Time & Tide - Original Wattpad Version

Chapter Thirty-One: In Which Jessie Makes a Bargain

Shit.

On the far side of the copse was a path, and a conveniently placed carriage with a stylized "L" on the side - black, like Francis' crates. Mr. Lewis shoved me into a carriage waiting at the gates. I was barely inside, his fat body crowding in after me, before it lurched and we were racing recklessly through the streets to god knows where. The curtains were drawn, and in the half light his piggy eyes danced with greedy, angry joy.

My head throbbed and I touched the back of it. A bit of blood spotted my fingers when I checked. "You shit," I slurred, blinking hard to try to get some sense back.The carriage lurched into motion and I tipped and slouched along the seat, fetching up against a warm bare arm on the bench next to me.

Someone else was in the carriage. Hands pushed me upright, harder than was kind, and I slumped back the other way, into the wall, blinking some more to get their face to focus.

I feel like I should have been more shocked that I was to find myself staring at Rose Goodenough.

She was sitting stiffly against the other wall of the carriage, prim and proper and grim-faced.

"Bitch," I greeted her.

"Do not be ungrateful," she said, dark eyes narrowing in the gloom. "It has taken a great deal of persuading to have Mr. Lewis agree to take you as his wife after everything that has happened."

"Wasted effort," I said, struggling to get the world back under me. "I was going to marry Thomas."

Rose sneered. "A boy you can easily abandon? Oh no, Miss Franklin. I would see you firmly trapped and unable to crawl back to Margaret."

"Surprise!" I said, head starting to clear. I offered up a weak little jazz hands, which Rose wrinkled her nose at. "Margaret doesn't want me anymore. Thanks for that, by the way."

Rose shot a look of surprise at Mr. Lewis. He smirked and opened his coat to reveal a small parcel of letters in his breast pocket. Each one, as far as I could tell, bore my name.

"You--" Rose said to him, then hesitated. "But you told me that Margaret and Miss Franklin were in communication. That my sister was in danger. Why would you--"

"Lie to you?" I asked, and chuckled. Rose gasped, and well she should have. It wasn't a happy sound. "Why do you think? The further in his debt he can get you, the more he can screw your family. He's pissed off Francis told him to fuck off. You don't think he won't use you to get to him? Use Margaret if he can?"

Rose shook her head, lips tightly curled in. She crossed her arms across her stomach, shrank in the corner of the carriage, startled and not quite comprehending what she'd done just yet. But starting to get it. Oh yes, she was getting it.

"You need teaching of your place," Mr. Lewis snarled, dropping his coat and raising the back of his hand to me. I threw up my own hands to block him, but the blow never fell, hand hovering above me in clear threat.

"And you think you're the one to do that?" I shouted in his face. "You're a serial domestic abuser!"

Rose smiled then, cruel and cold. "Precisely. And he promised that if I delivered you to him, he would end his business with my brother forever, and free Francis from any further obligations."

"And you believed him?"

Rose hesitated, then firmed her resolve. "I have found Mr. Lewis to be a man of his word."

I pounced at her throat, but Mr. Lewis laid a palm hard across my face, bouncing me against the wall of the carriage and halting my lunge.

"No!" I cried and changed direction, shoving back at him. "Not this time, you sonofabitch!"

The next smack laid me flat on the floor of the carriage, and lay there, groaning, head swirling, until we reached our destination. Even in my daze, I recognized the front steps, the entryway and the parlour we passed by, the staircase and the room. I even recognized the same cowed and white-faced maid, waiting silent and miserable beside the bed I was thrown into.

"Three o'clock exactly, Susan," Mr. Lewis barked to the maid, and she bobbed a curtsy. The door locked audibly behind him.

I stared at the ceiling, waiting for the world to stop spinning, and hated Rose Goodenough with every fiber of my being.

"Your name is Susan, right?" I asked.

"Yes, Miss," she said.

I sat up gingerly. My stomach swirled but I managed to swallow the nausea down long enough to get to my feet. The room was lit with candles, even though the curtains were shut. I went over to the windows, threw back the drapes and shoved the sash upwards. Susan looked about to protest, but the fresh air was heavenly after the stifling heat of the carriage and room, and the candles guttered and blew out.

The washstand was filled with fresh, steaming rosewater and combined with the smell of the candle smoke, it made my unsettled stomach roil. I peered down - too far to jump, no good hand-holds. Damn.

"Susan, you're the one who helped me get the bananas, right?"

Susan lifted her chin and leveled a smug, knife-slice grin at me. She was missing a tooth, and I had no doubt how it had happened or why. "I was, Miss."

"Wanna help me fuck up Mr. Lewis' shit some more?"

Her grin widened. "Absolutely, Miss."

"Got the key for that second door?" I pointed to where Susan had entered the room last time I was here.

"I'm not allowed to have the key, Miss," Susan said, while pulling a key from her apron pocket and offering me a wink.

"Shame. I need paper, a pencil, and someone to send out a letter. Do you know where Miss Rose Goodenough has been staying?"

"Yes, Miss - we've had the boy out several times a day."

"And is Miss Margaret staying there as well?"

"Far as I've heard, Miss."

"Excellent," I said, pushing back from the sill. "You pilfer the writing utensils, I get myself cleaned up so he doesn't know you were gone."

Susan raised her eyes. We shared a dark, knowing look, and then she curtseyed and was gone through the narrow servant's door. She didn't lock it behind her, but we both knew that I wasn't going anywhere. Not yet.

I sat down at the vanity and brushed the warm, scented water through my bedraggled hair, and pinched viciously at the bruise that was forming on my own cheek, hoping to darken it.

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