‘You, Cassandra Marston, are to go from here to the place from where you came, and from there to the place of execution, where you shall be hanged by the neck till you are dead. And may God in his infinite mercy have mercy on your soul.’
A deathly hush descended on the courtroom, but why everyone should appear amazed by the judgement of the court surprised Cassandra, for it was no secret that the trial was a foregone conclusion before it started.
‘No,’ Stuart protested vehemently, his face becoming convulsed by a spasm of violent anger and exasperation as he faced the presiding judge, causing all eyes to turn in his direction and two guards to move towards him, and others to close in around Cassandra. ‘The sentence of this court is unjust. She is nothing more than a victim of circumstance and guilty of no wrongdoing.’
‘Silence,’ ordered the judge, looking once again at Cassandra. ‘Have you anything to say before you are taken back to Newgate, where the prison chaplain will come to prepare you for death?’ he asked coldly, impatient for the trial to be over and the courtroom emptied of what he could only describe as a vociferous rabble.
Cassandra tore her eyes away from her husband and fixed them on the judge, knowing the moment had come when she must divulge her innermost secret in order to save her life and that of her unborn child. Drawing a deep breath, she did not look at Stuart. She dare not, but she was vividly conscious of his eyes on her.
‘Yes—there is something I have to say. I—hope the court will show mercy when I tell them that I am with child.’
This stirring pronouncement brought a collective gasp from the mouths of all present. It sounded like a low hiss, followed by a stunned, heavy silence that descended on the courtroom like a blanket. Unconsciously Cassandra’s eyes sought Stuart. His face was like a marble mask, betraying no emotion. It was as if he could not credit what he had heard. Suddenly the courtroom was in uproar, with people shouting in jubilation and laughing all at once.
At last Stuart’s composure finally snapped and a flash of anger shone in his black eyes as, in the chaos that ensued, the guards turned their attention on the surging, heaving crowd in an attempt to restore order, and he found he was able to move closer to her.
‘Am I to believe this? Is it true?’ he hissed, so harshly that Cassandra trembled, quaking at the sight of his clenched teeth and flaming eyes. She drew her shawl tighter, wrapping her arms around her waist as if to protect her unborn child from this monster who was looking at her so accusingly, as if he hated her.
Steeling herself, she held her ground before his stare. ‘Yes. It is true.’ Brutally roused from the joy she had experienced on seeing him earlier, she raised her face imploringly to his. His jaw tensed, his eyes probed deep into her own, as if seeking something to weigh and to judge.
‘You should have told me,’ he rasped savagely, a vein beginning to throb beneath the skin in his right temple. ‘You should not have kept this from me, Cassandra.’
Faced with his wrath, Cassandra lowered her eyes. This was not the way she had wanted him to find out about their child. She was swamped with dismay and severely disappointed by his angry reaction, perceiving in his words and manner so much anger and bitterness that she experienced a feeling of apprehensive foreboding.
Suddenly she wanted to burst into tears, understanding his anger, for was it not hard enough having to come to terms with and having to accept the daughter of Nathaniel Wylde as his wife without the added burden of a child, in whose veins his blood would mingle freely with that of his most hated enemy?
‘Forgive me,’ she whispered.
‘How could you do this?’ he admonished coldly. ‘I just cannot believe it. Truly, Cassandra, I thought you were more intelligent than to keep such an important matter from me? ‘
‘I—intelligent! How?’ she asked, her eyes clouding with bewilderment.
‘Had I known, I would not have gone chasing off to Nottingham. Can you not see that there would have been no need? Your condition would have been sufficient to have the trial deferred to a later date—to the time when Samuel has to return to London and his ship.’
‘Oh—Stuart—I am so sorry. I did not realise,’ she said wretchedly, her blood beginning to pound in her temples when she saw what a silly, utterly stupid, thoughtless fool she had been, and that she should have told him about the child after all. Without blinking, he continued to look at her with hard eyes, without expression, so that she was unable to read what he was thinking. The vein in his temple began to beat harder.
‘It’s too late for reproach. We can only hope it gets you out of this mess,’ he rasped coldly and brutally before looking away.
Fearing that a riot was about to break out, immediately the Admiralty judge ordered the courtroom to be cleared, and not until then did he speak.
‘Why did you not reveal your condition to the court at the beginning?’
‘Because I was hoping I would be found not guilty and reprieved,’ she answered, again seeking her husband for reassurance, for understanding, but seeing in his dark eyes only a blazing fury and a questioning doubt, which did not go unnoticed by the judge.
‘Then you were wrong,’ he said, his eyes moving to her waist, its thickening carefully concealed by the large shawl she had draped about her person. ‘And, unless my eyes deceive me, your condition appears to be a surprise to your husband, also. However, you are not the first prisoner to be accosted and become impregnated inside Newgate in order to plead her belly to escape the gallows—and nor will you be the last.’
Cassandra’s cheeks flamed with scarlet indignation at the intended insult, which went a long way to restoring some of her pride and courage. When she replied, it was to Stuart that she looked, wanting to reassure him that the child was his, and to reassure herself that the look he had given her a moment before hadn’t been because he doubted. ‘It is my husband’s child I carry. No one else’s.’
The judge nodded with indifference, having little interest in who the father was. He was only annoyed that the proceedings were to be prolonged by this unwelcome turn of events. ‘As you say. And when do you expect the child to be born?’
‘I—shall be full term in four months.’
‘Very well. I have no alternative but to send you back to the prison where you will be subjected to an examination.’
As Cassandra was being returned to Newgate, she could not see, over the sea of heads, the coach that halted outside the Old Bailey and two people get out, a man and a woman, who struggled to get through the surging crowd and enter the courtroom.
Chapter Fifteen
Her pregnancy confirmed, Cassandra was returned to the courtroom, which was strangely quiet now, with just the presiding judge and Stuart and two more people besides, who she recognised at once and could not believe her eyes. It was Meredith and John, her dear cousins, who must be suffering all the tortures of the damned on her account. Immediately her eyes filled with tears and she felt strangely comforted and strengthened by their presence.
Meredith’s face was white and strained, for the weeks of Cassandra’s confinement had been like torture to her tender, caring heart. A smile curved her lips and her dark eyes were sweet and loving and full of pity when they rested on her young cousin. She would have liked to go to her, but the judge had ordered them to remain quiet until after the proceedings, which would not be long, for, after conversing with John and Sir Stuart Marston during Cassandra’s absence, it had been made clear to him that there had been a miscarriage of justice.
John had arrived back in England the previous day, and Meredith had lost no time in informing her brother of Cassandra’s sorry plight and the charges against her. Much as John would have dearly liked to visit Cassandra in Newgate to reassure her he would do everything within his power to help her, there was no time. Immediately he had set about trying to find Stuart but, failing to do so, he had enquired as to the whereabouts of Captain Tillotson, remembering the name of the captain on whose ship Cassandra had travelled to Barbados fr
om Trinidad. She had spoken highly of him and he was convinced he would be willing to testify in her defence.
Having no joy in this either, in desperation he had successfully sought out some of the seamen who had sailed on the Spirit of Enterprise on her last voyage—which was what Stuart had intended doing, given more time—seamen who testified under oath that Captain Tillotson had indeed taken Cassandra and her companion on board in March of the previous year when they had put in at Trinidad.
Presented with such positive evidence, the judges were at last convinced that she could not possibly have been on the Dolphin when she had attacked the Triumph off the coast of Trinidad in March. They were also convinced that Jeremiah Price had perjured himself, which would add to his other crimes.
Having become an object of compassion, Cassandra listened in stunned silence as the Admiralty judge told her that because of insufficient evidence presented at her trial, and in the light of her pregnancy, justice was to be tempered with mercy and she had been reprieved.
Cassandra could not believe that her nightmare was over, that her ordeal was at an end. The nervous tension that had been ever present during the last few days finally snapped, leaving a crushing fatigue. Stuart ushered her quickly outside where the crowd was beginning to subside, but people continued to gape in curiosity.
‘For God’s sake, let’s get away from here,’ he said with obvious impatience.
Cassandra hesitated, looking back towards the courtroom where her cousins had paused to have a word with the Admiralty judge. ‘Please wait for John and Meredith.’
Noticing that Stuart’s fingers holding hers were icy cold, Cassandra looked up at him. His face was closed and set and a hard line had settled between his black brows. From the moment he had found out about the child a change had come over him, making her realise that what she had hoped would bring them closer together might only have succeeded in driving them further apart.
Silently her whole being cried out to him not to turn away from their unborn child, to accept it as happily as she had, and when she spoke she tried to compose herself and ask with patience, ‘What is it, Stuart? Have I upset you?’ She saw how strained he looked, as if he, too, had gone through a great ordeal these past weeks.
‘Upset me? How could you do that?’ His tone was incredulous.
‘When you found out about the child—your—your reaction was not the one I’d hoped for.’
‘And what reaction did you expect?’ he asked, sounding harsher than he intended, the joy and relief of her freedom overshadowed by this startling, shattering news about a child.
‘Certainly not one of anger. I can see you aren’t pleased. You don’t want it, do you, Stuart? You don’t welcome a child—or—perhaps it would be more correct if I said my child,’ Cassandra said quietly, her eyes losing some of their lustre.
Her expression was so sad and wistful that Stuart was prompted to place his hands on her arms and look deep into her eyes. But how could he tell her how he felt when he didn’t know himself? His feelings were mixed. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant? In all truth, I don’t know how I feel. My mind has been occupied for so long with the trial and concentrating on getting you acquitted, that anything else for the moment is hard to take in.’
‘I can see that.’ Shrugging his hands from her arms, she stepped back. The thin veil of joy and happiness she had secretly nursed since becoming aware of her condition evaporated before the harsh reality that Stuart did not feel the same—that he might reject their child. Rebellion and the fierce urge to protect it brought her out of her reserve, and as she looked at him her expression hardened and her cold eyes cut back at him.
‘It is evident to me that the hot blood of feeling that so possessed you at the time of the child’s conception has gone cold, for your look is devoid of memories or emotion. Perhaps it meant nothing to you after all. Perhaps it meant nothing more to you than an appetite satisfied—a return to carnal pleasure after an imposed abstinence imposed on both of us by you.’
‘That is not true,’ Stuart objected fiercely.
‘Isn’t it?’ Cassandra flared, giving way to a sudden, almost uncontrollable burst of wrath. ‘And you are sure about that, are you? I have just endured the most horrendous few hours of my life—when I truly believed everything was lost and my life was about to end, that I was going to have to suffer the tortures of being hanged like my father. When I was told I could go free it was like being reborn—but now I see that I am to be made to suffer yet again. No sooner do you arrive than you set yourself up as judge and jury when you discover I am with child. How dare you?’ she said in a choked voice, fighting tears and struggling to keep her voice under control.
Stuart stared at her, white faced. After all she had been through, why did he have to hurt her—and in so doing hurt himself? ‘It is not my intention to make you suffer any more than you already have. I would not do that to you.’
‘Then could it be that your anger and air of tragedy is because you believe—like the judge—that the child I carry is not yours? Are you trying to pretend that on the night of the storm, when you came to my cabin and made love to me, that it never happened? Because, if so, let me remind you that you were a willing partner—however much you have come to regret it since.’
‘I don’t need reminding. How could I forget? How could I forget something that was so perfect?’
‘You must have known when you made love to me that a child could result from our union. That, Stuart, is how babies are conceived,’ she said with cold sarcasm, enunciating each word.
‘I do know that,’ he rasped between clenched teeth, his voice filled with frustrated passion, ‘but I was so carried away by my desire for you that I could think of nothing else. Yes, I admit it, I have hungered for you—but I just wish you had told me, Cassandra, that I didn’t have to find out about our child this way, in a courtroom full of people.’
‘So do I.’ She raised her stormy eyes to his. ‘But you see, Stuart, I dared to hope that when I told you the moment would be one of joy and exultation—a moment that would obliterate the tragedies of the past. I can see now that I was wrong. It’s a blessing that John has returned from Barbados, that he and Meredith are here today—otherwise the situation would be one of immense awkwardness for you. I realise that.’
Stuart heard the bitterness in her tone and tried to get rid of the anger within himself. The people milling around only added to his frustration. He realised that Cassandra was suffering from shock and exhaustion, that it had been a long and gruelling day for her, and that she was unable to put the sentence that had been passed on her before her reprieve from her mind. But he could not dispel the shock of her announcement, which he was trying hard to come to terms with.
‘Awkward in the sense that, without John’s intervention, I would have had one devil of a job convincing the judge of your innocence. I cannot express my gratitude to him enough—which, might I remind you, you must do yourself. After all,’ he said curtly, ‘it was your own foolishness in the beginning that brought about this whole sorry business and must have caused him a great deal of worry and embarrassment.’
Wounded by his words, Cassandra felt all the pain of his harsh reproach, first with shock and then with fury—mistakenly believing that it was the knowledge of their unborn child that had driven him to accuse her so cruelly. She hardly dare look at him, yet, looking once, she was unable to look away. She drew herself up proudly, her ire ill suppressed, her eyes blazing a painful deep blue in her pale face.
‘Yes—you are right. I was stupid. I more than anyone see that now—but I do not need you to remind me of it, Stuart. Especially not now,’ she retorted with quiet anger, refusing to bow before his cruel accusation. ‘To save my life I acted out of necessity. I had no choice but to disclose my condition to the judges—which I am now beginning to regret. Perhaps it would have been best for all concerned if I had kept it to myself and let them hang me and our unborn child. That way you would be rid of us
both.’
The atmosphere between them was laced with bitter condemnation as they faced one another, each acutely aware that all the old bitterness was still there sparking between them, threatening to destroy any hope either of them had of a future together. But Cassandra knew that if Stuart rejected their child then she must formulate a future without him.
Her heart twisted agonisingly at this thought and she asked herself how she would survive the pain of parting from him forever—but her mind told her coldly that she would have to. She stood before him frozen to a slender sliver of ice. Everything about her had the appearance of cold transparency, her lips and her skin bloodless, her eyes narrowed and like frosted glass.
‘Why your aversion to a child, Stuart? I know how difficult it is for you having to come to terms with marrying Nathaniel Wylde’s daughter without the total change a child of his blood will bring to your life. But this is our child. It is nothing to do with my father. It was conceived out of our love and is a gift from God. Do you expect me to give birth to a monster?’
Stuart’s hard eyes never wavered from hers as he stepped closer. ‘What a dreadful creature you must think me.’ His tone was cutting and contemptuous. ‘What kind of man would be so unnatural as not to want his own child? To be deprived of its father because of the wrongdoing of its grandfather would be a dreadful penalty to exact on any child.’
‘I am relieved to hear you say that because if, in your pride, you cannot overlook that, then I shall have no alternative but to accept it and make my own way…’ She trailed off at the sight of the murderous look on Stuart’s face.
‘You really think that I would leave you? Don’t be ridiculous.’ Suddenly, uttering a quiet oath of exasperation, he reached out and grasped her hand. ‘Come along. People are watching us. This is not the place to discuss such matters. It can wait until we are alone. After a brief word with your cousins, we will leave immediately.’
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