by Juliana Gray
But Fairchurch had been charmed into abject worship during his interview with Lady Charlotte a few months previous—God save the world from the charms of women like her ladyship—and so there she sat in the witness box, awaiting her questioning with the alert elegance and secretive smug smile of a self-satisfied house cat.
“Lady Charlotte,” said Mr. Fairchurch, as he might say Your Majesty. “This court is deeply honored by your presence here this morning. I hope we find you well.”
“As well as can be expected, thank you. The Duchess of Southam was like a second mother to me.”
“We share your grief, of course. How long had you been acquainted with the family?”
“I met them in the house of my uncle, Sir John Worthington, several years ago. A natural extension of his friendship with their son, the Marquess of Hatherfield.”
“And would you say you knew Lord Hatherfield well?”
She cast a brief and meaningful look in Hatherfield’s direction. The smug little smile returned at the corner of her mouth. “I knew him very well indeed.”
Stefanie fisted her hand in her lap, fighting the urge to slap that smile off Lady Charlotte’s face.
Mr. Duckworth smiled. All this had been discussed in her interview: the friendship between the families, her admiration for Hatherfield’s character, her certainty that he could not possibly have murdered the Duchess of Southam. He went on, confident of her response. “I am loath to ask an indelicate question of a lady, but the circumstances of the prosecution’s case against the accused require it. Would you say there was any particular sort of affection between you and Lord Hatherfield?”
Lady Charlotte’s eyes remained tuned in the direction of Hatherfield’s golden head. “Yes, I would.”
“A fraternal sort of affection?”
She was supposed to reply, Yes, exactly. That was what she had told Mr. Fairchurch in the interview, after all: She looked upon Hatherfield as a brother. Stefanie, afterward, had warned Fairchurch that this was not the case, that she was certain—quite certain—that Lady Charlotte bore a passion for the Marquess of Hatherfield that had nothing at all to do with sisters or brothers. But Fairchurch had looked at her with an amazed disgust. “That dear and innocent girl? I wonder at you, Mr. Thomas.”
But here, now, in the stifling summer courtroom in Old Bailey, she gazed rapturously at Hatherfield, blushed, looked at her hands, and said, “I can’t say, Mr. Fairchurch.”
The courtroom rustled with interest.
Mr. Fairchurch coughed. “Lady Charlotte. You were not certain of your feelings, then?”
She looked up with pleading eyes. “I had hopes . . . That is, before he began behaving so oddly, so unlike himself.”
Mr. Fairchurch turned as pale as his wig. He glanced down at his notes, the neat line of questioning he had developed, against Stefanie’s advice, that ended with a triumphant, Your witness, Mr. Duckworth. “Well, then. That is. I see. Let us turn to the evening in question, the twenty-first of February. Do you remember what time Lord Hatherfield arrived at the ball in Belgrave Square, in the home of his parents?”
“I don’t remember exactly, but I believe it was about nine o’clock.”
“You saw him enter?”
“I did.”
“Can you account for his whereabouts at the time of the murder?”
She smiled. “I lost sight of him, of course, as one does at a ball. But I did encounter him again, upstairs in the library.”
The ball of worry began to spin in Stefanie’s belly.
“What was Lord Hatherfield doing in the library?”
She smoothed her dress. “I would rather not say.”
Another wave of excitement rustled across the courtroom.
“But he was engaged, was he not?”
“He was engaged.” She looked at Stefanie and smiled, a white, even-toothed smile. “I left immediately, of course, not wanting to disturb him and his companion.”
“And this was at what time?”
“At about ten o’clock. Perhaps a little after.”
Mr. Fairchurch turned to the jury with a relieved smile. “Thank you, Lady Charlotte. That will be . . .”
“Of course, I did see him once more, after that,” she said composedly.
Stefanie’s fingers froze around her pen. She looked at Lady Charlotte, at Hatherfield, whose face had taken on a bewildered frown.
“I saw him upstairs at half past ten. The duchess had just retired to her boudoir and asked me to send Lord Hatherfield to see her. I looked everywhere, and I was on my way upstairs to tell her I couldn’t find him, when I saw him disappear around the corner of the hallway.”
A murmur began, at the back of the courtroom.
Fairchurch knit his hands behind his back. “I see. Thank you, Lady Charlotte.”
She shrugged. “He was coming from the direction of the family bedrooms, so I simply assumed he must have seen her already, and went about my business.”
The murmur transformed into a rumble of eager whispering voices.
“I’m sorry,” said Lady Charlotte. “I haven’t said anything to hurt my dear Hatherfield’s case, have I? Because I’m quite sure he had nothing to do with the murder.”
The judge banged his gavel. “Silence in the courtroom. Mr. Fairchurch, have you any further questions for her ladyship?”
Mr. Fairchurch took a handkerchief from his pocket and patted his blanched temples, one by one, and the gleaming skin above his upper lip.
“Warm day, isn’t it, Fairchurch?” said Mr. Duckworth sympathetically.
“No further questions, my lord,” said Fairchurch.
EIGHTEEN
Cadogan Square, London
February 1890
Stefanie spotted the familiar lines of Lord Hatherfield’s hansom the instant she turned the corner of Cadogan Gardens. A tall figure stood next to the curbside wheel, clothed in black. She broke into a run.
“In you go,” he said, lifting his hand near her elbow, stopping just short of helping her inside. The driver stared straight ahead from his perch high above, seeing no evil.
When the doors sprang closed and the cab jumped ahead, Hatherfield released a great sigh and settled back against his seat. Stefanie laid her hand helpfully next to his, but he didn’t take the bait. She contented herself with the warmth of his nearby body in the close confinement of the cab, the delicious proximity of his thigh beside hers.
“Are you nervous?” she asked.
“Nervous? I’m shaking in my boots. What a damned fool idea. I don’t know how I let you talk me into it. I don’t know why Ashland agreed.”
“But nobody knows except us.”
“Us, and any member of that damned Revolutionary Brigade of the Free Whatsit . . .”
“Blood. Free Blood.”
“Free Blood. Brilliant. Yes. As I said, any member of this sterling organization who happens to read the newspaper, who then knows that your sister is currently residing at the Park Lane town house of His Grace, the devious and all-damned Duke of Olympia, and who might perhaps be keeping a casual watch on said town house as a result.” He folded his arms. “No danger there at all.”
“Oh, I daresay you’re more than a match for any of them. Or all of them.”
“You seem to have picked up the alarming notion that I’m some sort of heroic figure. I’m hardly a professional at all this, you know, not like some of them. Never swashed a buckle in my life. Only picked up the odd job or two, as needed. A spot of adventure here and there, to chase away the ennui.”
“Ha. You wouldn’t admit it if you’d saved the British Empire single-handedly.”
He lifted his fist and coughed delicately into his glove.
“Anyway, my uncle would never employ less than the very best. He has an eye for that sort of thing. Why, look at Dingleby. Doing her governess best to force-feed us daily Latin and grapefruit, when in fact she was protecting us all along.”
He didn’t reply. His disquiet radiated a
bout them both, saturating the cold night air as it streamed along Stefanie’s face. The mansions of Belgravia slid past, silent and monumental, brick and stone echoing back the brisk clop-clop of the horse’s shoes against the pavement.
“I spoke with Lady Charlotte, after you left,” she said.
“Oh? My sincere condolences. I hope she wasn’t too difficult.”
“She’s very much in love with you, you know. Madly, faithfully, she said.”
He shrugged. “There’s no accounting for taste.”
“It’s true. She nearly stabbed me with her pitchfork. She would do anything for you, she said. That she would not be thwarted.”
A heavy pause. “Did she, now. Did she say anything else?”
Stefanie drew her rightmost glove more snugly over her hand and held it out for a critical inspection, one eye closed. “And then she reminded me of all the myriad ways in which she would make you the perfect wife. Money, connections, children.”
Hatherfield smacked his forehead. “My God! The dear angel! How could I have been so blind?”
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it? She’s terribly suitable. Whereas I’m nothing but a mess, stripped of everything, my title and my name, even my virtue . . .”
“I happen to like you stripped of everything.”
“Everything?”
“Everything. Your shirt in particular. You have the most perfect . . .” He paused.
Stefanie’s breath caught in her chest. “Perfect what?”
“Perfect everything.” A husky whisper.
Stefanie curled her hands around her legs to stop herself from touching him. Her breath came out in a long cloud of fog, yellow white in the light from a passing streetlamp. “She’s terribly beautiful.”
“Who?”
“Lady Charlotte.”
“Yes, she is. Lots of women are beautiful, Stefanie. That doesn’t mean one falls to one’s knee and begs for the honor, et cetera.” He grasped the edge of the door as the hansom swung around the corner of the King’s Road.
“She’s also clever and rich.”
“Good Lord, Stefanie! Why are we even talking about her? When all I want to do is kiss you. Kiss the daylights out of you, and then . . .” He leaned his head against the window and stared at the fender. “The thing is, she’s great friends with my stepmother.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“No,” he said. “It’s not.”
The hansom bounced over a rut, dislodging them both. Hatherfield put out his hand to steady her. Before he could pull it away again, she laid her hand atop his sleeve.
“I want to kiss the daylights out of you, too,” she said. “And then.”
They breathed together, sharing the damp air. Stefanie looked down at her gloved dark hand against his woolen dark arm, the layers that separated her skin from his. What would he look like, without those layers? Lean muscle and golden skin. Wide shoulders and narrow hips. Long legs bulging with driven power. His carved face, his blue eyes gazing down at her with that look of passion he’d worn that morning. He would touch her. He would kiss her, and lay her down in a bed of clean white sheets, and she would run her palms over every beautiful inch of him. She lowered her eyelids for an instant and imagined his hips closing against hers. His arms braced on either side of her. His hot breath against her forehead.
“You have to decide, Hatherfield,” she whispered.
His other hand, like hers, was curled around his leg. Digging into his own flesh. “Decide what?”
“What comes next. What you’re going to do with me.”
He pulled his arm away in a swift jerk. “What comes next is this. I’m leaving the hansom on the corner of Cheyne Walk. We’ll walk from there. I don’t want the vehicle recognized. He’ll proceed on to the Brompton Road, where we’ll meet him afterward. Give us time to feint if we’re followed.”
Stefanie swallowed back the ache in her throat.
“That seems reasonable,” she said clearly.
“It doesn’t have to seem reasonable, Stefanie. I could tell you to walk to the moon, and I’d expect you to start climbing that instant. Am I clear?”
“Perfectly clear.”
“You’ll have fifteen minutes. That’s all. When I say it’s over, it’s over.”
She clutched her seat. “It’s true, isn’t it? I’m going to see Emilie.”
His voice softened a single degree. “You’re going to see Emilie.”
The fog was already thickening, spreading like a miasma from the foul-smelling Thames. Stefanie huddled deep in her coat as she crossed the Chelsea Embankment at Hatherfield’s side, into the tree-shadowed elbow of the approach to Albert Bridge. The area was deserted. Stefanie squinted her eyes to make out the shapes in the darkness. A pair of benches sat beside the footpath, flanked by bushes. Hatherfield reached inside his coat and pulled out something that glinted dully in the distant gaslight.
“Is that a pistol?” she whispered.
He didn’t answer. With his other hand he pulled her along behind him, until they reached the bushes next to the first bench. He paused, as if scenting the air. “We’ll wait here,” he said, drawing her onto the bench next to him, as if they were two lovers enjoying a discreet midnight rendezvous.
The sound of carriage wheels rattled into her ears. Stefanie’s body tensed. Hatherfield laid his hand over hers, a heavy and reassuring weight.
The carriage went past without a pause, receding into the night. Her shoulders slumped with disappointment, and Hatherfield curled his fingers more snugly around her hand. “Don’t worry. We’re early,” he whispered.
She felt tender and exposed, here in the black night with Hatherfield, waiting for her sister. She turned her face to his. She could just make out his features in the dimness.
He lifted his other hand and took off her round bowler hat. “In case anyone’s watching,” he said, and he lowered his face to kiss her.
Stefanie made a shocked noise, low in her throat, and then understanding dawned and she opened her mouth and took his kiss deep, playing her part with enthusiasm. A pair of forbidden lovers on a dark Chelsea park bench: What could be more ordinary? Less deserving of anarchist suspicion? She raised her hand to caress the back of his neck, for good measure. One had to make things convincing, after all. Hatherfield’s lips traveled over hers, warm and soft, tasting faintly and familiarly of brandy. His tongue brushed like quicksilver against hers, and she murmured a delighted oh! that didn’t quite make it out of her throat at all, and she gripped his collar with both hands and yanked him against her chest.
This time, she didn’t hear the carriage wheels rattle to a stop on the nearby pavement. She only dimly recognized the sound of footsteps on cobbles, and only then because Hatherfield had torn his delicious mouth away, the cad, and sprung with a leopard’s grace to his booted feet.
“Holstein.” The word carried low across the damp air, from the direction of the footsteps.
Hatherfield, in reply: “Huhnhof.”
Stefanie stood and gripped the top of the bench with one hand. Hatherfield’s agile body moved forward like a shadow. She craned her neck to see around him.
“Ashland, by God!” he said.
“Hatherfield?” A man’s voice, deep and rich, coming from an enormous human shape that blocked out all light behind it, except for a slight bobbing figure above one broad shoulder.
Emilie.
Hatherfield was speaking. “She’s right in the bushes behind . . .”
But Stefanie was already flying past him, launching herself at the sister-shaped hole in the shadows.
Emilie let out a little cry as she took her in her arms. “Stefanie!” she gasped. Emilie wrapped her hands around Stefanie’s shoulders and set her away. She put her cool gloved hands against Stefanie’s face, and her round eyes gleamed in the distant gaslight, lurid and beautiful. “It’s you!”
“It’s me, it’s me,” Stefanie said, laughing and hugging her, taking her back and squeezing her
to assure herself of the essential Emilie inside that thick wool coat, that round bowler hat identical to her own.
“Shh,” said one of the men, rather harshly. Emilie’s duke, no doubt, who radiated taciturn impatience and general ill humor. Even in the darkness, Stefanie could tell that his arms were crossed against his massive chest.
Stefanie took Emilie by the hand and dragged her to the bench.
“Fifteen minutes,” Hatherfield called out.
“Yes, yes,” Stefanie said, and she took Emilie’s hands. “You have a quarter hour, my darling, so tell me all about him.”
“About whom?” Emilie said innocently.
“This duke of yours. This Ashland. Hatherfield says he’s legendary. Have you kissed him yet? Of course you have. You’re engaged. What’s he like?”
Emilie was laughing. “Oh, you’re just the same, aren’t you? He’s wonderful, he’s . . . well, he’s rather taciturn at first . . .”
“I gathered that already.”
“But inside he’s loving and tender and . . . oh, Stefanie!”
Stefanie squealed. “You’re in love, aren’t you?”
Emilie squealed back and squeezed Stefanie’s hands. “I am!”
“Oh, look at you!” Stefanie took off her sister’s hat and fingered her golden hair. “Where are your spectacles?”
“I left them in the carriage. I was too excited.”
“You look lovely. You’re radiant. Are you really going to marry him?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s to be done. I suppose we’ll have to marry.” Emilie ducked her head.
Stefanie clapped her hand to her mouth and squealed again. “You’re . . . you’re not!”
Emilie whispered, “I am. I think I am. It’s terrible of me, isn’t it? But . . .”
“Oh! Oh! I don’t know what to say. Are you happy? Oh, I don’t believe it. You, of all people!”
“Shh! Stefanie, do be quiet. They’ll hear you.”
Stefanie leaned close. “What, doesn’t he know?” she whispered fiercely.
