Longing for a Liberating Love: A Historical Regency Romance Book

by Bridget Barton

  “That involved a broken butcher’s leg and man ‘in liquor,’” Verner sniffed. “This is a premeditated act on the part of a servant to blackmail another man.”

  “In the Duke’s name, and on the Duke’s behalf,” Theo corrected his partner. “I think it’s a stronger case than that of the prince’s coachman, in actual fact. In that instance, the coachman—considered to be the rightful property of the Prince—led to the Prince’s liability merely because the Prince ought to have been responsible enough to keep his man from drinking gin on the job. In this case, we have a Duke who has openly bribed his servant to commit a punishable act. There is far more liability involved.”

  “For you, perhaps,” Verner said. “But a courtroom won’t see it the same way. The case you describe was a matter of obvious facts. Here, we find ourselves with the word of the Duke leveled against the word of a lower employee and a woman of almost no standing.”

  Theo shrugged, letting a smile cross his face. “You’re the one who wanted to do real law, who wanted to make an impact in the lives of the common people. It starts with arguments like this on the floor of the court.”

  Verner wiped the sweat from his brow. He always got nervous before trials, but this time Theo thought he seemed more concerned than usual. “If Robert Peel would calm down with his reforms,” Verner said, falling into one of his new favorite lines of complaint, “then we would have so much consolidation and simplification that difficulties like this begin to arise.”

  “I hardly think we can put Mr. Peel at fault for the entirety of the English Common Law system,” Theo pointed out, flipping through his papers again.

  The bailiff appeared at the door, opening it and calling for the next batch of defendants to file into the courtroom. The jury had retired at present but, as always happened in the Old Bailey, they would return and hear multiple cases before going to consider each verdict. More often than not, if the case was a simple one, they would confer together and deliver their verdict without even leaving the room.

  It was a practice Theo knew well but couldn’t endorse, considering the advantage it always gave the upper class—few jurors were brave enough to decide that a Duke or a Duchess was guilty when that person was sitting in front of them on the floor. It was far easier to condemn the common man and set about sorting out the guilt of the situation after the fact.

  Everyone rushed into the room in a great rumble of shifting shoes and coughs and nervous questions, and when they had all settled, sweating as usual beneath their wigs, the judge arrived.

  They were the last case tried, and when it was at last time to speak, the Duke took to the stand with the air of a wounded, misunderstood hero.

  “There is not now, nor ever was, the remotest possibility that I—a noble and upstanding member of society—would have bent so low as to level blackmail against a young lady of no standing and no importance,” he said. “What could my motive possibly be?”

  It was a clever beginning, for the judge struggled to say aloud what the entire room was thinking. “Perhaps you had some reason to desire the woman to keep quiet. Some reason to threaten her?”

  “What reason?” he pressed.

  The judge cleared his throat. “Some sort of improper dalliance.”

  The Duke responded exactly as Theo would have expected, gasping and turning to the crowd as though enlisting each and every one of them as his personal character references. “Impossible. I hardly know the lass.”

  When the charade had ended, the servant in question, a skinny lad with a sallow face and frightened hands, came to the stand.

  “What role did you play in the Duke’s household?” the judge asked. Theo winced—even the manner of his interrogation was less respectful, which wasn’t a good sign.

  “I was an under-butler, sir.”

  “A fine, respectable situation. I should think you would be grateful to the Duke for allowing you such an opportunity.”

  “Most grateful, sir.”

  “He was a good benefactor, and yet you now put him upon the stand, forcing him into a place of scandal and discomfort, so that you can accuse him of wrongdoing?”

  The boy cleared his throat. “No, sir. I was the one accused, sir.”

  “Of what?”

  “Blackmail.”

  Theo sighed and rolled his neck from side to side in annoyance. The judge was pulling the interrogation out so that the jurors saw primarily the under-butler speaking at length about the crime, rather than his own innocence. When it came his time to examine the witness, he walked forward with a warm smile to the defendant, hoping to calm his nerves and give him a chance to look less nervous in front of the suspicious crowd.

  “You say you were thankful for your position. What did you do before you were an under-butler?”

  “I was a footman, sir, and before that a boy in the kitchens.”

  “You’ve been raised in the Duke’s house your entire life?”

  “I have, sir. They were very kind to me.”

  The judge cleared his throat. “What is the meaning of this line of interrogation? The boy has already acknowledged that he owes quite a bit to the Duke.”

  “And you,” Theo explained, “made it seem as though that debt was merely evidence that he was a cruel and ungrateful boy putting his loving master on trial. We should look at motive, not symptom, and the boy’s allegiance to the Duke is actually a motive why he might go through with even the most sinister of actions. Perhaps he thought the Duke meant well; perhaps he was afraid of losing his job. Either of those reasons reflects very badly on the man who abused his power over this poor boy.”

  There was a gasp in the courtroom, and whispers began to skitter up and down the room like mice. From across the room, Theo met Verner’s eyes. It wasn’t the end, but it was a solid beginning.

  He wasn’t surprised when the judge called for order and then for a recess, demanding time to gather his own questions. “We have heard quite enough for today,” he announced, peering at the clock on the wall. “We will adjourn here again in the morning.”

  Theo shrugged, satisfied enough just to see the Duke’s florid face pale with the thought of the stories that would appear in the paper the next day. The press, and the opinion of society, was as much a weapon in his barrister’s toolbox as the book of Common Law. He followed Verner into the hall outside and clapped a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “There you are, old man. Nothing to worry about, after all?”

  “Don’t crow before you’ve won the fight, my boy,” Verner answered wisely, looking askance at Theo. “There’s something different about you. You seem…happy.”

  “I’m always happy,” Theo replied, the thought of Alina slipping into his mind like a cool elixir. It had been almost a week since he’d seen her in Brighton, but he knew she would be returning soon and he was looking forward to her touch, her face, her tenderness. “I have much to be grateful for.”

  “Naturally,” Verner said, but he didn’t look convinced.

  When they arrived back at their office for the evening, Verner took his leave at once to return to his wife and her pot of weeknight stew. Theo cleaned his desk, put the next day’s notes in order, and then looked up in surprise at a knock on his door. He opened it to find a skinny boy in a cap with his hand grasping a small message.

  “An invitation from Marshall Gardens,” the boy announced, presenting it with a little bow.

  Theo looked up in surprise. It was not like Alina to be so formal about matters, but then again, much had changed since she’d been in Imogene’s care for the last few months. He took the letter and opened it.

  “It’s for tonight!” he exclaimed aloud. “A dinner party, quite the formal affair.”

  He looked at the clock, realizing with a start that he would barely have time to change and ride over. He thought of declining, but the image of Alina drove the idea far from his mind. “Do they need a response?” he asked the boy.

  “No, sir, didn’t ask for one.”

  O
f course, they didn’t—Alina wouldn’t. She would know, he hoped, by now that any request of hers would be met with immediate action from him. He bid the boy farewell and rode to his flat, where he changed quickly into evening clothes, complete with a dark overcoat. He ran his fingers through his hair and called for his horse from the livery below. The ride was a fine one, and when he came upon the elegant pillars of Marshall Gardens, he was surprised to see a plethora of carriages and coaches drawn up outside.

  He had half-expected the evening to be just him and Jinx and Alina. For the first time, he wondered at Alina’s wisdom in arranging such a public event where they might run the risk of exposing their affection prematurely. He handed his horse off to the liveried man standing at readiness at the base of the stairs and climbed the steps two at a time. The lights from inside and the tinkling music of the pianoforte told him that he was a bit late to the party.

  Inside, Georges greeted him with a strange look on his face. “Mr. Pendleton. I had not…expected you this evening.”

  Theo raised his eyebrows. “I received an invitation. Is there a problem, Georges?”

  The butler opened his mouth as though to say something, but seemed to think better of it at the last minute. Instead, he cleared his throat and held out his hands for Theo’s cloak. “I’ll show you into the drawing room. They’re all there, sir.”

  ‘They’ turned out to be an accumulation of the upper crest of London society that Theo would hardly have imagined to be in Alina’s inner circle. He recognized the men and women of Jonas’ acquaintance, the merchants and gamblers and racers who had made their way with sweat and blood and money, but he had always considered them to be Jonas’ friends, not Alina’s. Something else was awry—Alina was nowhere to be found. The room barely noticed his entrance, and he slipped to the side to pour himself a glass of port he did not intend to drink.

  There was an air of expectancy, like the moment before a play in the theatre, but he didn’t feel comfortable enough with these ruffians to ask what was going on. He heard a man nearby speaking with two giggling women. “What did your invite say?” he asked them.

  One of the girls snapped open a fan and hid behind it. Theo recognized her as one of the sparkling beauties that had decorated Jonas’ arm when Alina was not in attendance. “Just an invitation to a dinner party. I wonder,” she said with pretended astonishment, “if Mrs. Hartley has finally discovered Jonas’ more creative pastimes. Perhaps she wants to make an example of us all.”

  There was no fear or discomfort in her voice, and Theo knew why. In this crowd of people, to condemn one woman was to condemn them all, for they had all had illicit communication and even affairs with the former owner of Marshall Gardens. If Alina was planning something to that extent, she was going to be outnumbered and ridiculed. He held his breath, curiosity fighting with an unexplainable feeling of dread.

  Then, Georges appeared again in the door. He looked very icy and withdrawn, like Theo had never seen him before.

  “Good evening, everyone,” he began coldly. “Marshall Gardens would like to formally thank you for accepting the invitation to dinner tonight. And I will now present to you your honoured host.”

  He stepped aside, and Theo looked for the slender form of Alina in the doorway. But it was not Alina at all. It was a taller, wider, rougher person altogether, a face that Theo had thought to never see again, a face florid with drink and already laughing at his own awful joke—the face of Jonas Hartley.

  Chapter 19

  If it was shock value Jonas had been angling for, he received it in droves. Two women fainted dead away, and one of the men actually dropped his glass to the floor. It shattered even on the carpet, so delicate was the crystal.

  Theo stood, his breath caught in his chest, thankful for the shadow of the tapestry from which he could watch the proceedings without being noticed.

  Jonas walked into the room with his black hair combed slick against his head and his face and, though a little more sallow than usual, still bearing the marks of good health. “You’re surprised?” he said, waving a hand at the footmen. “Do help the ladies, will you? I expected a few swooning damsels, but I couldn’t resist a bit of drama.”

  The initial silence was broken now by gasps and cries of delight mixed with alarm. Above it all came the demands for an explanation, and the same demand echoed silently in Theo’s heart. Jonas drew himself up by the fireside, allowing the guests to clamor around him like children at a storytelling, and he put his hands together at the tips beneath his chin.

  “You have heard that I was shipwrecked, that the entirety of the vessel went down to the bottom of the sea and all crew and passengers were lost.”

  There were nods and exclamations of agreement.

  “You heard mostly correct,” he proclaimed ominously, clearly enjoying the spotlight that his little bit of theatrics had earned him. “Most did die, alas, but I was buoyed up on a spar and survived the night. It was a dismal affair—an ordeal I would wish only my enemies to endure—and when morning came, I was so certain of my impending doom that I considered releasing the spar to which I clung and slipping forever into the embrace of the sea.”

  Three or four women gasped, and one came forward to lay her pretty hand in comfort on Jonas’ arm. He placed his own over hers, clearly milking the sympathy out of the room. “You may well be astonished, for it was a terrible, terrible thing. I shall never forget the way I felt when the ship slipped below the seas. It was the worst thing to know that my chance of safety was gone.”

  “And the others,” Theo interjected, surprising himself as he stepped from the shade of the tapestry. “It must have been horrible to know of all those people gone, too.”

  Jonas looked at him with a strange, sinister smile. “Yes, Mr. Pendleton. I wondered if you would make it.” He turned back to his adoring crowd, but Theo could see a marked difference in the set of his broad shoulders and the curl of his lips.

  Whatever Jonas Hartley had endured at the hands of the sea, he had not lost his penchant for cruelty, that much was evident. He went on talking, painting the picture of his misadventure with wide strokes of his hands.

  “I was picked up by a fishing boat,” he explained. “It was a dismal, smelly affair, and the crew insisted upon finishing their lowly business before taking me to shore. All day, I curled in the corner of that wee vessel, watching as they scooped fish over the side in great, stinking nets and cleaned them right there on the deck where the entrails flowed back into the sea.”

  He smiled as two ladies pulled handkerchiefs to their noses. “You can almost smell it now, can you not?” He sighed, his face pulling into an expression of grave disappointment. “When I arrived at the shore at last, I found myself at a wee fishing village far from home. They said they were across the sea, on an island, and I would need to charter a boat back to my home. I had no money, of course, all being lost at sea, but they would not agree to pay my way. I told them I was a man of great import, and that they owed it to society as well as their own humanity to ensure that I was safely back in London before the season was out, but they only offered a room and some bland food in the inn and went about their business as though I was no longer their problem.”

  Theo could imagine the villagers now, having rescued this man from a watery grave, having put up with what was undoubtedly a constant stream of complaint, having listened long to his imperious remarks, having given him free room and board and a warm meal, and still being forced to hear him demand full passage home.

  “How did you do it?” one of the men asked.

  “I put off giving in to their vile ways as long as I could, but in the end I was forced to earn my passage by doing bookkeeping in the village until I had enough to make my way back across the sea. When I finally arrived in London, I was very tired, and concerned about the diseases I might have picked up in such a remote place. I asked to be taken directly to the hospital, and stayed there for full a week until I was satisfied enough in my well-being to cont
act my wife and brother.”