Honor Reclaimed (All About Honor) (27 page)

“Give us his name and I will see
that he is contacted.
 
Listen son,
I normally do not do this because I think most of the men that are dragged in
here are guilty, but you have to forget chivalry and defend yourself.”
 
The warden was acting in his best
interest he knew, but he wanted to talk to John or Thomas first if they would even
speak with him after Elle was returned to them in the manner he assumed she
would be.

“Thank you, but if it is all the
same I need to speak with my attorneys first.”
 
Drew had a lot at sake.

There was a knock at the door and
John and Thomas, accompanied by Sir Alex, were ushered into the room.
 
“Good morning, sir.
 
I am Sir Thomas Lewis; this is my
cousin John Lewis.
 
We are here to
represent Andrew Braybrooke, Lord Moxley.
 
If you will excuse us please, we need to speak with our client in
private for a moment?”

“I will be just outside the door when
you are through.”
 
He stated
obviously resenting the interruption.

“Well Andrew, you have out done
yourself this time.
 
I do not even
know why we are here; except for some reason Elle wants us to save your sorry
neck.”
 
John was the first to
speak.

“Well, I appreciate your
support.
 
I must say I feel so much
better now.”
 
Turning his back on
John he asked, “Thomas what am I going to do?”

“Do you know the exact charges
yet?”
 
Thomas asked.

“I am charged with the rape of
LaDonna
Jacobs and named as the father of her unborn
child.”
 
Drew informed him.

“Is it possible that you are the
father of the child?”
 
Thomas
asked.

“I suppose it is, but as you
probably know, there could be a number of gentlemen named as well.
 
I did not rape her.”
 
Drew was emphatic.

“We know you did not or I would not
be here.”
 
John replied.

“Thank you for that John.”
 
Drew was surprised.

“To clear you will require
disparaging this young woman’s reputation which you may find difficult.
 
You must make up your mind to that
fact.”
 
John informed him

“Surely if you spoke to her father
and explained the situation he would encourage her to dismiss the
charges.”
 
Drew was holding on to
any hope.

“We will meet with him as soon as
possible.”
 
Thomas assured him.

“How is Elle?”
 
Drew was afraid to ask.

“You might have considered how your
actions would affect her before we got to this point.”
 
John replied.

“John, do you think I asked for
this?
 
I am
worried
sick about her.
 
Of course, I am
concerned about how she feels about me, but I am more worried about her mental
state.
 
She was terrified when the
men burst in on us.
 
I could see
her mind going back to the rape.
 
It was awful.”
 
Drew was in
pain reliving the moment.

“Again, you should have thought of
that before you took my cousin to your bed.”
 
John could not resist getting another shot at Drew.
 
“What were you thinking?
 
Could you not have kept it in your
pants for another day?”

“John, I said I was sorry.
 
I wish I could undo it…” Thomas
interrupted Drew.

“John, what he is being too much of
a gentleman to say is that Elle went to him.
 
She told me everything after the constable left.”
 
While Drew was grateful for Thomas’
support, he did not want to caste a bad light on Elle.

“I should have sent her home
immediately.
 
I was just going to
when they broke in.”
 
Drew was
still treading lightly.

“Naked Drew, she was in your bed
naked.
 
At what point were you
going to send her home.
 
You got
her pregnant out of wedlock once, what if she is pregnant again?
 
If you are found guilty she may be left
to bare the shame again.”
 
John was
not going to let it go.

As he listened, some of the pieces
fell into place for Drew’s father.
 
Elle was the women Drew had been in love with that had been raped about
six years back.
 
That did not
explain how she came to be pregnant with little Alex, because he was clearly
Andrew’s child, but he understood a little more now.

“She is not pregnant.”
 
Drew stated flatly.

“How can you be sure?
 
You take her to your bed and then you
are sure she is not pregnant?”
 
John was incredulous.

“Because we did not…umm, we did not
have relations.”
 
Drew said. “I did
not want to take the chance.
 
We
were going to wait this time until it was legal.”

“God’s nightshirt sir!
 
You were naked in bed together when the
constable broke in.”
 
John countered.

“I did not say that we did not play
lovers games, but we did not consummate the relationship.”
 
Drew was getting really angry and tired
of having to explain himself to John.
 
“Should we not be talking about my defense?”

 
“Indeed.
 
Drew
what was the nature of your relationship with La Donna Jacob?”
 
Thomas asked.

“Oh come on Thomas, I think that is
rather obvious.”
 
Drew snapped
back.

“Drew, bear with me.
 
These questions may seem ridiculous,
but we do not want any surprises and I need to know every detail of your
relationship.”
 
Thomas informed
him.

Drew took a deep breath before he
began, “She was a good ride, that is as far as it went.
 
There was no relationship.
 
We came together for sexual
gratification.
 
I cared nothing for
the woman.
 
When I first meet her,
I thought she might be someone I could be interested in, but her forward and
lewd behavior put an end to that.
 
I saw her and used her several times in the last couple of weeks prior
to leaving to escort Eirian to Severn Manor.
 
She showed up at my residence shortly after I returned, but
I had lost interest in her and, to be frank, was disgusted by her.
 
I sent her away without touching
her.
 
It was not a pretty
scene.
 
She was so upset that I
almost felt sorry for her.
 
How can
I say these things in court?
 
She
would be destroyed.”

“She is trying to destroy you.
 
Whether for revenge or financial gain I
do not know.
 
We can only hope it
is financial.
 
You would have no
problem paying her off, otherwise we may be in trouble,” John told him.

“There were plenty of other
men.
 
Do you think we could get a
few of them to testify?”
 
Drew
asked.

“It may be possible if you have
names; however, the chances are that they are not going to freely admit to
having lain with her as they might find themselves named as well.”
 
John was honest in his assessment of
the situation.

Thomas looked at Drew, “We will
try.
 
First, we will track down
some of the men you think she has been with, and then go to her father and
threaten to publicly expose her activities.
 
That may be all we need to do, but he is probably looking to
find a man to legitimatize the baby.”
 

“Thomas, will you tell Elle… tell
her I love her and that I am sorry to put her through this.
 
Will she still marry me do you think, I
mean if I get cleared of the charges?”
 
Drew was not sure where he stood with her after all she had been
through.

“I do not know why but, despite
everything, she still thinks she loves you.
 
We will do what we can for you.”
 
John was trying to be encouraging, which was more that Drew
had expected of him.

“Thank you.
 
John, I need one more thing.
 
I want Alexander named as my heir.
 
I had intended to wait until after we
were married and legally acknowledge him, but we had better go ahead and see
what we can do now.”
 
Drew was
being realistic.

“I can tell you right now, he will
not be able to inherit the family estate, as you were not legally married to
Elle when he was born, it is almost assuredly in your patent.
 
There is nothing we can do now to change
that, short of an edict from the King.
 
You can leave your estate in Virginia to him without a problem, but the
title and any of the entailed estate must pass to a legitimate male heir.
 
If you have another legitimate son, it
will go to him.
 
If you do not, it
will go to your brother.
 
If your
brother has a male heir then it would pass to him, but it will never pass to
Alex as he was born a bastard, even if you acknowledge him as your natural son
and claim him legally.”
 
John
informed him.

Unwilling to give up the chance to
provide for Alex, Drew asked, “What would it take to get the king to approve
it?”

“An act of God, maybe”, John
answered.

“Would you please look into
it?”
 
Drew requested.

“Son, you do not need to worry.
 
My grandson will never want for
anything as long as I am alive.
 
I
will see that he is provided for afterwards as well.”
 
Sir Alex assured Drew.

Much later that evening John and
Thomas presented themselves at the residence of Sir Nicholas requesting a
meeting with him.
 
They were seated
in the main hall until he was informed of their presence and then were shown to
his study were they were asked to wait until he was available.

“Gentlemen, how can I be of
service?”
 
Sir Nicholas entered the
room and went directly to the matters at hand without any formalities or even offering
them a drink.

“Thank you for meeting with us.
 
We are here to represent Andrew
Braybrooke, Lord Moxley.
 
Sir
Andrew denies the charge of the rape of your daughter.
 
He does not deny the possibility the he
could be the father of her unborn child, but he states emphatically that their
relationship was entirely consensual.
 
We would ask that you drop the charges of rape and we are willing to try
to find some compromise on the issue of the child.”
 
John stated.

“The only acceptable solution to
this situation would be marriage.
 
I will discuss nothing short of that.”
 
Sir Nicholas responded.

“Marriage is out of the
question.
 
Sir Andrew is not free
to marry as he is engaged and was to be married in the
morning,
that
is before he was arrested.
 
The banns have already been read.”
 
John replied.

“I think that he had better find a
way to cry off from his engagement because if he does not he may not live long
enough to marry.”
 
Sir Nicholas was
not willing to compromise.

“Your lordship, as a gentleman I
hesitate to say this, but we can easily produce at least five gentlemen who are
willing to swear that they have lain with your daughter.
 
This is from only one afternoon of
visiting with the local gentry.
 
If
you are not aware of her reputation, then you may be the only gentleman in all
of London who is not.
 
I would
reconsider bringing this to trial and exposing your daughter to further
censure.”
 
John did not even try to
soften the threat.

“You will remove yourself from my
presence immediately.
 
Nixon,” he
bellowed, “
show
these ‘gentlemen’ out.”
 
Sir Nicholas was furious that they were
casting aspersions upon his daughter.

Once back in their carriage John
turned to Thomas, “Well, I would not say that our interview went particularly
well.”

“I think we may have to give him
some time to think about what you told him.
 
If he truly was unaware of her behavior, he will have to
confront her.
 
If he did know, then
he needs time to see that it would be in her best interest to rethink his
strategy.”
 
Thomas suggested.