Close the lantern, Lucy.”
Lucy did as he said. Charlotte saw the glimmer of firelight behind a building ahead. She hadn’t gotten very far from the village. Ethan pulled up, stopping near a stone wall that did nothing to hide them.
The murmuring roar of the mob reached them. There were more shouts. It sounded like men arguing with each other. “On to Butterley,” a voice shouted.
“That’s the leader,” Charlotte said.
“Got to get out of sight,” said Ethan, again as if he were talking to himself. The leader’s voice repeated the command, sounding closer. Then Charlotte heard many footsteps, marching. “Right. The Finlays,” Ethan muttered. He slapped the reins and moved forward, turned the cart into a narrow lane between two houses, and then into a yard behind the closest one.
It was only just in time. The head of the mob came into view on the road they’d just left. “Don’t move,” whispered Ethan.
They sat still as statues while the marchers passed. Charlotte’s pulse beat in her throat. It seemed an eternity before the road was clear. “Get down, quiet like, and go to the back door,” murmured Ethan then. Charlotte and Lucy obeyed, scurrying to the house. Ethan tied up the horse, then joined then. He knocked lightly on the door. “Mrs. Finlay?” he said softly. “Sarah Finlay?”
There was no response. They all looked over their shoulders, fearing stragglers.
“Mrs. Finlay,” he repeated to the blank panels. “It’s Ethan Trask.”
There was a long moment’s silence, then the door opened. Only a hint of light showed. A figure loomed in the dim illumination and raised a club to strike.
***
The patter of hurrying footsteps brought Alec a moment’s wild hope. “Who’s that? Charlotte?” The sound stopped. Alec raised the lantern and shone it into the lane. “Who’s there? Show yourself.”
A burly fellow dressed like a laborer stepped slowly forward, holding his hands up to prove their emptiness.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“I’m on my way home, sir,” the man answered, responding to Alec’s accent and commanding tone.
“Home from where at this hour?”
“I was just… out. Visiting, like.”
“Did you see a young woman anywhere along this road?”
“A woman? No, sir. I ain’t seen nobody since I left the…” His deep voice trembled and died away.
“What’s wrong? Is there some trouble?” What if Charlotte had run into another of the countrymen’s barricades? “I need you to tell me if there is. I am Alec Wylde. My land is nearby.”
The man’s head bobbed nervously. “Heerd tell of you, sir. A fine gentl’man, they say.”
“I’ve been doing my best to help the people hereabouts. Tell me what is happening.”
“I was… I didn’t mean nothing…” The big man shuddered, and his shoulders slumped. “They killed someone dead in South Wingfield, sir. I wouldn’t stay with them after that.”
“Who did?” Alec’s heart contracted painfully. “Who was killed?”
“I dunno, sir. Someone in a house. What I do know is they’ll swing for it. And I ain’t going to the gallows for somethin’ I had no part of. I didn’t sign on for killing.”
Charlotte would not have been in a village house, Alec told himself. “Who are ‘they’?”
“Men from the village and the countryside, sir. They’ve marched off to storm the Butterley ironworks or some such. Then on to Nottingham. Jere… someone told them they’d get beef and ale and weapons—money even—down there.”
“They’ll get soldiers and the noose,” replied Alec harshly. All his work and talk had gone for nothing then.
“’Speck you’re right. That’s why I left them when they turned off a little way back. I’m headed home, fast as I can go.” The big man shifted uneasily in the lantern light. “Will you tell the magistrate and all that I didn’t go with the others, and I didn’t hold with what they done back there, if they come to ask?”
Alec surveyed his anxious round face. “I will. What is your name?”
“Standish, sir. Bob Standish. Live up toward Wheatcroft.”
“Very well, Bob.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You’d best get back home.”
The man nodded and hurried past Alec’s horse and into the darkness beyond. He would know the country well enough to reach home in the night.
Alec sat still another moment. Clearly, it was his duty to go to South Wingfield and see about this shooting. If Charlotte had fled the other way… if he’d been certain of that, he would have consigned his duty to perdition. But he wasn’t. She might as easily have gone toward the village—and encountered the mob. His blood ran cold at the idea.
Flicking the reins of his tired