Her Proper Scoundrel (32 page)

For a moment, she savored the idea of his love and a happy grin lifted her mouth. Tears of joy threatened to spill but she blinked them back. There was still a hurdle to be crossed before Christopher could be free.

She clasped her reticule as if it could save her from drowning in a sea of hesitation and stood up with shaking knees.
 

Reality hit as she walked out of the dismal jail and into the fresh afternoon air. Her words had been bold, boastful but the awful truth was that Lord Thaddeus Candel was the man who had accused her father of theft, the man who had pushed her father over the precipice into debauchery and drunkenness. For certain, he would have nothing to do with her.

But for Christopher’s sake, for the sake of the man she loved wholeheartedly, she had to try.

* * *

The Greyhound Inn was much as Josceline remembered. Only today, a carriage emblazoned with the Candel coat of arms was put up in the courtyard.

An encouraging sign for it meant Thaddeus was within.

“Wait for me,” she ordered the coachman and stepped inside the inn. While her eyes adjusted to the dim interior, she pulled off her lace gloves - another item purchased from Mademoiselle Francois - and folded them inside her reticule. Tucked under her arm was the bound package containing the deed to the “Bessie.”

“Lord Thaddeus Candel, if you please,” she said to the tired looking innkeeper. Without looking up from the coins he was counting, the innkeeper gestured with his head to the common room. “Through there. Back corner, behind the screen.”
 

“Thank you.” Josceline hesitated. Entering a public room unaccompanied dripped of impropriety. She shrugged, immediately discounting the thought. How silly to worry about being proper or not when Christopher was the only thing that mattered.

Ignoring the leers and lewd suggestions of the other, mostly male, occupants of the room and holding her skirts to one side, Josceline threaded her way across the room to the woven screen.
 
Peeking around it, she spied the finely dressed form of Lord Thaddeus Candel. She pulled back to ready herself.

If Thaddeus Candel denied her, if he spread word in London of her escapade here, her already tattered reputation would be reduced to gossamer fragments. She wouldn’t be welcome anywhere in London.

And so? She asked herself. What worth was her reputation if she couldn’t come to the aid of the man she loved? Christopher desperately needed her help and she would give it, regardless of the consequences.

Josceline peeped around the screen again. Thaddeus’ back was to her and as showed by his motions, he ate. Thankfully, he sat alone so he would have no choice but to favor her with his attention.

She peeked at him again, unsure as to how to approach him. How much rancor did the man hold for the actions of her father? Would he listen to her? Would he acknowledge Christopher?

Standing here worrying about it wouldn’t help.

Gathering her courage like stalks of wheat into a sheaf, she marched around the screen and into his line of vision.

The elder Lord Candel at first didn’t see her for he concentrated on the newspaper spread out on the table beside his plate of meat, bread and potatoes.

She cleared her throat.

Still he didn’t lift his head.

“I must beg pardon, Lord Candel, but may I have a word with you?” Her voice squeaked and inwardly she chided herself for it. “May I have a word with you?” she asked again more resolutely.

He continued reading the paper. “May a man finish his meal in peace?” he growled.

“I assure you, my lord, this shan’t take but a moment.”

He heaved a sigh and pushed away his plate. Carefully, he folded the paper before finally raising his gaze. Puzzlement creased his brow and he pursed his lips. “Do I know you?”

“Yes, Lord Candel.” She curtsied. “I am Lady Josceline Woodsby. You knew my father once. Lord Peter Cranston. The Duke of Cranston,” she added.

He flushed with remembrance, a red tide that turned his scalp beneath the thinning, graying hair to pink.

“How is your father?” His eyes were wary.

Christopher’s eyes, Josceline realized with a start and she sucked in several huge breaths of air before she could answer.

“As well as can be expected, I suppose.”

Thaddeus Candel leaned back and pulled the napkin off his lap to pat his mouth. “Let us forget about the niceties. This is hardly the place for a young aristocratic woman. Why are you here, Lady Woodsby?”

He used her full title and it rattled her a bit. She sucked in another huge breath.

“To plead for my husband.”

“Why should I care about the welfare of the husband of the daughter of the man who betrayed my trust?” he asked, eyes narrowing.

“Because he is your bastard son,” she whispered.

He blanched. “Anyone can claim to be a bastard son and none would be the wiser. What proof have you of that?”

“Would you deny your own flesh and blood through a mishap of birth which is not his fault?” she countered firmly.

“What proof do you have?” he repeated. With studied movements, he folded his napkin and placed it on the table between them.

It formed an obvious barrier.Josceline winced at the implied insult but forged ahead. This man and his airs would not deter her. “Your eldest son faces punishment for a crime he did not commit,” she exclaimed. “Have you so little feeling you would see him come to harm?”

“Whether or not the man is innocent is of no consequence to me. I say he is not my son. You say he is yet you have no proof.”

She stared at him, frantically trying to find the words to sway the man seated before her but it was no use. Her mind remained blank.

“You’re right, I can’t prove he is your son.” Defeated, her shoulders slumped. Had it all been a lie? Was Christopher really Candel’s son or had he played her for a fool, gambling that she, as the daughter of a duke, had some clout and could fight for him?

A wispy curl somehow worked itself free to fall across her eyes and she lifted her left hand to brush it away impatiently.

“Where did you get that?” Thaddeus barked suddenly, his eyes glued to her left hand.

“I must beg pardon?” Was the man mad? She had nothing of value on her.

“Your ring.” He pointed a trembling finger at her wedding ring. “I have only ever seen one like it.”

“From Christopher. From your son.”

He sat down suddenly and scrutinized her more closely. “Where did he get it from,” he demanded.

“His mother”.

“Could it be,” he muttered, staring intently at the ring. “May I?” And he held out a pale, slender hand framed in a froth of lace.

She pulled it off her finger and handed it to him. Her finger felt bare and she missed the weight of it, missed the courage it gave her.

He turned it over and over in his fingers then sagged against the back of his chair. “It’s her ring,” he whispered, stunned. “It is the ring I gave Madeline.”

“Madeline?”

“Christopher’s mother.”

“How could you abandon them?” The words burst from her mouth and she felt herself grow hot. How rude he must find her. “I am sorry, something that happened so long ago is not of my concern.”

He accepted her apology with a nod and began to speak, voice barely above a whisper.

“It was not my wish. I couldn’t marry her for it was understood I would marry another for the sake of the Candel name.” He stopped and drew in a shuddering breath. “I couldn’t offer her marriage and so Madeline refused to be my mistress. I had no idea at the time she carried my child. Years later, when she became ill, she contacted me. She knew she was going to die and she wanted me to provide for Christopher. You can imagine the shock for by then I had a wife and another son. I did the only thing I could – I found him a position with the Navy. And, to my discredit, I forgot about him.”

“Now you can put things right. Drop the charges against him so he can be freed from jail,” she pleaded.

Without knowing it, she had laced her hands in supplication. She pulled them apart again and balled them into fists. She must convince the man by merit of her argument, not by melodramatic gestures. Thaddeus must take her seriously or Christopher would be lost.

“Christopher is in jail?”

“Oliver claimed he stole the deed to the Bessie and had him jailed. But the Bessie belongs to Christopher,” she pleaded. “He won it fairly in a game of chance with Oliver. Oliver refused to honour his debt.”

“Oliver.” He shook his head. “I don’t know whose blood runs in his veins. Rather I do.” A spasm of agony stiffened his features. Just as quickly as it came, it disappeared. “Not only will I help you for Christopher’s sake, but I will help you for the sake of your father.”

“My father? How is my father involved?” Stupefied, she grasped the edge of the table to steady herself; the bound sheaf of papers beneath her arm fell to the ground.

“The claims I made against him were untrue. I misplaced the documents. They were of extreme importance and I didn’t have the courage to admit I’d lost them. I fabricated the story against your father to save my own skin. Shortly afterwards your mother died and that, coupled with the blow of my unjust accusations, did him in. I am so sorry.”

“Make it right now. Go to him when you return to London. He is a sad man in need of friendship.” She picked up the papers at her feet and handed them to Thaddeus. “But please, not until you visit the magistrate and drop the charges against Christopher. Please,” she begged, “make things right for him.”

He shifted his gaze away from her, eyes empty as if he looked into the past, a past only he could see.
 

“Never mind what has gone before,” she urged. “It cannot be changed. But you can change what is happening right now. You’re a lord of the realm. Your word carries weight. Magistrate Grenville is a just man and he will listen.”

“I cannot promise success. But I shall try.” His eyes watered and he dabbed at them with his handkerchief.

“That is all I can ask, Lord Candel. That you try.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Christopher lifted his head from where it rested on his knees. Judging by the pale light crowding through the slit of a window, another uncomfortable night had passed and another uncomfortable day was about to begin.

His right leg cramped and he straightened it, giving an inadvertent kick to McEllis sprawled out dead to the world mere inches away. If only he could sleep so soundly in such miserable conditions, Christopher thought grimly.

All he had been able to manage in the time he had been locked up was to nap occasionally sitting up, with his back tucked up against the stone wall. Albeit cold and damp, the wall was the only thing he trusted in here.

“I must beg pardon,” he said as McEllis rolled over and tossed a few choice epithets his way.

In the wan light of dawn, Christopher surveyed the cell, crammed full with assorted, snoring shapes and figures, now serving as home. Stinking riff raff the lot of them although he undoubtedly stank with the best of them.

Not for the first time, a peaceful image of Midland House saturated his mind and he embraced it. Embraced too the memories of Josceline: In the garden, sunlight glinting off her glorious russet curls. In the library, her face animated as she taught him how to dance. In his arms, the flush of love staining her cheeks.

He focused on the latter image the longest. For a few moments at least, he would be far from Bristol Newgate.

Too soon, however, the chill of the floor gnawed through his breeches to interrupt his dreams. He shifted from one buttock to the other.

The cell was so crowded, not even an inch of unoccupied floor space remained and this time, he knocked the man beside him in the head. Christopher uttered a hasty apology which only earned him a murderous glare. Christopher responded with a glare of his own, blatantly flexing and un-flexing his fists. The ploy worked for the other man shook his head and went back to sleep.

Sleep. The only thing he could do to forget about the surroundings.

Closing his eyes, Christopher leaned his head back against the wall. This time the mocking face of Oliver Candel danced across his eye lids. Rage, impotent yet pure, surged through Christopher’s torso, pushing against his lungs with such force he could scarce breathe. His fingers curved with the need for revenge.

Revenge. That would be the first order of things when he was released. When, he told himself. Not if.

He would surely go mad if he continued to think about the injustice forged upon him by Oliver Candel. Christopher tried to think again of Josceline but questions swarmed through his mind.

Damn it all to Hades, how much longer would he be here? How had Josceline fared? Had she been able to persuade his father to drop the charges?

His father. He snorted. The man had been no father to him.

If nothing else, the thought of his father stopped him from thinking about his half-brother.

Christopher must have dozed off for a rough hand shook his shoulder.