Die I Will Not (12 page)

When, at length, the nuts, fruits, and sweetmeats had been served, Thorogood, never so happy as when playing host, rose to give a toast. “I welcome you all to my board on an occasion made auspicious by the presence of our esteemed guest. I propose the health of Mr. John Chase, Principal Officer at Bow Street. A man who brings great wit and a stout heart to his work. Let the villains quake in their boots and the honest folk rest more soundly in their beds because of his efforts on our behalf. To your health, Mr. Chase!”

All except Chase rose, lifting their glasses to the Runner, who sat in the place of honor to his hostess' right. As Buckler raised his own wineglass and chinked it against Sarah's empty one to her immense delight, he saw that Chase's face wore an arrested look, as if some new vista had opened before him. When Thorogood had finished, he got on his legs to reply, speaking with some awkwardness but obvious sincerity. “I am very much obliged to you, Mr. and Mrs. Thorogood, for the honor you have done me and for your gracious hospitality. May you enjoy your present happiness for many years to come.” Chase gave a little bow and resumed his seat to general applause and a few “hear, hears” from the children.

Buckler was glad to have enjoyed this time of lighthearted fellowship because the tone of the evening turned somber once the party returned to the drawing room. The children went off to bed, and Sophia took Sarah upstairs to listen to a story, leaving the adults to discuss the Collatinus matter. At dinner, Penelope had smiled and conversed freely, but Buckler, studying her surreptitiously, perceived that her thoughts were often far away. Now as she handed a cup of tea to Chase and moved away, her carriage erect, the Runner's eyes followed her. This would not be easy for her, and Buckler thought Chase understood her feelings as well as he himself did. She had withdrawn behind a wall designed to keep even her close friends at a distance.

Thorogood seemed too restless to sit and drink his tea. He planted himself in front of the fire, standing with arms clasped behind his back. His characteristic good humor had dimmed, and Buckler could read his regret that the pleasantness of the evening had come to an end. When everyone else was settled on the sofas and chairs, Thorogood glowered in Buckler's direction, his eyebrows meeting in a bushy line across his forehead. “Well, Edward, would you care to begin?”

Chapter XI

As he described his interview with Quiller, Buckler felt he spoke to Penelope alone, though he took care not to insult her by softening the tale of treachery, blackmail, and murder. When he was finished, Thorogood said to her, his tone gentle, “I'm sure you won't wish to judge your father when he is not here to speak for himself. Wait for his reply to your letter, my dear.” At Penelope's nod, Hope, sitting next to her on the sofa, pressed her hand.

Thorogood looked around the group. “I recall the murder of this courtesan. The papers were full of the story for a few days—and then nothing. It was assumed the culprit had fled the country. I didn't take much interest at the time.”

“
An injured mother
,” quoted Buckler. “Something Quiller said has made me think—could Nell Durant have borne the Prince's child?”

A startled silence greeted this question.

Chase sat with one of Hope's delicate teacups balanced gingerly in his large hands. “A political disaster in the making, Buckler. A royal inamorata turned radical and blackmailer? God knows what sensitive information she had.”

Thorogood stroked his chin thoughtfully. “What can you tell us, Mr. Chase? I assure you that anything we discuss stays in this room.”

“I fully intend to be open with you, sir. From now on, I will proceed in a private capacity on Mrs. Wolfe's behalf.”

Penelope said, “I am grateful to you, but you must have other business.”

Their eyes met, hers questioning, his grave. “None that concerns me at present, Mrs. Wolfe.” Chase went on to describe his visit to Dryden Leach's office, his interview with Mary Leach, the disappearance of the porter Peter Malone, and his speculation about the connection between the Collatinus letters and the Princess Caroline inquiry.

“Poor woman,” said Hope. “She has been much tried by her husband. I understand why she fights to uphold her honor.”

“Yes, Mrs. Thorogood,” Chase agreed politely. “Collatinus is a threat to the Prince Regent's reputation and therefore a weapon he would not choose to see placed in his enemies' hands. It may be the Home Office has its own agents and informers at work to discover the author of these letters. Which would explain the interest in Mrs. Wolfe if it is known in official circles that her father wrote the originals.”

Hope smiled at Penelope in reassurance. “If these men are employed by the government, they pose no physical threat to you or your family. Once they see you are innocent of any conspiracy, they will go away.”

Penelope's answering smile went a little awry. “I suppose Mr. Chase's theory may also explain why questions about my family have been asked of the local shopkeepers.” As she related the story about Maggie and the unpaid baker's bill, Buckler entertained himself with a pleasing vision of a dark alley and Jeremy Wolfe's face at the mercy of his fists. He kept his glance lowered so that no one would observe his emotion.

Chase said, “The government may want to know what happened to Dryden Leach as much as we do. I went back to the Adelphi Terrace this morning and caught the surgeon, a man called Thomas Fladgate, as he departed.”

“Has Mr. Leach's health improved?” inquired Thorogood.

“An inflammation of the lungs has taken hold. Leach isn't long for this world, I'm afraid. His wife is nursing him.”

“Mary?” broke in Penelope, and they all looked at her in some surprise. Chase leaned back in his chair, observing her, his gaze intent on her face.

“Penelope? Why do you sound so strange?”

She did not immediately respond to Hope, though she laid a hand on her friend's arm. “What else did the surgeon say, Mr. Chase?”

“That he had rarely seen such devotion in a wife. She allows no one to do for her husband what she can do with her own hands and stays with him throughout the day and night. I asked Fladgate outright about the masked man who attacked his patient and the wounds received.”

Thorogood frowned in concentration. “The crux of the issue.”

Penelope rose to her feet and began to pace the room. She looked at Buckler then at Chase, and she appealed to both for understanding. “I've been thinking of Mary Leach.”

“Tell us, Mrs. Wolfe,” said Chase, and Buckler thought he tried to steady her with this matter-of-fact response.

“This extreme devotion rings false. Mr. Rex implied that her marriage isn't very happy. Also, he told me she once had literary ambitions and now has an occasional pseudonym of her own, which she uses to contribute poems and squibs to her husband's paper. But what if she grew tired of serving his agenda—tired of serving
him
?”

Everyone stared at her, but Buckler had the distinct impression Chase had known what she was going to say.

“What the deuce!” expostulated Thorogood. “Do you mean to suggest the lady herself has some knowledge of the crime?”

“You are astute, Mrs. Wolfe.” Chase gave them Noah Packet's information about Mary Leach having been abroad on the night of the attack and repeated her cryptic remark about Leach having had an enemy. He paused, waiting for Penelope to come to her own conclusions.

“What if Mary meant
she
was Leach's enemy? What if there was no masked man? What if she had to come up with a story to explain the attack at a moment's notice? She might have been in league with Collatinus or even written the letters herself. Perhaps she had reasons of her own to prevent her husband's revelations in the paper. Or she hated him and sought revenge for some injury. I can't think how else to explain her behavior.”

Chase nodded, as if pleased by a pupil's correct response to a lesson. “I believe you're right, Mrs. Wolfe. Leach neither defended himself nor gave the alarm, possibly because he wished to hush the scandal and avoid implicating his own wife. Mrs. Leach has likely bribed the surgeon to keep his mouth shut.”

Hope looked appalled. “She wouldn't get away with murder.”

“Petty treason, actually,” Buckler corrected her. “It is considered even worse than murder. Not so long ago a woman convicted of killing her husband was burned at the stake, though the executioner would strangle her first. At least we no longer indulge this particular barbarity. Now she would merely be hanged.”

A ripple of discomfort passed through the room, as they absorbed that they might hold the power of life or death over a woman most of them didn't know. With a kind of detached interest, Buckler debated whether he could bring himself to resign a lady to the tender mercies of the English justice system, however much he deplored her deed. He would want to learn a great deal more about Mary Leach and her motives first, but he could not shield a murderess. He turned to Penelope. “You were once acquainted with Mrs. Leach?”

“Yes, though I don't recall those days very well. My father took me to visit her and her stepmother, the Countess of Cloondara, a few times. She was called Mariam then, the name given her by her mother. She was extremely pretty but quiet and rather meek. I don't think she much liked her stepmother.”

“Could a woman do such a thing?” said Hope in wonderment. “And to nurse him afterwards…” Shuddering, she glanced up at her husband's robust form, probably recalling her own loving care when he had caught a dangerous cold the prior year.

Chase answered her. “Mrs. Leach may seek to hide her crime. She can always claim her husband told her to keep silent for his safety. She and the surgeon are the only ones with access to the sickroom, and it wouldn't be difficult to keep Leach quiet with regular doses of laudanum. When he dies, presumably the surgeon is prepared to swear to a false cause of death. A little bribery to the parish officials to head off a coroner's inquest, a quick burial, and the thing is done. And perhaps the Home Office would not be averse to this tidy solution so long as the Regent's name can be kept out of the business.”

“How could she?” Penelope walked to the window and stood for a moment with her back to them. “She has children. If she is executed, their lives will be forever ruined. She would destroy herself utterly.”

“If Rex revived Collatinus and Leach was bent on unmasking him in the papers, Mrs. Leach might have killed her husband to protect her father.”

Penelope faced Chase. “What of
my
father? We mustn't forget Nell Durant. I must learn who was responsible for her death. I am determined the truth must come out at last.”

Buckler could not help himself. He went to stand at Penelope's side, though he did not touch her. “We are agreed then. But there's something else we must consider. If Nell Durant had a child, where is that child now?”

***

During the bustle of departure, there was just time for Buckler to exchange a few words with Penelope. Thorogood was busy making the arrangements to send her home in a hackney he had summoned, Chase had already taken his leave, and Hope was upstairs checking on the children. Buckler and Penelope stood together in the hall.

She laid a hand on his arm. “I must act for myself, you know. This case is…sordid and possibly dangerous. You must allow me to decide. You must indeed. I would not wish for harm to come to any of you.”

“We don't think of that when you are in need.” Lines from Shakespeare came to Buckler as he stood looking down at the top of her bent head.
The very instant that I saw you, did / My heart fly to your service; there resides, / To make me slave to it...
And he realized it was true. Thorogood had brought Penelope to him for a legal consultation after her feckless husband had got himself briefly confined in Newgate on suspicion of murder. Since then Buckler had wanted nothing more than to protect her, though only recently had he begun to understand the depth of his feelings for Penelope Wolfe—another man's wife. What he wasn't at all sure of was whether she had ever thought of him in this light, not that it mattered since she wasn't free and he could never tell her of his love.

She lifted her eyes to his. “You must, at all costs, avoid a scandal, Edward. You have a career to make, and Mr. Chase has his employment at Bow Street. But I thank you for your loyalty most sincerely.”

“You know I would do anything to serve you, as I told you once before.”

“I remember. It was the day we walked together in the Temple Garden. You said I was too alone.”

Buckler took her hand and raised it to his lips, retaining it for a moment, but he had to let go when Thorogood's voice was heard calling them. He attempted to banish his regret with a smile, which she returned rather tremulously. Then she turned away as Thorogood bustled in.

“Go and carry Sarah down to the coach, Buckler. And, for heaven's sake, take care not to wake her.”

***

Chase sat in his armchair by the fire, a glass of brandy on the table at his side. After a while, out of long habit, he fetched his prized miniature of Abigail and baby Jonathan, holding it in his hands and studying it in the glow of firelight as he let his thoughts drift. Abigail's last letter had informed him that she had commissioned a new miniature of Jonathan so that he could see how his son had grown toward manhood. A peace offering of sorts, he thought, since she must have assumed he would be disturbed by the news of Jonathan having gone to sea. The rain and wind lashed at the windows, and it was pleasant to sit in the warmth, thinking about his son and imagining his adventures, thinking too about Penelope and the dilemma she faced as she peeled away the layers, stripping bare her father's past. She had probably been a dutiful daughter before her marriage to Jeremy Wolfe. Eustace Sandford had raised her after her mother's death, and it must have been he who taught Penelope to think for herself. How certain and firm she had been in saying the truth must be primary with her, but how would it be with her if this truth branded her father a killer?

From time to time, Chase heard the tenant in the next room, moving about and muttering as she paced the floor. He ignored the noises, hoping they would soon stop. But later as he lay in bed, sleepless, the din next door increased. Miss Fakenham began with slamming her drawers and proceeded to stamping her feet, crying, and talking to herself in a voice that rose to shrillness and fell to softer moans. Finally, he threw back the bedcovers and used his walking stick to pound the wall. When a welcome silence greeted his ears, he soon drifted off to sleep. But then, as if a caged beast had grown restless in its cell, the noises began again, louder.

Cursing, Chase rose and donned his dressing gown. Angrily thrusting his feet into slippers, he went out in the corridor. He put his ear against the woman's door to see if the noise had abated, hearing several loud thumps followed by a sobbing breath. He tapped on the door.

“Yes?” came the faint reply.

“Keep the noise down, miss. You will rouse the house.” What he really meant, of course, was that she was bothering
him
, for he assumed Mrs. Beeks and the boys would be sleeping soundly on the floor above.

There was no answer, so Chase, irritated beyond all measure, opened the door and put in his head. Miss Fakenham sat in the middle of the floor, her disheveled hair framing a pale, wild face wet with tears. A blanket was draped over her thin shoulders, and a purple gown spilled across her lap. She was shivering violently.

“How dare you enter my room!” She was shaking so hard that she got out the words only with difficulty. Chase's gaze swept around. It was a bare place. He had been in this chamber once or twice, but Mrs. Beeks had removed her bits and pieces to leave space for the tenant's belongings; only the young woman didn't have many to speak of. The room contained a narrow bed, a washstand, and a few other pieces of shabby furniture, including a scratched up old chest of drawers on top of which were a silver-backed brush and an old, clouded looking-glass. The grate was cold and empty.

Chase opened his mouth to deliver a blistering scold—but stopped himself. “What is the matter?” he said instead.