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quick glance around her assured her that only the old man had because he was standing directly in front of her.
    She began to push her way forward and to the left a little more, and shouldered her way around the old man in front of her. As she passed, he jostled her. Her apology locked in her throat when she looked at him. There was something deuced odd about him only she couldn’t quite make her mind up what it was. Before she could speak to him, he looked her square in the eye and ever so slowly winked. Hetty opened her mouth and closed it again with a snap when she realised that she was staring into eyes that were considerably younger than the seventy or so years the man purported to be.
    Confusion warred with disbelief. Who was he? What did he want? Was he one of Meldrew’s men? He certainly wasn’t anyone she knew; was he? She wondered if he was something to do with Sir Hugo’s men, but then discounted that as ridiculous. There wasn’t enough time for anyone to get to Derby from London.
    He certainly wasn’t one of the regulars from the Dog and Ferret who were in the crowd to help.
    She studied him a little more closely but, before she could get any further than his rather mundane clothing, he moved. Her eyes snapped back up to his. She watched in amazement as he nodded slowly at her once, just once, as though he knew her. He then turned around and, far too agilely than was normal for someone in his late seventies, ambled off into the crowd. Surely she was mistaken; wasn’t she?
    What on earth? She mused as she watched him go.
    She knew that there was nothing so strange as folk, but really? Given what she was about to do, she studied the crowd suspiciously. As far as she could tell, there was nothing untoward about anyone else. Nobody paid her the slightest bit of attention. She began to wonder whether she was looking at shadows where there were none, but couldn’t discount the notion that the old man was strikingly unusual.
    She tried to find him again in the sea of faces, but he had vanished.
    Where had he come from? More importantly, where had he disappeared to?
    Whoever it was, thinking about him had certainly helped calm her nerves because she was now more concerned about him rather than what was going to happen in the next few minutes.
    Keep your mind on what you are here for. Simon and Charlie need you , she silently reminded herself.
    Her thoughts turned to her new husband once more. Fuelled with renewed determination to do what she ought, Hetty threw one last look at the gallows before she resolved never to look at it again.
    She refused, absolutely refused, to think about her youngest brother, Simon, and Charlie, ending up at the end of those nooses. While she had life left in her, they were not going to meet the fate that Meldrew had in store for them.
    She clutched the pouches in her pocket, and felt a little more confident that what she was about to do was possible.
    Both Charlie and Simon were innocent men. That much she knew with absolute certainty, especially now that Charlie had told them about his connections with the War Office. Nobody would put a life like that at risk to murder a random man they didn’t know, in woods in the middle of nowhere, for no reason whatsoever. She knew that Charlie was innocent and, as far as she was concerned, that made what she was about to do quite justifiable.
    When a loud blast of ribald laughter broke into her revere, Hetty gave herself a stern mental shake and turned her attention back to her surroundings. This was not the time to get lost in musings. This was the time to stand firm against the lies and misdemeanours of one of the county’s worst blackguards. It was imperative that she set aside her fears and worries, and just get on with what she needed to do. She had to keep that in mind if she had any chance of getting through the next hour. All thoughts of possible ramifications for everyone involved if she failed simply could not be considered.
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