And then a hush fell upon the assembly as the magistrate entered the courtroom, taking his seat and banging his gavel loudly for quiet before calling for the prisoner.
The woman on his right whispered loudly that she’d never seen a real live murderess before. It didn’t strike Hugh as odd that Lady Cavanaugh had already been convicted in the court of public opinion. All he’d ever heard of the woman were vile insinuations about the lovers she’d had behind her husband’s back. That was something the common folk did not forgive.
He wondered if Lady Cavanaugh’s cold, defiant gaze raking the spectators would flare with recognition if she happened to catch sight of Phoebe. He hoped so. Sadly, though, it seemed that Phoebe was the duchess’s only supporter.
Footsteps echoed in the silence. Everyone in the courtroom turned, Hugh included, as a woman in a black cloak was led from a holding room. She clasped her hands together and her head was bowed, but her carriage was straight and proud as a court official led her to the stand.
Not until the defendant actually appeared before the courtroom assembly, her large blue eyes staring out at the crowd with a mixture of defiance and apprehension, her demure manner of dress so at odds with her reputation, did Hugh convulse with shock at the light of recognition that tore through him.
Dear Lord, my eyes are deceiving me. He blinked, but when he refocused his gaze, he was close enough to the front to see her clearly. Every last fine line about her eyes, the curve of her lips, the graceful sweep of her throat, the purity of her gaze, were images he’d carried with him since she’d disappeared. Seeing her in the flesh sent a shudder through him of the greatest ecstasy mixed with the deepest dread, the utmost dismay. Here was the notorious Lady Cavanaugh, whom everyone was convinced had murdered her ailing husband to secure her comfort. And Lady Cavanaugh was none other than his own darling Phoebe.
Except that he wasn’t sure if he could call her that any longer. Darling was a term of endearment reserved for someone who was forthcoming in their dealings, honest and true. Not someone who claimed to be an ill-used underling dependent on her rescuer’s mercy, while all the while pulling the wool over her latest protector’s eyes.
He continued to stare at her, willing her to meet his gaze. Her face was without expression, staring stonily into the judgmental crowd. She hadn’t picked Hugh out in the sea of faces. Her line of vision was somewhere over the tops of people’s heads, and only the tapping of her right forefinger upon her forearm as she hugged herself gave any indication of her agitation.
The magistrate identified her, and she nodded her head as she accepted that she was indeed Lady Cavanaugh, Duchess of Blinley.
A list of charges against her was then read out. Hugh could not drag his devastated gaze from her face, white and frightened, but still the beautiful compilation of features he’d contoured during the lazy, sensual sessions which had bound them together.
The crackle of alertness in the room seemed to pulse around all but him. His was the only interest that was not prurient. None of these people had ever met Lady Cavanaugh, but for a small section of the courtroom set aside for the aristocrats. Hugh was not one of them. Though he could claim lineage on both sides to the aristocracy, he was merely third in line to a baronetcy; a gentleman but not a noble. Not like Lady Cavanaugh, though he wondered briefly at her status prior to her marriage, and then realized with a stab of shame that, in truth, he knew nothing about her. Nothing about the woman to whom he’d lost his heart, and whom he’d wooed with a roughness and lack of respect that now horrified him. As horrifying was that he’d taken her at her word, not questioning her when she’d declared herself Lady Cavanaugh’s servant, and consequently regarding her airs and graces with amusement, if not mild contempt.
Yet shouldn’t he be more horrified that she was to all those in the room today, a sensational murderess?
Could she truly be guilty of a crime so foul and premeditated as the one of which she was charged? It went against the grain of everything he knew her to be.
He gave himself a mental shake. Phoebe had lied to him from the start. Everything she’d ever told him must have been a lie. The fact she’d not trusted him with the truth lay heavy and bitter on him now. She’d disappeared, obviously because she’d been apprehended, but she’d not even spirited a message to him. Because she didn’t believe he could help her? Because he could no longer be of use to her?
His disordered feelings were not soothed when the night he’d first met Phoebe became the focus of questioning.
The late Lord Cavanaugh’s manservant was called as a witness and asked about the series of events leading up to the murder.
“Mr Wentworth—I mean, the new Lord Cavanaugh as he are now—were payin’ ‘is fortnightly visit an’ after the dinner plates was cleared away, he an’ Lady Cavanaugh left me master ter do what they usually did.”
“And what was that?” the magistrate asked.
The manservant cleared his throat. He looked embarrassed. “They went to me lady’s bedchamber, sir.”
A titter ran through the courtroom, and Hugh fixed his stony gaze on Phoebe. Dear God, she and Wentworth? But of course, that was all he’d ever heard about Lady Cavanaugh. That she’d despised her husband whom she’d cuckolded with the odious Wentworth, the seducer of Hugh’s own sister. And she went willingly with him every fortnight?
His eyes bored into her as he tried to see in her the sweet, ingenuous creature he’d once believed her to be; as he willed her to see him. But her expression remained implacable through every damning statement, as if her perfect features were carved out of alabaster.
Let her deny it, he found himself wishing urgently.
But when the magistrate asked her if everything the manservant claimed was true, she merely nodded.
“And was there any indication of impropriety, Mr Duckworth?” The magistrate asked. “The implication merely in visiting a lady’s bedchamber suggests there is, but do you have any evidence? We cannot rely on hearsay or merely your belief that my lady was cuckolding her husband.”
“There were always a lot of noise when them two were at it.” The coarse-featured retainer looked embarrassed, but when his audience laughed, he straightened in his chair with a grin and elaborated further, warming to the details which were encouraged by his interrogator.
“And how long do you estimate this affair between Lady Cavanaugh and Lord Wentworth had been going on?”
“’Bout six months, m’lord,” Duckworth replied. “Lady Cavanaugh used ter wait at the drawin’ room window each fortnight fer sign of ‘is carriage an’ then she’d meet ‘im on the portico. No, she showed little such affection fer ‘er ’usband,” he answered when quizzed.
A fornicating, cuckolding, husband-hating woman charged with the murder of a respected peer of the realm. Long-familiar with the description he’d heard from around the village and in the local tavern, Hugh had accepted her guilt, almost as unquestioningly as the rest of them. He’d been mildly impressed that Phoebe had defended Lady Cavanaugh with such loyalty.
Now hearing the description as if with fresh ears, Hugh could not reconcile the Phoebe he knew as the one described by Duckworth, and later by a string of other servants; and finally by Sir Roderick and his mealy-mouthed daughter who all testified against her. The Phoebe Hugh knew was honest and direct, not a conniving liar with clearly murderous tendencies. Yes, in the space of half an hour, he’d at least made that turnaround.
Despairingly, he wondered what would happen to her. Not a single person was prepared to offer a different version of the woman he’d loved. As the evidence of her poor character mounted, and no one spoke in her defense, he realized she was going to die. She admitted she was a faithless wife who disliked her husband; admitted to everything that gave her a motive for killing the late Lord Cavanaugh.
More damning than all else, though, was the account of the maids who ran into the drawing room at the sounds of screaming, to find her holding the paper knife, wet with blood, that sh
e’d just plunged into her husband’s heart.
Hugh remembered the night she’d thrown herself from Wentworth’s carriage and fled from him into the woods. She’d been covered in blood. Terrified by the shocking events that had just occurred. She’d told him she was Lady Cavanaugh’s maid; that the crime was wrongly attributed to Lady Cavanaugh. Could there be another explanation? One that, despite her having every desire to wish her husband dead—with her lover waiting in the wings—exonerated her?
Now it was her turn to speak about the events of that particular night. The courtroom became hushed following riotous comments following the unflattering testimony of one of the chambermaids who went into even greater detail than Duckworth about her mistress’s bedroom exploits as she “were the one wot ‘ad to clean up after them an’ they did like a good romp.”
“Where were you when you heard about the death of your husband’s heir, Lady Cavanaugh?” asked the magistrate.
“In my bedchamber.” She held her head regally, no doubt in anticipation of the inevitable rejoinder.
“With your father’s cousin, Lord Wentworth?”
She gave a small nod, and Hugh’s lip curled in disgust. She’d claimed to be so many things he knew she was not—but he never would have believed she was capable of murder, or of consorting with men for financial gain. Not just any man, but Wentworth.
A series of fleeting memories of the two of them, Hugh and Phoebe, entwined as they enjoyed each other’s bodies, now took on a far less rosy hue.
Finally came the questions regarding the murder itself. At this point, Lady Cavanaugh became far more vociferous in her responses, declaring that she had neither murder nor intent to harm in her mind when the knife was plunged into her husband’s heart.
“But you admit that it was your hand which held the weapon that was the cause of death?”
For a moment she looked helpless, and Hugh prayed that in the final moment she would declare that to be a fabrication, just as she’d declared—when he thought her as sweet Phoebe—that Lady Cavanaugh was innocent.
But she did not. Raising her voice and looking at Wentworth who sat nearby, she said clearly, “I have served you well, haven’t I, Wentworth? You used your superior strength to plunge the paper knife, such an innocent implement in my hands but so lethal when controlled by you, to do what you would not, could not, do yourself.” Her voice wavered a moment before gaining strength. “The moment you heard that both of your two brothers who stood between you and my husband’s estate, which you’d never thought you’d inherit, had died, you had to find a way to eliminate the only other obstacle in your way after Wentworth—me!”
The court erupted into uproar, and when calm had been established, the magistrate scoffed into the vacuum of silence, “Come now, Lady Cavanaugh, that’s going too far. He did not eliminate you. Why, you eliminated your husband.”
“Mr Wentworth had good reason to fear me standing in the way of his inheriting.”
“Pray what motive could he have? You were only his cousin’s wife.”
Hugh was aware of every movement and twitch of Phoebe’s expression. He’d grown to know her better than he’d realized as he watched her inner thoughts flit across her face like a chart only he could read. He knew something momentous was coming, and he was not wrong.
“He had every reason to fear my ability to stand in his way, since I was carrying—and still carry—my husband’s child.”
A gasp rustled through the assembled room. Hugh’s was added to it as his mouth dropped open. Could it be true? He thought rapidly. He’d given it no thought, but he could not remember when she’d last bled.
With an angry roar, Wentworth leaped to his feet. “Liar!” he spat. And then over the top of the din, “The lady is a liar!”
“You cannot disprove what will inevitably come to pass: the birth of my husband’s child and, if it is born a boy, then you will no longer have claim to my husband’s estate and assets for which you murdered.” She spoke with passion, but not unseemly hysteria. Hugh had to admire her for that.
“If you are with child, then it will not be your husband’s!” screamed Wentworth. “Everyone knows that!”
Phoebe looked at him calmly. “How can you prove that, Mr Wentworth?”
Shaking, Phoebe left the courtroom for an adjournment, refusing the assistance of the turnkeys who flanked her. She had a sudden urge to be ill, but knew she could not give into weakness now. She’d succeeded in knocking the wind from Wentworth’s sails, and that was a small victory that would have to sustain her for now.
As a lady, she had not been housed with the common prisoners as Wentworth had been so insistent should happen. Small mercy, indeed. Instead, she occupied her own pleasant chamber by the turnkey’s cottage where the turnkey’s wife waited upon her with an air of quiet outrage, and to where she was now led.
“Ye’re enough to fill an old woman with horror at what ye done,” the woman hissed, as she thrust a plate of food in front of her prisoner before she left Phoebe to the silence she’d become used to.
But it was Phoebe who felt the horror in its full force when a gentle tap upon the door did not herald the arrival of her evening meal but instead, Hugh.
Her first reaction was to hurl her arms about his neck and give into a cathartic bout of weeping, but his stiff stance did not encourage this. Nor had she expected their possible reunion would be sweetness and exoneration. He’d have heard every damning piece of evidence against her.
“You were in the courtroom?” There was no need to ask, but still, her mind raced over all the defamatory statements about her that he’d be digesting right now.
He nodded, his eyes bleak as he looked past her. “May I come in?”
“Of course.” She indicated a chair by the fire, but he shook his head. “I won’t stay long. I just wanted to satisfy myself that you were well and…” he frowned, unable it seemed to continue.
“To ask why I lied to you?” she supplied.
“Why did you?”
“Oh Hugh….” Phoebe sucked in a breath, “…I cannot expect you to understand why I made any of the decisions I did. I cannot expect you to begin to know what it was like living with Ulrick—”
“Many women live with violent husbands, but that’s no excuse to—”
Horrified she cut him off. “You, too, believe I killed Ulrick? That it was planned?” She put her hands to her face then said more calmly, “Well, you have your answer. You are like all the rest: judging that which you can’t possibly know. That’s why I did not reveal to you who I really was.”
“And who are you really, Phoebe?” Hugh’s face contorted as he gripped her arm. “The girl I knew was honest and brazen and fearless. A maidservant with a fierce loyalty to her mistress accused of murder. I admired the fact she would risk so much to raise her voice and testify to her belief that her mistress was innocent.”
Phoebe said nothing.
“Now I find that you’re that mistress. Mistress to maidservant Phoebe who doesn’t exist, and mistress to the evil Wentworth who seduced my sister. And every fortnight you went with him willingly?”
Phoebe dropped her eyes before giving him a searching look. “Did your sister not go willingly too? Ask your Ada if Wentworth was not compelling? That he had the charm to woo with honeyed words a vulnerable female.” She swallowed. “I was vulnerable because I needed to provide Ulrick with an heir. Not an easy matter when he was impotent. Wentworth had been laying on the charm thickly for years, but finally it was Ulrick who directed me to lie with his cousin in order that Wentworth’s eldest feeble-minded brother would not inherit.”
Hugh stared at her. “You and Wentworth acted as one in your attempts to beget Ulrick’s heir. What about Ulrick’s murder? You claim your hand was forced. Yet the two of you had been united in everything else.”
“Now do you see why I did not wish to be caught?” It was hard to swallow. “You cared for me enough to make me your mistress, you came to know me better than a
nyone, yet you consider me guilty. Just like everyone else.” She managed a breath though panic tore at her. “And now I’m going to die for a crime that was brilliantly executed by Wentworth. How clever he is,” she added bitterly.
“Are you really carrying Wentworth’s child?” She saw the effort his question cost him and managed a smile.
“Definitely not Wentworth’s. How terrified I was that I might be when I fled the manor. After news had been delivered that Wentworth’s older brothers were dead, and he was now heir, it was my taunt that, in fact, I was with child—meaning he’d not inherit after all—that tipped Wentworth over the edge. He lunged at me when I said that, clasped my hand around the handle of the paper knife, and forced it into Ulrick’s chest.” She started to shake, recalling the horror of her helplessness. “And then he tried to murder me. That’s why I fled with nothing but the chemise I was wearing.”
“But you were Wentworth’s…paramour. Why taunt him?”
“I couldn’t bear being his whore, but Ulrick forced me. I thought if I told him I was pregnant he’d leave me alone.”
“So you are…with child?”
“Not Wentworth’s, if that’s what you’re asking.”
He put his head on one side, his confusion heartbreaking to witness. “What are you saying, Phoebe? You seduced me, Phoebe. I remember it clearly. Was there a reason other than my charm?”
She wanted to hold him and reassure him, but of course she couldn’t. He’d leave thinking the worst, and she’d die without ever having a final piece of comfort of the man she loved.
“I’ll be honest. When I realized I wasn’t carrying Wentworth’s child, I was afraid. Then it occurred to me that if I were with child, I could delay the noose, and perhaps win the time needed to find witnesses to speak in my defense or evidence to exonerate me.”
Hugh’s expression narrowed. “So when you seduced me, I was nothing more than a means to an end. Of course, later you thought otherwise hence the need for precautions.”
The Duchess and the Highwayman Page 17
