A Dangerous Madness (31 page)

“The Duke of Wittaker has arranged it. He is to accompany me.”

“But Phoebe, you never mentioned this last night.” Her aunt clasped her hands together, so distressed she did not even notice that Lewis had poured her tea.

“I received a note from him this morning.”

Phoebe caught Lewis’s sharp look. He would know no note had been officially delivered, but Phoebe ignored him.

“What has you so upset?” She took her aunt’s hands. “The worst has happened. They can’t do more to me than they have already.”

“You would be surprised,” her aunt sniffed. “It is just that I don’t want you ensnared. At the moment, you’re ruined but on speculation alone, based only on what you and Sheldrake
might
have done together as a betrothed couple, but there are many who would give you the benefit of the doubt.

“If you travel down this path with Wittaker, I fear you will be branded a demi-rep, or his mistress, and there will be no respectable offer of marriage.” Her aunt lifted a hand and stroked her cheek. “I saw the anger in you at the Prince Regent’s dinner, the rejection of everything they are, but I don’t want you to throw away a chance at a family and a happy life to spite people who shouldn’t matter anyway. However exciting a handsome rake like Wittaker might seem.”

She drew her aunt into a hug as the doorbell rang, and felt her aunt stiffen beneath her embrace.

“Wittaker?”

“I’m sure it is, yes.” Phoebe kept her arm about her. “Show him in, please, Lewis.”

When James entered the room, her heart leapt, and it was all she could do not to walk into his arms.

“Ladies.” He bowed, and unable to help herself, Phoebe stepped away from her aunt and held out her hands to him.

“Thank you for the flowers.” She blushed as the words spilled from her mouth.

The flicker of surprise on his face at her mention of his midnight antics was gone in a moment. He took her hands, and lifted her fingers to his lips. “I enjoyed getting them. And it is a pleasure to see you looking so well, Miss Hillier.”

Her aunt made a sound, and they both turned to her. “There is something…” She was staring at Wittaker.

“You are no doubt talking about the love-sick look I get on my face when I am in your niece’s company. I am quite sure it is sickening to watch, but I’m afraid I can’t help it.” There was laughter in his eyes.

Her aunt gave a slow nod. “I see you have things in hand, Phoebe.” She stepped forward and kissed her cheek again. “I will have a good breakfast and then be on my way. You best be off if you are going to the trial, there is no doubt it will be a crush.”

James held out his arm for her to take and Phoebe looked back to give a final wave as they walked away.

Her aunt was staring after them, a wide smile on her face and tears on her cheeks.

She raised a hand to her lips and blew Phoebe a kiss.

* * *

It
was
a crush.

When they arrived at Old Bailey, the crowds were so thick, they struggled to gain entry.

Phoebe noticed more than one bribe exchanging hands as people bartered to get inside, and once they were in, it was unadulterated chaos.

“It looks as if it’s every man and women for themselves,” Wittaker murmured in her ear, finding them a place near the back so they could leave easily. “I see more than one Member of Parliament having to actually rub shoulders with their constituents.” There was laughter in his voice, and she grinned back at him.

She noticed a number of affronted men in stately dress, forced to find a place amongst the throng.

The smell was terrible. The odour of unwashed bodies mingled with the dank air wafting up from the tunnels to Newgate Prison, the stench strong enough to make her lift her handkerchief to her nose to breathe through.

Someone had made an effort to combat the smell by placing herbs along the judges’ bench and on the dock, but they looked wilted and ineffectual.

“Is that the Lord Mayor of London up on the bench with the judges?” she whispered.

He gave a nod. “The Lord Mayor of London and the Lord Chief Justice. I’m surprised they are so eager to be here. There is no way this trial can ever be remembered well.”

Bellingham was brought in, his hair neat, his face clean, but his clothes very much the worse for wear: ripped and torn, as if he had been set upon by a crowd.

Phoebe supposed he had been.

It was the first time she’d seen him, and he looked calm and alert. His long face was serious but showed no signs of nervousness.

The talk in the court dropped off as he was ushered to his stand, but then rose again, even louder.

She recognized Harmer, Bellingham’s solicitor, from their meeting the day before. There were a few men with him, his colleagues, she guessed, who would form the defense team.

“Vinegar Gibbs, the Attorney-General,” James whispered to her, pointing to the sharp-faced man standing across from Harmer.

The Lord Chief Justice called the court to order, and Phoebe could sense the duality of the crowd around her; outrage and approval swirled through the throng as every request by Harmer and his team for more time was denied.

Gibbs accused Harmer and his colleague, Alley, of contriving to delay the administration of justice.

Bellingham was forced to plead, and as he stood and launched into his own defense, the papers he’d requested clasped tightly in his hands, she had the terrible feeling she was watching a farce.

“He isn’t even looking at them,” James murmured in her ear. “He was desperate for those papers, but he hasn’t glanced at them once.”

“Perhaps they make him feel more secure.” Phoebe watched the accused as he talked about his terrible experiences in Russia, and had the sense of a childlike desperation, a naivety that obscured all the realities of his situation.

A crushing sense of helplessness weighed her down as she looked from his serious, earnest expression, to the cold, closed looks on the faces of the men lined up to judge him.

She had thrown the shackles of helplessness off as much as possible this week and she could not bear to watch this.

She leaned in to Wittaker. “Do you mind taking me out? I cannot stay. It feels as though I am watching a carriage bearing down on a child in the street, and I cannot do anything to prevent what is going to happen next.”

James gave a nod and then they were up, and he was pushing through the crowd with his broad shoulders, her hand tight in his, until they were on the street.

It was a London street, she knew it couldn’t smell fresh and sweet, but it seemed to, after the packed courtroom.

“Thank you.” She stood close to him, his hand still clasped in hers. “I’m sorry if you wanted to stay. If you’d like to go back in—”

He shook his head. Then frowned as a man gave a final, indignant shout to a bailiff. He climbed into a coach, and his travel companion leaned across him and shook his fist at the bailiff, anger in every movement they made as they drove off.

The bailiff watched them leave stoically, arms crossed.

“What was that about?” James towed her behind him as he approached the portly man.

He frowned. “Who’s asking?”

“The Duke of Wittaker.”

She hadn’t heard that tone from him before. It was icy and precise, like the sharpest knife, and the bailiff straightened up.

“Two gentlemen wot came from Liverpool to speak as witnesses on the Bellingham matter, Your Grace.”

“For the accused or against?”

“Don’t rightly know.” The man doffed his cap.

“Why weren’t they allowed in? They must have ridden the fastest possible way to get here so soon.” James looked after them, but the carriage had already disappeared.

“The Attorney-General was told they were here, Your Grace, he said to turn them away.” The man shuffled back.

She tightened her grip on James’s hand. “Surely Gibbs isn’t allowed—”

James’s eyes were hot enough to set the court building alight. “Whether there is a loophole or a clause that allows it or not, as a human being, he should have let them in. This, more than anything, makes me think he knows what is truly going on here.”

She tipped back her head to watch him. He looked down the street again, and ran his free hand through his hair.

His gaze rested on her for a moment. “I will take you home, and come to you tonight if I can. But I need to see Gibbs about this.”

She nodded. “What will you do?”

He gave a shrug. “I’ll have to wait until the session is over. I would like to thrash him, but short of that, I don’t know. Whatever I can.”

He tucked her in close under his arm and ran his thumb across her knuckles.

“Strange,” he whispered into her hair. “Even though I have seldom felt so angry, having you with me helps. Gibbs should be grateful for your very existence.”

Chapter Forty

T
he church bells rang seven in the evening. They were edging towards summer, though, and the sun was not yet completely set.

James saw one of the lights shining from Gibbs’s office extinguished, and quickened his step across the street.

The clerk he had sparred with on Tuesday was about to extinguish a second lamp when he walked in. He stared blankly at James as he gave a nod and walked past him, straight toward Gibbs’s private office.

James didn’t bother knocking, he simply walked in.

Gibbs was sitting at his desk with a glass of brandy in his hand, staring at a pile of papers.

He looked up sharply. “Wittaker. What the devil do you mean, barging in here?”

“I came to give you a message.” James didn’t take a seat, he walked up to the desk and leaned his hip against it, arms crossed, looming over Gibbs.

Gibbs pushed his chair back to stand.

“Sit.”

Phoebe had calmed him earlier, had centered him, but she wasn’t here now, and the sight of Gibbs stirred the rage of this afternoon all over again, hot and deadly.

Gibbs sank back in his chair so suddenly, it rocked a little. James could see the confusion and the hint of fear on his face.

“What is this about?”

“I’ve come to tell you to resign.” He watched Gibbs take that in, and frown.

“Resign, on what grounds?”

“Corruption. Dereliction of duty. Failure to uphold the law. You can take your pick.”

Gibbs gaped at him.

“Bellingham is to be hanged on Monday, I understand, and the jury took less than fourteen minutes to find him guilty.”

“I’m not the jury—”

“You set the trial date less than four days after the crime took place. And I know why.” James did not try to hide the contempt he felt for Gibbs. For all of them. “You can pass this message on to the Prince Regent. We know. And if anyone has the bright idea to try something like this again, should there be another politician in future His Majesty doesn’t like, we will make sure the papers have the full story, no matter how little proof we can produce.”

Gibbs let his glass slip from his hand. It hit the desk and through some miracle did not tip over. He was turning purple again, but Wittaker honestly didn’t care if he had an apoplexy this time or not.

“We?” He wheezed the word out.

“Lord Dervish, myself and a number of other interested parties.”

Gibbs slumped back in his chair, his mouth working.

“I expect to hear of your resignation in the next few weeks.” James turned and started for the door.

“Wittaker.” Gibbs almost gasped out his name.

James turned.

“Didn’t know…was told…”

“Here’s the thing.” James paused in the doorway, watching Gibbs take a hard slug from his brandy glass with a hand that shook. “I don’t care if you knew exactly what had happened or not. You deliberately set out to deny Bellingham a fair trial. That is not acceptable to me, and I will ruin you if you do not step down with immediate effect. The thought of you continuing in the justice system offends me.”

He kept eye contact with Gibbs for a long, drawn-out beat, and then turned and walked out.

The clerk stood in the middle of the front office, eyes wide, mouth open. James strode past him without a word, and as he started down the stairs, he heard the crystal glass Gibbs had been holding shatter against the wall.

The sound satisfied him more than he liked to admit.

* * *

She was in her private garden, walking quietly among the rows. A soft breeze stirred through the hedge and ruffled the herbs, sending the fragrance of lavender, rosemary and fennel swirling about her.

The sun was almost completely set, and the last stains of orange melted out of the sky.

There was a scrabble of leather on stone, and she took a few long steps away from the wall, her eyes straining in the twilight to see who would come over the top.

Wittaker peered down at her. Then he grinned and jumped to the ground. “This is almost like old times.”

She smiled back and stepped into his arms, then gasped as he lifted her and swung her up against the wall, holding her in place with his body.