The Wedding Night Affair--An Historical Mystery, page 5
Nodding, he went to the chair, but waited until she had taken her seat on the sofa opposite before sinking down gracefully and stretching one leg before him. “Tell me what happened, if you please.”
“How is it you come from Bow Street? Do they employ gentlemen now?”
He raised a brow. “I act a consultant when the case interests me. I have an interest, no, let us say a passion, for justice. I am a lawyer, and I work on my own. Not under anyone’s direction.”
“In murders?” How could there be such a thing?
He answered her, unperturbed by her question. “That and other matters. Fielding is glad of my help, since he’s shorthanded and low on funds, but I only take the cases that interest me. Sometimes people come to me.” He leaned forward, a faint smile crossing his lips as if vouchsafing a secret. “But nothing at this level of society before.”
She recalled his title. What was this man doing here? Sometimes lawyers were awarded titles. Perhaps he was one of those. “You’re a knight?”
“In shining armor?” He lifted his hand in a gesture of dismissal. “I can hardly claim that. I am a mere baronet, far below your father’s notice.”
A hereditary knight, and yes, her father would probably consider him below his notice. Baronets were not members of the aristocracy. But this man did not seem cowed by his lack of status. He had walked into this room as if he owned it.
His fine mouth twitched. “At present I’m merely acting on behalf of the magistrate.”
Her mind was running again, and it didn’t want to stop, but her stomach was churning. The initial shock had worn off and she was exposed to the emotions the glass sphere had sheltered her from. Terror at her imminent demise, determination to avoid the sentence she did not deserve and fear that she would not succeed. All of it battered at her now. “Tell me what will happen next.”
“That largely depends on what you say to me now.”
She wanted more before she told him her story, although deep down she longed to tell someone the truth. Nobody had asked her why she should think of murdering her husband. Her father appeared to know, and her father-in-law did not care.
Her father wouldn’t have allowed him up here if he was anything other than what he claimed. Long practice told her what to do. She forced her emotions down, and took care to keep her usual expression of polite interest on her face. Without the face paint, the task was more difficult, but she could do this.
“Tell me what I can expect.” She wanted certainty so she could plan. She had kept her father on her side—barely—but that might not be enough to save her, unless she accepted his offer to flee abroad. That did not sit well with her. She was innocent, so why should she behave like a guilty person?
She liked the way this man looked at her, straight on, with interest but not the fawning deference her father preferred from those he considered his inferiors. She suspected Sir Edmund was nobody’s inferior.
“You first. I need to know your story before I can recommend a course of action.”
“What happens if I send you away?”
He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “You are perfectly within your rights to do so. But you asked if.” He took a second to watch her. She was not moving, but he regarded her closely, as if she were doing something that fascinated him. He took a deep breath, like a man who had come to a decision. “Very well. You will be arrested by someone else and taken to Newgate Gaol. That is, if you survive the mob outside, of course. When I arrived, about fifty people had gathered outside, but that was before I spoke with your father. There will be more by now. They are calling for your blood. Screaming for it.”
She swallowed and forced herself to keep her voice steady. He was testing her. That perceptive gaze was taking in every second of her response to his frank speaking, making her feel unshielded before him.
She lifted her chin defiantly. “Perhaps I would prefer to be torn to pieces by an angry mob than go through the process and die at Tyburn next week.”
A cool nod. “Perhaps. You will appear before the magistrate, the evidence will be heard, and as matters stand, you will be condemned.”
“Will I stay in Newgate Prison?” As shock wore off, the full horror of her dilemma drove a knife into her soul. If she had a pistol handy, she might have clapped it to her temple and finished everything. Overdramatic for her taste, but an answer to her dilemma.
“Unlikely, although there are half-decent cells to house people who can afford it. You are a lady. You would stay with Mr. Fielding and his wife in their house in Bow Street. Or somewhere else. On your cognizance, of course.”
“Here?”
“If you wish.” He raised a brow. “So will you tell me your story, or am I wasting my time?”
He straightened in the chair as if planning to rise and leave.
She did not want him to leave. He had given her the stark truth. She respected him for that.
Juliana folded her hands in her lap, like a child preparing to recite her lesson. Flashes of last night kept returning unbidden, bringing back the horror and despair, plunging her into darkness. Perhaps she should have arrayed herself in her usual armor of hoops and face paint after all.
“As you no doubt know, last night was my first in my husband’s bed. And my last. I awoke to find him dead. Surely I would have remembered doing that?”
He nodded, but his eyes showed the compassion she had seen in no one else since her marriage. Since before then. “How can that be? You spent the night in his bed, you say. He was dead in the morning. So what happened?”
“I do not know.”
“My lady, I hate to ask you this, but I need to know more details of the evening.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, as if weary. “Would you like me to ask your maid to come in? I understand your mother is on her way to a country house, so that I’m afraid your maid is the only alternative.”
She shook her head, a little too vigorously. “No, that is the last thing I want. Wood is my father’s spy.” There, she’d said it. “She works for him rather than for me.”
“Is there nobody you can trust as your friend?”
She didn’t need to think about her answer. “No. I am alone.”
He closed his eyes briefly. “I see. Then tell me everything, starting with your wedding. Every detail, however trivial it might seem.”
“If I employ you as my lawyer, you cannot tell anyone else anything I tell you, is that right?”
“If I agree to take your case, yes. But I am at present undecided, and I am currently here on behalf of the magistrate at Bow Street. Tell me the truth and we will go from there.”
She had counted her life over already. Who in their right mind would believe her? And why should they care? This man could tell the gossip sheets, he could use her story, twist it to his own needs. After all, although she instinctively trusted him, she had no actual proof. She was unpracticed at trusting anyone.
But at least one person should hear her confession, and since she was not a Roman Catholic, this man was her only chance of that. For that reason alone, she would tell him.
Juliana settled herself as well as she could. “We had a special license, so we could be married privately. I was married in this house yesterday, and then we traveled to my husband’s parents’ house. The wedding breakfast took most of the afternoon, although I did not eat much.”
“Did your husband?” He watched her carefully.
She did not care. She was used to being watched. She had been watched since her birth, and even more since she became the sole heir to her father’s fortune. But this time was different. He wasn’t looking at her as a potential conquest or a walking fortune; he was scrutinizing her.
“My husband ate and drank copiously, joking that he must stoke the fires, and made other comments in the same vein.”
The two small lines above his brows deepened, but he only said, “Please go on.”
“Early in the evening at about seven o’clock, my husband took me upstairs to—that room.” She closed her eyes, her inner vision replaying the scene. She could recite it as if nobody was listening to her, as if recalling events for herself.
“I have seen it. Tell me everything, my lady,” he murmured, his voice like velvet. “I need to know it all.”
He’d seen the room where her husband had died? She opened her eyes. “Was he still there?”
He shook his head. “No, they moved him to another room. But I saw the room, and then I viewed your husband’s body.”
She caught her breath. That he could speak so dispassionately about a dead man! Was he like her father, then? A coldhearted person with no natural compassion? That was not what his eyes had transmitted to her. “So did I.”
“Yes, and I’m sorry for it.” He sounded brusque, impatient. “I am glad to find you so composed. I expected to find a weeping mess.”
“That will come,” she told him dryly. “I can feel again now, but events still seem somewhat distant.”
“Then while you can, tell me.”
She would tell the raw, naked truth. They would know, whether she told anyone or not. Her bruises had not gone unnoticed, and they had not been there yesterday morning. She glanced down at the marks circling her wrists. They might not be gone by the time she climbed the scaffold.
“My husband did not allow my maid to prepare me for bed, so eager was he. The first time he took me I was dressed.” Swallowing, she forced herself to continue. “It hurt, as I was told it would.” She met Sir Edmund’s eyes boldly. “Then he cut the clothes off me with his army dagger and threw me on the bed.”
She could not say any more about that terrible time. Could not articulate, did not have the words. Surely she had told him enough about that. “He used me sorely, sir. I hurt all over when he’d finished.”
By meeting his gaze, she could keep calm about what happened. Sir Edmund steadied her, made it possible for her to tell him what he needed to know. Why should she not unburden herself to a stranger, when nobody close to her cared if she lived or died?
“A husband has the right to treat his wife however he pleases, short of murder, and I was told that I must not complain.”
“Do not say that!” The vehemence of his words shocked her. Even more the fire in his eyes, and the twist of his mouth. He must despise her for what she’d just told him. She was ungrateful, cold, frigid, all the words her husband had thrown at her last night. He’d forced her to do things she had no conception of and only laughed when she’d used the chamber pot to vomit in.
Tears sprang to her eyes, but if she let them fall, she would never stop. So she forced them back. “I cannot say more, and it can have no relevance.”
“It does,” he said gently. “His treatment of you gives you motive for murder. However, the charge could be reduced to manslaughter, if you were fighting for your life. I can work with that.”
Shock at his searing honesty made her catch her breath. Nobody did that in the circles in which she moved; they prevaricated and danced around the facts of a situation. The truth was to be avoided, because it made a person vulnerable. The truth was a weapon. “But I didn’t do it. Surely I would remember if I had.”
“Did he let you sleep?”
She closed her eyes again, but the visions that came to her were more vivid that way. She opened them. “We paused for supper.”
“What did you have?”
Why would he care about that? “I ate nothing. But I drank a glass of wine. Foul stuff, but he seemed to enjoy it, and it had the effect I was craving. It numbed me to what was to come. I needed the fortification.” For the continuation of her ordeal.
“What did it taste like?” he demanded.
She stared at him. “What difference does that make? It was far too sweet for my preference and it had a bitter aftertaste I didn’t like.” She had thought it the remains of the blood she’d drawn when she’d bitten the inside of her cheek to stop herself screaming. Later, she’d given up trying to retain her dignity and screamed out her agony. Nobody came.
Sir Edmund got to his feet and paced about the room, his actions abrupt and agitated. What was he about? What had he seen? He turned and faced her, finding her gaze unerringly. “What do you remember next?”
Vague recollections entered her mind. “I heard something, a kind of sighing grunt from my husband, and I smelled tobacco. My husband did not smoke pipes or take snuff, so why would it be there?” The memory was so nebulous it could have been a dream. “I thought I heard someone move around the room. A servant, perhaps.”
“A servant would have seen your husband, presumably alive, or he would have sounded the alarm. That would give us a time to work from.” He touched his bottom lip with the tip of his thumbnail. “And after that?”
“Waking up this morning. When I woke, I had my back to Godfrey, but I knew he was still there by the weight. I saw the blood first, then I turned over and—he was there, dead.”
That awful squelching sensation when she’d moved to get out of bed would never leave her.
“I see.”
She followed his movements, tracing the way the sharp, white teeth dug into the soft flesh of his lower lip, the concentration helping her to remain calm. He sucked in a breath, his chest expanding. He was a powerful man, something that had escaped her notice at first. “Then there is a chance,” he said, as if to himself.
“A chance of what?”
“Of your escaping the gallows. I need to know more.” He came back to her, reaching for her, and she let him help her to her feet.
The shock of the warmth, the contact made her gasp and flinch away. Nobody had touched her, other than Wood, since her husband. He dropped his hand immediately. “More what?” she asked him.
“I believe there is more to this story than meets the eye.”
“Truly?”
He searched her face, as if looking for something. “Do not wish for too much. Do not assume I can save you. But I can ensure you have a fair hearing, though I am afraid you must live under guard for now.”
“I have been in prison most of my life.” As she said it, she recognized the truth of what she was saying. She had, from cradle to what increasingly seemed to be an early grave. “What is a few more weeks?”
“Ah, but we will do something about that.”
He took a few paces, his movements once more abrupt. This man had a quickness of movement that fascinated her. Most of the people she knew moved, spoke and lived in studied gestures, practiced movements and words. Not this one. She had never met anyone remotely like him before.
“First of all, plead your belly. Understand?” He turned a piercing glare on to her, but she could meet it with equanimity.
She shook her head. “What do you mean?”
“Your father understands,” he said. “The courts will not execute a woman with a baby inside her. The child is an innocent, and should not bear the sins of the woman carrying it. If you do that, we will have time to investigate. I wish to look into this matter before I give you any conclusions, and I have only just begun.”
Pleading her belly? That was what they called it? That would give her nine more months. Or at least four weeks. Relief made her sag, but when he came to her, she waved him away. “But what happens when”—she paused, still uncertain about discussing such intimate details—“when my courses come.”
“If they do.” He flashed a brief grin. “My lady, I understand the workings of the female body. I have sisters. That tactic will give us another week or two, and will give me a chance to investigate further. The magistrates will wait until they know for sure that you are not pregnant.”
She had to accept that every part of her life was open to scrutiny, if she was to live. “If it happens, I cannot hide it from my maid.” Or her fellow prisoners, come to that.
“Unfortunate, but we do not have to use your maid. You said she reports to your father. We will do our best to ensure you are not spied on again.”
She allowed herself a small smile. “I doubt you can achieve that, sir, but I thank you for your concern.”
That frown returned, adding a storm cloud to his features. Oddly, she did not find the fierceness intimidating. She had to face the world. In a few days, she could be in court, pleading for her life. While she might avoid hanging day next week, there would be another next month. But she had weeks, not days. That was one step forward. And after all, she might actually be with child.
However much she repeated those simple facts in her mind, she could not entirely believe them. They seemed so fantastic, like something out of a novel. But it would happen, whether she believed it or not.
“Will they hang me?” She needed the words, needed to force herself to believe in the reality of what was happening to her.
His frown deepened. “The mob is calling for it. Sometimes mob rule prevails, but you have given me several aspects to work with. At least I am more positive than when I came in here.”
“So you are taking my case? You will speak for me?”
“Yes.”
Her breath shortened and stars danced before her eyes. She couldn’t breathe, and when she tried to speak, a choked sound came out. Everything rushed in on her, all that had happened, in every detail, and she spread her hands, grasping for something that was not there.
Chapter Seven
Juliana found herself propelled into the sofa, a handkerchief shoved into her hands. The tears came, the fissure fully open, and now there was no stopping it.
After five, perhaps ten minutes, Sir Edmund’s cool voice cut through her distress. “There is much to discover, but from the account you have just given me, you may not hang, even if you did kill him. If I find extenuating circumstances, I will not allow it.”
