Chronicles of Love and Devotion: A Historical Regency Romance Collection

by Abigail Agar

  The expectation was that it would all be over in a day or so. There was little or no evidence to be presented in her defence except a few character witnesses, and the evidence against was damning.

  Not least because she herself had gone on the run after the murders had happened.

  The most dispiriting part was that most of this she picked up from the jurors who were sat near enough for her to overhear their gossip.

  ***

  The clock read quarter past eight in the morning when a hush fell across the room, a shift in mood that seemed to be sensed by all at once. The judge brought his gavel down in this silence and called the trial to order.

  The first matter was that of identification. Fitzwilliam identified her as Vera Ladislaw, and witnesses were brought forward: the lieutenant – his arm bandaged and supported by a sling as a reminder of his duel with Lord Stanley, and his face a ghastly grey colour that suggested he was still wracked by the infection in his shoulder.

  He had lost much of what had made him attractive that day he courted Vera in her parents’ garden and fearsome the day he stood opposite Lord Stanley with pistol in hand. To round out the identification, two old school friends of Vera’s, who were also to serve as character witnesses were sworn in and testified to Vera being Vera. A statement of fact that Vera found oddly reassuring after months playing the part of Fidel.

  With her identity as the woman on the warrant confirmed, the charges were read and the key players sworn in. The jury was given their list of duties to which it appeared none of them listened and then the first witness was called.

  It was Mrs Miniver. Fitzwilliam introduced her as a close family friend of the Ladislaws and an expert character witness in all things Vera.

  More like a local busybody who dropped by every now and again to pick up or dole out gossip, thought Vera.

  Mrs Miniver took the stand with an odd look on her face and nearly fainted when she saw Vera there on the other side of the judge from her. She had to sit down and be given some smelling salts before she would provide her testimony, during which she couldn’t even look Vera in the face.

  It was a truly damning testimony.

  Fitzwilliam as constable was in place to interrogate the witnesses for the prosecution: ‘Perhaps you could give the court some sense of Miss Ladislaw’s character before the incident that occurred during the summer, Madam Miniver.’

  ‘She is a mad dog,’ said Mrs Miniver almost before he had finished his sentence. ‘She was let loose upon the world by careless parenting. Her father armed her, trained her to shoot at animals, and through such unnatural actions he unbalanced her. Women are not meant to hunt and kill as men are. He was a fool, who was no doubt surprised when the unbalanced girl began to take potshots at the neighbours.’

  ‘Mrs Miniver, could you please elaborate for us what exactly you mean by potshots?’

  Miniver’s head bobbed in a kinetic frenzy that reminded Vera of certain chickens on her farm. ‘Why that young lady.’ She pointed at Vera. ‘She tried to kill me stone dead. Armed with a blunderbuss she made every effort to gun me down while I was visiting her parents. Her father was asleep in a sun chair while it happened. I believe she was trying to kill him, but on my arrival changed her plan. Luckily, your own nephew was in the garden and saved me by wrestling the gun from her at the last moment. It was not enough to save the cake I was carrying, though.’

  ‘The cake?’ asked Judge Kenway cutting in across Fitzwilliam who was clearly gearing up for a more relevant question.

  ‘I was carrying a cake, you see. It just missed me. If that young gentleman who she later shot and killed in a duel hadn’t been there to wrestle the gun aside, she would have.’

  At this Vera couldn’t help letting out a derisive laugh.

  How can the judge and jury believe this version of accounts? The lieutenant had delivered his testimony only ten minutes before, with Mrs Miniver in the room. She appeared not to have recognised her saviour. And now the whole room seemed convinced of his death.

  Fitzwilliam did not deign to correct Mrs Miniver on the state of his still living nephew, nor did he feel it necessary to shift the shot that injured the lieutenant to the hand of Lord Stanley.

  Miniver continued with her speech, painting Vera as a violent loon, going back much further than the shooting incident. Every misdeed of every young girl in the neighbourhood of her father’s farm was now attributed to her. Even a stillborn calf. Fitzwilliam only interrupted her occasionally to try and provoke still more damning assessments of Vera’s character.

  By the time Miniver was done, the jury might have been ready to convict Vera then and there for being the anti-Christ, but Vera had long since drifted off into her own world.

  I am not going to spend my last days angry about the lies told about me, she thought. Instead, she remembered the night Lord Stanley had arranged the masked dinner so that she could be a woman for an evening and he a man. She remembered racing him on horseback across the grounds of the Manse. Above all, she remembered his proposal: I am offering you my name.

  The rest of the morning was much the same. Fitzwilliam took the stand and delivered the written statement of the primary witness: the man with the sideburns whose name turned out to be Kuznetsov.

  This was then backed up by another account from the man with the scarred face who appeared to have been a temporary hired dogsbody for Kuznetsov. The testimony placed Vera at the scene of the crime over one of the bodies.

  At lunchtime the jury was presented with samples of Vera’s handwriting – the draft letters to the lieutenant – and with the note in which she was supposed to have confessed and which Vera assumed had used the former as a model.

  The tight knot of fear remained in her stomach; she felt certain by now that it would take a miracle to save her from the noose. But she tried to stay instead with the happy memories of Lord Stanley, of waking from her laudanum sleep with her groggy face nestled against his muscular chest.

  When the court eventually broke for lunch, she was ushered back into the cells at the back of the building by an ugly looking bailiff with an eye that suggested a keen desire to use the blackjack he’d been equipped with.

  While back in the cells, there seemed to be a sudden commotion at the back of the building.

  The closed off courtyard which prisoners were delivered to was outside the window of her cell, but being nearly seven feet up the wall she could only get the sounds from outside which involved the arrival of a large cart with at least four ornery horses up front and a great deal of shouting and swearing from five or six men demanding to speak to someone.

  From the cacophony of chaos she could make her own name out and could only assume this was a new batch of character witnesses or indeed eye-witnesses being offloaded to bury her.

  After a little while, the small crowd outside got their way and the courtyard fell silent.

  Vera sat in the cell rather longer than seemed necessary. She had long since finished the hunk of bread and the jug of water they gave her. She had urinated twice in the uncomfortable bucket provided and carved her name into the wall with an old nail she managed to work out of the bench in the cell.

  Eventually the blackjack heavy bailiff returned.

  ‘You’re a funny one, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’ve been called a wit before,’ Vera said ironically, quoting her prison guard.

  ‘Well, your friends have caused quite a ruckus; the judge is pretty well ready to hang you for their combined contempt.’

  ‘Which friends?’ said Vera.

  It must be Lord Stanley or Mister Fielding, surely. Who else could be working for my interests?

  ‘Why I don’t know their names. They just turned up and commandeered half the other bailiffs and threw a couple of people out of their seats.’

  Well, this ought to be interesting, thought Vera.

  She shuffled along with her chains clanking out a warning sound like the bell on a ram, back through the backrooms of the co
urthouse and into the light of Lady Justice.

  ‘Does the defence have any further witnesses they would care to call to the stand before the accused is questioned?’ Judge Kenway asked.

  Vera lifted a hand to wave the question away. Her hand felt heavy like her limbs had been cast from lead. She dare not hope that whatever had happened to disturb the recess of the court might bode well for her.

  She would tell her side; they would dismiss it, and the charade could end. Her loved ones would have gone to the grave without justice, and she would join them shortly on the end of a rope.

  I just want this over with, but maybe not before I see what all this “ruckus” was about.

  Or maybe she would be saved at the eleventh hour.

  Don’t be a fool; it was probably just more of Fitzgerald’s goons.

  A voice called out from the stands. ‘Perhaps I might be allowed to speak?’

  Vera knew the voice. The bailiff was right. It was her friends, more than her friends. It was Lord Stanley!

  With his usual flair for the theatrical, he had been keeping his head down in his row until the request for witnesses on the defence’s behalf, at which point he stood up and projected his request to speak so that even those in the gallery could hear his voice.

  Vera could have burst into song. She longed to run down there and throw her arms around him. That was impossible, of course, even if she weren’t shackled hand and foot to her chair. The bailiff would fell her before she got out of her podium.

  ‘Of course you may,’ said the judge. ‘This is all just formal rigmarole, Lord Stanley. Step forward as discussed.’

  As Lord Stanley walked up the aisle from his row near the back, William Fitzwilliam rose from his seat and addressed the jury, ‘This is Lord Stanley, who I should point out has been employing Miss Ladislaw and sheltering her from the law these last few months. He is also the man who shot my nephew. Not the most unbiased of witnesses for the defence.’

  Take your best shot, Fitzwilliam, we’re fighting now, Vera cheered in her head.

  ‘I only shot your nephew because you challenged a woman to a duel then were too cowardly to duel me yourself when I took her place, Sir,’ said Lord Stanley. Vera noted the use of the polite form of address; he was clearly determined to hold the high ground for a little while.

  The judge spoke up: ‘Women duelling? What’s this then?’

  Fitzwilliam looked embarrassed, and a ripple of chuckles moved through the crowd. ‘The defendant was disguised as a manservant in Lord Stanley’s employ. She insulted me, and in her guise as a boy, I challenged her to a duel of honour.’

  ‘That’s as may be. Duelling is very poor form for a constable of the law, still worse to duel with women. Lord Stanley step forward and approach the bench. Your insight, and indeed your explanation for this sorry creature might be most enlightening.’

  ‘“Sorry creature”, your honour?’

  ‘What would you call a murderer of her own flesh and blood? Oh, and please, Lord Stanley, a man of your stature needn’t defer quite so much to me. I served your father as a clerk, Mr Kenway is quite alright.’

  ‘Your honour, before the law I consider myself no higher or lower than the lowliest beggar.’ Vera could hear the confident, slightly mocking tones in his voice and had to stifle a laugh. ‘I also subscribe to the idea that the court’s job is to determine guilt or innocence, not merely to rubber stamp Mr Fitzwilliam’s vendettas, your honour.’

  The judge shifted in his seat unsure whether to respond to the flattery or the criticism. Vera watched the conflict play out in his shifting facial expressions.

  He plumped for somewhere in between the two: professional condescension. ‘Well, yes. This is all rather irregular, but we must find the truth. Please step forward and be sworn in, Lord Stanley.’

  Vera watched her Lord place his hand on the Bible, longing that she could be the worn leather cover of that holy book. He made his promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth before God and the law, and then Lord Stanley was placed in the witness box.

  He gave Vera a reassuring look, smiled charmingly at the jury.

  William Fitzwilliam stood up with the nervous anticipation of a competitive rider, back straight, hands clasped behind his back. To Vera, it looked as if he wasn’t sure whether he had the advantage or not, but clearly hoped he did and was ready to relish it the moment he had his hopes confirmed.

  ‘Alright, Stanley,’ began Fitzwilliam. ‘Perhaps–’

  Vera watched a smile flash across Lord Stanley’s face at Fitzwilliam’s return of his old jibe.

  He’s playing the old game of rivals, Stanley’s one move ahead.

  With an air of infinite politeness her beloved said, ‘Please, Sir. This is a court of law. I would request that you respect the conventions of our society within these walls whatever your personal animus and bias towards myself may be.’

  Judge Kenway leaned forward, ‘Quite so. Mister Fitzwilliam, you will treat His Lordship with all respect due to his birth, or I will have you removed from my court.’

  Vera tried not to laugh, while Lord Stanley did well to cover the mischievous grin behind his hands. Fitzwilliam’s face took on an overly studied levelness. The only sign of his humiliation was the sudden increased prominence in the veins of his neck and forehead.

  The names drifted up in Vera’s memory of books from her father’s study, frontal vein and anterior jugular.

  The memory of her father let a sharp moment of pain into her numbed depression. For a moment, she felt it dig into her mind like spurs into a horse, and she sat up a little straighter.

  ‘Perhaps, Lord Stanley, you would let us know what you have to say in favour of this wretched criminal.’

  ‘Thank you, Mister Fitzwilliam.’

  Men are such children, thought Vera still proud that her man was winning the childish game.

  ‘This character witness is largely preamble. You see, Mr Fitzwilliam, I have done your job for you. Which is just as well, really. Someone has to keep the city safe. I have here the witness you have vouched for, dragged up here by the scruff of his neck by agents after you allowed him to leave town and nearly disappear. He is, in fact, the true murderer.’

  Another ripple ran through the crowd, this time of surprise. Those who were here for the drama of seeing a woman done in for murder had just had a twist in the tale they were watching play out, thought Vera.

  ‘Before we come to that, though, I will say a few words for Miss Ladislaw, who I have come to know in her guise as my manservant. She is of sound mind, deeply kind, capable of great compassion, and intelligence. She has grieved her family these past months while providing great succour to those who grieved for their own reasons in my own house. She has been in hiding only due to Mr Fitzwilliam’s incompetence and gullibility in believing the testimony of the true murderers. I have learned most of this in the last few days from a Bathcombe businessman who was hired by Miss Ladislaw to find the true villains and bring them to justice. Once he made contact with me, I immediately joined him in pursuing Mr Kuznetsov, and unlike Mr Fitzwilliam, I have delivered him to give testimony himself. He has refused to speak so far to me, so I beg leave simply to have him enter the court so that the jury and yourself can see how precisely the man meets the description we were provided with of the true murderer by Miss Ladislaw, and perhaps he will speak again to his friend, Mr Fitzwilliam.’

  Judge Kenway couldn’t give permission fast enough. He was clearly enjoying having such nobility in his court and was susceptible to the flattery of class.