Vice and Virtue (19 page)

She should not have said that. It took every ounce of her remaining strength to hide the rush of hard, unforgiving, relentless dread that pushed its way through her body. Her face in the mirror looked white, her eyes glittered. She put her head down. “I thank you, Mary, but I must go now. My hat and gloves are on the bench in the other room.”

Mary put her cloak around her shoulders and tied her hat-ribbons for her. But when the maid brought her the lace-edged gloves, Aurora did not put them on. She remembered too vividly her horror when Edward had thrown the right-hand glove down and Joe Deede had picked it up. She would never wear those gloves again. “No, I have changed my mind,” she told the maid. “I will wear the plain ones, which are longer, and will keep me warmer in the church. You will find them on the top of my trunk.”

Mary fetched Aurora’s long gloves and helped her put them on. At the door, Aurora paused. “Mary, would you do something else for me?” she asked.

“Yes, ’m,” said Mary, planting her feet, poised to fetch whatever Aurora requested.

“If Mr Drayton should return in my absence, will you tell him I am waiting for him at St Paul’s Church, and he
must
come there?”

Mary did not reply, but curtseyed, never taking her eyes off Aurora’s face.

“Then I bid you goodnight,” said Aurora. She turned to go, then turned back. “There is one more thing. If neither Mr Drayton nor I should return tonight, will you tell Mr Marshall – but
only
Mr Marshall – that messages sent to a Mr Augustus Hoggart at the Black Swan will reach us?”

“The Black Swan,” repeated Mary. “A Mr Hoggart.”

“That is correct. Thank you.”

Aurora went down the stairs and opened the door. Drawing her cloak closer around her shoulders, she stepped out into the shadowy, deserted street.

A Bloodied Blade

E
dward and Richard had not returned to the inn.

The innkeeper, who obviously recognized Aurora as the serving-girl who had spoken to him and Nathaniel earlier, kept his counsel. He offered to allow Miss Drayton to wait in his front parlour, but she gave him the message that Mr Drayton must join her in the church of St Paul, impressing its importance upon him as best she could.

He assured her that he would do her bidding. “But if they do not come back here tonight, I cannot help you, Miss Drayton,” he told her apologetically. “Gentlemen may do as they please.”

“That is true,” agreed Aurora, gathering her skirt. “You have done all you can, and I thank you.”

Hurrying away, she heard a faraway bell toll nine. She passed the Theatre Royal, its flares burning yellow circles into the twilight, crossed the piazza and stepped into the dim hush of St Paul’s Church. If she waited here for Edward in vain, by dawn she would have no choice but to violate the law that banned women from attending duels. The duellists would gather upon Lincoln’s Inn Fields before dawn – by four o’clock, Edward had predicted. She would be there in good time. But until then, she would wait in the sight of God.

The glory of the church interior, which usually lifted her spirits, only deepened her distress. Wherever Edward lay tonight, did he truly imagine her to be asleep in their lodgings, numbed by laudanum, resigned to her imminent widowhood? If so, she thought unhappily, she had brought his low opinion of her upon herself.

He had made many declarations of his love for her: as a statement of fact in her mother’s drawing room, formally at the wedding breakfast and more passionately when he had confessed his penniless state. She remembered the misery in his voice when she had returned from Drury Lane with news of the attractiveness of Joe Deede. “Do you doubt I love you?” he had asked plaintively. She, may God forgive her, had not even honoured his question with a proper answer. And when he had reminded her in Spring Gardens that it was he, not Joe Deede, who loved her truly, all she had shown him was contempt.

But everything was different now. The way Edward had half smiled, regarding her with such tenderness as she had pleaded with him to call off the challenge, had betrayed his awareness of her feelings. After all his own avowals of love, he had recognized her desire to make one herself. But he had prevented her. If only she had not bowed to his superior prudence! If she had allowed her emotions to overpower her, and had embraced him when she could, he would now know for certain that he was the possessor of her heart, secure in her everlasting love.

But she had not, and he did not know. Now, perhaps, he never would.

She retreated far into the shadows at the sides of the nave, sat in a pew and leaned her head against her clasped hands. She tried to pray, but she was filled with agonizing hopelessness. She got to her feet and walked to and fro between the pews in the near-darkness, each step strengthening her regret.

Her legs trembling, she lowered herself once more into the pew. A long, long time passed. Each opening of the church door, every footstep on the stone floor roused her, and raised her hopes. But in vain The bell in the tower above her rang out ten, then eleven o’clock. At midnight, she gathered her skirt in her right hand and went to the door. An impenetrable darkness had fallen upon Covent Garden.

Aurora shuddered. It was the witching hour, right enough; before the sun rose today, either Edward or Joe would die.
Please God
, she prayed as she closed the door and returned to her seat,
can you not spare them both?

She was awoken from a fitful sleep by the striking of three o’clock. She struggled to haul herself to consciousness. When she moved, she gasped. Every muscle in her body had stiffened, and her shoulder was shooting bolts of agony down her arm. But she made herself sit up, ignoring the pain, remembering with a jolt of terror where she was.

There was yet time. She must go.

Lincoln’s Inn Fields was not far, but as Aurora approached it she felt it might as well be a hundred miles away from the sanctuary of St Paul’s. It was, as she had often been told, the last piece of countryside in the great city of London. Criss-crossing paths were the only mark humans had left upon it; the land remained Nature’s own. Unlit, the trees untamed, the grass trimmed only by wandering sheep, darkness and loneliness enclosed it utterly.

Aurora was frightened. However profound her distress that Edward faced death, and however fierce her determination to save him from it, fear possessed her. The Fields were larger than she had thought. The darkness was blacker than she had imagined. There was no noise except the occasional rustle in the undergrowth of some nocturnal animal. Supposing the duellists chose another area altogether, behind some trees, or hidden by bushes? Supposing she neither saw nor heard them until it was too late?

Although the dawn was some way off, the intermittent chatter of birds had begun. The creatures were aware of the warming of the air, and the most minute sliver of brightness, far beyond Aurora’s senses. The natural world was awakening, and as soon as there was enough light, the duel must be done.

She tried to get her bearings. She had walked north-east from Covent Garden, and she was at the southernmost corner of the Fields. She must find the centre as accurately as she could, for there she would have the best chance of hearing anyone approach, from whatever direction.

The sunrise, though as yet too weak to throw anything but the faintest grey light, aided her. She knew the sun must be due east, so she walked with it on her right, watching for the lumpy shapes of buildings to become visible over the trees, reasoning that when she was about the same distance from any building, in any direction, she must be near the centre.

She came upon a space, apparently deliberately cleared for some sport. Bear-baiting, cock-fighting, she knew not. But here, it was certain, men had gathered, hidden from the world by a thicket of hawthorn and tall elms. She hung back amongst the trees; if they arrived first, Joe Deede and his accomplice must on no account catch sight of her. Stiff with pain and dread, she sank to the grass at the foot of a tree to wait while the world brightened around her and the birdsong gradually increased to a full chorus. Away to the south, she heard a quarter to four strike, and within minutes, heavy treads on the grassy path alerted her to the sight of two men approaching the clearing.

Aurora recognized Joe’s plumed hat. He wore no other finery, though. Woollen breeches and sturdy riding boots showed beneath his cloak, and his sword hung at his side in a belt of plain leather. When he spoke to the other man, his breath made clouds in the cold air. Both wore thick gloves, and the accomplice had around his neck a kerchief, the purpose of which, Aurora guessed, was to disguise his face when the moment came. He did not seem to be carrying a sword.

Her stomach lurched. She had eaten nothing since Sunday evening, and Tuesday morning was now dawning. But it was not lack of food that was churning her entrails. It was the knowledge that she beheld, here amongst the trees, her husband’s murderer.

She must apprehend Edward before he reached the clearing. But which way would he come? She could not tell, because she did not know where he had spent the last few hours. Her heart drummed; she could not think. It was while she was cowering low beneath the hawthorns, cursing her helplessness, that the unmistakeable sound of horses’ hooves, their snorting and blowing, and then the sight of their steaming coats, came near.

Richard must have had horses at the inn. Of course, he owned a carriage, did he not? Had he driven in it to London from Hartford House, when he had brought Flora’s letter? Why had Aurora not thought to ask Nathaniel if Mr Hoggart and Mr Drayton had taken
horses
, or Mr Hoggart’s
carriage
? Richard and Edward could have been at Hartford House all day, or visited any fencing-hall within twenty miles. Had desperation so affected her brain that this possibility had not struck her?

Edward was more of a horseman than he had implied. He and Richard seemed to have ridden a long way, at a gallop. The horses were panting, and Richard removed his hat to wipe sweat from his face. The bandage round his head showed white in the mist-grey air. Edward dismounted in a swift, practised movement, soothing his horse. His clothes were covered with a dark cloak, and he wore his short wig and an untrimmed hat. He handed the reins to Richard and stood, his head raised, his sword sheathed at his side, watching the movements of Joe Deede and the man he assumed to be Deede’s second. Aurora’s heart had leapt into her throat. Seeing Edward’s breath as he exhaled, she realized with a stab of dismay that hers must be equally visible.

Richard, still mounted, was leading Edward’s horse nearer her hiding place. Her cloak over her mouth, unable to attract his attention by calling, she picked up a small stone and threw it at Edward’s horse. She was not a very good shot; it landed short. But it disturbed the foliage enough for Richard’s head to whip round. He did not signal to Edward or cry out, but slipped quietly out of the saddle, came round to Aurora’s side of the horse and, using its body to conceal his action, peered between the bushes.

There was not much light, and her face was shadowed by her cloak and hat. But he
must
see her. “Richard!” she hissed. “Warn Edward!”

Surprise crossed Richard’s face, but he crouched, pretending to examine the horse’s shoe, and nodded.

“The man with Joe Deede is not his second, but his accomplice!”

He still said nothing, but beneath the shadow of his own hat Aurora saw his jaw stiffen.

“You must believe me, Richard!” she pleaded. “The man is a paid assassin. I had this from Deede’s own lips. There will be no duel. You must get Edward away before it is too late.”

Men on horseback could readily outpace men on foot. God had done His work. They would surely be saved. But Richard hesitated. “Can you ride?” he whispered.

“No.” She understood what was in his mind. “Flee, and do not give thought to me! They are not aware that I know of their plot, and they have not seen me. I will be safe. Now, go!”

To her relief, he stood up. Holding the reins of both horses, he led them into the middle of the clearing, where Edward and Joe faced each other. When Aurora saw that they had already shed their cloaks, and were waiting, swords drawn, for the
en garde
to be called, she had to stuff the edge of her own cloak into her mouth to suppress a shriek.

“What the devil are you doing, man?” Joe’s enraged voice boomed in the silence as Richard led the horses into his path. “Get out of the way!”

“Edward!” shouted Richard. “Mount and flee! It is a plot!”

But before Edward could move, Joe Deede ran at him like a madman, his sword aimed at Edward’s chest. Richard shouted again, and Edward cast himself sideways onto the ground. Joe’s sword caught him a blow below the left shoulder, but Aurora was unable to see, in the tangle of horses and men, how badly he was hurt.

To her horror, the assassin had drawn a short-bladed dagger, which he held aloft as he ran towards Edward. Richard’s horse, alarmed by the affray, wheeled round, its hooves churning the earth. One of its back legs struck the man. He fell, cursing mightily, his weapon landing a yard off. He managed to reach it, but Richard had drawn his own sword. “Stay!” he commanded, stern-faced, his sword at the assassin’s throat. The man fell back and lay on the ground.