The Romantic

by Madeline Hunter

  “I must see her. Do not send for her. I will go below.”

  She brought Charlotte to the stairs. As they made their way down, Charlotte plucked at her sleeve.

  “Is he one of the slaves you spoke of? Like Cleo?”

  “Yes, but Caesar and his brother did not seem to mind so much. They were very devoted, and seemed to accept the situation. They were probably the only ones Glasbury truly trusted. He took them everywhere with him, while the others stayed in Wiltshire.”

  “If he did, they should have known he could not hold onto them here in England. They must have learned the truth.”

  “After I left, Julian forced Glasbury to tell all the islanders that they were free in Britain, but before that, unless other servants spoke of the law in front of them, how would they know?”

  “If I were a slave and even sniffed the odor of freedom, I would like to think I would know what it was that I smelled.”

  “If they did, they chose to remain. He gave Caesar and Marcus a degree of privilege and authority. It was a secure position. Perhaps that makes the shackles less noticeable.”

  “Do you think Caesar knew about Cleo?”

  “I fear in my heart that everyone at the manor in Wiltshire knew about her.”

  “Cowards.”

  Pen stopped and turned to her sister. “Yes. As I was a coward. You have never lived in fear, Charl. You have never known how that breaks one’s spirit. You cannot understand, and I pray that you never do.”

  The kitchen was not vacant. Two young women scoured pots in a corner. An old mulatto sat near the hearth, eyes closed but back straight. White frizz escaped her red kerchief in front. She held a bunched apron on the lap of her simple brown dress.

  “Julia?”

  Julia turned her head slowly. She gestured to the two other women. They put down their pots and hurried from the kitchen.

  Julia began to rise. She pressed her palms against her knees and pushed.

  “Do not. Please do not. I will come and sit with you.” Pen brought a stool to the hearth and sat.

  Blank eyes looked at her. Blank like Caesar’s. Like Cleo’s. Slaves learned young how to hide their thoughts. Survival depended on it.

  Charlotte stood nearby, just out of Julia’s view. Pen introduced her. Julia acknowledged her properly, but without interest.

  “Now that he is dead, you can come back,” Julia said with surprising bluntness. “ ’Til the next master comes, that is.” A nuance in her tone suggested she did not expect the next master to be an improvement on the last.

  “I have not come back. I am here tonight to see to a few matters, that is all.”

  “What matters be those?”

  “His death, for one. I am told the servants saw nothing, know nothing. I do not believe that is possible.”

  Julia scratched the skin under one eye. “We were asleep.”

  “Surely his valet knows who visited.”

  “Master had guests sometimes he did not want known. That night, he sent his valet away.”

  “Who saw to him? I do not believe Glasbury would stoop to doing for himself.”

  Julia did not reply at once. “Caesar would have done for him, but gone to bed before any visitor came.”

  Pen looked in Julia’s eyes. She looked hard and long. She searched for the lights beneath the film, for the thoughts hidden by the blankness.

  “I also came to tell you something, Julia. Cleo is dead. I learned just last month.”

  Julia turned her dull gaze to the hearth. “The child is in heaven, then. A better place, and the good Lord’s embracing her.”

  She reached for a poker and bent to spread the fuel. As the low fire glowed over her face, Pen saw something reflected from deep in those eyes. Something unexpected and confusing.

  Contentment.

  A deep satisfaction burned within this old slave.

  “She knows something. I am sure of it,” Pen said to Charlotte when they were alone in Glasbury’s chambers.

  “She does not care that he has died, that much is obvious. I cannot say I blame her.”

  Pen surveyed the bedroom. Like the rest of the house, it was old fashioned in decor, full of the bombé lines and gilding of the last century. Glasbury had refused to allow her to change anything. He trusted no one’s judgment or taste but his own.

  The bed loomed. And the bench. And the carpet on which she had cowered one night. She turned away and caught Charlotte’s expression of concern.

  “It was another world, and another woman,” Pen said as she headed toward the dressing room. “Do not watch me as though I were going to start raving at you.”

  The dressing room was as large as the bedroom, and contained sofas and chairs along with wardrobes and drawers. It had been built in the days when people entertained in their dressing rooms.

  Pen could tell at once that it had been thoroughly cleaned. Nothing remained of the events of that night. She paced around it anyway, hoping that some clue would present itself.

  “Do you think the servants could have done it?” Charlotte asked. “If he ate a meal, the poison could have been in the food, not the wine he had later.”

  “Why now, after all these years? And there was still a visitor, and that will go against Julian. Two wineglasses. Glasbury would never share wine with a servant. Someone else was here.”

  “Someone who will never admit to it, I daresay. If a visitor comes in the dead of night and is admitted by the earl himself, if the valet is sent away, there is a reason.”

  “That reason will prevent the man from coming forward, even if he did not kill him.”

  “Unfortunately, you are probably right.” Charl nonchalantly opened a drawer of the toilet table. “I imagine the house has been searched for letters or notes.”

  “Mr. Knightridge saw to it.”

  “Of course he did.” Charl strolled to the large wardrobe against the far wall. She opened its doors and examined the earl’s garments.

  She pushed aside some morning coats and froze. She quickly slid the coats back.

  Pen noticed. “What is wrong? You look quite pale.” She went to the wardrobe. Charl was smoothing the coats.

  “It is nothing. Truly.”

  Pen pushed the coats aside. Hanging on the back of the wardrobe were Glasbury’s whips and ropes, his straps and restraints.

  “Knightridge did not search very thoroughly, it appears,” Charlotte said.

  “He was not looking for such as this.”

  “Perhaps he should have been.”

  Pen closed the wardrobe. “I think I know who was here that night. I know who the secret visitors were. He hardly stopped once Cleo and I were gone, and came to prefer London after that. Women came to him here, prostitutes, so that he could indulge himself.”

  Charlotte closed her eyes, then opened them. “Oh, Pen, you are too good to ever see the truth.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It may still have been a man, and it need not have been a prostitute. I have received gossip these last few days, just as I have given it out. I have learned that Glasbury did not restrict himself to women in his games.”

  Pen faced Caesar in the library. She had left Charlotte in the drawing room. This interview needed to be held alone.

  He stood tall and straight, impressive in his livery. The earl had interpreted Caesar’s manner as deferential and submissive, but she had always recognized the underlying pride in his face and posture.

  She had no idea how old he was. Forty? Fifty? Did the wig hide gray hair? The people of the islands did not show their age on their faces the way the English did. Julia, who actually looked old now, was probably ancient.

  “I do not intend to ask you any questions, because I know you will not answer them,” she said.

  “Whatever is your preference, madame.”

  “My preference is that you listen to me, and take my words to heart. I think that you know who visited the earl that night. Perhaps you will not say because you fear
being seen as an accomplice. You may want to protect Glasbury’s name, or that of someone else. Whatever the reason, I believe that both you and Julia, in the least, know what happened but are not saying.”

  “We have not lied.”

  “You have not told the whole truth, either.” She walked over to him. “A man is being tried for this death, and he is innocent. Mr. Hampton had no hand in it, and you know it. Will you let him hang?”

  Caesar’s unflinching pose seemed to respond that if one more Englishman died it was of no concern to him.

  “Do you remember Cleo, Caesar?”

  That got a reaction. It flexed through his face before he resumed his impassivity.

  “Julian Hampton took her away from the earl. Did you know that? Even before I left, he made Glasbury give her up, and made sure the earl dared not do such things with a servant again. He forced the earl to tell all of you that you became free when you stepped foot in England. That is why things changed back then. Because of Mr. Hampton. He brought Cleo to a woman who cared for her, and he paid for her keep all these years. The man you would let hang saw to Cleo’s safety and the others’ freedom when no one else would.”

  He looked away. It was as if maintaining his stance now required that he look at plaster instead of her.

  She was certain then. This man knew something that could help Julian. He need only speak of it, and the danger would be gone.

  “You must save him. Do it however you need to, to protect yourself. Include or leave out what you wish, but you must go to Mr. Knightridge and tell him what happened here that night.”

  He turned his gaze back to her. He looked right through her. He offered nothing but more silence.

  Her inability to reach him maddened her. She thought she would scream or weep. The answer to saving Julian was standing right in front of her, and she could not obtain it. Out of fear or pride or hatred, Caesar and Julia would ignore her pleas.

  If things went against Julian tomorrow, she would never forgive herself, or this man.

  Livid beyond good sense, biting back her outrage, she marched to the door. “If Mr. Hampton hangs because you remained silent, I will not rest until I find out why. I will fill my empty days and nights with pursuing the whole truth.”

  chapter 28

  The next morning, the hawkers near the Old Bailey sold new broadsides that described the dramatic revelations of the day before. Some of Julian’s letters and poems were printed, too. The spectators entered the courtroom buzzing with anticipation. They carried newspapers whose stories reflected the city’s sympathy for the romantic prisoner.

  When Sophia arrived this time, her husband accompanied her. Adrian Burchard had returned to London the previous evening, with a letter from Mr. Jones admitting he abducted the countess at Glasbury’s command. That word had spread fast, even if it had not been in the papers yet.

  “The general opinion seems to be that Julian at best should be convicted of manslaughter, not murder,” Sophia whispered as soon as she sat next to Pen. “I attended a party last night where several very vocal ladies insisted that it was no worse than self-defense.”

  Adrian tipped his head. “At White’s last night, more than a few men commented that a scoundrel needs killing no matter what his title or how it is done.”

  Their reassurances did not soothe Pen. Turbulent emotions raged in her.

  She did not know if she could bear being here today. She did not expect all these opinions in the city to matter at all. An earl had been killed, and someone would have to pay.

  Knowing that the people who could save Julian now sat in Glasbury’s house almost made her insane. She had spent the night trying to think of the argument or promises that would encourage Caesar to come forward. Dawn had brought a terrible dread into her heart that she could not control.

  The judge and jury arrived. Julian came in. The prosecutor took his position.

  The defense counsel was nowhere to be seen.

  “Mr. Knightridge seems to have exhausted himself with yesterday’s recitations,” the judge said sarcastically. “How unfortunate.”

  He called for the trial to continue.

  There was nothing much left except the summation of the facts. The prosecutor proceeded to lay them out again. Knightridge would not have been allowed to refute them anyway, so his absence could not affect the outcome now.

  Pen’s dread increased anyway. It was as if Knightridge did not want to be present when his friend was condemned, and had let Julian stand alone up there against these accusations.

  As the summation wound down, a rumble of voices interrupted. It began in the back of the courtroom and billowed forward until it drowned out the prosecutor.

  The judge called for silence, to no avail. He glared at the source of the disturbance. His mouth pursed and his lids lowered.

  Knightridge was squeezing through the court functionaries. He strode to the judge. “I must ask your indulgence, but important matters delayed me.”

  “Your presence was not missed, sir. You may think you are essential to all you engage, but we are capable of completing the trial without your help.”

  “Of course. However, the trial is not completed. A person came to me this morning and expressed the desire to lay down information. It is a story that must be heard.”

  “We have all that we need already.”

  Knightridge looked affronted. Wounded. Perplexed. “Would you deny sworn testimony that could shed further light on the events? If you require precedents before allowing such late developments, I can give them to you.”

  The judge peered at him with extreme displeasure. Knightridge responded with a mixture of innocence and hauteur.

  It was the spectators who made a difference. Shouts called out for the new evidence to be heard. Other voices agreed. The din grew.

  Faced with exercising his prerogatives or retreating from the threat of pandemonium, the judge chose the latter.

  Knightridge turned to face the door of the chamber. He gestured to someone. Every head turned.

  A woman walked into the courtroom.

  Señora Perez.

  “My goodness, what is this?” Sophia whispered.

  Pen had no idea. She was as stunned as everyone else.

  Señora Perez walked down to the judge. Her demure ivory dress contrasted with her almond skin. Her hat was very sedate. Only her shawl appeared exotic. Long and silken, dark blue with a green pattern, it flowed over her like water, and its rivulets hinted at the curves obscured by garments.

  The light from a window illuminated her face. Pen’s breath caught. In the theater she had not been able to clearly distinguish this woman’s features, but now the morning light revealed her unusual and alluring beauty.

  With great skepticism, the judge addressed her. “You have information regarding this crime, madame?”

  “I have information that should be heard. I know nothing of the crime.”

  “Really, this is a waste—”

  “I know that Mr. Hampton could not have been with the earl that night,” she continued. “You see, he was with me.”

  Pen’s breath left her. So did Sophia’s and Dante’s. So did everyone’s. After a five count, the entire courtroom audibly inhaled.

  Pen stared at the woman facing the judge. There was something about her expression … something in the manner she had donned for this role …

  “Indeed, madame? Are you saying that you are Mr. Hampton’s mistress? One wonders how many the man requires.” The judge seemed delighted with his little joke. No one laughed.

  “He is not my lover. He came to advise me. My husband was about to embark on an investment that worried me as potentially ruinous. I asked Mr. Hampton to visit when I knew Raoul would not be home, so that I could consult with him and my husband would not know. He arrived at midnight and left two hours later.”

  “And were you satisfied with his advice?” the judge asked with a smirk. “Contented with his services?”

  The audienc
e did not pick up the cue. The drama was more compelling than the judge’s insinuating attempts at wit.

  Señora Perez pretended not to notice the double meanings. She assumed the demeanor of a virtuous woman incapable of understanding such things. “His advice was most welcome and sound, thank you. I was able to convince my husband to retreat from this risky business affair.”

  “Why did you not come forward before?” the prosecutor snapped. “This looks most suspicious to me. Perhaps he is your lover, and now you lie to save him.”

  “I did not speak, because I feared my husband would misunderstand that meeting. However, Raoul saw my growing distress and, upon learning the secret I had, insisted I seek out Mr. Knightridge.” She lowered her eyes submissively, as if a husband’s command was law with her.

  “You husband actually believed the innocence of this midnight assignation?”

  “My maid and a manservant were able to attest to my innocence. They were in the drawing room the whole time. I would never meet with a man alone, even on a matter of business. Where I come from, that is not done by ladies.” She turned to the judge. “If you want to speak with the servants, they will explain how it was.”

  “Oh, yes, I am sure they will.” The prosecutor threw up his hands to express his exasperation and disbelief.

  “I do not think that this new evidence is worth weighing heavily,” the judge said to the jury. “Someone killed the Earl of Glasbury, and the woman’s very delayed story does not tell us who did or did not.”

  Julian’s face had turned to stone. Pen knew the reason for his anger. If Señora Perez’s story was believed and Julian was exonerated, the police had another person they could accuse very easily.

  “If I may speak,” Mr. Knightridge said very politely.

  “I think we have heard you speak enough already, sir.”

  “Please, indulge me. The lady has indeed told us who did not kill the earl, and I may be able to shed some light on who did.”

  That certainly got everyone’s attention. Julian’s frown deepened.

  Center stage again, Knightridge spoke lowly, as if confiding to the judge. His words carried to most of the spectators, however. Pen certainly heard them.