As the hackney carriage made its way along Paternoster Row she asked, ‘Is there any reason why I cannot walk around outside with Nancy while you are with the lawyer? The sun is shining, the shops seem to be cheaper than they are in Mayfair...’
Will nodded as they drew up in a narrow lane. ‘I do not see why not. You can hardly get lost, not with the dome of St Paul’s to act as a landmark. Shall we say you will be back here in an hour?’ He helped them both out, making Nancy blush at the attention, then pointed. ‘Go down Ave Maria Lane there and turn left and you’ll find all the shops around St Paul’s Churchyard.’ He felt in the breast of his coat and handed her some folded banknotes. ‘Do not let anyone see you have that.’
‘Thank you.’ Julia cast a quick look round, found the lane almost deserted and stood on tiptoe to drop a swift kiss on Will’s cheek.
‘Cupboard love,’ he said with a smile and paid off the cab.
The previous day had been unalloyed pleasure. Julia had not felt at all alarmed in the fashionable streets, despite the numbers of people. On Will’s arm, and in such fashionable lounges, her fears seemed foolish. Now she set off with confidence, Nancy at her side. They emerged from Ave Maria Lane to find themselves on a busy street with a pronounced slope. ‘Ludgate Hill,’ Julia said with the certainty of someone who had studied the map.
‘My lord said to go left,’ Nancy said as Julia turned downhill.
‘I know, but see this silversmith’s shop—is that not a delightful ink stand? I think something like that would make an admirable present for Lord Dereham.’
And the next shop down was a print seller with amusing cartoons in the window. And the next a jeweller’s, its window stuffed with enticing oddments.
‘My lady, it is getting rather crowded.’
Julia looked up. In front of them a press of people were heading into a street parallel to Ave Maria Lane. They were noisy, a motley crowd of working people and tradesmen, men and women. They seemed in good humour, but Julia’s old fears came flooding back to cramp her stomach.
‘Yes, we must turn back.’ As they did so another crowd swept down the hill towards them. ‘Nancy!’ Julia was jostled, caught up. She struggled to find her feet and fight her way back, but she was carried, like driftwood on a stream, down the hill and round the corner.
Julia tried not to panic, knowing if she struggled she would simply exhaust herself or fall and be trampled. She let herself be borne along and tried to think coherently. Nancy would be all right, she was sure, for she had been further up the hill. If she could just get to the end of this street and turn right, go uphill again, keeping St Paul’s in sight and then turn right, surely she’d be back in Ave Maria Lane?
Then the movement began to slow. She was still crushed against unwashed bodies and rough clothing, but at least there was no longer any danger of falling over and being trampled. Julia stared around and found the street had widened into a square shaped like a funnel. The crowd milled about, elbowing for room, but everyone faced the building that towered over them on her right. Wedged in place, she had no option but to turn with them. In front of her was the massive bulk of a grim stone building.
‘What is that?’ she asked the man at her side, a prosperous shopkeeper, she guessed.
‘Why, that is Newgate Prison, ma’am. Aren’t you here for the hanging, then?’ He pointed and her reluctant gaze followed. High above the heads of the mob, the scaffold and the noose stood waiting for their first victim of the day.
‘Let me out!’ Julia turned and burrowed through the tight-packed spectators, fear and desperation lending her strength as she used her elbows and pushed, shoved, wriggled through every tiny gap that opened up, like a mouse through long grass with a hawk hovering above. Her bonnet was dragged off, she lost a shoe, but there was a thinning of the crowd ahead of her and she fought her way towards it.
Laughter, improbable in this mayhem, made her glance up to the right. There was an inn and, surrounding the swinging inn sign, its windows were crowded with people laughing and chatting as if they were in the boxes at a play. Horrible, she thought. How could they? And then a woman turned and nudged her husband and pointed at her and she found herself staring up at Jane and Arthur Prior, her cousins.
Julia gasped, stumbled and when she looked up they had gone. It was imagination, that was all, she told herself as she struggled on, the panic beating in her chest like a trapped bird against a window. With shocking suddenness she was finally out of the press, stumbling on the uneven cobbles. Her unshod foot jarred against a stone and she fell, throwing out her hands in a vain attempt to save herself.
The cobbles were rough, disgustingly dirty and wet. Her hands hurt. Almost winded, Julia lay where she was, felt the blood oozing through the split in her glove and wondered if her heart was going to burst.
‘Julia! Sweetheart, it is all right. I’m here. Are you hurt?’
And, miraculously, there Will was, gathering her up in his arms. Julia turned her face to his shoulder and clung on as he lifted her, then carried her to a hackney carriage where Nancy waited, white-faced.
‘My lady—oh, your poor hands.’
‘Just grazed. I am not hurt otherwise,’ she managed to reassure them as Will gently opened her fingers and wrapped them in his handkerchief, still holding her hard against himself. ‘Are you all right, Nancy?’ Concern for someone else helped, she realised. The panic was ebbing, her breath was calming.
‘I am fine, my lady, just all shaken up. I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t reach you, or see you, so I ran back to the lawyers and made them get my lord. What was it, my lady? A riot?’
‘No, a hanging.’ She would not be sick, not if she closed her eyes and thought of nothing but Will’s arms around her, keeping her safe.
‘It is Newgate Prison,’ he said, his voice grim. ‘I should have warned you not to go that way, it isn’t very salubrious at the best of times, but when there’s an execution it is a glimpse into hell.’
‘People were watching from the windows, as if it were a play,’ she managed. Jane and Arthur. It couldn’t be. It was my imagination, my fear, a couple who looked a little like them. I haven’t seen them for almost four years, she comforted herself. They will have changed, I wouldn’t recognise them now if I really saw them. I am safe with Will, I don’t imagine things when he is here.
‘It is disgusting,’ Will muttered, his voice rough with anger. ‘They moved the hangings from Tyburn because it was supposed to be more civilised to do it outside the prison instead of parading the condemned through the streets to the place of execution. It is not my definition of civilised. Just try to relax, sweetheart. I’ve got you safe.’
‘I know,’ Julia murmured and closed her eyes so that her entire world became just Will. She inhaled slowly and there was the familiar smell of his skin, of clean linen and the sharp male edge of fresh sweat. He had run, and run hard, to reach her. The feel of him was familiar too, the strength that made her feel so safe, the warmth of that big, desirable body under fine linen and smooth broadcloth. She listened to the sound of his heartbeat against her ear, a little ragged still. Home. I am home when I am with him.
Will cared for her, he was angry for her. He shifted a little to hold her more securely and she felt his cheek press against her hair and something happened in her chest as if a bell had tolled silently, reverberating through her whole body.
I love him. She felt herself go still as though to move would shatter the moment, break the spell. This was nothing like her emotions for Jonathan, this was a deeply complex, rich emotion like velvet swirling around her feelings. It was not about desire or liking or respect, although those were all in there somewhere. It was inexplicable and unexplainable and that, she supposed, was how she knew it was love.
She would tell him this evening