by Jane Goodger
Jeffrey sat nervously, looking around the crowd as if he might see a ghost. He most assuredly would, Charles thought. Jeffrey was at the opposite side of the bench from him, and would often stand and pace back and forth. The man didn’t look well. No, not at all. The past weeks had taken a toll on him. Dark smudges marred his face below his eyes, and the creases on either side of his mouth had deepened. It was all so very gratifying.
“Jeffrey,” Charles boomed, delighted when Jeffrey actually jumped. “Who do you have your money on this year?”
Looking slightly annoyed, Jeffrey said, “Thames.”
“I’ve got London. Won the last two years and they look strong again this one. I hope you didn’t bet too much.”
“I actually didn’t bet at all this year,” Jeffrey said.
“Good man.” Charles winked at Marjorie, who was clearly trying to suppress a smile. They sat inches apart, a frustrating thing for a man who knew what lay beneath all those frothy layers of silk and lace. Dorothea, glaring at him, sat on the opposite side of Marjorie next to Jeffrey, as if daring him to as much as touch her daughter’s hand. He did, of course, his pinky finger on hers. He occasionally moved it back and forth, feeling ridiculously aroused by that innocent caress.
He couldn’t help but stare at her mouth, her breasts, the outline of her legs. He couldn’t stop all his carnal thoughts, not when he knew how she tasted, how she sounded when she came. But he did try to hide those thoughts whenever Dorothea looked his way.
Taking a deep breath, Charles forced himself to look at the Thames flowing languidly by. Spectators lined both banks, but Charles had always preferred the stands. A young girl, curls bouncing, ran after her older brother on the grassy strip between the stands and the river, and Charles couldn’t help wondering if he had seen Marjorie when he was a much younger man on this very spot. She wouldn’t have been much older than that little girl chasing her brother. It made him feel a bit old.
“Do you think I’m old?” he asked, suddenly feeling unsure.
“Yes. Ancient.” The starting cannon sounded and she clapped her hands. “Oh, good. The Grand Challenge has begun.” She picked up her glasses and peered through them up the river.
“It’s a bit soon to see who’s ahead,” Jeffrey said.
Marjorie dropped the glasses and stared at her cousin. “I wasn’t watching for rowers, I was trying to get a glimpse of the queen.”
She handed the glasses to Jeffrey. “Here. I don’t much care who wins.”
Charles leaned back on his elbows and tilted his head to the sun, closing his eyes. He hadn’t felt so warm since leaving Africa. Soon, the wealthiest Londoners would be leaving the city and heading to the cooler countryside.
“Once we’re married, we can go visit my brother in Nottingham. Much cooler there.”
“I’d like that,” Marjorie said, looking back at him and smiling. The large brim of her hat cast a shadow on much of her face, revealing only those lovely lips of hers. God, he wanted nothing more than to draw her down on top of him and kiss her silly.
“We haven’t established the fact that there will be a wedding,” Dorothea interjected with pursed lips, but there was slightly less bite in her tone lately. Charles had a feeling he was winning the old lady over by helping to plan Jeffrey’s demise. The man was in a state of complete nerves. He was continuously looking about, and more than once grabbed up the glasses to examine someone more carefully. No doubt anyone with red hair was enough to drive the man close to the edge.
Like a subtle wave, the crowd’s attention toward the race grew, until it was obvious the placement of the crews would soon be apparent. “Who’s leading?” Charles asked Jeffrey, who still held the glasses.
“London,” Jeffrey said with disgust, snapping down the glasses. “And Thames nowhere in sight. Looks like Eton’s coming up, though. It’ll be a close one.”
Indeed, the crews seemed to be almost even. Everyone on the hill stood, and the shouts of encouragement grew louder the closer the men got to the finish line, the “plish” of the oars entering the water at the catch becoming ever louder. “Come on! Come on, lads, you can do it,” Charles shouted, oblivious to the startled look Dorothea gave him.
“He does like his sports,” Marjorie said, laughing, then shouted, “Come on, lads.”
A shot rang out, marking the end of the race and London’s win.
Marjorie stood and took off her hat, waving it in front of her as if to create a breeze. Charles watched as George, having seen her signal, stepped from behind a small group of people, who looked suspiciously like Mr. Stavers and his family, and walked up the hillside until he was standing quite alone, looking down on them.
“Mother,” Marjorie said, looking up the rise in the general direction of where George stood, wearing his ridiculous green jacket and orange vest. “Is that Lord Sewall? I haven’t seen him in ages.”
Dorothea looked up the hill. “Where, dear?”
“There.”
Jeffrey looked, just as they’d planned, and turned a frightening shade of gray.
“Oh no, it’s not,” Marjorie went on. “I wonder why he doesn’t come to the regatta anymore? He always enjoyed them so. Do you remember the balls they used to hold after Henley—”
“Marjorie,” Jeffrey said, still staring at George. “Look up there. At that man. Do you see him?”
This is it, she thought. Her cousin looked like a man about to break. Marjorie thought back to Jeffrey’s words: I am a terrible person. It’s best you remember that. Had he been trying to tell her something, hint at something that was to come?
“That’s not Sewall, Jeffrey. Sewall had gone quite bald the last I saw him.”
“No. To the right. Higher up. That man standing there by himself. He’s . . . staring at us.”
Marjorie squinted her eyes and next to her she thought she detected a small noise from Charles, as if he were stifling laughter. “What man? I don’t see anyone there. What does he look like?”
Jeffrey began to sweat, and Marjorie maintained her innocent composure. Everything rode on this moment. If Charles was right, Jeffrey would beg for it all to end. From the look of her cousin, he seemed ready to rid his soul of the guilt that was no doubt eating away at him. No matter what he’d done, Marjorie refused to believe he was purely evil. She’d known Jeffrey all her life, and if George hadn’t told her what he’d remembered, she would have had a difficult time believing Jeffrey capable of such an evil act.
His voice shaking noticeably, Jeffrey said, “He’s wearing a . . . a green coat with an orange vest. He has, oh God, he has red hair.”
Marjorie looked at Dorothea and at him, as if confused. “I don’t see anyone like that. Do you, Mother?”
“What? I wasn’t paying attention,” Dorothea said, sounding bored.
“It’s George. By God, you cannot tell me you don’t see him. He’s looking right at me.” Jeffrey stopped as if choking. “He just waved at me. Just now. Right there.” He pointed, his hand shaking so badly he could hardly keep it up.
Marjorie laid a hand on her cousin’s arm. “There’s no one there, Jeffrey,” she said, making her face the picture of concern. “No one.” She turned to Charles. “Do you see who he’s talking about?”
“No,” Charles said, pretending to scan the hill. “My God, Mr. Penwhistle, you look as if you’re going faint.”
“He’s haunting me,” Jeffrey muttered. “I see him everywhere I go.” He looked at Marjorie and Charles as if desperate to get them to believe him. “I saw him at the library, on Market Street. He was walking with that girl he was engaged to.”
“Lilianne Cavendish?”
“Yes, her. And I saw him standing in the window at your house. You remember that.”
“Yes, I do. But we didn’t see him, did we, Mother?”
“What poppycock,” Dorothea said, sounding angry.
“I tell you he’s haunting me.”
“Don’t say such a thing,” Marjorie said. “George c
an’t haunt you because he’s not dead.”
“How do you know?” Jeffrey said, looking up at the rise again, then crying out when he realized the man he’d been staring at had disappeared. “He was there. Oh my God. I can’t take any more. I can’t. He’s haunting me.”
“Stop saying that,” Marjorie said. “It’s awful and not true.”
“It is true. He’s dead and he’s haunting me.”
“He’s not dead. How could you possibly say such a thing? How could you possibly know such a thing?”
“Because I saw him die,” Jeffrey said brokenly. He lowered his head, and added softly, “I was there.”
“What are you saying, Mr. Penwhistle?” Charles asked. “How could you have kept this to yourself and let your aunt and cousin suffer these past weeks searching for him?”
“He was so stupid, so gullible. So goddamn undeserving. It wasn’t fair.”
“What are you talking about?” Marjorie asked, feeling sick inside. For all that she’d hoped and planned for this moment, now that it had come, she truly wished Jeffrey hadn’t been involved.
“I was the heir,” Jeffrey said, looking from one to the other. “For the first ten years of my life, I was the heir. And then he was born. He ruined everything, don’t you see? I was the heir.”
“My God,” Charles said. “What did you do, man?”
Jeffrey buried his head in his hands. “I wish I’d never done it. You have to believe me. I wish I hadn’t hired those men. I should have stopped them, I should have stopped them,” he said, finally retching on the ground.
“But you didn’t.” George, accompanied by another man, had come up behind them. “You led me to those men. You left me to die. Why, Jeffrey? I don’t understand. I thought you were my friend. My best friend.”
“George?” Jeffrey looked from George to the others in the small group. Marjorie grabbed her brother’s hand, and Jeffrey’s gaze followed the gesture. Realization slowly dawned, until it looked as if Jeffrey would retch again. “You tricked me. All of you.”
“Mr. Penwhistle, I am arresting you for the crime of attempted murder. I need you to come with me, sir.”
“What?” Jeffrey looked disbelievingly at the man, finally recognizing him as the constable who had been to his home when George had first disappeared.
“Jeffrey, please do not make a scene,” Dorothea said. “It’s bad enough you vomited in public. I’ll send a note over to your mother so she knows where you are. Good-bye, Jeffrey.”
“Aunt, what do you mean? What’s happening? I did nothing. I never laid a hand on him.” Jeffrey looked at the constable who had a firm hand on his arm. “Unhand me, you cur. You’ve made a terrible mistake. Do you realize who I am?”
“Please come quietly, sir. If what you say is correct, you’ll be home by supper,” the constable said soothingly.
Jeffrey lifted his chin. “Right, then. Still, I will talk to your supervisor.”
“I’ll make certain of it, sir,” the officer said.
As the constable started drawing Jeffrey away, her cousin looked back at the group with pure loathing, and Marjorie couldn’t suppress the chill that crawled up her spine.
Dorothea turned her back on her nephew and the rest followed suit, mentally dismissing him.
“That was extremely distasteful,” Dorothea said, looping her arm through George’s. “You did very well these past weeks, George. You have restored my confidence.”
George smiled, and Marjorie felt tears pressing on the back of her eyelids. She hadn’t heard Mother say a kind thing to George in years. Perhaps nearly losing him had softened her a bit.
“And for God’s sake, take off that hideous suit of clothes when we get home.”
Marjorie stifled a laugh. She never would understand her mother.
Chapter 20
Just thirteen years earlier, Jeffrey Penwhistle would have been sentenced to death by hanging. But in 1861, Parliament decided attempted murder was best punished in other ways and England had ended transportation to distant penal colonies. So at least Mrs. Penwhistle had the convenience of visiting her son in Newgate. No one else visited him.
One month after his arrest, he’d been tried and convicted of the crime of attempted murder. He was, in a word, stunned. How could he be convicted of a crime he hadn’t committed? He hadn’t laid a hand on George. It had been two thugs—criminals that had disappeared into the bowels of St. Giles. George had testified, but perhaps the most damning testimony came from the constable and Lady Penwhistle who had heard Jeffrey confess to the crime. The jury deliberated for twenty minutes.
Two weeks after the trial, Charles arrived, special license in hand, and demanded to see Dorothea. He’d hardly seen Marjorie these last few weeks, and certainly not alone. The family had been in the throes of a terrible scandal, and had forgone any activities outside the home. They hadn’t even ventured into Hyde Park. Charles understood, of course, for the newspapers had been filled with lurid details of the murder attempt. George had become something of a hero, for not only surviving the attack, but for participating in such an ingenious plan to incriminate Jeffrey. The details came from Jeffrey himself, who seemed rather to enjoy his celebrity and who, perhaps, thought by telling his story he would evoke some sympathy. His plan quite backfired, for people delighted in his downfall and cheered when he was convicted.
Charles had not attended the trial that last day. He’d spent it instead searching for a suitable townhouse to purchase. His rented one would never do, and he wanted something that would be airy and comfortable—and large enough for a family of six.
Now that he had a home and the license, he need only convince his future bride’s mother that she should wholeheartedly approve their match—in spite of the terrible history between their families.
He was asked to wait in a small sitting room with rose-colored cushions, delicate furniture, and fragile-looking porcelain figurines resting upon every surface. The room made him decidedly nervous; one wrong move and he would destroy some priceless heirloom. He had no doubt Lady Summerfield felt a bit of delight when she told her butler to escort him to this room.
He sat, albeit carefully, upon the edge of a chair, fearing it would collapse beneath him. When Lady Summerfield entered, he stood, causing the chair to move into a small spindly table, which in turn caused the figure of a lady holding a small dog to wobble precariously. Lady Summerfield smiled in satisfaction—or at least that was how it seemed to Charles.
“Thank you for seeing me, my lady.”
Dorothea nodded, then sat upon a chair opposite. He couldn’t help but notice that she looked nearly as out of place in the feminine haven as he did. She indicated he should sit and he did, smiling grimly.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit today, Mr. Norris?”
“You must know, my lady. I’ve come to ask for your daughter’s hand. Again.”
She raised one bushy eyebrow as if surprised. “I told you I would think on it, sir.”
“Yes, ma’am, but that was some weeks ago. And now I would like the deed done. I’ve purchased a townhouse on Piccadilly and procured a special license.”
Dorothea tilted her head as if confused. “How presumptuous of you, sir.”
“May we stop this pretense, please? You know your daughter and I will marry, with or without your permission. Marjorie would like you to support our marriage and be at our wedding. It is my wholehearted wish as well.”
The lady’s eyes grew sharp and Charles thought he’d made a tactical error. “You behaved very badly toward my daughter, sir. Do you forget I found you in her room? Thankfully, no ill consequence of that evening occurred, so there is no reason to marry. To treat a woman with such disrespect does not bode well for you as a husband.”
“Lady Summerfield, I fear I have a confession to make.”
Dorothea lifted her chin and Charles took a bracing breath. “Oh?”
“I lied to you before. Your daughter is a virgin still.”
/> Dorothea’s eyes grew wide and her fury was palpable. Very much like the evening she’d caught them together, she opened her mouth and closed it, as if she were about to say something so horrid her genteel tongue couldn’t form the syllables. And then, she smiled. “I can hardly be angry at you for not ruining my daughter, can I?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Never lie to me again.”
“I will not.”
Lady Summerfield stood and Charles hastily followed suit. “St. Paul’s is available next Saturday if you are.”
There could only be one way the lady had known such a thing; she’d obviously made inquiries. “Yes. Of course I am. Thank you, my lady,” Charles said, beaming his future mother-in-law a smile.
Lady Summerfield looked as if she were about to leave the room, but turned, hesitantly. “Will your mother have a chance to be in town in that time?”
“It is my dearest wish that my parents be at my wedding, ma’am.”
Lady Summerfield nodded, her expression unreadable. “Very well.”
The night before the wedding, Dorothea came to see Marjorie, an awkward interview in which Marjorie assured her she needn’t continue when it was clear what the interview was about.
“I sense your marriage will be far different from mine,” Dorothea said. “I do hope so.”
For some reason, that small admission touched Marjorie. Her mother had never said an unkind word about her father, though she had often wondered if her parents had ever felt love for one another.
“I know tomorrow will not be easy for you, but I’m very glad you will be there, Mother. It would be purely awful if you were not.”