The Perfect Princess (4 page)

And here was the tricky part. They hoped that in the confusion, with so many turnkeys coming and going, no one would notice them entering the keeper’s rooms. Once inside, they would take the keeper hostage and force the turnkeys at that last door to open it for them.

And so to freedom.

Naturally, Harper had thought of everything that could go wrong. Their plan depended on no one recognizing Richard. On Harper’s advice, he’d refused the services of the barber that morning, and a fine stubble now darkened his chin and cheeks. It was to their advantage, also, that Newgate was as dark and gloomy as . . . well, Newgate. It had been built to be impervious to light. Freedom could not come too soon for Richard.

“Ready?” said Harper.

Richard smiled. “Lead on, MacDuff.”

When Rosamund entered the breakfast room half an hour later and found Charles Tracey in heated debate
with Callie and Aunt Fran, she knew something was very wrong. Charles was supposed to meet them in Newgate.

He was thirtyish, tall, and willowy, with blond hair receding at the temples. Rosamund had never entirely warmed to him, perhaps because he seemed always aggrieved about something. The only thing he didn’t judge and find wanting was Callie, whom he clearly adored. Rosamund felt sorry for him, but all the same, an hour in Charles’s company never failed to depress her.

At the moment, Charles was venting his anxieties about the outing to Newgate.

“Too many things can go wrong!” he said.

“Nonsense,” replied Callie. “It’s all arranged. I’m not going to let a little thing like that stop me.”

“A little thing like what?” asked Rosamund, adjusting her shawl as she came up to them.

Silence. She could tell from their faces they were all surprised to see her.

Charles recovered himself first. “Lady Rosamund,” he said. “So that was your carriage and coachman I saw in the square.”

Callie said, “I thought you had made up your mind not to go.”

Rosamund answered Charles first. “How are you, Charles? It’s good to see you again.” She responded to his formal bow with a slight inclination of her head. To Callie she said, “I don’t remember saying I wouldn’t go with you, but if the trip is off, I won’t be disappointed.”

“The trip is not off,” said Callie. “I’m not going to allow an unruly mob to tell me what to do.”

“Mob?” Rosamund looked at Charles.

He nodded. “They’ve called the militia out to disperse them. We’re talking about riots, Lady Rosamund. There are thousands of people out there on the streets of London. At the prince regent’s house, when they learned he was not there to receive their petition, their mood
turned ugly. They threw stones at windows then tried to set his house on fire with fireballs.”

“What are they petitioning for?”

“Fair wages. Lower prices. Work for the workless.” Charles shrugged. “Most of them are orderly, but there are always one or two agitators who try to stir things up.”

Callie said, “The prince regent’s house is miles from here, and even farther away from Newgate.”

Aunt Fran, who had been fussing with the basket she carried over one arm, looked up. “Newgate,” she said. There was a quaver in her voice. “I remember the riots in the summer of 1780. The mob went on the rampage and burned private dwellings, then they marched on Newgate and freed all the prisoners.”

“That was almost forty years ago,” said Callie. “The authorities know better now than to let the mob get out of hand.”

“Aunt Fran has a point, though,” said Charles. “I doubt there will be a driver in London who will take us to Newgate.”

“Oh.” Callie thought for a moment, then her face brightened. “Then we’ll go in Rosamund’s carriage. With her armed coachmen and postilions to protect us, the mob will think twice about meddling with the duke’s property. And I’m sure that’s how he’d want Rosamund to travel anyway.”

Charles was losing patience. “Rioters don’t meddle. They throw stones and fireballs.”

Rosamund, who’d had every intention of offering the duke’s carriage, now balked. She had a ghastly vision of her father’s face should his spanking-new carriage, built by his own hands to his own specifications, be returned to him as a burned-out shell. Carriage-building was not a hobby with the duke. It was his vocation.

“Why can’t we take your carriage?” Rosamund asked. “We could still use my postilions.”

“Didn’t I tell you? It’s being repaired.”

Aunt Fran was beginning to look worried. “Does that mean we’re still going?”

“Yes,” said Callie. “Charles, would you mind ordering the carriage round, Lady Rosamund’s carriage? Now, stop worrying. It’s built like a fortress. We’ll be quite safe.”

As Charles went out, Aunt Fran cleared her throat. “Couldn’t we postpone . . . no, no, how silly of me. If we don’t go today, it will be too late.”

Aunt Fran looked no more eager to visit Richard Maitland than she was, thought Rosamund. But her own case was different. She was testing herself. She didn’t see why Aunt Fran had to be miserable.

“Miss Tracey,” she said, “are you feeling all right? You look deathly pale.”

Aunt Fran seized upon that opening like a hunted rabbit darts into a hole. “Well, I do feel a little under the weather,” she said. “I didn’t sleep a wink all night.”

Callie sighed. “Why don’t you go back to bed, Aunt Fran? Rosamund and I can chaperon each other.”

Aunt Fran didn’t need to be told twice. She deposited the basket on the table and practically tripped over her skirts in her haste to get away.

Callie shook her head. “I had no idea she felt like that. Well, it’s you and I, Roz, just like the old days. Are you game, Miss Fainthearted?”

And just like the old days, Rosamund found herself rising to the bait.

Old habits were hard to break.

At Rosamund’s insistence, they left the ducal carriage with its complement of coachmen and postilions in the stable yard of the Magpie and Stump. If there was a mob on the loose, she told her companions, and it turned violent, her coachmen might come under attack. Better
for them and Papa’s carriage and prize horses if they were out of sight. Besides, they had only to cross the road and walk a little way to reach the prison.

Callie was not pleased by the delay. They were late enough as it was, she said. The keeper would think they were not coming. The streets were deserted. She did not see why the carriage could not wait for them outside Newgate’s doors.

Charles took Rosamund’s part and voiced the thought that was going through her mind. “The streets are deserted,” he said, “because word of the riots has probably spread. Sensible folk are in their homes, with their doors and windows bolted. And that’s where we should be.”

“Not a word about riots to the keeper,” said Callie severely, “or he may cancel our visit.”

They entered Newgate by the private door to the keeper’s rooms. Callie need not have worried. Mr. Proudie was waiting for them. He was affable and effusive, and positively fawning after the introductions were made.

“Lady Rosamund,” he said, “the Duke of Romsey’s daughter! Well, well! This is an honor. Newgate, if I do say so myself, is becoming quite the rage among the aristocracy. You’d be surprised how many fashionable people pass through our doors.”

“Yes,” said Rosamund, “crime is rampant among all classes, so I’ve heard.”

The keeper looked baffled, and Callie quickly interposed, “And Colonel Maitland? Has he had many visitors?” She pinned Rosamund with a “this is no time to be funny” look.

The keeper chuckled. “Ah, no. He’s not glamorous, you see. He’s only a common murderer. Now, if he were Jack Sheppard, or a highwayman like Dick Turpin, his well-wishers would be lining up in droves to shake his hand. Well, well, come this way.”

In single file, they followed the keeper along a windowless
stone corridor with a watery light shining at the far end. Rosamund pulled her shawl more closely around her shoulders. It wasn’t only the cold of that gloomy, cheerless place that was affecting her. The atmosphere was foul, as though the prison were a closed box and the prisoners and their goalers had been breathing the same air since time began. The smell was nauseating, too, a horrible combination of boiled cabbage and stale urine. And every time a gate clanged shut at her back, a shudder passed over her. She had just arrived and she could hardly wait to get out.
If I had my way, I’d lock him up and throw away the key
. How many times had she used that hackneyed expression?
Never again
, she promised herself.

The last gate they passed through took them to the Felons’ Quadrangle. It was open to the elements, but the walls were so high that no sunlight penetrated to the few prisoners and visitors who were strolling about. At intervals around the walls, stone benches had been set out, and it was to one of these benches that the keeper now led them.

“We’re not going to visit Colonel Maitland in his cell?” asked Rosamund.

“Ah, no, Lady Rosamund,” replied the keeper. “Not suitable for a lady. Highly unpleasant.” He laughed. “Grown men have been known to weep when they enter the cells for the condemned.” He nodded to the uniformed turnkeys who were stationed at every few feet around the perimeter of the yard. “Safer here, too. Most of my men are former soldiers. They shoot to kill and ask questions later. But there are no violent prisoners here to cause you alarm. Coiners, embezzlers, libelers, that’s what we have here.”

“What about debtors?” asked Charles.

“Oh, they’re housed in another part of the building entirely.”

With that, he beckoned over the nearest turnkey and
told him to accompany him to the prisoner Maitland’s cell.

As the keeper and turnkey made for one of the staircases, Callie seated herself on a stone bench; Charles mumbled something under his breath and set down the basket they’d brought for Maitland; and Rosamund took stock of the people in the prison yard.

The three females present had to be wives and daughters, she thought, because female prisoners had their own quadrangle. One wife was telling her husband off in no uncertain terms; the other two were weeping. They all looked harmless enough, harmless and pitiable. There was no laughter or joy in this place. What it must be like for the men and women who were under sentence of death was beyond imagining. If she had her way, prisons like Newgate would be razed to the ground.

Her gaze moved to the turnkeys. They didn’t look like former soldiers to her. They looked more like brigands. Their uniforms were shabby and ill-fitting; their tricorne hats were askew. They were talking among themselves. She’d known soldiers, and this lot simply did not look disciplined.

There were two in particular that her eyes kept straying to. The older man had a face that reminded her of the faces of the gargoyles on the pediment of Twickenham House, and the younger man . . . he had what her father would call “presence.” He wasn’t particularly handsome, or particularly tall, but he had that look of intense virility and power that could be quite intimidating. He didn’t fidget; he didn’t glance from side to side or look up or down. He had the nonchalant stillness of a predator who waits at a watering hole for its prey to show up.

He moved his head slightly and their eyes collided. She felt the power of that look as though he’d touched her with ice. He didn’t like her. No. It was stronger than that. He despised her.

She tore her eyes away and said something to Charles, she didn’t know what, but her mind was still on the hard-eyed man who’d made no attempt to hide his disdain. And no wonder, she thought. She and Callie were dressed to the nines, Callie with her white rabbit-skin collar and matching muff, and she with her high-heeled kid shoes studded with glass beads. He probably thought that Callie was wearing ermine, and that the glass beads in her shoes were precious gems. If she’d only known she was coming to Newgate, she would have dressed more modestly.

The hard-eyed man must think they were curiosity-seekers, bored aristocrats who had come to Newgate to titillate their jaded palettes. He wouldn’t believe it was a mission of mercy, and neither did she.

What on earth was she doing here?