by Anna Bradley
Again.
“Miss Monmouth? Would you care to explain to me why you attempted to frame Mr. Sharpe for a crime of which he’s innocent?”
Another laugh rose to Sophia’s lips, the taste of it bitter on her tongue. Peter Sharpe might not have taken her locket, but he was far from innocent. It mattered little to her which crime he was punished for, as long as he was punished.
But Lord Gray wouldn’t see it that way, would he? No, the way he saw it, people like him decided questions of guilt or innocence. People like her and Jeremy explained themselves, then begged for forgiveness. Ironic, really, since pleas for mercy never seemed to mean much to men like Lord Gray.
She’d get nowhere with him, even if she told him the truth. Perhaps especially then.
The truth certainly hadn’t done Jeremy any good, had it? Anyone who’d seen him today should have recognized he wasn’t capable of deception, yet it had taken less than half an hour for him to be tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death.
Sophia tore her gaze from the locket and met Lord Gray’s forbidding wolf’s eyes. “Tell me, my lord. What was your impression of the court proceedings today?”
“Are you questioning me now, Miss Monmouth?”
She shrugged. “I simply wondered if you found anything distasteful about it.”
His face hardened. “I saw a guilty man sentenced to death as punishment for a despicable crime. There’s nothing distasteful in that.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s what you would see. I thought you more perceptive than that, but it’s easier to see precisely what you expected, isn’t it?”
With a quick snap of his fingers, her locket disappeared into his fist. “It sounds as if you’re accusing me of something. May I ask what it is you think I’ve done?”
So polite, so correct and courteous, yet Sophia could see the arrogance there, his certainty that he must be in the right. “I accuse you of willful blindness, my lord. It’s not an uncommon failing, but still a grievous one.”
Oh, he didn’t care for that. That accusation had gotten under his skin.
“Explain yourself please, Miss Monmouth.”
“With pleasure.” Sophia leaned forward, her gaze holding his. “Mr. Ives, my lord. Did his demeanor strike you as being at all strange?”
Lord Gray had remained expressionless throughout his questioning, his face a blank canvas, but now Sophia noticed a flicker of something in his eyes. Uneasiness, or consciousness. It was there and gone in an instant, but by then it was too late. Sophia saw it, and pounced. “You did find something strange about it.” Perhaps there was hope for Lord Gray, after all.
He eyed her warily. “Strange in what manner?”
“Mr. Ives didn’t offer much in his own defense, did he? He appeared dazed, baffled by the proceedings. I would have said he didn’t understand the accusations against him, or indeed, why he was in the courtroom at all. Did you happen to notice that?”
Sophia expected a swift and firm denial, but it didn’t come. Lord Gray considered it, his arms crossed over his chest. “I did notice it, yes.”
Sophia’s mouth dropped open. “You did?”
He let out an irritable sigh. “You sound surprised, Miss Monmouth. You’re aware I have been in a courtroom before? Mr. Ives isn’t the first defendant I’ve ever seen.”
“I hadn’t given any thought at all as to how you spend your time, my lord, but since you’re so familiar with courtroom proceedings, I can only assume you remarked Mr. Ives’s unusual behavior.”
“I just said I did.”
“You did say so, yes, but you don’t seem to have drawn the obvious conclusion from it.”
He shifted impatiently against the seat. “It must not be as obvious as you think it is, Miss Monmouth.”
“It is when one is paying attention. Jeremy Ives is simple, Lord Gray. He appeared confused today because he is confused.”
Lord Gray went still. “Simple?”
“Yes. Intellectually, I’d put him at roughly seven or eight years old. He doesn’t fully understand what he’s been accused of, and he certainly doesn’t have any notion how to defend himself.”
Lord Gray said nothing, but Sophia could see he was mulling over what she’d said, and she pushed her advantage. “How many seven-year-old children are such clever thieves they’ve escaped justice for months on end? Do you know of any eight-year-old children, my lord, who are capable of committing a murder?”
He regarded her with cool gray eyes. “Simple or not, Miss Monmouth, the court has deemed him capable to stand trial.”
“My, such unerring faith in justice! I’m afraid I don’t have your confidence. I find, my lord, justice often has more to do with who the accuser and the accused are than it does with matters of guilt or innocence. Do you agree?”
Lord Gray’s jaw hardened. “No, I don’t.”
“No, I suppose you wouldn’t, having never sat in the accused’s place. But there’s another thing I found strange about today’s proceedings.”
“Please do enlighten me, Miss Monmouth.”
Lord Gray didn’t look particularly eager to be enlightened, but it seemed today wasn’t his lucky day, any more than it was hers. “Does Peter Sharpe strike you as the sort of man who’d carry a cane?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it.
“No, I didn’t think so, and what’s more, today was the first I’ve heard about a cane. No one other than Peter Sharpe has said a word about it. Surely if he’d had one on the night of Mr. Gerrard’s murder, it would have been found at St. Clement Dane’s?”
“You can’t be sure it wasn’t. The knife used to murder Mr. Gerrard is of far greater importance than the cane, and it was found next to Mr. Gerrard’s body, covered with his blood. Are you denying Ives regularly carried a knife?”
“Oh no, my lord. He did carry one—a folding penny knife, gifted to him by Mr. Brixton, with a walnut handle and a three-inch blade. Three inches, Lord Gray. Quite a feat, to kill a man with a three-inch blade.”
He gave her a grim smile. “Not if you slit his throat, Miss Monmouth.”
“Sharpe wasn’t carrying a cane today, either,” Sophia muttered, her brow furrowed. “Indeed, I’ve never seen him with one, and I’ve been following him for weeks. It’s difficult to see how he could have subdued a man of Jeremy’s size and strength without it.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Miss Monmouth. You managed to get the upper hand with Mr. Sharpe easily enough. Twice, in fact. Once the other night when you followed him to St. Clement Dane’s, and again today.” His gaze strayed to her bodice, then skittered away again.
Sophia’s fichu was firmly in place, but all the same she felt warmth creeping into her cheeks. She wasn’t a blushing virgin any more than she was a swooning one, but for a brief moment she thought she saw a flare of heat in those gray eyes.
She cleared her throat. “Let’s put the cane aside for the moment, shall we? What would you say, my lord, if I told you Peter Sharpe is a despicable liar?”
“I’d say I think it’s much more comfortable for you to believe Sharpe is lying than it is for you to believe your friend Ives is a murderer. Unfortunately, the truth doesn’t support that conclusion.”
“Indeed? Which truth are you referring to, my lord? Yours, or mine?”
“There is only one truth, Miss Monmouth.” The heat in his eyes cooled until they looked like sheets of gray ice. “The truth is Mr. Ives was found crouched over the lifeless body of Henry Gerrard, soaked in his blood. I regret that truth should be so disagreeable to you, but the facts are what they are.”
Sophia studied him, considering his words. One truth? How naïve he was, to think a truth so absolute one couldn’t find a dozen different ways to turn it sideways, to twist it until it became a lie. What must it be like, to have such faith?
Sophia supposed she’d never kno
w. “Since you rely so heavily on facts, Lord Gray, I must assume you wish to have all of them before you draw any conclusion about a thing so crucial as a man’s guilt or innocence?”
His shoulders stiffened. “Despite what you may think of me, I have no wish to send an innocent man to the noose.”
“Of course not. May I conclude, then, you believe yourself to be in full possession of all the facts related to Peter Sharpe’s accusation against Mr. Ives?”
“I do, yes.”
“That’s a great relief to me, Lord Gray. Tell me, then, what do you make of this business with Patrick Dunn?”
Sophia could see at once he hadn’t the faintest idea who Patrick Dunn was. To his credit, he didn’t try and pretend he did. “I’m not familiar with that name. Who is he?”
“A weaver, formerly of Clare Court. Until recently he lived there with his wife and their two young children. Now he lives on the Thames, aboard the prison hulk Warrior, awaiting transportation to a penal colony in Australia.”
“His crime?”
Sophia leaned toward him. “Why, theft, my lord. Three months ago, Patrick Dunn was convicted of stealing a watch from Peter Sharpe.”
Chapter Seven
If he’d seen nothing but triumph in her eyes, Tristan would have found it easier to look away from her, but the more time he spent with Sophia Monmouth, the less able he was to make sense of her. There seemed to be a dozen different versions of her lurking under that enigmatic exterior, each one an echo of another, like layers of warped reflections in a cracked looking glass.
Tristan muttered a curse. No, there was nothing simple about her. She wore boy’s clothing, but she wasn’t a boy. She climbed, ran, and hid as if she were fleeing a crime, but she wasn’t a thief. She was one of Lady Clifford’s creatures, but she wasn’t a liar.
At least, not in this instance.
Even knowing what he did about her association with the Clifford School, Tristan was having a difficult time casting Miss Monmouth as a deceitful villainess. Her eyes, in particular, didn’t mark her as dishonest, and he’d looked enough villains in the eye to know one could see their darkness at a glance.
As much as he wished otherwise, he couldn’t question her sincerity on this. One look into those fierce green eyes and he knew she wasn’t lying about Peter Sharpe. Whether what she’d told him was true or not, he could see she believed every word she’d said.
Not a boy, not a thief, and not a liar. So much for the facts being what they were.
“Peter Sharpe has been the victim of theft before, Lord Gray.” She was assessing every shift in his expression. “Don’t you find that curious?”
“This is London, Miss Monmouth. Crime isn’t a notable occurrence here. Hence I leave my answer to your deductive powers.”
“Very well. What would you say, then, if I told you the crime Mr. Dunn is meant to have committed against Mr. Sharpe is remarkably similar to the crime Jeremy is accused of committing?”
Tristan did find that curious. “How similar?”
“Peter Sharpe is both the victim and the only witness to both crimes, and they both occurred at St. Clement Dane’s Church. Quite a coincidence, isn’t it?”
Tristan didn’t believe in coincidences, but he kept that to himself. “Unusual, perhaps, but not utterly implausible. People all over London are victims of theft every day.”
She swept this argument aside with an impatient gesture. “Next you’ll tell me Mr. Sharpe is simply unlucky. I wonder, though, why he spends so much time wandering about London at night if he’s so often the target of thieves and murderers. St. Clement Dane’s Church appears to be a particularly unlucky location for him, yet I followed him there again just the other night. Strange, isn’t it?”
Tristan stroked his fingers over his jaw, considering it. “I’ll allow it’s a bit strange, yes, but it’s not proof of any wrongdoing. Tell me, Miss Monmouth. How did you find out about Patrick Dunn?”
She shrugged. “The same way everyone in London finds out about crimes. I read it in the Proceedings.”
“You went searching for Mr. Sharpe’s name in the Proceedings?” That had been clever of her. Tristan also made it a point to read the Proceedings, and might have come across Patrick Dunn’s name and made the connection himself, but he hadn’t seen any reason to doubt Jeremy Ives’s guilt—not with the evidence against him. In any case, he hadn’t been in London when Dunn was taken up. He’d been in Oxfordshire by then, grieving for his brother and attempting to soothe his mother’s hysterics.
“I did. I knew Sharpe to be a liar the moment he made the accusation against Jeremy. I knew he must have told similar lies before.”
Tristan raised an eyebrow. “I fail to see how you could know such a thing.”
“How many liars do you know, Lord Gray, who lie only once? In any case, I was right, wasn’t I?”
“You’re sure of yourself, Miss Monmouth. Forgive me, but it’s possible he didn’t lie either time. Mr. Sharpe could have been the victim of two similar crimes. As I said, crime isn’t uncommon in London.”
Tristan had the distinct impression she just managed to resist rolling her eyes.
“Mr. Dunn has never been accused of a crime before, my lord. He claims Sharpe accosted him while he was passing through St. Clement Dane’s churchyard on his way home from the Turk’s Head Coffeehouse in the Strand.”
Tristan blinked. How had she discovered that? “That information wouldn’t have been in the Proceedings.”
“No. I paid his wife a visit in Clare Court. She was more than happy to tell me about her husband’s unhappy fate.”
Tristan still wasn’t convinced. “It sounds as if it may have been a crime of opportunity. They’re much more common than you may think, Miss Monmouth.”
“So are false accusations, Lord Gray. It makes no sense a respectable, law-abiding man like Patrick Dunn would suddenly commit a violent crime simply because the opportunity presented itself.” Her face turned bleak. “Mrs. Dunn insists her husband is innocent—that he had no need to steal anything.”
“She’s his wife, Miss Monmouth. Naturally, she believes him innocent. This is why you’ve been following Mr. Sharpe, then? You think if you can catch him out in another lie it proves he’s also lying about Mr. Ives?”
“My dear Lord Gray, I don’t think it. I know he’s lying, and I will catch him out at it. Indeed, I might have caught him the other night if you hadn’t gotten in my way.”
Tristan’s jaw hardened at mention of the other night. “It’s a damn good thing I did get in your way. If Peter Sharpe is the blackguard you say he is, you might have gotten your own throat slit.” He’d never known anyone so careless of her own safety as she was.
Incredibly, she laughed at that. “I’m touched by your concern for me, my lord, but I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”
“You mistake the matter, Miss Monmouth, if you think my concern is for you.” Tristan’s voice was cold, but in truth, he was concerned for her—that is, merely in the sense that any decent man would be concerned for any young woman recklessly risking her neck. Nothing more.
He leaned back against the squabs, studying her. She wasn’t going to care for what he had to say next, but it must be said, nevertheless. “I’m going to have to insist you stop chasing after Peter Sharpe from now on, Miss Monmouth.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits. “You insist on it? You insist on it? I beg your pardon, Lord Gray. You may be an earl and the Ghost of Bow Street, but as terribly important as you are, I don’t answer to you.”
Tristan’s fingers tightened around the locket still clutched in his fist. “You answer to the law, just as every other citizen in London does. As for Peter Sharpe, he hasn’t been accused of any crime, despite your account of his perfidy. You, on the other hand, were caught in the act of accusing a man of a crime you knew full well he didn’t commit.
”
He blinked at her as a smile curled her lips. “At least you didn’t refer to him as an innocent man this time. I do believe we’re making progress, my lord.”
Tristan’s gaze caught on her lips—surprisingly sweet, pink, bow-shaped lips, utterly incongruous with such a pert mouth. For one wild moment, he imagined leaning forward and brushing his thumb over her plump lower lip.
His thumb, or his mouth. Would she taste sweet, or—
Damn it. She was a miscreant, a threat to the public.
He tore his gaze away from her mouth and cleared his throat. “I won’t catch you harassing Peter Sharpe again, Miss Monmouth.”
It wasn’t a question. She heard the hint of command in his voice, and her smile widened. “You won’t catch me, no.”
Pert mouth, indeed. “Let me make myself clear. If I catch you going after him again—and make no mistake, Miss Monmouth, I will catch you—I’ll have you brought up on charges.”
The pert mouth remained stubbornly closed.
“Well? Come now, Miss Monmouth. Convince me you’ll stay away from Peter Sharpe, or I’ll take you to the magistrate this instant, and save myself a great deal of trouble.”
She shot him a resentful look, her pretty pink lips turned down at the corners.
“Nothing to say?” Tristan waited, his face impassive.
At last, she gave in to the inevitable with an irritated sigh. “Very well, Lord Gray. I give you my word I’ll stay away from Peter Sharpe.”
“Your word? Is that all you have to offer? Why, Miss Monmouth, should I accept your word when I have every reason to believe you’ll fail to keep it?”
She huffed out a breath. “Well, what would you have in its place? A blood oath? A virgin sacrifice? Shall we summon a priest? Would you be satisfied if I swore on the Bible, or should I place my hand over my heart and vow on my eternal soul I—”
To Tristan’s horror a laugh threatened, and he cut her off with a wave of his hand. “That’s enough, Miss Monmouth.”
“I don’t go back on my word, Lord Gray. If I give it, I’ll keep it.”
