Vanity

by Jane Feather

  Octavia hailed a hackney on the corner of Piccadilly, gave the jarvey directions to Holborn, and sat on the very edge of the seat as the vehicle swayed over the cobbles and the cries of the street sellers rose on the morning air.

  The ring was in the palm of her hand inside her glove, and her fingers were closed tightly over it. With her other hand she hung convulsively on to the strap above the window as she perched precariously on the edge of the seat, unable to relax sufficiently to sit back.

  Her eyes were on the window aperture, monitoring their progress, and she realized she was murmuring encouragement to the driver under her breath, urging him to increase his speed; and once, when he took a turn that she thought was out of the way, she had to restrain herself from banging on the ceiling to put him right.

  But eventually he drew up outside the prison. “This what you want, lady?”

  He sounded doubtful, leaning down from the box as Octavia stepped out of the carriage.

  She made no reply, merely handed him his fare, before hurrying to the gate. The gate keeper peered at her veiled countenance. “Who you come fer?”

  “The highwayman, Lord Nick,” she said in a low muffled voice.

  “Does all right fer visitors, that gennelman does,” the gate keeper said jovially, unlocking the postern gate. “Quite a party ’e ’ad last even. Sent out fer ’alf a dozen bottles of sherry an’ the makin’s fer a punch bowl. Very jolly they was. Very merry.”

  Octavia again refrained from comment, assuming Ben and Rupert’s other cronies from the Royal Oak had made up the party. And who was she to object if his friends came to cheer him up? If only she could persuade them to help her come up with a way to effect his escape.

  She crossed the press-yard, already thronged with prisoners and their families, and went through the internal gate leading to the spacious chambers on the state side. She ran up the stairs, glancing occasionally into the rooms she passed where doors stood ajar. They were all comfortably furnished with what seemed in some cases to be their occupant’s personal possessions.

  She had brought Rupert’s books and the chess set, but she could arrange for more comforts to be brought in. A decent bed, chair, washstand.

  His door was closed and she raised her hand to knock, then changed her mind and lifted the latch. The door swung open and she stepped inside.

  “Amy? Bring me some tea, there’s a good girl.” Rupert’s sleepy voice came from a mound of bedclothes on the narrow cot. “I’ve a head on me to fell a prizefighter!”

  “Serves you right!” Octavia declared, throwing off her veil. She bounded across the room and jumped on him, sitting heavily astride him. “I hear you had a great party last night, with punch and immoderate quantities of sherry.”

  “Oh, you weigh a ton!” Rupert moaned, heaving himself onto his back in an effort to dislodge her. “Get off me, woman!”

  “No!” Leaning over, she pulled the covers off his face and kissed him. “How could you amuse yourself without me?”

  “I doubt you’d have enjoyed it, sweeting,” he said with another groan. “We played cards all night and I lost a fortune.”

  “Well, I brought you some more money,” she said, settling herself firmly on his belly. “And books and a chess set … and something else.”

  Rupert squinted up at her. He could feel her suppressed excitement, the currents of tension running through her. She looked happy, almost convincingly so, as if the cheerful exterior was not simply masking her dread and despair.

  “What else?”

  She drew off her gloves with an air of great mystery and slowly uncurled her palm. Delicately she extracted the ring from the little silk pouch and dropped it onto his chest.

  “What the hell …?” His hand closed over it but he stared at her, and his eyes were abruptly filled with a dark and savage fury. “What did you do for this?”

  Octavia’s stomach began to churn. She hadn’t known what to expect, but she hadn’t expected to see this terrifying rage. “Nothing, really,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Get off me!”

  His voice was low, but the command was so ferocious, she had scrambled to the floor without realizing it.

  Rupert flung aside the bedclothes and stood up. “Damn you, Octavia! I told you it was over. I told you I would not have you involving yourself with that sewer rat! Now, what did you do? Tell me. Every damn thing!”

  “Nothing. I …”

  “Tell me!” His eyes were great holes in a face that had the gray-white tinge of a corpse.

  Octavia pressed her lingers to her lips, struggling to gather her senses. Her voice as leaden as a winter sky, she told him how she’d sought Bessie’s help. She described the encounter with Philip as flatly and objectively as she could, hoping with her cold, clear words to distance the reality, to banish the ghastly degrading images she could see flying through his mind. But his face grew grayer, his eyes emptier, and finally she lost her composure.

  Her voice cracked as she stepped toward him, one hand outstretched in appeal. “Oh, God, Rupert. Please don’t be so angry. I did it for you. I wanted to show you that you mustn’t give up. That things can be done … that …”

  “Quiet!” he thundered, thrusting her hand away. “You talk arrant, self-deceiving nonsense. This place is not an illusion. Grow up, woman, and face the truth.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “No, I won’t face your truth. It’s not the truth. There is a way.”

  “Go home, Octavia,” he said with abrupt weariness. “It doesn’t help me to listen to your fairy tales.”

  “But—”

  “Go home, I say!”

  “You be wantin’ yer breakfast now, Lord Nick?” Amy’s pert voice came from the doorway. “Now that yer visitor’s leavin’.”

  She glanced at Octavia with smoldering triumph. Clearly she’d been listening to the last exchange.

  “Yes, and bring me tea and hot water,” Rupert said.

  He turned from Octavia and strode to the window where he stood looking out into the yard. He opened his hand and Philip’s ring fell to the floor. It rolled across the boards and came to rest against the skirting, a bright circle in the dust.

  Octavia dropped the veil over her face. The sound of her running feet stumbling down the stairs echoed in his head.

  Chapter 24

  It was a long time before Rupert moved from the window. Amy brought in his tea and breakfast, but he didn’t turn as she set it down with a clatter of crockery and cutlery.

  “This’ll get cold, sir, if ’n ye don’t eats it soon.”

  “Leave it, Amy.”

  “Well, will there be anythin’ else? Should I jest tidy up while—”

  “Leave, girl!”

  Amy backed to the door and scuttled away without another word.

  Rupert bent and picked up Philip’s ring. He let it He in his palm before taking out his own from his shirt pocket and slowly marrying the two. He slipped the signet ring onto his right hand and held it up to the light. The eyes of the bird seemed to gleam knowingly at him from an exquisitely engraved tree branch.

  He had it. And when Philip saw the whole ring on Rupert Warwick’s finger, he would know his twin again. Watching that knowledge dawn on his twin’s face would be Rupert’s moment of vengeance. All that would follow from it would be simply restitution. Philip might try to fight publicly Rupert’s claim to be the missing Cullum Wyndham, but once he saw the ring, he would know in his blood that he couldn’t succeed. And he would know that the harder he fought, the more fool he would look.

  The ring would serve as Cullum Wyndham’s introduction to the family lawyers and the family doctor, those who would find concrete proof of the returned heir’s identity when they examined and interrogated him. His body bore scars and marks that the doctor would know, and the claimant possessed details of domestic history that only a member of the family could know.

  The ring would bring Philip’s house of cards tumbling to the dust.

 
And the ring bound Cullum to uphold the honor of the Wyndhams, preventing him from forcing his brother to face his own ruin and his own past. Revealing his identity now would drag the name of Wyndham through the mud. It would broadcast to the world that the true Earl of Wyndham was a common highwayman on his way to the hangman. And he couldn’t do that. He could not dishonor Gervase’s memory.

  Hell and damnation! Rupert poured himself a mug of tea and gulped it down, scalding his tongue and the back of his throat. But the burning liquid cleared his head.

  He refilled the mug, then began to pace his prison, unable to lose the images of Octavia tangling with his twin.

  It didn’t matter that she’d outwitted Philip … that she’d subjected him to the most telling mortification a man could endure. She had still exposed herself to the hands and mouth of a vicious cur, and she’d done it without Rupert’s knowledge and at a time when he could do nothing to help her. She was quite without protection and he was stuck in this place, helpless. Powerless to alter his own situation or to have a role in Octavia’s.

  Didn’t she understand how that made him feel? How his frustration and his self-contempt were a sour well bubbling deep inside him. And instead of understanding, sympathizing, lending him gentle sweetness and comfort, she had put herself in danger. She had acted, while he could only sit and twiddle his thumbs and contemplate his execution. And what she’d done was futile. Pointless. His secret must go to his grave. And the possession of the ring now only highlighted the powerlessness of his position. The futility of his vengeance.

  “Don’t ye want yer breakfast, sir?”

  Amy’s voice piping hesitantly from the door brought his head up from morose contemplation of the ring. “No, take it away.”

  “I could bring ye summat else, mebbe. A slice of rare beef, per’aps.” She looked at him with hopeful eyes.

  Rupert struggled for patience. “If I want anything, I’ll call you, Amy.”

  Disconsolately, the girl took out the laden tray, and Rupert resumed his pacing.

  He could find patience with Amy, but not with Octavia, he reflected with a surge of remorse, seeing again the deep hurt and shock in her tawny eyes, the tremulous line of her mouth, hearing again the desperate appeal in that rich voice.

  Maybe she wouldn’t come back. He could hardly blame her. But, dear God in heaven, how could he endure this captivity, this hideous impotence, another minute?

  Ben’s unmistakable tread on the stone stairs outside helped him to break the spiraling panic. There were two sets of footsteps.

  “See who I’ve brought ye, Nick.” Ben marched in, very smartly dressed in his Sunday clothes and a powdered wig. His companion was dressed most elegantly in gray silk, with a black silk ribbon around the queue of his white wig.

  The stranger’s occupation was clear to Rupert before Ben finished the introduction with a grand flourish. “’Is Honor Mr. St. John Moretón, barrister-at-law.”

  “Mr. Moretón.” Rupert bowed.

  “Sir.” The barrister returned the bow and looked around. “I see your friends have ensured your comfort.”

  “For the moment,” Rupert agreed.

  “They have also retained me to represent you. I am, of course, doing all I can to put off the trial,” the barrister added as if it were self-evident.

  “Because to hasten it would hasten my execution?” Rupert inquired dryly.

  “My dear sir, we don’t talk like that!” the barrister exclaimed. “No such thing … no such thing.”

  “No, that’s right,” Ben put in stoutly. “An’ miss is right, y’know, Nick. She said we’ve given up afore we’ve even started.”

  Rupert sighed. “The facts speak for themselves, Ben.”

  The barrister coughed. “If I might ask for some details of the facts, Lord Nick. Perhaps you have another name?” He raised his eyebrows. “A name less … well, less notorious, shall we say? One a little less likely to raise the judge’s hackles.”

  “No,” Rupert said coolly. “I’m sorry to have to disappoint you, Mr. Moreton, but Lord Nick is how I will be known at my trial.”

  The barrister looked disappointed. “As you please, of course. But it’s strongly against my advice.”

  “Duly noted.” Rupert ran a hand through his disordered locks. “Much as I appreciate your interest, I really don’t feel we have anything useful to discuss at this stage. And I would rather like to make my morning ablutions….” He stroked his unshaven jaw in an explanatory gesture.

  The barrister looked most put out and Ben extremely displeased. But if the highwayman wasn’t prepared to cooperate in his defense, then there was little anyone could do.

  The lawyer left and Ben followed him to the door. There he paused. “You want company, Nick?”

  Rupert shook his head. “I’m the devil’s own company today, Ben. But don’t think I’m not grateful. However, instruct Mr. Moreton to stop his delaying tactics. I want this over with.”

  Ben shook his head. “What’s the point of ’urrying it, Nick?”

  “I can’t stand the suspense,” Rupert responded with a cool smile.

  Ben glared at him, clearly not pleased with this attempt to make light of the dire situation. Then he shrugged and stomped off in the barrister’s wake.

  Rupert flung himself onto the bed and lay staring up at the plaster ceiling. At this rate he was going to drive off all his friends. But why couldn’t they understand that there was no comfort to be gained with false hopes? His only possible comfort lay in coming to an acceptance of the inevitable—an acceptance that would enable him to face his death with calm and grace. An acceptance that would enable him to face the loss of Octavia and a love that sang so deeply in his veins, it was intrinsic to his whole.

  Perhaps, if he had come to recognize and accept that love earlier, it would have been enough. He would have been able to let go his vengeance and settle for a joy that he was certain came to very few men. Instead, he’d ignored the recognition and focused only on the obsession that had lived with him through every waking moment since Cullum Wyndham had run away from Wyndham Manor. And the obsession had brought him to the foot of Tyburn Tree.

  Octavia walked blindly away from Holborn, turning toward the Embankment. Tears ran down her cheeks beneath her veil. She was stunned by the mistake she’d made. Instead of convincing Rupert of the possibility of action, she’d merely underlined for him the powerlessness of his situation. She knew how much he needed to be in control of events. How much he needed to know that every strand was in his hands. And by acting as she’d done, succeeding where he had not, she’d rubbed his nose in his own failure.

  By doing something where he could do nothing, she’d made him more vulnerable, not less.

  And yet, try as she would, Octavia could not imagine acting other than she had done.

  She turned away from the river, back toward the Strand. Her head down, lost in her own misery, she didn’t notice anything at first. Then she was pushed against a wall, a blast of foul breath swamped her nostrils, and the sound of running feet and yelling voices penetrated her blind self-absorption. She could see little through the thick veil and pushed it up as she cowered against the wall.

  The street was full of people, hurrying, intent, and for the moment silent. They carried staves and bricks, and their faces were contorted into an expression of almost transfixed hatred.

  They surged past Octavia, and a yell went up from the end of the street. “To Westminster … to Westminster.”

  They were streaming across Westminster Bridge from St. George’s Fields on their way to petition Parliament for the repeal of the Catholic Relief Act. Lord George Gordon had spoken to the masses that morning, and judging from their faces, every word had struck home.

  Octavia edged backward into a narrow alley. She didn’t want to get caught up in the tide—and what a tide it was. The mass of humanity flowed on and on, and on every face was the same look. The same fanatical glitter, the same twisted features. And every voice now ro
ared their battle cry: “No popery … no popery.”

  A carriage forced its way through the middle of the throng as she cowered in her alley. But no horses drew this vehicle: it was pulled by sweating, exuberant men, and the crowd chanted and cheered, pressing back to allow the carriage passage.

  A young man, smiling and waving, appeared in the window, and the crowd roared again and banged on the panels and cheered on the laboring men.

  “Lord George … Lord George,” they yelled. “Make way for Lord George.”

  Octavia stared, fascinated, at this man who could so inspire such a massive mob. The youngest son of the Duke of Gordon was an unremarkable-looking figure. Bright-eyed and lively, certainly, but not the stuff of which heroes were made. And yet he was the hero of this mad, wild-eyed mob.

  There were thousands of them, and she began to wonder if they would ever pass and she could be on her way.

  But at last the tide had passed and there were only a few stragglers in the street. The roar of the crowd could still be heard, however, and it was a sound that sent a shiver down Octavia’s spine.

  She hurried home along Piccadilly, where she noticed that the merchants were boarding up their shops and people were gathered on corners, whispering and looking anxiously around. Several people were painting “No popery” slogans on their doors and shutters—a talisman against the mob if it should turn violent.

  And after what she’d seen, Octavia had little doubt that it would take almost nothing for that to happen. If Parliament refused their petition, if one man stood against them, they would turn into a pack of ravening wolves.

  She turned into Dover Street, breathless, her tears dried, superseded by trepidation at being on the streets in this volatile atmosphere.

  As she ran up the steps to the front door, a small voice piped from the basement steps beneath. “Ye’ve got to write ’no popery’ on yer door, Miss Tavi.”