“I don’t understand why your family bound you to him.”
She gave a dry laugh. “Don’t you? Surely you must have seen a hundred such matches, poorly conceived and for practical matters that have nothing to do with the personalities of the bride and groom?”
He conceded her point with a nod. “What reason did your family have?”
Long years of keeping her secrets made her hesitate, but she had already said the worst. What harm could it do to explain the whole thing?
“My father was a third son. Both his older brothers died before he did, though, and without heirs; the last one only a year before my father himself passed away. I’m my father’s only child. My father’s title and the part of the estate that is entailed were to go to the next male heir, and that happened to be Sheldrake, who’s my father’s second cousin. My father’s title is lower than Sheldrake’s family’s, so Sheldrake had no use for it, but the estate, that he wanted. That, and the fortune my mother brought to her marriage with my father.”
She sighed. “I’d been difficult about accepting a husband since I came out, something that had once caused my parents considerable distress, but when my father inherited his brother’s title and lands, it was suddenly treated as if it had been my father’s idea all along. That he was keeping me free for Sheldrake, who would inherit the estate and title on his death, and through marriage to me, my father’s, or rather my mother’s, fortune.”
Wittaker angled his head. “I can see why that would be beneficial to Sheldrake, but how was it beneficial to you?”
“Keeping it all in the family? Continuing my father’s line through my children? My son to inherit the title from Sheldrake?” She spoke without bitterness. She had let that go. Or thought she had. “My father only died six months ago, and he had the contract drawn up on his deathbed. It was all that kept him alive in the last few weeks, finalizing that document.”
“I see.” His eyes narrowed. “And what did your father think of your son inheriting nothing but debt in Sheldrake’s wake?”
“My father knew what Sheldrake was like. He talked up his virtues to me, to the point where I started avoiding him altogether it was so painful to hear, but the contract he made Sheldrake sign shows he had no illusions about Sheldrake himself, no matter what he wanted me to think.”
That betrayal still had the power to hurt. He had known, known what he was shackling her to. But keeping things in the family, the idea of dynasty, was more important to him. More important than her. “Sheldrake would have done anything to get even part of my dowry. I don’t think he even read the contract properly, but he discovered the terms were…strict…when he decided to leave the country. It seems my father has all my money tied up in a trust that Sheldrake was unable to touch.” That she was unable to touch, as well. Or only as her trustees saw fit. “He was most surprised to find he had no access to my funds when he was preparing to leave the country.”
She was sensible, intelligent and old enough to decide her own future, but since her mother’s death her father had taken as much power away from her as he could.
He’d regretted her education, her mother’s insistence on the best tutors and the widest possible range of subjects for her daughter. Her mother had come from a practical, hard-working merchant family who had risen to wealth through brains and effort, and she had wanted Phoebe to understand as much about the world as she could. Her father, though, would have preferred her to be ill-informed and more pliable.
She clenched her fists and tried to breathe through the tightening of her chest. She needed to stop thinking of this. To calm the rage that kept gripping her.
Her father was dead and the deed was done.
She knew she was privileged. That she lived in surely one of the most beautiful houses in London, and had everything she could ask for. But she would give up much of what she had for some acknowledgement of herself. Of her worth. Of her capabilities.
“Sheldrake told you this? That he had tried to get hold of your inheritance?” Wittaker’s incredulous question drew her back to the present.
She forced herself to let the anger go. “On Sunday night. He said he’d approached the trustees, trying to get his hands on some of the money. To make his life in exile a little easier.”
“My God.” Wittaker took two steps away, and she could hear he was breathing heavily. “The man was a fool.”
“Yes,” she said, and even she could hear the regret, the sadness in her voice. “He was.”
He smiled at her suddenly, and it was so unexpected she blinked.
“His loss.”
She looked away again and let her arms fall to her sides. She felt the same edge of panic she had last night, as Wittaker crouched on her windowsill, looking at her with hungry eyes. She grasped desperately at a new topic. “However wrong it was of them to kill him, it will have one consequence perhaps they didn’t expect.”
His gaze was steady, but the heat in them was still there. “What’s that?”
Phoebe avoided his eyes. “I have the perfect excuse to stay close to home for a few weeks.”
He raised a questioning eyebrow.
“No one knows Sheldrake broke our betrothal. I’ll be expected to be in mourning.”
Chapter Sixteen
Wittaker almost enjoyed sparring with Gibbs’s clerk when he arrived at the Attorney General’s chambers, and only produced his card, thereby winning the war of wills, some time after he could have done.
He longed for a little violence.
It was easy to work out why, but it didn’t lessen the need.
He could go to The Scarlet Rose and stir up enough trouble to satisfy the pounding in his veins, the hot-blooded energy that was coursing through him. Initiate a fencing duel or fisticuffs.
The thought enticed him. And it would have the added benefit of keeping himself in character for the meanwhile.
He smiled, and Gibbs’s clerk lost the supercilious look on his face and almost fled the room in his haste to show James where the transcripts were kept.
He left James in the small, airless room almost as fast, and James forced himself to sit. To concentrate, while trying to ignore the redolent smell of mold and damp.
Looking at the hastily scrawled date and time at the top of the document, he wondered what they had been thinking, hearing the case less than a few hours after the crime had been committed? Tempers and emotions had been high, on all sides.
He read through the opening rhetoric some of the members of parliament had spouted about the evil nature of the assassin and winced. Bellingham may have shot Perceval and admitted to it, but James had never seen a more open and blatant misuse of the justice system.
He began to skim, looking for mention of the petition, and eventually found it. Bellingham stated he had sent a petition to the Price Regent in January, but that it had been unaccountably lost in the system, and when the error was discovered, he had to submit a second one.
According to him, the loss of the first petition, which had taken all his funds to hire a lawyer for, had spelled almost total financial ruin and the end of his chances at justice.
And yet…it hadn’t.
James leaned back in his chair. Far from being ruined, Bellingham had stayed on in London for a further two months and submitted another petition.
Not only that, Bellingham mentioned pamphlets he’d had printed and distributed after the second petition was lodged. He’d asked at the committal proceedings that the pamphlets he’d had on him be returned to him, as well as his other papers.
James recalled Bellingham saying something about having documents returned to him yesterday when he’d interviewed him in his cell, and now he understood what he was talking about.
Printing pamphlets cost money.
How had he afforded it all?
Bellingham had rented rooms at a reasonable address, and James saw that the Bow Street officer assigned to the case, John Vickery, had given evidence at the hearing as to Bellingham’s lo
dgings. He said he’d interviewed a woman who had something of Bellingham’s in her keeping, and… James leaned forward. At that point, for the first time, Bellingham had become agitated. He only calmed down when Vickery explained the possession in question was a memorandum for twenty pounds owed to Bellingham by a Mr. Wilson, which his landlady was holding for him.
So what had Bellingham thought Vickery meant that had him so concerned? What woman and what possession could have caused him that much distress? Obviously not his landlady and the twenty pounds.
And, now that James thought of it, how did he have twenty pounds owed to him at all? By his own admission he had not worked while in London and had no money left as of January, when the first petition had been submitted. A petition that had somehow found its way into Sheldrake’s hands. A petition that was supposedly lost.
The Bow Street officer, Vickery, was someone he obviously needed to speak with.
“Who the devil are you?”
James lifted his head from the transcript and tipped his chair back a little to take in Vinegar Gibbs standing in the doorway. Sir Vicary had his head angled back a little, all the better to look down his long blade of a nose at James.
“Wittaker.” Gibbs’s eyebrows rose when he recognized James. “What are you doing here?” Gibbs’s voice had always grated on James’s nerves, and he fought to keep his face neutral.
He waved his hands over the transcript. “Familiarizing myself with the Perceval case.”
“What for?” Gibbs drew himself upright. He was a tall man, lean and angular, his eyebrows a dark slash over his eyes. He thrust his jaw out bullishly. “What could possibly be your interest in this?” Was it James’s imagination, or was that a flicker of fear that skittered across Gibbs’s face before he replaced it with puffed-up affront.
James worked up a supercilious smile. “Do I need a reason? I’m a member of the House of Lords, after all. Of course I want to know the facts of what happened.”
“Well, you can wait for the trial like everyone else. I can’t have you monopolizing the transcript.”
James raised his brows and looked beyond Gibbs’s shoulder. “I don’t seem to be holding anyone up. But I’ll be sure to withdraw if someone involved in the case requires the use of it.” He tapped the papers in front of him. “And, to be honest, I wouldn’t call what’s happening on Friday a trial. More a sweeping under the carpet.”
A vein began to throb at Gibbs’s temple, and his eyes bulged. “What did you say?”
This time, James didn’t bother to hide his wince at the way Gibbs’s voice set his teeth on edge. “You heard me. The word is you’re calling the trial for Friday, a mere four days after Perceval’s death. You know Bellingham is from Liverpool. It will be almost impossible for witnesses to come down to London in time, let alone for the investigators to question them. That’s aside from letting the Bow Street officers do a thorough job with the evidence in London.”
Gibbs said nothing, his breathing heavy, his face almost purple.
“It also hasn’t escaped anyone’s notice that you’re charging Bellingham with murder, not treason. If you’d done that, by law you’d have to wait fifteen days before the trial could commence. So what are you trying to hide?”
James had hoped to see Gibbs during this visit and do a little stirring, but Gibbs’s reactions went beyond his expectations.
The Attorney General was rarely at a loss for words, but now he gaped like a fish out of water.
“I’d like the answer to that, myself.” The man who appeared suddenly behind Gibbs was James Stephen, one of Spencer Perceval’s best friends. His voice was a little hoarse, his face white and grim.
While Gibbs turned to face him, James rose from his chair. He’d prefer to be standing for this confrontation. It should prove interesting.
“I’ve already spoken to Ward about the trial date—” Gibbs was forced to step into the room with James as Stephen crowded him.
“I’ve seen Ward. He told me what you said.” Stephen flicked a curious glance at James, and then focused on Gibbs again. “Neither of us found your excuses reasonable. While the crowds were out of control on Monday evening, things are much calmer now. You risk fouling the case by forcing the trial date so soon after the crime. We need to know the truth of why Perceval was killed, damn it. He was our friend. It doesn’t make sense…”
Stephen trailed off in genuine distress, and James noticed Gibbs had edged even further from him. A nerve ticked under the Attorney General’s eye.
“I would like to know how you all know the trial date, anyway. It hasn’t been announced yet.” It was bluster, an attempt by Gibbs to divert the conversation.
Stephen gave him a contemptuous look. “Perceval deserves justice. That means giving the investigators the time they need to investigate. You’re perverting the course of justice with this jumped-up excuse for a trial.”
“That is enough!” Gibbs’s face contorted. The vein was throbbing on the side of his temple again, and James wondered if he was going to suffer an apoplexy. “Out. Get out of my office.”
James exchanged a look with Stephen, and gave a slight nod. He moved past Gibbs, still standing just in the room, panting as if he’d run up stairs. Stephen followed him out, past the wide-eyed clerk, and into the street.
“Surprised to see you in there. What’s your interest in this, Wittaker?” Stephen stopped and turned to face him. This close, James could see the dark rings under his eyes, and the deep grooves on either side of his mouth.
“It’s legitimate, that’s all I can say.” James paused, then held out his hand. “I am very sorry for your loss. I know you were close to the prime minister.” Stephen was one person he knew would have had nothing to do with Perceval’s death. He and Perceval had been an almost indestructible team.
Stephen shook his hand, his gaze thoughtful. “When we challenged him, Gibbs looked like he might fall down in a blue fit.”
“Yes.” James looked back toward the building, but the clerk hadn’t come running out screaming for a doctor, as James half-expected him to.
“He’s the Prince Regent’s man, you know?”
James shook his head.
“He was the Prince Regent’s legal council for many years. And as an ally of the Prince Regent, you can bet he is…was…a bitter enemy of Perceval’s.” Stephen rubbed his face. “I can’t believe he would do this out of a sense of spite—but what else is there? Gibbs could lose his reputation with this miscarriage of justice, and what does he have to gain?”
Before James could answer, Stephen turned abruptly and walked away, not at any great speed, but more like a man completely at a loss as to where to go at all.
James watched him until he disappeared into the crowds.
He’d brought up an interesting point. Was this rushed trial Gibbs being ultra-cautious about the state of social unrest, or was there something more to it?
James turned in the direction of Bow Street. Time to find out what John Vickery of Bow Street knew.
Chapter Seventeen
Aunt Dorothy added two extra spoons of sugar to her tea and stirred it vigorously. “I still can’t believe—”
“Please.” Phoebe rose from her chair and lifted her hands up to her ears, realized how ridiculous that was, and dropped them. “I would prefer not to talk about it.”
Her aunt’s sharp intake of breath made her wince.
“But that he would renege. I thought he was desperate for your money—”
She turned to give her aunt a cool stare. “He was. He tried to help himself to it before he left. Perhaps he thought to flee and leave me in a perpetual state of betrothal.” Phoebe walked to the window and looked out into her garden. She wanted to go out into it, but she knew all too well now how easily her walls could be breached.
“But flee from what, and how do you know about the money?”
“I don’t know exactly what he was running from, but he told me about the money. He approached the trustees. Trie
d to negotiate some of the funds early. But Father had anticipated that and Sheldrake found himself outmaneuvered.”
“He told you?” Aunt Dorothy’s voice was without any animation now. As if every drop had been wrung from her. “I can’t believe he would be so crass.”
Phoebe thought of how Wittaker had looked just after she’d told him this same thing. The shock, and then that smile. Hungry and wild.
His loss.
She shivered, her eyes on the back wall of the garden.
“Phoebe.”
She blinked and turned to her aunt.
“What are we to do?” Her aunt looked lost.
“What is there to do? I didn’t tell anyone Sheldrake broke off the betrothal. I didn’t even tell you.” Phoebe shrugged. “I will mourn him, and then I will be free.”
“But what if he told anyone?” Aunt Dorothy stopped, then took a breath. “That is what I worry about. Sheldrake was not discreet. If he told anyone at all, you are ruined. You were together too often unchaperoned during your betrothal for it to be otherwise.”
They remained in silence for a long moment, Aunt Dorothy with her eyes closed, as if to escape reality entirely.
The sound of someone knocking on the front door broke the quiet. Phoebe heard Lewis’s steady steps to the front hall, the low murmur of his conversation.
A woman’s voice rose over Lewis’s deep bass, her tone strident, and Phoebe pushed away from the window and stood facing the door.
Aunty Dorothy didn’t even turn around when Lewis stepped into the room.
“Lady Halliford asks if you are at home.” Lewis’s words were clipped and a flush of color burned his cheeks.
It had been Lady Halliford’s ball on Sunday where Sheldrake had ended things between them. She had never visited Phoebe before, and a feeling of unease settled on Phoebe’s shoulders, heavy and prickly as a winter shawl.
The timing was suspicious.
Before she could speak, her aunt seemed to snap out of her listlessness. “Of course we are at home for her ladyship. Send her through, Lewis, and then bring in some fresh tea and some cakes.”
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