Wild Conquest. Hannah Howell

and her hurt had grown. Now, at the end of the third day, she was forced to accept the truth—they had deserted her. The look on Corbin’s face as he carried her meal into the cell and set the tray on the table told her that she was right to feel abandoned. She suspected he had dreaded telling her, and that was why he had avoided her, sending his elder manservant to see to all her needs.

      “You can tell me, Master Matthias. I will not crumple into a weeping, wailing mass of self-pity,” she said as she stood up and fruitlessly tried to smooth out her dress and tidy her hair.

      “Tell you what?” Corbin nervously fiddled with her eating utensils.

      “That my family has decided to throw me to the wolves.” She sat down at the table and gave him a weary smile.

      “You cannot be certain of that.” He began to pace the cell as she ate.

      “Oh, aye, I can, and you know it too. You sought them out, so you must have their reply.”

      He stopped pacing and rubbed his hand over his chin. “It could be shock. They will come around soon, before the trial.”

      Pleasance told herself she was glad he had not revealed exactly what her family had said. His words had confirmed her worst fears and that hurt enough. She ate the thick fish stew, but tasted very little of it, as she fought not to give in to her despair.

      “If Master O’Duine insists upon pressing charges, then the trial will go on,” she said.

      “Once the charges were made, ’twas mostly out of his hands.”

      “Of course. And when is the trial?”

      “In four days. There is yet time for your family to come to your aid, perhaps even to come to some agreement with Tearlach, or myself and the other magistrates.”

      “The magistrates? I am to have a trial before just the magistrates? No jury? No one to speak in my defense?”

      “Nay. That requires coin, you know.”

      “And no one is willing to pay it.” Although she heard herself say the words, she found them hard to believe.

      Corbin cleared his throat. “Well, the cost of your imprisonment is being paid.”

      “I see. No help to free me, but they condescend to assure that I am properly imprisoned.” She pushed the bowl away, surprised to see that it was almost empty. “I guess I am to be left to hang.”

      “We no longer hang thieves, Mistress Dunstan.”

      “But you do a lot more I shall undoubtedly find uncomfortable. And I am not a mere thief. I also attacked a man.”

      “Tell me what really happened, what the full truth is, and I can help you,” Corbin pleaded.

      He sounded so sincere, she was tempted. Her family had deserted her and thus forfeited her blind loyalty. Two things held her back—her own sense of honor and a need to protect her brother Nathan from the scandal. She glanced toward her cloak draped over the end of her cot and thought of the lockpick. She would remain silent. If all else failed, she still had the option of escape.

      “There is nothing to say,” she murmured, and concentrated on drinking her cider, thus avoiding Corbin’s look of frustration. “When is the trial?”

      “I told you—in four days.”

      Pleasance sighed. It would be a long wait, especially if her family continued to ignore her plight. Corbin left and she returned to her cot and laid down, finally giving way to the tears she had held back since her arrest.

      She was alone, utterly alone.

      Chapter Three

      A shiver went through Pleasance as she washed her face. The hot water Corbin had brought her had quickly lost its warmth in the cool cell. She hurriedly dried off and redonned her clothes, grimacing over their sad condition. A week in the cell had ruined her dress, and she had been given no other clothes. She would present a rather pathetic sight when she stood trial.

      She still found it hard to believe she was in this situation. Her family was sacrificing her to save themselves and their precious Letitia. Pleasance’s hurt had changed to fury days ago. That emotion flickered through the deep chill that had invaded her body, and she would try to keep it to the fore. It would help her endure the ordeal ahead of her.

      When Corbin arrived to take her to the courthouse, she slipped on her cloak. As he led her out of the cellar to the rear drive where a carriage waited, she covertly eased her hand into the pocket where she had hidden her lockpick. Her fingers curled around the cool iron pick, and she felt some of her fears ease. She was not completely without hope. As Corbin helped her into the carriage, she told herself that the option of escape and flight would help her remain strong in the face of her family’s indifference.

      It took every ounce of strength she possessed, but Pleasance forced her weary, cold body to remain upright as she was brought before the magistrates. Her confidence had left her the moment she had faced the huge crowd in the meetinghouse. Now she only felt the numbness that a week in the chill, dank cellars of Corbin Matthias’s home had left her with.

      Pleasance slowly lifted her gaze to her family. Her father, mother, Letitia, and Lawrence sat in the front pews of the large meetinghouse next to John Martin and his parents. All of them blatantly ignored her. Despite her desperate situation, she felt a flicker of hope. Her brother Nathan was not among them, which meant he had not yet returned from his journey to Philadelphia and possibly knew nothing of her plight. She could continue to hope that at least Nathan might still care. That was enough to help her regain a little calm and an air of dignity.

      She stood perfectly erect in a small enclosed area just to the right of the long table at which the four magistrates sat. The meetinghouse was full, every seat on the hard wooden pews taken. There were even a few people standing at the far back near the doors. Many people idly fanned themselves, for this first week of September was proving to be uncomfortably hot.

      Pleasance suspected it was the Dunstan name that had brought so many people to her trial. Everyone except her own family was studying her carefully. She knew they wondered—as she did—why she was not having a trial by jury and why there was no one to defend her, as was usual for the wealthy. No doubt it surprised more than a few citizens to learn that she was being treated like an indigent criminal. Her family was not expending any effort or coin on her behalf.

      Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she covertly glanced at Tearlach O’Duine, who sat tall and expressionless in front of the fascinated crowd. She knew she ought to be glad she had not killed him when she hit him on the side of the head, but at the moment she was not.

      Her anger at him was nearly as great as her fury at her family. True, she had treated him poorly, but she did not deserve this humiliation. Nothing her family had done to him warranted such revenge. At best he had suffered stung pride, perhaps a little heartbreak. His accusations and this trial were going to ruin her entire life. He could go home and soon everyone would forget his part in it all, if they had not done so already. But she would be a pariah, a leper, cast out by even her closest relations.

      Tearlach suddenly turned and their gazes met. He held her look and she briefly softened. There was regret, even sympathy, in his expression. Then she sternly reminded herself that he was the one who had had her arrested. She sent him one cold, hate-filled glare and turned away, thinking bitterly that facing him as her accuser before the magistrates was a drastic way to be cured of her infatuation with him.

      Inwardly, Tearlach winced when he caught her glare before she presented a very stiff back to him. He had never intended to take his accusations so far. He had expected her family to extract her from this brangle, yet they acted as if she were a stranger to them. They had inquired after her only once, immediately following her arrest, and that had simply been to ask what her story was. Told that she had yet to explain herself, they had urged Letitia forward and the girl had spun a tale that had left him gaping.

      Tremulously, with an admirable show