The Virgin Who Ruined Lord Gray

by Anna Bradley

  “Hogg. Just the man I’d hoped to find.” Lord Gray twirled his walking stick between his spotlessly clean white gloves. “I need your assistance.”

  Hogg glanced from Lord Gray to Sophia and back again. “An’ what kind of ’elp would ye be needing?”

  “Nothing too taxing. This lady and I need a word with one of your prisoners.”

  Hogg ran dirty fingers over his stubbled jaw. “Aw right. What prisoner ye want, milord?”

  Lord Gray studied the silver tip of his walking stick for a moment, then lowered it to the ground and met Hogg’s gaze. “Jeremy Ives.”

  Hogg’s face went white. “Nay, milord. Can’t help ye there. No one sees Ives, on orders from the guv’nor.”

  “But you’ll make an exception for me, won’t you, Hogg? It’s the least you can do, given our long and mutually beneficial…friendship.” Lord Gray reached into a pocket of his coat and drew out a small pouch. Coins clinked together as he tossed it into the air and caught it again. “I’ll make it worth your while, of course.”

  Hogg’s gaze locked on the pouch with a look so greedy, Sophia half-expected to see drool run down his chin. He glanced around, then peered behind him into the dim hallway. “I’ll lose me place if anyone sees—”

  “The longer you keep us standing here, the greater the chance someone will. Best make up your mind quickly, Hogg.”

  “Aw right then, but ye’ll have to be quick, like. No mor’n a few minutes, milord,” Hogg hissed, backing away from the door.

  Lord Gray pushed it open with the tip of his walking stick. “After you, Miss Monmouth.”

  Sophia ascended the step, but hesitated before passing through. She wasn’t a timid sort of lady, but that darkened doorway looked like the very portal into hell.

  To her surprise, a large, warm hand settled on her back. “I’m right behind you,” Lord Gray murmured into her ear, his deep, rough velvet voice sending shivers down her spine.

  If he noticed her reaction, he didn’t comment. He urged her over the threshold, tossing the pouch to Hogg as they passed. Hogg snatched it out of midair and slid it into his pocket with an ease that hinted at a past life as a street thief, then led them through what looked like an anteroom of some sort.

  “The turnkey’s lodge,” Lord Gray muttered.

  Sophia paused to glance into the two cramped rooms on either side of the center chamber. Each contained a stool, a table, a cot, and nothing else.

  “I said move quick-like, miss,” Hogg snapped. He reached out to tug Sophia forward, but before he could lay a finger on her Lord Gray’s walking stick sliced through the air and landed near Hogg’s arm. He didn’t strike him, but he’d made his point, nonetheless.

  “Don’t touch the lady.” Lord Gray didn’t raise his voice, but his low growl was far more menacing than a shout would have been.

  Hogg blanched, and didn’t reach for her again. He took them through the turnkey’s lodge to a passage on the left, then down narrow, shallow stone steps into the dungeons below. From there they passed into a serpentine maze of narrow stone passages with what seemed an endless series of heavy iron gates between them.

  Sophia had been to Newgate once before, to see a friend of Lady Clifford’s who’d been imprisoned for debt, but the female debtor’s ward was a palace in comparison to the filth and misery of the dungeons. She resisted the shudders wracking her and plodded along silently behind Mr. Hogg until they emerged from the maze of passageways into what could only be described as a tomb.

  One lone prisoner was slumped against the damp stone wall. What little she could see of him in the darkness made Sophia’s stomach clench. Hogg lit a candle, and the gloom receded. She drew closer, and the shape of the man on the floor emerged from the shadows.

  That was when Sophia’s calm deserted her.

  Chapter Nine

  Jeremy’s condition was so terrible as to defy description.

  His wrists and ankles were cuffed with wide iron bands, their heavy chains attached to an iron ring in the floor. Filthy, naked skin gaped through the scraps of clothing covering him. His emaciated body was crawling with lice and other vermin and riddled with seeping sores. He seemed to have been singled out for the harshest sort of treatment at the hands of his guards, as well. Sophia could see at a glance his cheeks and jaw were bruised, and his legs were a mess of festering wounds.

  Sophia rushed forward with a soft cry and fell to her knees beside him.

  “Oh, Jeremy. Oh, sweetheart.” He’d looked so feeble in the courthouse, and Sophia had prepared herself for the worst, but this…

  She’d seen appalling suffering in her life—drunkenness, starvation, disease, women and children beaten bloody by the very hands of the people who professed to love them—but never in her life had she seen anything more shameful than this. Dear God, it was a miracle Jeremy was still alive.

  But someone was doing their best to see he didn’t remain that way.

  “Jesus.” Lord Gray’s voice was hoarse. He followed her to the corner of the cell and crouched down on Jeremy’s other side. “Ives?”

  Jeremy’s chin was slumped on his chest, but at the sound of the deep voice, his head came up.

  “Jeremy.” Sophia touched his cheek. “Can you hear me?”

  He blinked, as if he thought she must be an apparition kneeling beside him, but then he burst into a flood of tears. “I didna think ye’d come,” he choked out.

  “Remove his irons,” Lord Gray ordered.

  Sophia looked up. The lantern light slanted across Lord Gray’s face as he turned toward Hogg, and she caught her breath. His skin was stretched tight across the sharp bones of his face, and he’d gone dead white. His eyes had all but disappeared under a lowered brow, and his full mouth was a thin, grim slash in his face.

  She’d never seen a man more enraged in her life. His features looked as if they’d been carved from ice.

  Hogg shook his head. “Nay. He’s a dangerous one, milord—”

  “Do it now. Then get out.” Lord Gray rose to his feet, and the candlelight threw his enormous shadow onto the stone wall behind him. He looked like a demon sent straight from the netherworlds.

  Hogg gulped, then hurried forward, fumbling with the heavy set of keys dangling from his waist. “No mor’n a few minutes, milord. Ye promised.” Once he freed Jeremy from his irons he leapt backwards, out of Lord Gray’s reach.

  The moment Jeremy was free, he threw himself on Sophia’s neck. “I didna think ye’d come, Miss Sophia.”

  “Hush now, sweetheart. Of course, I came.” Sophia brushed his limp hair away from his forehead and did her best to give him a reassuring smile. “Have I ever abandoned you, Jeremy?”

  “Nay.” Jeremy sniffled, and dragged his arm across his eyes. “But the man yesterday said as I’d done a bad thing, an’ I thought ye wouldn’t like to see me again, now I’m a bad man.”

  Hogg snorted, and Lord Gray turned a frigid look on him. “I told you to get out.” He didn’t spare Hogg another glance, but the man took to his heels readily enough, the clang from the iron door ringing like a death knell long after he’d slammed it behind him.

  Sophia tried not to flinch at the sound, and turned her attention back to Jeremy. “You’re not a bad man. Did you hurt anyone?”

  Jeremy hung his head. “Nay, Miss Sophia.”

  “Look at me, Jeremy.” Sophia raised his face to hers with a nudge to his chin. “Did you steal anything from Mr. Sharpe?”

  Jeremy sucked in a shaky breath. “Nay, miss.”

  “Then you’re not a bad man, Jeremy, no matter what the man said. You haven’t done anything wrong. This is all a dreadful mistake. We’ve come to help you.” She took his hand in hers and began to gently chafe his wrists to force the blood to flow.

  Jeremy made a hoarse, rusty noise that sounded, incredibly, like a laugh. “Ye shouldna have come ’
ere, Miss Sophia. This isn’t a good place for ye, and there ain’t no help for me now, no ways.”

  “Don’t say that, sweetheart. Lady Clifford would tell you it’s never too late for anything, wouldn’t she?” More words rushed to Sophia’s lips—arguments, denials, reassurances—but she couldn’t force them past her lips, because they felt like lies. No matter what Lady Clifford said, the odds were against Jeremy surviving even another few nights in Newgate.

  Tears started to her eyes, and it was all she could do to hold them back. Dear God, how could they have done this to Jeremy? How could they do this to anyone? Guilty or innocent, no man deserved to die in this place, like this.

  “I didna do it, Miss Sophia. I didna hurt that man.” Jeremy caught her hand in his, grasping it weakly. “Ye’ll tell Lady Clifford an’ Mr. Daniel I didna do it? An’ Miss Cecilia and Miss Emma, and Miss Georgiana? Ye’ll tell ’em I didna do it, and I’m sorry—”

  “Hush, now. They know you didn’t do it, sweetheart. No one is angry at you. Now, let’s clean you up a bit, because I’ve brought someone to see you today.” Sophia took a clean square of white linen from her pocket, wiped Jeremy’s eyes, then gave the cloth to him. “This gentleman here is Lord Gray.”

  Jeremy turned wide, guileless blue eyes on Lord Gray, then ducked his head to whisper to Sophia, “Ye brought me a lord?”

  Sophia smiled. “I did, yes. Lord Gray is an earl.”

  Instead of cleaning his face, Jeremy used the handkerchief to scrub at a place next to him on the stone floor. When he was finished, he turned bravely back to Lord Gray. “How do ye do, my lord? Will ye sit down?”

  Sophia held her breath, dreading the moment when Lord Gray would coldly refuse Jeremy’s invitation, but to her surprise he crossed the cell and crouched down next to Jeremy. “Thank you, Jeremy.”

  “Jeremy,” Sophia began, brushing a filthy, ragged clump of hair away from his face. “Lord Gray and I need you tell us as much as you can remember about what happened that night in St. Clement Dane’s churchyard.”

  Jeremy gave her an apprehensive look. “I don’t know how to talk to a lord, Miss Sophia.”

  “You needn’t worry, sweetheart. Lord Gray will be good to you. How did you happen to be in St. Clement Dane’s churchyard so late that night?” The judge had asked Jeremy the same question at the trial yesterday, but he’d been too frightened to give more than a stammering, incoherent answer.

  Jeremy gave her an uncertain look. “I weren’t doing nothing wrong. I were just passing through the churchyard.”

  “All right,” Sophia agreed with a reassuring smile. “And where were you before that? What had you been doing?”

  Jeremy’s brow pinched, as if he were trying hard to remember. “I were at the Turk’s Head.”

  Sophia’s stomach dropped. Patrick Dunn had been coming from the Turk’s Head the night Peter Sharpe accused him of theft. It could be a coincidence—the Turk’s Head was a quick walk from St. Clement Dane’s Church—but the coincidences were piling up in a way that wasn’t coincidental at all. “You mean the coffeehouse on the Strand, Jeremy?”

  “Aye, miss.”

  Sophia exchanged a look with Lord Gray. “Do you go there often, Jeremy?”

  Jeremy shook his head. “Nay. I were only there that once.”

  “All right. How did you happen to go there that night?” The Turk’s Head was a lively place, popular with London’s political set, and always crowded with young radicals and reformers. It was likely Jeremy had just been attracted by the noise, but if someone had lured him there…

  Jeremy’s lower lip began to wobble. “I-I’m a bad man, Miss Sophia.”

  “No, Jeremy.” Sophia pressed his hand. “I already told you you’re not, and I’ve never lied to you, have I?”

  “Nay, Miss Sophia.” Tears streaked down Jeremy’s cheeks, but he bravely met Sophia’s eyes. “There were a lady in there, with yellow hair, an’ I thought—she were pretty, Miss Sophia, so I went in, but I didna do anything wrong. I didna touch her. I just wanted to see her closer, like.”

  “It’s all right, Jeremy. Did this lady talk to you? Did she ask you to go into the coffeehouse with her? Invite you to follow her?” Jeremy’s mind was as innocent as a child’s, but he had a man’s body, with all the attendant physical urges. If someone was trying to lure him into the Turk’s Head, a pretty lady would be an effective way to do it.

  But Jeremy shook his head. “Nay. She didna notice me. There were a lot of people about.”

  Sophia blew out a breath. It sounded straightforward enough. “That’s fine, sweetheart.”

  “What else happened that night, Jeremy?” Lord Gray peeled his coat off his shoulders and handed it to Sophia. “For the boy,” he said gruffly, before he turned back to Jeremy. “You claim you didn’t kill Henry Gerrard. If you didn’t commit the murder, who did?”

  Jeremy’s face paled at the word murder. “I c-could never…I w-wouldna hurt no one, milord. It were s-someone else who d-d-done it.”

  “Was it the man in the courtroom yesterday?” Sophia asked, draping the coat over Jeremy’s shoulders. She had as low an opinion as one could of Peter Sharpe, but he was a petty, trifling sort of villain. She couldn’t quite convince herself he had the savagery to take a man’s life.

  “Nay, not him. It were…it w-were the other one.” Jeremy squeezed his eyes closed, shuddering.

  Beside her, Lord Gray stilled. “The other one?”

  Sophia’s heart began to pound. According to Sharpe’s testimony, only himself, Jeremy, and Henry Gerrard had been at St. Clement Dane’s at the time of the murder. He hadn’t mentioned a word about a fourth man. “How many men were there that night, Jeremy? This is important, love, so think carefully.”

  Jeremy stared at her with wide, frightened eyes. “Four, miss, if ye count the one as got hurt.”

  Four? Sophia turned to Lord Gray, speechless with shock.

  “Can you tell us who each of the four men were, Jeremy?” Lord Gray asked in a calm, measured tone.

  Jeremy thought about it, his face screwed up with concentration. “There were me, and poor Mr. Gerrard as was, and t’other one—the one who said as I’d taken his watch and fob, but I didna, Miss Sophia! I never took nuffin. I didna even get close enough to him to take nuffin, but he set up screaming, an’ calling me a thief—”

  “The fourth man, Jeremy,” Lord Gray said, gently guiding him back to the question at hand. “Did you recognize him?”

  Jeremy’s shoulders sagged. “Nay, milord. I never saw him a’fore.”

  “All right. That’s all right, Jeremy.” Lord Gray was making an obvious effort to curb his urgency. “Can you tell us what he looked like?”

  Jeremy leaned forward, eager to tell the story he’d been unable to communicate in the terror of the courtroom. “He were biggish, milord. Not big like me, he being thinner, but tall, like, with black hair.”

  “Very good. Anything else?”

  “I-I’m not sure. Something hit my head, and I can’t remember very well—”

  Jeremy didn’t get any further before succumbing to a hacking cough. Sophia patted and soothed him, but her gaze met Lord Gray’s over Jeremy’s head, and she saw at once they were thinking the same thing.

  Peter Sharpe was a liar, and the fourth man…

  The fourth man was a murderer. Whoever he was, he’d killed Henry Gerrard.

  Eventually Jeremy’s cough faded to a wheeze, and his head fell against the stone wall behind him, his face pale with exhaustion. Sophia waited as long as she dared for him to catch his breath, but she heard a step in the corridor beyond, and knew they were running out of time. “You did very well, sweetheart. Now, tell us one more time everything you remember from that night, but you’ll have to do it quickly, all right?”

  Jeremy nodded. “I come down the Strand from the Turk’s Head. Mr. Sharpe were at
the front of the church, sort of wandering about, ye see. I were about to pass through, but Mr. Sharpe started carrying on, calling me a thief, and I were arguing with him when Mr. Gerrard came up, sudden, like. Mr. Sharpe were still shrieking, an’ I thought Mr. Gerrard were going to take me up for theft, him being a Runner.”

  Sophia cast a fearful look over her shoulder toward the corridor. “He didn’t, though?”

  “Nay. It were strange, Miss Sophia. He didna pay me much mind at all. He turned on Mr. Sharpe and started going on, saying he knew what he were about, knew everything, like, an’ then Mr. Gerrard tried to take up Mr. Sharpe, an’ that was when t’other man came out of the shadows, like he were there the whole time, and he…he…”

  “What did he do, Jeremy?” Sophia whispered, squeezing his hand.

  “Quick like that, he s-stabbed poor Mr. Gerrard in the chest. Mr. Gerrard fell down, an’ the man, he…he grabbed his head and run the sword across his throat—”

  “Sword?” Sophia interrupted. “Mr. Gerrard was killed with a sword, Jeremy?”

  “Aye, Miss Sophia.”

  Not with Jeremy’s knife, then, but something much larger. There’d been a fourth man there that night, and he’d vanished into the shadows with the murder weapon.

  “An’ then there was all blood everywhere,” Jeremy said, his voice thick. “An’ Mr. Gerrard, he fell onto his back in the dirt, and I…it were so q-quick. I couldna think what do to, but I tried to help him. I got down on my knees next to him and I tried to stop him bleeding, but it were too late. He was blood all over, and there weren’t nothing I could do. He made a noise—an awful noise, a kind of gasp, like, and then he weren’t breathing no more, and I knew he was dead.”

  “This all happened in front of St. Clement Dane’s Church?” Lord Gray asked, his voice not quite steady.

  Jeremy nodded. “Aye. An’ then the man, the one what hurt Mr. Gerrard got angry, an’ he started carrying on at Mr. Sharpe, an’ I don’t know, something about me, and Mr. Sharpe getting the wrong man, an’ then I felt a terrible pain in my head, an’ the next thing I know I wakes up here, an’ I’ve never spoke to a single soul since that night until you come.”