A Match of Honour (The Hartleighs of Somersham Book 1)

by Margaret Brazear

  “Father,” Christopher said. “You misunderstand. Susan is likely with child, yes, which is what I meant when I said she had a baby in tow.”

  “An odd way of putting it.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “And you let her leave you, in that condition? What is wrong with you?”

  George’s voice rose with every word. He had travelled to London in an attempt to learn the truth, after the accusations with which the Dowager Duchess had returned to Somersham. After berating them all, she immediately returned to London to stay at her brother’s house. George hoped to find his niece back with her husband where she belonged, but to be told she had run away and left him while carrying his child, was too much.

  “I didn’t let her leave me, Father,” Christopher replied sharply. “We quarrelled. She discovered she was with child and the idea frightened her. In fact, it terrified her. I’m afraid I didn’t handle it very well. She kept screaming about Princess Charlotte and the horrible way she had died, trying to give birth. She was hysterical and she blamed me.”

  “I can understand that,” the Earl replied. “The way the Princess lost her life was enough to frighten any woman having her first child. But I cannot believe you left her in that state, that you gave her no comfort. You shouldn’t have let her go.”

  “I couldn’t stop her. I went out and when I returned she had gone.”

  “You went out? You left your young wife, terrified, and you went out.” George shook his head solemnly. “I thought I had raised a better man than that. And her cousin, David, knows about it all?”

  Christopher nodded.

  “I thought it likely she might have gone to him. They were ever close.”

  “Your aunt is convinced you have murdered her daughter. You do realise that?”

  Christopher sighed irritably. This was going from bad to worse. If only he had never followed Susan into the woods, he would not now be trying to explain her disappearance to her mother, to his father and all their other relatives. He would not now be having sleepless nights from worrying about her.

  “The Runners have already been here, relayed the Duchess’s accusations. I don’t know where else to look for her.” His eyes met those of his father and his temper flared; he could almost read his mind. “You believe her, don’t you? You think I killed my wife?”

  “Of course, not, Christopher.”

  “You are lying. You think me quite capable of such an act, but please tell me my mother at least believes me.”

  They were interrupted by the appearance in the morning room of Dora, the maid. She curtsied.

  “Your Grace, excuse me. That Runner is back.”

  That was all he needed!

  But this time, the man had not come alone.

  “Your Grace,” the first Runner bowed briefly. “I regret to tell you that the body of a young lady has been identified as the Duchess, your wife.”

  Christopher leapt to his feet, gripped his father’s arm for support as he staggered forward shaking his head in a gesture of denial. No! Susan could not be dead. She couldn’t, not when he only now realised how much he loved her.

  “Identified by whom?” The Earl asked.

  “By her mother, My Lord, the Dowager Duchess of Somersham.”

  “Her mother? How did that come about?”

  The inspector swallowed and coughed before replying.

  “The remains of a young lady matching the young Duchess’s description were found this morning, in the Thames beside Westminster Bridge. The Dowager Duchess was informed and she came, with her brother, the Duke of Depden, to the Royal College where the body was being kept. They both confirmed that the body was that of your wife.”

  Christopher could only stare, speechless. It was George’s turn to show that his son was not the only one in the family with a sharp temper.

  “How dare you?” He shouted. “How dare you report to the Dowager instead of my son. Susan is his wife; it was up to him to identify her, it was your duty to give him this news first. Did you not know that?”

  “We did, My Lord, but under the circumstances…”

  “What circumstances? That my sister-in-law has been shouting her accusations all over London? Shouting them without proof, or even evidence? How dare you?”

  “Well, My Lord, we thought it best, in case charges should be brought. We didn’t want to taint the evidence.”

  “You have no evidence!” George yelled. His face was scarlet now with fury, causing the Runner to step back and away from him. “I hope you don’t think you are going to arrest my son.”

  “To be honest, My Lord, were he any ordinary man, yes, we would be arresting him and conducting him to Newgate Prison. As it is, for the time being we are holding him under house arrest.” He turned toward his two companions, each dressed in the familiar tailed jacket and top hat. “My Runners here will stand guard to be sure he doesn’t leave the house.”

  “No!” Christopher finally found his voice. “I want to see her. I must see her.”

  “That is not possible, Your Grace.”

  “I have a right to see her. She is my wife.”

  His lower lip turned down, his eyes filled with tears and he turned away to wipe at his face.

  “I will go, Christopher,” George said, squeezing his arm. “I will confirm that it is indeed Susan they have.”

  “The Dowager has already identified her,” the Runner said.

  George turned on him a stare of sheer contempt.

  “And you think we should trust that?” He said. “Her husband has a right to see her and to identify her, and as soon as I have engaged the services of a lawyer, he will claim that right. For now, I shall see if I agree with my sister-in-law’s identification.”

  “Forgive me, My Lord, but her brother, the Duke agreed with her identification.”

  “He hasn’t seen Susan in years!” George snapped. “He wouldn’t know her alive and walking beside him. If you will not allow my son to see the corpse, he is entitled to have me as his representative.”

  “Father.” Christopher stopped him as he was about to leave. “Fetch David to go with you, please. He knows the law and he can help. He can also find me good representation.”

  When his father had left, the two Runners positioned themselves outside the front door for all to see and Christopher sank down into the armchair and gave way to a wave of sorrow. And lurking beneath that wave of sorrow was the ugly thought, waiting to leap out and grab him – what had become of the baby?

  ***

  The Royal College was just a few steps from David’s lodgings and he was eager to accompany the Earl. The news that his cousin’s corpse had been recovered from the river very nearly made him burst into tears himself. He loved Susan, and if she were really dead, he would blame Christopher. He would never forgive him for his conduct, even though he didn’t believe for one minute that he had killed her.

  “Did they say what they think she died of?” He asked George.

  “No. I suppose I should have asked, but Christopher was so distraught I didn’t think of it. I just wanted to see her for myself.”

  “Do you have any reason to doubt the Duchess’s word?”

  “Yes. She has never liked Christopher and has been convinced that he has done something to Susan.”

  “She was keen enough on the marriage, so I heard.”

  “Yes,” answered George. “Because she is a snob and wanted her daughter to be the Duchess of Somersham, since she had failed to have a son who could be its Duke.”

  David shrugged.

  “An odd reason to allow her daughter to marry someone she neither liked nor trusted. From what I hear, she almost forced the marriage on them. I have little sympathy for her.”

  They mounted the steps to the Royal College and went inside its cold, tiled walls. A young man came toward them, bowed to the Earl and spoke solemnly.

  “You have come to view the Duchess of Somersham?” He said.

  He didn’t wait for a reply
, took their silence as confirmation and turned to lead the way through a pair of glass doors and through a corridor with more white, shiny tiles lining the walls.

  Both men felt a fluttering in their stomachs as they approached the high, wooden table in the centre of the room. The mortuary attendant lifted the cloth from the face and both men gasped in unison.

  The woman’s face was cut and bruised; she had obviously been badly beaten, her eyes blackened, her face swollen and the uneven line of her jaw told them it was broken. George shook his head and turned away. His son had not done this; he knew it and he regretted ever thinking anything else.

  David had more courage. He approached the body on the table and lifted the closed eyelid, showing faded grey eyes. Beneath the bruised mouth, he found lines around the swollen lips and his inspection of the hair showed strands of grey close to the ears.

  He lifted the cover from the woman’s feet to reveal they were large and calloused. He stood back and surveyed the entire corpse, the length of it.

  “My Lord,” he said at last. “This woman is not my cousin.”

  George spun around, hurried back to stand beside David.

  “She has been identified,” the attendant said.

  “This woman is too tall to be the Duchess,” said David. “My cousin is short, a good half a foot shorter than this woman.” He indicated his chest with the side of his hand as he spoke, remembering that Susan only reached up to his watch chain. “This woman is too old to be my cousin and her feet are much bigger. And then there’s this.”

  He flipped the cover away from the corpse’s lower legs to reveal a tattoo, a finely drawn, red rose.

  “The mark of a street walker, if I’m not mistaken,” David said. “You had best report this as a matter of urgency. Whoever this poor woman is, she is not my cousin and the Duke needs to be released at once.”

  As he turned to leave, David felt the Earl’s hand clutching his arm, felt the weight of the man as he leaned against him.

  “Are you perfectly well, My Lord?” He said.

  “Forgive me. I am just so relieved you cannot possibly know.”

  “I think I can. I, too, am relieved but perhaps not on the scale that you feel it. It means your son is totally innocent, no question, but how on earth could the Dowager have mistaken that woman in there for Susan? She is tiny and beautiful, not large boned and coarse like that.”

  “She had likely made up her mind before she even got here. She has been spreading lies all over London about Christopher; she must be silenced.”

  “I shall continue my search, My Lord,” David said as they left the College. “You should return to your son, put his mind at rest.”

  On his way back to Berkeley Square, Lord Hartleigh wondered how he was ever going to apologise enough to his son for his earlier suspicions, but as he looked up at the house, he saw outside the Runners on guard, and a crowd of other men. He frowned as he made his way between them to the front door.

  “What is going on here?” He demanded of one of the Runners.

  “The news is out, My Lord. Well, it couldn’t be kept quiet for long, could it?”

  He took from under his arm a folded newspaper and handed it to the Earl. The headline said it all.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Mrs Lewis aka The Duchess of Somersham

  Susan hadn’t told Mr and Mrs Rosen who she was; they hadn’t asked. They had been so kind and after the weeks that had gone before, after the rudeness of that jeweller, she really needed kind.

  That day, Esther had given her a private place in which to feed her baby and she had asked only one question.

  “Do you have a place to stay, child?”

  Susan had bitten her lip and her velvet brown eyes had clouded with unshed tears as she realised she couldn’t go on alone. Her future would be with the kindness of strangers and there were really not that many strangers who were that kind.

  She shook her head, shifted the babe who had fallen asleep at her breast, and covered herself.

  “Then you must stay here with us,” Esther said at once.

  “There is no need,” Susan argued. “I don’t want to be any trouble.”

  “You are not. Isaac and I will be happy to have you.” She looked toward the opening leading to the shop. “Isn’t that right, Isaac?”

  He drew back the curtain and stepped through, a welcoming smile on his face.

  “It is indeed.”

  “Do you give shelter to every strange woman who appears with a babe and no husband?”

  “I expect Esther would,” he answered. “But we haven’t seen one before. Not one wanting to sell such valuable jewels, at any rate.”

  “Don’t you want to know about me?”

  “No.” Esther shook her head, leaned forward to gently stroke the baby’s hair. “I expect you have your reasons and whatever they are, they are none of our business. We would like to know your name, though. We can’t keep calling you ‘Miss’.”

  “Susan,” she replied without thinking. Still, it wasn’t such an uncommon name. She recalled the name Christopher had given to their neighbours in the Shropshire village. “Susan Lewis.”

  “Well, then, that’s better. And this little one?”

  “Alexandra.”

  “Beautiful.”

  “The jewels, Sir,” Susan said. “Some of them might pay my keep.”

  “There is no need.”

  “Oh, yes, there is. I cannot live on your charity. It would not be right, not when I have those valuable gems.”

  “Very well,” Isaac had replied. “I will keep the sapphire necklace as security. Will that suit?”

  That was three weeks ago and she had settled herself and her little baby in the large, back room above the pawnbroker’s shop. She could look out of the window of the front landing and see across Lincoln’s Inn and had seen David many times, going about his business. But she hadn’t been out; she was afraid that she might meet him and he might feel obliged to tell Christopher her whereabouts. Now she was married, it would hardly be fair to put this burden on him, not when he was striving to become a full fledged lawyer. It hadn’t been fair to ask him for help in the first place, when she first knew she was with child, but she hadn’t realised it then. Now she had a child to care for, she found herself less self centred than she had been then.

  She had also been there when Christopher came calling and she had listened in the back parlour, her breath held so tight she thought she might faint.

  She was curious. Isaac must have known it was her for whom he searched, but he said nothing. She wanted to know why.

  “I guessed it was you, yes,” he told her. “But I had no knowledge of his reasons. If you stole the jewels, I wouldn’t want to see you arrested and thrown into Newgate. You must have had good reasons to flee with a young babe in tow and they were reasons I knew nothing about. You are an intelligent girl; I assumed you knew what you were doing.”

  “Even if I am a thief?”

  He gave her an enigmatic smile.

  “I don’t think you are.”

  “And you don’t want to know who that man was, what he wanted with me?”

  “Of course, I want to know. I would hardly be human if I wasn’t curious, would I? But it is up to you to tell us or not, as you choose.”

  She couldn’t help standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, she was so grateful. As she did so, her thoughts turned to her mother and she smiled, wondering what she would have had to say about this. But thoughts of her made Susan sad; she didn’t know if she would ever see her again, or her sisters.

  That morning, after feeding and changing Alexandra, she happened to overhear the conversation between her new friends.

  The Rosens kept their voices deliberately low. Their property was not large and it would be easy for their guest to hear them should they speak in ordinary tones. They didn’t want to distress her, and they could easily be wrong.

  “Do you really think it’s her, Isaac?” Esther said as she fold
ed the newspaper.

  “See that sketch? That looks like the young man who came here to me and where else would a young lady like that get those valuable jewels? She doesn’t strike me as a thief.”

  “But the article doesn’t mention a baby, Isaac?”

  “No, it doesn’t and that is the only thing that makes me doubt that it is her.”

  It was by sheer chance that Susan overheard them. She didn’t intend to eavesdrop, but she realised at once who they were discussing.

  “You know?” She said, coming quietly into the room.

  “You are her?” Isaac said. “You are the Duchess?”

  The Duchess? That meant her father was dead.

  She nodded then came to sit beside them. She knew she would have to tell them the whole sorry tale, and it could well be a relief to do so. She had carried this secret, this worry long enough and she had no one else to tell.

  “I trust you,” she said. “You have been good to me and to my daughter and you deserve an explanation.”

  “I have loved having you here, my dear. Isaac and I, we always wanted children but it was not to be. Having a dear little babe in the house has taken years off me.”

  “Mrs Rosen,” Susan said hesitantly, “it is a long story. Christopher knew about my condition when he offered to marry me to avoid a scandal, and I agreed with him that I could not keep the child. But once I held her in my arms, I couldn’t bear to let her go.”

  Esther reached forward and squeezed her hand.

  “I can well understand that,” she said.

  “Well, I steeled myself to let her go. Christopher promised he would find her a good home, with a good family, but then I discovered his true intention. He was planning to hand her over to an orphanage.”

  Esther gasped, her hands covered her mouth to silence the escaping breath.

  “I wasn’t about to let my child go to one of those awful places, so I left. I came to London and you know the rest.”

  Esther glanced at her husband who nodded, knowing what was on her mind.

  “And what will happen now?” She asked. “You still need a good home for your child.”