by Juliana Gray
“But how are you to travel about town today?”
He angled himself through the window and turned to her with a last broad wink.
“Why, I’ll take the Underground, of course. And Stefanie, my dearest?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t forget your mustache.”
TWENTY-ONE
His Grace, the Duke of Ashland, regarded the notes before him with a critical eye.
Eye, singular, for the duke possessed only one. The other had been blown from his face in the mountains of Afghanistan over a dozen years ago, and the empty socket sat beneath a black leather half-mask that lent his formerly handsome features a distinctly piratical flavor.
The remaining eye, however, was keen and blue and missed nothing. He raised his head and said, “The handwriting bears certain characteristics of the German Gothic script, don’t you think?”
Hatherfield nodded. “My thought exactly. Do you recognize the hand?”
“No.” The duke looked back down at the letters and adjusted one to a more perfect longitude against its fellows. Adjusted it with his left hand, for his right—like its corresponding eye—no longer existed, another casualty of clandestine warfare. “But I’m no expert in this damned organization. I do have my suspicions.”
“Who?”
“There’s a fellow who keeps watch over the house in Park Lane. Hans, the old Prince’s valet. Emilie swears to his fidelity—so does Dingleby—but I take nothing for granted.”
“I’ll investigate, then.”
Ashland drummed his fingers on the edge of the desk. They were sitting in the study of his newly leased house in Eaton Square—the dukes of Ashland never had been much for town life—and the room lacked a certain air of lived-in comfort, to say nothing of furniture. Hatherfield perched on the edge of a rickety wooden chair that looked as if it had just been hauled hastily down from an attic for the occasion, while Ashland’s desk gleamed with the sharp-edged newness of a shop room floor. The duke himself rested his massive six-and-a-half-foot frame on a leather-seated chair that might have looked substantial beneath any other man.
“There’s no time for investigation,” he said at last. A rare patch of late February sunshine rested on his close-cropped silvery hair, turning it brilliant. “Our engagement ball is tonight, lavish affair, Prince and Princess of Wales and all that. A tempting target, deliberately so, and we hope to catch the perpetrators in the act and end all this rubbish once and for all.”
Hatherfield let out a long breath and turned his head to the window, overlooking the garden, where a groundskeeper was hard at work laying out fresh beds near the mews. Spring, just around the corner. “I suspected as much. Dashed risky, however.”
“I shall be glad when it’s over.”
He turned back to Ashland. “What can I do, then?”
The duke’s pale blue gaze locked with his. “Stay with the princess tonight. Do not, under any circumstances, let her out of your sight. I understand she has a reputation for impetuousness . . .”
“Perish the thought.”
“See to it that she acquires no notions of presenting herself in Park Lane. Occupy her by whatever means you deem most effective.” A certain emphasis on the word occupy.
Hatherfield coughed. “As it happens, my parents are holding a party of their own tonight, in protest at not having been invited.”
“Good. Take her there and keep her busy.”
“Exactly what I intended to do. But in the meantime . . .”
“It’s too late to bring you into our plans, Hatherfield, or I would ask for your help. I’ve heard the most extraordinary praise of your abilities. But if things go awry, I hope I may count on your immediate aid.” He rose and held out his left hand.
Hatherfield came to his feet and shook it. “We’ll be in Belgrave Square, at the Duke of Southam’s house. But are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“Damn it all, I can’t stand to sit around and wait . . .”
“Of course not. I daresay you’re ready to punch the walls out. I don’t blame you. But your task, your sole object, is to guard Stefanie. As mine is to guard Emilie, may God help us both.”
“And the other sister?”
“Olympia won’t say.”
Hatherfield sighed. “I don’t know whether to damn the old bastard or bless him.”
Without warning, Ashland burst into laughter, a warm, rich laugh from the bottom of his chest. “Both, my friend. Both in the same breath.”
Not guilty.
Stefanie accepted the celebratory glass of Madeira from Sir John’s own hands; from what source he’d obtained it, she had no idea. They were sitting with the accused—the newly free accused—in a small anteroom at the Old Bailey, and Mr. Northcote grinned broadly as Sir John handed him a brimming glass of his own.
“Not guilty,” repeated Sir John. “I congratulate you, sir.”
“Ah, now, that’s the stuff. Thank you kindly, Sir John.” Northcote stopped smiling long enough to take a long draught of Madeira. “A relief, it is. Though I don’t know what I’m to do next. Hardly seems fit to gather rubbish after all this.”
“Any honest labor does merit to the man who performs it.” Sir John finished off his own glass and gathered up his papers. “If you’ll excuse me. I have a few matters to address with the court. The formalities of release and so on. You will wait here with Mr. Northcote, Mr. Thomas, until I return.”
“Yes, sir.” Stefanie set down her glass and looked across the wooden table at Mr. Northcote, who was polishing off his Madeira with relish. She had never quite liked the man. It wasn’t his lowly station—she had rubbed shoulders with all sorts in her madcap escapades back in Germany, and knew they were all made of the same clay flesh—but rather his manner. He hadn’t yet thanked either her or Sir John for their efforts on his behalf, not once, though the Madeira had earned his appreciation. He had sat there throughout the proceedings with a slight smirk at the corner of his mouth, when he thought no one was watching.
Even now. Madeira finished, he stood from his chair and walked to the desk in the corner and picked up the bottle to refill his glass. “Good stuff, innit?” he said.
“Indeed.” Stefanie took another small sip.
“Lord, I’m chuffed.” He turned around and leaned against the table. He was wearing a brown suit, cheap but neat, and his shoes were polished. He pushed a greasy strand of hair from his forehead. “Did you see his face when they read the verdict? I looked over directly.”
“Whose face?”
“Why, Hammond’s, of course.” Hammond was the wronged husband. “As black as sin, he was. I daresay she gets a good smacking tonight, when she’s back home with him.”
“I hope not. The matter has brought enough grief to all parties.”
He threw back his head. “Oh, no doubt of that! No doubt at all. The way she carried on, when I first climbed in with her of a morning. Weeping fit to raise the dead.”
Stefanie straightened in her chair. “What’s that?”
“It took her a month at least to settle down proper and spread her legs nice and quiet-like.” He shook his head. “And then when she was on the stand last week, wringing her hankie like it was the end of the blooming world. I thought we was done for. Good on you, Mr. Thomas. Good on the both of you for straightening out that jury afterward.”
The edges of Stefanie’s vision grew white and blurred.
Who would have believed my word against hers? Who would have believed I didn’t want her there?
“Ha-ha,” Northcote was saying. “Her face, when she heard them words. Not guilty. She knew what she were in for, that’s . . .”
But he had no chance to finish his sentence. Stefanie had marched across the room, grabbed the bottle of Madeira, and upended it over his greasy head.
“You, sir, are a disgrace,” she said, and she left the room with a rattling bang of the door to await Sir John’s arrival outside.
In the carriage afterw
ard, they were both quiet. Sir John consulted his notes, and Stefanie stared out the window at the damp gray landscape, the gloomy passing London.
If only she’d paid closer attention. If only she’d given this case a fuller share of her attention, amid all the briefs and studying and escapades with Hatherfield. If only she’d been allowed to interview him herself.
In a few hours, she would be readying herself for a splendid ball, a marvelous party on the arm of the handsomest and most dashing man in the world. A mile or two away, her sister would be celebrating her engagement to an English duke, and the threat that loomed over them both, holding them prisoner, would—if all went well—be extinguished. She would be free to resume her old life, or something like it; free, perhaps, to begin a new life with Hatherfield. Heal his wounds and make him happy. The two of them, happy and rich and fruitful, while Mrs. Hammond endured the shame and disgrace and physical retribution of Northcote’s Not Guilty.
“Did you know he was lying?”
Sir John looked up. His reading glasses perched precariously at the pink tip of his nose. “I beg your pardon?”
“Northcote. That he was guilty all along.”
Sir John sighed and took off his glasses.
“I see,” she said, and turned away.
“My dear Thomas,” said Sir John, “our duty is to secure for the prisoner the very best legal representation.”
“What about justice?”
“The British legal system is organized on the principle that justice is not perfect. That it’s better to let a guilty man go unpunished than to let an innocent man be convicted for a crime he did not commit.”
“I daresay Mrs. Hammond would beg to differ.” Despite the dank air inside the carriage, Stefanie was growing warm beneath her clothes. Stay calm, she told herself. Steady your feelings.
“It’s not our business whether Northcote is guilty or not, Mr. Thomas. In the absence of competent legal defense for all, the highest and the lowest, impartial and without regard for politics and station and wealth, we leave ourselves vulnerable to tyranny. Would you like to see an innocent man hanged because he could not stand against the might of his accusers?”
“I don’t know how you can live with yourself,” she said. “How can you look at Mrs. Hammond’s face and live with yourself?”
With a desperate clatter of wheels against pavement, the carriage careered past a delivery van and around Hyde Park Corner. Sir John Worthington replaced his spectacles and turned back to his papers. “I begin to wonder, Mr. Thomas, if perhaps you might wish to reconsider your choice of profession.”
The entry of Mr. Nathaniel Wright into the hallowed precincts of the Sportsmen’s Club library on St. James, at a quarter past five in the afternoon, caused a ripple of shock to pass across the leather-scented membership.
I say, someone muttered indignantly.
Hatherfield rose from his armchair and held out his hand. “Ah! Mr. Wright. Jolly obliging of you to meet me here this afternoon. All sorts of affairs vying for your attention, I’m sure. I hope the Stock Exchange hasn’t been set in a panic by your absence, or I should never forgive myself.” He indicated the neighboring chair.
Mr. Wright shook his hand briefly and sat in the offered seat. “Trading is now concluded for the day, Lord Hatherfield. Pray relieve your mind of the burden.” His eyes dropped to Hatherfield’s waistcoat.
“Do you like it?” Hatherfield spread the ends of his jacket farther apart. “Purple’s such a happy color, don’t you think?”
“Indeed. The floral motif is abundantly pastoral. But I shall not delay you. I understand you have a ball this evening, for which to ready yourself.”
“Why, yes! So I have. Clever chap. How did you know?”
“Because I shall be in attendance myself, of course.”
“Ah! The Duchess of Southam’s ball. What a delightful coincidence.” Hatherfield spotted a waiter and signaled. “What color mask will you be wearing?”
“Mask, sir?”
“Mask. For the mas-quer-ade.” Hatherfield said it slowly, for emphasis. “Traditional sort of nonsense, common among us vain aristocrats. Chases away the old ennui for a moment or two, I suppose. I’m thinking of wearing gold, myself. I do fancy a bit of sparkle.”
“I see. Is it quite necessary?”
“They do come in handy, from time to time.” Hatherfield winked.
“I suppose I’ll find something, then.” A waiter arrived, plunking two disdainful glasses of sherry between them. Wright picked up one of them and wet his lips with it. “Well, sir? I own myself curious. Why did the Marquess of Hatherfield invite me to his club this afternoon?”
“Oh yes. That. Had almost forgotten. This frivolous little noggin of mine. You see, Mr. Wright, the oddest thing happened to me yesterday”—good Lord, was it only yesterday?—“when I traveled to Hammersmith to inspect my little project.”
“Your cottages, I believe?”
“My cottages. Houses, really. A terrace of them, snug and well built and coming along nicely, the entire endeavor perfectly planned with funds to spare. So imagine my dismay—horror, even—when my building manager informed me that my financial credit has been maligned from Richmond Bridge to the Solent.”
“How unfortunate.”
“Yes, isn’t it? Credit is a delicate thing, as delicate as a lady’s reputation. The slightest hint from the wrong quarter, and—poof.” Hatherfield snapped his fingers.
“Poof, indeed.” A trace of weight on the poof.
Hatherfield sat back in his seat and let his sherry glass dangle from his fingertips. He gazed at the famous carved Sportsmen’s Club marble work, twenty feet above. “One feels so wronged, when such a false report circulates. One feels an almost unnatural rage. As if one might be capable of violence.”
“I beg leave to point out that the Southam coffers are widely understood to be quite dry.”
“But the Southam coffers have nothing to do with my project. Except to be filled by the proceeds, in due course.”
Wright shrugged his shoulders. “As you said, credit is a delicate thing. Rumor runs rampant. Perhaps the report of an infusion of substantial funds might satisfy the nerves of your creditors.”
“My dear Mr. Wright, I have no creditors. Every vendor has been paid in full.”
“And the bank that holds the loan? You’re confident it will not be persuaded to call in its capital?” Wright sat perfectly still, thick arms crossed, sherry sitting untouched before him since that first polite sip. His dark eyes looked as if they were made of granite.
Hatherfield lifted his hand and drained his sherry. He set the empty glass on the table between them, right next to Wright’s full one, and rose to his feet. When he spoke, he pitched his voice low, without a trace of its customary negligent drawl.
“For a man who makes his living by judging the characters of others,” he said, “you seem to have underestimated mine to a remarkable degree. Until tonight, Mr. Wright.”
He turned and walked out the door, leaving Nathaniel Wright to face the curious hostility of the aristocratic Sportsmen’s Club library alone.
Stefanie was standing next to the piano in the Cadogan Square music room, dressed in her formal starched black-and-white best, dragging her fingers over the sweep of ivory keys, when Lady Charlotte rushed through the doorway.
“There you are! Oh, Mr. Thomas! The most dreadful news!” Her eyes were wild and red rimmed. From one fist dangled a crumpled white paper.
Stefanie straightened. “Dear me. Has the ball been canceled?”
“Oh, don’t joke! It’s horrible!” She gazed up at the ceiling, her face wrenched in grief. She whispered, “It’s Hatherfield. He’s been killed.”
“What?” Stefanie grabbed the edge of the piano to keep herself from falling. She was suddenly conscious of the smell of Lady Charlotte’s hothouse flowers, sending off clouds of sickly sweetness from the crystal vase in the center of the gleaming black piano case. “No, it’s not true. It�
��s not.”
Tears rolled down Lady Charlotte’s pallid cheeks. She held up her hand, the hand with the paper. “It is! Would to God it weren’t. A delivery van in Piccadilly. He stepped right in front of it. Oh God!”
The room swayed. Tiny black dots appeared in the center of Stefanie’s vision. Impossible. She had just seen him. She had woken in his arms that morning; he had bathed her with his own hands. He had knotted her necktie and kissed her good-bye and ducked through her window.
“Dead!” moaned Lady Charlotte. She fell to her knees and put her face in her hands.
Stefanie’s legs crumpled beneath her. She caught herself just in time. “It’s not true,” she said again.
“It’s true, it’s true.”
Stefanie shut her eyes.
“You grieve?” whispered her ladyship.
Hatherfield dead. No. It couldn’t be.
She moved her lips. “I will grieve forever.”
She lowered herself onto the piano bench. She could not stop the whirling of blood in her ears, blocking her reason. She concentrated on her breathing, as Miss Dingleby had always instructed her to do in moments of shock: in, out.
In, out.
It couldn’t be true. Hatherfield dead. It couldn’t. Surely her own heart would have stopped beating, in the same instant.
Lady Charlotte whispered, “It’s true. You love him. It’s true.”
Stefanie opened her eyes. Lady Charlotte was staring at her with a strange expression, an odd feral look, her eyes so wide the whites showed all around her dark irises. She was resplendent in her ball gown, a frothy pink so pale it was almost white, and a circle of pearls gleamed richly from the base of her pale throat.
“I? No, no . . .”
Lady Charlotte scrambled to her feet. “What if I tell you that it isn’t true? That I made it all up?”
“What?”
“He lives. Hatherfield lives.”
“He lives!”
Lady Charlotte gestured to the paper. “He’s delayed, he’s going to meet us there. There was no accident.”
