Elyse Mady by The White Swan Affair Page A

tankards in their hands, wove drunkenly through the haphazard groupings of prisoners, eliciting barbarous threats when they stumbled through a game of dice. One of the men was knocked swiftly to the ground in retaliation for his transgression. His cup smashed against the stone as he fell and sent a spray of hard ale across the hem of Hester’s dress. She reared back with a muffled exclamation of fear.
    “Hester! My God, Hester!” The shocked cry rang out, and she turned to see her brother limping quickly across the yard towards her.
    If she had not known it to be him by the sound of his voice, Hester was not sure if she would have been able to recognize him.
    All his life, Robert had been accounted handsome, first as a boy and then as a man. He took his colouring from their father, sharing the same dark eyes and thick, curly hair. He was broad of shoulder, with a fine set of teeth and a dimple that made its appearance when he laughed. He stood nearly six feet without his shoes. He dressed well, a testament to his skills with a needle, and Hester knew that many of the young ladies in their parish had fancied themselves very hard done by in light of Miss Stroud’s recent success.
    Now, his curls were nearly impossible to distinguish, they were so disordered and filthy. His face was a welt of bruises and discolouration, one eye swollen shut completely. His coat and costume were caked in the most revolting substances imaginable—a mixture of what looked to be blood and mud and dung. One sleeve was almost entirely torn from the armscye, while his filthy neckcloth had been pressed into duty to support his left arm in a sling.
    He made his way past the other inmates with painful deliberation, favouring his bandaged arm and ribs. It made her heart ache just to look at him.
    “Robert,” she gasped as he came to stand before her. “Oh, Robert. What has happened that you should look like this?” Without thinking, she pressed her handkerchief to her lips to wet it and reached up, trying to clear away the worst of the blood from his face.
    Her brother grimaced and pulled his head away. “Gently, please. Gently.”
    “Of course,” she said, patting with as light a touch as she could manage. Even that seemed to pain him, and when he drew his lips back in a silent hiss, she saw that at least two of his teeth had been knocked free in the melee he had endured.
    She bit back another exclamation of horror only with difficulty, not wanting to distress him further. “Good God, Robert. How can it be that I find you amongst such creatures as this? Will you not tell me what happened last night?”
    It was difficult to tell, such were the extent of the injuries and filth, but a look of displeasure flashed across her brother’s face and his single undamaged eye darkened.
    “How did you find me here?” he demanded, taking her arm and leading her away from the crush. “I was given no leave to send word and had no money to bribe a guard otherwise. My purse was lost.” He brushed down his ruined clothes with his remaining hand, hampered in the gesture by the iron chain between his wrists.
    “Luck, if you can call it that. I went to the shop in search of you. Mr. Ramsay happened upon me there. Perceiving my distress, he bent all his resources to finding you.”
    The news did not seem to hearten Robert as Hester might have hoped.
    “Ramsay? He knows of this…debacle?” An angry glower settled on his face.
    “I imagine many will know of it. It has been published in at least one paper, perhaps more,” she admitted. She hesitated, unwilling to hurt her brother further. “It will be much talked of, I fear.”
    “Much talked of?” Robert scoffed. “It will be more than talked of, if the reaction of the Londoners I encountered today is anything to judge by.”
    “Did they do this? A mob? But why?”
    Robert shrugged. “There is a distaste for individuals who are believed to have committed…” His voice trailed off, as though he could