The Sign of the Raven

by L. C. Sharp

“Yes, that part. Unless it touches the firm’s business.” He picked up the pen once more, dipped it in the inkwell and continued with the signatures, barely skimming each one. He trusted Redring as much as he’d trusted his father. While his father had been a hard man, he had been scrupulously honest, and advocated straight dealing at all times. Ash had learned that much from him.

  When the pile had been dealt with and Juliana had drunk her tea, he got to his feet and held out his hand for her. Not his arm; that was for formal occasions. He relished the touch of her skin on his, sought it whenever he could. She’d turned him into a sensual creature. He shocked himself sometimes.

  “We’ll bid you good day,” he said, but paused at the door to ask one last question. “What will happen to the children? The late Lord and Lady Coddington’s daughters? She’ll hang for what she’s done, so they will be orphans.”

  “I believe Coddington has plans for them,” his business partner told him.

  Those poor girls would probably have a better life with their new guardian.

  * * *

  A short cab ride brought them to the door of the Fielding residence. Juliana glanced up at the upper stories, where the prisoners were kept. She saw Ash’s reaction, slight though it was. “I was never there,” she reminded him.

  “But you could have been. You could have been hanged for a murder you did not commit.”

  “You saved me.”

  “How many did I not save?”

  She smoothed her hand down his arm. “You can’t blame yourself for all of them. You’re doing everything you can. Yes, I could have hanged, and I was reconciled to that, but you arrived, and you believed me. Without evidence.” She smiled.

  He sighed and turned his hand to clasp hers. “Yes. Sometimes I remember. And look what I would have lost!”

  “You’d never have known.”

  “That’s the tragedy of it. There is nobody to save Lady Coddington, but at least she would be spared the condemned cell, until her final night on earth.”

  “But she deserved her fate. She murdered someone.”

  He nodded. “But I cannot help but feel sorry for the loss of life, for that act that destroyed her life.”

  “She brought it on herself.” Juliana refused to feel sorry for her.

  A housemaid opened the door of the Fielding house to them. She bobbed a curtsey. “If you please, sir, Mr. Fielding said you may go straight up.”

  “Thank you.”

  They went up. Two flights of stairs covered in tightly woven carpeting, and one covered in rough drugget. Privileged prisoners were kept here on their word of recognizance. Newgate, the place criminals were usually kept before their trial, the inner doors open for most of the day, the cells shared, so that gaol fever raged through it, was no place for a respectable female. But then, neither was this place, and Juliana had been here already.

  A man sat outside the door, arms folded, head drooping. So Lady Coddington was not completely trusted. At their approach, he sprang to his feet, keys jangling on an iron ring attached to his waist. “The Mr. Fieldings send their apologies, but they are in court. They will join you as soon as they may. They bade me let you in.”

  Trust indeed. But then, Ash had earned it.

  The man opened the door, making a display of the keys, hardly normal in a house like this. Or any other. A shudder went through Juliana, but she took care not to let Ash see it. He was right. She would have spent time here until her trial, then been moved to the condemned cell, transported on a cart to Tyburn, and hanged. Would she have come out of the trance the shock of her husband’s death had driven her into? Trials were very swift after the arrest. No need to delay. So she could have been dead the month after her husband.

  Instead, she reminded herself, she was here. On the right side of the law, having been exonerated before she came to trial. If she had been on trial, even if she’d been found innocent, her character would have been tainted. Appearing in public, accused of murder, would have been enough to have society turn its back. Sometimes she wished it would.

  The room they entered, while small, was furnished adequately, with a bed, table, two chairs and even a side-table that was currently serving as a dressing table, judging by the brushes, bottles and jars resting on its surface.

  Lady Coddington sat on one of the chairs, her chin resting on her hand. She looked up as they came in. Her eyes were dull and her shoulders hunched. She wore a simple gown in rust-colored wool, nothing like the clothes Juliana was accustomed to her wearing. Her face was bare of paint, her hair drawn back in a simple knot, covered with a plain white cap with only the merest frill of lace.

  She sat up straight and faced them. “Come to gloat, have you? Another triumph for the great Falcon?”

  Ash didn’t flinch but Juliana felt his internal wince as if it was hers. “Not at all, my lady. Do you have everything you need?”

  “Everything except a key to that door.” She firmed her chin. “Which I expect to have soon.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course. Did you think my family would leave me to hang?”

  Ash shook his head. “Lady Coddington, they can’t help you. Please do not expect their influence to rescue you.”

  “I’ve also written to the Duke of Newcastle. As you know, he is a particular friend of mine. He will ask the King to pardon me.”

  Ash drew up the other chair and indicated that Juliana should sit, even though Lady Coddington had not invited her to do so. Knowing the lady would keep them standing forever, Juliana sat. “The duke will not save you. Neither will your family,” she said.

  The lady’s upper lip curled in a sneer. “Yours might not have wanted to save you, but mine does.”

  Juliana recalled her mother’s attempts to keep her alive, either by having her committed as a lunatic, or marrying her off to someone else. She recalled the other possibility, which she had used to gain time. “You are not with child,” she said.

  “I might be.” So she would plead her belly in court. British justice allowed for the innocent child to be born before the guilty mother was hanged.

  “You will have a woman assigned to you, whose job it is to examine your intimate linen, to verify your claim,” Ash said, his voice devoid of emotion. By that, Juliana knew he was disturbed. Was it because of the woman before them, or because of her?

  “I was mad,” her ladyship said, ignoring his words, but most likely taking them in. “A bout of temporary madness. I will be cared for, in case the event happens again, but I will not die.”

  Ash’s voice softened. “What brought on this temporary madness?”

  “My husband telling me exactly how much in debt he was,” she replied promptly. “I had not understood, nor knew who he owed the money to. The ruffian named the Raven was owed most, or so my husband told me. He would die if he did not produce at least some of it. I could not think properly, only to mourn my children. I must have gone mad then. Who knows when it will happen again?”

  “And you had a lover.”

  “Not,” her ladyship said with emphasis, “something I had ever done before. What can I say? The man flattered me, he loved me, or so he claimed. I needed a friend, so I turned to him. How was I to know that he would commit that terrible act? That he would follow my husband to the fireworks display and kill him? At first I thought it was the Raven making good on his threat, and I feared for my daughters, but then Stanton told me the truth. The last shreds of my sanity disappeared then. I had a fit, and continued to do so. My maid will attest to that.” She paused. “I am sure she will.”

  So she had not primed her maid yet. That was easily dealt with. As for the other...it was possible. If Juliana’s parents could claim insanity on their daughter’s behalf, then Lady Coddington might also escape the noose. But she had killed a man. Juliana had not. “I do not have any clear picture of what happened after that. Bu
t apparently I donned the boy’s clothes I kept at my mantua-maker’s.”

  “Why did you do that? Why would you have those clothes?”

  Lady Coddington laughed. “I could move around the city more freely. And meet my lover. He liked it, you know. My breeches excited him.”

  The confiding tone made Juliana’s blood run cold. “Did you love him?”

  “Stanton?” Lady Coddington’s eyes were cold as marbles. “No. But I needed a friend.”

  “A fool, a dupe. Someone you could use,” Ash said, as cold as she, but the hand on the back of Juliana’s chair tighten its grip on the back rail. She saw it out of the corner of her eye, and instinctively felt the need to turn to him. But she did not. “You are, ma’am, a cold-blooded murderer. You employed your lover to kill your husband, and then killed him yourself, so that nobody could ever lay evidence against you. Did you not think those letters would betray you?”

  “I don’t know what they say. I was in the throes of madness when I wrote them.”

  “But you knew where they were hidden. We could have found them, but it would have wasted time. And that act, going to retrieve them, was the act of a sane woman.” He released the chair and took a step to the side, behind the table where she sat. “Did you not think that your grieving parents-in-law would demand justice for the murder of their son?”

  “But they have no money.”

  The answer, so pat, sent a chill down Juliana’s spine. She had even thought of that.

  “They don’t need it. The Duke of Newcastle has offered to sponsor their search for justice. He dislikes being used in such a way.”

  “The man’s a dolt,” she spat back.

  “I thought he was your dear friend? Then you would know he is far from dolthood. He prefers to be taken as one on occasion. And he has a brother who is so far from being a dolt that he is the Prime Minister. You do not upset those gentlemen without bringing the full force of the law on you.”

  She stared up at him, wide-eyed. For the first time Juliana saw a trace of fear in them. “I don’t believe you.”

  “You don’t have to,” Ash said. “You may wait and see what happens at your trial.”

  Imperiously he held out his hand to Juliana. She took it and allowed him to help her to her feet. He continued to speak to a now pale-faced Lady Coddington. “A mistake to invite him and try to fool him, too. If that had not signaled your downfall, the latest story in the Daily Ransom will. The mob will be baying for your blood.”

  With all the dignity worthy of royalty, he turned and guided Juliana to the door. He paused, and turned to address her. “Oh yes. And your children will be well cared for. Your husband’s heir is willing to become their guardian. He has a long road ahead of him, but I have every confidence that he will pull through.”

  She stared at them, mouth agape. Once they were outside, though, she seemed to find her voice. “You’re wrong!” she screamed through the closed door. “I’ll escape the gallows! Nobody will hang me, an earl’s daughter, an earl’s wife! You cannot do this to me!”

  She continued to scream as they went downstairs to the room occupied by the man falsely accused of the murder. “Strong lungs,” was the only comment Ash made before they knocked and entered. This door was not locked, and nobody guarded it.

  The bully looked up, just as Lady Coddington had. He swallowed. “What happens now?”

  His room was plainer than her ladyship’s and contained no comforts, as hers had. But they shared one similarity. Tension. Juliana felt it as they went in, saw the tight lines around his mouth, the furrows on his forehead.

  “You are innocent of this crime,” Ash told him. “The banshee you can probably hear is the real culprit.”

  “Thought she was,” he said. He looked down at his linked hands. “He’ll kill me.”

  “The Raven?”

  Miserably, he nodded. “This was my last chance, he said. But I’d passed that, hadn’t I? He said that if I kept an eye on this man Stanton, he’d keep me on, he wouldn’t wipe me out.”

  “He always wipes them out,” Ash said. “The ones who disappoint him. He never leaves a trail behind him. You are perfectly loyal, or you are dead. Did he want you to kill Stanton?”

  Rivers shook his head. “Only follow him, he said. It wasn’t my fault that woman killed him.”

  “You saw her face? You’d know her again?”

  Rivers nodded. “Oh yes. I have a good memory for faces.” He wrung his hands together. “But if I give evidence, he’ll know. And when I set foot out of this building, he’ll have someone waiting for me.”

  “He won’t kill you in the street. He doesn’t want to make a point. He’ll do it on his own territory, and toss you in the river when he’s done with you.”

  Ash sounded matter-of-fact, and heartless. Juliana recalled the cold man she’d first met, the one who’d offered to save her life. Ash didn’t like people thanking him, or being grateful to him. He tried to avoid it. All that talk of “only justice” meant something to him, but he also used it as an excuse.

  She kept quiet. She had a feeling there was more to come.

  “I can offer you an alternative,” Ash said. “Two, in fact.”

  “Really?” Rivers jerked his chin up, his eyes pleading. No acting here.

  Juliana knew what was coming. They’d discussed it that morning.

  “You will be required to identify the lady who killed Lord Stanton and sign a witnessed statement in the presence of the magistrates. After that, I have two proposals for you. The first one is merely a passage to the north on a ship from the Pool of London. Scotland, if you like. You will never come south again, but apart from that, what you do is up to you.” He paused, watched.

  Rivers wrung his hands again. “Thank you, sir. At least I’ll be alive, though I have no means of earning a living.” He didn’t look much happier.

  “Or you can climb aboard the other ship. There is a ship in the port from His Majesty’s Navy. I will receive a small reward from this affair. I could use it to buy you a commission in the Navy. Navy officers must progress on their own merits after their initial recruitment. You are rather old for it, but you have a chance, if you don’t bluster and lie.”

  “Life onboard ship is very hard,” he said.

  “No worse than the life of a beggar. Choose.”

  “Now?” His voice rose to a squeak.

  “Now.”

  Silence fell as Rivers loosened his death grip on himself, and twiddled his thumbs instead. He watched the trivial action as if nothing else mattered, but after a minute, he looked up. “The Navy,” he said. “I will tell them I’m twenty, instead of five-and-twenty, and I’ll have a new name.”

  “Very wise. I was about to suggest it.”

  Juliana saw Ash’s shoulders lower a tiny bit. Rivers had made the right choice. He couldn’t go back into acting, and he knew little else. In the Navy he’d have someone to protect him, and if she didn’t miss her guess, he would need it once the Raven had discovered how much this man had betrayed him, how much he’d said about the way the Raven operated. Rivers was right. The minute he stepped out the door he’d be a dead man. So he wouldn’t go through that way. And making him wait until the trial would give the Raven a chance to infiltrate someone into the house.

  “When, sir?”

  “You will make your statement now, view the suspect and then leave. You’ll be on board by tonight.”

  An hour later, the viewing and the statement made, they took Rivers outside, and gave him into the hands of two men, who bundled him into a waiting carriage. With his permission, Rivers had been press-ganged into the Navy. Not many men agreed to that fate, but Rivers went into that carriage willingly.

  The Raven would not be happy, but when, on the way home, Juliana said that to Ash, he merely shrugged. “He may add it to my account. He will have much more to r
ecord before we’re done.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  At least the rain held off until the trial ended. The packed court had watched as Mr. Henry Fielding, in all his majesty, had the black cloth placed reverently over his flowing full-bottomed wig. After a suitable pause, to allow the noise to die down, he pronounced sentence to a disbelieving and disdainful plaintiff.

  “Janet Coddington, the law is that thou shalt return to the place whence thou camest and from thence to a place of execution where thou shalt hang by the neck till the body be dead. Dead. Dead. And the Lord have mercy upon thy soul.”

  The crowd shouted and screamed, until Fielding nearly wore out his gavel calling for order. Lady Coddington sat completely still, aiming her gaze above Fielding’s head, her hands folded neatly over her fan. She’d worn her finest clothes, not a court mantua, but a gown in pink watered silk decorated with pale blue ribbons. An abundance of them, as if a flock of blue tits had settled on her skirts. As if she would leave the court and go to a ball at Somerset House.

  Ash should have felt triumphant that another criminal was brought to justice, but he did not. Only for the waste of life, that people spent their time conspiring to kill others. Murder was premeditated, and Ash had presented plentiful evidence of that. While not an official of the court, he’d appeared as a witness, both to the murders and as a professional man. Parrish appeared, too, giving his findings clearly and briefly. He sat with Juliana when he’d done, while Ash did his part.

  The lady sat through the trial in silence, shaking her head when asked if she wanted to speak.

  “She’ll plead her belly,” Parrish murmured.

  “She can’t, and she knows it,” Ash said. “The maid assigned to her said her courses have begun. There is no chance of her being enceinte.”

  Although Juliana had heard the news, her stomach still dipped. She swallowed. “There’s no appeal, then.”

  “Normally, I’d say there would be. In her situation, the sentence could be appealed and probably won, but her callousness, the detailed planning, and the drawing of another man into her plot went badly for her. The magistrate tried to talk to her, but she treated him like a servant.”