“I cannot deny it pleases me to know you will not be hunted. Not anymore.” Emlyn smiled for the first time. She wrapped her arms around Gwynnie’s shoulders, pulling her into a tight embrace. “You have your freedom now, Gwynnie.”
Gwynnie was not so convinced. She was walking into a trap, a trap where her masters would be Tombstone and Pascal, two men she was not certain she could completely trust, even if their intentions were sometimes good.
Gwynnie nodded, knowing this was the bargain. She wouldn’t have to hide, fearing that her thieving would one day catch up with her. “It must be time,” she whispered, turning her eyes to the door.
They stood, neither one of them releasing the other as they moved to the door.
“You should go to France still,” Gwynnie urged Emlyn. “Take a jewel from someone, enough to get you passage, and start again. Please, Ma. Do this for me. Turn your back on our lives here, and no longer be a cutpurse. It is for the best.”
Emlyn brushed some of Gwynnie’s hair back behind her ear. “Ah, miting. It’s in my bones, as it is in yours. It is not so easy to turn your back on as you may think it is.”
Gwynnie chewed her lip, fearing what would become of her mother now. Perhaps Emlyn never intended to stop thieving at all.
“I do not want you to die in gaol someday,” Gwynnie said, her breath hitching with sudden tears.
“I know. That is why you are right, and this is for the best.” Emlyn embraced her another time. “But it is I who dreads you dying in a gaol, Gwynnie. This way, that will never happen. You’ll be too important to powerful men.”
Gwynnie sobbed against her mother’s shoulder, not wanting to release her. She didn’t know how long she stood there, clinging to Emlyn, but in the end the hoot of a distant owl confirmed her suspicion that it was the dead of night.
“I must go,” Emlyn whispered. “Come. Do what you must.”
Gwynnie turned to the door. She sniffed, not bothering to dry her tears as she retrieved the dagger from a pocket in her gown and pressed her ear to the door. She could hear soft snores beyond, suggesting the yeoman had fallen asleep. Quietly, she pressed the blade into the lock and started to move it around.
It was an old lock, for these storerooms hardly needed to be locked securely. She rather suspected that if they had just thrown their combined weight against the door, they could have broken it open, but that would have woken the guard. Tilting the blade high in the lock, she felt the latch and turned it. The lock slid back, and the door opened.
It swung on its hinges, creaking until Gwynnie grasped the door and held it still.
The yeoman was still sitting against the opposite wall, his heels crossed in front of him, fast asleep.
Emlyn turned to Gwynnie and kissed her on the cheek. “My heart is with you, miting. Stay safe, for me.”
Gwynnie longed to say the same to her mother, but Emlyn had already released her and pressed a finger to her lips. She took the blade from Gwynnie’s grasp and held it down by her side as she ran lightly down the corridor, heading toward the nearest set of stairs.
Gwynnie stared after her mother, feeling the tears threaten once again. Slowly, she stepped back into the bread store and closed the door behind her. As it shut, it created a wind that blew out the small flame of the candle, leaving her in darkness.
Resting her head against the door, Gwynnie stared into the shadows, longing for someone to talk to, though she knew there wouldn’t be anyone, not anymore. She and her mother were separated, and there was a chance that she might never see Emlyn again.
CHAPTER 32
A door creaked open.
Gwynnie blinked. In her dream, she had seen the door of the attic rooms where she and her mother used to live in the backstreets of London, and how that door would creak as it opened. She saw Emlyn stumbling through it, with blood on her palms once again. She saw the determination in her face, then Gwynnie realised it was just a dream.
She opened her eyes wide, pushing herself up on the floor from where she had used a sack of wheat grain as a pillow. In the doorway stood Tombstone. She could not see his expression, for the morning light fell on his back.
“Where is she?”
Gwynnie didn’t answer. She pulled herself to her feet, stretched and yawned.
“Gwynnie? Where is your mother?” he asked again.
“Is she not here?” Gwynnie looked around the room, her hands on her hips. “Perhaps she went searching for a privy. It has not been easy to find a chamber pot in this room, you know.” She wrinkled her nose, thinking about how difficult a night it had been.
Tombstone stepped back out of the door, jerking his head, a silent instruction to follow him. She did as he asked, walking out and noting that the yeoman was no longer standing guard. She hesitated on the threshold, half expecting someone to appear and demand she return to her makeshift prison, but no one did.
“This way.” Tombstone moved toward the staircase and Gwynnie hurried to keep up behind him. “Where is she?” he asked again.
“Maybe she didn’t go in search of a privy. Maybe she just longed for a more comfortable bed.”
“You think this is the time to make jests?” He turned at the top of the staircase, so suddenly that Gwynnie wobbled on the top step, in danger of falling back down again.
Gwynnie adopted a more serious expression. She had cried for a long time during the night. It somehow made it easier not to show any emotion now as she stared back at Tombstone.
“You have an arrest for murder, do you not? Esme Battersby. Do you need another? Has it not all been enough to regain your position?”
“I have my position again.” Tombstone huffed and walked away, demanding she followed him with a flick of his wrist. When they reached the kitchens, he halted by an open hatch and nodded at Samuel, who produced a tray and laid it down on the ledge. His eyes widened when he saw Gwynnie.
“Gwynnie? What has happened to you?” he asked in panic.
“It was a misunderstanding,” Tombstone answered before she could, nudging the tray toward her and urging her to eat. Gwynnie tore into the bread hungrily. “Gwynnie and her mother were held in the storeroom by mistake.”
“See? I knew it. I knew the news of you being locked up had to be by some error.” Samuel called over his shoulder. “Rudyard? That’s another bet you’ve lost to me.” He turned and reached through the hatch, good-naturedly taking hold of Gwynnie’s shoulder. “You well, lass?”
“I’ll be well,” she assured him, forcing a smile, though she didn’t feel any sense of true happiness at all. Her mind was whirring with questions, wondering where Emlyn was now, and if she had gotten away on a wherry after all.
“Eat up,” Tombstone encouraged at her side. “I need to take you to Pascal.”
Samuel winked at Gwynnie and returned to his work, leaving her to gulp down a cup of small beer and bite into an apple.
