Dahlia watched behind blurry eyes as the man she loved tethered a sturdy rope from the saddle of his horse to her handcuffs.

It wasn’t Simon’s fault. It was hers. Simon’s tireless determination and strength to uphold both his values and the law no matter the opposition was one of the main reasons she’d fallen in love with him in the first place. He could be counted on to always do the right thing. He was her rock. A bastion of unbreakable character.

Whose unflagging heroic qualities were now marching her to a dire future of her own making.

She was going to lose everything. Life as she knew it. Her school. Her family. Her lifelong friendship with Faith. From this day forward, the iron shackles about her wrists would be her sole companions.

And her girls… What would they think? What would they do?

Faith would not be able to manage the school alone. Without Dahlia’s aid, donations would be minimal. The girls might be evicted from the abbey before they even had a chance to attempt the fund-raising performance.

A chill skittered across her clammy skin. She could not consign her wards back to a life on the streets. There had to be something she could do.

She turned her panicked gaze toward Simon. “Please set me free. I won’t do it again.”

“I know.” He swung onto his horse. “You’ll be in prison.”

The chill from the heavy iron cuffs seeped all the way through to her bones.

Once she stepped foot into prison, she was as good as dead. Either the gallows or gaol fever would take her.

Even if she somehow convinced Simon to let her go, just this once… to forget he’d caught her in the library, forget that her schoolroom contained pocket-sized proof of her past crimes as a thief… Her days of playing Robin Hood were over.

If she couldn’t pay the rent, her school—the family of girls who counted on her, looked up to her, loved her—were right back on the streets.

Just like they were when their birth mothers abandoned them.

Was it better to have loved and lost? Or had she only made things worse for them all?

The iron shackles clinked as she clutched her suddenly nauseous belly.

If there had been any other way… but, of course, there hadn’t. If Dahlia hadn’t taken the risks she had, they would have run out of bread to eat long before. Creditors would have evicted them from the abbey. If she weren’t facing a Newgate prison sentence, it would be debtors’ gaol at Marshalsea. Ending like this had always been inevitable.

She just hoped her girls could forgive her.

With her new notoriety, she was likely to be the sole member of the ton to miss the upcoming Circus Minimus. Fashionable quarterly performances were no longer likely. This would be the girls’ one shot. They would no longer be students of perennial interest, but a flash-in-the-pan passing fancy, like the “penny freaks” of a traveling peep tent.

Everyone would want to see the school where the duplicitous Dahlia Grenville had worked before being locked up at Newgate.

And then “everyone” would go home, thrilled to see themselves listed as attending guests in the scandal columns, and forget all about the two dozen child performers from that day forward.

Dahlia’s chest grew tight. She wasn’t just disappointing her wards. She was abandoning them. They would go back to the workhouses, the brothels, the streets. Because of her, the children could lose the only family they’d ever had.

She had to find a way to save them.

But how? Every cobblestone she tripped over only brought her closer and closer to gaol.

There had to be something. Anything. No matter how small. She had to think, despite the pounding in her head and the bleakness in her heart. The dank, offal-stained air of a long, black alley might be the last breaths of freedom she ever had. Her girls deserved her full attention now more than ever. She was still their only hope.

Or was she? Dahlia’s cracked lips parted.

Although nothing was likely to lift the school above the stigma of the previous felonious headmistress, with luck, the Circus Minimus would garner enough donations to stay ahead of the bill collectors for another month or two.

If anyone could find a way to keep the school open until the performance, it would be Faith. But to even attempt it, she would need some buffer of time and money.

As well as legal authorization.

“Stop,” Dahlia choked out as she stumbled along the alley.

The school was her dream. The last thing she wanted to do was give it up. But she’d left herself—and her students—no choice.

Simon didn’t slow. “You’ll have plenty opportunity to rest once you’re locked inside a cell.”

“Please,” she begged, hobbling faster to reach his side. “Let me pen a short note to my brother before you take me in.”

“Why?”

“He has a document signed by me, handing all ownership and control of the school over to Faith Digby in the event I am no longer capable of doing so.” She lifted her shackled wrists and tried for a brave smile. “I assume hanging from the gallows isn’t a holiday one ever returns from. It’s the only thing I can do to take care of my girls.”