Alyssa Everett (23 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ben

“You have news, Sir Francis?” my father asked. I was glad he’d voiced the question. My mouth had suddenly gone so dry, I couldn’t manage it.

“I do indeed.”

We waited as the guard unlocked the cell door to admit Sir Francis and his clerk, while a hundred dismal possibilities ran through my head. The learned judges of the court had laughed in Sir Francis’s face. Mr. Dawson had uncovered new evidence pointing to my guilt. Barbara had just denounced me publicly.

But by the time Sir Francis stepped into my cell, he was smiling. “Good news, Lord Beningbrough. The Court of King’s Bench has not only granted our petition for a writ of certiorari, but also agreed that procedural irregularities in your initial hearing suggest the magistrate may have been unreasonably prejudiced against you. Together with your alibi witnesses and Lady Helen’s recantation, the irregularities provide sufficient grounds for dismissing the indictment against you. I’ve just handed the prison governor the court’s writ quashing the magistrate’s mittimus.”

I was glad he’d prefaced his announcement by saying he had good news, for I could make neither head nor tails of it. Quashing the magistrate’s mittimus’...?

Sir Francis beamed. “You’re a free man, Lord Beningbrough.”

“What!” I experienced a strange sense of weightlessness, as behind me, my father gave a breathless laugh. “A free man? Really?”

Sir Francis rubbed his hands together gleefully. “Yes, indeed. The King’s Bench reviewed the record of the magistrate’s court and set aside the charges against you.” He chuckled to himself. “Apparently there was a little matter of judicial bias. They’ve ordered your release, effective immediately.”

I could scarcely believe it. So I wasn’t going to hang? I wasn’t even going to face trial? I was free. I could marry Barbara!

“Fine work, Sir Francis,” my father said. “We’re in your debt.”

I was so overjoyed that I stuttered in my excitement. “Yes, y-you looked so solemn just a moment ago, walking up beside the guard, I was certain you had bad news.”

Sir Francis’s smile faded. “Ah. I’m afraid there has been one less satisfactory development.” He gestured to his clerk. “Randall here has informed me that Lady Barbara Jeffords’s room was ransacked today.”

A jolt of alarm shot through me. “What? Was she hurt?”

“No, no, apparently she was out at the time. But a certain piece of evidence was stolen, a notebook that belonged to the first victim. Fortunately, we won’t need it now for your defense, but since His Grace your father has asked me to continue my investigation into the murders, I’d hoped it might offer a clue to the identity of the real killer.”

I remembered the notebook and how Barbara and I had wrestled over it in her bedroom. How had the killer even known she had it? Had he heard us squabbling over it? Worse yet, had he seen her with it through the peephole? Either way, he was far too close to Barbara.

And what was wrong with me, that I should be sitting here cooling my heels when she could be in mortal danger? I hadn’t a moment to waste. “So I’m really free to go?” I asked Sir Francis.

“As soon as you wish, my lord.”

I turned to my father. “I can’t leave Barbara in harm’s way. You must’ve guessed how I feel about her. With a special license—that is, would I have your blessing if—”

“You would,” my father cut me off. “Of course you would. I’ll attend to matters here. Go and ask the girl, Ben, before you give yourself an apoplexy.”

“Thank you.” Grinning at my father, I quickly shook Sir Francis’s hand. With a rush of excitement and relief, I bolted out the open door of my cell toward freedom.

A steady drizzle was falling when I passed through the squat black door of the prison and out onto Newgate Street, but the rain did nothing to dampen my spirits. I wouldn’t have minded if the sky had been hailing locusts. I’d been reprieved. I was a free man, breathing fresh air for the first time in days. And I was on my way to ask Barbara to marry me. I wasn’t walking on wet pavement, I was walking on air.

In the rain, the cobbled streets were nearly deserted of pedestrians. I glanced up and down for a hackney, but there was none to be had. Instead, carriages rattled past, splashing sheets of water onto the pavement as they bounced and jolted through spreading puddles. Undaunted, I ducked my head against the downpour and started up Holborn on foot.

I tried to imagine what kind of reception I would meet with when I reached Leonard House. For all Barbara knew, I was still in prison. Which would win out, astonishment at seeing me or anger over our earlier misunderstanding? If my luck held, her fury had faded in the past few hours. And if my luck didn’t hold...

I grinned to myself. Even an angry Barbara would be a sight for sore eyes.

Quickening my pace, I glanced over my shoulder again for a hackney. As I did so, a tall, bundled-up figure behind me shrank out of my line of sight. For a moment I had the unsettling suspicion he’d been following me. With a glance over the other shoulder, I tried to make out his face under the low brim of his hat. Then a passing dray sent a puddle arcing onto my boots, and I realized the man must simply have been anticipating the splash.

I chuckled to myself, shaking my head at my imaginings. After all the turmoil of the past week, I was seeing sinister figures behind every lamppost.

But imaginings aside, the raid on Barbara’s room raised one vital question. Who possessed that kind of access to the house? I doubted the culprit was one of her family. Her father could simply have demanded the notebook from her, and if one of her brothers was responsible, it would make more sense for him to stage a return visit than to slip into the house in secret and risk being spotted.

That left only the servants, and perhaps those connected to them. Did the butler have a violent temper? Might Barbara’s abigail have an ex-convict for a sweetheart? I didn’t know enough about the household to hazard a guess, but I trusted Barbara would.

“Your pardon,” I said, sidestepping to avoid a heavyset tradesman under an umbrella.

I tried again to imagine Barbara’s face when I appeared unexpectedly on her doorstep. Before my arrest, I’d not only crossed the bounds of propriety, but I’d done it at a time when she’d had more than her share of troubles to contend with—the Peeping Tom, the humiliating caricature in the paper, murder under her very roof. Now that I’d bungled my attempt to put some distance between her and my disgrace, she was probably questioning whether I possessed any decency at all.

But even if she ranted, raved and threw crockery at my head, I intended to press my suit, and to keep pressing it until she accepted me. I wanted her safely out of that house. More than that, I was determined to spend the rest of my life with her. I would get down on my knees and beg if that’s what it took to persuade her to have me.

Reaching the point where Broad Street narrowed, I paused to cross in front of St. Giles Church. In the same moment as I stepped off the curb, I caught a flash of movement from the corner of my eye. I whipped my head around—

And recognized my attacker’s face in the same instant he brought the clubbed end of his walking stick down on my skull.

Barbara

Kneeling before the drawer of the dresser, I sat back on my heels in disbelief. Could
Frye
really be the killer? He’d been with my family for seven years. He was a footman of such commonplace performance and unimposing presence that I barely noticed him most of the time, and when I did, it was usually to remark some awkwardness in his manner. How could a man like Frye mastermind a blackmail plot, spy on me in my room at night, and commit two violent murders?

But when I thought back to how the mystery had begun—with the letter to Helen that read
I
SAW YOU LAST NITE AND I KNOW WHAT HAPPINT IN BRYTEN
—it dawned on me that Frye must have accompanied the family carriage to Aunt Archer’s when Papa sent it to bring Helen home. Frye could have happened on the lovers without their ever realizing it.

And the other blackmail notes—according to Mr. Mainsforth, Helen had discovered one in her carriage after a shopping trip, another in her cloak at the theatre, and a third in her prayer book at church. As our footman, Frye could have been in attendance each time. His presence was simply so routine and so unobtrusive, no one ever gave it a second thought.

But even if Frye had known about Helen and Mr. Mainsforth, why would he want to kill Sam Garvey? Why would he shoot at Ben, a man he hardly knew? I’d always considered Frye my staunchest below-stairs ally. Would he really spy on me? What possible reason had I given him to send vicious and hateful caricatures of me to the papers?

It was more than I could fathom, but at least I had a new piece of the puzzle, and perhaps Sir Francis or Mr. Dawson of Bow Street could make sense of it. Tucking the little notebook into my sash once more, I slid the dresser drawer closed.

“Looking for something, my lady?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of Frye’s question—soft, respectful, yet holding an unfamiliar note of menace now. He stood in the doorway, his blue livery soaking wet from the cloudburst outside. His powdered wig was missing, revealing his close-cropped ginger hair, and he was watching me with a look of burning intensity in his eyes.

I sprang to my feet, my heart pounding. “No, not at all.” Though I strove to sound casual, I had to stop myself from wiping my palms nervously on my skirts.

He took a step toward me, one hand outstretched. “Then perhaps you’d return my property?”

“Your property?” I echoed dumbly.

“The notebook.”

I decided my only recourse lay in playing stupid. “What notebook?”

He gave a small, regretful shake of his head. “Ah, my lady. Don’t make me have to take it from you by force.”

Recognizing defeat when I looked it in the face, I gulped and retrieved the notebook from my sash. “I didn’t realize it belonged to you,” I said, handing the little book to him.

He shrugged. “Strictly speaking, it was Sam Garvey’s, but then, we were partners of a sort. ‘Meet with M,’ remember?” At my blank look, Frye regarded me with a faintly disappointed air. “You don’t even know my Christian name, do you?”

I shook my head.

“I didn’t suppose so. It’s Moses.”

“Moses...” I repeated, stalling for time. Aside from my mother, Sills, and the servants below stairs, I wasn’t sure who else was home. If I screamed, would anyone hear me? If I ran, how could I get around Frye? My knees had turned to jelly, and he was standing directly in the doorway, blocking the only way out.

He must have guessed I was racking my brain for a means of escape. “Now, my lady, we both know you’ve seen everything in that drawer, and you’ve put two and two together. I can’t let you leave here to go telling everyone.”

Cold terror gripped me. “I won’t say a word, I promise,” I babbled, so frightened that at that moment I really meant it. “Besides, I’ve tried to put two and two together, but it’s not as if the numbers add up. I thought the real culprit was someone from outside the house. When I ran downstairs on the night Lord Beningbrough was knocked unconscious, I found the front door standing open—”

“I threw the door open and slipped to the back stairs as if I were making my rounds.”

He was more clever than I’d realized. “But you were at your post when Lord Beningbrough was shot.”

He shook his head. “Aiming from outside the garden gate, it was an easy thing to fire and then get back to the front door before anyone thought to look for me.”

“What about the blackmail notes? They were written in such plain English, while the verse with the caricatures of Lord Beningbrough and me was more polished—”

“I like to read, remember? And to sketch too. I’ll admit, I was proud of that verse. But I kept the blackmail notes simple—even misspelled a few words on purpose—so no one would make the connection.”

I glanced toward the incriminating evidence in the drawer. “So why leave these things here, in this bedroom?”

“You don’t think a mere footman sleeps in private quarters, do you?” He laughed humorlessly. “I share a room with Jamie Stroud. I couldn’t have him finding those pearls or that money. Besides, this room is next to yours. I could watch you.”

I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I knew he wouldn’t be telling me these things if there were any chance he meant to let me go. “I don’t understand. I thought we were friends, Frye. Why would you spy on me in my room or shoot at Lord Beningbrough? Why would you insult me with those caricatures in the paper?”

“Insult
you?
” He frowned sharply. “Those caricatures weren’t meant for you, but for Lord Cliburne and Lord Beningbrough. I would never insult you, my lady. Don’t you know I’ve been in love with you for years?”

“In love with me?” As startling as the news was, at least it held out some hope that Frye didn’t mean to harm me after all.

“I’ve loved you from almost the first day I came to work here. You smiled at me and told me not to let Mr. Lewis bully me, do you remember? That’s why I did all this—for you. I may be only a servant, but with the money from Lady Helen and Mr. Mainsforth, I planned to make something of myself. I knew we’d be together someday. And you didn’t seem in any danger of marrying, at least not until Lord Cliburne came on the scene.”

I recalled the first caricature, the one in the
Times.
“You were in attendance at the Stewarts’ picnic that day I thought Cliburne meant to propose.”

“You’d forgotten I was even there, hadn’t you, my lady? But I was wrong about Lord Cliburne’s intentions, as it turned out. It was Lady Helen he wanted.” Frye smiled at the thought.

Remembering my foolish hopes for Cliburne, I flushed at the gloating satisfaction on Frye’s face. Then I recalled the peephole and realized he’d seen far more personal and more humbling moments, watching me. “And how did Sam Garvey fit in?”

Frye’s smile faded. “Poor Sam. Your sister asked him to deliver a payment, and he caught me making the pickup. Fortunately, he saw more advantage in helping a brother footman than in turning me in to the authorities. He offered to keep mum and even lend me his aid in return for a share of the money.”