Virginia And The Wolf

by Lynne Connolly

  Chapter 24

  The black cloth, like a handkerchief, was reverently placed on the full-bottomed wig worn by the judge. Exeter assizes had elected to try the case, rather than have all the prisoners transported to Bow Street in London.

  Virginia sat with Francis, Jamie, and Maria in the balcony of Exeter assizes. The people who weren’t watching the man in the dock were watching them. She ignored them. Calling on all her training, she kept her expression impassive while the case took its course. In less than an hour, the fate of Sir Bertram Dean was decided.

  Sir Bertram had lied, pleaded, sobbed, claimed that he had no idea what the trust was for, and finally stood silently in the dock, with his bare head bowed.

  Without his wig he appeared a much older man, or perhaps that was the result of the six weeks he’d spent in Exeter Gaol. Normally, a prisoner of standing could be released on his recognizance or sent to stay with someone, but the charges were so serious that the magistrates had given him his own cell. He wasn’t even allowed to mix with other prisoners, most of whom were fellow smugglers.

  The county was in uproar, and Francis and Virginia were at the heart of it. Wryly she reflected that if they were not married, someone would surely have found them out. Next to the tragedy that had hit the Dean family, that was nothing.

  Smuggling was an offense punishable by death. Normally someone as senior as Sir Bertram would wriggle out of the charges, but Francis had been determined to see this case through. When he’d accompanied the excise men on their search of Sir Bertram’s house, Francis had taken personal charge of the ledgers and files, detailing the runs and the profits.

  When he’d first shown them to Jamie, Jamie exclaimed, “What idiot keeps records so detailed without at least putting them in code?”

  “Someone arrogant enough to assume he would never be caught,” Francis had answered him. “Someone foolish enough to assume they could kill a man in his own home. And take on the task himself.”

  Their derisory laughter had no humor in it.

  There was no humor now. The trial had gone forward in fraught, tense silence for the most part. Villagers had turned the king’s evidence to avoid meeting the same fate as one of the principal investors in the smuggling trade, pointing out times when Sir Bertram had accompanied the smugglers on runs, inspecting the contraband personally.

  And those gold coins. They had been damning. Tokens rather than coins, struck specifically to give to the people involved.

  They had not implicated Ralph in the scheme. When Virginia would have protested, Francis stopped her. “Sir Bertram wants to take full credit for the trade. Let him.”

  So she had. After all, she did not know who had first mooted the scheme to organize the gangs, link them and concert their runs, so that goods could be sold in the right places for the most profit. The threads had run over the whole country, but pulling them up would take a life’s work. Even then, more gangs would spring up to take their places.

  Virginia watched Lady Dean sniffling into a handkerchief, her daughters following suit. Her son sat, legs crossed, face grave, paying heed to nothing but the trial. Nobody knew how much he was aware of the business, or if he had any involvement in it. But he was the family’s sole breadwinner now.

  The magistrate spoke. “You have been convicted of the heinous crime of smuggling. You have also threatened the lives of many people, including a peer of the realm, and you have murdered at least one man, and arranged the murders of others.”

  He’d paid ruffians to acquire the carriage and put his own assassins there instead of the footmen he’d so ruthlessly disposed of. He’d employed people to kill Francis when he got too close to Virginia.

  Witnesses had come forward to place information about the time Sir Bertram had shot a man for trying to steal off the top of the contraband—keeping a portion for himself. The men who’d attacked them at Staines had been traced to Sir Bertram. He was clearly responsible for that, too.

  Whether that was true or not, Virginia did not know. Neither did she care. She was witness to a reckless attack that should have ended with the deaths of her husband and herself. That was enough.

  The magistrate continued amongst deathly silence. “Your crime introduced many men and women to illegal acts when they might otherwise have led blameless lives. You have deprived the Crown, and therefore the state, of untold sums of money, indirectly causing the suffering of many others. You have encouraged others to engage in illegal trafficking of goods. On the fourteenth of July last year, we have heard that you brought a French spy onto British soil, and that therefore you are guilty of treason. We are still seeking corroboration for that crime.”

  Everyone gasped. Treason would mean the loss of his title, the family home, and everything they owned.

  Francis leaned in to murmur in Virginia’s ear. “That’s just a warning to keep them in line.”

  Ah, yes. In the future, if his son strayed, they could revive the charge. Although by then Sir Bertram would be dead and could no longer be tried for the crime, and his son could be implicated. Even if he was not guilty. The threat should keep him away from reviving his father’s schemes.

  “With the permission of the court. Sir Bertram Dean, your sentence is this: You will be taken to the place from which you came today. You are to go from thence to whence you came from, thence to the place of execution, and there be hanged by the neck, Dead, Dead, Dead. The Lord have mercy on your soul.”

  The hushed silence lasted a minute until Lady Dean gave a wordless cry that she muffled in her handkerchief.

  Her husband stood in the dock, a dead man. The wooden surroundings, more like a vicar’s pulpit than anything else, contained him. The chains binding his feet clanked as he shifted. “My lords, I thank you for your mercy. However, if you grant me a stay of execution, I believe I may be able to lay information on my colleagues, men and women who aided me in my shameful trade.”

  The magistrate, one Sir George Cavenham, a man who had attended dinners, sat on boards with Sir Bertram, now regarded him with the face of death. “There will be no stay of execution. Take him away.”

  The clerk moved behind him and gently removed the black cloth as the men standing either side of Sir Bertram took him away. He shuffled, the chains too heavy for him to walk properly.

  Although they had allowed fresh clothes for the trial, Sir Bertram had lost a great deal of weight, so they hung on him as they might hang on a skeleton. His head hung low, but as he turned, he lifted his chin and, for a brief moment, met Virginia’s eyes. She drew back. She had never seen such hatred before in anyone.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” she murmured, but fortunately people were talking again, some of them loudly, so nobody heard her but Francis.

  “Whatever he did, he did it freely,” Francis answered her as Sir Bertram shuffled down the stairs on his journey to his gaol cell. “The only one at fault is him.”

  “And…”

  Francis touched his fingers to her lips. “Hush, my love. I know. That was not your fault, either. What involvement you had was unwitting.”

  Sir Bertram had tried to implicate her, but the magistrate would not allow him to speak. Bad enough that a prominent citizen, a magistrate himself, should be convicted of such an act. Worse that a peer of the realm and distinguished soldier should be implicated. And what good would it do? Ralph was dead, and his will was in turmoil, challenged by Jamie, as it should be.

  The case would take some time, but Jamie would win, or so the lawyer said. He had promised to restore Virginia’s dowry and her widow’s portion. Maria’s parents had relented, eventually, and Maria was in possession of her fortune. Having inherited a great estate through his wife, Jamie was no longer so concerned, but he had promised Virginia that he would use much of it to revive the orphanages, create suitable establishments for children orphaned through war.

  Virginia had other concerns
now.

  Outside the court, she would have stopped to take in some fresh air, but Francis hustled her away into the carriage that stood waiting. People thronged the area, but a great cheer went up when they emerged. The echoes of it stayed in her ears as they drove through the city.

  The place bristled with excitement. The case had caused a sensation and set up a warning to other free traders that they would probably not heed for long.

  Francis held her hand and smiled, his public face firmly in place. “Jamie and Maria will come for dinner next week,” he said. “I thought to invite the local dignitaries, too. It is time for rebuilding.”

  Virginia nodded. “It is. I will play my part. I’m lucky they didn’t condemn me. Although we kept Ralph’s name out of the trial, most must know how deeply he was involved.” She paused. “And me.”

  “Not you.” He gripped her hand tighter. “Ralph tried to implicate you by giving you direct control over the houses that received and passed on the contraband, but he failed. You did not know, so you were not guilty.”

  She recalled a few minor incidents that had no meaning until she had learned of Ralph’s involvement. He’d asked her to take letters to Henderson when she went to visit her mantua maker or do some shopping in town, or ensured she was at dinners that she now knew were arranged to discuss tactics and upcoming runs.

  “He loved organizing things. He organized me. I had to obey him, and the houses had to be exact, just so. Over time he grew worse, as if he wanted something else to distract him from the central failure of our marriage. He used to show me the plans of the battles he engaged in. He remembered them all. I noticed nothing.”

  “You were barely eighteen when he married you, and he continued where your parents left off.”

  They were traveling along country roads now, leaving Sir Bertram and his family behind. While Virginia would keep her experiences for the rest of her life, while what had happened to her in the past would affect her forever, there was no reason she needed to repine on them. Especially with the news she had for him. She would not tell him yet. They needed time to absorb the events of the last month.

  As it happened, she could not wait more than two days. They had stayed at Dulverton Court overnight and traveled on to Wolverley the next day. That night, curled up in bed together, still hot from a particularly vigorous bout of lovemaking, Virginia could keep her secret no longer.

  “Yesterday Winston pointed out that I have not needed certain—items for some time. Since well before our marriage.”

  Francis, his chest still heaving, the sweat still sticking to his chest hairs, turned his head and smiled. She saw when the realization hit him, and it hit hard. His eyes widened and he shot up, leaning over her. “You think you’re with child?”

  Delighted, she nodded.

  She had no time to say anything because he sealed their mouths together, making his kiss long and sweet.

  When he lifted away, he didn’t go far. Just enough to gaze into her eyes. “You have given me everything I needed, even the things I didn’t know about. You gave me unconditional love. And I give it back to you.” A smile touched his lips. “Now we will have to find more for whoever is in here.”

  He touched her stomach, so gently she barely felt it.

  “You said it yourself, my love. It’s unconditional. And boundless. There’s plenty for all of us.”

  “So there is. So there is.”

  Author Biography

  Lynne Connolly was born in Leicester, England, and lived in her family’s cobbler’s shop with her parents and sister. She loves all periods of history, but her favorites are the Tudor and Georgian eras. She loves doing research and creating a credible story with people who lived in past ages. In addition to her Emperors of London series and The Shaws series, she writes several historical, contemporary, and paranormal romance series. Visit her on the web at lynneconnolly.com, read her blog at lynneconnolly. blogspot.co.uk, find her on Facebook, and follow her on Twitter @lynneconnolly.

  References

  I do a ton of research for each book I write, too many to bore you with here! For a list of references and books I used, check my website, or contact me directly.