‘You could have run away,’ Kitty said.
‘No! No… I had to stay here. For Ned.’
She didn’t know that Ned was her brother. I’d thought he might have told her by now – but then he had always worried about Judith. She was so fragile. I shook my head.
‘He loves me,’ Judith cried, mistaking me.
‘Quiet,’ Kitty warned.
‘Why do you not believe me?’ she wailed. ‘I told Father and he laughed at me. He called me a silly slut. He said that he would never let me marry Ned or anyone else. He said he would send Ned away. He pinned me down and he beat me. I thought he would kill me.’
Ahh… here was the Burden I remembered. And I had almost begun to feel sorry for him.
‘Then he announced that he would marry Alice. And I thought, Oh, no, Father. You shall not. You shall die and everyone will think it was Alice or Mr Hawkins.’ She laughed again.
I rose and walked to the shuttered window, loosening the catch. It would be light soon. I had the truth, from the lips of the murderer, but would she confess it in public, without a pistol to her chest? Of course not. I rested my head against the cool windowpane.
‘You let me hang, Judith,’ I said, turning back to the bed. ‘You knew I was innocent, and you let me die in your place.’
‘Innocent? You killed a man, when you were in gaol. The world knows it.’
Kitty began to laugh. It was a mean, dangerous laugh.
Judith pulled anxiously on the ties at her wrists. ‘Why do you laugh at me?’
Kitty smiled at her. ‘I meant to kill you,’ she said. ‘But this will be much better. To let you live and suffer. I thought I’d lost Tom for ever. It broke my heart. So now, Judith, I shall break yours.’
‘Kitty…’ I said softly, in warning.
She ignored me. ‘Has Ned asked for your hand?’
Judith fell still. ‘He will. I know he will. He must…’
Kitty laughed again. ‘Poor Judith. You have no idea, do you? Ned doesn’t love you. He can’t love you. Shall I tell you why?’ Kitty pressed her lips to Judith’s ear, soft as a kiss. ‘He’s your brother.’
Three words. Each one a blade.
‘No.’
‘That’s why your father refused his permission. Ned Weaver is your brother, Judith. He will never be yours.’
‘No!’ Judith screamed – a long, terrible wail. It tore through the room, a sound of desolation and despair.
Kitty slapped a hand across Judith’s mouth, but it was too late. There was a thud as a door opened wide, followed by a short scuffle. I jumped from the bed, Kitty still struggling to silence Judith.
Stephen burst into the room holding his father’s sword, closely followed by Sam. Stephen’s courage fled the instant he saw me, a living spectre standing over his sister’s bed. His legs buckled and he collapsed to the floor. The sword clattered from his hand. ‘Oh, God!’ he cried, hands clasped in prayer. ‘Protect me from this devil.’
I kicked the sword over to Sam. ‘I am not a devil, Stephen.’ I pulled down my collar, so he might see the burns upon my throat.
Stephen stopped praying. He raised his eyes to mine. ‘The Lord spared you,’ he said, in a dazed wonder. ‘He heard my prayers and in His wisdom He spared you. Oh, praise God!’
I frowned at him. Why would Stephen pray for his father’s killer? Why was he so glad to find me alive? I remembered his empty room, the portrait of his sister stamped into the floor. I remembered he had hit Judith that first morning, after she had cried Murder! Not to calm her down, after all – but in anger. In shame.
‘You knew I was innocent.’
He began to weep.
Stephen had guessed his sister was guilty the moment he saw his father’s body. The rage of the attack had convinced him. He’d lived under the same roof in the days leading up to the murder, and had heard them fighting. Watched as his father beat Judith for speaking out. Heard her crying in her room, tears of hatred and frustration. He’d seen her face when Burden announced he would marry Alice, and banish Ned from the house. When Stephen walked into his father’s bedroom and saw the blood and the knife, he’d known. But then he’d pushed the truth from his mind. It was too painful, too horrifying to accept. ‘She’s my sister. I couldn’t…’
‘You let me hang for it.’
Stephen dropped his head. ‘The jury found you guilty.’
‘But you knew, Stephen. In your heart you knew it was Judith.’
He began to cry again, great gulps. ‘I prayed for you, sir. Over and over in my room. I swear it.’
Judith glared at him from the bed, disgusted. She pulled again at the rags about her wrists, struggling to free herself. ‘So. What now, Brother? Will you betray me? Will you let me burn?’
A burning. The punishment for petty treason. The king rules his people, and a father rules his family. For a girl to murder her father was the same, in law, as murdering her king. She would be burned at the stake if she were caught. I had not considered this.
‘You killed our father, Judith!’ Stephen cried.
‘Well? What of it? How many times did we dream of it? How many times did we pray for it? Do you not remember, the last time he beat you for daring to speak against him? He would have killed you if Ned had not begged him to stop. I had to kill him, Stephen. I had to kill him because you were too weak.’
Stephen jumped up and ran from the room. Kitty ran after him. ‘He’ll wake Ned,’ she hissed.
‘Stay here,’ I ordered Sam. ‘Keep her quiet.’
Stephen had not run far – only back to his father’s room across the landing. He was crouched over a chamber pot, puking loudly. Kitty and I stared at one another helplessly. What now?
‘Where is Ned?’ I wondered. We had made enough noise to wake half the street. Surely he must have heard us by now.
‘He left us,’ Stephen sniffed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
Kitty crinkled her nose. The air now stank of fresh vomit, laced with the usual bedroom smells of a fifteen-year-old boy. ‘Where did he go?’
‘I don’t know. In search of work, I suppose. The business is in ruins. Father spent all the money.’ He hung his head. ‘There’s nothing left but debts.’
Kitty touched my arm. ‘Tom. That’s why Burden planned to marry Alice. The debts.’
Of course. It had always puzzled me, why Burden would marry his housekeeper. Even more so once I’d heard Gabriela’s story. Now I understood. He had not loved Alice – of course not. But he knew his life was in danger. If he died, then all his debts would pass to his family – to Stephen and Judith. But if he married Alice and named her in his will, she would be forced to take on all the responsibility for repayment. Thank God he had died before Alice married him. She might have spent the rest of her life rotting in a debtors’ gaol.
‘We owe money to half the town.’ Stephen sobbed. ‘And my sister. My sister… What am I to do?’
I glanced at Kitty and could guess what she was thinking. Learn to fend for yourself, the same as every other wretched soul in this world. He had let me hang, after all. But I did not have the heart to hate him. He was a boy – older than Sam in years, but younger in so many ways. His father was dead, and all he’d inherited was debt. He might well be thrown in gaol now, instead of Alice.
So I said nothing, and the room fell very quiet. The whole house, indeed, was silent.