Author's note: Heya, I haven't written in a while so forgive me the time it takes to get back into it… This chapter is going to be a bit summarised. Soz. Just explaining in case you think it runs past too quickly. Anyway, I hope you like it. R n R!!!

Lots of love Lady- H.

Chapter 22

From Lorna's point of view, incarcerated in the back of the jolting carriage with the burly blue-jacketed guards and a sour-faced man dressed sombrely in black and sporting a pair of round wire-framed spectacles, everything was going splendidly to plan. Though it was feat of endurance to keep the startled look of fear plastered across her face, when inside she was already somersaulting with the ease of it all and the rush of exhilaration at being already flying along the road, which could only be taking her to Paris. She nestled back into the padded seat, drawing her face into shadow so that she could better inspect her travelling companions and reflect on the day's events.

Sitting in the bows of Tenacious, she had expected Horatio to surrender sooner than he did, but that couldn't have been helped. She knew he would want to put on a good show for her sake, though she prayed there wouldn't have been too many casualties on their side. From then on it had all just been a formality. The frogs had found her, suitably excited and straining for freedom, in the hold. She had been released, taken aboard the French ship, the Sainte-Lazarre, expounding the tale of her capture by the English in volubly romanticised French, and they had set sail for the coast of Brittany and then north - to Calais - without delay. They hadn't suspected a thing. She could only have imagined in her wildest dreams the look of shock on the Frenchmen's faces as her hat had been removed. Lorna had made sure to pout as her shock of hair had tumbled loose. She could not risk a mistake - She wouldn't put it past anyone to miss the hint. But as it turned out she needn't have worried - the shock of realisation was painted across every face.

She had only been able to gamble a cursory glance at her friends who stood heavily guarded at the side of the hall, and she was pleased to see them all also looking dutifully shocked at her revelation. Except Archie. It took nearly all her efforts to keep a straight face as she saw him hanging limply between Horatio and Mathews, his hair matted to his face with crimson blood. Lorna turned back to the Minister of Justice before her, the official of the docks, and smiled. Before the poor man could utter a word, hand clutched to his heart in shock, she had already fallen to her knees to shower him with thanks for rescuing her so gallantly from those "cochons - les anglais!"

She had immediately been placed under guard, not before being provided with a modestly drab dress and starched cap. The insolent pigs had stayed to watch as she had changed, snatching away her shirt as she had tried to hold it up as a meagre cover for her chest, but she said nothing, just turned to the wall whilst sliding the rough linen down over her skin.

Paris. Not many Englishwomen would have envied her her situation, but to Lorna it was the best outcome she could have wished for. It wasn't hard to deduce what was going on: they suspected her as an escaped aristocrat and were bringing her to tribunal in Paris, perhaps before the infamous Robespierre himself. But she wasn't in the least bit afraid - she had her lies well prepared and knew what she had to do…

The coach bounced and rattled over the rain-greased cobblestones that formed the twisting alleyways of France's figurehead city. The rain attacked the earth and the carriage-top so viscously that it seemed that God, himself, was trying to whip away the air of grime and the stench of blood that hung like a smog above the crooked little houses of les pauvres. Lorna could only catch glimpses, from her shadowed perch, of the views outside, but one image that seemed almost burned onto her staring retinas was that of a round square thronged with tiers of seating displaying a thousand jeering, pox-scabbed faces, which all screamed down at the tiny wooden platform to its centre. It was upon this insignificant little rostrum that, erect and malevolent, the jagged outline of the guillotine was starkly silhouetted against the low-hanging clouds. And it was with a fascination that Lorna's eyes followed it in their progress across the square and just as the carriage was whipped around the corner, her last sight of the monstrosity was that of the glittering blade, slick with blood, being hoisted jerkily into the rain-saturated atmosphere.

With the grim reminder of the consequences of failure lost to sight, Lorna turned back in to face her companions. The man-in-black's features were crinkled into what could only be a leering smile. Lorna made sure her face remained impassive as she met his gaze full on, and to her satisfaction it was he who flinched to direct his be-spectacled gaze at his black boots. The soldiers fingered their weapons but made no move to use them.

And so the journey continued, until the coach rattled to a jerking halt and Lorna felt herself thrown unceremoniously into the arms of yet another blue-coated frog, to be dragged brutally into the lair of the dragon, himself - the stone fortresses of Robespierre and the French tribunal.

Pushed and shoved, with her captor stealing pinches in places she would blush to admit, Lorna was herded into a small anteroom. Her guard did not forget to truss her hands together with some frayed chord, so tightly that her flesh blanched, and kiss her cheek bruisingly with his stubbled jaw before he quit the room; leaving her alone with two red spots of anger glowing where her dimples would normally have been and an irrepressible urge to kick the oaf in the small of his retreating back. The door slammed shut and she was conscious of the sight she must look with her tendrils of fringe once again free of the cap's constraints and her rough dress already raw and crumpled from the journey.

She waited in silence for what seemed an interminable amount of time before another door opened in front of her. Lorna could just glimpse a long table, behind which sat a row of high-backed chairs and swimming faces. She walked stiffly through the opening, her booted feet clicking uncomfortably on the polished flooring, her shoulders pulled back by the bindings. It was not even necessary for her to feign the look of angry indignance that was now radiating from her every feature. She glowered at her judges, whose faces she realised had seemed to be floating as each of the men, for that is what they were, were dressed solely in black, like bitter priests. She felt no fear of them as they stared at her, just held her head high and gazed coolly back.