Why don’t they just hang me?
The thought entered his mind over and over again as he peered through the clouded windowpane at the street outside. Smart carriages rolled by, street urchins screeched and threatened the traffic that seemed about to squash them at every turn. After the quiet of Wansdyke, the din was bewildering. It seemed bizarre to react so when he had spent several years of his young life on streets much like these. But that boy had come to the ruckus of London from the tranquillity of Yorkshire, and had then left for the relative quiet of the sea. Noise should have played a bigger part in his life than it had.
The rooms were rented and plainly furnished but much nicer than those he would have chosen before marrying Catherine. Marriage to a peeress, he reflected bitterly, h
