Not a man she could stop loving.
And if she did not want to watch him die, she was going to have to save him.
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Silence ensued. Christina’s thoughts raced, weighing risks, calculating facts, until an idea gelled.
She smiled. “Greg, have you any idea if Hancock is still aboard The Dragon’s Lair? ”
“Yesterday he was. I suppose today should be no different.”
“Splendid. Gentlemen, gather round. I have a plan.”
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Shelley Bradley
Chapter Twenty
The noontime sun beat unmercifully hot for a still March day. Rivulets of sweat trailed down Drex’s back as he scanned the Tyburn Fair crowd for the golden face he longed to see. The scents of unwashed bodies hung in the damp air. In the distance, an odd boom, almost like cannon fire, rose above the crowd’s din.
“A good day for a hanging, don’t you think?” Reverend Brownlow Ford said beside him. “Any last words, a confession?”
Drex glared at Newgate’s Ordinary. “You’ll have to create a tale to embellish your broadsheet. I won’t give you anything.”
“Saint Sepulchre’s bell has been rung, my condemned friend, and confession is good for the soul.”
“As well as your purse.”
The distant boom blared again, but Drex did not spare energy worrying about the sound. The sea of faces swelled to new numbers around the scaffold, all of whom had come to watch the spectacle of his execution, rotten tomatoes and eggs in hand.
Drex dreaded this with every grain of his body. He wasn’t ready to die.
Damn it, he had only taken the actions duty and responsibility required. The Black Dragon had been his response when more civilized methods had failed.
Manchester shouldered his way through the crowd, glancing over his shoulder at faraway gunfire and black smoke. The red-faced old goat turned and fixed Drex with a sneer of triumph. “I’ve waited years for this day, you bastard. Watching you swing will give me unparalleled pleasure.”
“And what of Christina?”
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He paused. “It would seem that in twenty minutes, she will be my concern once more. Were I you, I’d wonder about my lengthening neck,” he jibbed before pivoting away and climbing the scaffold.
His father stood behind the Lord Admiral. He, too, glanced at the increasing sounds of the melee a few miles away, then turned back to place soothing arms about him. “Do not despair.”
The brief whisper puzzled Drex. Was he supposed to be pleased death would claim him this day?
“Where is Ryan? I want to say good bye.”
“He could not bear to watch,” Ashmont said, then turned away.
Could not bear? Disappointment permeated his every nerve. Granted, he would have been in no great hurry to witness his brother’s execution, but he would have bid his twin farewell.
Lady Allyn followed his father, acknowledging him with a simple nod, her expression as severe as ever.
Lord Allyn trailed his wife, wearing a smug sneer. “My brother may be mourning. Rest assured, I will celebrate over your grave.”
Drex turned his face away, jaw clenched.
Greg filed past next, looking surprisingly unruffled in a China blue coat.
“Do not lose faith, my friend.”
Drex had no time to examine Greg’s whisper before Christina emerged through the crowd, filling his vision. Dressed in a sedate gray, she approached him without expression. She looked tired, her eyes circled and purple-smudged with sleeplessness.
“I had hoped to see you again,” he murmured.
She bowed her head. “I did not come to watch you die.”
He frowned. “Then why?”
She shrugged, refusing to elaborate. The outlying boom sounded again, louder now. What was that noise?
“I’ve always loved you,” he said. “I want you to know that, and someday, I hope you will forgive me.”
“I’ve no intention of hating a dead man.”
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Shelley Bradley
With his hands bound behind his back, Drex was powerless to stop Christina from turning away and walking out of his life. And maybe he shouldn’t. Only a fool would tie her to a man who was all but dead. And after her impassioned speech in Newgate, only a dolt would believe his wife did not know what she wanted and deserved.
William Brunskill, the hangman, approached without expression. “I can make this painless, for the right price. Though the crowd does love to watch the condemned slowly choke.”
Drex closed his eyes, feeling as if the noose resting against his chest were tightening. “I will die either way. I hardly see where the manner in which I die makes a difference.”
Another boom was precipitated by a shrill whine. He cast a glance toward the noise, startled by the thick cloud of black smoke that hung over the harbor.
Was someone attacking?
The hangman shrugged off the sight. “As you like. The Under Sheriff will drive the cart out from beneath your feet and you will be left swinging from this beam of Triple Tree.” He pointed to the solid wooden length above him, which linked three trees together with three beams to form a triangle.
The executioner stepped on the scaffolding and gestured for the crowd’s attention. “Gentlemen and fair ladies,” he shouted, “I give you the man convicted of being one of England’s most notorious nemesis on the seas, the Black Dragon.”
The crowd booed its collective sentiment.
“He will hang by the neck until dead,” shouted Brunskill.
The blast of gunfire resounded above the noise of Tyburn Fair, almost silencing the crowd’s cheers.
Frowning, Drex searched the scaffold until he caught sight of Manchester.
The man’s pale eyes thinned with confusion as he looked south to the disturbance.
Brunskill turned back to the matter at hand. “Reverend Ford, have you last words to say upon this condemned man?”
“You in that condemned hold do lie, prepare you, for today you shall die!”
the berobed man began the ageless chant. “Watch all, and pray. The hour
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draws near that you before the Almighty must appear. Examine well yourself, in time repent, that you may not the eternal flames be sent. Now that Saint Sepulchre’s bell has tolled, the Lord above have mercy on your soul.”
Brunskill tightened the noose about his neck. The crowd cheered. Drex refused to hang in head in shame. England was not his country. If he died upholding his beliefs, he would die, not happily, but honorably.
He sought Christina with his gaze. She stood beside her grandfather, head bowed. The angelic cloud of her golden hair framed her pale features. Though he had destroyed her trust, he wished that, before he died, he could prove to her that he’d never meant to hurt her.
But time had run out.
The hangman turned to the Under Sheriff to give the signal that would pull the cart from beneath him. Drex’s gut tightened like a fist. Sweat drizzled down his forehead, stinging into his eyes. He gave a last desperate yank on the rope binding his wrists behind his back. The knot refused to budge.
Suddenly, another shrill whine rent the still. A boom followed, this time so powerful, the ground shook.
Women gasped and clutched their children tighter. The horses hitched to Drex’s cart pawed the earth in nervously.
“What the devil is going on?” Manchester shouted.
A naval officer on horseback galloped through the crowd, which parted like pouring water over a rock. He reached the scaffolding, dismounted, then saluted Manchester.
“My Lord Admiral, the harbor is under attack.”
“Damn French!” Christina’s grandfather swore. “Forever making war.
Gather more men to fight them, captain.”
“Not the French, your grace. The Black Dragon.”
Shock stung Drex. The Black Dragon? He jerked his gaze to the scaffold.