London

by Edward Rutherfurd

  Captain Meredith was certainly dashing. As for gambling – he needed to win. He needed to win a great deal. His grandfather, a clergyman like old Edmund, had done very well and put by a tidy fortune. His father, having served under Marlborough, had married a well-endowed widow and left Jack a rich young man. Rich enough to lose five thousand pounds in a single evening at cards. Twice. But not three times, as he had finally done. Dashing Captain Jack Meredith kept a house in Jermyn Street, where the servants had not been paid for six weeks and he owed tradesmen a total of over a thousand pounds. And his regimental captaincy – for military commissions were bought and sold in the British army – had already been mortgaged to a moneylender who lived in an alley near Lombard Street.

  Only one friend, a cynical fellow-member of the club, knew about the true state of Captain Jack’s affairs and his advice had been blunt.

  “You play well enough if you drink nothing and keep your head. We need to find you a victim to fleece. Some young fellow just up from his country estate who wants to cut a dash with us men of fashion. Come to the club each day and I’ll keep my eyes open.” Had they found their sacrificial lamb that day, Meredith would even have been ready to miss his appointment with Lady St James.

  “I wouldn’t take his estate off him,” Jack had sworn. “Half would do.”

  As he walked calmly up St James Street however, on his way to the rendezvous with his mistress, no one would ever have guessed the state of his affairs. In the first place, Captain Meredith had a remarkable talent for putting aside distractions and concentrating his whole mind on the matter in hand. It made him a wonderful lover, and also one of the finest swordsmen in London. In the second place, he had simply too much style.

  You could not say that Jack Meredith was vain. He was too manly for that. He was a good officer as well as being a fine sportsman. He looked after his men and could enjoy a broad joke with the best of them and out-box almost any man in the regiment. Splendid with men, tender with women, he was a successful and considerate lover, all the more devastating because, at all times, he knew exactly what he was doing. His relationship with Lady St James, however, went beyond the others. It had a special quality all its own. At times, in the last months, she had been an obsession. Her nakedness absorbed him. He would sit in White’s, thinking of her body and how he might possess her, in a dozen, perhaps even a hundred ways. But he had been through that with so many women before and always become satiated in the end. With Lady St James there was something more. With her it was as though, each time, he were finding a new woman all over again; and the key to this lay not in her flesh but in her person. Her resilience, her artifice – frankly her fashionableness – were enough to intrigue him for years, perhaps even for a lifetime.

  Yet if he was not vain, it might be said that Captain Meredith belonged in St James Street. The knowledge that his ancestors came to England with the first Tudor court, his club, his clothes, his connections, the very fact, even though it was a secret, that his mistress was a countess – these things were his life. Take them away and, like some fine Georgian house gutted by fire, he could not be what he was.

  To ensure his survival in this condition, therefore, he was prepared to do whatever it took. If necessary he would kill. He could even justify it. For were not these the ancient rules of the aristocratic, knightly class? The rules of the game. There were many men in the clubs of St James who would have agreed; and to this extent, it might have been said that his heart, though warm enough, contained a place that was cold.

  He had just come to the corner of Piccadilly when the three men stepped out of the shadows and seized him. Two took his arms from behind; the other stood in front of him.

  “Captain Meredith? You are arrested, sir. For debt.”

  The door opened slowly. Lady St James felt a little tremble pass through her body. At last. He had come.

  It was already half-past eight and once or twice in the last half-hour she had even feared that he might have changed his mind.

  She had dressed with care. Her loose silk gown, exposing her shoulders, hinted that, at a touch, it would slip deliciously away. Her hair was now held by a single tortoiseshell comb. That too could fall, at the right touch. Her breasts felt taut against the silk. The door opened fully.

  Lord St James entered the room.

  Her face fell. She could not help it. “You?”

  “This is my house.” His bland face contracted; the beginning of a frown. “You were expecting someone else?”

  “No.” She strove to recover herself. “You always knock.”

  “My apologies.” He said it a little drily.

  What did he know? Where was Meredith? Was her lover about to arrive as well? She must warn him, or somehow get rid of St James. At all costs she must keep calm.

  “I understood you were returning late this evening.”

  “I changed my mind. Does that displease you?”

  “No, no. Of course not.”

  A knock at the door caused Lady St James to go pale; but a second later it was the ladiesmaid who discreetly entered. Did her ladyship require anything? She looked her mistress carefully in the eye.

  Clever girl. She should have a present for this.

  “I think not.” Lady St James glanced at her husband. “You are not going out again?” He shook his head. She looked at her maid and smiled. “I shall not require anything further.” The maid nodded. If Captain Meredith appeared near the house, he would be warned off. Lady St James silently breathed a sigh of relief. The maid left.

  “You were preparing to retire?”

  “Yes.” She turned away. “I am very tired.”

  It was true. Quite apart from the great wave of disappointment that broke over her as she realized that she had lost Jack for the evening, the very fact of her husband’s presence in her bedroom always had the same effect upon her. Everything in her body seemed to sink; a sense of tiredness, listlessness invaded her spirits. She would draw quickly away to create a distance between them.

  Her husband was eyeing her thoughtfully.

  “I am sorry you are tired,” he remarked. She said nothing; prayed he would go. But he stood his ground. “We spoke this morning,” he continued, “of my need for an heir.”

  “We said this summer . . .” Her voice was weary.

  “But I do not wish,” he said quietly, “to wait so long.”

  He moved across the room to the chaise. Deliberately, he took off his embroidered coat and hung it over the chaise, then turned back to face her. Standing there in his white silk stockings and breeches, and his long waistcoat, he was quite a good-looking man. Could she have found that body attractive if it had belonged to another man? She hardly knew any more. His eyes were resting on her exposed shoulder; they moved to her breasts.

  She had become adept at avoiding contact. Not only was her bedroom forbidden to him without permission; if they returned from an evening assembly or ball together, she either complained of feeling unwell or feigned sleep. But even so, there were inevitably times when it was impossible to escape her marriage bed without risking an open admission of her feelings. On these occasions, she had a dozen small ploys which would usually serve to dampen his ardour, keep his activity to a minimum, or even cause him to abandon the business altogether. A complaint that he was tickling her, followed quickly by an apology, a stifled yawn, a sudden turning away of the head as if his breath offended her, or even a little cry of discomfort. Had Lord St James been less polite or less sensitive, these tricks might have been useless, but as it was, she had usually been able to make him a stranger without exactly refusing him.

  Sometimes however, in order to make him believe that he still had a marriage, and a wife to be pleased, she would suddenly reverse these tactics and appear before him in the most seductive manner imaginable. Once or twice in the last year, when she had judged this necessary, she had closed her eyes and tried to pretend that it was Jack Meredith who pressed into her; but she had not always been able to
bring this off to her own satisfaction.

  Tonight however, the case was different. He had caught her prepared to receive Jack. Her claim that she was tired had been ignored. Did he suspect? If so, her only safe course was to welcome him with open arms. Playing for time, she smiled, half closed her eyes and watched carefully.

  Her doubts were set at rest a moment later.

  “The fact is, Lady St James,” he blandly informed her, “that I have decided your conduct towards me is going to change.” She opened her eyes fully, wondering what was coming. “You will no longer require me to ask if I may enter this room. I shall enter when I like.”

  “And when did you decide this, my lord?”

  “This morning,” he replied. “You told me to wait for my heir. Why should I wait? I’ve already waited far too long.” His face creased into what was almost a little smirk. “Your marriage vows include the word ‘obey’. I think it’s time you did.”

  Lady St James had her answer. But not the answer he thought he had given her. It was the smirk that told her. A man who suspects his wife, a man who is fighting to win back his woman, does not smirk like that, she thought. It was a little smile of self-satisfaction, nothing more. He was preening himself, damn him. She felt a flash of irritation, so intense that it actually made her shiver. She saw him look pleased, read his mind at once.

  Dear God, she thought, he thinks if he is masterful that I shall like him better. And she thought of Jack, who did not need to be masterful and, fairly or not, despised the man before her.

  Lord St James was unbuttoning his long waistcoat.

  “No!” She could not help herself. “Not now, my lord. I beg you, not now.” Why, after years of artifice, didn’t she either find a way out, or give in gracefully? It was all she had to do. Lady St James hardly knew herself. Perhaps it was the combination of events – the shock over Meredith’s failure to appear, together with her husband’s self-satisfied smirk – but for once she was not in control of the situation. She simply could not face it.

  He took no notice.

  “My lord,” her voice, though it had an edge of fright, was also icy. “I do not desire you now. Please leave.”

  He took off his waistcoat and coolly laid it on top of his coat.

  She flushed as she lied: “My monthly curse is come.”

  “Really? We shall see.”

  “You are not a gentleman,” she cried.

  “I am an earl.” He turned and took her by the wrist. “And you belong to me.”

  She tried to snatch her hand away, but he held her easily. She pulled again, violently, with all her force. His grip only increased. His free hand now caught her other wrist and, holding each he calmly drew them wide apart until her breasts were forced to brush against his chest. She found to her surprise that she could do absolutely nothing. She had never realized before how much physically stronger he was than she. Suddenly humiliated, she forgot even her own elegance, and jerked her knee sharply up to catch him in the groin.

  It was a mistake. He swivelled just in time; her knee only hit his thigh; but she felt a spasm, then a great welling of rage suffuse his body, and knew, as though a red light had suddenly ignited in the back of her brain reminding her of ancient, more primitive human times, that he had the power to kill her with a single mighty blow.

  He did not kill her. Letting go of one wrist, he slapped her hard in the face so that her head jerked back. Then, seizing her and lifting her bodily, he strode across and flung her on to the bed. A moment later, he was over her, holding her pinned.

  “Now I will show you,” he breathed, “who is master.”

  In the minutes that followed, despite the pain, it was his face that she chiefly remembered. Emerging through the bland mask he always wore, she saw features she had never seen before. Broad, hard, unyielding, it was the face of the ancient Bulls – yet, where theirs had been terrible when roused, in this face there was something petulant, spoilt, and therefore hateful.

  Lord St James did not rape the countess – for the simple reason that law and custom both declared that such a word could not be applied when the victim was his wife. With a savage suddenness, he ripped her gown open and tore it off. Then, pausing only enough to loosen the flap of his breeches, he rammed himself into her viciously so that she cried out; and thrust with all his force, again and again, and again.

  She was being hurt, badly. Her face was throbbing, too, from the blow he had given her. She could taste blood in her mouth. As much as the pain, the sense of being violated, humiliated, was terrible. She nearly screamed to the servants for help. Surely one of the footmen would hear. But what could they do? Challenge her husband and be dismissed? In any case, she was too proud to let them see this. Instead, summoning up all her remaining strength, she fought.

  She had never had to fight before, but she did so now, like a wild cat. She tried to scratch, to kick, to bite, but found it was no use. The large, heavy man on top of her had her completely in his power. He was out to prove he was master. He was the earl, she was his wife. Her title, her house, her spending money and now, he was proving to her, her body, all belonged to him. And because God had made him a man, and her a woman, he had, in the end, the physical strength to dominate her and brutalize her as well.

  “You will be mine, from now on, when I say, and as I please,” he said coldly, at last, when he had finished. Then he left the room.

  Captain Jack Meredith sat on the little wooden bench and shivered. It was cold. The cell was small. Almost every crevice in the old stone walls could be seen by the light of the gnarled remains of a candle that guttered on the wooden table. For the last two hours he had pondered his situation, and always come back to the same conclusion. There was no way out.

  He was in the Clink.

  There were several prisons for debtors in Georgian London. The largest were the Fleet, outside Ludgate, and the Marshalsea in Southwark. But, as often happened, both were full that day and so he’d been sent to the nearest lockup with a vacancy, which happened to be the Clink. The little medieval prison of the bishops of Winchester had never been much of a place. Even in feudal days, when bishops ruled over the Liberty of the Clink and the brothels of Bankside, there had only been a few cells. Since the days of the Tudors and Stuarts, a few religious dissenters and suspected traitors had found their way there, but mostly it was used for debtors.

  It was no joke to be a debtor in Georgian London. If your creditors obtained a judgment against you – as several of Meredith’s had done – you could be seized without further warning and put in gaol. There, until your debt was discharged, you remained. It could be for ever. And what sort of life could you expect in gaol? It was just this question that was occupying the mind of Jack Meredith when he heard the sound of a large key turning in the lock, and, a moment later, became aware that the door of his cell was starting, slowly, to open. Whoever was coming, it seemed, possessed a lantern. He also, clearly, believed in taking his time.

  First came the tip of his nose.

  The nose, whoever it belonged to, was clearly no ordinary affair. The dimensions even of the tip suggested that this was a nose of consequence, and not to be taken lightly. By the time it was halfway through the door, the daunting scale of the thing was becoming apparent. But when, at last, the whole, huge protuberance came into view, one could only gaze and surmise that there was none other like it, under the sun.

  Behind it, as though in procession, followed two mournful eyes. Then a wig so dingy that it looked as if it had been used to clean the floor. And finally the whole, stooping person stood before the captain and addressed him thus:

  “Ebenezer Silversleeves, sir, at your service. I am the keeper of the Clink.”

  It was, like many such positions, an inherited post. Before Ebenezer, his father, and his father before him, had exercised their shabby authority over the little prison. You might almost say it was in their blood, since even before then, when the family were still in Rochester, they had been petty clerk
s or gaolers, ever since the days when Geoffrey Chaucer had encountered Silversleeves at the assizes four centuries before. Yet, prison-keeper though he was, when Ebenezer Silversleeves said he was at Meredith’s service, he meant it, every word. Captain Meredith was just the kind of prisoner he liked.

  The rules of the Clink, like those of most prisons, were very simple. If you wanted bread and water, it was yours for the asking. If you wanted anything else, you paid Ebenezer.

  “Oh dear, sir,” his opening gambit always began. “A gentleman like you shouldn’t be in here.” He would indicate the dark little cell with disgust. He had a quite commodious chamber next door, he would then explain, in the remains of the old bishop’s palace, that was much more suitable and could be had for – depending on his guess at the gentleman’s means – a shilling or two a day. Naturally the gentleman would be wanting a decent dinner, a bottle of wine. Why in a day or two he could probably be almost as comfortable as if he were at home. For a price, of course.

  And how was a gentleman in debt to pay for such things? It was amazing what Silversleeves could arrange. No matter how disastrous their finances, fine gentlemen nearly always had items of value upon them. A gold watch, a ring – he’d sell it for you and bring you most of the money in no time. Better yet, he could send a fellow discreetly to your house to remove small items of value from under your creditors’ noses. Gentlemen had friends, too. They might not pay the debt, but would often keep the gentleman in modest comfort during his incarceration. When you had got through all this, Silversleeves could still be of service. Your fine coat could be sold and another, serviceable enough, would replace it while you lived a few weeks more on the proceeds. He’d even get a price for your wig. And when even the clothes on your back had been sold and all your friends had quietly departed – why there was always the dark cell, snug enough for a beggar in your condition, and a nourishing diet of bread and water to sustain you for as long as you were able to live.