by Anna Bradley
“Not at all, James,” Lyndon gasped. “Good man.”
“Well done, James. Thank you.” Tristan took a calm sip of his coffee, and waited.
Lyndon coughed and spluttered a bit more, but finally he wiped his streaming eyes and turned an indignant look on Tristan. “Jesus, Gray. You might have warned me.”
“I might have, yes.” Tristan gave him a small smile. “I beg your pardon. I thought you’d appreciate a more dramatic telling.”
“Well, of course I do.” Lyndon, undaunted, took up the untouched tartlet on his plate and began to devour it. “Good Lord, Gray. That sounds far more entertaining than White’s. What did you do with this young woman once you caught her?”
“I let her go again.” Not by choice, but one didn’t tangle with Brixton unless one was prepared for a brawl.
Lyndon paused with the tartlet halfway to his mouth. “What, just like that? After all that trouble?”
“She had more…resources than I anticipated. A protector, that is.” The smile faded from Tristan’s lips as he met his friend’s gaze. “Daniel Brixton.”
Lyndon’s eyes went wide. “Brixton? You mean that large, terribly frightening fellow who works for Lady…” Lyndon trailed off, his eyes going even wider.
“Lady Clifford, yes. The young woman on the roof was one of Lady Clifford’s, er…” What did one call them? Demons? Felons, perhaps? “One of her pupils.”
Lyndon dropped the tartlet back onto his plate. “You mean to tell me you saw one of Lady Clifford’s fiendish sprites on Lord Everly’s rooftop and followed her to St. Clement Dane’s Church?”
“She was following Peter Sharpe.” Tristan hadn’t realized it was Sharpe at the time, but when he’d caught the girl—Sophia—at the door of the Clifford School, the puzzle pieces had fallen into place quickly enough.
Of course, it was Sharpe. It was the only thing that made sense.
“Sharpe?” Lyndon gave a low whistle. “That’s some trouble waiting to happen, that is.”
“You may be certain it’s already happening. The only question is, how far has it gone? Lady Clifford is no fool, and it’s no accident the girl was following Sharpe. They mean to see what they can do to save Jeremy Ives.”
“Not a bloody thing, from what I’ve heard. Everyone in London knows Ives is guilty.”
Everyone but Lady Clifford. But then perhaps she did know it, and simply didn’t care. “He is guilty, and I mean to see him brought to justice for his crimes, no matter what mischief Lady Clifford and her, er…” Hellions? Vixens, perhaps? “…students are doing to help him escape it.”
“I see. You intend to remain in London, then?”
Tristan was only meant to be in London until the end of the week. He’d promised his mother he’d return to Oxfordshire then, and get on with the business of being Lord Gray.
But he’d made other promises, too. Promises to Henry, and on Henry’s behalf to Abigail, and their infant son, Samuel. “For a brief time, yes. Another month, perhaps.”
Lyndon had been tearing what was left of his tartlet into pieces, but now he pushed the plate aside and dusted the crumbs off his fingers. “Your mother won’t like it.”
“No.” Tristan’s mother had made it clear she expected him to fulfill the duties of a title his elder brother, Thomas, had been shirking for years, starting with resigning his place with the Bow Street Runners and ending with marriage to a lady from a neighboring estate Tristan had only the vaguest recollection of ever meeting.
“The countess’s grief over Thomas’s death is…extreme,” Lyndon said carefully, but Tristan knew well enough what his friend meant.
The Countess of Gray had never been much interested in Tristan. He was more like his father—that is, dull and serious and far too concerned with tedious things like propriety and honor. Tristan’s elder brother, Thomas, had always been her favorite child, and she’d petted and spoiled him since he was in short pants.
Thomas’s death was a great loss, but not, unfortunately, an unexpected one. After he inherited the title and fortune a decade ago, he’d embraced dissipation with the sort of single-minded dedication that put a premature end to the lives of firstborn sons all across England. Tristan had loved his brother dearly—Thomas had been handsome, charming, and affectionate—but he hadn’t been surprised when years of debauchery had sent Thomas to an early grave.
Now the countess’s overindulgence of her elder son had led to predictably tragic results, she’d succumbed to a grief so violent it bordered on parody. She’d declared herself mere steps from her own grave, and demanded Tristan return to Oxfordshire as soon as possible.
“She expects you to marry still?” Lyndon asked, his tone grim.
Tristan gave a short laugh. “Let’s just say the countess has taken a much greater interest in me since I became the earl.”
Lyndon shook his head. “You were better off before.”
Tristan didn’t argue that point. Lyndon knew him well enough to know Tristan didn’t relish the future now laid before him, but he’d do his duty by his mother and his title.
First, however, he’d do his duty by Henry Gerrard, a friend who’d been dearer to him than his own brother. “My mother will have to reconcile herself to my absence a little longer. I have the rest of my life to be the Earl of Gray.”
He hadn’t meant to sound so bitter, but when Lyndon’s gaze jerked to his face, Tristan knew he’d revealed himself.
“Yes, you do.” Lyndon’s face darkened with something that was part anger, part sadness. “And I’m sorry for it, Tristan.”
Tristan was sorry for it, too, but he didn’t voice his regret.
Lyndon took his leave soon after that, there being little, after all, left to say.
* * * *
An hour after Lyndon left Great Marlborough Street, Tristan arrived at No. 4 Bow Street, where he surprised the Bow Street magistrate at his breakfast. “Stratford—that is, Lord Gray.” Sampson Willis set his teacup hastily aside and rose from his chair. “I didn’t realize you’d returned to London. Last I heard you were in Oxfordshire.”
“I have some final business to resolve here.” Tristan waved Willis back to his seat and took the chair on the other side of the desk.
Willis cleared his throat awkwardly. “I was sorry to hear of your brother’s passing. It’s a terrible loss for your family.”
“Thank you.”
“How does your mother do?” Willis shook his head. “Poor lady. I imagine her grief must be extreme.”
“Yes, I’m afraid it is.”
When Tristan didn’t elaborate, Willis cleared his throat again. “Well, then. What brings you to Bow Street?”
“I regret having to bring ill tidings, Willis, but there’s trouble over at the Clifford School.” Tristan saw no reason to mince words. “One of Lady Clifford’s students was up to some mischief last night.”
Willis had returned to his tea, but he set the cup aside again. “Oh? How did you discover this?”
“Quite by accident. I happened to catch the young woman in question prowling about in the dark after Peter Sharpe.”
Willis frowned. “What, you mean Everly’s man? Are you certain she was following him? Perhaps their being in the same place was merely a coincidence.”
“A rather startling coincidence, wouldn’t you say, for one of Lady Clifford’s girls to be creeping through the streets of London in the same vicinity as the only witness to a murder her ladyship’s servant is accused of committing?”
Willis blinked. “Well, when you put it like that—”
“It was no coincidence, Willis. The girl was waiting for Sharpe on the roof of Lord Everly’s pediment. My library looks out onto the front of Everly’s townhouse, so I got a good, long look at her. As soon as Sharpe came out, she was over the side of the pediment and down one of the columns as quickly as any
cat.”
Willis’s eyebrows shot up. “The devil you say!”
“I saw her myself. It was rather impressive, really.”
Willis leaned back in his chair, considering this. “No doubt it was. If it was anyone but Lady Clifford, I wouldn’t trouble myself much about it, but her ladyship knows what she’s about, and she’s trained those girls to be as clever as she is.”
“Clever under the best of circumstances. Ruthless, even dangerous, in the worst of them, especially when you throw Daniel Brixton into the mix.”
“What, was Brixton on the roof, too?”
“No. He wasn’t at Everly’s or St. Clement Dane’s, but he did make an appearance.”
“Yes, he generally does whenever the Clifford School is involved.”
“I can’t imagine Lady Clifford was pleased when Jeremy Ives was taken up for Henry’s…for murder. I heard Ives has been with her since he was a lad, and is one of her favorites.”
“No, I don’t believe she was pleased,” Willis muttered, fiddling with a quill on his desk.
“No, and likely not reconciled to his arrest, either. There’s every reason to suspect she’s up to something, and with Kit Benjamin’s assistance, she’s a formidable enemy.”
Willis’s gaze shifted from the quill to Tristan’s face. “You believe the rumors about Lady Clifford and Benjamin, then?”
“It’s difficult to say, but if they’re not lovers, they’re certainly friends. There’s no other explanation for Lady Clifford’s amazingly…shall we say, comprehensive knowledge of London’s nefarious element. If the good alderman isn’t providing her with information, who is?”
Kit Benjamin was well-respected in legal circles and purportedly an honest, upright gentleman, but he was also clever and ambitious. If there was a man in London who had his fingers into every secret, dirty corner of the city’s inner workings, it was Benjamin. Such a man as that could prove invaluable to a woman like Lady Clifford, who knew how to use whatever information she had to great advantage.
“There isn’t any doubt whatsoever Ives is guilty. I saw him myself, Gray, sprawled next to the body, fairly dripping in Gerrard’s blood. Lady Clifford isn’t one to trifle with, but I don’t see how even she can do anything to help Ives now.”
Tristan didn’t appreciate Willis’s unnecessarily lurid description of Henry’s murder scene, but he swallowed his ire. “Perhaps not, but that won’t stop her from trying. Why else would she send one of her girls after Sharpe?”
“Hmmm.” Willis sat quietly for some moments with his hands folded over his belly, frowning. “Where did Sharpe lead the girl?”
“St. Clement Dane’s Church.”
Up until this point Willis had taken Tristan’s news in a surprisingly desultory fashion, but at the mention of St. Clement Dane’s he straightened in his chair. “Ah, now that is interesting. Do you have any idea what Sharpe was doing there?”
“None at all, only that he didn’t appear to be doing anything illegal.”
“Hmmm. Was he alone?”
Tristan shrugged. “As far as I know.”
“I see, I see. Tell me, Gray, did you happen to get the young woman’s name?”
“Just her first name. Sophia. As you can imagine, she wasn’t particularly forthcoming.”
“No, I imagine she wasn’t. You’d recognize her if you saw her again, though? You remember her face?”
Green eyes flashed in Tristan’s mind. The better question was, would he be able to forget her? It was damn unlucky he’d thought her a boy at first. If he’d known she was a woman right away, it would have saved him that dramatic moment when her hair fell over her shoulders and he got his first glimpse of a face that now haunted his dreams. The suddenness of her appearance before him was, in a word, inconvenient.
But then a pretty face might hide a multitude of sins, and despite those wide green eyes, she was far from innocent. Innocent ladies didn’t scale townhouse facades. They didn’t slip through the bars of a wrought iron fence as if they were made of mist, and they didn’t navigate the streets and alleyways of London with the ease of a master moving pieces across a chessboard.
Tristan met Willis’s gaze. “Certainly. I’ll have her full name soon enough, as well.”
Willis eyed him. “Are you needed in Oxfordshire at once? Or is it possible for you to remain in London a while longer? It might be wise for us to keep a close eye on this young woman. Nip any mischief she might cause in the bud before Lady Clifford manages to set it all atilt, you understand.”
“I do. That’s why I’m here.” His mother would put up a fuss, but there was no way Tristan was going to scamper off to Oxfordshire and let Lady Clifford interfere with Jeremy Ives’s appointment with the scaffold.
He owed Henry that much. At least that much.
“You’re no longer a Bow Street Runner, but I daresay you haven’t forgotten how to chase a criminal down in the few weeks since you were. Keep an eye on the girl, that’s all, and report what you find back to me. Can you do that, Gray?”
Tristan nodded, and rose to his feet. “Of course I can.”
“Good. Go on, then, and make sure you report anything of interest to me at once. Oh, and send Poole in on your way out. He’s been lurking outside my door all morning.” Willis waved a hand in dismissal.
Richard Poole, another of Willis’s Bow Street Runners was slouched on a bench outside Willis’s office, tapping the tip of his walking stick impatiently against the heel of his boot and grumbling irritably to himself. Tristan paused beside him and nodded toward Willis’s door. “He’s waiting for you, Poole.”
“Right.” Poole shuffled to his feet and made his way toward Willis’s office, but before he went inside, he turned back to Tristan. “Shame what happened to Henry Gerrard, my lord. He was a good man.”
Tristan glanced at him in surprise. Poole hadn’t been a Bow Street Runner for long, and Tristan didn’t know him well, but Poole had known Henry, and they’d been friends, of a sort. Sometimes Tristan became so lost in his own grief, he forgot others were grieving, too. “I…that’s kind of you, Poole. Thank you.”
Poole nodded once, then went into Willis’s office and closed the door behind him.
Tristan left No. 4 and headed north toward Brownlow Street. He’d go see Abigail and the baby, see they didn’t want for anything, and then he’d find out everything there was to know about Sophia, the dark-haired, green-eyed ghost from his nightmare.
She wouldn’t haunt him for much longer.
For a few weeks more, he’d be a Bow Street Runner, and once that was done…
He’d retire to Oxfordshire, marry a lady whose face he couldn’t recall, and spend the rest of his life being Lord Gray.
Chapter Five
One week later
Old Bailey Courthouse, London
Sophia peeked out from under the brim of the monstrously ugly hat she wore and shuddered at the hideousness surrounding her. Everywhere she turned she saw clenched fists, bared teeth, and dozens of gaping mouths filthy with curses. The stench of unwashed bodies crowded into too small a space was so overwhelming she feared she’d swoon like one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s fragile heroines.
Lady Clifford had warned her not to come to Jeremy’s trial today.
Perhaps I should have listened.
Bloodthirsty spectators swarmed the Old Bailey’s gallery this morning. The good citizens of London enjoyed a gruesome hanging every now and again, and there wasn’t a single person here today who didn’t want to see Jeremy sentenced to swing. The crowd shoving at each other in the yard was no better. It looked as if half the city was out there, all of them panting to see the notorious murderer condemned to the noose.
No one seemed to care much what Jeremy might have to say in his own defense. He’d already been tried and sentenced.
Sophia dove back under her hat, her
throat tightening with dread. Lady Clifford had tried to warn her it would be like this, but Sophia hadn’t been able to bear the thought of Jeremy facing such brutal hostility alone. He wouldn’t be able to see her, tucked into the back of the gallery as she was, but maybe he’d sense her presence, and would know he had at least one friend among the crowd.
One, and only one.
Lady Clifford had made it clear she preferred they all stay away from the Old Bailey today, it not being wise to emphasize the Clifford School’s connection to Jeremy just now. It wouldn’t do for people to become suspicious, or to attract undue attention. There was, after all, a possibility—not a certainty, because no one could ever be certain of anything—but a possibility Jeremy Ives’s fate wouldn’t be quite what London expected, regardless of what happened in the courtroom today.
Sophia rose to her tiptoes and tried to peer around the shoulders of the rows of men in front of her. Jeremy hadn’t been brought in yet, so there wasn’t much to see, but it had been weeks since she’d laid eyes on him. She was desperate to catch a glimpse of him today, even as another wave of dread rolled over her at the thought of what she might find.
Newgate was infamous for the miserable conditions, the gleeful brutality of the gaolers, and the unimaginable suffering inflicted on the prisoners. A simple, sweet-tempered boy like Jeremy wouldn’t have the first idea how to survive in such a place.
An expectant hush fell over the courtroom, and a few moments later the harsh reality of Jeremy’s predicament was borne home to Sophia with pitiless clarity. She slapped a hand over her mouth to smother her horrified gasp as Jeremy—lovely, kind, gentle Jeremy—was dragged into the courtroom.
He looked…dear God, he looked as if he’d been starved and beaten half to death. If she hadn’t known this poor, ragged creature to be Jeremy, Sophia wouldn’t have recognized him. He’d always been a big, strong lad, but his body had been reduced to a pathetic wreck, his shoulders hunched, his chest sunken. He was dragging one foot behind him as if it had been injured, and his face was covered in bruises.