by Merry Farmer
“No, my lord,” Craig said, waiting until Lord Watson had the letters in hand. Lord Watson’s expression shifted from dullness to interest as he read the first letter. He sat straight. Craig went on. “These are letters in Shayles’s own hand, sent to the previous Baronet of Penrose. As you can see, they detail activities at the Black Strap Club on several occasions. These letters prove that the club was not merely a brothel, but was, in fact, a den of torture that relied upon young women who were illegally coerced into prostitution.”
“I demand to see them,” Shayles said, his voice tight and his posture tense.
“I’d like to see them too,” one of the lords who was presumably on Shayles’s side called out. He was seconded by several others, but all of the men had a gossipy glint in their eyes, as if they wanted to see the letters to relive the good old days instead of as a way to incriminate Shayles.
“The letters will be made available for those who wish to read them,” Lord Watson said. He turned to Shayles. “You, my lord, have some explaining to do.”
“And I am perfectly willing to answer any questions you may have.” Shayles returned to playing the part of the suave gentleman.
A knot burned in Malcolm’s gut. Even with the revelation of the letters, things weren’t going the way they needed to go. Shayles had more or less chosen a jury of his peers to try him in more ways than one. A few more, haggard-looking gentlemen had staggered into the chamber, whispering to their neighbors to get caught up.
Shayles seemed to sense the same thing Malcolm was realizing, that time was not on his side. “My lord,” he said, turning to Lord Watson with an obsequious smile. “Aside from a few fictitious imaginings that the late Sir Richard and I had engaged in years ago, those letters prove nothing.”
“I’m not so certain about that,” Lord Watson muttered.
Shayles nodded in a brief show of respect, but went on to say, “I fail to see the need to take up more of the House’s valuable time. Prostitution, whether I had any connection to it or not—and I do not—is not illegal. Why don’t we put the issue of my innocence to a vote and get on with regular business?”
“Prostitution is not illegal, but coercing women into it is. Profiting from prostitution is also illegal, as is blatant abuse and torture,” Craig objected immediately. “My lord, the purpose of this trial is to bring to justice a man who has destroyed the lives of countless innocent women over the years through systematic, illegal assault and torture.”
“I would hardly say they were innocent,” Shayles muttered.
A burst of energy surged through Malcolm like a lightning bolt. “So you admit that you were responsible for the corruption of hundreds of women over the years?” he called out.
A rush of color filled Shayles’s face as he looked to be scrambling to recover what he’d just said. “I didn’t say I had anything to do with them, just that they were probably strumpets. And either way, nothing I’ve done is illegal.”
“You seem to be speaking with authority,” Malcolm pushed on. “How do you know so much about criminal morality laws if you weren’t so deeply engaged in breaking them?”
“I misspoke,” Shayles snapped. “I have no association with any such women at all.”
“That’s not what you said on New Year’s Eve,” one of the lords on Shayles’s side shouted, then burst into laughter.
Shayles turned to glare at the man. A few of the lords sitting around him squirmed uneasily on their benches. One man sitting next to the heckler whispered in his ear. The heckler turned white.
“I…I didn’t mean that at all,” he stammered. “I was just having a laugh.”
Frustration roiled through Malcolm, making it hard for him to sit still. It was painfully obvious that every man in the room knew Shayles was as guilty as sin, but it was equally obvious that very few of them were willing to speak out against him. Shayles must have had a means of blackmailing each and every one of them. The only way to convince them to convict Shayles was to make their reasons for speaking out bigger than their reasons for staying quiet.
“Enough of this,” he said, slamming his hand on the rail in front of him. “This farce has gone on long enough. Every man here knows that Shayles is the devil himself.”
“Why, Lord Malcolm, I’m flattered that you find me so important,” Shayles said, provoking a laugh from his cronies.
“You aren’t important,” Malcolm said, a strange chill passing through him as the truth blossomed in his chest. His shoulders relaxed, and a tightness that had had a grip on him for years loosened. “You were never important. You’re just a criminally abusive pimp who thinks too highly of himself.”
The observing lords gasped, but Malcolm went on, his voice softer. “Tessa was important, no matter what was going on in her heart and mind. Maybe she never loved me, maybe she did and those last words of hers meant something other than the meaning I’ve been carrying around for the last twenty years. I’ve been wrong about so many things, so why not that too?”
“Lord Campbell, do you have a point to this self-examination?” Lord Watson asked.
“I do, my lord,” Malcolm went on. “And the point is this.” He turned to address the lords, both those who were Shayles’s friends and those who opposed him. “I’ve dedicated the last twenty years of my life to bringing Lord Shayles to justice for his crimes. But this whole time, I’ve been wrong.”
“Is this a declaration of my innocence?” Shayles asked, still attempting to play to the room and treat the whole situation with far less seriousness than it deserved.
“Absolutely not.” Malcolm faced Shayles once more. “You’re a criminal, plain and simple. You should be brought to justice. But not for your sake. You should be brought to justice for the sake of every woman whose life you ruined. Those women deserve justice for the loss of their innocence and their self-respect. What man among you—” Malcolm turned to address the room, “—would not move heaven and earth to seek justice if your wife was wounded? What one of you would not dedicate your life to righteousness if your daughter had her innocence stolen from her? Which of you wouldn’t tear down any man who insulted your mistress or caused her ruin? And yet, you sit here today, treating this matter as if it were a joke.”
Several of the men who had been sitting idly aside, watching the proceedings as though they were a play, began to squirm. Shayles’s core group continued to scoff and make faces, but they were a growing minority.
Malcolm turned back to Shayles. “I haven’t pursued you for so long because I want to seek revenge on you,” he said, meeting and holding Shayles’s eyes. “I’ve worked so hard for so long because Tessa deserved better. She might never have loved me, but I loved her.” His voice cracked, but he ignored it. “I loved her. I love her daughter. In their names and in the names of every young woman you have tainted with your selfish filth, I will seek justice. If you walk out of this room today a free man, I will continue to seek justice for them, and for every woman, by doing my duty to them and seeing that their persons and their rights are protected by law. You will fade and die, but the women we have loved and taken for granted for so long will rise, mark my words.”
Malcolm expected to hear the usual round of scoffing and indignation that followed every speech made extoling the rights of women in either House of Parliament. He expected a flurry of shouts about how women were weak, how they didn’t have the mental capacity for anything other than home life, how protection should come from their husbands, in their homes. Instead, he was met with silence.
At least until Katya called from the back of the room, “He won’t walk out of here a free man.”
Katya’s heart fluttered in her chest, but not because of the bold and outrageous act she was about to put on. She’d never been so proud of Malcolm in all the years she’d known him. He was temperamental, peevish, and selfish more often than he would ever admit, but he’d just proven to her and to the assembly of lords that he was also noble, dedicated, and progressive. She could only
pray that her gambit worked so that he would also be vindicated.
“Good lord,” Lord Watson exclaimed, sitting up in his chair and gaping as Katya marched down to the floor of the chamber, a dozen of the women who had worked for her at the Black Strap Club over the years marching with her. They all carried suitcases and boxes filled with documents and photographs, which they deposited on the table in the center of the floor. “Get those women out of here,” Lord Watson went on. “Women are not allowed in this chamber.”
“Not even if they are witnesses in the current trial?” Katya asked. She sent a sideways look to Malcolm as she took up a place by his and Inspector Craig’s sides.
“You beautiful, blessed woman,” Malcolm murmured, swaying closer to her. “What have you done?”
“It wasn’t me,” she said, loud enough for Inspector Craig to hear as well. “It was them.”
She nodded to the women as they finished presenting their bags and boxes and moved to stand together at the far end of the floor.
“What is all this?” Shayles demanded, glaring at the women. He’d gone pale, though, and began to shift nervously when his glares failed to have any visible effect of intimidation. “I demand these women be expelled from the room immediately and their…whatever this mess is be tossed out with them.” He waved a dismissive hand at the table.
“My lord,” Inspector Craig spoke up, “I think we should at least see what the young ladies have brought.” He sent a questioning look to Katya.
Katya’s estimation of the young inspector rose. He hadn’t caused a fuss or demanded to speak with her in private. He must have trusted her enough to let whatever plan she had devised play out. Men like that were few and far between.
Lord Watson sighed and rubbed his chin. “I don’t want this to become a circus,” he said. “But we might as well open Pandora’s boxes to see what’s inside.”
Inspector Craig approached the table, sending another glance over his shoulder to Katya before opening the suitcase closest to him. Immediately, his eyes went wide. He started pulling out piles of loose-leaf documents detailing contracts with clients, prices for particular services, and even a coroner’s report that was filed after the death of a young woman at the hands of Shayles himself. Along with the papers were photographs that the girls had secretly taken over the years. Katya had sifted through enough of it at the flat where Lottie now lived to know what her girls had, even if she hadn’t had time to look at every piece herself before getting them all to Westminster.
“My lord,” Inspector Craig said, bursting into a victorious grin as he moved on to open the second suitcase, “I think every man in this room needs to get a look at this.”
“It’s all lies,” Shayles said, white as a sheet. “They’ve made all of it up. They’re women, after all. They’re prone to jealousy and flights of fancy. I’ve never seen half of those women before.” He flung an arm out to the cluster of defiant women.
“So you do know half of them?” Malcolm asked as the room slowly began to descend into chaos. “Where do you know them from?
“I don’t…I never said…I don’t know.”
Shayles’s words were drowned out as lords on both sides of the case rushed to the table to get a look at the new evidence. More than a few of them blanched at what they saw. Some tried to stuff papers into their pockets or began ripping them to shreds, presumably because they were implicated.
Katya’s heart beat into her throat as she watched the clever plan tipping into potential disaster. “Unhand those papers,” she shouted, rushing forward. “Put that down. My lord,” she appealed to Lord Watson. “These men are destroying evidence.”
“Cease this behavior at once,” Lord Watson shouted, though it was unclear whether his anger was directed at Katya or the lords. “This is preposterously irregular. All of you, get back to your seats. You women, leave this chamber at once.”
“They are witnesses, my lord,” Inspector Craig shouted in their defense over the chaos of lords rushing either back to their seats or out of the room entirely.
“Stop them,” Katya said, hurrying toward the door in an attempt to catch half a dozen lords who were fleeing with their pockets stuffed. “They’re getting away.”
Malcolm caught her by the wrist and held her back. “Those men would have voted to acquit Shayles,” he whispered. “For God’s sake, let them go.”
The truth of the situation hit Katya, gluing her feet to the spot. The chamber was still in disarray, but Lord Watson had ordered bailiffs to close the doors and restore order.
“Enough of this,” he shouted, rising from his seat. “This is not how we conduct ourselves. We are the House of Lords, for Christ’s sake. Be seated, all of you.” As the remaining lords did as they were ordered, the noise in the room began to subside. “Inspector Craig,” Lord Watson went on. “You say these women are witnesses. Women are not allowed in this chamber. Choose one to speak for them and send the others away.”
Katya bristled with indignation, but there was nothing she could do.
Inspector Craig moved to her side. “Would you like to speak, my lady?”
“Gracious, no,” Katya exclaimed. She glanced around, catching Lottie’s eye. “Lottie should speak. She’s been on the inside, and she was the one who coordinated the evidence.”
“Very well.” Inspector Craig nodded. He gestured to Lottie, who stepped forward.
Katya turned to shepherd the rest of the young women out of the room.
“Lord Watson, Lady Stanhope should be allowed to stay,” Malcolm called out before she could take two steps.
“Of course not,” Lord Watson snapped back with a frown. “But she may watch from the gallery.”
Katya clenched her jaw in frustration, but she would take what she could get. “I’ll be right up there,” she told Malcolm, nodding to the gallery above.
Malcolm didn’t look any happier about the situation than she did, but he was equally helpless. Katya left him to sort things out with Inspector Craig and led the young women who had sacrificed so much for her and for each other to follow her out of the chamber.
In the hall, she nearly ran headlong into Basil.
“Am I too late?” he asked, out of breath. “My train just got in.”
“You’re not too late,” Katya told him, beyond relieved to have another friend in the chamber. “Get in there and help Malcolm,” she said before continuing on to the gallery stairs.
By the time she was seated with the other curious onlookers—most of whom were male members of the press—Lottie had already begun speaking.
“I worked at the Black Strap Club for three years, my lord,” she addressed Lord Watson in an extraordinarily brave voice.
“My lord,” Shayles sneered. “How can anyone here be expected to believe the word of a self-proclaimed whore?”
“Are you admitting that your club employed prostitutes?” Malcolm all but shouted as soon as the words were out of Shayles’s mouth.
“I…I’m not…You can’t assume….” Shayles writhed on the spot like a bug about to have a pin stuck through it.
“I’m warning you, Lord Campbell,” Lord Watson said. “This is a trial, not a circus, and it will remain as such.”
“It is a trial,” Inspector Craig said, moving to stand by Lottie’s side. “So let’s discuss the evidence. Miss Hart, what have you and your friends brought to us today?”
All eyes turned to Lottie. Lottie glanced to Lord Watson, who had shifted from tolerating her presence to curiosity that matched the rest of the room.
“Me lord,” she dropped a quick curtsy. “I’ll make this quick, because I don’t want to be here any more ’n you want me here.”
“I won’t have impertinence, young lady,” Lord Watson growled.
“And I won’t give you none,” Lottie said, curtsying again. “The Black Strap Club burned down on purpose,” she went on. “We all knew Lord Shayles had the place piped with gas so that he could burn it in a flash if the coppers moved
in on him, which they did.”
“Slander, my lord,” Shayles barked. “I refuse to be slandered like this.”
Lord Watson held up his hand to silence him. Katya noticed a slight quiver in Lottie’s stance before she went on.
“We all knew, me lord,” she said. “We knew the point was to destroy anything that would show how wicked Lord Shayles was and the kinds of things he’d make us do. He hurt us, me lord. Girls died because of him. That’s what this trial should be about, me lord, murder, pure ’n simple. But I was working for Lady Stanhope, not him, my lord. I did the things Lord Shayles paid me for, but Lady Stanhope paid me more to keep the other girls safe, to get them out when I could, and to keep an eye on Lord Shayles.”
“Lady Stanhope is not at issue in this trial,” Lord Watson said, though he scanned the gallery until he spotted Katya. He frowned, then looked to Lottie. “Go on.”
“We knew Lord Shayles would burn it all, me lord, so we made sure we got all the important stuff out long before anything could happen. Stuff that proves he kidnapped girls off the street, underage ones ’n all, and that he abused us,” Lottie revealed, her voice wavering. “Kept it all at Janie’s mum’s house, we did, all the bills, reports, notices, and photographs, me lord. It’s all right here.” She nodded to the table. “And it speaks for us more ’n I can.”
“No doubt you’re right,” Lord Watson said, his tone unimpressed.
His disapproving attitude toward Lottie frustrated Katya beyond measure, but he wouldn’t be able to deny the story that the evidence told. Shayles seemed to know that as well. He stared at the piles of paper and photographs on the table as though he wanted to torch the whole thing. He was just as restrained and helpless as Katya in the gallery, though. At last, they had finally trapped him in a noose he couldn’t escape from.
“Miss Hart, you may go,” Lord Watson told Lottie, then immediately ignored her as though she was never there. “The evidence before us needs to be taken into consideration. I will give the members of the House until three this afternoon to peruse these things at their leisure. Not a piece of it is to be removed from this room,” he added, raising his voice. “Guards will be posted to ensure as much. At three o’clock, the House will vote on the matter of Lord Shayles’s guilt or innocence.”