The Virgin Who Ruined Lord Gray

by Anna Bradley

  That was the lesson Sophia took with her on the day of her mother’s death, when she left the only life she’d ever known behind. A small, hard kernel of knowledge, buried deep inside the layers of her heart.

  It was a lesson she never forgot.

  But she wouldn’t try and explain this to Lord Gray. He’d never learned that lesson, because he’d never had to. For him, one made a wrong right again by taking the matter to a magistrate.

  There was nothing Sampson Willis could do for Jeremy. Sophia looked down at the hand still cradled in hers and thought about the scars on Lord Gray’s knuckles. She’d been surprised to find he hid old wounds under his fine kid gloves. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been. Perhaps she should have realized no one, not even an earl, escaped without scars.

  Lord Gray was a better man than she’d accused him of being, but he wasn’t the man to save Jeremy. No, she’d have to do that herself.

  “I’ll take you home.” Lord Gray withdrew his hand from hers and rapped on the roof of the carriage. “No. 26 Maddox Street, Platt,” he murmured when his coachman appeared.

  Platt bowed, and a moment later the carriage started with a lurch and they were off, the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral looming over them, and Newgate Prison at their backs.

  * * * *

  “Sophia, are you listening?” Cecilia paused in the middle of her dramatic reading and laid the book across her lap. “The Marquis de Montalt is scheming to make Adeline his wife.”

  “Not his wife, his mistress. He’s already married, if you recall. He hasn’t any business marrying Adeline, but even so, he isn’t the sort to take rejection well. Next thing you know he’ll be vowing to murder her, and she’ll be forced to flee the abbey.” Emma, who was lounging on Sophia’s bed, shifted to rest her head in Sophia’s lap. “Are you not diverted, Sophia?”

  Sophia sighed. “Adeline won’t become the Marquis’s mistress.” Mrs. Radcliffe’s heroines never became mistresses, nor were they ever murdered, for all that they spent most of their time running through dark forests, fleeing from dagger-wielding dukes and sleeping in haunted abbeys. “She’s in love with Theodore.”

  “He’s in love with her, too. Listen to this. ‘She is yet, I fear, in the power of the Marquis,’ said Theodore, sighing deeply. ‘O God!—these chains!’—and he threw an agonizing glance upon them.’ Theodore’s falling into paroxysms of grief and despair. Those bits are always good. Don’t you think so, Sophia?” Cecilia peered hopefully over the top of the book.

  “Clara’s about to weep on Adeline’s bosom, and a few passages later, Adeline is going to start weeping as well, so you see, everyone is shrieking and weeping. Love and honor will prevail, of course, but there will be some delicious torture and suffering before then.” Georgiana shot Sophia an anxious glance. “Doesn’t that sound delightful?”

  Love and honor always triumphed in Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels, and villains always confessed their wrongdoings. It was one of the things Sophia loved best about her books. There was something reassuring in everything wrapping up so tidily.

  But with Jeremy facing the noose and the true villain content to see him swing, Sophia couldn’t lose herself in the story. “Of course, it does. I suppose I’m just a bit weary tonight.”

  Cecilia flipped ahead a few pages, skimmed to the end of the chapter, then set the book aside with a sigh. “Adeline’s going to retire to her bedchamber and fall so ill she won’t be able to quit it again. Nothing unusual in that, really. Why don’t we stop for tonight, and pick the book back up again tomorrow?”

  Nods and murmurs of assent followed. Quiet fell over the room as they each became lost in their own thoughts, until Cecilia roused herself and crossed the room to join Emma and Sophia on Sophia’s bed. Georgiana piled on next, and they all lay there together on the crumpled coverlet.

  “What does Lady Clifford say?” Georgiana asked at last.

  Her friends hadn’t asked Sophia about Jeremy. She could see they wanted very much to know how he did, but they knew her well enough to see her emotions were too raw to speak of it with any composure yet, and they’d resisted quizzing her.

  Sophia had been feigning interest in Cecilia’s reading, but now she let herself collapse against her pillow. “Nothing at all yet. She said we’d talk later, and sent me upstairs.”

  When she’d returned from Newgate, Sophia had found Lady Clifford waiting for her in the parlor. She’d braced herself for a painful discussion of Jeremy’s pitiful condition, but instead, Lady Clifford had studied her for a moment, then murmured, “Go on up and see your friends, dearest. We’ll talk later.” She patted Sophia’s cheek and sent her up to her bedchamber, where Cecilia, Emma, and Georgiana had welcomed her with soft exclamations and a tangle of enfolding arms.

  “She has a plan, that much you can be sure of.” Georgiana plucked up a lock of Sophia’s hair and began plaiting it. “She always does.”

  A small spark of hope flared in Sophia’s breast. Surely, Georgiana was right. Lady Clifford would never stand by and allow Jeremy to hang. Surely, she had a plan to save him, only…

  The feeble hope sputtered and died. Nothing less than a prison escape would do Jeremy any good, and no one escaped Newgate.

  “Jack Sheppard escaped Newgate,” Emma said, as if she’d read Sophia’s mind.

  He had, yes, but he’d been sparse and lithe, with enough strength to climb up a chimney and through a ceiling into the chamber above. Jeremy couldn’t even rise to his feet on his own, much less scale a chimney—

  A soft knock on the door interrupted these musings, and Lady Clifford poked her head into the room. “Good evening, my loves. Ah, I see you’ve all taken good care of Sophia, just as I knew you would. Sophia, dearest, are you fit to come downstairs with me? Daniel and I would like to have a word with you.”

  Sophia rose from the bed. “Yes, my lady. Quite fit.”

  Emma, Cecilia, and Georgiana also rose as if to follow them, but Lady Clifford held up her hand. “Just Sophia this time, dears. I know you want to help, but this is a rather delicate matter, and it’s best if we keep as few of us involved in it as possible.”

  The four girls traded hopeful glances. This was it, then. Lady Clifford did have a plan to rescue Jeremy, and from the sounds of it, it was a promising one. If her ladyship didn’t think it stood a chance of succeeding, she wouldn’t feel the need to keep it private.

  “Come along, then.” She held out a hand to Sophia, but paused at the door to throw an amused glance over her shoulder. “Remember, my dears, there’s to be no reading any Radcliffe until Sophia returns. Those are the Society’s rules, after all, and Clifford students always respect the rules, don’t we?”

  Emma muffled a snort. “Of course, we do, my lady.”

  “Very good, dears.” Lady Clifford closed the bedchamber door and took Sophia’s arm. They made their way downstairs, where Daniel was waiting for them in Lady Clifford’s private sitting room. His hard, dark gaze roamed over Sophia’s face. “Gray minded his manners today?”

  Sophia managed a smile for Daniel, despite the nerves churning in her belly. “He did, yes. He agreed to take me to Newgate with very little fuss, and now he’s spoken to Jeremy himself, he believes he’s innocent. He was kind to Jeremy. He even gave him his coat.”

  Daniel raised one thick eyebrow, and Sophia’s cheeks heated.

  Was she…defending Lord Gray?

  “Aye? Is he going to do anything about it?”

  “He’s bringing the matter to the Bow Street magistrate,” Sophia muttered, knowing as she did how scornful Daniel would be at that answer.

  “Sampson Willis?” Daniel let out a harsh laugh. “May as well do nothing.”

  “Lord Gray is a decent man, particularly as far as Bow Street Runners go, but I think we can all agree we can’t leave this matter in his hands. He’s well-intentioned, but he’s a bit too, ah…shall we sa
y ethically rigid, to be of much help to us.” Lady Clifford waved Sophia to a chair, then took a seat across from her. Daniel remained standing, with one arm braced against the mantel.

  “Now then, Sophia. How did you find our Jeremy?”

  “Worse than you can possibly imagine. Another day or two at most, and he’ll succumb to the appalling conditions at Newgate.” Sophia winced at her own bluntness, but this was no time to mince words. “Whatever is to be done, it must be done at once.”

  “It will be. Tonight, in fact. We’ve come up with a way to get him out, but we’ll need as much information as you can give us, starting with where he is. Once we’re inside, we’ll need to remove him quickly.”

  “He’s in the dungeons under the turnkeys’ lodge.” Sophia had paid close attention when Hogg had taken them out, and she now gave a precise description of the route they’d taken from the entrance through the maze of passageways. “Even with my directions, finding him may be tricky,” she warned. “It would be much easier with a guide.”

  “Is he locked in irons?” Daniel asked.

  “He was, but Lord Gray insisted the guard remove them.” She didn’t mention she’d traded her locket to ensure the irons didn’t reappear. “His keeper, a Mr. Hogg, is quite susceptible to the flash of a coin.”

  “Is he, indeed? That is good news.” Lady Clifford glanced at Daniel, who gave her a quick nod. “Very good, dearest. What else can you tell us?”

  “Jeremy’s not in any condition to walk, or even to stand on his own.” Sophia shuddered at the thought of the wreck her healthy, strapping boy had been reduced to. “He’ll need to be carried.”

  Daniel grunted. “I expected as much. How’s the lad’s mind? Is he confused? Likely to resist me?”

  Sophia thought of the heartbreaking gratitude on Jeremy’s face when he’d seen her today, the way he’d hung on her when she had to leave him. “He’s confused, yes, and scared witless, but there’s no question he’ll do as you say. He’ll be tremendously glad to see you, Daniel.”

  The first time Sophia had laid eyes on Daniel Brixton, her entire body had gone numb with terror. She’d been a child, yes, but he was still the most forbidding man she’d ever seen, with his black hair, huge hands, and tight, unsmiling mouth. But Jeremy was a decided favorite with Daniel, and even his harsh face softened slightly at Sophia’s words. “And me him, lass.”

  There wasn’t much more Sophia could tell them. Lady Clifford asked another question or two about Mr. Hogg, but she looked anxious as she studied Sophia’s face, and it wasn’t long before she sent her back to her bedchamber with strict orders to go directly to bed.

  Sophia wasn’t in the habit of challenging Lady Clifford’s commands, but in this instance, she didn’t go to her bed, or even to her bedchamber. Instead she wandered into the dark library tucked into the back corner of the house. She remained there for a long time, staring out at the tiny terrace and handkerchief-sized garden.

  She was still standing there much later when she heard the front door close behind Daniel. She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the glass doors, her lips moving in a silent prayer that tonight would be the end of Jeremy’s nightmare.

  Of all their nightmares.

  Somehow, though, without Sophia being aware of it, her thoughts turned from Jeremy to Lord Gray. She couldn’t forget the anguish in his voice, his grief when he’d spoken of Henry Gerrard.

  Jeremy might yet survive his ordeal, but there would be no rescue for Henry Gerrard. No triumph of good over evil for his son, Samuel, or his wife, Abigail.

  Sophia didn’t doubt Lord Gray truly believed Jeremy was innocent. She’d seen the shock on his face when Jeremy had told them his story today. He’d been kind to Jeremy, compassionate toward him. She thought of Lord Gray’s coat resting on Jeremy’s shoulders, and her breath tangled in her throat.

  Lord Gray didn’t wish to see Jeremy hang for another man’s crime any more than Sophia did, but there was little chance he’d approve of the way they’d chosen to right this wrong. Tomorrow, when he woke up and discovered Jeremy had been taken from Newgate, he’d be furious. Disappointed, even. So much so, he’d likely never wish to see her again.

  Sophia rested her hands on the glass, pressing her fingertips against the cool, hard surface. Jeremy was the only important thing here—the only one who mattered. In the end, it should make no difference to her what Lord Gray thought.

  It shouldn’t, but it did.

  Chapter Eleven

  There’d been no ghosts last night. No blood, no daggers, and no murder. Neither gravestones nor confessionals nor white marble crypts had haunted Tristan’s dreams. Even Henry, who died anew every time Tristan closed his eyes, hadn’t appeared in his nightmares last night.

  No, last night he’d been haunted by shifting images of an emaciated boy with dull, frightened blue eyes. His thin wrists were locked in irons, but instead of Newgate he was imprisoned in a while marble crypt, and with him a lady wearing a silver locket, tears glittering on her lashes.

  It wasn’t the grisliest of the nightmares he’d had, but it disturbed Tristan like no other nightmare before it. He was still in bed, propped up on a stack of pillows, and he might have remained there for most of the morning if Tribble hadn’t appeared with a note from Lord Lyndon.

  Gray,

  Jeremy Ives is dead. He died in Newgate Prison last night, or so we’re meant to believe. There’s some mischief afoot, Gray, and your pixie is involved in it.

  Lyndon

  Tristan stared down at the note, his lassitude giving way to shock and then anger as his gaze darted over the paper. Miss Monmouth, involved in some sort of mischief regarding Jeremy Ives? Of course, she was bloody involved in it.

  He’d seen the despair on her face when she’d knelt beside Jeremy yesterday, chained to the floor of his cell as if he was some kind of wild animal. He’d seen the glitter of fury in her eyes, the thrust of her chin, her cold determination. How had he not anticipated something of this sort would happen?

  Ives, dead? No. Tristan would wager every guinea he had Ives was still alive when he was taken from his cell. But how could they have managed it? He’d been as deep in the bowels of Newgate as one could get, locked behind thick iron doors hidden at the end of an endless stone passageway. One didn’t simply wander into Newgate, then wander out again with the prisoner of their choosing.

  Jeremy Ives had been hanging on to life by a fraying thread. It would surprise no one to find out he’d succumbed to the brutality of Newgate, just as so many others had before him. It would vex the citizens of London he’d escaped the noose—they did like to see their murderers hang—but no one would question Ives’s death.

  No one, that is, who didn’t know Lady Clifford. If anyone could steal a condemned murderer right from under the noses of Newgate’s guards, it was her. No doubt Daniel Brixton was also involved.

  Brixton, and Sophia Monmouth.

  She’d used him to do it. The tempting curve of her lips when she’d smiled at him yesterday, all that nonsense about his scar, the sweet way she’d taken his hand in his carriage and asked him to tell her about Henry—had it all been just a ploy to distract him so she could gain access to Newgate and plot Ives’s escape? His instincts had screamed at him not to trust her, but he’d done so anyway, and for no better reason than a pair of pretty green eyes.

  She’d fooled him. Him, the Ghost of Bow Street.

  Tristan crushed Lyndon’s note in his fist and tossed it aside. He snatched up the Times Tribble had left on the table beside his bed, and there it was, right on the first page. It wasn’t much—just a short notice that the notorious murderer Jeremy Ives had died in Newgate Prison the previous night.

  Whatever Lady Clifford had done, it was plausible enough to convince the papers Ives was really dead. The rest of London would follow suit, particularly those who’d attended his trial and s
een for themselves how feeble he was. There would be no public outcry, no demand for his return. Miss Monmouth and her conspirators had done the impossible.

  They’d committed the perfect crime.

  Tristan threw the coverlet aside, dragged on a pair of breeches, and tugged a shirt over his head. He had to see Lyndon at once, and after that he had a call to pay at the Clifford School. If he had his way, he’d wring a confession from Sophia Monmouth, and then—

  He paused, his foot hovering over his boot.

  Then what? An arrest? Could he truly bring himself to arrest her? He could still see the despair in her eyes, still hear her soft voice, her tenderness as she’d soothed Jeremy. And Jeremy himself, an innocent man—a boy—starved, beaten, and chained up like a dog…

  Tristan’s boot slipped from his hand and dropped to the floor.

  Had she truly had any other choice? If it had been Henry in that cell, or Lyndon, wouldn’t Tristan have done the same in her place? Did saving her innocent friend make her a criminal?

  Tristan dragged a hand through his hair, his jaw ticking.

  Damn her. Damn her to hell.

  This wasn’t complicated, no matter how much she tried to make it so. She’d helped a condemned murderer escape from Newgate Prison, and she’d implicated Tristan in the crime. Perhaps he could understand her reasons, but she’d still broken the law. At the very least, he’d have the truth from her.

  He snatched up his boot, shoved his foot into it, and stalked towards the door of his bedchamber, shouting for Tribble to see his carriage readied.

  He’d do what he must, green eyes be damned—

  “Lord Lyndon is here, Lord Gr—”

  “For God’s sake, Tribble. Do you suppose he can’t see me for himself? Step aside, man, and let me through.”

  Tribble stood in the doorway with Lyndon right on his heels, huffing impatiently. “It’s all right, Tribble.” Tristan waved Lyndon in, then motioned to Tribble to leave and close the door behind him.