“Yet, you left Harry and me a little after eight, according to Missiz Yadkin. It took you four hours to go a few town blocks? With nearly five hours in hand, a circumstantial case could be made that you had ample time to borrow a horse—take one from your own stables, with your groom or coachee already a’bed—and ride out to the Masonborough Road,” Matthew Livesey wondered, chewing on a thumbnail for an anxious moment, and hoping for the best, praying that Osgoode had the most innocent of explanations. “This is so easily solved, Osgoode, if you could, pray, tell us where you were all that time and the name of a witness who could vouch for you.”
“Faction work … wagers and horse racing prospects,” Osgoode stammered, wheedling, and crossed his legs at the knee, his arms on his chest, and Matthew Livesey felt physically ill and evilly chilled.
“Names! Places, an’ times, Osgoode!” Mr Marsden growled.
A fine sheen of perspiration broke out on Moore’s forehead, and he seemed stricken, his mouth agape as he tried to speak.
“Oh, God, Osgoode!” Livesey sorrowfully groaned, stumping over to a chair to plop down, bereft of all illusions.
“Speak up, Osgoode, or there’s a noose in yer future,” Marsden demanded, slamming the flat of his hand on the desk.
“I wish to God I could, your honor … Matthew,” Osgoode managed to croak, turning fish-belly pale, “but sadly I cannot.”
“Hang an’ bedamned then, ye murderin’ bastard!” Marsden cried.
“As God’s my ultimatejudge, sir, on my honor as an English gentleman, and as a Christian as I hope I’ve lived, I am innocent of Harry’s murder,” Osgoode formally, but shudderingly, avowed. “On my sacred word of honor, I knew nothing of the affair. But as an English gentleman, circumstances will not allow me to breach mine oath.”
“Ye dance that into my court, an ye’11 dance th’ Newgate Hornpipe b’fore th’jury’s tea time!” Marsden screeched, shooting to his feet. “Ye’re a lawyer, fer God’s sake. Surely, ye can come up with a better tale than that!”
Osgoode Moore, Esquire, set his visage to nigh a Roman’s stoicism, bit his lips to hold back a sob of self-pity—or fear—that could unman him, but would say no more, bowing his head in resignation.
“Osgoode … !” Matthew Livesey tried to cajole. “Whether you go a gentleman, or a murdering rogue, hung is hung! Without a word for yourself, how do you think people will remember you?”
“Matthew, I wish that I… no,” Moore stubbornly replied.
“So Anne put horns on you, and you’ll look like a fool!” Livesey growled in unnatural heat, and closer to Billingsgate rawness than anyone could recall him uttering. “Divorce the bitch, and take your comedown like a man. Is it the faction you’re concerned about? That Harry’s gone, Thom Lakey’s a languid twit, and if you’re shamed, it’ll all fall apart? Are you too … bloody embarrassed that people will laugh at you and death’s better, ye damned great fool? “
Osgoode left off looking half-strangled but noble, and gawped at Livesey for a second before attempting to reply, and when he did, it was with the same sadly stoic tone. “It’s none of those, Matthew. Believe me, I don’t wish to be tried, or hung if found guilty. But I gave my word, my sacred word, and what’s a gentleman without honor?”
“Alive!” Mr Marsden all but howled. “Ah, ye’re fulla shite, Moore! I think ye really did kill Harry, ye know ye’ll be convicted, but ye want folk t’always wonder ‘bout yer silence!”
“I am innocent, Mr Marsden,” Osgoode wearily insisted. “My God knows that, and I trust that He will take me up, but… to shew myself untrustworthy of the vow I made to… would He, still?”
“Made to a person!” Livesey cried, leaping on the possibility. “A man, or a woman, Osgoode? It is a person, isn’t it!”
Osgoode Moore only shook his head, doggedly silent.
Livesey took a deep breath and began to think that Osgoode was innocent. But God Above, he was the stubbornest sort of stiff-necked fool, as bad as a Charlestonian when it came to his tetchy honor! He was the sort who’d die for it … unlike the majority of so-called gentlemen who swore they might …ifit wasn’t inconvenient!
“Listen, Osgoode,” Livesey said in a softer taking, getting to his feet to go and all but purr in Osgoode’s ear. “No one doubts you are honorable. But think about Anne, man. You swing, and Anne is shot of you, gets away Scot-free with no consequences. There’s not enough time for a Bill of Divorcement in the Assembly,” Livesey said, leaning heavily on the back of Osgoode’s chair. “You’re hung, buried unmarked in a crossroads … and who gets to spend your estate, hey? A convicted murderer has to die intestate, that’s the right of it, is it not, Mr Marsden? Anne’s your closest heir!
“Anne’s a wealthy widow, up to her old tricks among the elite, Osgoode, with hundreds of young hounds baying for a chance with her, to help her spend her ‘clink’ … your ‘clink,’ me lad, among people who think adultery a trifle compared to your crime!”
That prompted Moore to mop his face with his sleeve and waver.
“Finally, Osgoode, there’s the matter of who really murdered Harry,” Livesey beguiled behind the man’s head, “and if you take the blame, well … we’ve run out of suspects. You die as the likeliest, and the one who did it—the one who tried to burn me and mine to the ground—just might show up at your execution, Osgoode, watch you take the high-jump proper, then go home, laughing up his sleeve at what a witless cully you were. Do you want that, Osgoode? Harry betrayed you, yes, but think of the love you had for him once. Don’t we owe Harry justice, Osgoode? No matter his sins?”
“Oh God, Matthew,” Osgoode muttered, swaying, almost delirious. “It’s so tangled. I’ve sinned as much as I was sinned against, but… ’tis such a wondrous thing! Never meant it to happen, but…”
“Mean ye’re confessin’ t’Harry’s death?” Marsden goggled.
“No, not that, Mr Marsden!” Osgoode blurted out, finally. “It’s ironically funny, really …”
“Not from where I’m sittin’, it ain’t!” Marsden acidly said.
“You see—” Osgoode began to say, on the cusp of revelation.
But there came a rapping on the door.
“Bloody burnin’ Hell!” Marsden bellowed. “Not bloody now!”
The rapping came again, softer, as if chastised, but insistent.
“Suff’rin’ shite! Get yer arse in here, damn yer eyes!”
The door creaked tremulously open, and there, to Livesey’s mortification, stood his daughter, Bess, with Biddy MacDougall shrunk back halfway behind her, and both their faces gape-mouth embarrassed!
“Father?” Bess cringingly said, all but whispering.
“Garrh!” Marsden gravelled, bending so low over his spitkid behind his desk that it appeared he was hiding his chagrin over shouting crude Billingsgate at girls.
“Bess, this is hardly the time; we’ve serious matters…”
“We have to speak with you, Father,” Bess said, putting a supportive arm round Biddy MacDougall and dragooning her into the office. “Biddy has vital information that you must—”
“Osgoode?” Biddy wailed.
He’d snapped about at the mention of her name, and risen from his chair.
“Biddy, you mustn’t—!” Moore began to say, before the girl broke free of Bess’s arm and dashed right at him, to fling her arms about his neck and dangle, with her shoes inches off the floor!
“What th’ bloo … pry that girl offhim, somebody, an’ tell me what in Tarnation is goin’ on!” Marsden fumed, chewing vigorously. “Who th’ … what’s yer name, girl?”
“Biddy MacDougall, yair honor, sir,” she piped up shyly, once she had been lowered to her feet with Osgoode’s hands on her waist. “An’ I’ve come tae tell ye that Osgoode Moore couldna killed Mr Harry Tresmayne, sir.”
“Speakin to his character, are ye?” Marsden snapped, “Or do you actually know somethin’?”
“Both, yair honor, sir,” Biddy responded, between an ado
ring glance or two ‘twixt the two of them. “I ken that Mr Osgoode’s too fine a gentleman t’be doin’ such, an’… t’tell ye that he woz ‘cross th’ rivers with me th’ nicht Mr Harry woz shot.”
“Saw him ‘cross … Oh, Hell!” Marsden exclaimed, plopping into his chair in surprise when he twigged to her meaning. “Well, damme! No wonder ye’d go t’yer grave mum, Osgoode. ’twas a young lady’s name ye were protectin’.”
“Mum?” Biddy suddenly fretted. “He kept mum?”
“Would’ve hung fer Harry’s murder, ‘fore he’d say where he was, nor who he was with who coulda cleared him,” Marsden explained.
“Guid Gawd, Osgoode!” Biddy said with a shiver, torn ‘twixt adoration, terror and exasperation. “Ye wouldna save yairself all tae guard ma name? Och, ye wondrous fool, ye’d’ve died for me? Osgoode, ma dear, I love ye mair than life itself, but… let’s hae nae mair o’ that!” She giggled, throwing herself on him again. “I ken ye said ye love me mair than life, as well, but … well, I ne’er expected ye’d try tat prove eet!”
“Ah, Osgoode … Biddy,” Livesey finally had the temerity to intrude on their mutual, blind-to-the-world bliss. “Just how long ago did this, ah… ?”
“Last year, Matthew,” Osgoode beamishly, proudly, told him, at last. “When Biddy came to the house to take measures for that damned gown, yonder. At first, you understand, it was only … talking when she called, sharing some books and such. It began so innocently.”
“Most fool things do,” Mr Marsden wryly observed. Not that anyone was paying much attention to him.
“Even after the gown was done, we’d meet,” Osgoode went on.
“Ev’ry Sat’rday when I come t’town, sirs,” Biddy further said. “I’d call at his law office … returnin’ books I borryed, gettin’ a new’un or twa …”
“I’d find a way, did business take me over the Brunswick, to stop off, was Mr MacDougall tied up at the ferry. Suggested that others should use her talent for dressmaking, ordered some things for mine own wardrobe,” Osgoode chimed in. They left off embracing, but sat close together on matching ladderback chairs, hands still firmly clasped. “I was smitten, sir … Matthew, but I couldn’t help myself. Nor, after getting to know Biddy, did I care to. After a few years of plodding, dull indifference and conditional affections from Anne, well… you can see why I was, ah … I couldn’t dare hope that we could ever really change our situations but…”
“‘Twoz ma fault, I fear, sirs,” Biddy happily confessed. “Oh, I woz sae fashed over Osgoode. Churnin’ in ma boudins when I woz tae see him, frettin’ th’ times betwixt. Silly weepin’ spells sae bad I dinna think I’d live did I hae t’miss him ain mair hour. Bess got th’ bitter end of ain o’ those, th’ day she come callin’ on me for a gown. Then, came a day when I thought I’d bust if I dinna tell him how I felt … sae I did! Thought I’d lose him, him bein’ wed, but och, when we saw how we both felt, weel…”
“You got across the Brunswick? Past Eachan MacDougall?” Mr Marsden puzzled.
“There’s one-hull piraguas a’plenty up-river on Eagle’s Island, sir,” Osgoode told him, “and lots of people use them late at night after the ferry service shuts down. And I have a little shallop of mine own, docked at the north end of town. You can sail across the Cape Fear, then pole through the marshes to the Brunswick, north of Eagle’s Island, where the rice fields aren’t planted yet.”
“And ye never took a ride t’gether this side o’ th’ Cape Fear?” Marsden asked, if only to put the matter to a final rest. “Out the Wrightsville Road, the Masonborough?”
“Once we knew how we felt, sir,” Osgoode Moore swore, “we never took a risk that could harm dear Biddy’s name. Never, in Wilmington.”
“It is kinda ironic,” Marsden mused aloud, leaning far back in his chair, at his ease at last. “Yer wife off sportin’ with Harry, th’ two of ye, well … no wonder ye didn’t have a clue o’ th’ affair ‘til we told ye.”
“I thought / was the betrayer, frankly, your honor,” Osgoode replied. “Too busy to look for clues, even if I had known of their doings. Didn’t spare Anne a second thought.”
“Night that Mr Harry woz killed, yer honor,” Biddy firmly vowed, “ma Bible-oath an’ word o’ honor on eet, too, Osgoode woz with me in Daddy’s hayloft, past midnight or better. Ma daddy woz down tae th’ ferry tavern, dancin’ whisky reels an’ playin’ his tunin’-box with th’ others nigh ‘til mornin’.” Biddy snuggled up, arm-in-arm with clasped hands, to Osgoode, beaming with suchjoy that the both of them seemed to depart the magistrate’s office in spirit, and Osgoode almost purred with contentment that their secret was out.
She slowly lowered her gaze from her adored one’s face to her lap, and stroked her free hand over her middle, which gesture forced Mr Marsden to cough, nigh-strangling on his chaw! Bess, had noticed it too, and she jerked her gaze to the magistrate’s sounds, eyes wide in shock. Marsden, a father many times over, knew that gesture’s significance, and … after he got done hawking his disbelief into his spitkid, sat back up and tipped Bess a cheery wink, putting a finger to his lips to urge her to say nought.
“Hah!” Marsden hooted, relishing the surprise that awaited Mr Osgoode Moore, Esquire. “Seems we’ve two corroborations in one, then. One fer Osgoode, one fer Eachan MacDougall, as well.” And Mr Marsden wore, for an instant, an equally sly grin at the thought of what that worthy’s reaction would be. “Hmm, though …” Marsden sobered. “That leaves us …”
“Oh but… I say!” Matthew Livesey exclaimed. “Biddy’s father cleared, Osgoode as well, and Anne Moore involved but not guilty of it, either … just who the devil did kill Harry?”
Chapter 31
THE MAGISTRATE’S OFFICE featured a spindly-legged settee over to one side, and Matthew Livesey made for it, for his stump was aching something sinful by then, having paced to aid his thinking for most of the morning. Bess slid in beside him, looking concerned for him.
Does it come down to faction, after all? he had to ask himself. It hadn’t been Sim Bates’s revenge, and now Harry Tresmayne’s sinning with Anne Moore, shocking enough in itself, led nowhere. Anne had had absolutely no interest in politics, or her husband, Osgoode’s, strivings to open the franchise to more of North Carolina’s potential property owners and voters, even to win more autonomy for the colony from the Mother Country, or at least its London-appointed Royal Governor.
Yet it had been Anne’s gown, its trimmings about the flowers, that had lured Harry to his death, and how could the rival barons of the Cape Fear have gotten their hands on those?
“It still hinges on the ribbon and the flowers,” Livesey said in a heavy, disappointed voice. “Jemmy Bowlegs’s scouting for me … ’twas a man waited for Harry, a man on a well-shod horse, shod himself in new-ish riding boots, who owns a double-barreled coaching gun.”
“An, ’twas probably a man set fire t’yer house last night, as well,” Mr Marsden gloomily added from behind the desk. “Women don’t go abroad much after dark, not after th’ curfew bell. Not unescorted. Arson can be a woman’s crime, but I can’t see Miz Moore doin’ that.”
“She went out near dark to dispose of the gown,” Livesey said. “Did she go to check on it and found it gone …”
“Osgoode, were ye to home last night?” Mr Marsden asked him. “What-all went on at yer place, anyway?”
“Well, I had court papers to review, things to read up on, and … Harry’s final debtors’ list to go over,” Moore answered. “We both were home the rest of the day, after the gathering at Georgina’s. Anne was above-stairs most of the afternoon, nursing her headache, and only came down round the time that supper was ready. She went outjust the once, to the … ah … necessary, I supposed, after we dined.”
“When she most-like disposed of the gown,” Livesey decided.
“It now appears so, yes, Matthew,” Osgoode agreed. “I did not see her, exactly. We had little to talk about, so right after supper I went back to my library. She might
have gone to her bedchamber to fetch the gown before she went out, then.”
“An’ th’ rest o th’ evenin’?” Marsden idly probed.
“She might have read,” Osgoode answered, frowning heavily, so he could recall exactly, “in the parlor. Oh, she did come in to get some stationery from me, after Thom Lakey left … had some letters to write, or invitations to answer, I’d guess.”
“Thom Lakey came by?” Marsden harumphed.
“For a bit. Dropped by to pay his respects. Stuck his head in to say ‘hello’ to me, then spent most of the time chatting with Anne,” Moore related. “I could hear them in the parlor, singing gossipy as a pair o’ mockingbirds.”
“Rest o’ th’ night?”
“Hmmm … I think it was around ten that she told me she would retire, and went to her chambers. I worked another hour or so, then went to my own round eleven,” Osgoode breezed off. “It had been quite a stern day, altogether, so I went to sleep quickly. Anything after, oh … a quarter-past eleven, I couldn’t say. But for Anne to rise, dress and go out to commit arson … ! That would’ve roused the house slaves, and that to-do would’ve roused me.”
“Might ask o’ them, I s’pose,” Marsden grumpily allowed. “Or there may not be much point.”
“Father,” Bess piped up, shifting on the short settee to face him, “I thought Mr Lakey and Andrew had coached home right after the gathering at Aunt Georgina’s.”
“I’d assumed they had,” Livesey replied, perking up a bit. “We walked halfway home to our place, Thomas and I, to fetch his nephew after he’d seen you home, aye.” To the rest of the room he said, “We were to go out to Lakey’s Lodge tomorrow for dinner after church … get some cuttings from their flower gardens. Was Andrew with him, do you recall, Osgoode?”
“Didn’t see Andrew, no, Matthew.”
“Did he come by coach, then?” Livesey wondered aloud.
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