Alyssa Everett

by A TrystWith Trouble

  “Out with it, Frye. This is no time to stand on ceremony. If you have information that could bear on Lord Beningbrough’s case, you must say so.”

  “It’s nothing, my lady, except Lord Beningbrough did have that strange look in his eye...” When I skewered Frye with a look of my own, he said, “The truth is, not long after I closed the door behind his lordship, I heard a commotion outside.”

  “A commotion—after Lord Beningbrough went out?”

  Frye nodded. “An awful scuffle, my lady, or so it seemed to me. Quick but violent. Though, as I say, it may be that I was only imagining it, for that’s what I thought at the time. I even said to myself, ‘Frye, that’s just your suspicious nature talking.’ You see, my lady, I’ve never quite trusted Lord Beningbrough, not since I first heard those shameful rumors about him.”

  “You mean about his father.”

  He shook his head. “No, my lady. I mean about Lord Beningbrough, and how he’s ruined more than one innocent young lady.”

  I was too shocked to hide my dismay. “That sounds like vulgar gossip.”

  “I’m sorry, my lady. You’re right, of course. True or not, it isn’t my place to repeat it, or to judge my betters either. It’s only what I’ve heard.”

  “Heard where?”

  “Different places, my lady. From other servants, like Lord Cliburne’s man. I figure he would know. And I’ve heard talk in taverns and from tradesmen as well.”

  Ben, a libertine? Could it be true? It would explain that dreadful caricature in the paper, insinuating that Ben had inherited his father’s morals and that I was his hapless dupe. Ben himself had told me he’d been with a good many girls. What if the freedoms I’d permitted earlier meant nothing more to him than—

  I caught myself. What was I doing? This wasn’t the time to doubt Ben or give in to my fears. I could worry later. Right now, a murderer remained on the loose, and Ben faced the possibility of execution.

  I drew myself up and did my best to look disapproving. “No matter how composed Mr. Mainsforth may have looked when you admitted him today, Frye, I’m convinced he’s the real killer.”

  Sir Francis James strolled up to join us. “What’s that, Lady Barbara?”

  I’d nearly forgotten Sir Francis. As Ben’s legal counsel, he was just the man to take my suspicions seriously. Careful not to reveal the potentially ruinous details of the blackmail plot and Helen’s part in the business, I told him, “There must be a way we can prove who really committed these murders. I have a piece of evidence, one Mr. Dawson doesn’t know about.”

  “What kind of evidence?” the barrister asked with a gleam of interest, as beside him, Frye’s eyes grew round.

  “A notebook that belonged to Sam Garvey, the first victim. On the night he was murdered—”

  “I thought that was an accident,” Frye broke in.

  “I believe he was murdered,” I told Sir Francis, giving Frye an admonishing look, “and so does Lord Beningbrough. Sam Garvey’s last entry in the notebook reads Meet with M. Don’t you see? Mainsforth starts with M. Sam must have had an appointment that night to meet with John Mainsforth.”

  Sir Francis nodded pensively. “One can’t be sure of the identification at this point, of course, but the entry could be significant. Might I see this notebook for myself, Lady Barbara?”

  “Yes, of course. I’m eager to help in any way I can. It’s at Leonard House, in my room there.”

  “I’ll send a messenger for it.” Bowing, Sir Francis left to confer with the duke.

  He’d no sooner gone than Frye gave me an anxious look. “Your pardon, my lady. I’m sure you know better than me...”

  “Yes, Frye?”

  “Again, it’s not my place, but...” Hesitantly, he suggested, “Have you never thought that ‘Meet with M’ could mean ‘Meet with Marquess’?”

  My stomach lurched as if the bottom had dropped out of it. “What?”

  “That’s his lordship’s title, isn’t it, my lady? Marquess of Beningbrough. Mightn’t Sam Garvey have been planning to meet with the marquess?”

  “Of course not.” Helen had made up the rumored connection between Ben and Sam Garvey out of whole cloth. She’d told me so herself. Yet despite my swift denial, I suddenly wished I’d never mentioned the notebook. If even Frye supposed that Meet with M referred to Ben, who could say a jury wouldn’t draw the same conclusion?

  “I’m sorry, my lady.” Frye’s voice was so pitying, it sounded almost loverlike. “I’ve upset you, I can see. But from what I’ve heard, you wouldn’t be the first young lady to develop feelings for the likes of Lord Beningbrough, and it fair makes me sick to think any man would deceive you.”

  “Thank you,” I said dully, too shaken even to come to Ben’s defense.

  “I mean it, my lady. None of the Quality has ever been as kind to me as you have. Even before that time I broke her ladyship’s Egyptian statue and you took the blame yourself, I knew you were special. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Nothing.” His hazel eyes fairly burned with sincerity.

  “That’s...commendable.” After a few more absent commonplaces, I drifted back toward Cliburne and the duke. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate Frye’s loyalty. One couldn’t ask for a more devoted servant. But I’d come to him hoping for some measure of reassurance, and the things he’d said had left me more in doubt than ever.

  Ben

  I spread my arms in a gesture of welcome, a smile pasted on my face. “Come in, come in. It’s not the Royal Pavilion, I grant you, but it’s comfortable enough.”

  The hearty tone and the smile were for my mother’s benefit. She stood on the threshold of my prison cell, clutching my father’s arm, gaping in evident horror. Her eyes were red rimmed, and she was so pale I feared she might faint at any moment. She had fainted, I’d learned from Sir Francis, when my father broke the news of my arrest. I wished for her sake that she hadn’t just had to make the long walk through innumerable gates and dank, foul-smelling passages to my cell, a prison guard in attendance all the way.

  “Don’t look so alarmed, Mama,” I said as my father ushered her inside and the turnkey locked the heavy door behind them. “I’m perfectly well, as you can see for yourself.”

  “Yes, he’s as hale as ever, Margaret,” my father said.

  But I could imagine how she must feel, seeing the inside of Newgate for the first time. It was a grim place of rough black stone and iron bars, made even less habitable by the constant din of lament and the reek of unwashed bodies. At least I was one of the lucky ones, a privileged class of inmate thanks both to my rank and to my current status as untried suspect rather than convicted felon. Most of Newgate’s prisoners were shackled and crowded together in rough wards, while I had my own cell with a grated window, a cot, candles and even a modicum of privacy, since mine was the last cell off the passageway.

  “Oh, Benny,” my mother burst out as soon as the guard’s footsteps shuffled away. “You look dreadful! You’re so thin and pale, and they won’t even let Hawkins attend you to give you a decent shave. And this awful place...!”

  “It’s not so bad, Mama. I have books to read, and I’m allowed visitors. Sir Francis Ames was here just this morning.”

  “But this cell—so small and dark, and not even a fire to warm you! You’ll take your death of chill, I know you will.”

  “He’ll be fine, Margaret,” my father said. “You can’t really believe he’s grown thinner and paler in the space of just twenty-four hours. There’s little I can do about the fire, but I’ll arrange for one of the turnkeys to bring him tea this evening.”

  “It’s quite a large cell, really,” I told her. “At least by Newgate standards. The best to be had. They moved another man out to make room for me, so there’s something to be said for being a duke’s son.”

  Actually, there was a great deal to be said for being a duke’s son, even in my case. My father had already visited twice the day before, once to introduce Sir Francis and then again to f
urnish me with a few creature comforts. He’d brought me books, clean linen and a flask of brandy. He’d even given me brief news of Barbara.

  “She came to see me, you know,” he’d said. “She and Teddy informed me of your arrest. She’s quite out of the common.”

  She was quite out of the common, but hearing him say so had been bittersweet, given the change in my circumstances. “Did she seem much upset?”

  “Most painfully upset, but striving for all the world not to show it.”

  “Yes, that sounds like Barbara.”

  Now my father stood with my mother drooping against him, doing his best to help me convince her that my imprisonment amounted to little more than a youthful adventure. “How did your interview with Sir Francis go?” he asked in a bracing tone.

  “Well enough. He says the case may hinge on whether Lady Helen Jeffords can be persuaded to recant her testimony from the inquest. That’s the principal circumstance linking me to the first murder, and if someone else killed Sam Garvey, it stands to reason that same person most likely killed the newspaper editor too, given that both victims died in the same fashion.” I looked to my mother. “I need you to do me a great favor, Mama, if you would.”

  She lifted her head from my father’s shoulder. “Oh, anything, Ben dear! Anything!”

  “You recall my mentioning Lady Barbara Jeffords? I’d like to speak with her.”

  My mother’s anxious face brightened. “So you do have a tendre for her. Oh, I hoped you might. I’ve been wishing for such a long time now that you would meet a nice girl and settle down. And your uncle Daventry tells me Lady Barbara has good hips and should give you lots of healthy chil—”

  “Never mind what Daventry says,” my father interrupted. “Ben has something he wishes to ask you.”

  “Yes, of course.” My mother turned earnest eyes my way.

  “You mustn’t go telling Lady Barbara I have a tendre for her, Mama.” I did my best to sound stern. “I simply need you to bring her here to see me, since I doubt her father would allow her to come to Newgate unchaperoned.”

  “Of course, dear, if you wish it. I’ll send her a note the instant I arrive home.”

  I thanked my mother with a thin smile. It had taken all my resolve to push for Barbara’s visit. Though a selfish part of me longed to see her again, the rest of me dreaded the interview. I couldn’t offer for Barbara from a prison cell, but I couldn’t honorably leave things the way they were, either.

  News of my arrest was already splashed across every paper in London. Though I hated the thought of exposing Barbara to public insult—having dealt for most of my life with unsavory rumors, I knew how painful it could be—I might still have asked it of her if I could be sure I would clear my name in the end. After all, if any woman alive possessed mettle enough to face down scandal, that woman was Barbara.

  But I wasn’t at all confident I’d get through this. What if the worst should happen? What if I wound up convicted and condemned to hang? I didn’t want her mourning me, haunted for the rest of her days by memories of my execution. And a girl like Barbara would mourn. She was too loyal and too principled not to, especially given her sister’s role in the case against me. The more hope I held out of a future together, the harder it was going to be for her to go on with her life if that future never came.

  Thank God I hadn’t yet made an actual declaration. For Barbara’s own good, the only honorable thing to do was to break it off with her as cleanly and quickly as possible, before our dealings grew any more serious. Then no matter what happened to me, she’d still have her future ahead of her, unfettered by grief and regret. At worst, I’d be a brief, unpleasant memory, a minor bump on her road to happiness.

  My mother glanced about the cell again and her eyes slowly filled with tears. Instead of giving in to them, however, she blinked and said valiantly, “Now that I’ve had a better look at this place, Ben, dear, I begin to think you’ll be quite comfortable after all.”

  Oh, Lord. For once, she was trying to ease my mind. Just how bad was the case against me? What had Sir Francis told my parents about my chances? “I’m sure I will be, Mama.”

  “Yes.” Her voice broke on the single syllable, and she covered her face with her hands. She stifled a sob. “Do excuse me. I must have something in my eye.”

  She turned to flee, only to come up against the iron bars.

  I made a move to comfort her, but my father was already there. “Guard!” he called over my mother’s head.

  With shuffling footsteps, the turnkey reappeared.

  “Pray take Her Grace to the governor’s quarters,” my father said in a voice that brooked no argument. To my mother, he added, “I’ll be along presently, Margaret, once I’ve had a quick word with Ben.”

  She nodded mutely, choking back tears, and followed the turnkey out.

  My father faced me, his expression grim. “A great deal depends on Lady Helen’s testimony.”

  “Yes.” My fate might as well have depended on the weather. Barbara’s sister was just as unpredictable, and every bit as beyond my control.

  “Your mother and Lawson can testify they saw you at home that night. Unfortunately, Sir Francis believes juries are inclined to discount an alibi when it’s furnished by the devoted parent of the accused, and a loyal servant is only marginally more convincing. Besides, it’s possible to argue you left the library unnoticed between the time your mother saw you arrive and the time Lawson delivered Teddy’s message about the murder.” My father paced the length of my cell. “We’ll need Lady Helen’s cooperation if we’re to clear your name. I know the girl is being blackmailed, and I know there’s another man involved. It would help enormously to know why and who.”

  It would also help enormously if I could walk through iron bars or command a pardon from the king. Unfortunately, the world didn’t work that way. “So Barbara told you the whole story, did she? Unfortunately, I haven’t the faintest notion whom Lady Helen was seeing. She didn’t confide in Teddy, and she hasn’t told Barbara, either.”

  At the bitter edge in my voice, my father slanted a questioning glance in my direction. “Is anything amiss between you and Lady Barbara? I sensed a certain lack of enthusiasm when you asked your mother to bring her here.”

  “Nothing’s amiss, except that I’m accused of two murders, her sister is the pivotal witness against me, and just when I’d begun to think I’d found the girl with whom I’m meant to spend the rest of my life, it appears I have no future at all.”

  My father set a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Try not to lose heart, Ben.”

  I twisted free of his touch. Try not to lose heart was easier said than done. Alone in my cell, I’d had too many idle hours in which to rehearse my you’re-better-off-without-me speech for Barbara. I’d had too many hours, too, in which to imagine my fate if I failed to prove my innocence—hearing the sentence pronounced, counting down the days and then the hours until my death, the executioner fitting the white bag over my head, the noose around my neck, the trap door opening...

  When my father remained silent, I realized how ungratefully I was behaving. This time, none of my troubles were his fault. I cleared my throat. “Mama seems to be bearing up better than I expected.”

  He nodded. “She’d be pleased to hear you say that. She wouldn’t want to add to your cares.”

  And I hated adding to my mother’s. How would she endure it if, after all her years of doting overprotection, I ended up swinging at the end of a rope? She had no one to look after but me. For that matter, neither did my father—at least, he had no other heir to take my place. If I died without a son of my own, the dukedom would likely die with me.

  Was that the reason behind his concern? No father wants his son and heir branded a felon, of course, but he hadn’t simply sent representatives like Sir Francis to meet with me. He’d called personally, three times in just two days. He looked worried sick too, a surprising reaction from a man who put his own inclinations ahead of the family honor
and reputation. And to my surprise, I appreciated his visits. In the years since I’d first learned the truth about my father, I’d forgotten how capable and coolheaded he could be.

  The guard’s footsteps approached, and my father straightened. “I’ll speak to the turnkey about providing you with tea this evening.”

  “Thank you, sir, but that isn’t necessary—”

  “It’s necessary if your mother is to enjoy any peace of mind.” He smiled faintly. “Which means it’s also necessary if I’m to enjoy a single moment of peace myself.”

  That wrung a wry laugh from me. “I see your point.”

  “I’ll be back tomorrow, Ben.” For a moment he looked as if he would have liked to set his hand on my shoulder again, but he evidently thought better of it and turned to take his leave.

  I went to the door of my cell and stared out the iron bars, listening as his footsteps died away. I was glad he’d been frank with me about my chances. He was right about my needing Lady Helen’s cooperation.

  Next time perhaps he’d be able to stay a little longer.

  I dropped down on my cot, surprised that his visits had become the high point of my days.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Barbara

  “I don’t see how you can expect me to change my testimony,” Helen said as I drew on my stockings, readying myself for the Duchess of Ormesby’s arrival. “Why should I put myself out for Teddy’s cousin when Teddy broke off our engagement? Am I supposed to be the only person in the world who’s miserable?”

  “Helen, be reasonable.” We’d been having this same conversation for the past day and a half. “This is Ben’s life we’re talking about. You know he hadn’t the slightest acquaintance with Sam Garvey. Besides, I thought you wanted me to be happy.”

  “That was when I was going to be happy too. Now I’ll be an old maid, and it’s all because of Beningbrough and his pigheaded family.” Before I could protest, she raged on, “And Papa feels exactly as I do. He says now that Beningbrough is in prison we should wash our hands of the lot of them.”