Unraveled (Turner #3)(5)
“How curious,” he finally offered. “Here I thought our duty was to decide if the charges before us could be proven. I recall the indictment most particularly, and yet I don’t remember seeing this boy charged with the illegal carrying of letters.”
The mayor flushed and looked away. “Suit yourself, Turner. If you insist on letting the rabble run free, I suppose I can’t stop you.”
A small smile touched Lord Justice’s lips. “You heard the man. Master Widdy, you are free to go.”
Miranda held her shoulders high, not daring to gasp. Still, relief flooded through her. Thank God. He’d not seen through her. This time, she’d scarcely had to talk with him. She’d survived. She felt as if she’d landed that double backflip atop a moving horse, and she could not keep from grinning.
But just as the babble in the room was beginning to grow, Lord Justice held up one hand.
“Miss…” He paused. “Whitaker, you said?” His lip curled.
Miranda’s apprehension returned in full force. “Yes, Your Worship?”
“The Lamb Inn is through the market. A woman shouldn’t walk down those mobbed streets unaccompanied. There are cutpurses loose. And worse.”
“If I leave now, Your Worship, I’ll be back before my father returns.”
He drummed his fingers against the oak bench. “I’ll see you to your lodgings, if you’ll wait a few minutes in the anteroom.”
Oh God. What a ghastly proposition. “Your Worship. I sh-shouldn’t take you from your duties.”
He sighed. “We are in complete accord on that point. Nevertheless.”
Before she had a chance to argue, he signaled and the clerk struck the gavel. The waiting crowd rose to its feet, and the magistrates stood as well. Miranda wanted to run. She wanted to shriek. But she didn’t dare draw attention to herself—not here, not with constables and magistrates both close by.
The clerk hopped to his feet and ran to open the rear door. The other judges turned and marched out of the room, one in front of the other.
Turner was the last of the three to leave, his black robe swirling about him as if he were some kind of dark angel. But the clerk held the door open even after Lord Justice passed through, as if waiting for one last judge. And sure enough, from under the bench, a dog pushed to its feet and headed for the door. Miranda hadn’t seen it before; it must have lain quietly on the floor for the duration of the session.
The animal, a bit higher than her knee, was a mass of gray-and-white fur. It followed on Turner’s heels, as stately and ageless as its master. It paused when it reached the doorway, and looked back. She couldn’t even see its eyes through all that fur. Still, it felt as if the creature were marking Miranda, ordering her to wait until Lord Justice could see to her. She shivered, once, and the creature turned away.
Just her imagination.
And just her luck that His Worship had chosen today to show a gallant streak. She could not let him accompany her. There was no gentleman farmer, no comfortable inn. There was nothing but her cold garret waiting, and if he knew that the shining blond ringlets on her head were a wig, and her gown a costume…
Miranda swallowed. She didn’t need justice. She needed to get out of the room—and fast.
Chapter Two
THERE WERE TIMES WHEN Smite Turner disliked his Christian name. And then there were times when it felt all too appropriate. Today, it seemed, was one of the latter occasions. As soon as the door shut on the hearing room, he sprang into action. Step one was to divest himself of his robe; that was accomplished in one fluid motion. After all, if his suspicions were correct—and they usually were—he had only seconds to act. He threw the dark, heavy wool in a careless heap to the side, and spun around.
His coat wasn’t on his desk where he’d left it.
“Palter,” he swore, “What have you done with my greatcoat? I’ve got to get out of here now.”
“See?” the mayor muttered to Clark, the other magistrate, in tones not quite low enough to escape Smite’s notice. “Now he’s in a tearing hurry. I’ll never make sense of the man.”
Smite ignored his colleagues, and instead removed his uncomfortable wig. Palter appeared behind him, advancing at a rate that would have been better suited to an octogenarian on the brink of permanent decline rather than a spry young clerk in his thirties.
“Your Worship,” the man said. He spoke as slowly as he walked. “I was brushing your coat. It was covered in dog fur.” Palter cast an accusing glance behind Smite as he spoke. But the object of Palter’s scorn had embarked on a vigorous campaign of ear-scratching, and took no notice.
“Never mind that.” Smite held out his hand. “I need it. Now.”
She’d called herself Daisy Whitaker this time. Nobody else would have made the connection—they’d have been blinded by the perfectly arranged blond hair, the well-made walking dress. But when she’d stood, she’d glanced warily from side to side as if she felt unsafe in her surroundings. Her eyelashes had been darkened. And her wrists… No gentleman farmer’s daughter had wrists so thin. Poor fare at the dinner table showed first on the wrists.
“You know how I feel about your going out covered in gray hairs.” The man’s eyes narrowed as he took in Smite’s shirtsleeves. “Your Worship. Never tell me you went out in the hearing room, not wearing a coat under your robe.”