The Wedding Night Affair--An Historical Mystery, page 8
“Where are we going?”
“Lincoln’s Inn Fields.”
She should probably have asked before, but their destination did not matter much. Only that she was out, and free of the attendants that kept her from hobnobbing with the common people. Her servants would also have cleared her path from obstacles, like the small pile of dog dirt she had just hopped over. “Is it far?”
He turned a curious gaze on to her. “Do you not know London? I thought you had spent several seasons here.”
“I have, but I only know the fashionable parts, and the rest I have only seen in passing. I have read a great deal about it, though, and followed imaginary routes on the map.”
“Ah, I see. No, it is not far. Why, would you rather hail a cab?”
“Oh no! I’m enjoying this enormously!”
“You are not too fatigued?”
He was talking about her injuries. Swallowing, she glanced away, pretending to be fascinated by a minor commotion on the other side of the street. Two women were shouting at each other, something about a length of fabric. “That was no more French silk than I’m a Dutchman!” one cried, as clear as could be, despite a carriage rumbling down the cobbles and a dog barking further up the road. “Good Spitalfields stuff, that is. I’m not paying French prices for that!”
Juliana would have lingered to hear the end of the dispute, but Sir Edmund hurried her along.
Her conscience made her uneasy. “We should have brought my father with us when we left the house in Mayfair.”
He grinned, but without humor. A mere tightening of the lips. “Do you think he would have fitted in that narrow alleyway? Would he have decided to run, or would he have called for help, and drawn attention to us? That is even if we could have reached him.”
She had to concede he was right. “But they could have killed him.”
“If he has any sense, he’ll barricade himself downstairs with the kitchen staff, or upstairs with the servants there. He is not their quarry. They might even take pity on him, having such a wicked daughter.”
Although she could never have imagined such a thing, Ash jolted a laugh from her. “Will we send word to him, if he survives the mob?”
“Indeed. I’ll send a runner when we return. Can your father be trusted not to tell anyone where you are?”
She nodded. “My father might cast me off entirely,” she continued happily.
The notion lifted her spirits. Her husband’s family were hardly likely to take her in now, and society would turn its back on her.
What would she do? For the first time she faced the possibility of making her own living. She was trained for nothing. At a pinch she could take a position as a governess or even a housekeeper. If she survived the coming weeks, which was unlikely.
At least her father’s title would surely be lost, and the struggle over. She should not be relieved at the prospect of losing so much, but she was. Enormously relieved. She must not think like that. She had to persevere, be the person she deserved to be, would have been had she not been born to such a high degree of privilege. Time to turn, to be strong, not to hide behind, “Yes, Papa, of course, Mama.”
“Madam—”
She interrupted him. “My name is Juliana. Nobody uses it, but I would like to hear it more often. It is who I am.” Who she wanted to be.
“Juliana, then. My friends call me Ash. I’d be delighted if you would do so. After all, we are to be cousins.”
She liked that notion, both of discretion and playing a new role. Part of a large family, someone normal, treated as a person, rather than a representative of wealth and privilege. She might even learn who she truly was, and what she really wanted. “I have two brothers, and I am the daughter of a squire from a small village in—in Lancashire.” That county was as far from her father’s holdings as she could recall.
“You have a facility for invention,” he remarked dryly.
Oh lord, she did not want him thinking that. Did he think she’d made up her version of events? Surely not. She had the bruises to prove at least one part of her story. But he was the only crack of light in the dark corridor that led to her inevitable death in a month or so. She had no choice but to trust he was as he said.
But it was true. In her static, marionette-like life she’d had nothing else to do but watch and listen, and create stories from her own imagination.
They turned a corner. Without her hooped skirts, they still had room to walk side by side. She recalled something he’d said. “You have a sister?”
He huffed, as if muffling a laugh. “Several. Brothers, too.”
A large family. “Are they all like you?”
Another laugh followed, this one merrier. She liked the sound of it. The first time he’d smiled, back at Mr. Fielding’s house, she had paused, arrested by the way the expression transformed his face. His eyes crinkled at the corners and positively shone, and his mouth relaxed into a broad smile. Everything about him was transformed. “Hardly. I have a brother serving in the Navy. He will soon become a captain, I believe.” A sense of pride infused his words. “Prudence looks after my house in the country. A small manor house that has been in my family for generations, so don’t be getting ideas that I have a country seat or anything like that. It is the house where I grew up, but I came to London to train for the law in my father’s office.” He turned his head and regarded her drolly. “Where you had none, I have an abundance of brothers and sisters.”
“Oh.” At an early age she’d learned the trick of memorizing names and relationships. She would manage these, as she always did. “How many brothers and sisters do you have?”
“Five.” The brisk tone returned and an icy sheet seemed to build between them.
What had she said? The friendliness had disappeared with that one, sharp word.
“Once six.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. So one had died.
“So am I.”
They were walking along a quiet street, as if nothing unusual was happening anywhere. People went about their business, going in and out of shops, stopping to chat. Enticing scents drifted out of the open door of a baker’s shop.
Her stomach rumbled, shocking her. She was hungry. Such a normal response. She had not been honestly hungry since her father had told her of her impending marriage. Oh, she had eaten, because she had to, but not savored anything, or wanted it. Enjoying her response to the scent of fresh bread, she walked on.
A woman at the end of the street had a tray slung from a piece of twine around her neck. She was shouting and waving prints. Juliana had the sinking feeling that the prints were of her, and involved a great deal of blood. Prints and journals were created at breakneck speed, particularly when something sensational and profitable had occurred. In the hours since Juliana had screamed, servants would have spread the news, someone would have arrived, witnessed the mob and the commotion, and rushed back to a shabby building in Grub Street or another print shop to recreate the scene for everyone to see.
Juliana turned abruptly, but he stopped her, touching her shoulder in a light gesture that stopped her moving away from him. “Don’t mind them. Reports are bound to happen.”
“I know.” She had been the subject of the cruel caricatures before, but not like this. Tears clogged her throat but she refused to let them fall. No weakness. She had wept once and that was all she would allow.
“And you were untouched, a virgin.” He pressed his lips together, as if holding back what he wanted to let loose. His eyes raged, the calm gray completely gone, replaced by storm clouds. “Come. Once we’re home I’ll order a hot bath for you.”
It sounded like heaven. They walked forward once more. “With your permission I’ll ask my sister to make a rough sketch of your body, and the marks he left on it. I know that is an intrusion, but the record could help us in court. It will show how brutally you were used.”
“Do you have to produce it in court?” The thought of everyone seeing what Godfrey had done to her made her cringe inside.
He didn’t answer.
He knew everything about her. But what did she know about him?
Sir Edmund, or Ash as he’d told her to call him, lived in a fine house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. This square had been meant for the aristocracy, after the fashion for London mansions faded, but society had moved further West, leaving these houses behind. Except for the Duke of Newcastle, who lived in a fine mansion situated at one end of the square. The duke and her father did not like each other. They were on opposite sides of the political divide. Juliana suspected that her father envied the duke. His brother, Henry Pelham, was the Prime Minister, and the family held the reins of power that the earl would love to control.
Ash’s house was near Newcastle House. It was a handsome white-stucco house, with the door at the side of three handsome windows.
“Do you know the duke?” she asked as he led her up the steps over the narrow area below that the servants used to gain access to the street. Even a detail like that, and the thin lines of green moss showing between the cracks on the large flags fascinated her. The prospect of imminent death concentrated one’s mind wonderfully.
He paused in the act of pushing the shiny black-painted door open. Only slightly. “My father knew him for years. We are invited to balls and the like but we don’t usually go.”
The Newcastle parties were famed for their lavishness. So Ash wasn’t such a nonentity, after all. He had the ear of a powerful man, the brother of the Prime Minister, no less, and the owner of vast tracts of land.
She had been well trained. She could recite titles, names and property. After all, she had been expected to join them one day. “I have only been to one ball there,” she admitted. “My father does not agree with the duke’s policies.”
“Many do not.” He offered no comment on his own political leanings. Perhaps he had none. That would come as a pleasant change.
He led the way into a well-lit, cheerful hallway, the floor decorated with clean black-and-white marble tiles. A footman, not in livery, bowed and smiled.
Goodness! She’d never seen a servant meet his master’s eyes and smile before.
Ash removed his hat and waited for her to divest herself of the borrowed hat that had given her the semblance of respectability. She had grown rather fond of it. It was plain, only a single pink ribbon decorating it, sturdy and honest.
The manservant took the hats. “Would you like tea, sir?”
Ash glanced at her. “I think so, Freeman. Upstairs in the drawing room. Will you tell my sister that we have a visitor, please?” He glanced at her. “Our cousin from the country. Helena Ashendon.”
“Indeed, sir.”
The man was possibly forty, of a burly build, but with brown eyes that appeared kind. He met her eyes, too, and although she balked at his direct regard, she steeled herself and gave him a nod of acknowledgment.
Ash waved vaguely to the half-open door. “That is the library. A breakfast room lies beyond and a parlor, and the study.” He turned his head to address her directly. “The study is mine. When I set up business here, I bought the house next door to act as my offices, but we have encroached into that, too.”
Which meant she was not to intrude. She nodded. She was a good guest. The mention of a library came as welcome news since she had left all her books behind.
Dutifully, she followed her host upstairs. The house was warm, but not stifling. Her mother, who claimed to suffer from poor health, insisted that the house was kept warm, which in fact meant, like a hothouse. This was perhaps as large as her family’s town house, which surprised her somewhat, but the place held a more comfortable air, as if people actually lived here, instead of displaying themselves to their best advantage.
He took her to a set of double doors on the first floor, and opened them himself. No liveried footman stood outside, his sole duty to open the doors. The sound of scurrying feet as maids scampered out of sight was remarkable for its absence. She had entered a different world.
As they entered, the rustle of silk alerted her to the presence of another person. A woman stood, a welcoming smile on her lips. She dropped a curtsey, elegant but holding a vaguely mocking air. Juliana returned the compliment, then tilted her head to one side and regarded her frankly. This woman was undoubtedly one of Ash’s sisters. She shared similar features, but her chin was pointed and her nose slightly turned up at the end. Ash’s was ruler straight and his chin firmer. She was slim, shorter than her brother, and about three inches shorter than Juliana, with soft brown hair and those perceptive gray eyes that appeared to be a family trait. She wore a gown of dark blue, with a matching petticoat. Although her clothes were respectable, they were not flamboyant. Small hoop, fine fabric.
Ash made the introductions honestly, following up by briefly outlining the case. “Lady Juliana is to be Helena Ashendon, our cousin from the country, while she is here. Otherwise we can expect unwelcome visitors.”
Amelia nodded, her eyes slightly wider, her lips parted, but she showed no sign of maidenly horror at the story. She’d probably heard more shocking details, if Ash shared his cases with her. But all she said was, “Very wise.”
“I was told Sir Edmund does not allow his work to intrude here,” she said, “and I apologize for the necessity.”
“I wish Juliana to share your bedroom for propriety’s sake,” Ash told his sister. “But that is of course your decision, my dear.”
“If you’re discussing propriety, shouldn’t you leave the house while there is a single female in it, Ash?” Amelia’s voice was soft, but it held an edge of humor.
He shook his head. “I cannot. I am her guarantor, so I must remain close.”
“Very well,” Amelia said. “It will be my pleasure, Lady Uppingham.”
“Juliana,” she insisted. She didn’t want to be Lady Godfrey Uppingham, but that was her legal name, now and for the foreseeable future. She must accustom herself to it. But not to the woman she would share a bed with and not while she resided in this house. Helena Ashendon would be someone quite different to Lady Godfrey Uppingham. “If you object to sharing with a woman branded a criminal, I perfectly understand.” She held out her hands, wrists together. “In that case you must send me to Newgate now.”
The family’s response was to laugh, as if she had made a joke, which she probably had. She wasn’t overfamiliar with jokes, so she couldn’t be sure.
A sense of exhilaration swept through her, totally inappropriate, but there it was. She had walked unchaperoned through London’s streets, although the walk was relatively short, and she had shed her stifling clothes and face paint and hair powder. She was entirely herself, perhaps for the first time in her life.
But not the last.
A maid popped her head around the door, giving Juliana a curious stare before she glanced away. “If’n you please, ma’am, the bath you ordered is ready. We put it in Miss Amelia’s room.”
“Good.” Ash got to his feet. “Please don’t feel obliged to come down to dinner tonight. You’ve had a busy day.” He paused to murmur to his sister, but Juliana heard the request for Amelia to sketch her body. He turned back to Juliana. “However, I do wish you to write down everything you remember of last night. I need you to do it while the memory is fresh. All the details, if you please. I’m sorry to ask it of you, and the document will, naturally, be confidential. Nobody else will see it without your permission. But I need to know. Everything, however trivial you might think it to be. Afterwards, Amelia and I will witness it as a true account written by you. Only your signature, mind.”
She heard the request with horror, but she understood the necessity. She might forget something she thought was of no matter, and if she slept, that would put a blurred night’s sleep between her and her wedding night.
Juliana wouldn’t have admitted her exhaustion to anyone, but yes, she was bone weary. Shock had its physical reaction, apparently. She tried a smile, vaguely surprised that she could still do it. Usually her face paint would pull, discouraging any kind of expression, but now she was free to smile or frown or raise her brows without having to rush to the nearest mirror to see if her paint needed repair. “I’ll write the account for you.”
Ash nodded. “Sleep well,” he said.
“Come with me, and I’ll show you where the bath is,” Amelia said.
Juliana followed Amelia up a substantial set of stairs to the second floor. Amelia opened a door and motioned her through. “Here we are.”
Juliana almost turned around and left. Immediately she knew what this room meant to Amelia. “This is your sanctuary. I cannot intrude.”
Amelia only smiled and leaned past Juliana to close the door behind her. “How clever of you to notice.”
“I always wanted one. A room nobody entered without my permission, a room where I could be myself. Whatever that is.” She was beginning to wonder if she really knew what she was.
A pair of long, narrow windows gave a view over a pretty garden, with London beyond, but apart from a cursory glance, Juliana concentrated on the furnishings. A large, modern canopied bed occupied the space to the left, but shelves filled with a diverse selection of books and papers caught her attention. None of the books were for show. A desk sat under the window, not a lady’s French writing table, meant for elegant correspondence, but a sturdy walnut kneehole desk, drawers either side. A pot bristled with pens, and the inkpot was a pewter one. Nothing here was for show.
Best of all, a tin bath draped in white towels steamed by the fire. A large can of hot water stood next to it. Juliana had never seen anything more inviting in her life.
“Would you like me to leave you alone while you bathe?” Amelia asked.
Juliana shook her head. “I’m used to having a maid. Not that you are one, but I do need help getting out of these.” She waved, indicating her borrowed clothes.
