“You’re hurt. We need a doctor, Uncle, right away.”
His formerly pale face flushing, Uncle Elias shook his head. “We need the king’s guards, that’s who we need. A nobleman murdered in my house. This is terrible. A disaster. A scandal. Vivienne, get out of this room. Wait in the withdrawing room.”
“No. I am not going to—”
For the first time since entering the room, Uncle Elias seemed to really see Rob. “How the devil came you here, at this hour of the night?”
“Through the window.”
“What?”
“I invited him, Uncle.” Let everything be known. No more secrets, no more lies. “He is my lover.”
“Your lover?” Uncle Elias gasped. “This … this … lawyer is your lover?”
“Yes. For him, I turned down Philip, refused to consider Lord Cheddersby, and risked the wrath of the king of England. Philip found out. He attacked me and he was going to kill Rob. I had to stop him.”
For a moment, Vivienne dared to hope that Uncle Elias believed her—until his eyes narrowed and his lips thinned. “This is the most ludicrous story I have ever heard. You killed Sir Philip? Everybody knows women lack the stomach for such a thing. Now get out of the way, or God help me, I’ll pick you up and move you myself!”
“There is no need for such agitation,” Rob said quietly. “I will come with no trouble.”
“But you’re innocent!”
“Mistress Burroughs, please don’t upset yourself. I am most grateful for your defense, but as your uncle says, everybody knows a woman incapable of such an act.”
“Unless the man she loves is going to be killed.” She glared at her uncle. “Why else do you think Mr. Harding is here? He is my lover.”
Her uncle’s scornful gaze darted between them. “You refused Sir Philip Martlebury and the king for this … this sodomite? And even if that’s true, how dare he come into my house like a thief and take my niece’s honor?”
“I have never been a sodomite, but I will not deny that I have been a thief, Mr. Burroughs. And I will not deny that I have caused Sir Philip’s death. I am willing to go to prison for what I have done.”
He meant it. She saw it in his eyes, heard it in his voice. “No, Uncle, please,” Vivienne pleaded, her anxious gaze going from Rob to him. “He didn’t take anything. I gave it. And he did not kill Philip. I did, I tell you!”
Ignoring her, Uncle Elias marched to the door and bellowed, “Send for the king’s guard. At once.”
Vivienne went to Rob, took his hand and looked beseechingly into his pale and mud-streaked face. “I will not allow you to be imprisoned for something I have done.”
He held her hands between his, his intense gaze boring into her eyes. “Vivienne, I have been to Newgate and it is a hell on earth. I will not see you put there.”
“But Rob—”
He put his finger against her lips. “Shh, my love, say no more. This was done in defense, so have no fear. In the meantime, let me go.”
“Take your filthy hands off my niece,” Uncle Elias commanded.
Vivienne ignored him to kiss Rob.
“Vivienne!” Uncle Elias grabbed her to pull her away.
“Don’t you dare lay a hand on her,” Rob said, his voice quiet, but so forceful it made Uncle Elias let go and back away.
In the next moment, three footmen and Owens were in the doorway, gawking at the tableau.
“Take hold of Harding,” Uncle Elias ordered two of his footmen. “You,” he commanded the third, “take Sir Philip’s body below. Owens, fetch the watch.”
As Owens shuffled with more haste than Vivienne had ever seen her display before, one footman started to drag out Philip’s body, leaving a thin trail of blood. The other two warily approached Rob, who limped away from Vivienne.
“Uncle Elias,” she said, moving to stand in front of him, “you can’t take him. He’s innocent, and he’s hurt.”
“Stand aside, Vivienne, and let these men do what is necessary,” Rob said softly.
She glanced at him over her shoulder. He nodded. “Please, Vivienne.”
“You heard him, Vivienne. Get out of the way,” her uncle barked.
“Because Rob asks me to, I will,” she said, finally giving in to what Rob wanted—but only for the present, until the situation could be remedied.
She faced Rob. “Tell me what I must do to free you.”
“Speak in my defense if this comes to trial.”
“Take him, bind him and hold him for the king’s men,” her uncle ordered. “A nobleman killed in my house,” he muttered. “Very bad for business, very bad.”
The footmen grabbed Rob roughly.
“Gently! There is no need to manhandle him,” Vivienne cried.
She wished she could go to Newgate with him, hoping he would be freed when the truth became known, or at least the truth that this was done to defend him from death at Sir Philip’s hands. Her freedom would be too dearly bought if Rob’s was the price.
“Vivienne, be quiet!” Uncle Elias snapped as the footmen led Rob away.
Her heart broke to see him being taken from the room as if he were a criminal.
“You are making a spectacle of yourself!” Uncle Elias continued angrily.
Distraught, angry, fearful of Rob’s fate, she glared at Uncle Elias. “I don’t care what I look like or what people think. I love him, and he loves me. We are going to be married, whether you approve or not.”
“You brazen hussy! After all I’ve done for you, you dare to speak to me this way? After I took you in, fed you, clothed you—”
“Almost sold me off to get a title and the influence to go with it. You would have gladly seen me the mistress of the king to increase your position in the city. Forgive me, Uncle, if I did not wish to repay you with the rest of my life.”
“So instead you humiliate me.”
“Instead I fell in love with a fine young man whom you should be proud to know.”
“A fine young man who’s on his way to Newgate for murder! A fine young man born and raised in the gutters of London, who’s notorious for the way he paid for his education with that disgusting sodomite—”
“Be quiet!” Vivienne thundered, her whole body shaking with emotion. “He is a finer, more honorable man than Sir Philip could ever hope to be, or the king, or you, Uncle.”
“If that is what you think,” Uncle Elias retorted, his face purple with rage, “I should send you from my house forever.”
“You don’t have to send me. I will go, and gladly!” Vivienne cried as she marched from the room, down the stairs past the wide-eyed servants and out into the street.
“Odd’s bodikins, what the duce is going on?” a sleep-befuddled Lord Cheddersby asked as he rose from his bed. Outside his closet he could hear voices raised in agitation, and unless he was very wrong or still dreaming, one of them was a woman’s. The other, he thought, was one of his footmen’s.
Pulling on his thick velvet robe, he noted that it must be a little past dawn, yet still very early in the day. He glanced at his wig on his dressing table, then remembered he wore his nightcap. Sliding his feet into slippers, he shuffled to the door of his closet, and out into the state bedchamber.
“I say, there, Jeffries, what the devil is happening?” he demanded of the servant in the adjoining room whose back was to him.
A woman shoved Jeffries out of the way. “Lord Cheddersby!”
“Mistress Burroughs?” he cried, utterly surprised.
“I am in desperate need of your help.”
“Good God, you don’t say?”
“Yes! Please, it’s about Mr. Harding. He’s been taken to Newgate for killing Sir Philip. He didn’t, I did, but he lied and—”
Lord Cheddersby hurried toward her and put a brotherly arm around her shivering shoulders. “Hush, Mistress Burroughs, hush,” he said gently and with surprising authority. “Come with me to my morning room, where I can better listen. Jeffries, have Marlowe send in some
breakfast.”
Without waiting for either of them to respond, he placed Vivienne’s hand on his arm and led her down the back stairs, then along a corridor.
“Lord Cheddersby,” she began breathlessly after she had taken a seat on one of the chairs in a room decorated in peacock blue. “I don’t know who else to turn to. We need your help. Rob—Mr. Harding—is innocent of any crime, but my uncle won’t listen, and so I have come to you. I know you do not think much of me, but I also know you are a good and kind man. Please do not turn me away.”
Lord Cheddersby tugged off his nightcap, revealing a head of tousled light brown curls. “I wouldn’t think of it,” he said sincerely. “Mistress Burroughs, I am not a clever fellow, as you know. If I am to understand and help you, you must start at the beginning and go very slow.”
Taking a deep breath and trying to sound calm, she did.
Chapter 23
“So I tried to tell my uncle the truth, but he wouldn’t listen to me. I left his house and came straight to you,” Vivienne concluded.
“I’m very glad you did.” Lord Cheddersby shook his head incredulously. “Odd’s bodikins, what a night! And now poor Mr. Harding is in Newgate?”
“Yes, when I should be there in his place.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Lord Cheddersby began when Jeffries appeared at the door, a tray in his hands and still obviously suspicious. “Your breakfast, my lord.”
“Oh, thank you, Jeffries. Put it down there. We’ll serve ourselves.”
Glancing warily at Vivienne, the servant set out the dishes on the oak dresser, then backed out the room and closed the door.
“Pray, eat, Mistress Burroughs,” Lord Cheddersby urged kindly, coming around to pull out her chair. “You are so distraught, I fear you will swoon otherwise, and that would quite unnerve me.”
She didn’t feel hungry, not when she could envision Rob in a pit of a cell at Newgate, without food or water. However, the smell of freshly crisped bacon and warm bread proved too tempting to ignore.
“I’m sorry to trouble you, Lord Cheddersby,” she said after they had returned to their seats, their plates and cutlery in front of them.
“Oh, no, I am delighted!” he cried. “Well, not delighted about the circumstances, but delighted you think I could be of use. I’ve been useless most of my life. And you must call me Foz.”
“You are so kind, and I’ve lied to you.”
“Well, in a good cause, I believe.”
“Other than Rob, you are my only friend.”
Lord Cheddersby set down the fork and looked at her with a remarkably determined expression. “After a good breakfast and when I am properly dressed, we shall see about sorting this mess out, shall we?”
“Do you think we can?” she asked softly, voicing the first hint of a doubt.
He blinked, looking rather like an owl startled by daylight. “Well, now that I’ve finally got something important to do, I shall certainly give it my all. Besides, I’m convinced you acted in Mr. Harding’s defense or else Sir Philip would have killed him. Your action was not premeditated, so it cannot be considered felonious.”
Now it was Vivienne’s turn to look surprised.
“Oh, I know a little bit about the law. Not a lot. I only know a lot about Latin—but that’s where I learned some law. My tutor Muttlechop made me read the medieval yearbooks, the records of the courts. Pretty dull stuff, for the most part, but I do recall a few things.”
She reached out and covered his hand with hers. “You make me feel better, Foz, and I cannot ask for more.”
“And if your odious, mean uncle has cast you out, you must stay here,” he declared. “Nor should you trouble yourself about money. What’s the good of me having so much if I can’t share it?”
“Oh, Lord Cheddersby … Foz, I couldn’t.”
“Nonsense. I insist.”
“Thank you so much,” she replied, grateful for his generous offer, for otherwise she really had no idea where else she could go. “You are truly a kindhearted, generous friend.”
“Enough thanks, Mistress Burroughs.” He gestured at the room. “This place is far too enormous for just me and my servants, really. We simply rattle around like peas in a barrel. I shall gladly pay your expenses until Mr. Harding is free and able to marry you.”
“I will always bless you for helping us,” she said, smiling at him with tears in her eyes.
He cleared his throat loudly, his own eyes moist. “Yes, well, you had better try to get a little sleep. In the meantime, I’ll get myself dressed and go to Newgate and see that he has the best accommodation that ghastly place affords. And I shall be happy to speak in Mr. Harding’s favor at trial, if it comes to that. I daresay there are plenty of others who would, too.”
“Will I be able to explain what really happened?”
Foz gave her a sympathetic look. “I’m not sure that would be the wisest course, because you would also be saying Mr. Harding told a rather monstrous lie. Besides, the judge and jury will likely think as your uncle does, that a woman is not capable of such an action.” He held up his hand. “I know, I know, very blind of them. But they will. No, I think we should keep to the facts as Mr. Harding has told them. If so, he acted in self-defense, and that is something the court should not only understand, but pardon.”
“I hope you’re right, my lord,”
“Still, it would save a lot of bother if the king would pardon him.”
“He can do that?”
“Absolutely, and in this case, quite rightly.” Foz gave her a bright smile.
She flushed. “I fear the king may not be amenable to helping me. He was very angry with me last night because I wouldn’t—”
“I know, my dear,” Lord Cheddersby interrupted gently. “I, um, happened to be at Whitehall. But the king is a very capricious fellow, and just because he is cross with somebody one day doesn’t mean he will be the next. I’faith, if that were not so, the Duke of Buckingham’s head would have been on London Bridge years ago. Still, even if the king will not help, I’m sure the judge will see that Mr. Harding was acting in your defense, and so not guilty of murder. Now do try not to worry. There is nothing more you can do, at least for the present.”
“I cannot sit idly by while—”
“I fear you must. There is nothing a woman can do in such circumstances,” he said. He gave her a sympathetic smile as he went to the door and called for his footman. “Jeffries, escort Mistress Burroughs to the green bedchamber and see that she lacks for nothing.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Vivienne watched Lord Cheddersby depart, then sat some moments at the table before going with the haughty Jeffries, a gleam of resolution in her vibrant eyes.
* * *
Rob fingered the pebble he had plucked out of the fetid straw of the cell, took his aim at the two gleaming, beady eyes in the crack of the wall and threw, grunting at the sudden twinge of pain from his broken rib.
The rat gave a squeal and the eyes disappeared.
“Still good,” Rob muttered grimly.
How many rats had he and Jack caught this way? He couldn’t begin to say.
There were other sorts of rats in London, human ones who would enjoy hearing of his fall from grace and then come after his clients.
Slumped against the wall, he surveyed his cell yet again. Of course nothing had changed. The dank gray walls were just as damp, the straw just as odoriferous, the pail in the corner even more so. A bowl of scummy water lay near the door, giving off a smell all its own.
He sighed and glanced up at the narrow window, knowing these surroundings did not horrify and repel him as they would Vivienne. He had known worse places, slept in worse places, been beaten in worse places.
In a sense, he could feel more at home here than he ever could in a fine house like Lord Cheddersby’s or Whitehall Palace—but that didn’t mean he was comfortable or at all anxious to stay.
Would a judge and jury believe that what he had
done was manslaughter, not murder? The punishment either way was severe. Could he dare to hope that they would find he had acted in self-defense, and so his offense was pardonable?
He rested his forehead on his uninjured knee. Or maybe this was the ending always fated for him and he had only succeeded in delaying the inevitable.
Even if he were pardoned, what hope did he have now to provide for Vivienne? Nobody would seek his legal services. He would have to take what jobs he could, and he could not bear to think of Vivienne suffering alongside him. To see the burden of poverty dull her bright eyes, the lack of food destroy her blooming health, the misery of cold and filthy lodgings overcome her joyous spirit.
She had said she loved him and wanted only his love in return. If he doubted that, was that not belittling her love—and being as condescending as all the other men in her life who could not believe she knew exactly what she wanted, no matter the price?
He raised his head and looked at the pale morning light trying to shine through the little window, like the hope struggling through his despair. Vivienne the bold, Vivienne the defiant—she would be insulted if he thought she could not cope without wealth. He could see her eyes flash, the set of her lips, the flush of righteous indignation….
By some miracle, the best and bravest woman in London loved him. Why should he sit here wallowing in his despair?
Had he not been trained to argue cases? By God, even though he was not a barrister, could he not somehow contrive to argue his own?
“By God, I will!” Rob cried aloud, and then he laughed.
Sitting in the squalid guardroom, two jail-keepers looked at one another and frowned at the sound of a boisterous laugh. The turnkey with a grizzled beard, three teeth and pockmarked face tapped his temple significantly.
The other blinked his rheumy eyes barely visible beneath lank, filthy hair, and nodded glumly while he scratched at one of his many flea bites. “Sounds like somebody’s gone off his head, all right, Bill.”
“Oy, jailer!” a man shouted, his words echoing off the stone walls. “Turnkey, it would be worth your while to attend to me!”
Margaret Moore Page 22