by L. C. Sharp
“Ah yes, the House of Lords. I hadn’t thought of that,” Ash said. “Well, if it comes to it, then we’ll have to inform them.”
“She has friends in high places,” John Fielding put in. “Influential friends.”
“So do I,” Ash said. “If I have to, I will use them.” He sighed. “But you have the right of it. Confronted with these letters and the proof that her lover murdered for her sake, Lady Coddington will undoubtedly claim that she knew nothing of it. She’ll be horrified, she’ll cry. But we cannot prove her wrong.”
“Bonham too,” said John Fielding heavily. “One of the few honest gaming house owners in the whole city. He made a good living, paid his people and refused to allow the kind of reckless gambling that leads to duels.”
“The case is still open,” Henry Fielding reminded his brother. “I think we may lay it to rest with this. If we can convict.”
“Was it not careless to leave the letters lying about?” John Fielding said.
Ash, leaning back in his chair, shared a sharp glance with Juliana. “They were in a locked drawer,” he admitted. “The nightstand was not immediately obvious. The bedcurtains covered much of it, as if he was trying to hide it.” Ash leaned forward. “This season she has been writing to him every other day. The pattern is unmistakable. But if that is so, some letters are missing. There are gaps at the time of specific events.”
The pause that followed showed clearly that his information had hit the mark. The Fieldings gazed at him, one sightlessly, the other distantly.
Ash went on. “The week before last, there is only one letter. Last week, only one, on Monday.”
“Good of her to date them,” John Fielding commented.
Ash shrugged. “Habit. I always date my notes and my letters. I rarely think about it.”
“Where do you think those letters are?” Henry demanded.
“Somewhere in the house. Her ladyship visited, saying she wished to pay her respects, but the butler told her that the body was not there and the family was not at home.”
Henry grunted. “Good for him. She may have wanted to retrieve the letters. I wonder if she kept copies?”
Juliana shifted in her chair. “She’s a cold, calculating murderer. Whether she did the deed or not, she killed her husband, and Bonham. She’s as responsible as Stanton.”
But she might escape justice. How could that be? She knew perfectly well, of course. Having been part of the privileged classes, she knew how much never escaped, never reached the world outside the heated rooms of the palace and the West End.
“Perhaps her lover, too,” Ash said, his eyes cold. “I left instructions with the butler to allow nobody to enter, nobody at all. The body isn’t at his home, so there is no need for anyone to claim to be paying their respects. They can do that at the church. His brother, the new baron, is a soldier. It will take him some time to come home, so it is probably better to have the house shut up.”
“Hmph.”
Juliana pressed their advantage. “Therefore, we have an opportunity. Lady Coddington has already tried to obtain those letters once, when she called to leave her condolences. The butler forestalled her attempt. Instead of ransacking the house, we should allow her to lead us to them. To prove she knows how valuable they are.”
This time the silence was longer, and more satisfying.
“Excellent,” Ash murmured. High praise from him.
“How do you suggest we proceed?” Henry Fielding demanded.
* * *
They had barely walked to the end of Bow Street when Juliana became aware that somebody was following them. When she would have stopped and looked behind her, Ash shook his head and drew her closer. “It’s Cutty Jack,” he said. “He has Col with him. Let them follow us home.”
“Why don’t they walk with us?”
“They’re watching,” he said shortly, all but pulling her along. “Jack will make sure we’re not followed.”
“Oh.” Of course. “Who are you most worried about, the magistrate’s men, or the Raven?”
“The Raven,” he answered, tight lipped. “I’m still not sure why his interest is so close. I’d have expected him to lose interest once we assured him he was not suspected. I’m not convinced he doesn’t want to interfere in this case. And I want to know why.”
A short walk took them to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. They walked up the side of the square, past the imposing entrance of Newcastle House, towards their own door. Baynon opened it when they were within a step of it.
As if by magic, Cutty Jack melted out of the shadows of a narrow alley, the boy by his side. Ash nodded to Baynon, who didn’t close it until both Jack and the boy were inside.
Ash led them to his study at the back of the hall on the left. He gestured impatiently for them to find a seat, and while they pulled mismatched chairs up to the large desk, he helped Juliana into a chair and took his own. He propped his elbows on the work-worn walnut, and leaned forward.
Col slumped in the seat. He appeared a little better than when Juliana had first seen him, his color less pallid, his body less skeletal. Somebody had been feeding him more than the leftovers from a meal. She suspected Jack, although he’d never admit to it.
“Did he see it?” Ash demanded of Jack.
“Yes,” Jack said. “Took me days to find ’im. Scared, or summat. I told ’im you’d look after ’im. So you’d better.”
“I’ll be sure to do that. Did he recognize the murderer?”
Casually hooking his finger in the collar of the boy’s threadbare shirt, Jack pulled him up. “Tell ’em.”
“It was a woman,” Col said.
Ash stared at the child. “Say that again.”
Col sniffed and wiped his nose along his shirtsleeve before he answered. Juliana itched to give him her handkerchief. Pickpockets stole plenty of handkerchiefs. Why didn’t they keep one for themselves?
“She wore gen’lemen’s clothes, but it was a woman. Obvious once you looked. She di’n’t know ’ow to move, like. An’ ’er face was soft. She was short, ’ad the gun in ’er pocket. It weighed the coat down funny, so I noticed ’er the minute she walked ’round the corner.”
“Did you see her face?” Ash demanded.
Col nodded.
“Did you recognize her?”
He got a shake of the head.
“Would you know her again?”
An emphatic nod.
Ash turned his head and met Juliana eyes. “Oh yes,” he said. “Our murderous widow couldn’t let Stanton live. He knew too much and he would confess once he’d escaped her thrall.”
Juliana thought of a flaw. “But they were in love, or so she claimed. If she married him, he couldn’t lay evidence against her, nor her of him.”
Ash grunted. “She couldn’t marry him the day after her husband was murdered. Even getting a special license takes a day, and she could hardly do that while she was married to somebody else.”
“Perhaps he was beginning to regret what he did. Perhaps he wanted to get away from her. She could not allow that.”
“Perhaps so,” Ash said thoughtfully. “Delaying the marriage would give him time to make alternative plans.”
He addressed Jack. “We’ll keep Col here.”
“Will yer now? You’d let this light-fingered bastard into your ’ouse? I’d think twice, guv’nor.”
Juliana was forced to agree. Valuable items were scattered all over the house with a carelessness her mother would deplore. But if that kept Col safe, she wouldn’t object. If the Raven took an interest, then he was in danger. If Lady Coddington discovered she was found out, she would come for him. “Col must keep his fingers to himself.”
Ash exchanged a grin with her. “I know. We’ll take care. And you, Jack, you’ll see he doesn’t leave this house with anything he’s not entitled to. He can take t
he spare room in the attic, the one at the end.”
The one no servant wanted because the roof sloped too much for them to stand up in it. Until now, they’d used it as a storeroom. It would not take above half an hour to clear it. Col would have no problem standing up, and with plenty of blankets and some hot water he’d be as snug as a bird in a nest. And, she reflected, the boy couldn’t move without bumping into a domestic.
That would work. “Very well,” she said, and winked at Col. “You’re our new boot-boy, but you have a deadly cold.” The nose wiping had given her that idea. “You’re in that room in quarantine so you don’t give it to the other servants.”
“That will do well enough,” Ash agreed. “Col, you don’t move from that room until we’ve sorted this out.”
Col shuddered. “Awl right,” he agreed, but he appeared reluctant. “But the weather’s getting better. There’ll be cullies about, gentry morts and the like, and plenty of takin’s.”
“The cullies will have to wait,” Ash told him.
“You can eat in your room. And bathe,” Juliana said with feeling. The boy had the kind of stink that had a life of its own. They’d have to fumigate his room once he’d gone. And she wondered how Amelia would take the news.
Col squealed as if she’d threatened to put him on the rack. “Naw, please! I can’t ’ave that.”
“It’s spring,” Jack said. “You knows we allus teks a bath in the spring. I do, anyway,” he said with pride. “Go to the bagnio, I does.” He lifted his chin and gave Col a disdainful glance any duke would be proud of.
“I never...”
“Well this year you can. Start behavin’ like a man.”
Jack was redolent, but his odor was within boundaries, and he cleaned himself up if he had to, as he had for dinner the other day. Juliana doubted he could make his stench felt at the opposite end of the room. Col, on the other hand, could achieve that without even trying. She doubted one bath could put that to rights, but it might take a few layers off.
She felt easier in her mind now they’d found Col and taken him off the streets. While it would take more than a street urchin to convict a countess of murder, she would do her utmost to remove said urchin. And it was all too easy to get rid of a boy nobody cared about, and nobody noticed.
Now they did.
Chapter Eighteen
After a full hour of arguing, Ash had finally allowed Juliana to play her part in the plan to trap Lady Coddington. “We need to drop the bait,” she said. “How about a personal visit from one lady to another?”
Ash had insisted that if Lady Coddington suspected Juliana, she would kill her. So Juliana had agreed to take Ash with her. But not to let him go alone. “She might try to seduce you,” she said. “Or claim that she had.”
Since they were in bed at the time, and stark naked, Ash had objected in the best way he knew how. “And why would I take her over your luscious self? What would be the point of that?”
When he’d followed his words with a practical demonstration, Juliana had to agree that he had a point, but it had taken a good ten minutes before her shouted “Yes!” had convinced him that she believed him.
Later in the day, during the fashionable visiting-hour, their carriage stopped outside the gracious house that Lady Coddington and her daughters occupied. Following the conventions, Juliana sent in her card with the top right corner folded down, indicating that she was waiting in person.
The hatchment over the door wasn’t as fresh as the one over Lord Stanton’s, but it served as a reminder that the house was still in mourning. The knocker was still wrapped in crepe, but the servants had given up their mourning livery. They wore the red and blue Coddington livery, and the butler had returned to his crisp, white neck cloth, instead of the black one.
The butler emerged from the house and bade them step up. Then came the ritual of waiting for a footman to fold down the steps and give Juliana his hand, as if she couldn’t manage to climb down on her own, then her gliding progress into the house.
Ash silently followed. She’d persuaded him into silver gray velvet, not a color that lasted in London’s streets for very long, but worked well visiting a house in mourning. Besides, he looked magnificent in it, like a kind of haughty ghost. She’d kept to dark blue dull satin. Appropriate, she thought. She’d learned that her husband tended to put on the first clothes he laid his hands on, and he did not wait for help, so she’d found Corbett for him. Corbett did not get in the way, Ash had told her, which she took as a compliment.
At last, they were shown into the drawing room where the lady of the house awaited them. Thankfully she was alone. After the necessary rituals of tea-pouring and the consequent tea-ignoring, they could finally get to the point. “We wondered if you wished for company at the inquest this afternoon, my lady,” Juliana said, taking the lead as they’d agreed.
“That’s very kind of you,” she answered crisply, “but I am not planning to attend.”
“You’re not?”
She shook her head. “I’ve given my deposition. They have everything I know, which is precious little. I see no point in opening myself to public scrutiny.”
“They’ll be disappointed,” Ash said. “I urge you to reconsider. If you are called to give evidence and you are not there, they could postpone the inquest. You would hardly wish for that.”
Her ladyship grimaced and heaved a heavy sigh, her bosom under the tissue-thin fichu shifting in an inappropriately seductive fashion. Her clothes, although a suitable black, did not convey an air of mourning. The furbelows and bows demonstrated wealth, not sadness.
Juliana caught herself up. She was hardly in a situation to comment on someone else’s mourning-dress. A few days after her first husband’s death, she’d been wearing yellow. “Indeed, my husband is right. Then you can continue with the sad task of holding the funeral. Do you intend to stay in London afterward?”
She shook her head. “I will take him to the country house, where he will be interred in the family vault.” She touched a black-edged handkerchief to the corner of her left eye. “We must observe tradition. I hear the new earl will be here by the end of the month. He will no doubt want to take the reins immediately, but I will be at his disposal, should he wish for that.” She sighed again. “My daughters are young, the oldest but seven years old. I need to think of them. My beautiful babies, fatherless!”
The tear that she allowed to trickle down her cheek appeared real. Impressive. Or perhaps she was feeling sorry for herself, staying in the country for ten years. Or perhaps not. She might have somewhere else to go, like gaol.
“In that case I had better go. Thank you for telling me.” She shook her head. “The world is a terrible place.”
The stage had lost a great actress in this woman.
But Juliana played along. “You are very brave, Lady Coddington. You must be brave for a little while longer. Not long now.”
“When is this hateful inquest?”
“At two,” Juliana said. As if taking her cue, a clock chimed the quarter-hour. “It will take but ten minutes to get there. If you should wish to arrive and leave quietly, you are welcome to accompany us, instead of using your own vehicle.”
“I would appreciate that. It would be good to have friends with me.”
Juliana carefully controlled her disgust. Her friends, from the duke to the street urchin, had far more vitality and honesty than this woman.
Her ladyship had to know she was under suspicion. She must. “Did you attend your husband’s inquest?” Lady Coddington demanded suddenly.
“My first husband,” Juliana corrected. “No. I was under house arrest.”
“We have much in common. But I was not with my husband when he was murdered.” Another dab at her eye, only this time Juliana saw no tears. “I was with distinguished guests, here.”
“So you were,” Ash said soothingl
y, but Juliana detected an edge of anger in his voice. Nobody else would have noticed it. Comparing Juliana’s case to her own had put Lady Coddington even deeper in his bad books.
“Have you concluded your investigation? Have you found the murderer?”
At last, she asked the question she should have been insisting on from the first. Who killed him?
Seemingly reluctantly, Ash shook his head. “We have a suspect in mind, my lady, but it would not be appropriate to announce it before the inquest has declared your husband’s death as murder. Which it will do, but everything should be done in order.”
Lady Coddington leaned forward slightly, her stays creaking in the silence. “Who would that be?”
Ash glanced at Juliana, as if passing an unspoken message, then back at Lady Coddington. Her eyes gleamed.
“You heard of the unfortunate murder of Lord Stanton, of course.”
She nodded. Not a tear marked her carefully painted face now. No sign of it. Cold blooded... Juliana cut off the last word she was thinking. “I barely knew the man,” she said, “but I am sorry for the way he died.”
And she smirked. Although she masked the instinctive response, forcing her mouth into the straight line of misery, the triumphant gleam in her eyes remained.
“Yes indeed,” Ash said smoothly, as if her reaction was entirely normal. “You told us that. Even though he could come here merely by leaving his garden and slipping through yours. Did you know that?”
Her ladyship stilled. “I did not,” she said.
She was lying, of course. They already knew that. But now the lady knew Ash was aware of it. That was what they wanted. To push her to take action.
“They are bringing his lordship’s body back to his home today. Most of his servants will leave, pending the arrival of his brother and his household the day after tomorrow for the funeral. He is, by all accounts, distraught.”
“I liked his lordship,” the countess said, adding hastily, “the little I knew of him. It is a great pity. Does anyone know who attacked him? Was it a robbery, as it was with my husband?” Without waiting for an answer, she went on. “London is so unsafe these days! Indeed, I will be pleased to stay in the country for a while. This city is dirty and corrupt.”
