Elyse Mady (21 page)

“He will defend me?”

“I believe so. Thomas told me he intends to speak with him and give him the outline of your case. And what is more, Thomas has offered to pay the fees. You will not be defenceless. Wooley and all his machinations will be forgot. You will have your say and present your case.” She smiled widely. “I cannot promise a verdict of not guilty, but I can promise you I will be there whatever your fate.”

He was humbled in the face of his sister’s faith. However little he deserved it, however inconstant and angry and vengeful he had been towards her, she had borne it all. She was no longer the broken young girl he had carted off to London. He knew suddenly that Hester would not be bowed by fate or brought low. She was too strong for that. She would embrace whatever challenges life brought her and emerge on the other side. He realized suddenly that Timothy had had the right of it all along. Hester hadn’t remained with Ramsay because she had no choice; she remained because she wanted to.

Just like she had remained to care for him.

Because she wanted to.

He turned away, his eyes filling with emotion, ashamed to have her see him weeping. In the stillness, there was only the sound of Cook’s heavy breathing and his muffled tears. George shuffled from foot to foot. “I’ll wait in the corridor ’til you’ve finished speaking then?” Robert heard him slip away but didn’t let up on his examination of the prison’s walls.

At length, Hester came to his side and laid her hand on his.

* * *

Robert’s hands were clenched. Even in the dim light, Hester could make out the whitened knuckles, stark and taut.

Without allowing herself to reconsider, she stripped off her gloves and took his tight fist between her palms. She stroked his skin, letting her fingers trace the back of his hand. Slowly, his grip relaxed and he sighed. He tried to withdraw but she continued to hold his hand and he finally relented.

She studied it. It was easier than meeting his unhappy eyes.

One fingertip traced a scar that meandered across his knuckles. It was fresh, still tender, and she wondered what misadventure had prompted the injury. She massaged his long fingers and ministered to the tender, pink skin beneath his iron manacles. These nimble fingers, that could transform cloth into works of art, that had always been so neat and kempt, now sported ragged fingernails, the dirty half-moons testifying to his life behind the thick stone walls of Newgate.

These were her brother’s hands. She had held these hands, touched them, seen them her entire life. Yet had she ever really looked at them?

These were the hands that had clutched her own childish one as they’d torn over the wild downlands. And when she’d cried, “Wait, Robbie, wait. You’re too fast!” these were the hands that had swept her onto her back and carried her, with boyish strength, across the fields, while she’d clutched at his neck and laughed with delight at her brother’s speed and daring. He had always taken the greatest of care with her, and she had never worried when she was with him.

These were the winter-chapped hands that bobbled countless hot conkers, snatched from glowing coals, peeling back the scorched skins before offering up the tender nutmeat. “Here, Hessie, a treat for you.” On how many nights had they sat thus, telling tales and laughing? Too many to count.

These were the gloved hands that had led her through her first bourées and country dances. He’d coaxed and encouraged her, made her laugh when she’d stumbled or made a wrong turning. He’d been an apprentice then, and she’d never questioned his appearance but now she knew how much effort it must have taken for him to secure those free evenings.

These were her brother’s hands.

And soon, in a fortnight or so, these were the hands that would be clenched round the prisoner’s rail, awaiting the judge’s verdict. These were the hands that could very well clutch and claw at a hangman’s noose, for the crime he had committed was one that could not be forgiven or overlooked.

At least not by the courts.

“I will be there, Robert. At the trial. Every minute of it, I will be there.”

“I don’t want you there.”

“I know, and I love you for that. But I will be there all the same.”

He looked up then and squeezed her hand. “Thank you, Hester. Thank you for all you’ve done for me. You have borne my disgrace with more dignity than I could have ever dreamed of. No matter my unkindness or my wicked words, you never quailed or floundered. I know what pain and mortification it has cost you, humbling yourself so utterly with Ramsay, and—”

“Hush,” she said, placing a finger across his lips. “You are my brother. How could I do less?”

“You could not have done more,” he promised solemnly. “I swear, if my life is spared, that I will spend the rest of my days repaying your every kindness. It will be my life’s work.”

“No, Robert. I don’t want your debts or your regrets. Nothing—
nothing—
will change what has happened. You are my family and I love you.”

“You can love me still? Even knowing what I am and what I’ve done?”

“I know what you are, Robert. And I know what you’ve done. You have cared for your family. You have cared for me. When I was not worthy of your care or your regard, you never stinted or begrudged me. And now, knowing what you know of my life with Thomas, you still dare to claim a debt?” She laughed and the sound echoed in the damp, spare cell. “We are both of us imperfect, Robert. If you can love me for my faults and my sins, I can love you for yours.”

“You care for him, don’t you?”

“Yes. More than I ought to. I cannot seem to help it. He touches me and I lose myself in the pleasure.” She couldn’t believe she was sharing such revelations with her brother but the time for disguise was past.

“And the future? How do you see it resolving itself?” He spoke gently, his probing circumspect.

She tried to smile but her face would not cooperate. “Thomas loves the sea. I do not see that changing. Marriage is not in the offing, I’m afraid. You must be disappointed in me.” Her brother’s look was tender. She turned away, unable to face his pity.

“I could never be disappointed in you,” he promised. “You have followed your heart.”

“Is that why you acted as you did? Following your heart? Did
it
lead you to the White Swan?” She was genuinely curious. She had spent many hours, pondering her brother’s choices and railing against them. Now she knew that life was rarely that straightforward.

Her brother laughed bitterly. “Did I follow my heart? No. If I followed anything, it fell much lower than my heart. I thought only of gratifying my appetites, I’m afraid. As often and as rabidly as possible.”

His frankness, though shocking, was a relief. It freed her of her own constraints. “And Charlotte? What of her? Was there any feeling there?” Her former friend’s betrayal in their time of need still rankled.

Robert’s eyes glistened and he swallowed hard. “I wanted to want marriage with Charlotte. You have no idea how much,” he whispered in a voice that conveyed his agony. “How could I not? Children. A wife. A home. These are what we are taught to imagine our lives will hold, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” Hester said, her voice breaking. “We are.” She thought of Jamie, so young, but she could not bring his image before her eyes. Thomas’s dark beauty had superseded it, and all she could think of was of the feel of his body beneath hers as they made love, the taste of his kisses, the sound of his deep, rich voice calling her name as he reached his peak.

She loved him, and she always would. His was the name imprinted on her soul, and as long as he wanted her, she would remain. Being parted from him was too painful to contemplate. But accepting that her dreams of a life as a wife and a mother would never come to pass had been painful too. Their passion—and her solitary love—made up for it but it could never erase the pain completely.

One day, he would go back to the sea and she would be alone again.

“My God, I wanted to want Charlotte,” her brother continued. “I would kiss her and all I could think of was of kissing the mouth of a man. God, I didn’t even have a word to describe the sensations to myself or what I was feeling.”

“And so you told no one.” Hester knew how hard it was to keep a secret, how insidiously it could claw at your innards until it felt as though it must fly from your throat or cause violence. This was how she felt every time she was with Thomas, desperate to tell him how she felt, of her abiding love for him, but each time the words threatened, she restrained herself.

“I didn’t even tell myself,” Robert said. “I convinced myself that it meant nothing. That the fornication they warned about from the pulpit dealt only with men and women, not men together. And yet, I could not deny its draw.”

“But you were so disapproving of me, when you learnt of my lying with Jamie. You were so cold. Why? Why did you let me think you were so infallible and myself so stained?”

“Jealousy, mostly,” he confessed. “And fear too.”

“Jealousy? Of what? Of whom? I was the one in the family way.”

“Of you, mostly. I was so angry that you could announce your love when I could not. There was no doubt Jamie loved you. He adored you, you know? As he would have adored his child. And though I know there would be those who would have scorned your haste, I never doubted that had he lived, Jamie would have taken you to his wife and lived out his days with you, as proud and content a man as there ever was. Even now, I envy you, having had that. I never will and I fear what that will mean, when I am old and tired and alone.”

“Is there no one you care for?”

“Care for?” he said, his eyes unexpectedly fierce. “What do you mean?”

“For more than just…” She averted her eyes. Who was she, to force confidences from her brother, in this fashion? Perhaps it was different for men and the sensations they felt.

“Taking my pleasures with? Is that what you mean?”

Blushing, although she would have thought herself long past that, she nodded. Pleasure could be addictive, she had learned to her detriment.

“Who would you have me attach myself to?” His lips curled in scorn. “Amos, perhaps? He certainly likes to dress up and play the pretty miss. He could prance and simper and paint his sweet, talented lips with rouge. You could share gowns and borrow each other’s fripperies. Provided, of course, he doesn’t hang. Or is Thomson more to your tastes as a brother-in-law? He preferred to take his lovers in full view of the other men. No thought of his wife and six children then. At times he’d take more than one, bending over to offer his ass even as he sucked a third’s—”

“You must not say such things,” she cried, blocking her ears.

“But you wanted to know. You asked if there was anyone I cared for? Now, I can say yes. I have met a man I care for. And he cares for me. I think. But we do not say the words. We dare not speak of it,” he admitted. “Can a sodomite love? Love for life, I mean? I have never heard of such a thing. Even among those of us who admit our attractions, I have never heard of it.”

“You love. Mama. Papa. Me. Even Charlotte, I think, after a fashion. Why should not you not love for life?”

Robert laughed darkly and squeezed her hand so tightly she winced. “I wish I could believe you, Hester-mine,” he said. He looked into the distance and she wondered whose face he saw as he looked past the bars of the cell. “I am an outcast and if I am spared, I will still be that. And any man I dared to love would be equally so. Combined, we would only amplify our disgrace.”

Hester gazed at her brother and, wordlessly, they embraced, as though they could each protect the other from the hurts they most feared.

Neither of them spoke. From without came the faint ringing of Saint Sepulchre’s bells. They tolled seven times and when they had at last fallen silent, Robert held Hester one moment longer, pulling her close against his thin frame, his manacles hard against the small of her back, and kissed her hair.

Then he released her and brushed away the tears that were falling unchecked down her face. “Go now. I would not have any sister of mine on these streets past dark. Go safely and I will see you very soon, come what may.”

Taking her arm, he walked with her to the cell door, where George was waiting.

“You will not walk down with me? To the gate?”

“I’m going to sit with Cook a while. Until his wife arrives.” He turned to the footman and held out his hand. George took it and they shook.

“Take care of her.”

“Always, sir.”

“Until tomorrow, Robert.”

“Until tomorrow, Hester.”

Chapter Eighteen

The news sent him into a fury.

Threws had escaped the Treasury’s net, but three of his apprentices and the vast majority of his illegal coining operation had been confiscated. All of the moulds, all of the plates and nearly all of the clipped silver and copper had been hauled away after the raids. The forger had tried to placate him with the news that he had managed to spirit away most of the completed notes, which numbered upwards of fifteen hundred pounds, but even that was no comfort.

It was a disaster.

And now Robert Aspinall had written and demanded the return of his fees. He’d accused him of endangering his sister in a criminal enterprise.

That he had done exactly that was beside the point, Wooley thought, as he uncorked a bottle of gin and poured himself an ample measure. He stalked to his desk and sat down unceremoniously.

Cook and his wife were still paying through the nose, to be sure, but Cook wasn’t likely to bring him anything else by way of recompense. Someone had heard of his ham-fisted attempts to name names in return for consideration. No wonder the fool’d met with the blunt end of a club—no discretion, no idea how these matters, so lucrative to anyone with the knowledge to finesse them, ought to proceed.

No, given the rich nob Aspinall’s sister was tupping, and the fact that the innkeeper’s pockets were let to the seams, losing the former was a blow to his plans. Rich men were far more eager to disguise their shortcomings than poor men, and what he’d learned of Mr. Thomas Ramsay persuaded him that the entrepreneur would be well able to afford to spend a great deal of money towards obfuscation.

And the innocent Miss Hester, with her plain gowns and her soft-spoken, genteel ways, was the key to it all.

It was nothing personal, of course. He’d been embroiled in shady business for so long, he’d forgotten why he’d begun in the profession. Never one to labour over the burdens of others, even as a young man, his own self-interests had always been tantamount. His descent into illegality had been a slow and gradual one. A small bribe here to settle a prosecution. Exploiting knowledge his client wished to keep secret. Common enough stuff. But at some point, he had found himself not merely skirting but overtly crossing the line that divided client and advisor. It was a lucrative decision, with many opportunities for a man of his abilities. His profession provided an excellent disguise for his less regular activities, and it further brought him into contact with many of the criminal element. That was how he had met Threws.

Over the years, Wooley had become a very shrewd judge of character. When it came down to it, there was very little difference between sizing up a witness during a deposition and understanding how best to exploit their vulnerabilities to your own advantage and sizing up a victim of blackmail. Both required a thorough understanding of men’s secret weaknesses—their vainglories, their fears, their vanities—and a willingness to exploit them without compunction.

Thomas Ramsay was not a man who could be threatened or cajoled. He was made of sterner stuff than that. He’d shaken off the fool Wooley had set to tailing him far too promptly.

But every man has vulnerability.

Ramsay’s weakness was without a doubt the young woman who’d come to share his life. Wooley’s spies, watching the house, had been revealed but not before they had gathered much valuable information on its inhabitants. They knew the servants by sight and were accustomed to the rhythms of the household. It would be a matter of an instant to snatch her up and persuade her to their cause.

A knife to the throat was always convincing.

And even if she did not acquiesce to his plans about the fraudulent bank notes, Ramsay would certainly pay to have her back safely. A thousand pounds, say, to have his pretty little piece returned unharmed. A sum of that magnitude could see a man relocated far, far from London and living in sun-dappled comfort in some far off corner of the British Empire. He’d be well beyond the reach of any charges of forgery then.

Bermuda.

Jamaica.

Or even one of the Spanish colonies. Wooley had always had a weakness for dark-skinned women.

He let himself enjoy the fantasy a moment longer before forcing himself to consider his next move.

Threws’s escape was the only good news in the whole sorry mess. The forger was the only one of the party who could have conclusively identified him. Wooley had been very careful to always disguise his face and send his communiqués under a false cover. Even with all the evidence the Treasury officers had collected, there was nothing to connect him to the business. He conducted all of his illegal transactions that way. It was frustrating at times, being forced to hide behind a series of anonymous identities but it protected him in the event of a raid.

And when a man had as many fingers in as many pies as he did, and dealt with the men he dealt with, a little frustration was worth it in the end.

That was why he was sitting in his office, drinking gin, and Threws was currently fleeing for his life and hoping that none of the passengers on the stage had an interest in collecting the bounty that had undoubtedly been settled on his greasy, balding head.

Just a few more details remained to be put in place and then Wooley would be able to act. It would have been better if he could have continued to rely on Threws’s talents but it was not to be. You did not become a success in London criminal circles by putting all your eggs—or your false coins, he thought, chuckling to himself—in one basket.

He had a dozen baskets, all of them profitable. All of them illegal. He would be sorry to give them up but he could doubtless start again. People were fools the world over.

A knock at the door sounded.

“Mr. Wooley?” Mrs. Cook stood in the door, the shawl she had draped over her head damp with the rain that was coming down steadily outside. “May I speak to you?” The woman looked exhausted and drawn. He knew she had lost her business after her husband’s arrest. None of the brewers would sell her inn ale. She’d been forced out of business and now, from the looks of things, she was down to flinders.

He smiled. “You are behind in your fees, Mrs. Cook.”

“I know. But James has been hurt. Beaten. If you could just see your way clear to extending us a little credit—”

“Do I look like a moneylender to you, madam?” he asked, feeling a rush of excitement at her fear. “If you wish me to continue representing your husband, you will pay for the privilege.”

“I’ve sold everything we own,” she protested. “The furniture. The clothes. The bedlinens. It’s all gone.” She looked at him, nervous and defiant. The nervousness amused him; her defiance aroused him. It always made it so much sweeter when they were finally forced to submit.

“There are other ways of making money,” he said, leaning back with studied casualness. Not for her the possibility of passing bad money as good. She had neither the looks nor the breeding for it. Too common and coarse to be believable. He smiled coolly. “The question is of course, how much do you love poor Mr. Cook and what would you do in his defence?”

Wooley flicked a finger along the fly of his breeches. He didn’t bother undoing the flap. It was more humiliating when they had to do it, their hands trembling, their faces stricken, their man’s name running through their brain like a mantra as they serviced him.

It was almost better than the lip service they were forced to pay him.

He was to be disappointed though. Mrs. Cook didn’t protest or argue. She sank to her knees before him and her hands were resolute as they freed his member. Nor did her hands shake as she began to stroke him and placed her lips round his member.

Damn.

The choked sobs of the women he exploited added a certain piquancy to his release and he always disliked having to give up any of his pleasure. But when Mrs. Cook’s mouth began to suckle him, up and down, he relented and let her get down to the business of satisfying him.

* * *

Thomas’s carriage deposited them in Pall Mall in front of a very fine shop. His footman lowered the steps and held open the door. Thomas climbed out first and offered his hand to Hester. In the week since they had dismissed Wooley, there was a lightness about her that gave him hope for their future.

Sir John had agreed to take the case. He had met with Robert Aspinall three times, planning their strategy for the trial and gleaning information that might be used to the accused’s benefit.

Hester still fretted terribly about her brother’s fate. Their reconciliation had only made her worry that much more poignant, and Thomas had done his level best to keep her mind occupied with such diversions as he could arrange.

The visit to the shops was not their first expedition together in public. They had made several of late. The opera. A musicale. A public ball.

He’d even taken her to Vauxhall, where she had expressed her disappointment not in the vaunted Rotunda or the Long Walk but in, of all things, the thickness of the ham. They’d taken a boat to the pleasure gardens and she’d sat in the supper box he’d reserved for them and speared the offending meat with her fork.

“I can’t read anything through this,” she’d exclaimed with a laugh, making light of the tired aphorism. “And here I thought that there was something in this world I could depend on.” He’d laughed too and tried not to think of ways to entice her into the dark walks with him. There was a bench under a bower of yews that would be a perfect for a tryst. He’d imagined Hester, reclining against it while he burrowed beneath her skirts and planted his face—

“What is this place? It is quite the most perfect thing I have ever seen.”

Her words drew him back to the present, out of his increasingly heated imaginings. He shifted discretely, and looked at not at the commercial enterprise before them but at the beautiful woman beside him. “Quite perfect.”

Why it should be so, he dared not speculate, but there it was, a small kernel of something, that saw him imagining scenes—and not merely carnal ones—that even a few short weeks ago would have been madness.

Hester in orange blossoms.

Hester growing large with his child inside her.

Hester telling him that she loved him very much.

But she did not notice his distraction. Her eyes were too firmly fixed on the shop in front of her. Her delight made him happy.

* * *

“What is this place?” Hester asked again, sizing up the passersby with interest.

The large arched windows seemed to stretch for miles and boasted such a dazzling array of goods that wherever her gaze fell there was something even prettier and more delightful than the thing she had seen before. A steady stream of women and men dressed in the first style of elegance paraded through the wide front doors, opened with appropriate deference by a livery-suited beadle, and carriages of all sorts continued to deposit more at a dizzying rate.

“According to my sisters, heaven on earth,” Thomas replied with a lopsided grin that made her heart gallop. As if sensing her doubts at the fitness of her being here, he tucked her gloved hand beneath his arm and gestured for his carriage to drive on before she could retreat back into its interior. Peering into the windows, he continued, “For the rest of us, who do not worship quite so religiously at the altar of the goddess Fashion, it is known as Harding, Howell and Company.”

“I have heard of it. It is quite the new thing, I believe, and has been a runaway success since it opened last year. It has a peculiar name that escapes me at the moment.”

“A department store.”

“Indeed! A department store. A great savings of time, not having to travel from shop to shop, especially in inclement weather. Robert told me that anything procured here is sure to be in the finest of tastes. I shall enjoy browsing its wares while you shop for your sisters.”

“We are shopping for you,” he said, leading her across the sidewalk away from the window display.

Hester stopped abruptly. “For me? Impossible. I already have more clothes than I could ever hope for,” she said, brushing a gloved hand against the finely worked day dress she was sporting. Each new gown the dressmaker delivered appeared more beautiful than the next. Every day, it seemed, there was a knock on the tradesman’s door below stairs, signalling the arrival of a new pair of beaded evening slippers or a new wrapper or two-dozen pair of white silk stockings. It was quite dizzying, especially to someone who had never had means for such abundance before. And it perplexed her greatly because it was not how, when she had agreed to their unusual arrangement, she had expected to be treated.

Thomas’s behaviours—the gifts, the outings, the solicitous conversation—made her feel cherished and adored. It made keeping her own feelings a secret that much harder.

“Your hopes are too modest, then,” he answered, pulling her politely but resolutely towards the entrance. “What are a few dresses?”

“Hardly a few dresses.” She thought of her clothespress, which had gone from barren to bulging thanks to his largess. It didn’t matter how many times she had told him that it wasn’t necessary or tried stem his generosity. “I imagine the whole of the London trades are hoping for a share of your purse. I won’t be surprised if they take to waiting in the mews, the better to tempt you.”

His visage was troubled. “You find me officious?” He glanced away, as if he were studying the magnificent windows but Hester realized he was hurt by her thoughtless comments.

“Never,” she assured him. “But I would not have you think such gifts are necessary, either.”

I would stay with you without a groat to your name.
Love will do that, press out all the sensible, practical thoughts until there was room for nothing but the feelings.

Thomas looked down at her earnestly and despite her mortification at his close scrutiny, Hester felt foolish continuing her protests.

“It is precisely because you do not expect them that I enjoy gifting them to you,” he said finally. “It pleases me to see you looking so well, but a dress without the appropriate accessories? Even I, as lost to the cause of sartorial elegance as Cissy and Elizabeth consider me, know that my gifts would be paltry indeed if I did not provide you with everything you need to wear them properly.”