With thanks to Killer K, PirateAurora and Chelsey. Sorry I didn't mention you in chapter 9, I had posted it up before I realised you had reviewed.
Welcome back misty, I can't wait to start reading your story again.
Killer, I would love to give up my job – alas life is expensive! I love your reviews, they always make me chuckle!
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Chapter ten: 'I have to get away tonight…'
Jack and Shay made the outskirts of London by late the following afternoon, having stopped off at Oxford to change their horses at a coaching inn, Jack being grateful of the pouches of coins he carried with him for it ensured good horses. He gingerly climbed down, wincing with pain as he tried to walk.
'Give me a bloody ship any day,' he muttered darkly as his eyes scanned the city before him.
'Look at the size o'them buildings,' exclaimed Shay in shock. 'If God had meant man to be that far off th'ground, He'd have given us longer legs!'
'You'd do well up th'main mast then,' Jack ribbed, looking at the young man still on his horse. 'Thanks mate.'
'Ah, there's nothin' ter be thankin' me for. Ye haven't got yer lass back yet.'
'No.' Jack pulled a rueful face and winced again as he re-mounted, then the two men made their way towards the heart of the city, taking in the spectacle.
They came to the River Thames and Jack smiled as he remembered the last time he had seen the river, when he had stowed away on The Heart of Oak as a young lad. 'So much has happened since then,' he mused, idly wondering if his parents and brother's were still alive.
Shay stopped his horse and approached a stevedor taking a break from loading a ship. 'Scuse me mate, how would ye get ter Whitechapel from here?'
'If ya go along the river t'the bridge, take the road away from it then bear right, that'll take ya t'Whitechapel,' the docker replied with a toothless grin.
'Ta mate.' Shay returned the grin and re-mounted, following Jack as the pirate lead the way downriver to London Bridge, fear and anticipation starting to well in his stomach.
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After a couple of discreet enquiries, they found Roger Crompton's London residence and rode past it slowly for the third time before carrying on down the wide street to a coaching inn Jack had spotted about half a mile away. They took the horses to the stables and booked themselves into the tavern that had seen better days and had a hearty meal which succeeded in warming them up since it had begun to snow during their last trek up the lane and had been coming down thickly. They walked back to the house, Jack being glad of his boots and Shay wishing he had some instead of his battered shoes, and made their way furtively around the back, risking climbing over the high garden wall into the grounds.
Jack nudged his companion and pointed to a barred window on the first floor of the building. 'I'll wager that's where she is,' he whispered, in spite of there being not a soul about.
'How d'we get her out?' enquired the younger man, rubbing his nose as he was wont to when thinking.
'We wait until dark then break in. Have ya broken into a house before?'
Shay snorted derisively which Jack took to be a yes and they fell silent, watching the house for a time. Suddenly Jack perked up and peered through the bushes in which they were hiding, trying to get a better view of a man standing in the kitchen doorway, talking to someone within.
'Bleedin' 'ell,' he cursed as he recognised Nicholas Boothe. 'They weren't bounty hunters… they work fer Crompton,' he hissed, rocking back on his heels, pondering this new revelation.
'So ye reckon she is definitely here then?' enquired Shay.
'Oh yes, this just confirms it. I want ya ter go and watch th'front of th'house, I'll come an' tell ya when it's time ter move, savvy?'
'Aye, aye Captain,' grinned the younger man, who waited until Boothe went back inside and all was quiet once more, before making his way back over the wall.
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'I hope ter God he decides ter move soon, I can't feel me legs,' the Irishman muttered to himself as he continued to watch the house from a passageway between two houses opposite. It had only just stopped snowing and he was frozen to the bone, but still he watched and waited.
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'I want ter go in now,' Jack thought impatiently, his eyes boring a hole in the barred window. 'I hope ter God she is all right. Maybe I should go an' see Shay, come up wi'a plan. What the hell…?'
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Jenny glanced through the curtains, her hearts sinking as she saw it was dark outside and had been snowing. If she had looked at little harder at the garden, she would have seen the bushes move suddenly as Jack barely stopped himself from leaping out upon seeing her, but she was too despondant to notice. The only things that ever registered was when it was daytime and safe and when it was night time and dangerous. She went to put the leather lace back in its hiding place but froze as the key turned in the lock and managed to shove it beneath the mattress as the door opened to reveal her husband, very drunk and weaving from side to side. He locked the door behind him, not being too drunk to lower his guard, then lurched for her, cursing as she dodged him.
'Come here, you whore,' Crompton yelled, inching closer to her, unbuckling his belt as he did. 'I said come here,' he ordered lashing out with the belt then diving on her as she reeled from the sting to her face. The force of him landing against her knocked the breath from Jenny and with his mouth over hers, she found it hard to breathe and struggled for all she was worth, eventually managing to bring her knee to his groin and smiling with grim satisfaction as he doubled up.
'No!' she yelled. Jenny knew she would have an easier time if she didn't fight against him so much but it went against the grain to do so, so she fought like a wildcat and suffered the consequenses.
Roger Crompton recovered enough to drag his wife to the bed and throw her onto it. He straddled her and ripped the buttons off the woollen dress she had been wearing and sank his teeth into her breast.
'Get off me you bastard,' she screamed, then wound her hand around the back of his head and smashed her forehead into his face, feeling the bones in his nose crunch as they broke. He slumped forward, senseless, and Jenny turned him over and pushed his face into the pillows, kneeling on his shoulders and neck as she reached for the leather lace which she doubled up and threaded around his neck. She twisted it as she continued to press his face down until with a gasping sob she got off him, pulling the lace away. She reached a tentative hand out and prodded him then turned him back over, placing her hand on his chest to check if there was a heartbeat and stared with a mixture of horror and relief when there was not.
'Oh God,' she whispered, scarcely beliving that she was free of him but at the same time, realising she was not free of the house. 'I'm safe until morning,' she thought, knowing no-one would miss him until then. Jenny went to the side room and washed herself down, breaking the ice skimming the top of the pitcher then fetched another dress of dark green wool from the cupboard and pulled it on, securing the lace around her neck and tucking inside the dress, her trembling hands betraying the turmoil inside. She pulled a dark brown coat from the cupboard and fetched a pair of black ankle boots which she had never worn, for she had never been outside the room in all the time she had been there, then looked once more at the body and shuddered. 'I have to get away tonight,' she thought. 'Be long gone before they find him.' Jenny went to the door and sat down beside it, her ear pressed against the wood, listening to the comings and goings of the household until it went quiet.
She stood and carefully turned the key in the lock and slowly pulled the door open, glancing along the landing and breathing a sigh of relief when no signs of life were apparent, closing and locking it quietly behind her, pocketing the key. Cautiously she tiptoed along the landing and down the stairs, reaching the bottom rung as the cry of alarm went up. She looked up at Thomas Hall about to come hurtling down the stairs and she flew for the door, smashing the window beside it with a heavy ornament from the hallway table and scrambling through it, ignoring the pain as shards of glass cut her hands. Jenny knew she would have a few moments head start for there had been a couple of bolts on the door and the key was not in the lock. 'It's funny what you notice,' she mused as she ran through the snow. She looked blindly up and down the deserted street then ran across to the other side, a shriek of terror being stifled by a hand across her mouth as she felt herself being pulled into a passageway.
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Sorry it wasn't Jack that killed Crompton as so many of you wanted, but I think it works better with Jenny having done it.
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