Page 3 of The Worst of Them

Redgrave frowned.

He turned his gaze away.

And at that moment, Cecily knew what he’d done and why he’d asked her to stay the night. He’d had this planned for God knew how long, and her decision to leave had nearly ruined it.

“Why?” she gasped, trembling so hard that her teeth knocked into the bars. “Why not let me go? I’ve done nothing to you!”

One of the men approached Redgrave and pulled a small bag from his coat. “As agreed,” he said, and dropped it into her cousin’s hand.

“I’ve done nothing!” she wailed. “Where are you sending me? What have you done?”

Her cousin opened the bag to count the coins inside, then gave a small nod and mumbled, “As agreed.” Without even a glance in her direction, her cousin disappeared inside her father’s house.

“Mr. Redgrave,” she croaked, as though it would do anything. Inside the home, her cousin drew the curtains. “Redgrave!”

The men climbed into the seat at the front of the cart. “Quiet, lass,” one of them said. “You’ll be fine.”

“Redgrave!” she cried, wrenching at the bars as though to tear them out.

The men ignored her as the cart moved, her neighbors asleep in their beds and unaware of the tragedy unfolding in the dead of night.

Two hours later, still long before dawn, she stumbled out of a brothel and into the arms of several horrified constables.

Drenched in blood, she clutched a broken glass bottle, its green edges coated with red.

It slipped from her fingers and shattered on the ground.

1

THE MONSTER THEY MADE

Somewhere in the Atlantic, One Year Later

According to the courts of England, Cecily Shoard was executed by hanging in the autumn of 1693.

According to Cecily, she would’ve liked to have died when they said she did. But death, she’d been told, was too merciful for her.

Since she wasn’t worthy of Heaven, she spent most of her time in a purgatory of her own making. It came in the form of a home she’d built inside her head, where she could be gentle, quiet, and good while nurturing back the pieces of her soul she’d lost.

She had lost so many these past months.

The house stood in a meadow surrounded by trees, with no road that led to it. Its pretty white façade boasted two floors of glittering windows, and there was a heavy front door guarded by a footman who always smiled.

Here the sun never set, the garden was perpetually in bloom, and she could sit in a parlor with lavender walls and plush white chairs where she’d sip tea in a silk gown, a matching ribbon braided through her long, black hair. She knew the placement of each piece of furniture, where the pictures hung, and the exact number of flowers blooming in the vase in the foyer. Today they were lilies, white like death, and they smelled as sweet as spun sugar⁠—

A high-pitched squeal shattered through the walls of her home, followed by a loud giggle.

Cecily’s eyes cracked open, her lids heavy as her perfect little home became the belly of a cold, dank prison ship. Her silk gown turned into a foul linen dress and a pair of stained trousers as the scent of lilies cleared, chased by the reek of sweat, humidity, and twenty-nine other dirty women held behind iron bars and bound in shackles.

Cecily wasn’t worthy of Heaven, and she was absolutely in hell.

Nothing was spared for comfort aboard the Sparrow. No beds, no blankets, not even a thin layer of straw to pad the splintered floorboards. Some of the small, cramped cells lining the sides of the ship had grimy portholes, but the frames were bolted shut, keeping the fusty air stagnant and thick.

Even after four weeks of sailing, there was no getting used to it.

It was sometime in April, which meant Cecily was probably nineteen. Regardless of whether her birthday had passed, she was the youngest of the women, barely old enough to be included among these prisoners headed for Antigua. There they’d be sold into indentured servitude to work until they died, paying for a multitude of sins ranging from stealing a horse to pretending to be nobility.

All the women here deserved that sentence, except Cecily, who was the only one who’d earned worse. While she’d initially resented the injustice—she really would have rather died—she had made her peace with being alive and now turned her thoughts to all the ways she might ensure her own comfort at any cost.