But when the time came to actually do anything about whatever it was that they wanted, they did nothing. They sat by scared of the consequences of acting. They kept with their usual routines.
Harvey wanted to shake the lot of them. To yell at them to wake up and act like men.
Men weren’t afraid to act. Men did whatever they wanted, the consequences be damned.
It was why Harvey hadn’t been worried when Lord Ambrose came to him with his request. In fact, he had sneered at the lord. Here was a lord, a peer of the realm, and Harvey intrinsically had more power than the man.
Lord Ambrose thought that his power lay in commanding other men to do his dirty work, but he was wrong. Those commands showed nothing but his cowardice.
It was why Harvey could not truly bring himself to be worried about the Lord’s command that he have nothing further to do with the Ellington family.
He didn’t need to lie low. There was nothing that Lord Ambrose could do to punish him. Harvey was stronger than that soft-handed nobleman would ever be.
Secure in his place in the world, Harvey finally found an inn that was willing to take him in for the night. Harvey settled his things into his room. He knew that he ought to stay in there for the night. The guard could be looking for him.
He decided to throw caution to the wind, however. Just one beer. If he didn’t say anything about tonight’s actions, no one would be any the wiser for his role in them.
If he had managed to get away with poisoning Lord Henrich for this long, then surely he could get away with a little rough play with the daughter. Especially since nothing ill had come of it.
He went downstairs and ordered a beer brought to him. The innkeeper’s daughter had a lush bosom and ample behind. Perhaps Harvey could charm her into his bed tonight to slake the lust that Miss Ellington had wakened in him.
He sipped at his beer, watching the young woman. He frowned as a man dropped into the seat across from him. “Excuse me, I am not interested in company,” Harvey snapped.
“Neither am I,” the man said, lifting a beer to his lips.
Harvey stared at him, wondering why the man was still sitting there. Would a well-placed brag get him to leave?
The innkeeper’s daughter would turn her attention to someone else for the night, and Harvey’s chance would be lost.
“You know, I could get any bitch in this town to go to bed with me,” he finally boasted, hoping that that would make his intentions clear.
“Could you now?” the other man said, looking curious.
Harvey fought the urge to roll his eyes. This man was no more a man than Lord Ambrose was. Lord Ambrose wouldn’t kill on his own, but here was yet another man who wouldn’t just take what he wanted.
Harvey leered at the other man. “Are you frightened of the fairer sex?” he couldn’t resist saying mockingly. “What harm could they ever do to you, even if they weren’t interested? All you must do is persuade them that they are interested.”
“Persuade by what means?” the other man asked, his eyes glinting with interest.
“By whatever means one must,” Harvey chuckled. He was beginning to realize that it was no wonder that the man did not understand. He must be simple of mind.
It lured Harvey into a false sense of comfort.
“You know,” he said, “I used to have women come to me all the time in my time as a physician.”
Harvey had never truly been a physician, but he would have become one if it hadn’t been for that meddling Dr. Ellington.
Now that the other man was surely doomed – and there were rumors that the trial would start again in the morning – Harvey thought he deserved the right to assume the doctor’s title.
“Yes, but they came for medicines, did they not?” the other man asked, looking confused.
Harvey smiled enigmatically. “It is very easy to make a woman forget the real purpose of her visit,” he explained. “In fact, it is easy enough to make a woman forget that which she most cares about.”
He thought about Miss Ellington, who was so upset with the ton that she ran off here, to the outer reaches of London, just so that she could escape them. She seemed to have forgotten that the further she was from her father, the more incriminating the evidence appeared to be.
Miss Ellington appeared to have gone into hiding out of shame. Harvey was amused by that.
“It is all too easy to master a woman,” Harvey mused. “For they act on only their emotions and no sense.”
“The same might be said for a man, might it not?” the other man asked cautiously.
Harvey grinned maliciously at him. “I suppose one might say that,” he allowed. “Or at least, one might say that of the typical man. There are others who transcend.”
“The priests?” the man asked.
Harvey laughed. “Oh my foolish man, of course I don’t mean the priests,” he said sneeringly. “In fact, the priests may be the least transcendent of them all!”
“How do you mean?”
Harvey did roll his eyes at that. Truly a simpleton.
“Most men do act simply on their emotions and their desires,” Harvey explained slowly. “But the man who is truly a man has a plan, and everything that he does fits into that plan.”
He had executed his own plan quite nicely, Harvey thought. It would make a good example.
“Suppose this,” he said. “There was a man once who wronged me in the medical profession, I won’t name any names. He interfered with my ability to work, all for his own personal gain.”
“What did you do?” the man asked curiously.
“I formulated my plan,” Harvey said simply. “One day, I would destroy that man, and his daughter as well. Of course, I needed to wait until the timing was right.
“But one day, just such an opportunity came to me, in the form of a man who needed someone killed. This someone had connections with the very same man who had once wronged me, and it was only too easy for me to ensure that he, not I, was the one convicted for the original murder.”
Harvey paused, taking a sip of his beer while he gauged the other man’s reaction. The poor simpleton was hanging off his every word.
“But that wasn’t quite enough,” Harvey continued. “For this man who once wronged me, he had a daughter. A lovely little thing. Genteel. And what more perfect addition to my revenge than wronging her in turn?”
He smiled and sat back, thinking warmly of how it would feel to serve her the justice that she deserved. “She will be mine. To right the wrong that was done to me.”
The other man’s brow furrowed as he gestured towards Harvey’s hand. “It was no alleycat who did that to you,” he said slowly. “Was it the girl?”
Harvey laughed. “Yes, it was the girl,” he said. “She had not yet realized how powerless she is. She believes that she can still win her way free. But a true man does not let a woman made decisions.”
Harvey didn’t notice the surreptitious movement that the other man made to his colleague. The next thing he knew, the table was surrounded with guards, however.
That was when he started to worry, just the slightest, niggling doubt that he had made a miscalculation. Still, he tried to remain cool and unconcerned.
“What seems to be the trouble, gentlemen?” he asked. But the guards weren’t listening to him.
The next thing Harvey knew, he was in shackles and being carted off towards the main courthouse to stand trial.
“No!” he shrieked yet again, but no one seemed to heed his cries. Who was this man sat across from him? To Harvey, he looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t be certain wherefrom.
Desperately, he turned to the man. “I’ll make a deal with you,” he said. At last, the other man appeared to be listening. “Bring me to the trial of Dr. Ellington. I’ll tell you who really murdered the man.”
The man frowned, his eyes considering Harvey thoughtfully. “If you are confessing to the murder of Dr. Ellington as well as the assault of his daughter, I ho
pe you know that the sentencing won’t be light,” the man finally said.
“Perhaps we could strike a deal,” Harvey said. “I’ll tell you who is really responsible – who was the money behind the venture. And you let me off with an easier sentencing.”
The man cocked his head to the side, and Harvey felt disgust rise in him again over the acute unfairness of it all. Here was a man who was no better than a hunting dog, turning his head to the side while he thought, his every emotion visible on his face.
Yet he was the free man, and Harvey knew that he was basically begging for his life at this point.
If they were willing to hang Dr. Ellington, then they would no doubt be even more willing to hang the real killer of Lord Henrich. They would see it as justice for the murder that Harvey had committed, and justice for his part in framing the doctor.
Still, Harvey knew that he, himself, was an innocent man. Any other man would have acted the same in his position. Any other man would have taken the money and done just what he had done. That was the way that London was.
“Lord Ambrose paid me,” Harvey found himself saying, before the other man had made up his mind on whether to be lenient. “He wanted Lord Henrich murdered. I poisoned the lord, but only because I was afraid of what Lord Ambrose would do to me if I did not follow his orders.”
It was a lie, and a galling one at that. Harvey had of course never been afraid of the snivelling lord with his petty complaints against the other peer of the realm.
But it seemed to interest the man across from him again. “And Dr. Ellington?” the man asked. “Was he involved at all in the poisoning?”
Harvey laughed bitterly. “If he hadn’t had me removed from the medical college when I was an apprentice, then perhaps things would have gone differently,” he said. “Perhaps Lord Ambrose and I would never have crossed paths.”
“So you mean to say that the only reason Dr. Ellington was involved was because you framed him?” the man pressed, his eyes piercing.
Harvey shrugged. He knew that if he admitted the doctor’s innocence now, then his whole plan to have the man hanged would be foiled. However, if it bought Harvey his life, then perhaps there would be other chances to kill off the doctor.
Even if not, Harvey doubted that Dr. Ellington would ever practice medicine again. His soul might be untarnished with murder, but the same could not be said for his reputation.
No one in their right mind would go to the man for medicines. All would fear that he had, in fact, had a part in Lord Henrich’s death, regardless of what the courts had determined.
Perhaps it was better that the man didn’t die. Perhaps it was better that the man live in ruination.
In ruination without his precious daughter, too, Harvey thought gleefully. For as soon as the doctor was released from prison, he would learn that his daughter had run off to the dirtier parts of the city. He would never find his daughter there.
Harvey had nearly managed to spoil her. It was only a matter of time until someone managed to.
So he nodded slowly at the other man. “Yes,” he said simply. “I framed Dr. Ellington. The man deserved to die.”
The other man looked momentarily disturbed, and Harvey worried that his words had come off too strongly. No sense foiling his whole plot if Harvey also failed to gain he man’s clemency.
“It is an old grudge, and one that I ought to be long rid of,” he admitted, staring down at his hands as though he were truly repentant of what he had said.
He remembered something about his earlier conversation with the man in the pub. A detective, no doubt, but a man who thought that the priests were most transcendent of all.
Perhaps this man was the same sort of weakling who put his faith in the gods because it gave him an excuse for all the matters he was too afraid to take into his own hands.
“I should have spoken with the priests long ago about my anger,” Harvey said quietly, still staring down at his hands in an attempt to look contrite. “They would, no doubt, have been able to guide me towards redemption.”
He risked a quick look up. What he said appeared to be working. The man looked as though he pitied Harvey. That stuck in Harvey’s craw, but he forced himself to continue to grovel.
“Alas, I fear that it is too late now,” he sighed miserably.
“It is never too late to seek God’s forgiveness,” the other man said gently. “Telling the truth is the first step to becoming a changed man. A man worthy of Him.”
The other man sounded thoughtful. Harvey wondered what sort of punishment they might concoct for him if not hanging. As long as he was still alive, it would be all right.
As long as he was still alive, Harvey could hope to escape, and to come back to finish his revenge.
It was the plan that informed each of his actions, after all. It was the plan that kept him from acting on simply emotion.
Perhaps they would confine Harvey to one of the monasteries. The monks would be no match for him when he decided to escape, he was certain. Perhaps he would murder a few of the snivelling fools as well, just to remind everyone who really ruled the world.
It was the men who were willing to take power into their own hands and act upon their desires. Harvey was such a man. Alas, he lamented, not many others were.
Chapter 36
Lord Eric Cumberland, Duke of Havenport
Eric tried not to watch Charlene too carefully as they made their way to the better parts of the city. He didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable, but he couldn’t help glancing over frequently.
He wanted to make certain that she was all right, and that she wasn’t regretting her decision to come back with him.
Not that there was anything that he could do to stop her from running off again.
Except chase after her. Now there was an amusing thought. What would they say of the two of them, if they were to see the duke chasing after the young spinster? Nothing good – of that, Eric was certain.
He no longer worried about what they would think of him, if they saw him with Charlene. Something inside of him had changed. If he could not have Charlene and remain a duke, then it was the dukedom that he would give up.
He could no more give up on his love for Charlene than he could quit breathing.
He was simply glad that he had finally been able to put together a solid case against Harvey Parsons, one which would exonerate Dr. Ellington.
Truth to tell, Eric was worried about what the end of this case would mean for his budding relationship with Miss Ellington. Would he lose her, now that there was no longer any reason for the two of them to work together?
He couldn’t lose her. If she moved back to Bath to be with her father, then he was going to need to spend more time in Bath as well. He couldn’t lose her.
He should probably take her straight back to her aunt’s house, Eric knew. The woman must be worried about her niece. Especially since she still didn’t know that Eric had the evidence needed to free Dr. Ellington from prison.
However, the Duke had no desire to let Charlene out of his sight, especially not until he heard for certain that Harvey had been captured. Last night still weighed heavily on his mind. He wouldn’t let anything happen to Charlene.
So he led her back to his own home. Charlene made no comment on the fact, although he could tell from her eyes that she was nervous.
She probably expected that she would be the talk of the town again if someone saw them heading into the manor together.
Let them talk. Eric knew that it was easier for him than it was for her, but if he had his way, there would never be any suspicious gossip about the two of them again.
He wanted to marry her.
But first things first, they needed to get through this trial.
Eric had scarcely opened the front door when one of his men came rushing out to meet him. “Duke Cumberland!” he greeted, his eyes passing curiously over Charlene for a moment. But he hurried to get out his news. “The trial for Dr. Ellington h
as begun this morning!” he cried. “There was no warning.”
Eric swore under his breath. He had known that the trial must begin soon. They were lucky enough to have had the reprieves that they had had. He had hoped, however, that the trial would wait until after he had Harvey Parsons in his custody.
However, his hired man wasn’t done speaking. “As for Harvey, we finally caught him and turned him over to the authorities. He admitted to all his crimes, including framing Dr. Ellington and accosting his daughter.”
Again, the man’s eyes wandered over to Charlene, lingering for a little while longer this time as though assessing her.
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