A Lily Among Thorns(96)
Exposed to view, Jenny’s cornflower blue eyes were wide. “What—what am I accused of?” she asked with a sort of plaintive dignity, trying modestly to put her clothing back to rights.
Serena glanced at Solomon and saw the pity in his eyes. Men.
She would have liked to take the gun back, but Jenny’s best chance to escape was while they were switching. “Espionage and high treason.”
Jenny laughed shakily. “But that—that’s impossible!”
Serena didn’t like Jenny; she never had. But she wanted this to be over. She wanted it desperately. “You’re good,” she said. “Maybe even good enough to get off. But I doubt it. Not after you attempted to flee the country with every penny you had the day Sacreval realized you were all compromised—as myself, Mr. Hathaway, and the hackney driver can all testify. Not after Mr. Rothschild gives the Crown your bank records, and they show that your deposits were made under an assumed name, stopped abruptly last April at the beginning of the Peace, and corresponded precisely with the schedule of payments from Sacreval to his informants.”
Jenny, thinking this over, bit the inside of her lower lip in a way that made her mouth look full and pouty. “How much would I have to pay you to let me go?”
“There is no question of letting you go.”
“I’ll give you half of what I have here.” She shifted in her seat, spreading her legs a little. “I’ll give you anything you want.” She looked between Serena and Solomon, searching for signs of softening.
Serena couldn’t help but feel a twisted kinship with her. Enough to tell her the truth. “Sacreval has forged documents proving we are married. If he is condemned for treason, he’ll certainly try to ensure that the Arms are forfeit to the Crown. I need the Crown in my debt just now. I can’t let you go.”
“Then you should understand why I did it,” Jenny said fiercely. “I needed the money. I could save the pittance he gives me for pin money for a hundred years and not have enough to get away from Pursleigh.”
Serena wanted very much to look away, but she kept her eyes firmly on Jenny’s face, watching for sudden movements. “I do understand. But then you should understand why I won’t help you.” I sold myself for money, she wanted to say. You sold other people. But there was no point—Jenny was already beaten, and winning the argument too wouldn’t make Serena feel any happier about it.
“We used to be friends,” Jenny said—her last, pathetic weapon. They both knew they had never been friends.
“I’m sorry,” Serena said, and wished Solomon weren’t holding the gun so that she could lean on him.
After that they rode in silence. Jenny stared at the streets as they flashed by and picked absentmindedly at the unraveling edge of her veil.
As they were turning up onto the road to Newgate, she turned to Serena and said, with a tiny quaver in her voice, “Does it hurt very much to be beheaded?”
Serena swallowed. René had told her stories from the Terror of severed heads looking at their bodies, blinking, even trying to speak.
“No one knows for sure,” Solomon said gently. “But my anatomy lecturer at Cambridge believed that a beheaded person loses consciousness after only a few seconds. Those tales about guillotined heads winking at the mob are probably tripe. And even in the worst of the stories, none of them looked to be in pain.”
Jenny looked as abjectly grateful as Serena felt.
They pulled up in front of the prison. Jenny sat perfectly still, a greenish tinge to her cheeks. Serena wished she could think of something to say.
Solomon leaned forward a little, though he did not lower the pistol. “You look dreadful,” he said gently. “Do you want them all to see you shamed and frightened?”
Their eyes met, and suddenly Jenny smiled. “Will you wait just a moment while I put on some rouge?”
Solomon nodded. “Serena will get it out of your reticule and hand it to you—and if you try to escape or injure her in any way, I’ll shoot you.”
Serena searched through the bag, retrieved a little pot of rouge, and handed it to Jenny.
She rubbed some color into each cheek and took a deep breath. “Shall we go, then?”
They gave her over into custody of the warden of the prison. Two hulking turnkeys appeared to escort her to her cell. Just before they rounded the corner, she blew Solomon and Serena a kiss, calling gaily, “Vive l’empereur!”