Margery was looking over her shoulder at the portrait. “Handsome boy,” she said.
“My first husband,” Tess said. “He was…” She paused. Robert had not been her love, she thought, but she had loved him dearly. “Very special to me,” she finished.
“But now you are in love with Lord Rothbury,” Margery said.
Tess’s lips twitched at her maid’s matter-of-fact manner. “Yes,” she said. “It is quite different, Margery.”
“So it seems,” Margery said, her gaze flickering over Tess’s ruined gown once again. She went to the wardrobe and started to sort through Tess’s petticoats.
“Will you be going to the radical meeting this afternoon, ma’am?” she said. She glanced at Tess over her shoulder. Her face was troubled.
Tess jumped. “I didn’t know anyone knew about that,” she said. She felt a stirring of guilt. Today was the date of the largest political rally of the year, but she had not mentioned it to Owen because she had not wanted to stir up trouble between them. She had wanted nothing else to spoil her happiness. Not now, when it was so new and precious and felt so true.
“All of London knows that Orator Hunt is to address the crowds, ma’am,” Margery said. “Spa Fields, isn’t it? You should stay away, ma’am. There’s bound to be trouble.”
“I know,” Tess said. She thought of Owen warning her that Justin Brooke was not to be trusted. But Justin did not need to know that she would be there. No one would know. She could go one last time and make her farewell to the radical cause. She needed to do it for Robert’s sake. This was the last thing that she had to do before she could close the door on the past.
“I swear I’ll be careful,” she said. She looked at the maid’s stubborn face. “It’s the last time,” she said. “I have to say goodbye.”
She pushed Robert’s miniature into her pocket, dressed swiftly and went out.
OWEN WAS LATE COMING BACK from the city. The appointment with the maritime broker at Lloyds had taken longer than he had expected. He did not like the atmosphere on the streets. It felt loaded and dangerous with the promise of trouble. Those people who were out were scurrying furtively, heads down, wanting to reach their destinations as quickly as possible.
Owen had thought about mentioning the meeting at Spa Fields to Tess but had decided against it because he did not want it to appear that he did not trust her. She had given him her word that she would not involve herself in politics again and he had accepted it. But as the carriage rolled through the quiet streets, the wheels echoing ominously on the cobbles, he felt a clutch of fear about his heart, a question impossible to avoid, difficult to answer. He was not sure if he really did trust Tess to have abandoned her political affiliations. Her devotion to the radical cause had been a part of her life for so long. It had been fundamentally important to her and to the person she was.
“Where is Lady Rothbury?” he demanded, as he strode into the hall at Clarges Street, throwing his gloves down onto the table and loosening his great-coat. He wanted to hear that Tess was in the drawing room, or perhaps shopping with Joanna Grant. Then the shadow of doubt that dogged his heels could be put to rest.
“Her ladyship is from home, my lord,” Houghton said. “She left several hours ago.”
Cold fear grabbed Owen’s heart. “Did she tell you where she was going?” he asked.
The butler shook his head, his long face growing even longer.
“Did she call a hackney?” Owen could feel both his anger and his fear rising sharply now.
“She went to the political meeting.” It was Margery who spoke up from the shadows of the hall. She came forwards, bobbing Owen a curtsy. “Your pardon, my lord. Lady Rothbury has gone to Spa Fields to hear Orator Hunt speak. She said…” Margery hesitated. “She said that she had to make an end. She took the miniature with her, sir.”
“The miniature?” Owen questioned.
“Of her late husband, sir. Mr. Barstow,” Margery said. “She said she had to say farewell.”
Owen felt simultaneously vastly relieved and almost blinded by anger. So Tess was saying goodbye to the cause she had held fast to for so long. He felt a huge tenderness for her swell inside him, but it was almost eclipsed by anxiety and dread. If Brooke should see her, if Sidmouth’s men should identify her, then this time Tess would be undone. They would have the evidence they needed to link her to the radical cause. And Sidmouth would without a doubt be using this opportunity to incite the crowds to riot so that he could arrest the most prominent radicals and crush the movement once and for all. It was foolhardy in the extreme of Tess to go, even if she had felt driven to it.
He grabbed his coat again.
“Do you require the carriage, my lord?” Houghton asked.
“No,” Owen said. “I’ll take a horse. It’s quicker.” He would never be able to drive through a rioting mob, he thought grimly. They would smash the coach and then he would be obliged to shoot someone and the whole thing would become even more of a disaster than it already promised to be.
It was a shade darker out on the streets, the short winter afternoon turning to evening. The wind cut like a blade. As he rode back into the city Owen saw the first signs of trouble. There were bands of drunken men roaming the streets armed with clubs; there were carriages broken in the road and set on fire, windows smashed, shops looted. Rolls of black smoke mingled with sudden bursts of flame. And everywhere there was the feeling of violence hanging in the air.
Scraps of paper were fluttering in the wind, pamphlets and cartoons. Owen leaned down and grabbed one. His heart contracted. It was a caricature of Lord Sidmouth bestriding the country, trampling the people beneath the heel of his boot. It was signed in that unmistakable black scrawl, Jupiter. Owen jumped down from the horse and grabbed another. There was another, and another, dozens of Jupiter’s cartoons, vicious incitements to violence. There was an element of cruelty in them that Owen had never seen before, their humour gone and in its place a raw anger that made his heart jolt. This had to be Tess’s work. It could be no other. Owen felt as though he had never really known her at all.
A chill disillusionment swept through him. Tess had given him her word that she had abandoned the caricatures and he had believed her sincere. Now he found she had been sketching these ever since they had wed. He had thought that they had built up something very honest and real between them, but Tess evidently had older, deeper loyalties and all the time she had been true to them and not to him. She had deceived him from the first and she had never really stopped. Owen tasted the bitterness of betrayal and savage disappointment. He was angry with Tess but he was even angrier with himself for believing in her.
It was then that he caught sight of her, cloaked, scurrying down a side alley. For a second the wind blew back her hood and the faint light gleamed on her hair before she raised her hand to pull the hood back into place. Owen turned his horse. He caught her from behind, reaching down to capture her about the waist and swing her up onto the horse in front of him. She screamed and spun around, her knife at his throat, and he closed his hand so hard about her wrist that she dropped it with a clatter on the cobbles.
“Owen,” she said on a breath of profound relief. “Oh, thank God.”
He did not reply, could not. He was so angry with her and yet he was shaking with relief that she was safe. She was trembling too.
“It’s terrifying out here,” she said.
“What did you expect?” Owen said savagely, and she heard the note in his voice and fell silent.
It took only fifteen minutes to reach Clarges Street and they did not speak once on the journey. Owen rode into the mews, handed the horse over to the groom and gave it a grateful stroke on the nose. Tess was watching him, her eyes wide, her face troubled. There was a long rent in her cloak and her gloves were dirty and torn. Seeing the evidence of the physical danger she had placed herself in, Owen felt his temper soar.
“Owen…” she said, as he practically dragged her through the entrance
hall and into the library, slamming the double doors behind them. “I’m sorry.” Her blue eyes, so wide, so honest, touched his face. “Please let me explain.”
She had tried that last time, Owen thought bitterly, and it had worked. He had believed her. No more, though.
“You told me you would never attend another meeting,” he ground out.
Her gaze fell. “I wanted to go to say goodbye,” she said softly. She opened her hand. Something sparkled as she cast it down on the table. He saw it was a locket.
“The radical cause was Robert’s cause,” she said. She looked up suddenly and Owen’s heart shifted in his chest at the sincerity in her eyes. “I was saying farewell.”
Almost he believed her. He wanted to believe her, but he could not because there were the cartoons with their vicious incitement to violence. He put his hand into the pocket of his coat and drew out the drawings, letting them scatter on the table.
“What of these?” he demanded.
Tess nodded. Her expression was odd, he thought, distressed, but a little furtive. “These are not my work,” she said.
“Please.” Owen felt a rush of contempt. He had not expected her to lie. “They are signed Jupiter, are they not? What is this, Tess?” His voice grated. “Just another betrayal?”
“No!” Her voice rang clear. There was a slight frown between her eyes now. “I tell you, I did not draw these!” Her gaze searched his face. Her voice dropped. There was flat calm in it now. “You don’t believe me,” she said.
“No,” Owen said. “Of course I don’t believe you! You gave me your word you would not attend a political rally and yet I find you there despite your promise, despite the danger. You gave me your word you would never draw these again—” he ripped one of the cartoons in two “—and yet here they are with your signature on them.”
“You don’t trust me.” Her eyes had not left his face. “You can. Owen, please—”
The library door burst open.
“Yes?” Owen snapped, not taking his eyes off Tess.
“My lord.” The quiver in Houghton’s voice was more fear than outrage. “There are soldiers here—” They were already pushing past Houghton into the room, filling it with a blur of red coats.
“We are here on Lord Sidmouth’s orders to arrest Lady Rothbury on a charge of treason and sedition.” The young captain of the dragoons looked nervously from Owen to Tess and back again.
Owen saw Tess turn chalk-white. She swayed, clutching the edge of the table to steady herself. The remaining cartoons scattered to the floor like confetti.
Owen tore his gaze from Tess’s face and stared down the captain. The only thing he could do now was to bluff and hope that the man would be sufficiently intimidated to back off. It was the biggest gamble of his life and he could feel the tension tight across his shoulders.
“Don’t be ridiculous, man,” he said, very coldly. “Lady Rothbury a criminal? Your wits have gone begging.”
“Lord Sidmouth’s orders, sir.” The man was dogged. “There are political cartoons circulating that are her work—” he gestured to the ragged papers on the floor “—and she was witnessed attending the meeting at Spa Fields earlier this afternoon. We are here to take her to the Tower of London, my lord, so that Lord Sidmouth may question her further.”
Owen looked at Tess. For a moment he saw abject horror in her eyes. He remembered in that moment what Tess had confided to him about her fear of the dark, the door closing on her, locking her into Brokeby’s nightmare. He thought of the gaol and the terror and the darkness and the locked doors. He felt the despair roll over him. He knew what life was like in a British gaol. He had been there before. Sidmouth’s methods would not be gentle. He could deal with that. Tess could not. Whatever she had done, he would never let that happen to her.
“The cartoons are mine,” Owen said. “I am the man Lord Sidmouth seeks.”
Tess made an involuntary movement. He heard her gasp. Her eyes were wide and terrified. Owen gestured to her to be silent. He kept his gaze on the Captain of the Dragoons. “I am an American, a known sympathiser with the reformers’ cause,” he said. “I was a prisoner of war a mere two years ago for fighting against the British.”
Tess started forwards. “Owen—” she said.
Owen shook his head very sharply. “Don’t say anything, Teresa.”
He turned back to the captain. “I am afraid I have been working against the government from within,” he said. “As Sidmouth’s man I had access to a great deal of useful information.”
A ripple went through the soldiers like wind through the grass. At least half of them looked as though they wanted to shoot him on the spot. The captain was dithering now, uncertain what to do. Owen held his gaze. Tess had obeyed him; she was standing quite still, but there was tension in every line of her slender body and her eyes were riveted on his face.
Owen picked up the cartoons and let them slide through his fingers. “What are you waiting for?” he said to the captain. “I’ve confessed. I am the man you seek. Lady Rothbury is and always has been innocent.”
“My lord.” The captain looked confused. “Lord Sidmouth—”
“I assure you,” Owen said, “that Lord Sidmouth will be very happy to have me in place of my wife.”
The captain drew himself up. “Very well,” he said. “We shall see what his lordship says.” He turned to his men. “Take him away.”
Tess moved then, running forwards into his arms even as the soldiers moved to surround him.
“No!” Owen felt her tears hot against his cheek, heard her agonised whisper. “No! I won’t let you do this!”
“It’s better this way.” For a moment Owen held her tight and close, so close, against his heart, then he put her from him with iron control. Any more and he knew he would be lost. As he stepped back they were pulling him roughly away from her and the distance between them was lengthening even as Tess held her hands out to him in a vain gesture.
“I love you,” she said. “I love you so much. You made me whole again.”
Owen heard the words long after they had taken him away.
THE WATCH WAS CALLING TWO in the morning but Tess could not sleep. She had not slept for seven nights now, not since the soldiers had taken Owen away. She had not eaten either. Joanna and Merryn fussed over her. Lady Martindale, suddenly her staunchest support, called upon her each day. None of them could get her to eat or even speak. Because there was nothing that she could say.
She had gone to Lord Sidmouth the morning after Owen had been arrested and she had told the Home Secretary that he had got the wrong man, that he knew she was the guilty party and that he should let Owen go and take her instead. She told him she knew that Justin Brooke had betrayed her. She even offered to draw some cartoons for Sidmouth to prove that she was Jupiter. She had snatched his quill up from the desk and drawn a few quick lines, and Sidmouth had sat back in his chair and had smiled indulgently at her as though she were no more than a featherbrained female and told her that it must have been a frightful shock to her to discover that her husband was a traitor but what did she expect when he had been a prisoner of war. Leopards, Sidmouth had said, puffing on a pungent cigar, never changed their spots.
Tess had been furious and had pointed out that Owen had fought for the British at Trafalgar and that he had sworn his allegiance when he had taken his oath to the king, but Sidmouth had only shrugged. He would not let her see Owen, even though she had humbled her pride and begged.
“Why is he doing this?” Tess had wailed later, abandoning her reserve and crying all over Joanna and Alex. “He knows full well it was me! Why is he going to punish Owen instead?”
And Alex, who was looking grimmer than Tess had ever seen him, had said, “Because he could not hang you, Tess. He couldn’t hang the daughter of the Earl of Fenner. Yes, he knows you were Jupiter, but he needs a scapegoat. And he has the perfect one in a man whom he can remind everyone was born a foreigner.”
Tess had unde
rstood then, and her world had caved in on itself, extinguishing the light and hope forever. Because she knew that Alex was right. Owen had given himself up for her and he was indeed the most perfect person for Lord Sidmouth to blame.
Even Lady Martindale had gone to Sidmouth to petition him on behalf of her great-nephew, but Sidmouth had been as unaffected by her pleas as he had been by Tess’s. And then Tess had heard that Rupert Montmorency had been boasting in his cups that he had conspired against Owen in the hope that Lady Martindale would change her will to leave everything to him, and that after Owen’s death he would petition the courts for the Rothbury title as well. Tess had been so enraged that she had stormed into White’s, past all the gentlemen who said she could not enter because she was a female, and had poured a glass of port all over Rupert, ruining his cravat and his silver lace waistcoat. So everyone was talking about her all over again. But she did not care because nothing mattered except saving Owen.
Now Tess sat by the window watching the cold winter moonlight flicker across the darkened garden and she felt lonelier than ever in her life, empty and alone down to her soul. She tried to reach out to Owen through the dark, to imagine where he might be and what he might be doing but she could not sense his presence. She felt smothered by the house and by all the old musty drapes and those damned statues with their blank eyes. She hated it. She had to get away. She had to think.
She went over to her dresser and took out her drawing book with the sketch of Owen she had done when first she had gone to him to ask him to marry her. She traced the lines of his face, the slash of his cheekbones, the fall of hair across his forehead. Impossible to imagine that she might never see him again. Unacceptable to think that Sidmouth might hang him for a crime he had not committed. She could not bear to think of it; she could not bear to lose him when she had only just found him.
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