Summary: During the journey to the country estate, Annabelle begins acting strangely quiet and uncomfortable.
Pairing: Judge Turpin × Fem! Reader
Warnings: menstruation, period blood, first-period panic, abdominal cramps, embarrassment, parental assistance with menstrual products, emotionally complicated father-daughter relationship.
First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth and Ninth part here
Also read on Ao3
The city thinned gradually around them.
London gave way to damp roads, hedgerows, open fields, villages with church towers and muddy lanes, inns with low ceilings and sour ale, and miles upon miles of countryside that made Clara press her nose to the window despite herself.
Annabelle sat beside her, hands folded in her lap, posture careful, expression quiet.
Too quiet.
Turpin noticed.
He noticed everything, though he often pretended otherwise.
“She will recover,” he said at last.
Both girls looked at him.
Clara blinked. “Margery?”
He gave her a dark look for stating the obvious.
“Yes. Margery.”
Clara glanced at Annabelle.
Annabelle lowered her gaze.
“She was very upset,” she said softly.
“She is always upset.”
“Not like that.”
Turpin’s hazel eyes sharpened.
Annabelle looked down at her gloved hands.
“She thought you did not want her.”
The carriage wheels rattled over a rough patch of road.
Richard sat very still.
His first instinct was irritation.
His second, worse instinct was discomfort.
Children, in his experience, took simple matters and turned them into emotional catastrophes. He had not abandoned Margery. He had made a practical decision. Margery was unpredictable. Margery was noisy. Margery asked questions no civilized person should answer before noon. Margery required management.
And yet—
He remembered her face in the doorway.
Wet-cheeked. Furious. Heartbroken.
Papa, don’t leave me.
Turpin looked out the window.
“She will come with your mother,” he said.
Clara, unwisely, murmured, “That isn’t the same.”
His gaze cut to her.
Clara immediately studied the opposite seat cushion as though it contained scripture.
Annabelle said nothing more.
That, somehow, troubled him more.
The first day passed with little incident.
They stopped twice to change horses and once to take a cold luncheon in a private room at an inn whose floorboards creaked and whose landlord smiled too much. Turpin inspected the room before allowing the girls to sit. He inspected the food. He inspected the servants. He inspected the window latch.
Clara whispered to Annabelle, “He looks like he expects the soup to commit fraud.”
Turpin, without turning, said, “I heard that.”
Clara nearly dropped her spoon.
Annabelle hid a small smile behind her napkin.
That evening, they stayed at a coaching inn Turpin had used before. He took two adjoining rooms, placed the girls in one and himself in the other, then moved the chair against the inside of their door after checking the lock three times.
Clara watched him from the bed.
“Are you afraid someone will come in?”
“No.”
“Then why are you doing that?”
“Because someone may come in.”
“So you are afraid.”
Turpin turned.
Clara pulled the blanket to her chin.
“I am cautious,” he said.
Annabelle, already tucked into the other bed, whispered, “That means afraid with better posture.”
Clara made a strangled sound.
Turpin slowly turned his head toward Annabelle.
She froze.
For one dreadful second, neither daughter breathed.
Then Turpin’s mouth twitched.
Barely.
“Sleep,” he ordered.
They did.
Eventually.
The second day began colder.
A grey morning spread over the countryside, the air damp enough to cling to cloaks and gloves. Mist hung low over the fields, softening the hedgerows and blurring the line between road and sky. The horses moved steadily, hooves striking mud and stone in a rhythm that lulled Clara into a half-doze against the window.
Annabelle had been quiet all morning.
Not merely quiet in her usual way.
Strained.
She shifted often, though she tried to hide it. Her face seemed paler than usual beneath the brim of her bonnet, lips pressed together, one hand resting now and then against her lower belly.
Turpin saw it.
For an hour, he said nothing.
Then, after the third time she adjusted herself with visible discomfort, his brows drew together.
“Annabelle.”
She started. “Yes, Father?”
“Are you ill?”
“No.”
“You are pale.”
“I’m well.”
“You are lying poorly.”
Her cheeks colored faintly.
Clara opened one eye from the opposite seat.
“I think she feels sick,” she offered.
“I do not,” Annabelle said quickly.
Turpin’s gaze sharpened further.
“Do you require the carriage stopped?”
Annabelle stiffened.
“No.”
A pause.
Then, smaller: “Perhaps.”
The coachman was ordered to stop near a stand of trees off the roadside, where the hedge grew thick enough to offer some privacy from passing carts. The country road was empty for the moment, only damp fields rolling out on either side beneath the grey sky.
Turpin stepped down first.
He surveyed the road.
The trees.
The ditch.
The coachman.
The distant field.
Then the coachman again.
“Turn your back,” he ordered.
The man blinked. “My lord?”
Turpin’s eyes narrowed.
The coachman turned at once.
Clara climbed down next, rubbing sleep from her face. Annabelle followed more slowly, holding her cloak close around herself.
“I only need a moment,” she murmured, mortified.
Turpin gestured toward the bushes with rigid discomfort.
“Do not go far.”
Annabelle flushed deeper. “I know, Father.”
“Not beyond the hawthorn.”
“I know.”
“And call if—”
“I know.”
She disappeared behind the line of bushes with as much dignity as a twelve-year-old girl could manage while her father stood ten paces away pretending not to know what urination was.
Clara remained near the carriage, kicking idly at a stone.
Turpin stood with his back half-turned, one hand resting on his cane, his gaze fixed on the road as if daring anyone to appear.
For several moments, there was only the wind.
Then Annabelle screamed.
Not a startled little cry.
A scream.
Raw.
Terrified.
Turpin moved before thought could form.
“Annabelle!”
He crashed through the bushes with the violence of a man expecting blood, knives, snakes, assault—some immediate enemy he could strike, condemn, destroy. Branches caught at his coat. Thorns scraped his glove. His cane was forgotten somewhere behind him in the mud.
He found her crouched near the base of a tree, skirts tangled, face white with horror.
Blood stained her drawers.
For one terrible second, Richard Turpin’s mind went empty.
Then filled with violence.
“Where are you hurt?” he demanded, baritone sharp enough to cut through the cold. “What happened?”
Annabelle looked up at him, eyes huge, tears spilling instantly.
“I don’t know!”
“Did you fall?”
“No!”
“Were you cut?”
“No—I don’t know—I didn’t—Father, I’m bleeding!”
His eyes dropped again.
Blood.
Not much, but enough.
Enough to strike terror into any father, even one who believed fear beneath him.
He turned sharply, scanning the ground.
No broken branch.
No sharp stone.
No attacker.
No wound he could see.
“Stand,” he ordered, though his voice had lost some of its certainty.
“I can’t!”
“Annabelle.”
“I can’t,” she sobbed. “Please don’t look.”
That stopped him more effectively than any command.
Please don’t look.
Turpin went rigid.
She was trembling violently, trying to pull her skirts around herself, trying to hide the stain, trying not to cry and failing.
And then understanding arrived.
Slowly.
Horribly.
Not injury.
Not ordinary blood.
His daughter.
His quiet little Annabelle, who had sat in his lap only days ago with shaving foam on her cheeks, who had held a razor tremblingly against his jaw because he had asked her to trust herself, who still apologized too quickly and smiled too shyly—
was becoming a woman.
Richard Turpin, judge of London, terror of the bench, lord of his household, felt true panic crawl coldly up his spine.
Not because he did not know what this was.
He knew.
He was not ignorant.
He had a wife. He had daughters. He understood enough of women’s bodies in the abstract, in the marital bed, in medical household instructions delivered at a safe distance by midwives and matrons and servants who knew better than to involve him directly.
But abstraction was not this.
Abstraction was not his daughter crouched in wet leaves, frightened half out of her senses, bleeding into her underclothes and looking at him as though he might know how to stop the world from changing.
He did not know.
Not properly.
No woman was there.
Not you.
Not Mrs. Ellery.
Not even some sensible maid who might take charge and remove him from the disaster with professional mercy.
Only Clara, who stood beyond the bushes calling, “Papa? What happened? Is Annie hurt?”
The coachman was nearby.
Too nearby.
Turpin’s head snapped toward the road.
The man had turned halfway at the sound of the scream.
Turpin’s voice thundered.
“Face the road!”
The coachman spun around as though struck.
Clara pushed through the bushes before he could stop her.
“Annie?”
Turpin turned instantly, blocking as much of Annabelle as he could with his own body.
“Stay there.”
Clara froze, eyes wide.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
Annabelle sobbed harder.
Clara looked from her father’s grim face to Annabelle’s shaking shoulders and immediately paled.
“That is not nothing.”
Turpin closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them, they were sharp again.
Command.
Structure.
Law.
If he did not know how to be tender, he knew how to take control.
“Clara,” he said.
His daughter straightened automatically.
“Yes, Papa?”
“Go to the carriage. Bring the small leather valise. The one your mother packed.”
Clara blinked. “The medicine one?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Now.”
She ran.
Turpin looked back down at Annabelle.
She was crying quietly now, one hand pressed to her mouth, humiliation and fear twisting together across her face.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
The apology struck him in the chest.
Again.
Again, that same tone.
As though some natural function had become a moral failure because it had inconvenienced him.
His jaw tightened.
“Do not apologize.”
She looked up, startled through tears.
He removed his coat.
Fast.
Sharp.
Then held it out—not looking directly at her lower half now, his gaze fixed firmly above her shoulder.
“Cover yourself.”
Annabelle took it with trembling hands and wrapped it around her waist, the heavy dark fabric swallowing her small frame.
Turpin turned his back.
The gesture was stiff. Almost angry.
But it gave her privacy.
Behind him, he heard her trying to fix her drawers, trying to gather her skirts, her breath broken and embarrassed.
“Father,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“Am I dying?”
His heart gave one hard, ugly thud.
“No.”
The answer came too quickly, too harsh.
He softened it by force.
“No, Annabelle.”
“But there’s blood.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
Turpin stared at the grey road beyond the bushes.
He would rather have sentenced ten men to death than answer this.
Still, there was no one else.
He drew in a slow breath.
“It is not an injury.”
Silence.
A wet sniff.
“Then what is it?”
His mouth tightened.
“It is... part of becoming older.”
“That doesn’t explain anything.”
“No,” he admitted grimly. “It does not.”
Clara returned at a run, skirts lifted in both hands, bonnet slipping backward.
“I have it!”
Turpin turned and snatched the valise from her before she could come closer.
“Remain there.”
Clara peered around him anxiously. “Is she bleeding?”
Annabelle made a mortified sound.
Turpin’s face darkened. “Clara.”
“What? I heard her scream!”
“Lower your voice.”
Clara lowered it instantly. “Is she bleeding?”
Turpin looked at Annabelle, then at the valise, then at Clara.
In that moment he understood, with grim clarity, that both daughters were looking to him.
One frightened because she understood too little.
One frightened because she understood nothing.
And he, unfortunately, was the only adult woman available.
He opened the valise.
Inside were folded cloths, smelling faintly of lavender and starch. Medicine bottles. Salve. Pins. Bandage linen. A small packet of rags tied with ribbon. Your handwriting on a folded note tucked along one side.
His fingers paused over it.
He knew, suddenly and with great irritation, that you would have known exactly what to do.
Of course you would.
You would have crouched beside Annabelle. You would have spoken softly. You would have kissed her hair. You would have found a way to make blood feel less like catastrophe and more like a threshold.
Richard Turpin had no such gift.
He had folded cloth and authority.
So he used both.
He took the packet of rags and held it out without turning fully around.
“Annabelle.”
She looked at the cloths.
“What are those?”
“Clean linen.”
“For what?”
He exhaled through his nose.
Clara crept closer, eyes wide with morbid curiosity.
Turpin pointed at her without looking. “One step more and I shall tie you to the carriage wheel.”
Clara stopped.
Annabelle clutched his coat around herself. “Father, I don’t understand.”
Turpin rubbed one hand slowly over his face.
Then crouched.
Carefully.
At a distance.
He kept his gaze on her face only.
“Listen to me.”
Annabelle nodded, still crying.
“This happens to women.”
Her lips parted.
“Women?”
“Yes.”
“All women?”
“Most.”
She looked horrified. “Does Mama—?”
“Yes.”
Clara whispered from behind him, “Mama bleeds?”
Turpin’s eyes shut.
He had survived courtrooms, criminals, corrupt officials, plague rumors, childbirth, Margery’s bowels, and yet this—this was the moment that threatened to destroy him.
“Yes,” he said.
Clara looked appalled. “Every day?”
“No.”
“How often?”
“Clara.”
“What?”
“This is not a public inquiry.”
“But—”
“Silence.”
Clara fell silent, though her eyes remained enormous.
Annabelle stared at him, still trembling. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
The question landed quietly.
Turpin had no answer that did not implicate every adult in the household.
You had probably meant to tell her.
Perhaps soon.
Perhaps on the country trip, when the house was quieter, when you could take Annabelle walking beneath the trees and speak to her gently, privately, woman to girl. Perhaps you had thought there was more time.
Richard had assumed nothing of the sort was his concern.
That assumption now sat before him in a bloodstained petticoat, crying behind a bush.
His mouth hardened.
“Because adults are fools,” he said.
Annabelle blinked.
Clara blinked too.
Turpin held out the cloths again. “These will help. You fold them and place them in your drawers.”
Annabelle looked as if he had handed her a legal document in Latin.
“How?”
He stared at the cloths.
Then at her.
Then back at the cloths.
A new layer of panic settled over him.
He did not know how.
Not precisely.
Not in the practical arrangement of pins and fabric and female undergarments. He knew the concept. The existence. The household reality. Women bled. Cloths were used. Laundry maids managed what gentlemen pretended did not exist.
But his daughter needed instructions.
Now.
In the bushes.
Beside a road.
With Clara staring as though witnessing revelation and a coachman he wanted nowhere near any of it.
Turpin’s jaw worked once.
Then he made a decision.
“Clara.”
“Yes?”
“Come here.”
Clara obeyed with caution.
Turpin thrust the cloth bundle toward her.
“You will assist your sister.”
Clara recoiled. “Me?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know what to do!”
“Neither do I,” he snapped.
Clara stared at him.
Annabelle stared harder.
For one dreadful moment, the three of them remained frozen among the bushes beside the road: one daughter frightened, one daughter horrified, and Richard Turpin holding a bundle of menstrual cloths as though they were evidence in a trial no one had prepared him to conduct.
Then Annabelle began to cry.
Not loudly.
Not like Margery, who wept as though grief itself had been invented for theatrical use.
Annabelle cried quietly, shamefully, with one hand pressed to her mouth and her shoulders shaking beneath the heavy weight of his coat. That was worse. Far worse. The silence of it scraped at something in Turpin’s chest that had no business being tender.
His expression hardened at once.
Not at her.
At the situation.
At himself.
At every adult woman in the world who had contrived to be absent precisely when he required one.
“Stop that,” he said.
Annabelle tried.
The attempt only made the tears spill faster.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered again.
Turpin’s jaw clenched.
“I told you not to apologize.”
“I can’t help it.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No, I can’t.”
Her voice broke so miserably on the last word that Clara’s face crumpled in sympathy. She stepped forward instinctively, still clutching the valise.
Turpin took the cloths back from her at once.
“Enough,” he said, baritone low and absolute. “I will do it.”
Both girls froze.
Annabelle’s eyes widened through tears. “What?”
“I said I will help you.”
Clara looked at him as if he had announced he intended to perform surgery with a dinner knife.
“You?” she asked before she could stop herself.
Turpin’s hazel eyes snapped to her.
Clara’s mouth shut.
He turned back to Annabelle, lowering his voice by force. “You will stop crying. You will stand still. And you will listen to me.”
Annabelle clutched his coat tighter around her waist, trembling. “I don’t want you to see me.”
His brow furrowed. “See you?”
Her cheeks flamed scarlet. “Naked.”
The word came out tiny.
Mortified.
Clara looked immediately at the ground.
Turpin went still.
For one moment, the old severity rose automatically in him—sharp, impatient, offended by delicacy at the exact moment usefulness was required. Then he looked at Annabelle’s face. Not at the blood. Not at the ruined drawers. Her face.
She was terrified.
Not merely of the blood now.
Of him.
Of his judgment.
Of becoming something he might find shameful.
Something in him shifted.
Slowly, stiffly, Turpin crouched before her, the bundle of folded cloths resting in one hand. His hooked nose cast a severe shadow over his mouth, and his hazel eyes were still stern, but his voice, when it came, was quieter.
“I have seen you naked many times,” he said.
Annabelle looked stricken.
“When you were a child,” he added sharply, as though the distinction offended him by needing to be spoken. “You were bathed in this house. Dressed. Carried. Fed. Screamed at physicians. Spat milk onto my waistcoat. Tried to swallow a button. You were not born fully laced into a gown, Annabelle.”
Clara made a small, strangled sound that might have been a laugh.
Turpin’s eyes cut to her.
She became solemn instantly.
Annabelle’s lips trembled. “That was different.”
“Yes,” he said. “It was.”
The answer seemed to surprise her.
Turpin looked at her steadily.
“You are older now. I know that. I am not blind.” His voice roughened slightly. “But you are still my daughter.”
Annabelle’s breath caught.
“You are safe with me,” he continued, each word stern enough to be law because softness alone still sat strangely in his mouth. “Do you understand?”
Annabelle did not answer at once.
She looked at Clara first.
Clara’s face was pale, worried, and deeply uncomfortable, but she nodded quickly.
Then Annabelle looked back at her father.
At his severe face.
At the coat he had given her without looking.
At the way he had put himself between her and the road.
At the way he had shouted the coachman into obedience before anyone could stare.
Slowly, still crying, she nodded.
“Yes, Father.”
“Good.”
Turpin exhaled once through his nose.
A man approaching the gallows could not have looked more grim.
“Clara,” he said.
“Yes, Papa?”
“You will stand there.”
Clara straightened. “Here?”
“There. Facing the road.”
“But—”
“Facing the road.”
She turned at once.
“And if the coachman turns his head,” Turpin added, voice dropping into lethal calm, “you will inform me.”
Clara glanced toward the carriage, where the poor coachman stood rigid with his back turned so completely that he seemed to be trying to disappear into the horses.
“Yes, Papa.”
Turpin turned back to Annabelle.
“Now.”
Annabelle swallowed hard.
With shaking hands, she loosened the coat around her waist just enough to move. Turpin kept his eyes carefully on her face and then, when that became too difficult for her, on the nearest tree trunk.
It was absurd.
He, Richard Turpin, judge of London, feared by thieves and liars and half the magistracy, was now standing in a damp roadside copse, arranging his gaze upon bark to preserve the dignity of his eldest daughter.
The world, he thought bitterly, had become unreasonable.
“Lower them enough,” he said stiffly.
Annabelle’s face burned.
“Father…”
“Enough to put the cloth where it must go. No further.”
She obeyed with visible misery, fumbling beneath his coat and her skirts.
Turpin unfolded one of the linen cloths.
It was longer than he expected.
He stared at it.
Then folded it.
Too thick.
He frowned and unfolded it again.
Clara, still facing the road, whispered, “Do you know what you are doing?”
“No,” Turpin said flatly.
Annabelle made a tiny distressed sound.
His gaze sharpened at once.
“But I am capable of folding cloth,” he added. “It cannot be beyond reason.”
He adjusted it again, more carefully this time, making a narrow pad of the linen. There were small tapes sewn at the ends—thank God, some evidence of household intelligence. He examined them with grave concentration, as though determining the mechanism of a trap.
Then he looked at Annabelle’s drawers.
Then back at the cloth.
His mouth tightened.
“Your mother,” he said darkly, “will explain this better.”
Annabelle gave a watery little laugh despite herself.
The sound loosened something in him.
He held the folded cloth out to her. “Place it along the inside.”
She hesitated.
“My hands are shaking.”
“I can see that.”
“I’ll do it wrong.”
“Then I will correct it.”
Her eyes lifted to his, still wet.
He held her gaze.
“I said I would help you. Not abandon you behind a bush like a parcel.”
Annabelle swallowed.
Then carefully, awkwardly, she tried to arrange the linen inside her drawers. The first attempt slipped. She gasped in frustration, tears welling again.
Turpin reached forward at once.
“Still.”
She froze.
His hands were large and gloved, clumsy in a matter so intimate, but precise by nature. He did not look at more than he needed to. He kept his attention fixed on the fabric, the waistband, the ties. Efficient. Controlled. No mockery. No disgust.
Only focus.
He adjusted the cloth into place, lining the drawers properly with the folded linen and fastening the tapes as best he could to keep it secure. The task required more gentleness than he liked and less certainty than he possessed, but eventually the cloth sat where it ought.
“There,” he said.
Annabelle remained rigid.
“Is it… right?”
“It will serve until we reach the inn.”
Her lower lip trembled again. “What if it happens more?”
“It will.”
She looked horrified.
Turpin immediately regretted his honesty.
But lying would not help her.
“It will happen for several days,” he said, trying to make his baritone less like a sentence and more like instruction. “Then it will stop.”
“For several days?”
“Yes.”
Annabelle stared at him, stricken. “Every month?”
He paused.
Then, grimly, “Yes.”
Clara turned around so fast her shawl slipped from one shoulder.
“Every month?”
Turpin closed his eyes.
“Clara.”
“Every month?” she repeated, now pale with betrayal. “Forever?”
“Not forever.”
“How long?”
He opened his eyes and gave her a look so heavy with exhaustion it might have aged the trees.
“Long enough.”
Clara looked as though womanhood had personally offended her.
Annabelle, meanwhile, had begun crying again.
Turpin saw it and stiffened.
“Enough.”
“I can’t stop.”
“Yes, you can.”
“It hurts.”
That silenced him.
His gaze sharpened instantly. “Where?”
Annabelle pressed one hand below her belly, just above where the coat wrapped around her. “Here. It feels… twisted.”
Turpin’s first thought was injury again.
Then the fragments of household knowledge arranged themselves in his mind with reluctant usefulness.
“Cramps,” he said.
Annabelle sniffed. “What?”
“Cramps.” He said it more firmly this time, because naming a thing made it less lawless. “Pain in the lower abdomen. Women get them with bleeding.”
Clara’s expression twisted in horror. “There is pain too?”
Turpin gave her a sharp look. “You are not helping.”
“I am learning terrible things.”
“You are learning them noisily.”
Clara pressed her lips together.
Annabelle leaned slightly against the tree, one hand still over her abdomen.
Turpin’s eyes moved over her face, taking in the pallor, the damp lashes, the way she tried to stand straight despite obvious discomfort.
His jaw flexed.
He hated this.
Not the blood.
Not the cloth.
Not even the humiliation of ignorance, though that was considerable.
He hated that he could not order it away.
He crouched near the leather valise and opened it wider, rummaging through the contents with brisk, severe impatience. Bottles clinked together. Folded linen shifted. Pins, salves, a packet of peppermint, a little jar of smelling salts, a vial of laudanum he immediately rejected with a scowl.
“No,” he muttered. “Not for this.”
Clara crept closer. “What are you looking for?”
“Something useful.”
“Does Mama have something?”
“Your mother has everything, apparently, except the courtesy to be present when required.”
Annabelle gave another tiny, wet laugh.
Turpin glanced up.
The sound pleased him.
Only slightly.
He returned to the valise and found at last a small wrapped packet tucked beneath the bandages. Inside were dried herbs, labeled in your handwriting.
For monthly pains.
Turpin stared at the words.
Then looked toward the sky as though you had somehow anticipated humiliating him from miles away.
“Of course,” he muttered.
He held up the packet. “This.”
“What is it?” Clara asked.
“Something your mother packed.”
Annabelle looked hopeful. “Will it stop hurting?”
“It may ease it.”
“How?”
“Tea, likely.”
Clara glanced around at the trees. “We don’t have tea.”
Turpin gave her a look.
“I am aware, Clara.”
He folded the packet closed and placed it carefully back into the valise, separate from the rest.
“We will stop at the next inn. You will have hot water, this infusion, and a private room to clean yourself properly.”
Annabelle nodded weakly.
Turpin found another clean cloth and tucked it into a side pocket of the valise.
“You will keep this with you in the carriage.”
Her cheeks flushed again. “Must I?”
“Yes.”
“What if Clara sees?”
“I already saw,” Clara said, then immediately winced. “Sorry.”
Turpin turned his head slowly toward her.
Clara lifted both hands. “I am being quiet now.”
“You are attempting quiet. It is not the same thing.”
She lowered her hands.
Annabelle looked down, shame still clinging to her like cold.
Turpin saw it.
His expression grew stern again, but the anger was pointed elsewhere.
“Look at me.”
Annabelle obeyed with difficulty.
He stood before her, tall and severe, his coat still wrapped around her waist, his shirt sleeves faintly snagged from the thorns, his silver-dark hair unsettled by the wind. His hooked nose and heavy brow made him look forbidding even now.
But his voice was lower.
More controlled.
“This is natural.”
Annabelle’s eyes filled again.
“It does not feel natural.”
“Many natural things are unpleasant.”
Clara whispered, “Childbirth?”
Turpin did not even look at her. “Silence.”
Annabelle rubbed at her cheek.
“It is not an illness,” he said. “Not a punishment. Not shameful. It happens because your body is changing.”
“I don’t want it to change.”
“No.”
The answer was blunt.
But not unkind.
“No one asked you,” he added. “Bodies rarely request permission.”
Annabelle looked at him, uncertain.
Turpin looked briefly away, toward the wet hedgerow and the grey strip of road beyond it.
“When your mother arrives in a few days,” he said, voice stiffening around the mention of tenderness, “she will teach you better. Properly. She will know what to say and what to do with… all of this.”
He glanced grimly at the valise.
“But until then, you will manage.”
Annabelle swallowed. “Will you tell her?”
“Yes.”
Her face tightened with embarrassment.
Turpin’s eyes narrowed.
“Not to shame you. To ensure you are cared for.”
She lowered her gaze.
“She will be kind?”
His face shifted faintly.
“She is your mother.”
That seemed answer enough.
Annabelle nodded.
Clara, who had been quiet for nearly twenty seconds and therefore had reached the end of her endurance, asked softly, “Will it happen to me too?”
Turpin closed the valise.
The question hung in the cold air.
Annabelle looked at her sister with sudden sympathy.
Clara looked smaller than before.
Less clever.
Less sharp.
For once, she was simply a child peering toward a future that had become unexpectedly frightening.
Turpin’s first instinct was to dismiss the question.
To say, Not now.
To end the matter.
But he had already seen what silence caused.
So he answered.
“Yes.”
Clara’s face fell.
“In a few years,” he said.
“A few?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“I am not an oracle.”
Clara frowned anxiously. “But it will happen?”
“Most likely.”
“Will I scream?”
“That depends entirely on whether you inherit your mother’s composure or Margery’s lungs.”
Annabelle laughed once, small and surprised.
Clara tried not to smile and failed.
Turpin’s mouth did not move, but something in his eyes eased.
Barely.
Then Annabelle winced again, pressing her hand to her lower abdomen.
The humor vanished from him at once.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes,” she said automatically.
Turpin gave her a dark look.
She amended, “A little.”
He stepped closer and adjusted his coat more securely around her waist so the stain would not show. His hands moved with awkward care, tugging the dark fabric into place.
“You will go straight to the carriage,” he said. “You will sit beside Clara. You will not apologize. You will not cry unless you must. If the pain worsens, you will tell me.”
Annabelle nodded.
His gaze sharpened. “You will tell me.”
“Yes, Father.”
“And if you feel faint?”
“I’ll tell you.”
“If the cloth shifts?”
Her blush returned violently.
“I’ll tell you.”
“If there is more blood than before?”
“Father…”
“You will tell me.”
She swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He picked up the valise, then turned toward the road.
“Clara.”
“Yes?”
“You will assist your sister into the carriage.”
Clara nodded immediately. “I will.”
“And you will not ask her fourteen questions.”
Clara opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Then nodded again.
“I will ask only two.”
“None.”
“One?”
“Clara.”
“Yes, Papa.”
Annabelle took a tentative step.
Then another.
Her face tightened with discomfort, but she kept moving. Clara slipped an arm around her without being asked. For all her curiosity, there was no mockery in her now. She held Annabelle carefully, almost proudly, guiding her back through the bushes toward the road.
Turpin followed behind them, carrying the valise in one hand and his cane in the other after retrieving it from the mud with visible disgust.
The coachman remained facing the road.
Rigid.
Wise man.
Turpin’s baritone cut across the damp air.
“You.”
The coachman flinched. “My lord?”
“You saw nothing.”
“No, my lord.”
“You heard nothing.”
“No, my lord.”
“You will remember nothing.”
“No, my lord.”
Turpin’s hazel eyes narrowed.
“If I discover otherwise, I will have you questioned before a magistrate with less patience than I possess.”
The coachman visibly paled at the impossible suggestion that any magistrate might possess less patience.
“Yes, my lord.”
Clara helped Annabelle climb into the carriage. Annabelle settled gingerly onto the seat, his coat still around her waist, her face pale and tear-streaked but calmer than before.
Turpin stood outside the carriage for a moment, looking at his eldest daughter.
She looked back.
Something passed between them.
Not ease.
Not quite.
But trust, renewed under strange and bloodstained circumstances.
Annabelle’s voice came small from inside the carriage.
“Thank you, Father.”
Turpin’s expression tightened.
He gave one curt nod.
Then climbed in opposite them, closing the door with sharp finality.
The carriage lurched forward.
For several minutes, none of them spoke.
Annabelle leaned against the corner, one hand resting over her abdomen. Clara sat beside her, unusually still. Turpin sat rigidly opposite them, the leather valise placed beside his boot like a military supply chest.
After a while, Clara whispered, “Does it still hurt?”
Annabelle nodded.
Turpin’s eyes lifted.
Clara noticed and whispered even softer, “I’m not asking fourteen questions.”
Annabelle gave a faint smile.
Turpin looked out the window.
The countryside rolled past, grey and damp and indifferent.
Annabelle pressed her hand harder against her stomach.
At first she did it quietly.
A small motion beneath the dark folds of her cloak, fingers curling inward as though she could hold the pain still by force. Her face turned slightly toward the carriage window, trying to hide the grimace that tightened her mouth. The grey countryside blurred past beyond the glass—bare hedgerows, wet fields, distant sheep like scraps of dirty wool beneath the low sky.
But Richard Turpin saw.
Of course he saw.
He sat opposite his daughters with one gloved hand resting atop his cane, shoulders stiff beneath his dark coat, hooked nose severe in profile whenever the carriage jolted and shifted the light across his face. His hazel eyes had been turned toward the window, but his attention had never truly left Annabelle.
She shifted again.
A sharper wince crossed her face this time.
Clara noticed too.
“Annabelle?” she whispered.
“I’m fine,” Annabelle said at once.
The lie came too quickly.
Turpin’s gaze cut toward her.
“No, you are not.”
Annabelle’s cheeks flushed faintly. “It is only hurting again.”
“Only,” he repeated, voice low and displeased, as though pain itself had behaved disrespectfully.
She lowered her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
His jaw tightened.
That apology again.
Always that apology.
Turpin’s fingers flexed once over the silver head of his cane. The carriage rocked over a rut in the road, and Annabelle drew in a small breath through her teeth, one hand pressing firmly to her lower belly. She tried to sit straighter afterward, tried to compose herself, but the effort only made her look younger.
Too young.
Too pale.
Too much like the little girl he remembered before he had learned to expect her quietness.
For one brief, unwanted moment, Richard saw her not as she sat before him now—bonnet ribbons tied neatly beneath her chin, gloves folded in her lap, blood and embarrassment tucked beneath the heavy protection of his coat—but as she had been years ago.
A baby.
A solemn, watchful little thing with dark eyes too large for her face, fists curled beneath her chin, sleeping with her mouth slightly open against his waistcoat.
He had not held her often then.
Not as you had.
You had carried Annabelle constantly when she was small, pressed to your breast, tucked into the crook of your arm, swaddled and kissed and whispered to as though infants understood devotion. Turpin had considered it excessive. Indulgent. Women’s softness poured recklessly into a child too young to appreciate it.
And yet there had been nights.
Rare ones.
Nights when business had kept him late and he had returned to find you exhausted in the chair by the fire, Annabelle crying in the cradle, red-faced and furious with the world. He remembered lifting her once with all the awkward irritation of a man handling something breakable and unreasonable.
She had stopped crying almost immediately.
Not because he soothed her.
He had done nothing soothing.
He had merely held her against his chest, one large hand spread across her tiny back, and stared down at her with stern confusion while she blinked up at him in the firelight.
“What?” he had muttered at the infant.
Annabelle had sighed.
Then fallen asleep.
He remembered the absurd weight of that trust.
A baby’s head beneath his chin. Warm breath through cotton. One little hand tangled in the edge of his shirt as though she had decided, without evidence, that he was safe.
The memory struck him now with such force that his expression hardened instinctively against it.
Annabelle winced again.
That settled it.
Turpin looked at Clara.
“Move.”
Clara blinked. “What?”
“Move.”
She sat up straighter at once, alarmed. “Where?”
“To this side.”
He tapped the empty space beside him with the head of his cane.
Clara looked between him and Annabelle, then understood.
“Oh.”
She rose awkwardly as the carriage rattled beneath her feet, one hand gripping the strap near the door for balance. Turpin reached out and caught her elbow before she could stumble, steadying her with a firm, almost impatient grip.
“Careful,” he muttered.
“I am being careful.”
“You are lurching.”
“The carriage is lurching.”
“Then outwit it.”
Clara made the mistake of glancing at him.
His face was completely serious.
She decided not to answer.
With some difficulty, she switched places, squeezing onto the opposite bench beside him. Turpin shifted just enough to allow her room, though his posture remained rigid and displeased, as if the inconvenience were the carriage’s personal fault.
Annabelle watched in confusion.
“Father?”
Turpin pointed to the seat Clara had abandoned.
“Come here.”
Annabelle’s eyes widened slightly. “Why?”
“Because I told you to.”
She hesitated.
Not out of defiance.
Out of uncertainty.
Turpin saw that too, and his voice lowered, though it remained edged with command.
“You are in pain. Come here.”
Annabelle obeyed.
She moved carefully across the narrow carriage space, one hand still clutching his coat around her waist, the other pressed against her stomach. When the wheels struck another uneven patch of road, she swayed.
Turpin’s arm came around her immediately.
Hard.
Secure.
He caught her against him before she could fall, his gloved hand bracing between her shoulder blades.
Annabelle froze.
So did he.
For one peculiar second, neither of them moved.
Then Turpin cleared his throat sharply, as though the moment had offended him.
“Sit.”
She did.
Not beside him.
Not quite.
He guided her down until she was half-turned across the bench, her body angled carefully along the seat, her shoulders lowered with stiff reluctance toward his lap.
Annabelle realized what he intended and flushed scarlet.
“Father, I can sit properly.”
“You cannot.”
“I can.”
“You look as though you are being stabbed by an invisible knife.”
Clara, beside him, whispered, “That is what it feels like?”
Annabelle gave a miserable little nod.
Clara paled again.
Turpin shot her a look. “Do not faint from information.”
“I am not fainting.”
“You look undecided.”
Clara sat back at once.
Annabelle tried once more to straighten. “Father, truly, I do not need—”
Turpin’s hand settled firmly on her shoulder.
“Lie down.”
The baritone was quiet.
Not gentle.
Never quite gentle.
But final.
Annabelle’s resistance gave way beneath it.
Slowly, awkwardly, she lowered herself until her head rested across his thigh.
For a moment, she lay very still.
Humiliated, perhaps.
Or frightened of displeasing him by needing comfort.
Turpin looked down at her with a severe expression that did not match the careful way he drew his coat more securely over her body, arranging the fabric so it covered her waist and knees. His gloved fingers moved with sharp precision, tucking one edge beneath her arm, pulling another away from where it pressed too tightly against her stomach.
“There,” he said gruffly.
Annabelle stared toward the opposite seat, cheeks still flushed. “I’m too old for this.”
“Yes.”
Her mouth trembled faintly.
He looked down at her.
“You are also in pain.”
She swallowed.
The carriage rocked.
Her hand curled again over her belly, and this time, because she was lying across him, he felt the small tremor pass through her body.
Turpin’s face changed.
Only slightly.
His free hand hovered for half a second, uncertain in a way that would have horrified anyone who knew him from court. Richard Turpin never hovered. He struck, signed, ordered, condemned. His hands knew how to control. They did not know how to soothe.
But memory moved before pride could stop it.
That infant weight against his chest.
That tiny fist in his shirt.
That sigh when she had trusted him without question.
His hand came down over Annabelle’s hair.
Stiffly at first.
Then slower.
He smoothed the loose strands back from her temple, careful not to disturb the bonnet that had already slipped crookedly against her curls.
Annabelle’s eyes widened.
Clara stared openly.
Turpin noticed both reactions and scowled.
“What.”
Clara looked quickly out the window. “Nothing.”
Annabelle said nothing at all.
That was worse somehow.
Turpin kept his hand where it was, broad palm resting lightly against the side of her head.
“You will rest,” he said.
Annabelle’s voice came small. “Yes, Father.”
“And you will stop apologizing for blood.”
Her eyes flicked upward.
His hazel gaze remained fixed ahead, sternly avoiding sentiment.
“It is inconvenient,” he continued. “Messy. Poorly designed. But not criminal.”
Despite herself, Clara let out a tiny sound.
Turpin’s eyes shifted toward her.
She swallowed it at once.
Annabelle’s mouth twitched weakly.
“Poorly designed?” she whispered.
“Abominably.”
A small laugh escaped her.
It was not much.
Barely more than breath.
But Turpin felt it against his leg and glanced down despite himself.
Annabelle was smiling faintly, though her face remained pale.
The sight did something unpleasant behind his ribs.
He looked away at once.
“Do not encourage me to discuss anatomy further,” he muttered. “I have already exceeded the dignity of the day.”
Clara pressed her lips together very hard.
Annabelle closed her eyes.
For a while, the carriage moved in silence.
The wheels rattled steadily over the wet road. Rain began again in a fine mist, tapping lightly against the windows. Clara sat very upright beside her father, trying not to look too often at Annabelle curled with her head in his lap.
But she did look.
More than once.
Not mockingly.
With curiosity.
With something softer.
She had seen her father punish servants with a glance. She had seen him make grown men stammer. She had seen him lecture Margery until even Margery briefly considered silence as a moral option.
She had rarely seen him like this.
Rigid as stone, displeased with the universe, one hand resting protectively over his eldest daughter’s hair while she lay across him in pain.
Annabelle shifted after several minutes.
Turpin’s hand tightened at once.
“What?”
“It hurts,” she murmured.
“Worse?”
“A little.”
He looked toward the window, judging the road, the speed, the miserable grey distance ahead.
Then he leaned forward and struck the carriage roof sharply with the handle of his cane.
Clara jumped.
The carriage slowed almost at once.
The small panel near the front opened.
“My lord?” came the coachman’s cautious voice.
“The next inn,” Turpin said, baritone cutting through the damp air. “How far?”
“Perhaps four miles, my lord.”
“Make it two.”
A pause.
“My lord?”
Turpin’s eyes narrowed.
“Drive faster.”
“Yes, my lord.”
The panel shut quickly.
The carriage lurched forward with renewed purpose.
Annabelle opened her eyes. “Please don’t trouble him because of me.”
Turpin looked down at her.
His expression was almost frightening in its severity.
“You are my daughter.”
She went quiet.
The words were not tender in tone.
They were colder than that.
Harder.
Like law.
Like ownership.
Like protection rendered absolute because he had decided it must be so.
“You are not trouble,” he said.
Annabelle’s eyes shone suddenly.
He frowned.
“Do not cry.”
“I’m not.”
“You are considering it.”
“I can’t help it.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No, Father,” she whispered, a tiny, watery smile appearing despite the pain. “I really can’t.”
Turpin stared down at her.
Then, after a long moment, he sighed through his nose and resumed smoothing her hair.
“Then do it quietly.”
Clara made a strangled sound and turned it into a cough.
Annabelle did cry then.
Softly.
Not from fear now, or humiliation, but from some tangled mixture of pain, relief, embarrassment, and the unbearable strangeness of being held by a father who did not know how to be soft but had made room for her anyway.
Turpin pretended not to notice the tears sliding toward his trousers.
But his thumb moved once, rough and awkward, wiping the wetness from the corner of her eye.
“Your mother will fuss,” he said after a time.
Annabelle sniffed. “When she hears?”
“Yes.”
“She will be upset she wasn’t here.”
“She will blame me.”
Clara looked over. “Why?”
“Because your mother enjoys ambitious accusations.”
Turpin’s mouth tightened. “She does it with skill.”
“She will not blame you,” Annabelle said. “You helped me.”
That made him still.
Only for a second.
Then he looked out the window again.
“I was inadequate.”
Annabelle opened her eyes fully now.
The admission shocked her more than anything else that had happened.
Richard Turpin did not call himself inadequate.
Not ever.
He called other men incompetent, dishonest, foolish, soft-headed, morally bankrupt, and occasionally better suited to livestock than employment. He did not place failure upon himself.
But there it was.
Flat.
Unornamented.
Almost resentful.
Annabelle turned her face slightly against his thigh, looking up at him from beneath damp lashes.
“You weren’t,” she said.
He did not look down.
“I did not know how to fasten the cloth.”
“You learned.”
“I should have known.”
“Why?”
His hazel eyes shifted then.
She held them bravely, though her cheeks were still blotched from crying.
“You are not a woman,” she said quietly. “You are Father.”
Clara blinked.
Turpin stared.
Annabelle seemed to realize only after speaking that the sentence sounded rather obvious. Her blush returned at once.
“I only mean…” She swallowed. “You did not leave me.”
The carriage noise filled the silence afterward.
Rain tapped at the glass.
Turpin’s hand stopped moving over her hair.
For a moment, his face became utterly unreadable.
Then, slowly, his palm settled more firmly against the crown of her head.
“No,” he said.
Low.
Baritone roughened by something he would never name.
What we're saying: "Hogwarts Legacy would've been better with romance options! Little dates and stuff would've been so cute! :)"
What some people are apparently hearing: "Yeah so. We want Sebastian and Ominis to rail our MC so hard she forgets every spell she's learned while we wank ourselves off to the sight of pixels fucking."
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