Margaret Moore (30 page)

“You may tell them that I killed a man in self-defense and that I am confident that I will be judged accordingly and released.”

Bertie sighed heavily. “Good!”

Rob set the quills beside the ink on the floor. “No stool and table?”

“That turnkey what came for me said he’d see to them, and better food, too.”

“How much did you have to pay him?”

“Nothing.”

“He’s doing all that for nothing?”

Bertie barked a skeptical laugh. “Not him! Your clients took up a collection right there in the street.”

These were people for whom a penny might mean the difference between sleeping with a full belly or an empty one. “I shall never forget their generosity,” Rob murmured, meaning it with all his heart. “You haven’t seen Jack, I suppose?”

“No. Want me to fetch him, too?”

“I don’t think we’ll see him again. He’s probably left London.”

“What for?” Bertie cried.

“For his health.”

Suddenly there came the sound of many excited voices and hurrying feet, as well as another sound so odd and out of place, Rob thought he must be hearing things.

Who would brings dogs to Newgate?

Bertie peered down the hall.

“What is it?” Rob demanded, wondering if someone was about to be taken to be executed, although it was not the right time of day for that.

“Lord save me!” Bertie gasped.

“What?” Rob asked, holding his injured knee as he tried to get as close as he could to the grill to see who was coming.

His gaze still trained on whoever was approaching, Bertie whispered, “It’s the king!”

“The king?” Rob repeated incredulously. “Are you sure?”

Charles would probably have dogs….

“Aye, it is!” Bertie hissed, excited now that the surprise had worn off. “I seen his mustache!” He started to chortle. “The turnkey looks like he’s going to collapse. Come out of the guardroom all wobbly.”

“Who’s with him?”

“The other screw with the—”

“No, no, who’s with the king?”

His clerk abruptly disappeared.

“Bertie?
Bertie!”
Rob called out, wondering what had happened. Perhaps the king had suddenly swooned from the smell of the prison, or Bertie had collapsed from the shock.

And then he stopped thinking, because Vivienne was at the door. “My love!” she cried happily.

“Vivienne!” He was so shocked and so desperate to touch her through the opening, he forgot about his rib and his knee, and banged the latter on the door. “Damn it!”

“Really, Mr. Harding, that is not the tender greeting she was expecting, surely!”

“Your Majesty?” Rob choked, trying not to groan with pain as he regarded the man whose face replaced Vivienne’s at the grill. Holding his rib with one hand, his other hand on his aching knee, he tried to bow.

The king waved his perfumed mouchoir in front of his face, and the incongruous scent of lavender mingled with the usual prison odors. “Indeed, it is your king,” he acknowledged. Charles’s merry eyes grew more serious. “You are seriously hurt?”

“Majesty, that is not what is causing me my greatest pain,” he explained before the king abruptly stepped back.

The key rattled in the lock. Then the door swung open and in the next instant Vivienne was in his arms. She embraced him tightly, causing him to yelp with pain, yet hold her just as close.

She smelled like spring, and liberty. “Oh, my darling, my love!”

She drew back and surveyed him worriedly. Meanwhile, the king strolled into the cell, looking about the tiny space as if he were in a museum or gallery.

Outside the cell, they could hear his dogs whining for their master.

Vivienne followed Rob’s suspicious gaze. “He was only pretending at Lord Cheddersby’s,” she assured him in a swift whisper before Charles spoke again.

“That was a much prettier greeting, Mr. Harding,” Charles observed approvingly, ignoring the cries of his bereaved pets, and Rob’s confused expression.

Rob surreptitiously reached for Vivienne’s hand. Smiling at him, she squeezed it. “I meant it from the bottom of my heart, sire.”

“And yet some men would call you heartless.”

“Ruthless is, perhaps, justified,” he replied, “when I am acting in my client’s interests.”

“We understand your clients do not often have a champion in the courts.”

“No, sire.”

The king’s brow wrinkled with thought. “Well, the courts are run by men, and we are all fallible, so some discrepancies are to be expected.”

Rob opened his mouth to reply that such “discrepancies” were injurious to his clients, but Vivienne squeezed his hand again, and he held his peace. After all, he was hardly in a position to argue with the king.

“Which does not mean we condone it,” Charles continued, and Rob was very glad he had paid heed to Vivienne. He looked at Robert’s knee. “Tell me, are you able to kneel?”

“Majesty?”

“Granted, this place is foul beyond belief, but can you kneel?”

“I think, Your Majesty, the question would be, could he get up again?” Vivienne suggested.

“Ah, yes, we see.” Their sovereign cocked his head. “Well, we shall consider this a sort of battlefield appointment, then, shall we, and so shall not stand upon ceremony.”

With that, he drew his sword. “Robert Harding, do you swear to be loyal to your king?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Rob replied, confused. With incomprehension, he turned to Vivienne, who was smiling with delight.

“Mr. Harding?”

Rob immediately faced the king again.

“In token of your efforts on behalf of the least of our subjects in our courts of law, we knight you. Rise—well, stand—Sir Robert Harding,” Charles said before tapping him lightly on the shoulders.

Rob was too stunned to move or speak, while Charles smiled magnanimously and Vivienne clapped her hands with delight. She went to hug him again, but stopped. “Oh, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Majesty, I …” he began.

Charles grinned. “You’ve just been knighted, man, that’s all.”

Rob swallowed hard. “But sire, I am only—”

The king regally held up his hand to silence him. “Sir Robert,
we
are the king of England and sometimes we can do as we please.”

“Yes, sire.”

“Besides, this young lady’s uncle seems to set a great deal of store in titles. You
do
wish to marry her, do you not?”

“I most certainly do, Your Majesty.”

“Good, otherwise we would have come to this dismal place all for naught.”

A dog barked, drawing their attention. “That’s Mollypuddle,” Charles said. He glanced at them. “She doesn’t wish to linger here any more than we do. Come along now, Sir Robert, Mistress Burroughs.”

“Majesty, I regret I must point out—” Rob began.

The king chuckled. “Your pardon is signed and sealed, Sir Robert, so have no qualms. You are as free as any man in the kingdom.” A winsome expression crossed Charles’s face. “Perhaps more than some.”

Then his face resumed its usual merry look. “And you’ve got a very beautiful woman in love with you, too.”

“Sire, please, a moment,” Rob said. He let go of Vivienne’s hand and slowly, carefully, regardless of the pain, knelt in the malodorous straw before his monarch. “Your Majesty, I am humbly grateful for what you have done. Thank you.”

A smile of genuine friendship shone on Charles’s face as he helped him stand. “We appreciate your words and your action more than we can say, Sir Robert. And we think if there is any man in the kingdom worthy of this young woman’s hand in marriage, it is you—and we intend to see to it that her uncle agrees. Now, enough sentiment, or Mistress Burroughs is liable to burst into tears.”

“If I do, they will be tears of joy, sire.”

“We had better see what’s upset Mollypuddle and how that young man is faring. We fear he may have swooned at the sight of our magnificent presence,” Charles said with a wry chortle. “Come along.”

Charles strode forward and greeted his dogs as if they were his long-lost children, while they responded in kind with yips and barks.

Supported by Vivienne, Rob hobbled out of the cell, and immediately saw Bertie seated on a stool outside the guardroom. His eyes were closed as if he were insensible, until he heard them approach. Then he opened one wary eye, saw the king, and closed both of his eyes so tight, his eye sockets might have been empty.

“Are you ill?” Vivienne asked anxiously after the king had passed by.

Bertie opened his right eye. “I may never be the same again,” he whispered gravely. “I was close enough to touch him!”

“So you are only overwhelmed by the king’s presence?” Rob asked with concern.

“Ain’t you?” Bertie whispered.

The king turned around and Bertie jumped to his feet, swept his cap off his head and bowed, giving the king a very fine view of the top of his head.

“Your Majesty, allow me to present Albert Dillsworth, my clerk.”

“Mr. Dillsworth,” Charles said in acknowledgment.

Bertie bashfully raised his eyes for a fraction of an instant, then lowered them.

“We trust you appreciate your employer, Mr. Dillsworth?”

Bertie mumbled something unintelligible.

The king winked at Rob and Vivienne. “A most suitably humble subject,” he observed before strolling toward the door.

Vivienne smiled and couldn’t refrain from exclaiming, “Rob has been knighted.”

Bertie’s gasp was audible despite the noise of the dogs at the far end of the corridor.

“Yes, it’s true,” Rob confirmed. “And if it’s any consolation, I can’t quite believe it myself.”

“It’s wonderful, that’s what!” Bertie cried, his eyes glowing. “Oh, they’ll come out of the woodwork for your services now, Rob, indeed they will.”

“Meaning that I shall need another solicitor in my chambers even sooner than I planned. You had better study harder so that you can be a solicitor soon, Bertie.”

“Truly, Rob?” he breathed incredulously.

“Very truly indeed. Besides, I will not want to work so long into the night when I am married.”

“Married?”

“Married,” Vivienne confirmed, giving Rob a light kiss.

“You might warn a body,” Bertie declared, grinning from ear to ear.

“Sir Robert, Mistress Burroughs, we should leave before my dear dogs add anything more to the unpleasant smells of this place,” Charles called to them. “Come!”

“You do not have to wait for us, Your Majesty,” Rob replied.

Charles shook his head and waited while they approached, his eyes shining gleefully and, Vivienne suddenly realized, with what looked like great cunning. “Odd’s fish, and go out without our newest knight, and all those people who have been demanding your release hovering about? We think not.”

He beckoned for one of the guards, who rushed forward. “You might pass the word along that we shall be accompanying Sir Robert Harding, whom we have just knighted, and ask that the people be so good as to clear the way, for he is injured.”

The man nodded eagerly and darted out the door.

The king glanced at Vivienne and Rob, then sauntered forward, slowly enough that they had no trouble keeping up with him, two paces behind.

“I think our sovereign has a better nose for the political moment than I suspected,” Rob noted. “Perhaps my knighthood has little to do with me at all.”

Vivienne hugged him gently. “I don’t care why he did it. You deserve to be honored, my love, for all you have accomplished and for all the good work you do—and I will not hear you say a single word to the contrary.”

F
ive weeks later, Vivienne’s scalp tingled as she combed her hair. She was not sure if it was the pressure of the comb or the fact that Rob, her husband as of this morning, watched her while reclining on their newly purchased bed, still fully clothed and with his head pillowed on his hands.

Or it could be that she was so nervous because they had not been intimate together since that terrible night when Philip had attacked them.

Her mind raced over all the things that had happened since then. The first was the continued good reports of Rob’s progress from the physician. He should suffer no serious, permanent injury, although he might have a limp for the rest of his life.

The second was her uncle’s unsurprising decision that her marriage to Sir Robert Harding was a wonderful thing. Indeed, he had been quite enthusiastic and given her the same dowry he would have given Philip. No doubt his several visits to the royal tailors with samples and the order of plenty of fabric—as well as having a lawyer to consult free of charge—were more responsible for his generosity and good humor than his happiness at her marriage.

Lord Cheddersby, a true friend, had woefully confided that Uncle Elias should save his rejoicing until he actually saw some money for his goods. She had decided that it would be only right to ensure that her uncle knew this, but he had waved off her concerns. “Providing fabric for the king will ensure good relations with the general public,” he had assured her.

She and Rob had spent a few happy hours ordering furnishings for his new chambers, which were now in Chancery Lane. As for the other solicitors who toiled there, Rob was still finding it difficult to accept their friendly overtures. She didn’t doubt that while he would unlikely ever be friends with many of them, he would grow to accept his newfound popularity, and not just from his legal associates. Clients of every background now found their way to his door. Despite this, he made it clear that while he would happily represent wealthy people whose cases had merit, he would not abandon those who had sought his help before, or others of that class.

Apparently Lord Cheddersby had decided to put his knowledge of Latin and obscure legal precedents to work. He was going to study law, he declared, and become a barrister.

“I may as well try to do some good with all that learning,” he told them, “and I have informed my father that the king approves, so there’s a chance I will wind up on the King’s Bench someday. I’m not hopeful of such a thing myself, but you should have seen the poor fellow’s face. He didn’t know whether to be angry or not after that, and he never said another word.”