“Alas, no. I have other business to attend to.”
“Would your business involve that man in Newgate Prison?”
Jasper switched his gaze from the ceiling to his valet. Pynch’s usually wooden expression had a bit of squint about the eyes, which was Pynch’s version of a worried face.
“I’m afraid so. Thornton’s to be tried soon, and he’s sure to be convicted and hanged. Once he’s gone, any information he has dies with him.”
Pynch crossed the room with a large bath sheet. “Always assuming he has any information to impart.”
Jasper stepped from the tub and took the sheet. “Yes, always assuming that.”
Pynch watched him as he dried off, that same squint in his eyes. “Pardon me, my lord, I don’t like to speak when it isn’t my place—”
“And yet you will anyway,” Jasper muttered.
His manservant continued as if he hadn’t heard. “But I am worried that you are becoming obsessed with this man. He’s a known liar. What makes you think he’ll speak the truth now?”
“Nothing.” Jasper threw aside the towel and strode to a chair where his clothes lay and began dressing. “He is a liar and a rapist and a murderer and God only knows what else. Only a fool would trust his word. But I cannot let him go to the gallows without at least trying to learn the truth from him.”
“I fear that he is merely toying with you for his own amusement.”
“You’re no doubt correct, Pynch, as you usually are.” Jasper didn’t look at the valet as he pulled a shirt over his head. He’d met Pynch after the massacre of the 28th Regiment of Foot at Spinner’s Falls. Pynch had not fought in the battle. The valet didn’t have the same drive to find out who had betrayed the regiment. “But, sadly, reason does not matter. I must go.”
Pynch sighed and brought him his shoes. “Very well, my lord.”
Jasper sat to draw on his buckle shoes. “Buck up, Pynch. The man’ll be dead in another sennight.”
“As you say, my lord,” Pynch muttered as he picked up the debris of the bath.
Jasper finished dressing in silence and then went to his dresser to comb and club his hair back.
Pynch held out his coat. “I trust you haven’t forgotten, my lord, that Mr. Dorning has made another request for your presence on the Vale lands in Oxfordshire.”
“Damn.” Dorning was his land steward and had written several appeals for his help with a land dispute. He’d already put the poor man off in order to get married and now . . . “Dorning’ll just have to wait another few days. I can’t leave without talking to Miss Fleming’s brother and Miss Fleming herself. Remind me again, please, when I return.”
Jasper shrugged on his coat, grabbed his hat, and was out of the room before Pynch could make another protest. Jasper clattered down the stairs, nodded to his butler, and strode out the door of his London town house. Outside, one of the stable lads was waiting with Belle, his big bay mare. Jasper thanked the boy and mounted the horse, steadying her as she sidled sideways, mouthing her bit. The streets were crowded, necessitating that he keep the mare to a walk. Jasper headed west, toward the dome of St. Paul’s, looming above the smaller buildings surrounding it.
The bustle of London was a far cry from the uncivilized woodland where this whole thing had started. He remembered well the tall trees and the falls, the sound of roaring water mixing with the screams of dying men. Nearly seven years before, he’d been a captain in His Majesty’s army, fighting the French in the Colonies. The 28th Regiment of Foot had been marching back from the victory at Quebec, the line of soldiers strung out along a narrow path, when they’d been attacked by Indians. They’d never had time to form a defensive position. Nearly the entire regiment had been massacred in less than half an hour and their colonel killed. Jasper and eight other men were captured, marched to a Wyandot Indian camp and . . .
Even now he had trouble thinking about it. Once in a while, shadows of that period appeared at the edge of his thoughts, like a fleeting glimpse of something out of the corner of one’s eye. He’d thought the whole thing over, the past dead and buried, if not forgotten. Then six months ago, he’d walked out the French doors of a ballroom and seen Samuel Hartley on the terrace outside.
Hartley had been a corporal in the army. One of the few men to survive the massacre of the 28th. He’d told Jasper that some traitor within the regiment had given their position to the French and their Indian allies. When Jasper had joined Hartley in searching for the traitor, they’d discovered a murderer who’d assumed the identity of one of the Spinner’s Falls fallen—Dick Thornton. Thornton—Jasper had trouble calling him anything else, though he knew it wasn’t his true name—was now in Newgate, charged with murder. But on the night they’d captured him, Thornton had claimed that he wasn’t the traitor.
Jasper nudged Belle’s flanks to guide her around a pushcart piled high with ripe fruit.
“Buy a sweet plum, sir?” the pretty dark-eyed girl next to the cart cried to him. She cocked her hip flirtatiously as she held out the fruit.
Jasper grinned appreciatively. “Not as sweet as your apples, I’ll wager.”
The fruit girl’s laughter followed him as he rode through the crowded street. Jasper’s thoughts returned to his mission. As Pynch had so rightly pointed out, Thornton was a man who told lies as a matter of habit. Hartley had certainly never voiced any doubt as to Thornton’s guilt. Jasper snorted. Then again, Hartley had been busy with a new wife, Lady Emeline Gordon—Jasper’s first fiancée.
Jasper looked up and realized that he’d come to Skinner Street, which led directly into Newgate Street. The imposing ornamental gate of the prison arched over the road. The prison had been rebuilt after the Great Fire and was suitably decorated with statues representing such fine sentiments as peace and mercy. But the closer one drew to the prison, the more ominous the stench became. The air seemed heavy, laden with the foul odors of human excrement, disease, rot, and despair.
One leg of the arch terminated in the keeper’s lodge. Jasper dismounted in the courtyard outside.
A guard lounging beside the door straightened. “Back are ye, milord?”
“Like a bad penny, McGinnis.”
McGinnis was a fellow veteran of His Majesty’s army and had lost an eye in some foreign place. A rag was wrapped about his head to hide the hole, but it’d slipped to reveal red scarring.
The man nodded and yelled into the lodge. “Oy, Bill! Lord Vale ’as come again.” He turned back to Jasper. “Bill’ll be ’ere in two ticks, milord.”
Jasper nodded and gave the guard a half crown, insurance that the mare would still be in the yard when he returned. He’d quickly figured out on his first visit to this dismal place that extravagantly bribing the guards made the entire experience much simpler.
Bill, a runty little man with a thick shock of iron-gray hair, soon came out of the lodge. He held the badge of his trade in his right hand: a large iron ring of keys. The little man hunched a shoulder at Jasper and crossed the yard to the prison’s main entrance. Here, a huge overhanging doorway was decorated with carved manacles and the biblical quote VENIO SICUT FUR—I come as a thief. Bill hunched his shoulder at the guards who stood about by the portal and led the way inside.
The smell was worse here, the air stale and unmoving. Bill trotted ahead of Jasper, through a long corridor and outside again. They crossed a large courtyard with prisoners milling around or huddled in clumps like refuse washed upon a particularly dismal shore. They passed through another, smaller building, and then Bill led the way to the stairs that emptied into the Condemned Hold. It was belowground, as if to give the prisoners a taste of the hell they would soon spend eternity in. The stairs were damp, the stone worn smooth by many despairing feet.
The subterranean corridor was dim—the prisoners paid for their own candles here, and the prices were inflated. A man was singing, a low, sweet dirge that every now and again rose on a high note. Someone coughed and low voices quarreled, but the place was mostly q
uiet. Bill stopped before a cell that held four occupants. One lay on a pallet in the corner, most likely asleep. Two men played cards by the light of a single flickering candle.
The fourth man leaned against the wall near the bars but straightened when he saw them.
“A lovely afternoon, isn’t it, Dick?” Jasper called out as he neared.
Dick Thornton cocked his head. “I wouldn’t know, would I?”
Jasper tsked softly. “Sorry, old man. Forgot you can’t see the sun much from in here, can you?”
“What do you want?”
Jasper regarded the man behind the bars. Thornton was an ordinary man of middling height with a pleasant, if forgettable, face. The only thing that made him stand out in the least was his flaming red hair. Thornton knew damn well what he wanted—Jasper had asked often enough in the past. “Want? Why, nothing. I’m merely passing the time, seeing the sweet sights of Newgate.”
Thornton grinned and winked, the facial expression like a strange tic he couldn’t control. “You must think me a fool.”
“Not at all.” Jasper eyed the man’s threadbare clothes. He dipped his hand in his pocket and came up with a half crown. “I think you a rapist, a liar, and a murderer many times over, but a fool? Not at all. You wrong me, Dick.”
Thornton licked his lips, watching as Jasper flipped the coin between his fingers. “Then why are you here?”
“Oh.” Jasper tilted his head and gazed rather absently at the stained stone ceiling. “I was just remembering when we caught you, Sam Hartley and I, at Princess Wharf. Terribly rainy day. Do you remember?”
“ ’Course I remember.”
“Then you may recollect that you claimed not to be the traitor.”
A crafty gleam entered Thornton’s eyes. “There’s no claim about it. I’m not the traitor.”
“Really?” Jasper dropped his gaze from the ceiling to stare Thornton in the eye. “Well, you see that’s just it. I think you’re lying.”
“If I lie, then I’ll die for my sins.”
“You’ll die anyway, and in less than a month. The law says that convicted men must be hanged within two days of their sentencing. They’re rather strict about it, I’m afraid, Dick.”
“That’s if I’m convicted at trial.”
“Oh, you will be,” Jasper said gently. “Never fear.”
Thornton looked sullen. “Then why should I tell you anything?”
Jasper shrugged. “You still have a few weeks left of life. Why not spend it with a full belly and clean clothes?”
“I’ll tell you somethin’ for a clean coat,” one of the men playing cards muttered.
Jasper ignored him. “Well, Dick?”
The red-haired man stared at him, his face blank. He winked and suddenly thrust his face at the bars. “You want to know who betrayed us to the French and their scalping friends? You want to know who painted the earth with blood, there by that damned falls? Look at the men who were captured with you. That’s where you’ll find the traitor.”
Jasper jerked his head back as if a snake had struck. “Nonsense.”
Thornton stared a moment more and then began laughing, high, staccato barks.
“Shaddup!” a male voice from another cell yelled.
Thornton continued the odd sound, but the entire time his eyes were wide and fixed maliciously on Jasper’s face. Jasper stared stonily back. Lies or insinuated half-truths, he’d not get any more from Dick Thornton. Today or ever. He held Thornton’s gaze and deliberately dropped the coin to the floor. It rolled to the center of the passage—well out of reach of the prison cell. Thornton stopped laughing, but Jasper had already turned and was walking out of that hell-damned cellar.
Chapter Two
Presently, Jack came upon an old man, sitting by the side of the road. The old man’s clothes were rags, his feet were bare, and he sat as if the whole world rested upon his shoulders.
“Oh, kind sir,” the beggar cried. “Have you a crust of bread to spare?”
“I have more than that, Father,” Jack replied.
He stopped and opened his pack and drew out half a meat pie, carefully wrapped in a kerchief. This he shared with the old man, and with a tin cup of water from a nearby stream, it made a very fine meal indeed. . . .
—from LAUGHING JACK
That night, Melisande sat at dinner and contemplated a meal of boiled beef, boiled carrots, and boiled peas. It was her brother Harold’s favorite meal, in fact. She was on one side of a long, dark wood dining table. At the head of the table was Harold and at the foot was his wife, Gertrude. The room was dim and shadowy, lit only by a handful of candles. They could well afford beeswax candles, of course, but Gertrude was a frugal housekeeper and did not believe in wasting candle wax—a philosophy that Harold heartily approved of. Actually, Melisande had often thought that Harold and Gertrude were the epitome of the perfectly matched husband and wife: they had the same tastes and views and were both a trifle boring.
She looked down at her grayish portion of boiled beef and considered how she was to tell her brother and his wife of her understanding with Lord Vale. Carefully she cut off a small piece of beef. She picked it up in her fingers and held the bite down by her skirts. Under the table, she felt a cold little nose against her hand, and then the beef was gone.
“I am so sorry to have missed Mary Templeton’s wedding,” Gertrude commented from the foot of the table. Her smooth, wide brow was marred by a single indent between her eyebrows. “Or rather, her not wedding, for I am sure that her mother, Mrs. Templeton, would have appreciated my presence there. I am told by many people, many people, that I am a comfort and a relief to those whose fortunes are in decline, and Mrs. Templeton’s fortunes are quite in decline at the moment, are they not? One might even say Mrs. Templeton’s fortunes are abysmal.”
She paused to take a tiny bite of boiled carrot and looked to her husband for his concurrence.
Harold shook his head. He had their father’s heavy jowls and thinning light brown hair, covered now with a gray wig. “That gel ought to be put on bread and water until she comes to her senses. Throwing over a viscount. Foolish, is what it is. Foolish!”
Gertrude nodded. “I think she must be insane.”
Harold perked up at this. He was always morbidly interested in disease. “Does lunacy run in the family?”
Melisande felt a nudge against her leg. She looked down to see a small black nose poking out from beneath the table edge. She cut off another piece of beef and held it under the table. Both nose and beef disappeared.
“I do not know if there is lunacy in that family, but I would not be surprised,” Gertrude replied. “No, not surprised at all. Of course, there is no lunacy on our side of the family, but the Templetons cannot say the same, I’m afraid.”
Melisande used the tines of her fork to scoot the peas to the edge of her plate, feeling rather sorry for Mary. Mary had only followed her heart, after all. She felt a paw against her knee, but this time she ignored it. “I believe that Mary Templeton is in love with the curate.”
Gertrude’s eyes widened like boiled gooseberries. “I don’t think that pertains.” She appealed to her husband. “Do you think that pertains, Mr. Fleming?”
“No, it does not pertain at all,” Harold replied predictably. “The chit had a satisfactory match, and she threw it away on a curate.” He chewed meditatively for a moment. “Vale is well rid of her, in my opinion. Might’ve brought a bad strain of insanity into his bloodline. Not good. Not good at all. Better for him to find a wife elsewhere.”
“As to that . . .” Melisande cleared her throat. She would find no better opening. Best to get it over with. “I have something I’ve been meaning to tell you both.”
“Yes, dear?” Gertrude was sawing at the lump of beef on her plate and didn’t look up.
Melisande took a deep breath and stated it bluntly, because really, there didn’t seem to be any other way to do it. Her left hand lay in her lap, and she felt the comforting touch
of a warm tongue. “Lord Vale and I came to an understanding today. We are going to be married.”
Gertrude dropped her knife.
Harold choked on the sip of wine he’d taken.
Melisande winced. “I thought you should know.”
“Married?” Gertrude said. “To Lord Vale? Jasper Renshaw, Viscount Vale?” she clarified as if there might be another Lord Vale in England.
“Yes.”
“Ah.” Harold looked at his wife. Gertrude stared back at him, quite obviously at a loss for words. He turned to Melisande. “Are you quite sure? Might you have mistaken a look or . . .” His sentence trailed away. It was probably quite hard to think of what else might be mistaken for a marriage proposal.
“I am sure,” she said quietly but clearly. Her words were steady, though her heart was singing inside. “Lord Vale said he would call upon you in three days to settle the matter.”
“I see.” Harold stared in consternation at his boiled English beef, as if it had turned to Spanish stewed squid. “Well. Then I offer my congratulations, my dear. I wish you every happiness with Lord Vale.” He blinked and looked up at her, his brown eyes uncertain. He’d never really understood her, poor man, but she knew he cared for her. “If you are sure?”
Melisande smiled at him. However little they had in common, Harold was still her brother, and she loved him. “I am.”
He nodded, though he still looked worried. “Then I shall send a missive informing Lord Vale that I will be glad to receive him.”
“Thank you, Harold.” Melisande aligned her fork and knife precisely on her plate. “Now, if you will excuse me, it’s been a long day.”
She rose from the table, conscious that the minute she exited the room, Harold and Gertrude would discuss the matter. The skitter of claws against the wood floor trailed her as she entered the dim hallway—Gertrude’s economy of candles prevailed here as well.
Their amazement was only to be expected, really. Melisande had shown no interest in matrimony for many years, not since her disastrous engagement to Timothy so long ago. Strange, to think now how devastated she’d been when Timothy had left her. All that she’d lost had been unbearable. Her emotions had been sharp and burning then, so awful that she’d thought she might die from his rejection. The pain had been physical, a deep cutting thing that had made her chest ache and her head pound. She never wanted to feel such agony again.