Читать книгу The Complete Regency Season Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 80

Chapter Nineteen

Will splashed brandy into a glass and tossed it back in one swallow, poured another and stood gripping the glass as he stared down into the busy street below.

His mind could not seem to get past the fact that Julia had killed her lover. It seemed utterly out of character—everything about her spoke of the need to nurture. He had obviously not understood her at all and it was no wonder he had sensed that she was keeping something from him: any other secret he could conceive of paled into insignificance beside this horror.

Nancy came in and he snarled at her so that she fled, white-faced. He could not bring himself to explain. Not yet. Outside the traffic built as the morning progressed and his mind became as tangled as the mass of hackney carriages and carts, pedestrians and riders down below.

His name would be ruined. King’s Acre would always carry the stain of this scandal. And his heart... Well, thank heavens his heart was not engaged, that was the only mercy in all this. What if he had loved his wife as she, the deceitful witch, had said she loved him? The pain in his chest was anger and betrayal, nothing more.

The glass was empty. He filled it. And again. It did not help, all it did was to fire his memory. The pale ghost on the bridge over the lake who had run to his aid. The desperate, grieving mother who had been so afraid he would evict that pathetic little coffin from the vaults. The intelligent farmer arguing for some improvement to the farm, the mistress that the staff, indoor and out, loved and supported with devotion.

Julia in those scandalous divided skirts riding the stallion with such skill and teasing him about his manhood as she did so. Julia, passionate and sensual in his arms.

Julia. And all he had been thinking about was how this was going to affect him. The empty glass dropped from his hand and he stared at it as it rolled on the carpet, wondering at his own selfishness. He believed her when she said she had not meant to kill. You could not live with a woman as closely as he had with her and not know whether she had a capacity for violence or not. He dragged me by the wrist. He had seen the bruises, savagely black and blue, that first evening. He meant to rape me. He knew from her responses in bed that the man had been a selfish lout. Of course she had tried to fight back.

And the story of her escape was probable. He could imagine the scene, the chaos, the gawping crowd avid for sensation. The body would have been the focus of all attention. Julia, almost sleepwalking with shock, could well have dressed in that simple grey cloak and plain bonnet and merged into the crowd until she vanished.

He believed everything she said, he realised. And that meant he must believe her when she said she loved him. The knife that was carving its way through his chest gave a sharp stab.

Julia had been abused, ravished and then threatened with more violence by the man she thought loved her. What had happened to him had been an accident and, if anyone was to blame it was Jonathan Dalfield. And now, with every excuse never to trust a man again, never to allow herself to love, she had given him, Will Hadfield, her heart.

And in return he had accepted the worst of her without question, verbally attacked her, locked her in her room, left her in fear of the worst kind of justice. Will was across the room, unlocked the door, flung it open, all before the thought was even finished.

The bedchamber was empty. He found the service door and then the note lying on the pillow. Dearest Will. His hand was shaking so much he had to sit on the edge of the bed and steady himself before he could read on.

He was halfway down the stairs before any kind of rational thought hit him. He sent the hall porter sprawling as he barrelled his way through the crowded lobby, down the steps and into the road under the nose of a startled cab horse.

‘Westminster Bridge, at the gallop and there’s five pounds in it for you,’ he yelled at the cab driver, who shut his mouth on the stream of invective and whipped the horse up before Will could get the door closed.

He clung by on instinct as the cab swayed and swerved across Piccadilly, down St James’s Street, across Pall Mall and into St James’s Park. Westminster was the closest bridge and she would need a bridge to be certain of falling into the deep, lethal water. The banks were too uncertain, the water slower, there were too many people to stop her, to pull her out again.

Will was not conscious of any plan at all in that wild ride, only the knowledge that he must be in time, that if he lost her he would not be able to bear it. The cab pulled up in the middle of the bridge and he leapt out, stared along the length of it. And saw nothing. No hubbub as there surely would have been if a woman had jumped off in broad daylight. No sign of anyone resembling Julia.

‘Well, guv’nor? What about my fare, then?’

Will pulled out his pocket book and handed up a note without looking at the driver, his eyes scanning the northern approaches of the bridge. ‘Wait.’

‘For that money, guv’nor, I’ll sit here all day.’

Will gripped the parapet and tried to assess what was best to do when all he wanted was to rush on to Blackfriars Bridge. She did not know London, but she had read the guidebooks, would know that Westminster was the nearest bridge to Mayfair. And she could expect to get here before he found the note. But she should have arrived by now, even at the normal pace of a cab horse.

He would have to risk leaving his post here. ‘Blackfriars. As fast as you can make it.’

Up Whitehall, along Strand, down the hill to the foot of Ludgate Hill and then down to the river and the bridge. Again, only the bustle of everyday life greeted him. Will stood looking down at the dark water rushing beneath and thought about his first sight of Julia, a pale grey ghost in the moonlight, leaning on the bridge over the lake. And he had feared she would jump and drown herself, of all the ironies.

It was as though he could hear the nightingale again, feel her arms around him, holding him against her warm body. And as if she spoke in his ear he heard her voice.

I cannot imagine ever being desperate enough to do that, she had replied when he told her he had thought she was about to jump. Drowning must be such terror. Besides, there is always some hope.

Will dragged the note from his pocket and smoothed it flat on the worn Portland stone. The threat to kill herself was a feint, a clever bluff, all implication. And no lies. And he had fallen for it. The hope that surged back into him made him dizzy for a moment until he realised he still had no idea where to find Julia.

‘You all right, guv’nor?’ When Will looked up at him the driver scratched his stubbled chin and frowned back. ‘Not choosing the best bridge to jump off, are you?’

‘No. I have lost someone,’ Will said. He needed help. Rushing about like a headless chicken was not going to answer in a city the size of London. ‘Take me to the Bow Street offices.’

* * *

A busy coaching inn was the ideal hiding place, Julia realised as she closed the door of the cramped chamber and listened to the bustle and racket from the yard below. It was the one place where a woman alone was not conspicuous, for it was full of them, some modestly bonneted and cloaked, clutching their battered portmanteaux—servants and governesses, she supposed. Some were fine ladybirds, dressed to the nines and out to attract attention, others were harassed wives and mothers with a baby in their arms or fractious children at their heels.

The coaches came and went, the tide of passengers ebbed and flowed and she felt safe from detection for the first time in hours. Desolate, lonely, heartbroken and frightened. But at least no one would find her here.

What was Will thinking now? How was he feeling? Betrayed, of course. He believed she had deceived him and she had. He believed she had lied about loving him and that, Julia realised, hurt more than anything. And he loved King’s Acre and he was having to face the fact that the woman he had thought would help him save it would smear it with the stain of blood and disgrace.

She wanted to write to him, to justify herself, to try to convince him that she truly loved him. But that would not help him, all it would be was a small, selfish, balm to her smarting conscience. Now she had to plan for where she would go to if she could silence Arthur and Jane and what she should do if she could not.

* * *

Bow Street was home to the Runners, and they would be a danger, but it also attracted a motley crowd of thief-takers and informants who hung around in the hope of commissions, legal and semi-legal. They would think nothing of being sent to every coaching inn in search of a carefully described woman who had bought a ticket and left town that day.

Will had paid twenty of them better than they asked and promised more for results, then went to the hotel to wait. The inaction was hellish. Worse was the nagging fear that he might be wrong, that Julia might even now be floating in the muddy waters of the Thames.

No, he told himself for the tenth time. She would not give up, she was a fighter. But man after man came to him and reported nothing. Women answering her description had been seen, but not buying stage or mail-coach tickets. Nor had any of the carriers sold places on their slow, heavy wagons. She was still in London and that, he was all too aware, would make her far harder to track.

Will paid them, then sent them back out to check again in the morning, pushed his dinner around the plate, left it away uneaten and tried to rest. He could not let her hang, he knew. Whatever the cost, whatever the consequences, he would find her and get her out of the country.

Why? he wondered, suddenly shaken out of his circle of dark thoughts. Why risk everything, his good name, King’s Acre? The answer came with shocking clarity. Because I love her and nothing else matters.

He needed to rest because Julia needed him. Will took off his boots and his coat, lay down on the bed, tried to come to terms with that shattering piece of self-knowledge and attempted to sleep through nightmares of Newgate and the gallows, the look of stunned misery on Julia’s face as he had hurled those bitter words at her that morning, the smug, blackmailing faces of her cousins.

There was something there, something his mind fretted at and yet could not quite grasp. In the floating state somewhere between sleep and waking Will lay still and let his thoughts chase the puzzle. Something had not been right, something had been out of kilter. But when? The answer flicked out of sight whenever he seemed close, like a shadow vanishing from the corner of his eye when he turned to confront it.

Surprise. It had something to do with surprise. Shock. No, that was not quite right, he was missing the point somehow. Frustrated, Will thumped the pillow, turned over and, somehow, managed to sleep.

* * *

The sun was bright on the gilded cross atop St Paul’s as the Mail clattered on to the yard of the General Receiving Office. Julia joined the crowd of travellers emerging from the numerous inns all around making their way towards the Receiving Office to take the morning coaches out, or to continue their journey by hackney carriage or on foot. A restless night had left her aching and weary, but Julia set off towards the great dome, thankful at least for a landmark. Once she found the cathedral then she only had to go down Ludgate Hill and turn into the Old Bailey and there would be the inn where she had seen her cousins watching the execution.

Her tired brain went over and over the arguments she had worked out during the long night. Firstly she would appeal to their good nature, then to the threat of scandal to themselves, tarred by association with her. If neither of those worked, well, then she would threaten to hand herself in at Bow Street and to implicate them as accessories.

And if that failed? She still did not know whether, if that happened she would have the courage to surrender herself and trust to a jury to believe she had acted in self-defence. But if she did not, could she spend her whole life running?

Whatever happened, she thought as she trod across the cobbled path through St Paul’s churchyard, Will could not be implicated. It was bad enough that he would be seen as a man deceived, but she would not allow him to become implicated as the scandalous baron who knew of his wife’s crime, but who did nothing.

There were the shops she had stared into so light-heartedly only a few days ago. There, busy now with the passage of lawyers, servants with their marketing baskets, bankers and tradesmen, was the opening into the Old Bailey. There were no hangings today and if it were not for the ominous bulk of the prison at the end of the street, and the stench in the air when the wind changed to blow from that direction, she would think it a pleasant enough district.

Opposite her was the King’s Head and Oak, its sign of the crowned oak tree that had sheltered Charles II swinging in the light breeze. No baying onlookers hung from the windows. It looked respectable and well kept, a suitable lodging for minor gentry come to the city.

There was a bay tree in a pot by the front door, she saw as she hesitated there. Perhaps this was the last time she would walk outside as a free woman. Julia reached out and broke off a twig, crushed the aromatic leaf between her fingers as she entered and summoned up the dregs of her courage.

‘Mr and Mrs Prior, if you please,’ she said to the man who came out of the taproom as she entered. ‘Tell them Lady...tell them Miss Prior is here.’

They kept her waiting only a few minutes, which was a mercy for she was not certain which would go first: her nerve, to send her fleeing down towards the Fleet, or her legs, to leave her huddled on the floor.

The man came back before either happened. ‘You’re to follow me, if you please, miss.’

The old wooden stairs were well waxed, she noted as she climbed. Every trivial detail was imprinted on her senses. The man’s apron was clean, but his shoes were dusty and he had been eating onions. That picture hanging on the wall at the head of the stairs, so dirty it was impossible to tell the subject, was crooked. They were boiling cabbage below in the kitchens. Her guide tapped on a door, opened it and she stepped into a small parlour. Her relatives regarded her with identical expressions of supercilious amusement as she tried to control both her breathing and her face.

‘I’ll not pretend I am not surprised to see you,’ Cousin Jane said, her over-plucked eyebrows lifting as she took in the sight in front of her. ‘Where’s his lordship?’

‘I am here on my own account.’ Julia looked at Arthur, who lounged in a carved chair before the empty hearth. He had not troubled to get to his feet as she entered and the deliberate insult somehow steadied both her nerve and voice. For three years she had been Lady Dereham, used to receiving respect and courtesy—she was no longer the poor, subservient, relation.

‘I am sure that, having thought this over, you cannot wish to betray me to the law, not when you know full well I was deceived and forced by Jonathan Dalfield.’ That was her first suggestion, the one she knew they would ignore.

‘There’s no evidence of force. No one else was in the room, were they? No witnesses.’ Arthur folded his hands over his small paunch and smiled benignly. ‘You’re all alone, Cousin. Left you, has he? The baron, I mean. Can’t stomach what you did, or just doesn’t like being tricked into marrying used goods?’

Julia ignored him. Jane, after all, was the one who always wanted to keep up appearances. She tried her next bargaining chip. ‘Do you want the scandal to attach to your name, Cousin Jane?’ she demanded.

‘We will appear as the poor, deceived relatives who took you into our home and were grossly imposed upon,’ Mrs Prior said, perfectly composed. ‘How were we to know that you were a vicious, immoral little slut who was capable of such things?’

Well, that seemed to dispose of both appeals to their good nature. Time for threats. ‘If you hand me over to the law, then my husband will not pay you a penny and I will tell the magistrates that you were accessories.’

Arthur shrugged. ‘Your husband will pay up, never fear. That sort will do anything to safeguard their honour and good name.’

That seemed to dispose of the one feeble threat she could make. Julia realised she was not surprised. Her stomach felt entirely hollow and yet she had passed beyond fear. ‘Very well. I shall go to Bow Street and surrender myself. And while I am at it I will report you both for extortion.’ Would I? She realised she simply did not know.

Then, as Arthur still smirked, Julia’s fragile hold on her nerves snapped into temper. ‘I mean it. I will not have you threatening and impoverishing the man I love and as the only way to avoid that seems to be to expose this whole dreadful situation I will do my damnedest to see you are dragged down with me. And I promise you, Lord Dereham will make your life hell on earth from now onwards.’

That got through. ‘Wait.’ Arthur rose to his feet. ‘Now there’s no need to be hasty.’ With a glimmer of hope she saw there was sweat beading his brow now.

‘You want to negotiate, do you?’ Julia said. ‘Unfortunately I do not deal with—’

The inner door opened and a man strolled out from the bedchamber beyond. Will, an irrational voice in her head said and her heart leapt. Then he stepped fully into the room and she saw his eyes were cold, unreadable blue, not hot amber fire. This was a tall, dark ghost with a streak of pure white slashing through the forelock that fell on to his brow.

‘Perhaps you would like to deal with me instead, Julia,’ Jonathan Dalfield said and smiled as the room swirled around her.