by Louise Allen
‘That is appalling,’ Lady Radcliffe said. ‘Why did your parents not insist you marry?’
‘Because Papa said he had other plans for dear Elliott and anyway, I said if they tried to make me marry him I’d scream all the way to the altar.’
I must have moved because Sir William put his hand on mine and squeezed, just for a second. At my feet the clerk was writing furiously in some kind of shorthand. Focus, I told myself.
‘Tell me about Doctor Talbot,’ Lady Radcliffe’s voice was firm but sympathetic. She was a good interrogator, I realised, admiring the way she kept the pace up, sweeping Annabelle along. ‘You loved him, didn’t you? He was very kind, I imagine.’
‘He said it would be all right, he made it all right. After Elliott… I thought he cared.’
‘I am sure he did. You were his patient, after all.’
‘I thought he loved me,’ Annabelle spat out and stood, pushing at the tea table so it shook, rattling the cups. ‘And all the time he was a disgusting… disgusting pervert. And he’d touched me. I felt so dirty.’
Elliott had as good as raped her but it was Talbot, who had only touched her as a doctor must, who was the pervert. I told myself it was how she had been brought up, that she was not to blame for her prejudices. Then I remembered that she had killed the man.
‘Dreadful,’ James’s mother said. ‘How did you find out about him?’
Annabelle was pacing up and down, actually wringing her hands. ‘I overheard Papa talking to Mama that morning, early, about two o’clock. I couldn’t sleep, I wanted to talk to someone, wanted my baby, wanted Philip, but Mama said I had to forget everything, not talk about it, pretend none of it had happened. I got up to go down to the kitchen for some hot milk and I heard them in their bedchamber. Papa had just come in and he left the door ajar.’
‘Take your time, dear,’ Lady Radcliffe said. I heard a soft sigh of gratitude from the clerk, trying to keep up with the torrent of words.
‘He was angry. A clerk in Mr Salmond’s office was supposed to give him some information but he’d been to his lodgings and the man had hanged himself. Papa was furious, said he had invested a lot of time and money in the man and that he was a wretched molly and sodomite and… and Mama was shocked and said, did he know who his associates were and was there any danger he would have talked to them?’
‘You knew what he meant?’ Lady Radcliffe asked and this time there was an edge to her voice that hadn’t been there before.
‘One of my friends – her brother had to go away because he’d been caught at some awful place where men like that go. Penelope told me about it. I didn’t believe her at first, it sounded so sordid, but then she showed me a book she’d found in his room…’
‘What else did your father say?’ The older woman was steering her expertly, I thought.
‘That this man’s lover was Philip. My Philip. And that he wouldn’t dare say anything because Papa would make such a scandal that he would lose all his patients and have to flee abroad. And I went back to my room and was sick.’
‘And then?’ Expressions of sympathy were obviously beyond Lady Radcliffe, but Annabelle didn’t seem to notice.
‘I waited until my maid came to wake me up and I pretended I had a headache and wanted to stay in bed. Mama came, but I suppose I didn’t look well… Anyway, she told everyone not to disturb me, so I waited until they were having breakfast then I crept out and through the window into the back garden and out to the mews and I found a hackney carriage and it took me to Philip’s house.’
‘You knocked on the front door?’ Lady Radcliffe asked. Clever, I thought, she is checking the story.
‘I saw the light was on in his consulting room, so I went to the side and he let me in. He was angry with me for coming so I told him what Papa had said and he… He cried.’
Oh hell. The poor man learned that his lover had killed himself, not with compassion from a friend, but brutally from this girl. I had thought that at least Talbot died without knowing that.
‘And I... I pleaded with him to say to wasn’t true, but he pushed me away and I knew it was and then…’ For a moment I thought Annabelle wasn’t going to be able to continue. But she said, all of a rush, ‘I don’t remember very much. One moment he was standing there and his face was all blubbery and ugly and then he was on the rug and there was blood and a mess and I was holding a poker.’
She trailed back to the tea table and I held my breath, ready to jump up, but all she did was stare at Lady Radcliffe. ‘I don’t understand why I was holding a poker.’
‘I believe you must have hit him with it, Annabelle,’ Lady Radcliffe said.
‘I killed him?’ I expected tears, a collapse, the realisation of what she had done. Then Annabelle Reece laughed. ‘Good. I am glad.’
I struggled for understanding, not to be as much of a bigot as her society had made her. She’s in shock, I told myself. She was seduced, betrayed, forced into hiding, made to give away her baby and then had to confront the knowledge that the man she loved was something she had been taught was repellent.
My nails were biting into the palm of my hand and the pain pulled me back. Lady Radcliffe reached for the bell rope at her side and a large, motherly-looking woman came in.
‘You’re upset,’ the woman said. ‘Come along and lie down, dear.’ Her voice was kind, but I wouldn’t have wanted to argue with her. One of the men from the closet opposite came out, apparently unarmed, and followed them as Annabelle went meekly with the woman.
‘One of the matrons from a charity hospital I support,’ Sir William said as we stood up and made our way out of concealment. ‘She is used to managing violent or distressed patients. That is a very tragic case.’
‘It is possible,’ the lawyer said, ‘that it was self-defence. Talbot might have turned on her when he heard his lover was dead.’
‘No. Nothing points that way.’
‘Miss Lawrence, do you think that young woman should hang? Or be confined to Bedlam for what is left of her life?’
No, of course I didn’t. She needs psychiatric help and she isn’t going to get it, I thought. ‘But what is the alternative?’
‘Private secure care for the rest of her life. Her father can afford it,’ Sir William said, his face grim.
Another life ruined. Then I gave myself a mental shake. We couldn’t simply let her go – what about the next person who upset her when she was within reach of a blunt instrument? Annabelle might never hurt anyone again, but could we risk it? This was 1807 and somehow we had to work out what was best with what was possible.
And meanwhile James’s mother was sitting on the far side of the tea table, white and still after hearing the ghastly details of his friends’ deaths. I pulled up a chair, sat next to her and put an arm around her shoulders. ‘Are you all right? You did so well, getting the truth without upsetting her any more than was necessary.’
‘So much hate,’ she murmured.
‘It will get better one day,’ I promised, forgetting she did not know when I came from.
Something in my voice, the certainty perhaps, reached her and she turned to stare at me. ‘Who are you, Cassandra? What are you?’
I couldn’t answer her and, thank goodness, Garrick came in with a fresh pot of tea and some cakes. ‘Sugar,’ I said, putting two on a plate and handing them to her before I poured the tea. ‘Good for shock.’
‘I have sent the message,’ Garrick said. ‘I think we’ve half an hour to reset the room.’
Half an hour for James and Luc, along with the Count de Hautmont and Mr Salmond, to bring Sir Thomas and Elliott.
‘Will they come?’ I asked.
‘They’ll come,’ Sir William said. He reached for a cake and devoured it. ‘That or run.’
We finished the tea quickly then Chloe came in and took Lady Radcliffe off to her own sitting room. There was no need for her to hear any more of this, not in the raw, at least.
‘Lord Radcliffe’s carriage is approaching, Mr Garrick.’ The
butler appeared and took the tea tray as we moved the chairs. ‘There appears to be another vehicle with it. I will fetch the decanters.’
Now the room had six armchairs set around the table with the decanters and glasses. We all went into our closets and waited.
The red-headed clerk had no sooner settled into place when the door opened and I heard Sir Thomas’s voice. ‘I hope you intend to explain what you are about, asking my nephew and myself to come here, Radcliffe.’
‘Certainly.’ That was Luc, entering. ‘Do take a seat, this shouldn’t take long.’
The three sat, Luc gestured to the decanters. ‘A drink?’
‘Brandy – What the devil?’ Reece had sat down but he came back to his feet as Mr Salmond, the Count and James walked in.
‘Please, do sit, Sir Thomas. We all know each other, after all.’
‘What’s going on?’ That was Elliott, on his feet as his uncle sat. ‘I’m not staying here for whatever this is!’
‘Sit,’ Luc said in a voice I had never heard him use before and the young man subsided. ‘Now, if you will just give me a moment.’ He unfolded a sheet of paper he had brought in with him, read it, folded it and slid it into the breast of his coat. ‘Very well. We are here because you, Elliott Reece, have been a young idiot and embroiled yourself with revolutionary elements, most of whom are harmless air dreamers like yourself, but some of whom are dangerous enemies of this country. Sit down.
‘Your uncle extracted you from your associates but he suspected that someone else knew, someone in the Home Office. Someone, in fact, on Mr Salmond’s team. And so he found a weak link, a young man vulnerable to threats, and he blackmailed him, compromised him, put him under pressure to discover who knew what about you and your activities.’
‘This is nonsense. For God’s sake, Salmond, you don’t believe this farrago of nonsense?’
‘I rather think I do, Sir Thomas.’ The jovial Father Christmas figure had gone, replaced by someone who sounded like a High Court judge about to pass the death sentence. ‘Let Lord Radcliffe finish before you start blustering.’
‘But although George Coates was vulnerable he was a very incompetent spy,’ Luc continued as though there had been no interruption. ‘You put pressure on him until he despaired and took his own life. You caused his death.’
‘Tsk.’ The sound was scornful, dismissive. ‘No loss. A weakling, a pervert. A molly. I have the right to protect my staff from prying by so-called colleagues who merely want to displace me.’
‘You clearly think so. And perhaps you thought you had done enough. Unfortunately your nephew believes in drastic action to remove embarrassment. I owe you a severe headache, Elliott Reece, and I would be obliged for the names and direction of your hirelings who attempted to kill my mother and Miss Lawrence.’
‘I never meant to kill anyone,’ Elliott protested. ‘I only wanted to frighten – ’
‘Shut up,’ his uncle shouted. ‘Be quiet, you talk too much, you young fool.’
‘Indeed he does. As do you,’ Luc said, his calm, cool voice cutting through the heated atmosphere like a blade. ‘In fact it would have been better for everyone if you didn’t say so much. If you had not, for example, complained long and loud to your wife about the despised weakling who had hanged himself to escape your clutches.’
‘My wife? My wife would never – ’
‘I am sure she would not. But your daughter overheard and what she heard broke her heart because she thought herself in love with Doctor Philip Talbot.’
‘Annabelle?’ Elliott said.
‘Yes. The cousin you got drunk and took advantage of. The girl you got with child,’ Lucian said. ‘She fell for her sympathetic doctor and then discovered he did not love women, but men.’
‘The man’s dead,’ Sir Thomas blustered.
‘Yes, killed by your daughter who confessed to it in this room, before witnesses, this afternoon.’
There was pandemonium. Sir Thomas was on his feet shouting, Elliott turned and tried to leave and was hauled back by the Count who ended up clipping him neatly on the chin to be caught by Garrick and stuffed, sobbing, back into his chair, Salmond was nose to nose with Sir Thomas giving as good as he got. Luc and James circled the quartet clearly trying to work out the best way to calm them all down.
Suddenly I realised I was alone in my hiding place.
‘Silence!’ The battlefield roar of Sir William created instant quiet. ‘Sit down all of you. I am General Sir William Abernethy, Justice of the Peace. This is Percival Grainger, King’s Counsel and his clerk Mr Mayhew. We are all three witnesses to your daughter’s confession and to what you have just said. I suggest you consider your positions very carefully and send for your legal advisors.’
‘Indeed.’ Mr Grainger took the chair drawn forward by Garrick who had appeared silently from around the screen. ‘Let me see now. Sir Thomas, even if you have committed no actual crime with your activities in the Home Office, I would suggest your position is untenable and that you should offer your resignation immediately. Mr Reece, you are accused of ravishment, of associating with known enemies of the realm, with inflicting a serious injury on Lord Radcliffe and conspiring to murder Lady Radcliffe and Miss Lawrence. I believe you also used your position to launch a raid on a legitimate establishment last night, wasting the time of a magistrate and his men. I would suggest, Sir William, that your constables take Mr Reece into custody immediately.’
I came out from behind the screen and walked round to Luc’s side. I wanted to look those two in the face. With a snarl Elliott Reece lunged for me.
Chapter Twenty Three
I hardly saw Luc move, but there was a thump and Elliott went flying backwards to sprawl on the polished boards. I would have rather liked to fell him myself, but it was very gratifying to see Luc in action and I am sure he felt much better for it. Besides, I would have trouble explaining expertise in unarmed combat to most of the people in the room.
James escorted me out with a firm hand under one elbow and I went, like the obedient young lady I was supposed to be. I didn’t want him around the men responsible for his friends’ deaths any longer and anyway, I was beginning to shake. ‘Take me back to Albany, James.’
He didn’t argue and we sat in silence in the carriage as it negotiated the short distance back across Piccadilly and into the familiar courtyard. When we got inside he made up the fire and lit it and we sat on the hearthrug, arms around each other.
‘Do you want her to hang?’ I asked him.
‘No.’ His answer came immediately, which surprised me. ‘There’s been too much death. What good would it do them?’
I nodded, hoping that no-one ever told him that Talbot had known about his lover’s death before he was struck down, that he’d had time to weep. ‘I wish there was someone for you. Someone who loved you back, I mean.’
‘So do I,’ he said, surprising me again. ‘I’m over Miles, I just hadn’t realised it until last night. I don’t know when it happened, I think this shook me out of feeling sorry for myself and made me realise I was holding on to the idea of loving him when, actually, that feeling had died.’
We leaned into each other, watching the fire, occasionally throwing coal on. ‘Do you love him?’ James asked suddenly.
‘Luc?’ Idiotic question. ‘Better if I don’t, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Perhaps. When you leave this time – will you come back?’
‘I think so. Once more, at least. The solicitors who brought the deed box to me last time let slip there were boxes, plural, so that must mean at least two.’
He made a sort of humming, thinking noise. ‘Mama likes you. She’ll be pestering him to marry you.’
‘Likes me? She already suspects that there is something very strange about me – she’s more likely to accuse me of witchcraft than welcome me as a daughter-in-law.’
‘The boys like you too.’
‘James, stop it. This is difficult enough as it is.’
‘So you
do – ’
The sound of the front door silenced him and we both got up as Luc and Garrick came in. They looked drained and subdued. Luc opened his arms and I walked into his embrace and held as much as I could get my arms round as tight as I could.
After a bit he sighed and loosened his grip and I realised we were alone.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ I asked.
‘I suppose so. Let’s get James in so I only have to say it once.’
Garrick came in as well, like a large warm boulder in the corner of the room radiating security and common-sense. James sat on the sofa and stared into the fire again.
‘Sir Thomas has resigned on the grounds of ill-health and is retiring to his estates in Cornwall and giving up all government involvement. Elliott is going out to India in a very junior post.’
‘A very unhealthy country, India,’ Garrick observed. ‘So many diseases. To say nothing of poisonous snakes, man-eating tigers.’
‘One can only hope. Miss Reece is to be confined in a secure private home for unstable ladies that Sir William recommended.’
I wondered just how many of those unstable women could have lived perfectly normal lives in my time and shut the thought down, hard. This was 1807 and it was a miracle she was not to be hanged.
‘How is Lady Radcliffe?’
‘Shaken, but relieved it is over and that we are all safe. She is playing with the boys which is her cure for all ills. Lady Turnham has been told the bare minimum but she said briskly that she doesn’t want to hear any more about it and hopes that next time you are visiting you can meet and do something extravagantly normal. Or that might have been extravagant and normal.’
I couldn’t help laughing at that and suddenly we had all relaxed. What had just happened was still there, a darkness outside the door, but in here we were safe and together.
‘Luc?’ He was watching me intently.
‘Last time, once it was all over, the mystery solved, everyone safe, you had to leave, go back to your time almost immediately.’
‘That’s right, I did.’ I concentrated on how I felt, then shook my head. ‘I’m perfectly fine at the moment. Last time things went out of focus, I had a sense of unreality that came and went. Nothing like that yet.’ It occurred to me to look at the clock. ‘What if it does start and I have to get to Almack’s and the mirror and they are closed or there is something happening there and crowds of people?’