But Florence was no queen to request an audience with the monarch. Lord, what would You have me do?
At that moment, she thought of the man who had been responsible for Quinn’s capture. The Duke of Winchester. Apart from having hired a detective to discover Quinn’s identity, the duke had always struck Florence as a reasonable man. Perhaps he could procure them an audience with the regent.
She turned to the barrister. “I thank you for all you’ve done on Mr. Quinn’s behalf. I’m sorry your time proved fruitless.”
“I have been well compensated for my time. It is I who am sorry to yield so little results for my fee.”
It had cost them dearly to engage the services of a highly recommended lawyer. “‘A workman is worthy of his wages,’” she replied before turning to her brother. “Come, Damien, we still have work to do.”
The lawyer raised an eyebrow. “You mean to pursue other avenues?”
“We mean to seek favor with the king.”
When she explained her plan to Damien, he thought it an excellent one. He helped her draft a note to the duke as soon as they returned to the parsonage.
Since her last interview with the rector she had avoided Doyle. He’d called twice and each time she had remained in her room. He’d kept his visits short. Damien told her he had asked for her. “He also asked me what we are doing about Quinn.”
“A lot he cares about the poor man’s fate.”
“I suppose we can’t expect him to understand our interest in Jonah. He never really got to know the man.”
“He never was interested in getting to know him,” she said with a sniff.
“I hope this doesn’t make you bitter concerning the rector. He cares very much for your good opinion,” Damien said softly.
“Does it matter much to you what my opinion of him is?” she asked. “I know he is your superior in the church, and I have always tried to respect that.”
“I just want you to ‘be at peace with all men,’” Damien replied with a smile.
“Let us pray for favor with the duke.”
“Indeed.”
The next day, Florence sat in the anteroom of the duke’s palace. He had replied to their note the same day, agreeing to receive her.
She was not kept waiting long. The frosty-looking footman, who had shown her in, returned and bowed. “If you please, follow me.”
She and Damien had decided that she should see the duke on her own. “He was very admiring of your prison work. Perhaps he will be more sympathetic to a female plea of mercy,” Damien had said.
The duke was seated at a small writing desk and looked up as soon as the footman announced her at the doorway to a richly appointed office. “Good morning, Miss Hathaway,” he said in a pleasant voice. He rose from his gilt chair as she entered.
When she hesitated on the threshold, he advanced toward her. He was dressed in a sky-blue coat and ivory-colored waistcoat and pantaloons.
What could she say to this august personality whom she’d only spoken to for a few minutes at his dinner some weeks ago? He might have shown an interest in her work at the prison, but he had also been responsible for Quinn’s discovery.
Her knees trembling, she managed a curtsy before him. Her mouth felt so dry she could hardly formulate a greeting. “Thank you…for taking the time to see me on such short notice.”
“I gladly make time to see such a worthy lady,” he said, bowing over her hand then indicating a chair with a slight wave of his hand. “Would you care for any refreshment?” he asked her when she’d seated herself.
“No, thank you,” she said, crossing her legs at the ankles and folding her hands over the reticule she held on her lap. She hadn’t removed her hat or pelisse.
Winchester dismissed his footman with the barest nod then took his seat. He sat back, crossing his long legs at the knee, his fingers toying with a fob on his watch chain. “Now, what may I do for you, my dear lady?”
Florence moistened her lips. “I have come about Jonah Quinn.” Her voice sounded too quiet to her ears, lacking its usual forcefulness. She straightened, reminding herself this was a man, like any other. “The man you turned in.” She placed only a slight emphasis on the pronoun and remained focused on the duke although her insides were quaking.
He examined his fingernails. “Ah, yes, the notorious Jonah Quinn, the man who slipped through the fingers of the hangman and has made a laughingstock of the prison officials who have hunted for him high and low with no success.” He looked at her, a slight smile on his lips. “And where should he be hiding but in plain sight, befriended by an honest clergyman and his spinster sister?” He shook his head. “My compliments to you, Miss Hathaway. My admiration for you grows daily.”
She did not return his smile. “Why did you expose his whereabouts, if you were filled with such admiration?”
He lifted an eyebrow as if surprised by her question. “Why, to see justice done, of course.”
“And what of mercy?”
“Ah…mercy. ‘It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven…’” he quoted softly.
“A quality you have not seen fit to demonstrate.”
“I was not aware this case warranted mercy.”
Her fingers gripped her reticule, and she wondered if she was making any headway with this man who seemed to treat everything lightly. “Perhaps if you understood all the particulars.”
“Perhaps.”
“You didn’t care enough to inquire about them when you exposed Mr. Quinn’s whereabouts.”
He narrowed his eyes a fraction. “I confess, you arouse my curiosity.”
“I was hoping to.” She took a deep breath. “Tell me, Your Grace, how did you recognize Mr. Quinn?”
He waved a hand in the air. “I was at the execution. I came out of curiosity. I don’t usually attend such gruesome spectacles, but the case interested me. You see, we have spent a good deal of time in the House of Lords debating the issues of enclosures. This man Quinn was a supposed victim of the laws of enclosures. He’d lost his land and had turned to a life of crime in retaliation.”
She leaned forward, hope beginning to grow in her. “Or, he tried desperately to seek work—any work from digging ditches to competing as an unskilled laborer in a world of skilled workers—and fell by chance into the hands of a corrupt individual who used him as a hapless pawn in his game of deceit.”
The duke straightened in his chair, his look intent. “Go on. Perhaps I was ignorant of the full story.”
She cleared her throat. “Your Grace, a man’s life is at stake. A man whose life has shown a remarkable transformation from a coarse laborer barely able to read to a…a…gentleman who sat at your own table.” Her voice rose as she spoke.
At his nod, she continued. “Jonah Quinn was rescued from the gallows by a band of men he didn’t even know and still doesn’t know. An escape that was not his doing, and for which he should not be held to blame. I ask you, wouldn’t you grasp the chance for freedom if it were suddenly held out to you and you knew you had been unjustly accused?”
“I confess I would.”
Once again Florence related the story she had come to memorize. But she had not grown weary with the telling. Instead her voice resonated with emotion, surprising even herself with her impassioned plea. She tried to read the duke’s expression, but could detect nothing from his calm demeanor and steady observation except that he seemed to be listening.
Several minutes later, when Florence ended her narrative, she heard a clock strike the hour above the mantelpiece. “I’m sorry to have taken up so much of your time, Your Grace,” she began, drawing herself up.
He waved her back down. “Have no thought for that. I thank you for coming to inform me fully of the circumstances concerning your Mr. Quinn.”
Your Mr. Quinn. Perhaps once he’d been so. Her Mr. Quinn, to reform and teach, but no longer. Would she ever see Jonah again this side of eternity?
The
duke sat silent long moments, and she didn’t know what to do. He seemed deep in thought and she didn’t dare say a word for fear of distracting him. What could he do, after all? He might hold a high title, but he was only one man—a man from the party that despised those like Jonah Quinn and had spent their lives fighting them.
She started when he spoke. “There’s only one thing to be done.”
“What…is that?”
“We must secure you an audience with the regent.”
The prince regent. The only one able to grant a pardon.
The duke uncrossed his legs and sat forward, a light touching his eyes, giving them an intensity that was lacking before. “You spoke of mercy. We shall petition the Crown for a royal prerogative of mercy. If the regent hears Quinn’s story the way you have related it to me, he is sure to be moved to pardon the man.”
She swallowed her sense of disappointment. “But we have already petitioned for such a pardon through the home secretary’s office.”
He waved away her words. “Of course, the official channels. But Ryder cannot be expected to view such a case in human terms. The man is an official, a hardened Tory. To him, Quinn represents every radical, criminal element among the poor.”
“And the prince would view Quinn’s case differently?”
He made a motion of disdain with his hand. “The prince is a man moved by whatever emotion grabs his attention at the moment.”
“I see.” Her lips turned downward. “Unfortunately, some would say I am a woman of hard and fast principles, not a woman to move a man to emotions.” A fleeting memory of Quinn’s kiss flashed before her. She might move a man to anger, but not to sublime emotion.
He chuckled. “On the contrary, my dear Miss Hathaway, I would say you are quite adept at moving a man to great emotion.” He rubbed his hands together and turned toward his desk. “Now then, you may leave things to me. As soon as I have secured you an audience with Prinnie, I will send word to you.”
She swallowed. “You would do this for him?”
“I got your gentleman into this mess. I feel called upon to help get him out.”
She stood, hope beating in her breast. “Ca-can you do it before they execute Mr. Quinn?”
A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “I shall endeavor my utmost.”
Minutes dragged by into hours, night turning into day and back into night through his small window as Jonah alternated pacing the tiny confines of his cell with sitting or lying on his wooden pallet. How much longer did he have?
When he heard the squeaky wheels below in the street and the shouts of the crowds gathering, he knew the time was drawing near. The gallows had once more been brought to the front of the prison.
When the guard gave him the tray of stale bread and cup of water, he leered at him through the small grating, his bushy gray eyebrows twitching. “You’ve the honor of hanging tomorrow. You’ve the gallows all to yourself once again. There must be something special about such a fellow.” He scratched the scraggly gray beard on his thin cheeks and cackled. “Mebbe you were marked at birth!” He turned away and walked back down the stone corridor, the keys jingling at his side.
Jonah strained toward the small window on the opposite side of his cell but to no avail. He could see nothing but a small patch of sky. It was overcast but not with heavy clouds that portended rain, only high, pale gray ones that shut out the sun.
He turned away in disgust and threw himself back down on the hard pallet, ignoring the pain to his shoulder blades. He played with one of the brass buttons on his coat. The thread was loosening, soon it would come off if he didn’t stop his fiddling. What did it matter, as long as it lasted until the morrow? He glanced down at himself. So much for appearing a gentleman on the gallows.
He was once again filthy from top to toe. The time spent bathing and dressing in fine clothes in the Hathaway household hadn’t made any difference. A week in this cell, and he was no different from the man who’d first appeared on Miss Hathaway’s doorstep. Resembling more beast than man. He stroked the sharp stubble covering his face and ran his fingers through his matted curls. His scalp had begun itching again. Soon, he’d probably be covered with vermin. His stockings and clothing had protected him from the worst of flea bites, but he’d already scratched at a few on his wrists.
He smoothed down the nap of the plum-colored velvet coat. It was stained and dusty beyond repair this time. He remembered how Miss Hathaway had made it look as good as new the last time he’d broken her rules and gone back to his old way of life. He shook his head at his silly pride in presenting her with his winning purse. “Filthy lucre!” she’d rapped back.
No, he was no gentleman. What had he been thinking to presume to think of her as someone to cherish and share a life with?
She was well rid of him.
She’d only managed to change him on the outside. This week in Newgate proved how little an outward change made to a man. It took but a few days for the effects to be obliterated. He studied his crossed feet, the toes of his boots dusty and scuffed.
I have redeemed you and called you by name.
He remembered Miss Hathaway’s belief that a gentleman was not determined by his outward appearance but by his heart.
He sat up, the words coming alive for him. With God’s grace he would prove it. If he had to die on the gallows, he would do so as the gentleman Miss Hathaway had taught him to be, a man of principle, of honor, of chivalry. Her words reverberated in his memory.
Jonah Quinn, gentleman if not by birth, then by the redemptive blood of Jesus Christ.
Chapter Nineteen
The duke’s missive came two days before Jonah was set to be executed for the second time. There had been numerous delays to the execution. First, there had been the unrest in the city since the day it was known Jonah had been recaptured. The officials, fearing mass protests, had sent in the horse guards to patrol the streets. The sight of so many redcoats had brought about further unrest. The memory of the food riots during the hard winter months was on everyone’s minds.
Then the gallows had lost a wheel on its way to Newgate. The warden had feared a deliberate sabotage, but on further investigation, it was found it was merely the result of running into too deep a gully after the recent rains.
That had delayed the execution another day, which had caused Florence no end of relief, since she had heard nothing from the duke.
The day she finally received his message, it had been brief and to the point. He would send his carriage to take her and her brother to Carlton House for an interview with the prince regent. He had agreed to a brief audience, finding himself “curious as to the hubbub concerning Mr. Quinn,” as he’d expressed to the duke.
Florence and Damien spent the intervening time in prayer. When the morning of the interview dawned, the day before the final scheduled execution, Florence opened her curtains to find an overcast day greeting her. Undaunted, the birds made a riot of sound outside her window.
After reading her Bible and praying, she went to her wardrobe to select her gown. What did one wear to see the future monarch? She had no court dress, nor had the duke instructed them on what attire to wear.
She finally decided on a simple gown of light blue with ivory embroidered along the neckline and sash. She tucked a thin muslin scarf into the neckline and dressed her hair in its usual simple knot. The image that looked back at her from the mirror inspired no confidence that she could do or say anything to move a monarch.
She turned away from the glass, impatient with herself. She was the way God had made her and that was enough for her. If she made any good impression with the regent, it would be due to God’s favor, and not to any attractive qualities of her person.
She grabbed up her reticule and bonnet and headed downstairs to await the duke’s coach.
She and her brother rode in silence. The coach was more magnificent than any she’d ever ridden in. Its roomy interior could easily have se
ated a half-dozen occupants. Its rich leather upholstery was as smooth as satin, its interior walls damask.
It rumbled at a dignified pace toward its destination at the opposite end of Mayfair, an area Florence rarely ventured to. They made their way down the elegant Pall Mall, past St. James’s Palace, the official palace of the regent, but continued down the wide avenue until arriving at his residence, the relatively new Carlton House. She peered through the window at the mansion she’d heard so many stories about, from the countless decorating projects the prince had carried out on it, spending a fortune on each, to the stories of the decadent parties held within its walls. It was a long building, built on classical lines, an endless row of columns stretching almost the length of it, with an arch at either end.
The liveried footman opened the door of the coach as soon as it had stopped in front of the mansion, and lowered the steps of the coach. Damien handed her out and followed behind her.
Dozens of footmen lined the columned portico and foyer. One of them escorted her and Damien up the curved staircase to the receiving room.
There seemed to be people everywhere, all elegantly dressed even though it was not evening. Florence felt dowdy by contrast and her confidence dwindled with every step forward down the red-carpeted corridor.
“You will wait here until you are summoned,” the footman instructed them, leaving them in a crowded anteroom. A few minutes later gold-liveried servants came and laid down a scarlet runner.
Several more minutes passed, when someone announced, “The prince is coming!”
More gold-liveried footmen opened double doors at one end and a procession began to file in.
“The Bishop of Gloucester,” she heard Damien say under his breath, indicating a man in robes and miter. He was followed by a great lady in full court dress and several gentlemen in dark suits.
Then came some of the royal dukes, brothers of the crown prince, and a host of official personages, including the lord mayor.
The bishop came up to Florence and offered her his arm. “I am instructed to escort you to the prince regent.” He inclined his head toward Damien. “You are to follow me.”
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