Chapter 5
“You’re mine,” Arthur growled softly, his voice thick and rough with desire, his thumb tracing the swollen curve of Julian’s lower lip. “No magistrate takes you. No hangman touches this neck. Do you hear me, Jules?”
Julian drew in a long, shuddering breath, his chest rising and falling in violent sync with Arthur’s. He pressed his face into the hollow of Arthur’s neck, breathing in the scent of him, letting the rough wool of Arthur’s collar abrade his cheek.
“We are in this together,” Julian whispered fiercely against Arthur’s warm skin. “To the gallows, or to freedom. There is no other path.”
“To freedom,” Arthur corrected firmly, lifting Julian’s chin with a calloused finger until their eyes met. “We don't yield an inch, Jules. Not after how far we’ve crawled to get here. All we have to do is hold our nerve for one more hour.”
“Sterling believes he has us entirely under his heel,” Julian murmured, his barrister’s mind racing even as his pulse thrummed from the heat of the kiss. “He expects us to cling to his forged lifeline like drowning men. If he sees even a flicker of trust between us, the guards will silence us before we can ever reach the truth. The court must believe we are on the verge of slaughtering each other.”
“Then we give them blood,” Arthur said, a dangerous, reckless spark igniting in his amber eyes. “I’ll tear you apart on that stand if it keeps his suspicions buried. We have to rattle him, Jules. Shake the trial so violently that his tidy little script fractures, forcing him to step into the mud to maintain control.”
“It is a monstrous gamble, Arthur,” Julian breathed, his fingers tightening against the rough wool of Arthur’s coat. “Finch is circling like a vulture. If Vance loses patience and commits us before we can pry the real records into the light, we hang. There will be no second adjournment.”
Arthur smiled—a crooked, fierce expression that held no fear, only unyielding resolve. “Then we don’t give Vance the chance. You’re the sharpest legal mind in London, and I haven't missed a target yet. We survived the marsh, Julian. We’ll survive this courtroom.”
“Starting with your handwriting, perhaps,” Julian retorted, the teasing banter rising naturally between them, a familiar shield against the suffocating madness of their world. “That blot you made upstairs was disgraceful. A schoolboy of seven writes a cleaner hand.”
“I was trying to look panicked!” Arthur protested, his lips brushing Julian’s temple in a soft, lingering caress. “A panicked soldier does not write with copperplate flourishes, Jules. It was an authentic detail.”
“It was ink on my second-best waistcoat,” Julian sighed, though he leaned his weight entirely against Arthur’s chest, allowing himself a precious moment of utter peace. “Do you have any idea how much starch costs in the city these days?”
Arthur laughed, a quiet, rich sound that seemed to chase the damp shadows right out of the vaulted stone ceiling. He wrapped his arms fully around Julian, holding him tight against his chest, rocking him slightly as if they were back in their campaign tent by the Ebro, listening to the rain beat against the canvas while the rest of the army slept.
For a few blessed minutes, there was no High Court. There were no charges of high treason, no crowd braying for their blood, no silver-caned lord watching from the shadows. There was only the steady, rhythmic beat of Arthur’s heart against Julian’s ear, anchoring him in a world that had tried so desperately to tear them apart.
Then, the heavy oak door at the head of the stone staircase groaned open.
*Clack. Clack. Clack.*
The sound of iron-shod boots descending the steps hit the silence like a volley of pistol shots.
In an instant, the warmth vanished.
Arthur shoved Julian back onto the bench with a harsh, deliberate jerk that sent Julian’s hip slamming into the wood. Arthur spun around, backing toward the opposite wall, his face instantly hardening into a mask of snarling, volatile aggression. He crossed his arms over his chest, the heavy iron chains rattling loudly in the confined space.
Julian scrambled to straighten his barrister’s robe, hastily tucking his ink-stained fingers beneath his sleeves, his breath catching in his throat as he forced his posture into that of a humiliated, terrified academic. He rubbed his eyes furiously with the back of his hand, reddening them to look as though he had been weeping in solitary misery.
The key rattled violently in the cell door.
The bolt slid back with a deafening screech, and the door swung open.
It was not the turnkey.
Standing in the low archway was Mr. Rudge—Lord Sterling’s personal bailiff and enforcer. Rudge was a thickset man with the flat, broken nose of an old prizefighter, dressed in a spotless gray livery that looked utterly grotesque against the filth of the subterranean dungeon. Behind him, two court guards stood at attention, their halberds resting against their shoulders.
Rudge’s small, piggish eyes swept over the cell, lingering first on Arthur’s sullen, defiant stance in the corner, and then dropping down to Julian, who sat huddled on the bench, shivering realistically.
“Charming accommodations,” Rudge drawled, his voice oily and thick. He stepped into the cell, the gold-tipped cane in his hand tapping against the flagstones with the precise, rhythmic cadence that Julian recognized all too well. *Tuk. Tuk.*
A facsimile of his master.
“What do you want, Rudge?” Arthur snarled from the shadow of the back wall, spitting on the floor near the bailiff’s polished leather boots. “Come to measure our necks for the rope?”
Rudge didn't even look at him. He kept his gaze locked on Julian.
“His Lordship is displeased, Mr. Vance,” Rudge said softly, tapping the head of his cane against the palm of his gloved hand. “Deeply displeased. That little pantomime upstairs... it lacked elegance. His Lordship did not pay two hundred sovereigns to the Western Command clerks to watch two cashiered mongrels tear each other’s throats out before the Chief Magistrate.”
Julian swallowed hard, forcing his chin to tremble as he looked up. “Captain Thorne... he refused the affidavit, Mr. Rudge. I did everything in my power. You saw him! He is half-mad with swamp fever—he thinks I’m trying to betray him!”
“I don’t give a damn what the dog thinks,” Rudge said, taking a slow step toward Julian, leaning down until his sour breath washed over Julian’s face. “His Lordship gave you a script, Counselor. You will read from it. When the court reconvenes in ten minutes, you will stand before Justice Vance. You will present the secondary affidavits from the Bramley post house. And this time, your tame soldier will nod his head, sign his name, and keep his mouth shut.”
Rudge turned his head, fixing Arthur with a flat, murderous stare.
“Because if you do not,” Rudge continued, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper, “His Lordship will withdraw his counsel. He will withdraw his witnesses. And by sundown, both of you will be hanging from the gibbet at Tyburn, with the crows picking your eyes out before your boots even stop kicking. Do you understand me, Captain?”
