Jane Feather

by Engagement at Beaufort Hall

  Dirk Macanally sat opposite Emily, his long legs stretched in front of him, crossed at the ankles. His posture seemed casual, but Imogen noted with approval that his expression was alert, his gaze resting upon Emily with a shrewd intelligence.

  Emily’s story was among the worst they’d ever heard. In a soft voice she described the years of terror, the constant fear of sudden violence, the struggle to keep her injuries from her children, the shame of knowing that the servants knew everything, heard every day the violence and the degrading language thrown at her by her husband.

  “The unspoken sympathy was almost the hardest thing to bear,” she said, twisting her handkerchief between her hands as she gazed down into her lap. “They would pretend they couldn’t see the black eyes or the bruises, and when the doctor came, as he had to sometimes, they would make themselves scarce. Even my own maid was so frightened of Alan that she would find a way not to be in the room to answer questions when the doctor visited.”

  “And did the doctor ever say anything to your husband about your injuries?” Imogen asked, glancing at the lawyer, who merely gave a curt nod of understanding. If he could get the doctor’s testimony, it would help his client’s case.

  “No. Alan was never there when he came and of course I . . . I didn’t dare say anything. If it got back to Alan that I had . . .” Emily shuddered, and her restless fingers tore at the scrap of lace in her hands.

  “But now it wouldn’t matter,” Kate said. “Now that it’s all coming into the open, the doctor can testify for you in court.”

  “But I never told him what Alan did to me. I always found some excuse.”

  “Don’t you think it would help to question the servants and the doctor, Mr. Macanally?” Imogen inquired.

  “Not the servants.” Emily shook her head. “They’re terrified of Alan. If they say one word against him, he’ll throw them all onto the street without references . . . and you know what happens to discharged servants with no character.”

  It was true—a cast-off servant with no character reference might just as well have been convicted of some crime as far as a future employer would be concerned.

  “If we win the case, Mrs. Warwick, your husband will have little power over the servants,” Dirk pointed out gently. “Once it’s known that they worked for him, no one will question the lack of reference.”

  “If we win, Mr. Macanally,” Emily said, her voice low and dispirited. “That’s the question, sir. And what chance do I have, really?” Her eyes threw a challenge at him despite her tone.

  His mouth twisted. “I won’t deny that it will be hard, ma’am. Opposing council is very experienced in these cases, but I still maintain that it is not a hopeless case. It all depends upon the judge, and some of them are becoming increasingly sympathetic to women plaintiffs.”

  “Do we know what kind of judge will be presiding over Emily’s case?” Kate asked.

  He shook his head. “They don’t post the judges until the evening before, Lady Sutton.”

  Kate grimaced. “So, Imogen, do you have any insights on how Charles would conduct the case? Anything useful for Mr. Macanally to know?”

  “Oh, Charles will go for the jugular,” Imogen said bluntly. “He never does anything by halves, and he’s certainly not going to allow sympathy for Emily’s plight to affect the way he pleads his case.” An edge of bitterness laced her voice. “Charles only ever thinks about winning. He won’t allow any moral complexities to affect his strategy. You should be aware of that, Mr. Macanally. Any deliberate appeal to his finer feelings in the courtroom will only irritate him.”

  “If he listens to anyone, he listens to you,” Esther commented, watching her sister closely.

  “But your engagement was broken off.” Kate had a puzzled frown in her eyes.

  “Nothing is that simple, or that final, Kate.” Imogen stood up abruptly. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Thank you for the sherry, Kate. I’ll see you at home, Esther.” She went to the door, turning to bid farewell to the lawyer and Emily, who were both looking a little confused. “If I have any luck, I’ll let you know, Mr. Macanally. Try to stay positive, Emily.”

  The door closed behind her, and she went downstairs and out into the increasingly chilly afternoon. She had reached her Rubicon. It was going to happen at some point, and better now than later.

  Chapter 17

  Imogen walked to Park Street. If he wasn’t in court, Charles frequently worked at home in the afternoons. He spent the morning in chambers with his clerks, going through briefs and procedures, then usually took luncheon with colleagues or a solicitor offering a brief for his consideration, and went home in the middle of the afternoon to work privately away from the distractions of chambers. Of course, today might be different, she reflected. But he had said nothing that morning about being in court.

  She tried to assemble her arguments into a dispassionate picture of Emily Warwick’s repeated violations, the dreadful, terrifying universe in which she had lived, but however hard she fought for composure, Imogen could not lose the image of the red-faced, blustering, and triumphant Warwick claiming the antlers of the stag he had left to die in agony.

  She stopped outside the front door of Number Seven, Park Street. It had started to rain and the March sky was heavy and overcast. Light showed reassuringly from the windows of the house, so Charles was probably home. She lifted the brass gryphon’s-head knocker and let it fall once, turning up her coat collar as the cold rain grew stronger.

  The door opened finally, and she didn’t recognize the maid who said, “Can I ’elp you, ma’am?”

  “Yes. Is Mr. Riverdale in?” Imogen stepped past the girl into the hall, taking off her hat and shaking it vigorously. She unbuttoned her damp coat.

  “Mr. Riverdale’s only just come in, ma’am. I don’t know as ’ow he’s receiving at present.”

  “He’ll receive me,” Imogen stated, looking around the hall that was to have been her own. She handed the maid her coat. “Please tell him that Miss Carstairs is below. I’ll wait in the drawing room.” She knew the way well enough and under the maid’s startled gaze turned into the salon to the right of the hall.

  The maid dropped a belated curtsy and hurried up the stairs, still carrying Imogen’s damp coat.

  Imogen stood in the salon. It was clean, well dusted, the grate black-leaded, the fire properly tended, the gas lamps burning well. Charles’ housekeeping arrangements were in order, it seemed. But the room was just as she remembered it, no little touches, no flowers, no bright cushions, none of the little objets d’art she had intended to use to decorate the room. It still felt barren, a bachelor’s temporary lodging. She turned as the door opened behind her.

  “Imogen—what a delightfully unexpected pleasure.” Charles was tieless and in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, his hair slightly disheveled. Obviously, she’d interrupted him at work in the privacy of his study.

  As always, she felt that little quivering jolt at the sight of him. “Such a charming house,” she observed, trying for a lighthearted, teasing tone, but it didn’t come out like that.

  “I always thought so,” he agreed, regarding her quizzically.

  “You haven’t done much with it.”

  “No real incentive, and it suits me well enough as it is.” He went to the sideboard. “Sherry? Or would you prefer whiskey? You look as if you need warming up.”

  “Nothing, thank you.”

  He inclined his head. “So, what brings you here at this time of the afternoon, Gen?”

  “Emily Warwick.”

  He took a deep breath, pushing the hair off his forehead as he did so. He picked up the whiskey decanter from the sideboard and poured himself a stiff drink. “At least get closer to the fire. There’s no reason to be standing in the middle of the room.” He moved to the fire himself and took up his familiar stance, one arm resting along the mantel, one foot on the fender.

  Imogen saw his point and drew closer to the warmth. She perched on the arm of
a chair, reminding herself that she was here for information first. “Will you be denying in court that Warwick beat his wife, threw her out into the street, and denied her access to her children . . . oh, and gave her one of those diseases that we don’t talk about in polite society?” She tried to make her tone pleasantly inquiring, but she could hear how combative she sounded nevertheless.

  Charles sipped his whiskey. “First, Imogen, you must know that I cannot discuss any aspects of a case that’s under consideration by the courts. It would be an unthinkable breach of ethics.”

  She had to be reasonable, Imogen told herself. What he said was the absolute truth. “I understand.” She looked into the fire. “Actually, I will have that whiskey, please.”

  He went to the sideboard, poured a generous measure and brought it back to her, then resumed his position by the fire.

  “You said, first . . . what’s second?” she prompted after a long swallow.

  “Second, there are two sides to every story. Unfortunately, I can’t give you Alan Warwick’s. But he does have one.”

  Imogen swirled the whiskey in her tumbler, watching the liquid catch the fire’s light. “You can answer me this question. Did you take this case for the money, or on its merits?”

  Charles was silent, and after a moment she said, “We promised each other honesty. If we are to have a new beginning, we agreed it would have to be based on honesty.”

  “And you agreed to try to filter out your own convictions when it came to my work.”

  “I can’t do that,” Imogen said simply. “I don’t know why I thought I could. I don’t believe there can ever be a good and sufficient reason for a man to do what Warwick has done to his wife. I’m asking you not to take this case, Charles.” If you love me was on the tip of her tongue but she swallowed it. That wasn’t the point. Right and wrong were the only important issues.

  Charles looked at her in silence for a moment, before saying, “Imogen, I have already taken the case. It comes up in court in a week. Even if I was willing to drop Warwick as my client, it would be unethical for me to do so at this stage—against every accepted tenet of the legal profession. It would be professional suicide.”

  “And that matters more to you than standing up for what’s right,” she said. “The man’s a brute, Charles. You should listen to his wife, her descriptions of the life of terror she’s endured all these years . . . and the children. How do you think they’ve felt, knowing their father is brutalizing their mother, and helpless to do anything to stop it?”

  “Imogen, you’re being melodramatic. There’s no room in a courtroom for melodrama, believe me. The minute I start appealing to oversensitized emotions, the case is lost. Courtrooms are for reasoned arguments, proofs that stand alone. Can this woman prove any of her accusations? Does she have doctor’s reports of her injuries?”

  “She was always too scared to ask the doctor for anything,” Imogen said. “But why isn’t her word good enough, Charles? You’re taking her husband’s word, aren’t you? What proof does he have that she’s lying?”

  “He has proof of Emily Warwick’s adultery.”

  “No . . . no, he can’t have.” Imogen shook her head vigorously. “He gave her the clap, or whatever you call it.”

  “Or she gave it to him,” he pointed out. “There’s no proof either way.”

  Imogen went white. “You know that’s not true,” she said. “Charles, you know he’s lying. Have you ever met Emily?”

  He shook his head. “I have her deposition, that’s all I need. And there’s nothing in there strong enough to stand against my client’s countersuit.”

  Imogen stood very still. “And that’s really all that matters to you . . . the fact that you have a winnable case, even if you win it at the expense of a woman who will be left destitute, denied access to her children, rejected by the only world she knows. Would it matter to you if Emily threw herself into the river after you and that loathsome brute have stripped her bare? Would it, Charles?” She took a step towards him, unable to believe that he could stand there so calmly, producing his legal rationalities as if people—real people—were not involved.

  “Now you’re being melodramatic again,” he said impatiently. “Of course it would matter. But the facts are the facts, Imogen. And I work within those parameters. We talked of this. I told you I would sometimes do things that went against your—”

  “My ‘hobbyhorses,’” she interrupted him, her eyes fierce. “Oh, yes, I remember that discussion all too well. And I am telling you now, Charles Riverdale, that if you consider justice for women, social, legal, and moral, to be nothing more than inconveniences to be brushed aside as mere hobbyhorses of an overly dramatic, hysterical female, then we have nothing left to discuss. Indeed, I cannot imagine how I ever thought we had.”

  He thrust his hands through his already disheveled hair. “Gen, for God’s sake . . .” He put out a hand to her, but she was already walking to the door. At the door she stopped, her hand on the knob.

  “We will fight you, Charles. Our financial resources may be puny compared with Warwick’s, but believe me, we will give you a fight, and our voices will be heard.” The door clicked shut behind her.

  Charles sat down, cradling his whiskey. God damn the woman. He couldn’t accept Imogen’s position every time she balked at the client he chose to accept. It would destroy his practice. Divorce was ugly. He would be the first to admit it. But it happened. It was fodder for the legal profession. He couldn’t simply allow his wife to dictate to him how he practiced law. He couldn’t ask her permission before he took on a client.

  He sat for a long time staring into the fire, his face unreadable. Then he stood up and went to the door. “Foxton, I’ll be in my study. Bring the whiskey decanter, and bring me some soup and a sandwich for dinner at around eight. And no visitors. I don’t want to be disturbed.”

  “Yes, sir.” The maid curtsied and hurried to the kitchen.

  Charles went into his study, where he shed his waistcoat, rolled up his sleeves, sat at his desk, and pulled a sheaf of papers in front of him.

  Imogen took a hackney from Park Street and entered the house on Stanhope Terrace, as cold inside as she was out. It was now raining hard, and just the short hop from the hackney to the front door had soaked her.

  Esther appeared on the stairs immediately after the front door opened. She took one look at her sister and said, “You need a hot bath and a large whiskey.”

  “Yes, to both.” Imogen shivered involuntarily and moved to the stairs. She felt disoriented, as if she wasn’t sure where she was going.

  Esther put an arm around her and urged her up the stairs and into the back parlor. She rang for a parlormaid and helped her sister out of her wet clothes. “Bring the whiskey decanter, will you, Alice?” she asked as the maid appeared in answer to the bell.

  “Come to the fire, Gen. You’re shivering.”

  “I’m cold and wet, that’s why,” Imogen said with an attempt at wry humor, bending to acknowledge Zoe’s ecstatic greeting before stretching her hands to the fire’s blaze. “Oh, God, Essie, what a mess it is.”

  Alice appeared with the whiskey decanter and trays and Esther poured for them both. “Here.” She handed Imogen a glass. “Take a swallow of this and tell me what happened.”

  Imogen drank deeply, feeling the spirit burn its warmth into her belly. She’d probably had enough of the stuff for one afternoon, she reflected, but she didn’t care. The shivers eased and the pent-up tension began to seep away. She sighed. “I don’t know why I ever thought I could persuade Charles to give up the case. . . . I even thought that maybe I’d be able to persuade him to fight for Emily Warwick rather than her brute of a husband.” She gave a short, bitter laugh. “I actually thought that if he truly loved me, he’d do this for me. Whatever dreamland was I inhabiting, Esther?”

  Esther didn’t answer the rhetorical question. Her sister’s unhappiness was an almost palpable feeling in the room, and she couldn’t think o
f any words to soften her anguish.

  “I thought we could make it work, Essie,” Imogen filled the silence without prompting. “You know what they say about how opposites attract. Well, it’s a load of nonsense.” She turned her glass around between her hands. “I don’t understand how it’s possible to know someone as well as I know Charles, and yet really not know him at all. Or at least, be stunned by the things he says . . . does . . . believes in.” She looked up at her sister. “Does it make any sense to you?”

  Esther shook her head. “I don’t know, Gen. You’re caught in some kind of vortex, it seems to me. In essence, Charles is a decent man and he adores you. He would do anything for you—”

  “Except,” Imogen interrupted, “except allow principle to outweigh ambition and financial gain.”

  “But if maybe there’s some rule in the legal profession that says a lawyer can’t abandon a client before the trial?” Esther ventured tentatively.

  Imogen pressed the finger and thumb of one hand into her eyes. She felt overwhelmingly sad, tired, defeated. “Well, yes, apparently it would be career suicide to do that without good reason, but I gave him a good reason. Isn’t pure common or garden decency sufficient? How can he not see how wrong it would be to defend a brutal wife-beater against his abused spouse?”

  The question was unanswerable so Esther asked another. “So what are you going to do?”

  Imogen blinked back the prickle of tears behind her eyes. “There’s nothing I can do, Essie. It’s just not going to work. . . . Charles and I cannot work, it’s as simple as that.” She stood up, setting down her glass.

  “I’ll go and have that bath. I suppose, realistically, I’m no worse off now than I was a couple of weeks ago. Why did Charles have to buy Beringer, and just why did that wretched little brother of ours give him the shooting rights to our land? I need never have run into him again if it hadn’t been for that. And I could have gone on getting used to being without him.”