The Gamble

by Laura Parker

  The twitters and outright chuckles at this recounting heartened her. When she turned back to her interrogator, to her surprise she found Lord Lovelace was now smiling at her.

  “So now, will you explain how Lord Darlington came to be party in a scheme to kidnap your half-brother for ransom?”

  “ ’Twas never for ransom but only to ensure Kit’s safety.” She sent a resentful glance to where Robert McDonnell sat. How much could she say and still keep her promise? “I thought that I could care better for my brother than anyone else.”

  “And so you stole him?”

  “Kit came willingly. He knows I would never do anything to harm him.”

  “Where is your brother?”

  “Out of harm’s way.”

  “Can you prove that?”

  “It would seem that the whereabouts of a child whom the king has disinherited would be of no concern to anyone but the sister who cares deeply for him.”

  This time the murmurs from the lords’ benches were unanimous in their agreement with her. Though many of them had sired bastards of their own, none of them were interested in fate of a commoner’s by-blow.

  Ran turned to the opposing counsel. “Your witness.”

  The Attorney General rose to his feet, his face an expressionless mask beneath his impeccably groomed wig. His lazy-lidded gaze put her instantly on the alert. Here was a most dangerous adversary.

  “One question only, Miss Lyndsey. Do you believe that Lord Darlington is Blackjack Law?”

  Sabrina laughed. “I do not!”

  His long sober expression altered to one of amused disdain. “You disappoint me, Miss Lyndsey. I should have thought that a young woman of your perspicacity would have noticed the most obvious, and damning, connection between the two.”

  “What connection would that be?” Sabrina asked cautiously, sobered by that sliver of a smile that in no way warmed his haughty countenance.

  “Why, that the names lend themselves to interpretation. Darlington’s given name is John, hence the nickname Jack. His family name is Laughton. Jack Law. Jack Laughton.” He drew out the syllables of each to stress the similarity. “Is the highwayman’s byname not self-evidence of a wit at work?”

  “That would depend upon the wit, I suppose,” Sabrina answered slowly for, surprisingly, the thought had never before occurred to her. Jack had always been Lord Darlington to her and then, once she fell in love, her own dear Jack. But she saw in the flash the danger of the connection. She must sever it at once.

  “Jacks abound,” she continued. “Yet who but a halfwit would conceive so obvious a ploy? People might label Lord Darlington many things but never a fool!”

  Supporting laughter from the galleries echoed her sentiment, just as she hoped.

  “Do you mock this court, Miss Lyndsey?” the prosecutor asked in a tone that quelled even the throng.

  “Certainly not, my lord.” Sabrina smiled at the Attorney General though she knew her temper flared in her gaze. He had made it clear that he considered her less unworthy of his consideration, as both a female and commoner. She knew she should bow to his superiority but she could not. Still her voice was all feminine difference as she applied her own brand of wit. “I sought only to answer your question in the spirit in which you proposed it, my lord; a frivolous question answered in kind. If I have erred, I beg your pardon.”

  The Attorney General stared at her a fraction longer, as though pondering his next move, then he seemed to change his mind. “Thank you. You may step down, Miss, Lyndsey.”

  Randolph watched her leave the witness box with great admiration for her performance. She had managed to diffuse the matter of kidnapping and abduction, and offer Darlington a plausible alibi, though it was at the cost of her reputation.

  He glanced at the first row in the gallery where McDonnell sat looking like thunder. Lord Merripace sat beside him, pulling thoughtfully at his lower lip. He did not like to think what else her testimony would cost her if Darlington were unable to act quickly enough when the trial was over. But first he must win it.

  “The defense now calls Jack Laughton, Viscount Darlington, to the witness box.”

  Amid the buzz and push and shove from the upper galleries as men and woman vied for a better look at the handsome defendant, the viscount was sworn in.

  “Lord Darlington,” Randolph began, “did you not introduce yourself in Scotland as the highwayman Black Jack Law?”

  Darlington shrugged. “I might have. The Scots seemed more impressed by a man who lives by his wits rather than one who lives off the sweaty brow of his fellow countrymen.”

  A hiss of disapproval that arose from the benches of aristocratic landowners, whose lives of ease were maintained by the toil of their many tenants, did not disturb the viscount one whit.

  “Then you admit you are the notorious Jack Law?”

  “Certainly not. I merely stated that I found the sobriquet useful.”

  “Useful? Were you not arrested after you told the authorities that you had kidnapped Miss Lyndsey and her half-brother in order to hold them for ransom?”

  He smiled, drawing his scar into a valley of a laugh line. “It seemed more prudent to admit to a lie than to allow Miss Lyndsey to be taken away to a place where a different lie might have been beaten out of her.” He glanced pointedly at Sir Alan, who shifted uncomfortably on his gallery bench. “Such things are not unheard of.”

  Randolph cleared his throat in amusement but did not comment. “Would you care to explain your relationship with Miss Lyndsey.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “Will you not speak, if only to defend her honor?”

  “Her honor requires no defense. She is none other than she seems, a splendid girl with a brave heart full of only the best of intentions.”

  “A commendable sentiment. Yet hardly the kind of declaration expected from a gentleman who seduced her away from her family and traveled alone with her all the way into the wilds of Scotland.”

  Darlington gazed at his counsel with lazy indifference. “You are unfamiliar with the tropical temperament. We do not require much inducement to adventure.”

  “Are you certain that the inducement was a not a financial one? Miss Lyndsey’s future husband will inherit a great fortune upon her marriage.”

  “Miss Lyndsey’s wealth has never weighed with me. She was in need. I offered my services.”

  “With no incentive of any kind on the young lady’s part? I am impressed. Unless your intentions were less than honorable. Perhaps you had not aid but seduction in mind.”

  Jack stared at his advocate for a moment. “Perhaps.”

  The softly spoken answer caused a startling response. The lead counsel for the prosecution stood up and declared in ringing tones, “You stand in this court of law and admit that you are a heartless seducer?”

  Jack turned a complaisant gaze on the Attorney General, as the collective audience in the room seemed to strain forward from their positions to catch his every word. “I admit that my interest in Miss Lyndsey has never been wholly virtuous in nature. I defy any gentleman here to attest to such a paltry lack of passion for a woman he claims to love.”

  “Love?”

  Sabrina’s startled question sounded clearly in the one moment of stunned silence.

  “My lord! This will not serve!” The Attorney General came forward on long quick strides. “My lords, this is but a charlatan’s trick, a sham of feigned emotion aimed at winning the court’s sympathy!”

  The lead prosecutor glared at the defendant in contempt, waiting until the calls for silence hushed the crowd. “This is clearly a bid to manipulate the emotions of the bench. Miss Sabrina Lyndsey is to be wed this very evening to Lord Merripace.”

  “What?” For the first time Jack’s expression lost its indolence.

  The prosecutor smiled. “Have you not heard, Lord Darlington? The marriage banns have be
en read these last two Sundays. She gave herself freely to the offer.”

  “I see.” No emotion animated the words.

  Jack turn to look at Sabrina for the first time. She looked stricken and pale. It was true then. He knew it with a certainty no amount of explanation could cushion.

  As he turned back to the prosecutor, there was a strange expression on his face, at once tender and regretful, something a little desperate and resentful, and an infinite quality of utter amazement. She had gambled away her future for his life! It was the dearest, most precious gesture anyone had ever made on his behalf. Yet, it was totally unnecessary. He had found a method by which to save himself. How could she doubt it?

  “The lady has my felicitations. But I should like to get on with the matter at hand.” He smiled the smile of a man who knows he holds an unbeatable hand. “I can prove that I am not Jack Law.” He turned to look at the gentleman who had sat in silence through the full day of court proceedings with a bemused expression on his lean, saturnine face.

  A tall, thin, elegantly dressed man in black silk and gold lace stood up. By his flamboyant dress he could not be mistaken for other than a continental. Though his accent was faint, when he spoke his origin was quickly pinpointed as French. “I should beg the indulgence of the court for a moment, my lords.”

  The Attorney General squinted down at the man from his high perch. “And who, sir, are you?”

  The Frenchman smiled, making of his saturnine face a mobile composite of charming villainy. “But, of course, I am Monsieur Jacques Justice de Tristesse or, as you so vulgarly prefer, ‘Blackjack’ Law.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Jack sat in the small room at Westminster, awaiting the judgement of the House of Lords. His coat was shed and his shirt dangled free at the cuffs and open at the throat. He should have been cold, for the room was little warmer than the temperature outside where frost was beginning to etch lacy fingers on the windowpane.

  He was a man who had never given a damn about anything, certainly not others and scarcely more than base-level creature concerns about himself. He had always suspected, deep in his heart, that he was as his mad father predicted, the devil’s spawn, damned by his very existence. So there was no need to be better than his worst self, no need to care and suffer as good people did. No need, especially, to seek comfort in this despairing world. No need to strive or sacrifice or plan or hope. No need to deal in the minor emotions that weaker people claimed made life easier or more bearable, or even just worth living. No need at all, until Sabrina.

  How droll, what a canard was fate! At last, certain of the origin of emotions that he had never before felt, or thought he would ever feel, he had nearly sealed his birthright and heralded his own defeat.

  He drew in a foot upon the chair on which he sat and dangled an arm over his knee. He had been ejected from the judgement portion of his trial in the council chambers at Westminster and placed in a private room with a guard beyond the door. Without Sabrina, he was equally indifferent the outcome.

  He loved her.

  The realization abashed and appalled him. He could not speak the words in her ear in a private loving moment. No, he had let her drift and dangle in doubt for weeks and then tossed the word out to her from a witness box with all the snooping, spying, uncaring world to hear. No wonder he was damned.

  He threw back his head in bitter laughter.

  The door to this temporary cell swung wide at that moment and Lord Lovelace entered in a quick stride and a swirl of melting snow that dampened his clothing as he crossed the yard. He stopped short at the sound of laughter. “You’ve heard, then?”

  Jack sobered a little slowly, wiping a tear of mirth from one eye. “Heard what?”

  Randolph frowned. “You’re free!”

  Jack sat a moment in silence. When he did speak, the old mocking disdainful drawl was back. “Did you ever doubt it?”

  “At least half a dozen times today.” Annoyed, Randolph stomped to rid his boots of the last of the snow, really slush, which had begun to accumulate. It seemed his rush to deliver the news was wasted. Then again, when did Darlington ever say what he meant?

  “You might at least have told me of the existence of Jacques Tristesse.”

  “And miss the opportunity to astonish? I think not.”

  “Half of them wanted to hang you for your impudence this afternoon,” he said as he unwound his muffler. “The other half wanted to give you a parade for the very same reason.”

  “Human nature is so easily swayed by sentiment.”

  “Yes, well, there are stipulations.”

  Jack’s expression lost its humor. “Such as?”

  Randolph began unbuttoning his favorite heavy coat. “You did not think they would thank you for tantalizing them with the specter of a notorious criminal only to discover when they attempted to arrest him that he had gained the king’s own pardon?”

  Jack smiled. “It was a necessary evil in order to persuade the gentleman to expose his masquerade.”

  “How the devil did you manage it?”

  “I’m afraid I was party to it.” Lotte’s voice drew both men’s attention to the open doorway. She stood wrapped in velvet and fox fur like some winter fairy just sprung up from the new-fallen snow.

  “You?” Ran approached his wife and took her gently by the shoulders. “Lotte, what have you done now?”

  “Very little,” she assured him with a smile. “I merely spoke with the queen on Jack’s behalf.”

  Ran’s expression darkened. “When?”

  Lotte flung back her fur-lined hood to reveal her unpowdered hair. “A week ago. Jack wrote me, asking me to.” Seeing her husband’s frown deepen, she added hastily, “I but carried a letter to Her Majesty to be delivered to His Majesty. I had no idea of its contents.”

  Ran glanced over his shoulder at Jack. “We now know it contained a request for a carte blanche, the king’s immunity from prosecution, for Monsieur de Tristesse.”

  “Wasn’t his the most romantic story?” Lotte breathed happily.

  Ran basked in the warmth of her gaze. “You are partial to love stories, though I wonder if his tale of a Jersey Islander’s love for a Devonshire lass was but a sham to win hearts.”

  “I would not doubt it,” Jack rejoined, thinking of his own mad escapade on the highway and how it had brought him love. Monsieur de Tristesse had told his story of being a privateer, bedeviling the English coast, when he met a girl in the port town of Exeter. He decided to take up his trade on land, substituting highway robbery for marauding on the high seas, until he had won her. “Did he say she was a year in the wooing?”

  “That would explain his gallantry to his victims,” Lotte mused. “No woman would wed a man who had actually committed atrocious crimes.”

  The men exchanged knowing glances that belied that fact. Women often loved wastrels.

  “How did you know where to find him?” Ran asked.

  “I’ve had weeks to think about the man,” Jack answered ruefully. “I did not doubt that the outlaw once existed, but it stood to reason that the proliferating number of robberies could only mean that others had taken up the colorful nickname. As legend springs up in the wake of reality, I assumed the real ‘Blackjack’ was dead or retired. Friends made inquiries to discover which theory was correct.”

  “You have friends?” Ran asked skeptically, still smarting from his exclusion in the matter.

  “I have acquaintances. Once the calendar year turned over I also had money enough to bribe the tightest maw.”

  “I commend your ingenuity.”

  “Thank you. I believe Monsieur de Tristesse rather enjoyed setting the record straight. As a good citizen of the Isle of Jersey these last twenty years and with a family of six to rear, he wanted his name cleared of the worst infamy that has become attached to the reputation of ‘Black Jack’.”

  “I’m glad you can be so philosophical about it, for your generos
ity to him will cost you mightily.”

  Jack lifted a brow. “There were stipulations? What are they?”

  “You must leave London, immediately,” Randolph answered grimly. “If you are discovered within the borders of England after Friday, you shall be summarily arrested.”

  Jack nodded. “A pleasant alternative to exile. Does Sabrina know?”

  Randolph paused fractionally before answering. “McDonnell waited himself to hear the verdict.”

  Something ugly moved in Jack’s expression. “So then, she will know.”

  “She is very likely being shoved before a minister at moment.”

  Jack stood and reached for his coat. “I wish her every happiness, I’m sure.”

  “God grant me mercy!” Randolph cried in disgust. “If you love her, take her with you! If not, be damned to you!”

  Grinning, Jack stuck an arm in the first sleeve. “I rather think I will.”

  Lotte eyed him with fond admiration. “Which is it, Jack?”

  Jack shoved his arm into the other sleeve and hoisted the coat up onto his shoulders. “I rather think I shall take her with me.”

  Randolph nodded his head once. “Here, you will need this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Miss Lyndsey’s passage to America.”

  Jack’s expression altered. “You never gave it to her?”

  “She refused her portion. Her brother and your servant received theirs. They are waiting for you in the port town of Plymouth. I have a message from the tall blackamoor.”

  “Zuberi? Yes?”

  “He said to tell you that he did not leave a certain person, his words, in Bath. He is sorry to disobey you in this one small matter but as she is leaving England with him, it will no longer inconvenience you.”