Page 87 of Almost a Bride
Though tears of despair fell from her eyes, she forced herself to remember the pattern of the muddy streets, growing narrower and darker the farther from the riverbank they went.
She had the saddlebag with her, and began to fear that the letter Spencer so desperately needed might be taken from her. Was he even alive to care? She couldn’t give up hope yet.
The thief’s hold had weakened slightly, as if he believed her powerless. She desperately lifted her foot and kicked backward. She missed his groin and hung off balance by one arm, until he whirled her around toward him. He was laughing as she met his gaze, but she lifted her free hand and raked her nails down his face.
With a hoarse scream, he let her go and covered his eyes. She ran, clutching the saddlebag to her chest, darting down twisting, narrow streets and dodging people until her lungs burned.
Only when she believed she’d lost him did she slow down. If she returned immediately to Spencer, the two remaining thieves could still overpower them both.
But if she had help…
It took her a while to regain her bearings, but soon she was trudging through familiar streets. She knocked on the door of her friend’s home, a woman who’d sold fresh fish from a cart near Philip’s bakery. If only the family hadn’t moved…
The door was opened by a shabbily dressed man.
“George?” she whispered, then looked beyond him to see his brother Walter and George’s wife. “Ann?”
By the light of one guttering candle, she saw four children watching her from behind the woman’s brown skirts.
George gave her a gap-toothed grin. “Be that you, Roselyn?”
She nodded happily, and he gave her a hug that lifted her from her feet. When he let her go, Ann turned her around and wrapped warm arms about her.
“Roselyn, when did ye return to London? Why did ye not tell us ye was comin’? And where is Philip and sweet Mary? Surely the babe must be—”
Something in her face must have made Ann stop.
“Ann,” she said gently, “Philip and Mary died of the Black Death soon after we left London.”
Ann’s eyes widened and filled with tears as she took Roselyn’s hands. “Oh, my dear,” she began.
“ ’Tis all right. I’ve been living on the Isle of Wight, earning my living by baking. But I just returned to London today with…”
By the saints, she was greeting old friends when Spencer could be unconscious—or worse—right now!
She whirled around to face the brothers. “I need your help. My companion and I were attacked on the street, and I don’t know how he fares. We must find him!”
“But Roselyn—” Ann said.
Roselyn gave her a quick hug. “I promise I’ll return and tell you everything on another day, but I must go to Spencer. He could be badly wounded.”
The return journey was undertaken with the creeping approach of darkness, guided by the occasional guttering lantern hung outside a shop door.
Spencer was not where she’d left him—and a fresh patch of blood stained the ground.
Roselyn resisted the urge to imagine the worst. Where could he have gone? If the brigands had killed him, surely he’d still be lying in the street—
An icy calmness doused her mounting terror as she turned to George. “If the Watch had taken him, where would he be?”
“One of the prisons be not far away,” he said slowly. “We’ll take ye back to Ann first, and then do yer lookin’ for ye.”
“We must check the tavern where we stabled our horses. He could be there.”
By midnight, Roselyn realized that Spencer had completely disappeared from Southwark. She tried to convince the men that he had gone home, but George refused to hire a wherry at this time of night, insisting that his brother Walter would row her across in the morning. Besides, he said, London at night was no place to be, what with the Spanish out there somewhere, waiting to attack. She just shook her head and closed her eyes.
She sat beside the small hearth, trying to pay attention to Ann’s reassuring words, while desperately wishing that morning would come.
~oOo~
