“I’ve known her since she was nine,” he said.
Jac swallowed. That had to be at least seven years. He’d known this ‘Mr. Charington’ since before he’d returned to England and she’d barely even met the man in passing.
“He left me,” Daniel stated, holding a fist over his mouth. Jac stared at him, feeling as if a void had opened up between them that she did not know how to cross. She did not know what to say. “She’s like a daughter to me.”
Seven years, she thought, dumbfounded. And she’d not met Miss Charington before this Season. She could not fathom all that Daniel had lost.
“The rumors -” she started and Daniel closed his eyes and nodded.
“It’s not your fault,” he said, his voice thick. Jac swallowed, feeling as if the ground had opened up beneath her. What had they done? They’d gambled too much. Lost too much.
This has had unforeseen consequences.
“I’m so sorry,” she said but Daniel did not seem to hear her. He sat stiffly, his fist pressed tightly against his mouth.
He’s going to weep, she realized belatedly.
“I’ll…I’ll go,” she said and Daniel did not move. She pulled herself out of her chair and crossed the room as quietly as she could, closing the door as she left.
~~//~~
Jac slipped into the blue drawing room where Daniel rarely went. It was a small room with only a fireplace, chair and settee, but the chair was the most comfortable in the entire house and somehow the room was always warm. Jac curled up on the chair like she had as a child and stared at the flickering fire, trying to wrap her brain around how much they both had lost. From doing such a silly childish thing. What did it matter if she wore a man’s breeches for a few afternoons?
She had not lost much at all, she thought, wiping at her cheeks as tears finally started to flow. Aspen would never have seen her anyway and Daniel was right, she would not have married Lord Candrow. She’d gone from a nonexistent reputation to a scandal’s sister - that was not so far to fall.
Seven years. Daniel had shared his life with that man for seven years.
She’s like a daughter to me.
Had a child with him. Daniel would not marry a woman and the rumors would not die. They were to be alone in this house for much longer than she’d anticipated.
She would never see Aspen laugh again. Not with her. There were women scholars, she knew. She had not lost so much. Aspen had not wanted her before their gamble anyway. It was nothing compared to what she’d taken from her brother.
Jac sobbed into the back of her chair, wishing she could scream without sending the servants running.
Daniel found her not an hour later. He knocked on the doorway frame and waited for her to compose herself.
I should have chosen any other parlor, she cursed herself, wiping at her sore face. She thought she’d had her fill of crying. Her eyes ached and her cheeks stung as the water evaporated, leaving salt behind. Her nose was dry and her handkerchief disgusting and she didn’t feel like it’d helped much at all. Something had been wrung out of her and there wasn’t much left to do but sit. Daniel made his way into the room, his face grim, and a letter in his hand.He sat down on the brown settee across from her and placed the letter on his lap. It’d been opened, Jac saw, seeing the torn seal.
“I’ve been indicted,” he stated. Jac frowned, not comprehending.
“In criminal court?” she asked and Daniel blushed. Even the tips of his ears burned red. Jac felt her eyes widen and the pain in her chest shrink away, her problems suddenly seeming very small. Jac found herself staring, letting the tears dry on her face, wondering what joke he was trying to set up.
“Under the Buggery Act,” he said and Jac felt her mouth fall open. Daniel ran a hand over his hair.
“You’re serious,” she said and he snorted.
“It sounds like a joke, doesn’t it?” he asked and Jac nodded slowly. Daniel rubbed his thumb into his palm heavily and met her eyes, his gaze distant and lost. “I’ve lost what I cared about. There’s not much they can do to me now,” he stated. Jac nodded quietly, unsure what to say.
Seven years.
“What does this mean for the court?” she asked instead and Daniel blew out a heavy breath.
“I do not know. Only that I am returning to London,” he said. Jac nodded, beginning to stand. She needed to pack. Daniel pointed at her, his expression hardening. “You will remain uninvolved in this,” he ordered. Jac opened her mouth to protest. “You will stay here,” he reiterated. Jac sat back, her shoulders falling, trying to comprehend all they had lost in such a short time. Daniel stayed in his seat and stared at the wall behind her, apparently equally overwhelmed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“You know, of all the ways I’d thought to be indicted by the King for crimes against the Buggery Act, this wasn’t it,” Daniel commented, one foot on the carriage step. Jac did her best to roll her eyes without crying. They’d had their too-tight hug, their last goodbye in case the verdict was against them. Now was the time to bolster each other. Daniel had demanded in no uncertain terms that Jac stay in Abingdon, far from being implicated in his trial or witnessing his hanging.
“I don’t want to know any details,” she joked and Daniel winked at her.
“Are you certain?” he asked, his tone scandalous and Jac smiled despite herself.
Daniel paused suddenly and jumped up on the coach step to look over the top of the vehicle. The rumble of churning gravel heralded a horseman approaching the house. Jac stepped away from the carriage and caught sight of a postman hurrying toward them.
“Good day, my lord,” the man greeted warmly, jumping from the horse. He would not be so friendly when the rumors spread, Jac thought, greeting him as politely as she could.
“Good day,” Daniel returned, hope lighting his face for a moment when the man handed him a letter.
“Nine pence, my lord,” the postman demanded and Jac’s shoulders fell. Not a government letter, then. The case had not been thrown out of court. Daniel paid the man for his letter and glanced at its address. His face fell.
“What more could he have to say to me?” he mumbled and tossed the letter to Jac. Jac caught it, clapping it out of the air, and Daniel climbed into the coach.
“Tally ho,” he ordered, his voice chipper. Harold closed the carriage door behind him and stepped away. Another coachman would take Daniel to London, so Harold could not be called as witness. The postman trotted away from the house and the coach pulled forward. Harold disappeared back into the house. Jac watched until Daniel’s carriage had passed through their front gardens and disappeared into their landscaped ‘wilderness’. Then she turned on her heel and ran.
“Harold!” she called for the coachman, lifting her skirts as she ran up the stairs. A maid stuck her head around from the upstairs hall.
“Get Harold to ready the phaeton!” she called, stepping off the stairs and sprinting toward her room. “Sarah! Sarah! Start packing!” she ordered, spinning around her doorframe. She stopped, her chest heaving, to see Sarah calmly lowering her gown into an open trunk. Her wardrobe’s tall doors were open, its shelves empty. Sarah glanced up, her gaze worried and Jac nodded. It was five days’ travel to Mr. Henry Charington’s country home. She could only pray the man was there.
Daniel would die if the court convicted him. The Buggery Act held a death sentence. She had to confess. Mr. Jack Holcombe had to come out of hiding - a woman, not a man. Their reputation was forfeit, but Daniel would live.
“What’s that letter, then, my lady?” Sarah asked, her eyes flicking down to the paper crushed in Jac’s hand. Jac only then remembered it at all. She flattened the crumpled paper and sat down on her bed, surprised by the short letter.
Dear Lord Holcombe,
I anticipate my arrival on the twenty-second of this month. I would be quite obliged for a moment of your time. There are words.
Cordially,
Henry James Charington
Cordially? Was that a promise? Jac ran her finger over the words, wondering if she should have pressed Daniel to read it before he’d left. It was already the twentieth.
It did not matter so much if the man agreed to lend her his clothing, she thought. She could always disguise herself with Daniel’s ill-fitting garments. She needed Mr. Charington to testify that she had disguised herself with his clothing. Jac closed her eyes. She could barely think about so publicly revealing herself, or what would happen after. First, she’d focus on getting the breeches.
“Unpack, Sarah,” Jac murmured. “He’s coming to us.”
~~//~~
Rain was falling in sheets the day Mr. Charington’s coach rolled up to the house. Jac rushed outside to greet him, only truly recalling the weather once she was soaked to the bone waiting for the carriage to pull up and stop. Mr. Charington’s driver tied the horses’ reins slowly, his gloves slick with water. Harold strode up to the coach and helped him down, quietly urging him faster. The old, gray haired coachman finally got to the coach door and jerked it open, revealing a blond, somewhat portly man in an embroidered overcoat waiting within.
“Miss Holcombe,” he greeted, his eyes widening as he took in her soaked hair and gown.“But you should have waited within,” he said, glancing about as if looking for a culprit.
“Yes, I’m quite certain to be ill,” Jac agreed, not particularly caring. She knew she must look a horror, her hair wet and tangled, her face taut with too much worry. They were past propriety, surely; Daniel’s life was at stake if she did not reveal herself in time. The court case was barely more than a week away and it’d take most of that time to get to London. Harold stood politely out of the way with the other footman. “Please, may we speak?” she asked and Mr. Charington glanced about the courtyard again.
Looking for Daniel, Jac thought uncomfortably.
“Please, my brother has been indicted. He’ll be killed if they convict him. We must hurry. I need your breeches,” she stated, as firmly as she could. Harold choked, presumably on his own spit, and turned away, walking to hide behind the horses as he coughed. Mr. Charington’s eyebrows rose slightly and he gestured back toward the house.
“Please, let us go inside, before the good man asphyxiates,” he said. Jac bit her lip to keep from blushing and strode inside.
The warm home stung against her face. Jac rubbed at her cheeks as a servant closed the door behind them. She took off her wet shawl, starting to shiver despite the warm air inside. Mr. Charington stopped in the vestibule and shut the door behind them, his expression tight and worried.
“I am glad you’re at home. I need your help,” he stated.
“Please sir, just lend me you clothing,” she pleaded, not caring about the servants nearby. “I need to get to London before the trial is well underway. They only have evidence of Mr. Jack Holcombe. If I can prove that that evidence is meaningless, they’ll surely have to throw out the case,” Mr. Charington pulled himself up to his full height, looking grim. The footman by the door disappeared into a nearby room and closed the door, leaving them to their privacy.
“Why come to me? Surely your servants have breeches?” he asked gruffly. Jac blinked, unsure how to answer.
I know they were yours I borrowed. I know what you were to him, she thought and saw the man’s eyes bulge, acknowledging their strange connection.
“Please. He’ll be killed,” she stated.
“No he won’t,” Mr. Charington replied and it looked like the energy poured out of him with the words. “His life is not at stake.”
Jac stilled, finally stopping to listen. He leaned a hand against the doorframe leading into a drawing room, and pressed his forehead into his outstretched arm “They don’t have enough for a conviction, even if I were to kiss him in the middle of the courtroom. There’s no proof of penet-” Mr. Charington stopped, his gaze flicking back to her, as if only just remembering she was in the room. Jac stared at him, her eyes wide, realizing what he’d been about to say.
“That is not the purpose of this endeavor. He’ll be tried in the House of Lords. At the moment Parliament wants nothing to do with him but to see him out of the way of their financial interests. Whoever has started this will be content to drag me out in front of the court and humiliate him. They wish only to pull all of his secrets out into a public forum and get it all printed in the morning gazette. They will discover me. There is too much to hide. More than I ever wanted to hide,” Mr. Charington stopped himself again, sighing, and his jaw tightened. He was fighting back tears, Jac realized, staring as the man swallowed heavily. “I should have told him I’d walk straight out there and dance on the Lord Chancellor’s desk if it’d help him,” he swore, looking up to meet her eyes. Jac stared at him, wondering if the man was cracking.
“I need to get to London, sir,” she repeated, though she wasn’t quite sure why anymore. She had to do something.
“What can you do? He is to be ruined. If they get a court record outlining his finances, they will find me. The abolition movement will be set back decades,” Mr. Charington announced. Jac let out a quiet, selfish sigh of relief, praying he was right. Daniel would gladly die for his politics, she knew, but she would not give him up so easily. He would not be killed by this court case. That was a blessing.
Still, Mr. Charington’s eyes were solemn and concerned. This would shatter Daniel, she realized, feeling her shoulders fall. The slavery question was the only passion he had left. She would humiliate herself to protect that as well, she decided.
“I need your breeches,” she repeated, her conviction returning. She would gladly trade her own ruin to prevent Daniel’s. Mr. Charington’s eyebrows rose slowly.
“You believe standing in a courtroom in my breeches will improve your brother’s reputation?” he asked comically. Jac swallowed, feeling like a fool, but she did not break his gaze.
Do not tell me there is nothing I can do.
“I do not know what else to do,” she admitted. “This is my fault.” He nodded firmly.
“True. However, ironically, I am finding it difficult to put myself in your shoes,” he said, snorting to himself at the thought and shaking his head.
“We need to help him,” Jac insisted. Her drenched gown was slowly creating a puddle on the floor beneath her. “How can we stop the trial?”
“My daughter cares deeply for your brother, Miss Holcombe. More than for her own prospects, as has become quite obvious. I shouldn’t have assumed – but I thought I had to protect her. I am her father,” he rambled. Jac frowned and Mr. Charington met her gaze again, his eyes cold and determined. “But I’m an idiot and you are correct. We need to stop this trial,” he stated.
How does one stop a trial? Mr. Charington took another step toward her, lifting a hand up to point into her face.
“You know the Duke of Aspen, do you not?” he asked. Jac nodded reluctantly, feeling her heart sink to somewhere near her stomach.
Do not make me face him again, she thought desperately.
“And he knows the Duke of Mariton and the Earl of Kimberley. I know most of the rest of the House of Lords, and my business holds controlling shares in most of their endeavors. If you can get the duke on your side, I will attempt to extort the rest,” he promised. Jac stared at him, wondering how powerful the Eastern Textile Company really was.
“Surely people will wonder why you are so invested in Mr. Holcombe’s case dying before it starts,” she warned. Mr. Charington smiled at her, looking vaguely impressed.
“Quite right. My business and my reputation will be permanently associated with this, I should think. Would you like some tea? A bath? I can berate myself on my own without trouble, I should think.”
Jac blinked rapidly, realizing she was still shivering in her vestibule. Odd, all the same, for the man to offer her such a thing in her own home.
“A bath, yes, I’ll return in a moment,” she requested and caugh
t the glimpse of a maid disappearing back into a servant’s door beside her, no doubt going to fetch the hot water.
Jac let herself be led away by a footman, wondering how Daniel had gotten himself involved with one of the most powerful men in the country.
And she had to go plead help from another one. Jac felt sick at the thought. The Duke of Aspen. What was she to say to him?
~~//~~
She was traveling again the next morning. The carriage jerked forward as soon as the sun crested over the horizon. Mr. Charington had insisted he take the phaeton to London and lent her his closed coach and six horses and told her coachman where he had horses boarded along their route, ready to take over. He’d given Harold a signed letter of permission to borrow the horses and they traveled rapidly. Jac tried to focus on the warm, dry carriage, rather than the bruises on her legs and backside, building up from too many hours in a jostling, jerking carriage.
She did not want to think about how she looked when they finally arrived. The coachman put down her step in front of the ivy-covered Aspen estate home she’d only just left. Jac dragged herself from the carriage and fussed with her tangled, frizzy hair while Harold got out to knock.
She did her best to gather herself as a curious-looking servant led her to stand in the Duke of Aspen’s yellow salon, where she’d played piano so many times. She stayed standing, her legs feeling wobbly and her back aching, unable to get the shamed blush off her face.
For Daniel, Jac steeled herself, hearing Aspen’s strong footsteps along the marble hallway, heading toward her. Aspen stopped in the doorway, hesitating at the sight of her, apparently not having fully believed her calling card.
“Miss Holcombe,” he greeted, surprise in his voice and Jac felt her ears burn as her blush spread further. She dipped her head as she curtsied, thinking of the gall she had, reappearing in the man’s home.
I stood in breeches in front of you.
Spinster's Gambit Page 18