Thank you for your kind concern. It meant more than I could say. And I'm happy to say, I'm feeling better...just tired. But the pain is gone.
Thank you for your interest and support. I appreciate it.
I do not own Merlin or the characters, neither do I own Rules For A Proper Governess.
Arthur Pendragon was coming after her.
Gwen was right in her assumption...he was much too smart not to notice, that she'd lifted his timepiece. But she'd told herself not to be a coward.
Now she knew her folly, because he was chasing her, and he'd have her nicked in a heartbeat.
She should've stuck with taking his handkerchief and been done.
But she'd wanted him to look at her.
She wanted to see those eyes...blue like the Mediterranean, with a hint of gray.
And to hear his rumbling voice.
She'd warmed all over when the syllables had poured over her. Easy now, lass. But sadly, she'd lingered too long to admire him, and now he was coming.
For her.
Gwen picked up her pace and dashed around another corner.
She knew London better than most, so she could lead the barrister on a merry chase.
And if she couldn't shake him...well, she'd know where to run.
She scooted into the backstreets behind the grim walls of Newgate, ducking into the warrens and winding streets...their lanes so narrow, they blotted out the last streaks of light in the sky.
These passages were filled with trash, rats, and layabouts.
A few of the men lolling about in their gin-soaked stupor, tried to grab her skirts as she went by, but she expertly twitched away from them and kept on running.
She risked a dash across Aldersgate Street and back into the narrower lanes beyond. Then, she jumped over a vagrant, who looked to be far gone on opium, her boot heels clicking on the hard-packed street.
And wasn't it just her luck?
The barrister was keeping up with her.
A swift glance behind her as she rounded a corner, showed Pendragon running after her, his body moving with athletic competence, as he ducked and swerved around carts, dung, and vermin...both human and rodent.
Gwen's breath was coming fast now, her corset too tight to keep this up for long.
'Blast him! He should be giving up by now,' she thought.
Or probably toddling off to his comfortable home in Mayfair or Belgrave Square...or wherever he laid his pristine blonde head to rest.
She remembered how he'd stood straight and tall in front of the judge, taunting the old misery, and turning the verdict around to surprise them all.
Arthur Pendragon's arrogance had rolled off him in waves, with even the judge grudgingly conceding to him.
But then, as soon as his performance was over, all that arrogance had drained out of him, leaving him an empty shell.
Until now, of course.
His energy was back, focused on chasing her and dragging her off to a constable.
'Not that, never that,' Gwen thought.
She didn't particularly want to finish her life at the end of a noose.
The jury might be sympathetic that she was forced to be a pickpocket by her father...if they believed her...but that would only mean, she'd be transported across the ocean to someplace she knew nothing about, or locked up in a grim and terrifying prison.
She should've been able to slip away from him by now, Gwen thought, but Mr. Pendragon was keeping her in sight, whichever passage she took.
She knew she'd have to lure him to 'The Trap' whether she liked it or not, or she'd never get away from him.
That's how she thought of it...The Trap...with capital Ts outlining the jaws of it. No one escaped it, not easily anyway.
But Mr. Pendragon was smart...he would run the other way as soon as he saw what was what, and leave her alone.
She had to believe that.
"Oi!" she shouted, when she was within three feet of the place. "It's Frankie! I'm coming in!"
Immediately, a door in a squalid wall in a dark alley swung open, and Gwen leapt over the doorsill.
She swept up her skirts as she landed, careful not to turn her ankles in the rubble.
Beyond the door was an empty space, where a house had once stood...pulled down or fallen down, long ago.
The lot was surrounded on four sides by other buildings, that soared five and six stories to the sky.
No windows faced the place...nothing to reveal the secrets of the inner emptiness.
The space was lit right now, with a fire built in the remains of an old stove, and with lanterns, belonging to the men and boys who liked to gather there.
The Trap was to be used in dire emergency, when a pursuer became too keen or bullies from another neighborhood strayed too close.
The men and boys who made The Trap their haven, were usually armed, usually drunk, and always ready to have a go at whoever was mad enough to come through the door.
Gwen fled through the lot, which was strewn with stones and broken bottles, skirting a pile of old rubbish in the middle.
A smaller door led out the other side to another passage, where she could slip away and go home.
She turned around to take one last look at her handsome Mr. Pendragon...to glimpse him again before he sensibly fled.
Except, he wasn't sensibly fleeing.
He came on the inside, the firelight shining on his gold-colored hair, his hat gone...who knows where.
He showed no fear to the toughs who were converging on him. And when he spotted Gwen on the other side of the lot, he roared, with a voice that rang like a warrior's.
"Stop her!"
The toughs blinked, not used to victims who didn't scramble away from them in terror.
Mr. Pendragon started around them, straight for Gwen. But the lads came out of their shocked state, by the time he was halfway passed the mound of junk.
Then they struck.
"Aw, bloody hell!" Mr. Pendragon's rich voice rang out, and he grabbed a rusted iron bar from the pile.
Before Gwen's stunned eyes, he turned to face the onslaught and started fighting back.
The youths and men charging him had knives, clubs, or coshes. But he parried their blows, thrusting and beating at them, as they beat on him.
Iron rang against steel, and one of the youths cursed, as his knife went flying.
Mr. Pendragon had the advantage against the knives, having chosen a bar long enough to keep them back.
But Gwen knew, when they figured out how to get under his reach...
They were going to kill him.
These toughs were thieves, murderers, or the sons of such. They had killed before, wrapping up a body and tipping it into the Thames, with the police none the wiser.
Never mind that Mr. Pendragon was obviously a toff in his fine clothes...they'd kill him, strip him, divide up the spoils, and go for a gin.
'Why the devil didn't he just run?' Gwen thought, as she came pounding back to him.
She dove around the flailing bars...earning her curses from the youths, yelling at her to get out of the way...and closed her hands around Mr. Pendragon's arm.
Beneath the expensive cloth, she found a strength that matched the iron bar he wielded.
He started to shake her off, but she dug deeper.
"This way!" she shouted. "Run!"
"Get out of it, girl!" one of the toughs yelled. "Fair game!"
"No, you leave him be! Come on!" she demanded.
With that, she jerked at Mr. Pendragon, who finally saw wisdom and went with her.
And the lads, enraged she was depriving them of their fun, poured after them.
But she ran out the narrow door on the far side, jumping over the sill to the street, with the barrister in tow.
He, however, had to turn and fight at the last moment, buffeting back two lads who'd grabbed his coat.
The coat tore, but stayed on, so he swung away and followed Gwen.
Gwen slammed the door. Then she grabbed the iron bar from Mr. Pendragon's hands and wedged the door shut.
She knew it wouldn't hold for long, and the lads could always go around the other side, nonetheless, she seized him by the sleeve and started running.
Pendragon ran with her, his strides strong.
And it wasn't long before she heard the youths coming.
A few would give up, she knew, losing interest, but some would be determined.
Aldo's mates loved a good fight, and they'd want to divide up the spoils they found on Mr. Pendragon.
This way," she urged, as she dove around a corner.
There was one place in all of London Gwen could go.
No one else knew about it but her...not her dad, not Aldo...not her own mates.
So taking Mr. Pendragon there was a risk, because, he could have the constables raid it when she let him go. But maybe it would be worth the sacrifice.
This courageous, handsome half Scots, half Englishman, didn't deserve to be beaten to death by East End thugs.
Gwen ran for the end of an alleyway, that looked as though it went no farther. Mr. Pendragon started to argue, but she put her finger to her lips and pulled him around a hidden corner, then down a slippery set of stairs and through a noisome passage.
Finally, she squeezed into a space that led between the backs of buildings, with corners poking out and seeming to block the way.
She had discovered long ago, that a lithe young woman could push through here and find a refuge.
Mr. Pendragon grunted a bit as he struggled through the narrower parts, then popped out like a cork behind Gwen, as she opened a half-size door and ducked through.
This door led to an old scullery and kitchen, for a house that had once been large and fine. But the room had been walled off long ago, as the house had changed, been pulled down, or rebuilt.
And this corner of the cellar was lost and forgotten.
"Mind your head," Gwen said.
At the same time she heard a thump and Mr. Pendragon growled sarcastically,
"Thank you, lass. Very timely."
They went down a set of stairs in the pitch dark, barrister Pendragon with a heavy hand on Gwen's shoulder.
His hand was firm, spreading heat beneath her worn velvet coat and wool bodice. Strong too, his nails blunt and gripping hard.
"Seventeen of 'em," she said, and started counting off.
At the bottom, they went through another door, then she told him to stay put while she groped for the matches she kept on a shelf and started lighting lamps.
She had three lamps down here now, which threw a rosy glow over the crumbling bricks and fallen beams, that littered the triangular room.
The passage above was too narrow for her to bring in much furniture, but she'd made the place as cozy as she could.
She'd brought down small rugs over the years, overlapping them to keep her feet off the cold, damp floor.
She also had a pile of cushions, carefully formed into the approximation of a sofa, against the most solid wall, which she had covered with shawls and blankets.
And near it, she'd set up a small folding table, strewn now with newspapers and magazines she'd managed to smuggle down here, over time.
Mr. Pendragon remained in place by the door until Gwen's lights strengthened.
She'd need more kerosene before long, she realized.
The large man was out of place down here, that was for certain. His head touched the ceiling and he had to duck under the few beams that remained.
He looked around the room in wonder, then his blue gaze landed on her and pinned her as hard as he'd pinned Alban Rolfe in the dock.
"Are you mad, miss?" he asked. "You stay down here? This ceiling could fall on you at any second."
Gwen shivered, as his rumbling, delicious voice filled the space.
"Hasn't in sixteen years," she said stoutly. "And probably stood up a long time before that. There are solid houses in this part of London."
"Whichever part it is," Mr. Pendragon said, half to himself. "Why'd you save me from those lads, woman, when ye led me to them in the first place? Why not let them beat me to a bloody pulp?"
Gwen folded her arms, spending a moment to let his Scottish consonants and vowels flow over her.
"Well, you were supposed to run away, weren't you?" she asked. "You thought you could take on eight street toughs by yourself? You have to be as daft as a brick."
"No, I wanted my watch!"
Anger flared anew in his eyes, never mind that he was down here at her mercy, with no idea where he was and no help at hand.
But he was the one in command, and she knew it.
Not her.
Mr. Pendragon pointed a strong finger at Gwen, his voice softening.
"I just want my watch. Which you stole, right out of my waistcoat while I stood gawping. Give it back to me, and I'll say nothing."
Arthur watched the young woman's face flush a dark red in the candlelight, her guilt pure and simple.
Then she swallowed and took a step back, rubbing her arms.
She still wore the hat with the absurd violets, which was now hanging half over her right ear.
"Give me the watch, and I'll leave you be," he said, trying further to gentle his voice. "No constables, no dock...though you are a bloody little tea leaf."
Gwen didn't look impressed that he knew rhyming cant...Tea leaf...thief.
"Why'd ya help Eliza?" she asked.
Arthur had difficulty catching his breath. It was close down here, the biting wind shut out.
It took him a moment to realize, that by Eliza, she meant Elizabeth Baker, the kitchen maid who'd stood in the dock at the Old Bailey, not an hour ago.
Already, the details of the trial were fading...a trial that would be put down as a loss to him, but he didn't care.
"Miss Baker was innocent," he said. "Why should she go down for it?"
"'Cause you're a barrister...hand-in-glove with the judges."
This young woman had a lot to learn about the common courts, Arthur thought.
Old Davies and him had been butting heads since he'd first put on a wig.
"Miss Baker couldn't afford a defense. And I knew she was innocent when I looked at her. I also knew Mr. Rolfe was guilty. What does this have to do with my watch?"
"Well, Eliza's a pal of mine, ain't she?" The young woman's eyes were deep brown in the candlelight. "Thank you."
"So, you decided to show your gratitude by pinching my watch and leading me into the arms of your ruffian friends?" He made a noise of disbelief. "If that's your method of thanking a man, I'd hate so see when you're annoyed with him."
She didn't smile.
"I told ya, you were supposed to run. They'd have gutted you. What were you thinking? You should've just let it go."
Arthur's temper splintered.
"Why the hell should I? It's my watch. My wife gave it to me."
Gwen took a step back as his voice rose.
"Yeah? You're a rich bloke. Have her buy you another one."
"I cannae, can I?"
"Why not?"
"Because she's dead!"
The words rang against the low ceiling and the uncaring stones, and suddenly, Arthur couldn't breathe at all.
He'd never, not even the day she'd slipped away, declared flatly that his wife was dead.
He shied from the word.
He'd said 'passed', 'left him' or 'was gone'. Because, dead meant too much finality.
It meant dust and no return.
Arthur struggled for air.
"She's..."
He felt wetness on his face.
'Bloody hell!'
He hadn't wept either. Not really.
To weep for her, meant she was never coming back.
"She's..." he said again.
The world rushed around him, spiraling down into a single point...stifling.
Suddenly, blackness filled his vision...a pressure in his ears grinding out his strength.
His felt his knees bending, and a void opened to pull him inside...
Arthur blinked and found himself half lying, half sitting across the cushions piled on the floor.
The young woman was sitting beside him, her hat gone, to reveal rich dark, curly hair, and worry on her pretty face.
She'd dragged him to this sofa, he realized.
He must've fallen nose-first on the floor, and she pulled him to the cushions and made sure he'd woken up.
"You all right, mister?" she asked.
This was the second time she'd asked him that tonight, as though sweetly concerned. But she was a thief, had murdering friends, had brought him to this hole...only God knows where...to do God only knows what.
And yet, she asked with anxiety, whether he was well.
"Damn it, woman!" He put his arm behind his head and glared at her. "What am I to do with you?"
Gwen stared at him in wide-eyed contemplation for another second or two, then she leaned into him and swiftly kissed him on the mouth.
Stay safe!