Vow of Deception

by C. J. Archer

  "That was an odd conversation," I said attempting a laugh.

  She sat down on one of the chairs and yawned. "Hmmm."

  "Go and rest for a little while, Alice. I can manage on my own."

  "I think I will. Keep an eye on the front lawn."

  "Everything will be fine. Go."

  She left, passing Lincoln striding in. He came straight up to me and hooked me around the waist, trapping me against his body. He kissed me fiercely, passionately, and did not stop until I pulled away.

  "Lincoln?" I asked, half laughing, half eyeing him carefully.

  My laughter died at the darkness swirling in his eyes. "Let's get married now."

  "Now! Lincoln, it's all set for tomorrow." I indicated the table. "Everyone's gone to so much effort."

  "The guests can still come for the breakfast. I want the ceremony now, today."

  "They want to share the whole occasion with us, not just the food." I cupped his face with both my hands and stroked his cheeks with my thumbs. The darkness in his eyes didn't dissipate until he closed them and took my hands in his. "Why the hurry?" I asked, unease tightening my chest.

  "Why the delay?" he murmured against my wrist. "I just want to marry you, Charlie. I only care about signing the papers to make you my wife. Why not today?"

  "Lincoln, something's troubling you."

  He opened his eyes and his gaze met mine. There was an earnestness there, and longing, but concern too.

  A chill skittered across my skin. "Lincoln, tell me what's happened. Is it the army?" I looked past him. "Has someone from Wonderland arrived?"

  He shook his head and took my hand. "Come with me."

  We got only as far as the hall table in the entrance where the post sat unopened on top of two newspapers. He handed one of the papers to me. It wasn't The Star, but a more respected daily. He did not need to point to the offending article.

  It was about Gawler's attack on "an upstanding respected member of society" and his subsequent death at the hands of a "brave gentleman." It went on to say that Gawler was a werewolf and had acted alone. That was something, at least. The public would consider the threat ended if they thought him the only one of his kind.

  I continued to read but stopped when I saw Lincoln's name in the same sentence as "harboring and protecting the murderer".

  I felt sick. My head spun and I reached for him. I needed his solidness, his balance. I needed this to go away, to be over.

  He pulled me to his chest and circled both arms around me. "It'll be all right. No harm will come to you."

  "It's not me I'm worried about!" I cried.

  "Nothing will happen to me. I'll engage the best lawyer and order a retraction."

  "It's not these reports that concern me. It's how Mr. Yallop and his parliamentary cronies will react upon reading them."

  "They can't do anything without proof."

  "They'll find proof if the public demands it. You know that, Lincoln. I know you do. You're simply trying to make me feel better."

  He pushed the hair back from my forehead and stroked my face down to my chin. He forced me to look at him. "Whatever happens to me, stay here. Let the lawyer find a legal solution to the problem. Do not engage Swinburn. Is that understood? Stay at Lichfield. You're protected here. They won't find anything against me, and these accusations will come to nothing. Promise me, Charlie."

  "I promise," I lied. If he thought I'd do nothing, he was sorely mistaken. "You're right, and I'm sure Fullbright won't act without evidence. You're the Prince of Wales's son, after all."

  Yet that piece of information could not be used to keep him safe. We both knew it, yet neither of us mentioned it. It was easier to allow the other to think we remained positive. But I knew he was worried too. He wouldn't have urged me to marry him today if he thought everything would end well.

  He kissed me lightly on the lips but broke away at the sound of wheels on the drive. He went to open the front door, but I caught his arm and held him back.

  "No! Escape out the back way."

  He shook his head. "If it's the police, I'll face them. If I don't, I become a fugitive."

  "I'll go with you," I said in a rush.

  He gave me a sad smile then gently pushed me aside and opened the door. I peered past him and my heart sank. Two constables sat on the rumble seat at the back, and another sat beside the driver. A fourth stepped out from the cabin, followed by Detective Inspector Fullbright and Mr. Yallop.

  Mr. Yallop nodded at Lincoln. "Arrest him."

  I stood in front of Lincoln and stamped my hands on my hips. The constables stopped advancing, unsure what to do with me. "You have no evidence against him," I said. "This is outrageous."

  Mr. Yallop smiled. "We will have evidence when we find the records I know you're keeping from us."

  "You've searched the entire house and found nothing!"

  "We searched the house, but not the garden. Men, take him."

  "I'll come willingly," Lincoln said.

  I spun around to face him. "No, Lincoln! Don't go with them. They'll lie and make up evidence against you. If you go, you won't come home!"

  "Charlie," he purred. "I love you."

  My face crumpled. Tears pooled in my eyes. "Don't go with them," I begged. "Please, Lincoln. You can still escape. I know you can."

  He kissed my forehead, his warm lips lingering.

  "It's not wise to run," Inspector Fullbright said. "If you don't come with us, sir, you look guilty."

  "Yes," Mr. Yallop said with a lazy drawl. "And a man guilty of conspiring to murder pays for his crime with ten years’ hard labor."

  Chapter 14

  They drove Lincoln away, leaving three of the constables to search the outhouses and garden. I followed them. When they reached the walled garden, I held my breath and not simply because the files were buried in the ground, but because of the manure we'd spread over the entire plot to cover the freshly turned earth.

  They left empty-handed in the afternoon.

  "Sit, Charlie," Cook said when I joined him and the others in the kitchen. "Eat." He put a plate of cheese and ham on the table in front of me.

  I pushed it away. "I'm not hungry."

  "Did they find anything?" Alice asked. She looked exhausted, her face drawn and pale.

  "No."

  "Thank God," Lady Vickers said, taking a seat beside me. "So now what do we do?"

  "We wait," Gus said. "Like Fitzroy wants us to do."

  "I'll visit his lawyer," Seth announced. "If he doesn't feel comfortable handling this then he can put us on to someone who will."

  "I suspect Lincoln has already set that in motion," I said. "But go anyway. Thank you, Seth."

  "I'm happy to do something. I need to do something." He kicked the table leg. "This situation is untenable."

  "It ain't right," Gus said with a shake of his head. "How can they say he conspired to murder? He's bloody saved the people of this city more times than I can count. We should tell 'em about all these times, about Frankenstein and the general."

  "They won't believe us," I said. "And they can accuse him of conspiring because he won't hand over the files they suspect—they know—we're harboring."

  Seth paced the kitchen floor, circling the table. "God damned Swinburn. I'll bloody kill him."

  "Don't do anything rash," his mother said. "Start with the lawyer and leave the killing to when all else fails."

  "What if we do hand over the files?" Alice asked. "Will they release him then?"

  "Possibly," Seth said, looking at me.

  I shook my head. "Lincoln doesn't want them to have the files. He promised many people that he'd keep their records safe and he would hate for his word to be broken."

  "Not even to save his life?" Seth threw his hands in the air. "Who cares about his word now?"

  I rubbed my forehead. "We'll keep that in our corner if the lawyer fails. For now, we'll keep the files hidden and dig them up only if necessary."

  "We know some o
f the people in those files," Gus said. "I can warn them."

  "Good idea. Send a telegram to Frakingham House too."

  Cook took up his piping bag and squirted an icing rosette onto the edge of the cake. It was almost finished, and what a magnificent piece of art it turned out to be. He'd sculpted a tiny sugar butterfly at the front, sitting on a rose. Only that morning he'd told me the butterfly symbolized me, free and happy. I'd asked him if that meant the rose represented Lincoln and he dared me to tell Lincoln he was a rose. In the middle of the cake, beneath an arch, stood a couple staring into one another's eyes.

  I dashed away my tears. "Don't bother with the cake," I told him. "There can't be a wedding tomorrow with Lincoln in jail."

  Seth placed a hand on my shoulder. "We'll free him."

  "Perhaps," I whispered through my tight throat. "But not in time."

  * * *

  I would not stay at Lichfield and wait for a miracle to occur. I could not. After Gus dashed off messages to those recorded in the files whose addresses we remembered, he drove me to Buckingham Palace. I was prepared to beg, bribe or wait all day for an audience with one of the royal family but I was granted access to the queen immediately. I suspected that privilege arose because she wanted to ask me to summon her late husband. I was wrong.

  "You lied to me, Miss Holloway." The queen sat at her desk in an office I had not yet been into. It was vast and somewhat empty, with chairs placed along the wall. A footman picked one up and went to place it by the desk but the queen waved him away. "She won't be staying."

  I straightened from my curtsey and clasped my shaking hands in front of me. "Lied, Your Majesty? In what way?"

  She lifted a finger and the footman left. I was alone with the queen. What could she say that required no witnesses?

  But I knew the answer to that.

  "You are not a medium," she said. "You are something…perverted."

  Well, that was a new name for me. "I believe necromancer is the word you're searching for, ma'am."

  Her small, hard eyes glittered beneath the puffy flesh of her lids. "You are an abomination."

  I'd been called that before, by the man I'd called Father, no less. The word had been like a spike through my heart then. But not anymore. "No, I am not. This is how God made me. I didn't choose to be a necromancer, not like some people choose to be cruel or break laws. It is how I was born. Do you think God's creation an abomination?"

  Her jowls shook as she worked up a response. Finally, she spat it out. "You duped me!"

  "No, ma'am, I have never duped you. Yes, I lied about being a medium but that's because I've discovered calling myself a necromancer either frightens people or disgusts them. Neither reaction gladdens me. But I have never duped you."

  "You told me you summoned my dear Albert's ghost."

  "I did summon him."

  "You're a necromancer, not a medium! If you summoned him, why could I not see him? Well?"

  I drew in a breath and wished I had a chair to sit on. I wanted to be lower, on her level. It felt odd to be higher. "A medium can only talk to spirits that have not crossed to their afterlife. They cannot call the spirit back from there. A necromancer can, if the full name of the deceased is known."

  "A lie. Necromancers raise the dead, Miss Holloway. You must think me naive to pretend otherwise."

  "Ma'am, you are partly correct. Necromancers are capable of directing a spirit into a dead body and controlling that body, but it's quite possible simply to summon ghosts and not take that extra step. That's what I did in the case of your late husband."

  She fidgeted with the rings on her left hand and did not meet my gaze. Her lack of response bolstered my confidence.

  "Did His Royal Highness The Prince Consort not prove that it was he in the room with us?" I asked gently. "I seem to recall he said something that only you and he could know as proof."

  She continued to twist one of her rings, a large sapphire with a thick gold band.

  "Ma'am, who told you that I'm a necromancer?"

  "That is private information."

  "If it was Sir Ignatius Swinburn, I must warn you that he doesn't like me or Lincoln. He'll do and say anything to have the Ministry of Curiosities shut down."

  "Why?"

  "Because the ministry monitors supernaturals and their activity. We keep them in check and ensure they do no harm. And he's a werewolf."

  "You've claimed that before, but it's proven false. He shot a werewolf only recently and he's not likely to kill one of his own, is he?"

  It was a difficult argument to counter so I moved on to the reason for my visit. "Ma'am, Lincoln has been arrested for conspiring to commit murder. He's not guilty. You know he's not guilty."

  "How dare you presume to know my mind?" Her eyes flashed, her jowls firmed. "Leave, Miss Holloway, or I shall have you thrown out."

  "Ma'am, please. We're due to be wed tomorrow."

  "So?"

  "He isn't guilty!"

  "Then it will be proved in court and he'll be set free."

  "Will he?" I growled, charging forward. "Will he really be freed? Or will Swinburn use you like he has used everyone else to ensure Lincoln is executed?"

  She rang a little bell on her desk and one of the doors opened. "Miss Holloway's audience has ended," she told the two footmen who entered. "Please see that she leaves the premises safely."

  I slapped both hands down on the desk. "Don't do this, ma'am!" One of the footmen grabbed my right arm and the other my left. They pulled me away from the desk. My heels dragged across the floor, rumpling the rug. "I'll do whatever you want!" I called out. "I'll summon your husband's ghost! Don't you want to speak to him again? I'm sure he'd like to see you. Ma'am, please, help us!"

  Another footman shut the door and I was unceremoniously pushed in the opposite direction. I tried to walk but the footmen were rough and tall and my feet hardly touched the floor. Others escorted us through the palace. It would seem I was to be thrown out after all.

  "What's this?" came a familiar voice. We'd just entered a long room whose only purpose seemed to be to house statues and paintings. The Prince of Wales approached from the door at the opposite end. "I heard there's been a security breach."

  "Your Royal Highness," I said, trying to sound rational and not at all mad or desperate. "Please, ask them to unhand me."

  "Miss Holloway? Men, halt this instant."

  The footmen stopped, clearly unsure whether to continue carrying out their queen's orders or their prince's."

  "I won't do anything rash," I assured them. "No one is in danger from me."

  "Of course not," the prince said. "It's absurd to even suggest it." He waved the footmen away. They bowed and moved out of earshot, but did not leave altogether. "What's the meaning of all this?" The prince glanced back the way I'd come. "Have you been speaking to Her Majesty?"

  "I appealed to her on Lincoln's behalf. He has been arrested."

  "What the devil for?"

  I told him about Fullbright and Yallop, and about the files and Lincoln's refusal to give them up. "Even if he did give them up, I'm sure Mr. Yallop would find a way to keep him in jail. He seems determined to ruin Lincoln and close the ministry."

  "This is a result of the newspaper articles." It was a statement, not a question, but I nodded anyway. "I'm not surprised that parliament worked swiftly on this. The public was afraid after the Ripper murders, and not everyone believes Gawler was the sole monster responsible this time. There was talk of rioting if the police didn't focus their full attention on keeping the East End safe. Something had to be done, or at least seen to be done, for the sake of peace."

  "Yes, but it's not fair to blame Lincoln! He's the one who keeps the city safe from monsters."

  "Clearly they have their reasons. Miss Holloway, there's no need to fret. A parliamentary select committee has a lot of power, but this Mr. Yallop won't be an unreasonable fellow. When he sees the good the ministry do, he'll let Fitzroy go."

  "No, he wo
n't. He is under Swinburn's influence, and Swinburn wants to see the ministry gone, and Lincoln with it."

  He clicked his tongue. "Stop this constant blaming of Swinburn! I've told you before, he's a good man and a good friend. He has the realm's best interests at heart."

  "He has his own best interests at heart, and you are deliberately turning the other cheek so that you don't see it."

  He bristled. "I beg your pardon."

  "Why did I think coming here would be a good idea?" I asked the chandelier dangling above me. "Why did I think one of you would listen? I didn't really expect your mother to care, sir, since she doesn't know. But you…you ought to care. He is your son, after all."

  He glanced toward the nearest footman, standing as still as one of the many statues. "Don't," he said without moving his lips. "That cannot become known. Imagine the scandal! His mother was a gypsy woman, for God's sake. The damage done to my reputation would be irreparable, and then there's the queen's censure to contend with. If you dare tell anyone, Miss Holloway, I'll deny it most vehemently."

  My heart sank with each word. Without the prince's influence, what chance did Lincoln have? Yallop and the members of parliament wanted to blame someone for allowing a murderous werewolf to roam our streets, and they'd made Lincoln their scapegoat, thanks to Swinburn. If one of the most powerful men in the realm refused to help, what hope was there? My chest hurt and my eyes burned with my tears. I wanted to scratch the face of the man standing in front of me and show the world that he was just a man, that he bled too, and ought to be held accountable for his mistakes as the rest of us were. The royal family didn't deserve to have their scandals buried. Not when revealing their scandals could save the life of a man.

  "You are a disappointment, sir. I cannot believe Lincoln is your son. He is brave, honest and does not turn a blind eye to injustice. He owns up to his mistakes and makes amends for them. In short, he is a better man than you. Good day, sir."

  I marched away from him as quickly as I could without breaking into a run. I expected him to stop me, or order one of his men to, but he did not. Whether he watched me go, I couldn't say. I didn't dare look back. My heart pounded furiously in my chest, and I feared it would smash every piece of my fragile body until there was nothing left but shards on the palace carpet. The footmen flanking me had to increase their pace to keep up, and I almost broke into a run when I spotted the exit. I lifted my skirts and raced down the front steps and into the safety of the Lichfield coach.