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And he’d no idea where the courthouse was.
As if to mock, the rain began in earnest once more and Rhys nigh despaired until Hugh nudged his horse close, grabbing Rhys’ coat. “The courthouse is in the market square but the holding jail is on Barrah Street. This way.”
Rhys gratefully followed and they picked up speed on the cobbles, trotting down narrow streets lined with cheek-by-jowl shops before Hugh slowed at a one-storeyed slate building.
They tied their bedraggled steeds to the iron rings fastened in the wall and approached the grille-less oak door. “Let’s not announce our arrival this time,” said Rhys, catching his companion’s arm. “Someone has gone to a lot of trouble for all this.”
Hugh nodded while Rhys squinted through the slight gap between window shutter and surround; no candle lit the interior, just an infernal black of nothingness.
All was locked up fast. Naught seeming to exist tonight but for themselves and the bitter rain.
“There’s a yard round the back,” rasped his companion. “Let’s try there.”
Perhaps now was not the time to question how Hugh knew all this.
Terraced as it was, they were forced to leg it down the street until they spied a tight passageway forced between a fishmonger and drapers. It led to a filthy, waterlogged alley that ran along the back and they splashed along until it opened onto a cramped yard, the damp odour of cabbage scenting the air, a few mangy dogs sheltering under the eaves.
The dogs growled.
Rhys growled back.
Hugh forewent a knock and instead extracted some object from his jacket pocket, inserted that object into the prison door lock and commenced twisting it this way and that.
“Ah, my beautiful Kate,” he murmured, leaning his ear to the door.
“Only you would name a picklock after a mistress,” Rhys groused, “and can you not get on with it?”
“Shush. It’s not all pistols and bluster you know.”
Visions tormented Rhys – Isabelle’s expression as she’d told of being entombed beneath that carriage floor, the sheer horror of a child being enclosed in that dense dark, commanded to keep quiet.
“This takes…” Hugh bit his lip. “Nimble fingers and a steady pulse.”
Rhys’ own pulse hammered like hail. Fear that Isabelle could be broken by this ordeal, her courage shattered.
With eyes now closed, Hugh pivoted his wrist. “Nearly… Ah, there you are, my beauty.” A clunk of metal and he sighed, extracted the key and held it to his lips, a brass-cast scantily clad woman decorating the bow. “My Kate never leaves me wanting.”
Rhys ignored him. “Get the bloody thing open then. Isabelle must be terrified.”
Hugh turned the handle, eye pressed to the widening crack…
“Brûle en l’enfer, fils de pute! T'es une poule mouillée!”
“As I’ve told you before,” whispered Hugh with a grin, “that governess of yours is formed of stern stuff.” He pushed the door to reveal a narrow corridor with one lit sconce at the far end.
“I’m trying to sleep, so I am,” a gruff voice moaned. “Why don’t you just shut your bleetin–”
“Fils de pute!”
Rhys merely grunted. “You deal with him. I’ll find Isabelle.”
Hugh strode down the corridor and turned the corner. “Ah, my dear jailer…”
“Who the hell are–”
No further sound came, not even a thud, so Rhys snatched a lantern from a hook on the wall before heading for the prison cages. He followed the slew of un-governess-like French profanities, his fear for her wellbeing lifting somewhat.
Ever since the interview, he’d somehow known that Isabelle possessed a temper. It had been suppressed below layers of governess grey, but he’d seen glimpses every now and then – her outburst in his study regarding Mari, that twitching thumb, those storm-filled eyes.
