The prison lawn was surrounded by thick iron bars too sleek and tall to climb but open enough that passersby could watch the prisoners work and be reminded of the life that awaited them should they fail to be law-abiding citizens. Blythe kept her expression flat as she watched a row of men take step after step on an ever-spinning wheel. Each man had his own small compartment, with walls on either side so that no prisoner could glimpse another. Each man was chained to a bar before him, which he gripped for balance while walking upon a wheel.
“They’ll be at that all day,” Byron noted without remorse. Blythe wondered whether it was a Hawthorne trait to be able to turn into seemingly unfeeling stone when the need arose, or whether he truly felt no pity. “They’ll have the appropriate breaks, of course, but they’ll be churning grain until dusk.”
Just like that, she had her answer. “The appropriate breaks?” As much as she tried to withhold some of her bitterness, the words were sharp. There were more men toiling across the lawn, loosening and separating strands of rope. They didn’t look at one another. Didn’t speak. Even if they wanted to, masks obscured their faces, with only the tiniest slits cut for eyes.
The very thought of her father in such a place—made to walk on a never-ending wheel from dawn to dusk or to spend his days stripping rope or whatever else they had the men do—was enough to turn Blythe’s blood cold. If she could have, she’d have burned the prison to the ground.
“I fail to see which part of this is appropriate.”
The look Byron flashed her was nothing short of scathing. “Don’t be soft, girl. Every man within those walls is a criminal. The hard labor will help them better themselves enough to reenter society and, hopefully, keep them from making the same mistakes twice.”
“My father doesn’t need to better himself. He’s already better than any man I know.” Only then did Blythe meet Byron’s simmering glare as she turned and let herself out of the carriage.
Byron followed, having waited for William to clamber down from the drivers seat and open his door. “You’d best reel yourself in now,” he warned. “Should I feel that your being here is a mistake, I’ll have you taken back to Thorn Grove. Do you understand? Mind your tongue before it’s our ruin.”
It seemed there was little other choice. If Blythe had to play the role of a respectable young lady, so be it. She’d certainly had enough training.
A pale man with a severe face and splotchy red cheeks met them at the gate. He held out his hand as they approached. “Perhaps the young miss would prefer to wait in the carriage.” His voice was low and thick, as if he had a perpetual sinus issue.
Blythe clenched her fists, biting back bitter thoughts about how he’d be the one wanting to hide in a carriage once she gave him a piece of her mind.
Before she could do so, Byron pressed two coins flat into the man’s palm. “She stays,” was all he said. The man grunted and pocketed the coins before he drew the gate open and stepped aside. His eyes lingered on Blythe for a beat too long, and it was an effort to restrain herself from flashing the man her most diabolical glare. Every inch of her skin was angry and prickling, as it had been since she’d last spoken with Signa. She wanted an excuse to be angry. But for her father’s sake she bit back that roiling emotion and clenched her shaking fists at her sides. She hoped that anyone who saw them would think she was nervous.
“You’ll have an hour,” drolled the splotchy-faced warden, his steps brisk as he led them through the prison and down a stone staircase so cracked and steep that Blythe had to brace her palm against the wall to steady herself. The air grew more frigid with each step, and soon enough she realized exactly where this man was leading her. They had her father in an ancient, freezing dungeon.
“It’s only for the visit,” Byron whispered, as if he were able to feel Blythe’s simmering rage. “He’ll be back upstairs with the rest of them once we leave.”
Blythe didn’t like that notion any better. She braced herself as the door opened and she prepared to see her father for the first time in a month. But there was nothing to prepare her for who waited behind the door.
Elijah Hawthorne was a husk of the man he once was. He’d lost too much weight too quickly, and he had skin that hung loosely around his neck to show for it. His face was gaunt and his frame so withered that he looked as though one solid breeze might topple him. The skin beneath his eyes was corded with lines of deep purple, and he was even more disheveled than he’d been the year prior, when he’d been grieving the death of Blythe’s mother. There was a cut on his lip, too, red and raw—and so obviously someone else’s doing that Blythe gripped the bars of the cell door to steady her rage.
She hardly recognized her father like this, made small and drab in his dingy gray uniform, his legs chained to a chair and his wrists in shackles. It was his eyes alone that kept Blythe from despair—not as bright or mischievous as they once were, but not so forlorn as those of a doomed man, either. The spark of fire within them had dimmed, certainly, though she was glad to see that it had yet to be extinguished.
The cell door groaned shut behind them, and Blythe’s breath caught when her father glanced up at her, his face softening.
“You are truly a sight for sore eyes.” He leaned back in his chair, the manacles clanking. “ How are you, my girl?”
Heat surged in Blythe’s eyes, tears she had no intention of letting him see threatening. She wished so deeply that she could hug him without getting thrown back into the carriage.
“I’m better now that I’ve seen you,” she told him. “But you’re most certainly not. What happened to your face?”
When Elijah adjusted to try to discreetly cover his cut with his hand, Blythe turned her attention to the guard outside the cell. If he was the one who did this, she’d burn him at the stake. Before she could ask, Byron took hold of her shoulder and squeezed tight.
“Enough,” he hissed under his breath. “This is not the place nor the time.” There was no overlooking the scrutiny in Byron’s eyes as he assessed Elijah, who tilted his head back with the most vicious scoff.
“I suppose it pleases you to see me like this?” His bitterness was so unexpected that Blythe hesitated to take one of the seats across from her father, looking between the two men as Byron sat. Given the force of the guard’s scrutiny, she had no choice but to follow suit.
“There is a week left until your trial, Elijah. We have other matters to discuss.”
Panic lodged itself in Blythe’s throat. A week. She’d been so distracted with Signa that she hadn’t realized the trial was so close.
“Are you keeping up with Grey’s?” Elijah sneered. Blythe again looked between him and her uncle, wondering what she’d missed.
“Of course I am.” If there was anything for which Byron could be counted on, it was keeping up the family business. “Not that it matters. Given everything that’s happened and a year of your efforts to soil its reputation, we haven’t a single patron.”
Elijah scratched his fingernails along his pants, his leg jittery. “There’s a waiting list in the drawer in my study. Extend an invitation to those on it—they’ll want to stake their claim while they have the opportunity. This will blow over soon enough.”
This was the last sentiment Blythe wanted to hear from her father. He wasn’t asking because he was concerned about Grey’s but because he was concerned about them. Elijah wanted his family to be taken care of if he was found guilty, and the very thought of it had bile rising to Blythe’s throat. “Invite them yourself once you’re out of here in a week,” she said.
Elijah reached out as if to squeeze her hand before the manacles stopped him. Blythe’s face fell; she wished nothing more than to tear them free.
“Why hasn’t Signa come?” he asked as the silence dragged, his jaw tensing. Though it was Blythe he turned to for an explanation, Byron answered. “Miss Farrow returned to Foxglove manor this morning.”
Elijah’s shackles clanked against the chair. “Does she intend to come back to Thorn Grove?”
“Considering she took her lady’s maid with her, I have my doubts.”