leave you dead in the dirt, right where you belong? Don’t make me shoot –’
The man was cut off by the sudden thrashing of the horse beneath him. Thomas looked to Sofia, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling. Her gaze was fixed upon the horse. He could see her mouth moving, and he was certain that if it wasn’t for the horse’s tormented whinnying, he’d hear her whispering in Latin.
His sister’s pistol was still raised, swaying unsteadily from one side to the next as she followed the erratic movements of the man struggling to hold onto his horse.
He realised then that she was not threatening him, but actively taking aim. Just when the horse calmed down, Sofia took her shot; the way she jolted showed him that she had been unprepared for the shock the weapon's blast sent up her arm.
She missed.
As if time had slowed, Thomas saw her turn to him, her eyes falling upon his loaded pistol; he saw her hand reaching for it.
But there was a second crack of gunfire that morning: this time, it came from the mounted stranger’s pistol – and he was a much better shot than Thomas’s sister.
Thomas flinched, bracing himself for the impact – hoping to be dead before the bullet could come out the other side of his skull.
He thought of his father with a hole in his forehead; he thought of how they would now match.
But too much time had passed without anything happening.
When he opened his eyes, he saw the bullet suspended in the air just inches from his face. It hung there for a few seconds, then fell, just as unassumingly as if it had been dropped from an invisible hand. There was a little thump as the metal ball hit the ground.
Sofia began to sag next to Thomas, then began to slip through his arms, forcing him to hold her more tightly to keep her upright. He felt a ripping pain coming from the gash on his abdomen, and the wound on his arm felt like it had been set on fire as the weight of her pressed upon it. Her eyes closed and her head dropped forward, signalling that she had fallen unconscious.
‘Sofia?’ His tone was desperate. ‘Sofia, are you –’
‘Witch!’ said the man, who had wrestled his horse into compliance; its head still shook from side to side in a panic. ‘May you freeze! Devil take you both!’
The man yanked the reins to guide the horse around Thomas and his limp sister. Thomas saw him pull his handkerchief down from his face, saw something drop onto the hood of Sofia’s cloak as the man passed. He watched with hopelessness as the horse broke out into a gallop, taking the man and his belongings far from them.
He raised a hand to check her head, to see what he had dropped on her, and his fingers made contact with a gob of saliva. Thomas’s face twisted in rage as he pushed the hood off her head, to get it away from her. Her tangled hair hid her face.
The blood seeping into his shirt was already beginning to freeze by the time he had dragged his sister back into the safety of the woods. He knew there was no way they could flee the area before the man sent people after them.
He stumbled and fell, shoving Sofia out of the way so he did not land upon her; he hit the ground hard, landing upon his bad arm; his scream made his throat raw. He gasped in pain as he moved them further into the woods, trying not to trip as he dragged them both through the brambles and over fallen logs that they had so carefully skirted around before.
Thomas set his sister down gently, lacking the strength to keep going. He sat at her side, hunching forward. Besides his breathing, there was an eerie silence; it seemed that his shouting – or perhaps her magic – had frightened the birds.
‘He’s going to report us,’ came Sofia’s low voice. She had not lifted her head, but he saw her eyes had opened. ‘Why didn’t you take the shot?’
He shook his head, beginning to weep. For what felt like a punishing stretch of time, she said nothing, even as sobs had overtaken him – and got worse as his pain mounted. When she finally did acknowledge him, it was to put her hand to his forehead, to check his fever, and he leant into it pitifully.
Neither of them were foolish enough to suggest they flee the area in their current conditions. Instead, with no other options, they stayed and held themselves for warmth, and waited to find the strength to retreat once more into the depths of the forest.
It was remarkable how much a week away from Tottenham could lift Nell’s spirits – even if it did make her feel guilty to have left her sisters. And she did miss them, of course! But wandering between towns in search of murderous Jacobites with a personal grudge against her wasn’t something Nell wanted to put Roxy and George through just when their lives were getting good.
Luckily, she did have Charles. Unluckily, he could be awfully annoying.
‘Well, are you going to tell me why you’ve been avoiding me?’
‘Haven’t been,’ she said simply, shrugging her shoulders and not taking her eyes off the road straight ahead of her. ‘Just haven’t been seeking you out.’
‘I’ve sent letters!’
‘Can’t read,’ she reminded him yet again. ‘Can’t write back.’
‘Yes, but George...’ He sighed, being sure to do it loud enough that their horses’ steps wouldn’t drown it out. ‘You know, you should consider learning. It’s useful.’
‘Why would I waste my time with that muck? I’ve got better things to do.’
‘Like making a ruckus in the garden?’ He raised his eyebrows at Nell when she looked at him suspiciously. ‘George told me you’d been beating up old furniture and such. Punching the outer walls of the Talbot. Oh, and running off into a field and sword-fighting with invisible people. Now that one I would have loved to see. Care to demonstrate sometime?’
‘Fuck. I knew she was spying on me that day.’ Nell huffed. ‘Yeah, well, I have to get it out of me somehow.’
‘Get what out of you, demons?’
‘Oh, I dunno! Maybe I do stupid shite sometimes when I’m bored. At least I didn’t take up robbing for fun, unlike some people!’
‘Ahem! Fun and money,’ he corrected. ‘But surely, if you wrote to the Queen – had someone write to her, that is – she’d grant you the role of bodyguard again, all in a wink of her shiny royal eye.’
‘Dev, are you in love with Queen Anne or something, now that she’s knighted you?’
‘Do I detect jealousy?’
‘I’m not in love with her,’ Nell said, baffled by the suggestion. She ignored the disbelieving scoff he gave and continued, ‘Besides, I don’t want to be no guard. I just want...’
The problem with Nell starting that sentence was that she had no idea how to finish it. All she knew was that she didn’t want to be stuck in Tottenham; that she’d prefer not to stand on another battlefield, men dying around her; and that she couldn’t fight anywhere near as well as she had been able to with Billy, no matter how many pieces of old furniture she smashed up behind their house in a sloppy attempt at training – especially when she nearly broke her hand at least twice. But if she could get Billy back...
‘You want what?’ he pestered. He guided his horse into walking nearer to hers, close enough that he could reach out and touch her – and she could pretend like she was about to push him off his horse, if he did.
She rolled her eyes and blew out a breath.
‘I want to find these two useless piles of ribbons, that’s what. Then, we’ll figure out what we’re doing after we’ve dealt with them.’
‘We?’
He really was being annoying and she couldn’t see what he thought he would gain by it. Even when she looked at his face, she couldn’t quite read his expression – but it was somehow off-putting to her.
‘Well, let’s hope that “black-haired witch with eyes cold as ice” and her “sallow-looking butcher” companion that poor man reported are the same black-haired witch and sallow fellow we’re looking for, yeah?’
‘The man was a poet. I wish someone had described me half as beautifully when I was still doing that old thing.’
‘You mean robbing people.’
‘Yes. Very astute. Of course, this was before I was –’
‘If you mention being knighted one more fucking time, Dev...’ Nell warned. His pleased little giggle made her roll her eyes. ‘Between trusting that bastard Poynton and now knighting you, I’m not so sure Annie’s all there in terms of judgement, if you know what I mean.’
‘You should have accepted her offer of knighting you, too! Then we’d be a matching pair.’
‘I don’t want to be Dame Eleanor Jackson,’ she said disdainfully. Even just saying her full given name made her grimace. ‘And she would never make me a sir, I just know it.’
‘Is that the only reason you turned it down?’
‘No! I had loads of reasons. Poor company I’d have in fellow knights.’ She nodded playfully towards him. ‘They let all the riffraff in these days. There’s no honour in it.’
He tilted his head back to laugh.
‘Oh, I missed you,’ he said for what must have been the tenth time since he had shown up at the Talbot a little over a week earlier.
‘Ah, sure you did.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Now, let’s see what this next town has to say. I still like the plan of taking a cart, filling it up with goodies, and making ourselves look easy to take, once we know we’re in their area.’
He gave a loud yawn, nodding his head.
‘Bait-and-switch.’ He perked up a little when he added, ‘But violent! I like it.’
‘Let’s hope they don’t put up too much of a fight.’
The next day.
Nell couldn’t take it anymore. Charles had been rambling for half an hour from the seat of the open-backed cart; she was in the back, hiding beneath a canvas and surrounded by crates which they had stuffed with hay to add visible bulk. They had borrowed it from a nearby village – or rented, really, since the woman they had got it from wasn’t willing to part with it without compensation, even if they were Nell Jackson and her knight companion. Fair enough. They had left their horses with her, taking one she lent which was more used to pulling carts.
For hours, Nell had been stuck in an uncomfortable crouch; she needed to be ready to spring into action the moment the Blanchefords struck. She prayed it would be soon, if only so Charles would stop talking for a little while.
‘You know, I think it was that exact moment when I realised that I had been wasting all my time, because I could barely even taste a difference between –’
‘I don’t think most grocers talk this much to their turnips, Dev,’ she said loudly in the hopes he would finally stop comparing types of cheeses.
‘I thought you were liquor, were you not?’
‘That works, too, I guess,’ she said disinterestedly, massaging her cramping leg through her breeches.
‘No, no. Turnips really suit you. I should have thought of that!’
‘Where did I put my sword, again?’ she subtly threatened.
He fell silent. She at least expected a laugh.
‘Don’t tell me that hurt your feelings,’ she scoffed. ‘Fine, I promise –’
‘Hush,’ came a very soft reply. ‘I see them.’
His uncharacteristically serious tone sent a shock of relief through her.
It was finally happening.
Slowly, she shifted into position beneath the canvas; but not so much that anyone would be able to detect the movement from a distance.
‘Stand and deliver!’ came a familiar woman’s voice, fierce and commanding. Nell’s eyes shut in delight at the sound.
‘Please don’t hurt me! I’m just a simple grocer!’ Charles blubbered, perfectly playing his part of a terrified driver. She was just relieved that she had successfully talked him out of speaking any French – she hoped.
‘Grocer!’ the woman repeated. She sounded almost breathless with pitiful excitement. ‘Stay there.’
‘Oh, my precious turnips! I can’t watch!’ He sure couldn’t help himself, either, it seemed.
Nell wanted to tell him to shut his mouth, before his luck ran –
‘If you don’t stop talking,’ Sofia Wilmot warned, ‘I will shoot you.’
It would have been funny, Nell thought, if she didn’t hate her. Instead, she held her breath and listened to the footsteps coming close to the cart...
Billy or not, she was ready for her.
As the canvas was pulled away, Nell held her fist in position to strike. It would have been embarrassing to miss, at that range. She saw that sharp face looming over her, pale as the moon, and with sunken eyes full of hope for turnips.
What she got was a big surprise and a punch in the face.
Sofia’s pistol clattered upon the ground somewhere nearby, but Nell had no time to look for it, because at that moment, she had eyes only for her.
Nell hopped to her feet to pursue the other woman as she careened backwards from the force of the blow.
‘Fancy meeting you here, Wilmot!’ Nell said cheerily, rubbing her stinging knuckles.
She jumped down from the back of the cart, not taking her eyes off her for even a moment. Behind her, she could hear Charles’ scuffle with Thomas; his victorious cry assured her that he had the man handled and didn’t need her help.
Sofia’s hand protectively covered her cheek and mouth; on the uncovered half of her face was an expression of purest hatred. The once-proud woman might have been unrecognisable in that tattered dress and with her hair so tangled. Standing in front of Nell now, Sofia Wilmot looked as if the wilderness had halfway claimed her as its pet. The dangerous, desperate look she had to her should have been a warning to Nell – but Nell never did take warnings very seriously.
‘Well?’ Nell goaded, stepping towards her. ‘Happy to see me?’
She was caught off her guard when the woman suddenly rushed her. Quickly, she bolted out of the way; Sofia caught herself on the cart, rather than slamming into it fully, and all while groaning like some wretched creature. She recovered faster than Nell ever would have expected and managed to get a handful of her shirt, preventing Nell from being able to get away.
‘You!’ she snarled, trying to drag Nell closer to her.
‘Hands off!’ Nell scolded Sofia as she tried to pry her filthy – bloody – fingers off the garment. ‘What, are you trying to tear it off me? Let go! You’re going to –’
Sofia’s other hand came up and swatted her face repeatedly. Nell felt pain throughout one side of her jaw, but didn’t feel any loose teeth, thankfully. She was able to grab Sofia’s arm, which was enough to stop her from being able to continue swinging at her face – but then the devil woman still managed to get her hand close enough to Nell’s cheek to claw at it.
‘Such a lady!’ Nell said through gritted teeth, feeling certain that blood was being drawn. ‘Real fucking civilised!’
Well, Nell wasn’t above fighting dirty, either.
Her leg came up in a familiar motion and her knee collided with Sofia’s groin. As it turned out, it wasn’t anywhere near as effective as it had been on men. In fact, the woman looked more offended than pained.
She ripped Sofia’s hand away from her face, before she could start clawing at her eyes next. A hard shove was enough to get Sofia to release her shirt; Nell immediately looked down to make sure Sofia hadn’t pulled hard enough to leave her in an indecent state – she had pulled it out from where it had been tucked into her breeches, but Nell could see no damage.
Upon looking back up, she saw that Sofia had backed away until she was leaning against a tree, cornering herself.
‘What?’ Nell taunted her, grinning widely as she gave chase. ‘Is your magic too good for me now?’
Every fibre of Nell’s body was tensed, waiting for the woman to indeed throw fire from her hands or something else nasty. But Sofia only panted in exertion, head tilted back against the bark. She looked like she would have fallen without the tree at her back.
She reached out to pin Sofia against the tree by the shoulders, leaning all her weight against her; the woman’s arms came up to grip Nell about the elbows, but she made no attempt to pry her off – rather, it seemed like she was holding on for support. Nell took the opportunity to catch her breath, staring at the blood dripping down Sofia’s chin; the little trail of red came from where Nell had split her lip with her punch.
‘You had no problem using magic on them others,’ she whispered fiercely, trying to intimidate her by getting in her face. ‘What’s stopping you, Sofia?’
In the silence following her question, Nell heard a grunt come from back near the cart, reminding her of her friend’s own battle.
Nell gave the listless woman a good look, trying to judge whether her pitiful, defeated look was real or a trick. She gave her shoulders another hard shove, to try to scare any deceit out of her, but she only groaned. Sofia opened her eyes just enough to peer at Nell; a sliver of blue burned with frustration.
‘Leave her alone, you bitch!’ came Thomas’s sudden cry. Judging by his strangled voice, Charles was closing in on the same victory as Nell. She turned her head to watch, her scratched cheek twinging as she grinned.
‘How very uncalled for! What a terrible way to speak to her!’ Charles laughed amiably, which only added to his menace. Nell saw that he had employed the same tactic as Sofia, holding Thomas back by his stained shirt. ‘And to think, you were raised to be a gentleman!’
Charles let Thomas get a few feet out, then yanked his sleeve with enough force to spin him back to face him; a fist waited at the ready and he wasted no time in sinking it hard into Thomas’s gut.
The scream that ripped its way out of the man’s throat was such an awful, suffering sort of sound that it made Nell’s heart skip a beat – even if he was her enemy. He sank to his knees, then fell face first into the leaf litter. Sofia had begun to thrash against Nell, her panicked eyes locked on Thomas.
‘Stop! We surrender! Please, stop!’
Nell loosened her grip, allowing Sofia to shove her arms away so she could go to him; she fell on her knees the moment she reached his side, then groaned with effort as she rolled him onto his back. Nell thought for a moment that she might slap him, like she had in Broadwater Hall, but this time she only patted rapidly at his cheek to see if he was responsive. As Nell drew nearer, she heard Thomas give a whine.
‘Did you stab him?’ Nell confusedly asked Charles.
‘Of course not! Unless – Did I? I mean – No? Let’s see, my hands were – ah, yes – empty.’ He looked just as baffled as she did; he raised his hands, fingers spread, with no sharps in sight and then threw them up in a shrug.
‘He was already injured,’ Sofia growled. Hurriedly, she began to gather his shirt up. Instinctively, Nell averted her eyes, not wanting to see the man’s bare chest.
‘Ooh, that’s...’ Charles said with a wince. ‘Well, you can’t blame me for all of that blood. Just what’s on his face – but that will clean up easily, won’t it? The face? Maybe not all that, though, down there...’
‘Stop talking. Now.’
Nell reluctantly looked back at the injured man. Her nose wrinkled in disgust at the sight of his wound; the flesh that peeked around the blood-soaked bandage was pink and inflamed. Nell had seen enough wounds to know that his condition must have been precarious even before Charles’ punch.
‘You’ve reopened the wound, damn you.’ Sofia’s hands hovered over him, too afraid to touch him and potentially do him further harm. And yet... ‘I need – If I had a needle of some sort, I’m certain I could sew –’
Thomas opened his eyes, shaking his head frantically at his sister.
‘No, no – please no, Sofia!’
‘It’s either that or you bleed out, you fool.’ Her sentence started so stern that it was almost cruel, but fell into a whimper by its conclusion.
‘Hold on,’ Nell butted into the conversation. ‘Sofia, you don’t know what you’re doing. You’ll just end up putting holes in his gut, and then how much better off will he be? Ugh, just move over and let me...’ She crouched down beside Sofia; she ended up closer to her than she was comfortable with, so she tried to gesture with a nod to get out of her way, but she was ignored.
‘You... You...’ Thomas whispered, recognition dawning in his watery eyes.
Nell expected he was just going to repeat what he said earlier, so she saved him the trouble: ‘“Bitch”, I know.’
She reached down, trying to find a clean portion of his bandages to grab so that she might begin to undo them. As soon as she peeled back the cloth, blood welled up quickly from the wide wound. He bared his teeth in pain; there was a scream in his throat that he was barely holding back.
‘Blimey, that’s not pretty. This from a bullet? Is it still in there?’
‘No, it’s from a boar,’ Sofia said softly. She was unpleasantly close; her breath stirred Nell’s hair. Rather than tell her to get away, Nell allowed it this time, due to the circumstances.
‘A boar?’ Nell nearly laughed in surprise. ‘You got tusked by a fucking boar?’
‘Hungry,’ Thomas grunted.
‘Yeah, me, too. But let’s stay on topic,’ Nell replied as she tried to get the crustiest, filthiest bandages off; they had adhered to the wound, so pulling them away meant some of the scab got peeled off along with them.
When Sofia’s hands came close to Nell’s, to assist her, she was tempted to slap them away; the only reason she didn’t was because if she missed, she’d hit the man right in his open wound, which she didn’t want to make contact with any more than strictly necessary – never mind have to listen to him screaming again.
‘Get your filthy hands out of here, Wilmot. You don’t know what you’re doing.’
‘And you do?’
Nell had caught a glimpse of the scar on his chest from Poynton’s pendant. She tore her eyes away from the unnatural-looking thing when Sofia grabbed her by the sleeve to get her attention.
‘Tell me that you know what you are doing!’
‘Yeah, I know!’ She gave her arm a little shake, trying to dislodge her strong little fingers, even if what she really wanted was to shove her away entirely. ‘I dressed all sorts of wounds when I was in the army. I know more than you do about this.’
Sofia appraised her for a moment. Her fingers uncurled, but her hand still rested on Nell’s arm. Naturally, Nell wiggled it, giving her a pointed look.
‘I see,’ she said, beginning to calm. ‘Then do whatever you can to help him.’
Nell had been fully expecting Sofia to challenge her, but she instead took her hands away and leant back to afford her more room. Nell looked down at her ruffled sleeve to make sure – again – that she hadn’t damaged her shirt.
‘Don’t expect any bloody miracles, now.’
Sofia either scoffed or sobbed, but she did not care enough to check – she was busy.
They hadn’t pulled his shirt back fast enough to spare it from the blood; its cheap, coarse material had a large, dark crimson spot on it.
Reluctantly, Nell lifted the shirt the rest of the way and – with Sofia’s ready help – pulled it over his head. She didn’t bother keeping the disgust off her face as she bunched it up; she tucked the wet spot underneath the rest, leaving one side clean. She was tempted to yank his head up by his hair, but instead she cupped her hand under the crown of his head and slid the shirt underneath, clean side up, as a pillow.
‘So, this is how you’ve been scaring people? You rubbed pig guts all over your clothes to look fierce?’
‘You heard of us?’ Sofia asked cautiously, not answering her question.
‘Yeah, and a poor man a couple days back said you were frightening his horse, making it see demons or something.’
‘So you found us through rumours.’
‘From your victims. You ain’t been subtle.’
‘You found...’ Thomas muttered. He was looking just above her eyes, which unnerved her.
‘Oi, my eyes are down here,’ she said. ‘What, is his sight going or something?’
‘He has a fever.’
‘Obviously,’ Nell scoffed. ‘That’s what happens when a wound gets like this. First it’s bleeding, then there’s a fever, then it’s –’ Well, they could guess where she was going with it, Nell thought.
‘A miraculous recovery?’ Charles suggested, nearly making Nell laugh, and earning a glare from Sofia.
‘You did this to us, Jackson,’ Sofia said, once again in her soft, sad, victim’s tone.
‘Right, I definitely am the one who put it in your head that you could kill a boar without any trouble.’
Sofia said nothing; she only watched Nell try to tend her brother’s wound.
It was a nasty wound to look at, to be certain. As much as Nell didn’t want to use one of her own handkerchiefs on him, she knew it would be cruel not to at least make an attempt at helping dress his wound. Billy would have wanted her to help, if it was possible – and she wouldn’t know if it was possible or not if she didn’t try.
Both Thomas and his sister were paler than she remembered, even though their filth suggested they had spent a great deal of time outside; there was a greater hollowness to their cheeks than she thought was healthy. Beside her, Sofia still seemed winded from their fight. Below her, Thomas was limp; only his eyes moved, still not looking quite at her.
Seeing the pair of toffs, sick and in pain, an unwelcome feeling came to her: it was guilt.
She had figured they would have quickly found some other toffs who didn’t know what scum they were, or more likely just didn’t care. Surely, they’d have family that would take them in, regardless of what they had done. And they must have taken plenty of valuables on their way out of Broadwater, which someone would have paid them good money for, no?
Instead, here lay Thomas Blancheford, bleeding out in the middle of the woods, and sure to die if they didn’t get a surgeon for him. Beside him, a sniffling, starving sister who would stay by his side until his last breath – and then what would she do?
If Thomas Blancheford were to die, would Billy be free to return to her? It was an awful thought – one which Billy himself never would have allowed her to consider. Even if the pathetic, childish man had murdered her father, then killed his own and framed her, she still wasn’t sure she could condone allowing him to die without at least trying to save him.
Nell pressed the back of her forearm against her forehead, holding it there as she thought about what to do. Her face itched where Sofia’s nails had dug in, and she imagined that she had blood seeping from the little claw marks. Her jaw still ached from the lady’s unexpected punch.
‘Here’s what we’ll do,’ she said, putting on her best leadership voice. ‘Either Charles or I will go into town, see if we can find a surgeon –’
‘To operate on him here in the woods?’ Sofia laughed scornfully. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Oh, so you want to go to a town where everyone’ll be on the lookout for – I don’t know – some black-haired witch with eyes of ice?’
Sofia’s frown became more pronounced, more puzzled, as she took in Nell’s words.
‘Don’t forget the slit pupils and forked tongue,’ Charles added. He was still standing, looking idly at their wooded surroundings.
The noise of disgust Nell made at his words caused Sofia to look at her strangely. Then she shook her head at Nell and gave her a false smile.
‘You are Nell Jackson,’ Sofia said bitterly. Nell was a little surprised she didn’t call her Nelly. ‘You’re England’s newest heroine. You saved the Queen from the Jacobites.’
‘Hero is fine. You can just say “hero”.’
‘I was knighted,’ Charles chimed in.
She ignored them both.
‘Surely, you will protect us from a few angry villagers. You will pretend that we are not Sofia and Thomas Blancheford, but friends of yours –’ The idea of feigning friendship made Nell, Charles, and even the delirious Thomas chuckle.
Sofia tried another angle: ‘Or perhaps he and I are just some unfortunate nobodies whom you just rescued from highwaymen. That will explain all our fresh injuries.’
‘Of which I have none,’ Charles said with a little bow, looking at Thomas. ‘Can’t say the same for you, Nelly. Have you lost your magic touch?’
Nell shut her eyes and bitterly shook her head at him.
‘I need you to do this,’ Sofia pressed. ‘Otherwise, his death will be on your hands.’
‘Stop talking like you’re in charge,’ Nell warned. The way Sofia’s shoulders fell but her chin lifted made her disdain clear.
‘I fucking hate being the hero,’ muttered Nell.