Elisabeth Fairchild (7 page)

The coach set off again, her pale face pressed close to the window, chin lifted as she gazed at his townhouse. As the carriage bowled past, her gaze passed lightly over him, stopped and came back. Her eyes widened, her mouth fell open, her hand raised to the window catch. He heard the window slam down. Curls flying, her head popped from the opening that she might look back at him.

The world in that instant, slowed. From the dark fishbowl of the carriage, she seemed poised to leap. His breath hitched in his chest. The lamp hissed and flared beside him, blinding him with its brightness as the coach moved into darkness. How did she, without fail, recognize him, no matter his disguise.

An hour later, Roger stood at the top of the ladder at the end of Greater Windmill Street. Once again, he adjusted the wick of a street lamp as he thought of Dulcie, and the death of Spencer Percival, the smell of kerosene blessedly stronger than the stink of the Thames.

The lamp casing burned his fingers. An inebriated outcry from the Haymarket brought a frown. His brother chose an unsavory neighborhood in which to live. Too many taverns, oyster bars and dance halls. Jack had never bothered establishing so much as a facade of gentility. More than once he had professed a preference for throwing his money at the card table, rather than into a landlord’s purse.

In Roger’s mind’s eye a young man ran through light and shadow, an angel flown to catch Spencer Perceval as he fell. In reality, a visual echo, his brother passed from lamp lit areas to pockets of darkness, traversing the length of Picadilly.

In many ways Jack proved the stranger the changing light made of him. They ran in different circles, rarely saw one another these days. Was it a mistake, counting on Jack for his purpose? He did not look out-of-the-ordinary despondent. Could one tell merely looking at a man? Did his brother bear such a weight of despair that he prepared to snuff out his own existence?

Such a man would be dangerous company on such a night. Roger slipped a hand inside the leather apron that rode low upon his waist. Beside his oilcan, he closed fingers on the crisp corner of Miss Selwyn’s strange calling card.

What did it mean that she should step from the past to which he had consigned her to deliver this mad message?

Dear sir, 

Do you love you brother, Jack, it is of utmost importance you seek him out tonight to ascertain the state of his mind and spirit. I dare to warn you--he is perilously close to suicide or murder. I know not why.

Dulcie Selwyn

Preposterous had been his first reaction, but then he remembered carved lions--an oak table. He could not ignore such a warning. Not from Dulcie Selwyn.

His scalp itched. Curse the dreadful horsehair!  Trying to ignore the raised hair at the base of his neck, determined not to relive again the death of Spenser Perceval, he leaned away from the lamp to peer up Greater Windmill.

Still there--the two burly men hiding in the shadows of Jack’s fog-veiled doorway. Thugs waiting to do damage to Jack’s face, prepared to carry him away to a debtor’s prison for bills past due.

No better than what Jack deserved, really. He made a mess of his life, perhaps more of a mess than usual--frittering away the remains of the family’s inheritance. A clever mind and quick hands, wasted.

Roger studied the streetlamp’s wavering flame. Jack played with fire, with no notion of how many he burned.

His brother sauntered to a stop at the base of his ladder.

 “Evening, guv,” he called gruffly from his perch.

“Evening,” Jack agreed in a desultory fashion.

From the north carried the voices of the watch. “One o’clock and all is well.”

Was it?

“Shed a bit o’light on things, I do,” Roger doused the light from the guttering lamp, the better to observe his brother without himself being observed. “There’s mischief about, when lights are out.” He kept his accent thick, words muffled.

Jack gave no sign of recognition, his voice distracted. “You must see a great deal of mischief in your line of work.”

Roger chuckled without humor. How true.

Jack peered at him, as if the sound of his laughter caught his ear.

Roger busied himself with the lamp wick. Jack yawned, turned wearily toward the Haymarket, pulled from his pocket the Welsh penny he had tossed since their childhood and flipped it into the air. Round and brassy, a moonlit flash, it fell, slapping his brother’s palm.

“Night,” Jack called absently, setting off toward his apartments.

“Have a care,” Roger warned him without bothering to disguise his voice. Jack turned, brows knit, before setting out again, this time clinging wisely to the shadows.

Roger had the lampwick nicely trimmed, the lamp burning cheerfully, by the time Jack returned.

He backed down the ladder. “Spotted them, did you? Been there all evening.”

His brother stared at him in disbelief, breathing hard, his back to the wall of the house on the corner. “Roger? Damn! Is it really you? Gave me a bloody start. Look like trouble, you do. What business are you about, traipsing the streets in that ghastly peruke? Why not bloody well tell me the Constable’s men are on my doorstep?”

“I did warn you,” Roger said calmly.

“Warned me?” Jack sounded angry.

“Have a care, I said. And you did. Proved to me you are not entirely stupid.”

Chapter Ten

The Selwyn Townhouse, Wellclose Square, London

Lydia called early the following day, just as Dulcie sat down to breakfast, a new French volume in hand,
Journal du traitment magnetique de Madame Braun
. She stared absently at the words, mind abrim with thoughts of Ramsays--Roger most particularly.

A great stir accompanied her friend’s arrival, an unusual thumping, bumping clatter emanating from entry and hallway, along with a discernible note of tension in Lydia’s tone as Maisey, the maid, bid her welcome. Dulcie abandoned both book and daydreams and went to investigate.

“What’s this, then?” she asked with a laugh when Maisy man-handled two great ironing boards into a corner by the door.

“The Society of Spencean Philanthropists!” Lydia breathlessly shed hat and gloves. “I had to warn you.”

“Who?”

“Radicals, my dear!”

Dulcie cocked her head with interest.

“I should say ultra-radicals,” Lydia plunged onward as industriously as she plunged up the stairs. “They were all the buzz at the ball. Feeling better, are you?”

Dulcie smiled enigmatically. “Much better. Are we in danger of radicals? And what have they to do with laundry?”

“Laundry?”

“You bring me ironing boards?”

Lydia shook her head impatiently. “Protection. I barred the carriage windows against the danger of rocks. Indeed, I have advised your maid to use them in securing the sitting room windows, but she insists you will not agree.”

Dulcie laughed as she turned to precede Lydia into the drawing room. “Come, tell me more. I have just rung for tea.”

Lydia trailed after her. “You think me in jest. I assure you I am not.”

“Tell me why you would have me find fresh purpose for ironing boards.”

Lydia paced the room, hovering occasionally at the window. “How can I sit comfortably, wondering all the while if hoards of ultra-radicals . . .” --she placed emphasis on the ultra—“mean to lay siege to London as they have done in both France and the colonies? And you with windows crying to be smashed.

“Surely you do not think radicals mean to lay siege to London, today?”

“Who can say? Spence and Hunt are here, in town, stirring up trouble. Speeches. Pamphlets. Secret societies. Only recall how quickly the crowd turned ugly that day at Carlton House. Do you know I still have nightmares? I cannot tell you how many times I have awakened in a breathless sweat.” She opened her fan with a snap of the wrist and plied it vigorously.

“I, too, have breathless dreams about that day,” Dulcie admitted, with the smallest of smiles. “Did you enjoy the ball?” she asked. “Other than this nerve rattling talk of radicals.”

“Ultra-radicals,” Lydia corrected her, turning from the window. “We spent a great deal of time discussing the unexpected appearance of Rakehell Ramsay. He was not invited.”

Dulcie concentrated on keeping the teapot lid from rattling as she poured their tea. Lydia eyed the cup Dulcie held out to her, paced the window once again with a worried look and then sat down and asked for lemon. “News of him does not stop with a mere cello recital, either. It would seem he lost the family fortune at cards last night.”

Dulcie quailed to think her note to Roger might have been ignored, that Jack Ramsay might have killed himself. She handed her friend a plate of scones.

Lydia proved incapable of buttering scones and talking at the same time--when it seemed, indeed, that Lydia meant to liberally sustain herself before undertaking the arduous task of relaying her news, Dulcie prodded, “You were saying?”

Lydia dabbed at her mouth with a napkin, took another sip of tea, and waved a jam stained knife. “I warned you. The Ramsay’s are a mad lot. There is some talk this morning that Jack Ramsay meant to make himself conspicuous last night. Rumors, my dear,” Lydia leaned forward, light shining golden in her eyes “that he is none other than the Gargoyle.”

“The infamous agent provocateur?” What had any of this to do with the images she had seen? What had they to do with Roger?

The yellow about Lydia’s head intensified, giving her a jaundiced look. “Word came as I was leaving, that Jack shot and killed a man, an officer of the King’s Navy. There’s talk he may be hanged.”

Chapter Eleven

September, 1816--

London, The Old Bailey

The bailiff called for order, demanding the court’s attention, stilling chatter. Wood creaked as the gallery observers shifted in their seats, coughed and cleared their throats, fell silent at last. Only the flies continued to buzz without heed, in the windowsills and about the heads of everyone in the room, from the grandly white-wigged, scarlet-robed judge on his bench, to the scraggliest of the grim-faced prisoners sitting manacled in the dock.

Dulcie clicked open the etched silver lid on her vinaigrette, an equivalent to the posies carried in by the black-robed members of the court. Nosegays of rue perched along the wooden railing that edged the dock. Scents and flowers all meant to fend off the overriding odors that plagued the courts: the stench of unwashed bodies, the metallic tang of fear, of fate, of lost hope. Men lost more than hope in these lofty ceilinged rooms--inhaled rue in more ways than one.

Not rue Dulcie sniffed, but attar of roses. The tiny sponge housed behind the grill of her vinaigrette exuded the stuff. She was heartily glad of it. The sweet, musky scent offered much needed relief. The visitor’s gallery, boxed in and close to the ceiling, grew unbearably hot and odiferous, the air fetid and still.

Lydia had decided they must attend the trial. A Ramsay testified. All of London believed him to be the Gargoyle. Because the incident involved stolen shipbuilding goods, Mr. Selwyn consented to Dulcie’s going.

Dulcie went, neither for Lydia, or her father, but because she knew she must. Too long since she had come face to face with a Ramsay, even the wrong Ramsay.

One of the heavily bewigged barristers spoke from a raised podium, uttering again and again the name that fascinated her above all others. “Mr. Ramsay, is it your testimony that you are responsible for the death of Naval officer Nicholas Caldwell?”

“It is!” Jack’s voice rang out clearly.

His answer sent a wave of gasps and whispers through the gallery.

He stood, stiff-backed, jaw rigid, his light pale blue. “If it please the court, I would have it known Nick Caldwell was a friend. That I should precipitate his demise—” his voice faded, as did the strength of his light. He paused, looked down. The sliding curtain of burnished copper hair hid for a moment his expression. “is a matter of utmost sorrow and profound gravity. I never intended to injure anyone, certainly not my friend.”

The barrister, unmoved, sat like a bewigged, beady-eyed pig upon his bench, mouth downturned, his cloud the color of port wine. He asked harshly, “There are rumors, Mr. Ramsay, that you may be the gentleman known to many as the Gargoyle. Any truth to the stories, sir? Are you this agent provocateur? I would remind you, you are under oath.”

Ramsay raised his head. The silken fall of hair unveiled freckled cheeks. His earnest gaze never strayed from the judge’s face, but his light, grown cloudy, surged toward the far end of the observer’s gallery, like a swelling storm.

Dulcie’s heart leapt. Roger Ramsay leaned against one of the columns supporting the gallery, quizzing glass flashing, the sheen and color of his hair echoing his brother’s. Outwardly, Roger seemed not in the least alarmed that his brother stood accused of murder, but the match flame intensity of his cobalt and yellow aura belied this outward calm.

“I am not, nor have I ever been an agent provocateur,” Jack stated with conviction.

Roger gave no sign to contradict Jack.

The barrister pressed his point. “And yet, your behavior on the night in question seems decidedly odd.”

Gruffly came answer from the witness box. “It was, sir, unequivocally, the worst night of my life.”

“It is our understanding you received assistance.” A document rattled. “A lamplighter. He is not here today to corroborate your testimony?”

Roger’s light flared high and bright, as if blown by a strong draft, the glow wafting in his brother’s direction. Dulcie could not look away.

“I am only just returned to town, sir. The necessity of assuring his presence never occurred to me.”

Jack lied. He stood under oath to God, and lied--about his brother--the lamplighter. Lies stole the light. Ramsay’s dimmed and shrank.

“And your reason for absenting yourself from London?”