Mary, Matthew, Bates, and Thomas all leaped to block Anna's path. "Anna, what do you think you're doing?" Mary asked.
Her one-time servant looked at her with the hardest eyes she'd ever seen. "You know it's the right thing to do. You've probably always known. But no, you had to try and be clever, because of some hundred year old story. Well, I'm putting a stop to all that, so get out of my way."
Matthew stepped forward and grabbed her arm roughly. "I don't want to hurt you, Anna, but I will if I have to."
Anna matched his glare. "You really do mean it, don't you? But as I recall, you've got no real stake in this, do you? Patrick and Edith did nothing to you, and you're only part of this because you're the idea man." She tried to pull her arm loose, but it wouldn't budge.
Matthew put his other hand on her shoulder, and forced her back a step. Her legs hit a chair, and she was forced to sit. "They hurt Mary. And if you want me to have a stake, that's it. They hurt the woman I love."
That almost made her drop the knife, and Matthew himself even looked a bit shocked that he'd said it. Mary walked up behind him and gently laid a hand on his shoulder.
Anna continued her defiant gaze. "They hurt me worse. How long was it before your Grandmama and all her riches took you in? Less time than I spent in prison, I know that much. And the things that happened to me, the things I was forced to do…well, look at me right now. If I don't have the right, who does?"
Now Bates finally stepped up and leveled a stern look at his lover. "No one. Not like this. I'm a criminal, I won't deny it, but I can at least pride myself that I don't stoop so low as what you're doing. I love you, but if you do this, I can't be with you any longer. I hope that'll get through to you, if nothing else does."
Tears began to leak from Anna's eyes. "So that's it, then? You're all standing against me?"
Matthew bent down so their faces were level, still keeping his grip on her hand. "Please don't think of it that way. Just-"
But that was the moment when Anna balled up her other hand and struck him directly in the eye. He cried out and lost his grip on her, and she shot up and brandished the knife at everyone, causing them to all take a couple steps back while Matthew remained moaning on the floor. "I'm going now. If anyone tries to stop me, I'm sure you know what will happen."
None of them spoke any further. They all seemed to agree they'd done their best to get through to her, and there was nothing more to say. But when she opened the door, she was quite surprised to see Inspector Vyner just about to ring the bell.
The policeman looked at her triumphantly. "Well, this is an auspicious moment. I've been quite looking forward to meeting you, my dear." His eyes dropped to the knife in her hand. "I'd suggest you put that down before you make things worse for yourself."
Anna's entire posture slumped, and she dropped the knife to the floor. As much as she'd been hardened by her time in prison, it seemed the presence of a law officer still held power over her. Then Vyner took a closer look at her hand, and the bandage on it. "You've hurt one of your fingers, I see. Would you mind if I asked how?"
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Anna hadn't said a word as Vyner escorted her out of the house, and the others could hardly raise much of a fuss to stop him with their own precarious legal positions. But as soon as he left, Matthew, still rubbing his eye, said, "What do we do now?"
Thomas cleared his throat. "As it happens, I've been working on an idea for this situation. We all knew it might happen, after all. Unfortunately, it involves a rather painful action on my part, so I've been putting it off and hoping I wouldn't have to go through that for nothing, so now we'll have to wait a couple weeks at least before I can do it."
Mary looked him straight in the eyes. "Whatever you're talking about, that isn't an option. The poor woman spent years in prison because of my cousin getting back at me, and I won't let her go through any more on my behalf. I'd imagine that even now the mere thought of going back to that is killing her inside."
Now Bates spoke up. "And I certainly won't let her spend any more time there either. I know what it's like. So the question remains, what do we do?"
At that moment, the door opened and Sybil and Branson let themselves in. "So a job well done, I'd say," said Sybil cheerfully.
Everyone glared daggers at them.
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Branson, having just the barest acquaintance with any of the people involved, couldn't be very emotionally invested as Mary laid out the terrible price of what they had done the previous night. Sybil, on the other hand, quickly collapsed onto the floor and barely held on to consciousness. It was a while before she could stop crying enough to speak coherently.
"Papa and Mama. How will they ever be able to look at me again?"
Mary was brought up short, as this was a new wrinkle she hadn't been able to consider, so wrapped up in what had happened to Rose and then Anna. "I wish I could tell you."
After a few more seconds of obvious straining to force the tears back, Sybil got back up. "I'll think about that later. You say that Anna's been arrested?" At everyone's nods she went on, "And it just happened. That means there's time."
Branson walked up to her. "Now hold on. We've done our part, haven't we?"
Sybil glared at him. "This is my family. Staff is included in that. And I may not be able to fix much of the mess I've made here, but this is something I can do. You can help or not."
He sighed. "I never have been able to say no to you. So what's the plan?"
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"You can save us both a lot of trouble if you just tell me the whole story now," said Vyner.
Anna continued to sulk silently in the car's back seat. She rarely went out these days without a knife up her sleeve, but the news about Rose had shaken her so much that she'd forgotten and only had the one the detective had spotted. Stupid. And now she would be paying for it the rest of her life.
Vyner went on, "We'll get it out of you, you know. We've pieced together a lot about how it went down, and that missing fingernail of yours is a big piece of it. There's no way you're getting out of this, and you have to know that, so I'd say you're protecting someone else. Was it over some man you both had your eye on, perhaps?"
Anna did her best not to give any sign of how close he'd gotten. But she didn't get to see how successful she was, as ahead of them there appeared two masked and cloaked figures leaning against a car that was blocking the entire road.
Vyner slammed on the brakes. "Well, this is a new one for me." Anna noted with some satisfaction that from his tone, he was clearly struggling to not let his own shock show. "There's nowhere to run to now, so don't be getting any ideas. I'm going to see what this is about, and I'll be right back."
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Sybil had debated whether to bring their outfits along to England. They came in quite handy for concealing the group's identities and providing a symbol for the people to rally behind and the oppressors to fear, but it was those very aspects that also made it a risk if some crew member discovered it on their way over. But she'd ultimately decided that she was taking a risk either way so she might as well be prepared, and she was quite glad of that decision now.
The downside is that while the components for the explosives she'd brought could be packaged separately so each one wouldn't arouse suspicion, there was no chance of doing it with guns, which would have come in handy in this situation. As a result, she'd had to improvise a bit.
As Vyner approached, she held her hand out. "That's far enough. Take one more step forward and my associate will be quite happy to relieve you of your head." She was quite proud of the Irish accent she'd developed. Branson naturally said it still needed some work, but for someone like this who'd probably never heard a real one in his life it should do quite well.
Branson wasn't actually holding a gun, of course. But the heavy cloak did quite a good job of disguising the bedpost they'd hastily chopped off, with its shape creating a quite convincing impression of a rifle. Their typical approach to these confrontations was for him to not say a word, and let his larger frame do the job of intimidating the target while Sybil put on a threatening contralto that put them on edge even more.
Vyner put his hands up in surrender, with a scowl on his face. "All right, I won't move. But I've got to get down this road, so just tell me what you want and let's get this over with."
Sybil barked out a laugh. "It's simple. We want that woman you're taking."
Vyner stared steadily at her. "I'm a policeman doing his duty, and this woman is under strong suspicion of having committed a murder. And incidentally, someone like you assisting her does not help her case."
The man had more guts against her than some others had. Sybil found herself oddly admiring it. "Whether she is what you say doesn't matter at the moment. All you need to worry about is that we want her, and we get what we want. I imagine you've heard of the troubles going on in the country next door you've been subjugating?"
A vague look of worry began to enter Vyner's eyes. "You mean Queen Mab. I never cared for the name, it strikes me as far too pretentious."
Sybil had dealt with this attitude a bit in the early days, but the English living in Ireland quickly grew to genuinely fear her. Seeing it again was a bit of a shock, but she refused to let it throw her off her game. "But you can't argue with results. You know what I'm willing to do."
Vyner shrugged. "Oh yes, I know. And I'll hand the lady over, don't worry, but you should realize you're on our land now, and this isn't going to end here. There are far more people here willing to help me track you down than in your home, and I refuse to shirk my duties. So you'd better just kill me right now if you're not prepared for that."
Sybil nodded. "Whether you believe it or not, I do have respect for your position. So if you'll just give us what we want, we can all go on our way, and I look forward to seeing you again."
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It was shortly after Sybil and Branson left that all eyes turned to Thomas. "So, what exactly is this plan you had?" said Mary. "Because I'd say whatever ends up happening now, we're going to need it."
Thomas got a look of trepidation. "Yes, I suppose we will." And then Mary was confused to see him walk over to the wall, raise his hand…and then lower it again. He then took a couple deep breaths, only to repeat the motion. Finally he shouted "Oh for god's sake!" and Mary was shocked to see him quickly scratch his finger down the wall, the hard surface causing a good deal of his fingernail to rip away.
The man gave a horrible scream, and collapsed to the floor. As Matthew and Bates ran to him, Mary headed to get ice and a towel. Upon getting back, she set to work doing what little she could, and said, "What on earth is this?"
Thomas' face was pale, and his first few attempts to speak were subsumed by further moans of pain. But at last he was able to get back some form of coherence. "The only thing I've been able to think of. Give the police someone else to pin the crime on. After a while it'll be harder to tell just how old the wound is, so it could well have been me."
Matthew said, "But how is this any better? Someone's still going to prison either way."
Thomas chuckled grimly. "But what is lost? None of you can know what it's like to love only your own sex. Being terrified day in and day out that the wrong person will find out, and not being able to approach anyone because you don't know if they're the same way. And on top of that, my career is going nowhere. Now Anna, she has a chance that I don't. She has friends, and she has love. And I won't let her spend another day behind bars if there's anything I can do to prevent it."
Mary replied, "If you weren't already in enough pain, I'd slap you. You think you don't have friends? Everyone in this room is your friend, and we'll help you if you let us. And I think you knew that, or else you would have told us about this fool idea before you did something you can't take back."
Thomas looked down. "I suppose you're right. But it doesn't change anything. Anna is still in danger, and I don't see any other way to help."
Mary sighed. "All right. But we're not letting you go, either. If it does end up happening this way, we'll do our best to get you out too."
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Patrick's mood had shifted all day as he went through one half-baked idea to the next of how to get their money back. Edith was seriously worried that he was losing his mind. Finally he had just gone racing out of the house, giving no explanation to her. It was now starting to get dark, and she was worried he might be dead in a ditch somewhere.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Thomas, who entered the room followed by none other than the Countess Aine. Edith frowned at the breach of protocol, but she supposed the American was still having a hard time getting her head around all those rules.
Except when the Countess spoke, it was in a flawless upper-class English accent. "I imagine you've had quite a day." Just as Edith was starting to wonder where she knew the voice from, the woman lifted her mask, revealing a face she'd never expected to see again. "It's time we hashed things out once and for all."
