Wicked Company (92 page)

“Will they send you to p-prison, Father?” he asked tremulously. “What have you done?”

“I have loved your mother, and our love has created you, my little man… and that is no crime,” Hunter said quietly. “’T’will all come right in the end, so you’re not to worry… but Mama and I need to speak privately of this matter. Would you be a good lad and pay a call on Mrs. Phillips? Here,” he added, digging into a pouch of coins resting on a table nearby. “Perhaps you could persuade her to take you for a syllabub… I hear you’re the grand champion when it comes to eating this confection.”

“A-all right,” Rory replied, looking at them both tentatively. “But you won’t leave before I get back?”

“No… I shall not be leaving at
all!”

The five-year-old had departed from the room before Sophie allowed her tears to fall freely.

“’T’will be all right, I tell you,” Hunter exclaimed, kneeling beside her chair. “Ten thousand pounds is a ridiculous sum! You and Peter have not lived together for more than
ten years!
They’ll dismiss the case forthwith!”

“No…” Sophie moaned. “Don’t you remember
The Way of the World?”
she cried. “Congreve’s play says it all. ’Tis not to secure faithful wives that these criminal conversation suits are brought.… ’Tis to
ruin
us and enhance the malicious husband’s coffers!”

Sophie angrily brushed away her tears on her sleeve. She jumped up from her chair and began to pace in front of the empty fireplace while Hunter took the seat she had vacated.

“’Tis an action carried on
exclusively
between two
men!”
she added bitterly, “the legal husband and the wife’s alleged lover. Only in our case, Rory is proof positive that our so-called Criminal Conversation was more than a conversation! The wife is not permitted to play any part in these trials.… I cannot call witnesses or testify in my own defense! I cannot tell the jury of men that when Peter and I lived together as husband and wife, he drank and whored and gambled and claimed my written words to be his own.” She balled her fists to keep from screaming her outrage. “That bastard has seen the possibility of wheedling money and now tries common
blackmail
to get it. He thinks, in his usual cunning fashion, that perhaps you have returned from the Colonies a wealthy man! And to think I spoke so kindly to him the other night, and actually wished him
well!”

During Sophie’s stormy monologue, Hunter stared thoughtfully at the silver-tipped quill sitting on the desk. It was the feather pen that Sophie had reluctantly revealed had been a gift from Peter years before.

“Your husband realizes perfectly well that neither of us has ten thousand pounds,” Hunter said slowly, “nor even a
hundred
pounds. He lost heavily at cards that night at Darnly’s and the IOUs we saw him sign surely indicate that he’s deeply in debt. And he realizes
we
know he’s no baronet and can humiliate him publicly on that score. No, Sophie!” Hunter said, slamming his fist on the desk. “The poor sot had no choice but to bring this suit! Peter is as much a victim of this scheme as you and I. He’s been
forced
to bring these charges!”

“Forced? By Darnly?” Sophie whispered, horrified. “Oh, dear God, you’re right! I’ll wager ’tis that wretched nobleman’s string pulling revenge.”

“He knows perfectly well that his accusations of embezzlement and assault will not hold up in court. Since he’s failed in that ploy, he’s put Peter’s feet to the fire to accomplish the same purpose by manipulating a man who owes him blunt. He probably believes he can, by these indirect means, sway the courts whose judges are his friends, to put me in the gaol—”

“And he wishes to manipulate
me
into serving as his anonymous scribe… or servicing
him
in some perverted fashion to get him an heir—if he can only dispense with poor Peter,” Sophie interrupted, the truth of Darnly’s ultimate strategy dawning on her with frightening clarity. “He is bound to have me to his bidding, either with my quill or my person—or both.”

‘‘What?”
Hunter exclaimed.

“Not long before you returned, the earl made me a proposal that quite mystified me at the time. He asked me to be both his unacknowledged muse
and
his mistress in exchange for supporting Rory and myself. His ultimate enticement was that he claimed he’d drop his charges against you if I would comply with his wishes.”

“The bloody bastard!” Hunter growled, slamming his fist once more on the desk.

“He even offered to wed me—at some future date, he said—when Peter finally died of drink,” Sophie recalled with a shudder.

“But the man isn’t even convinced he
prefers
women!” Hunter exclaimed. “And surely he, of all people, knows of your valid marriage to Lindsay?”

“That was why it all seemed so farfetched,” she mused, “but now I understand. I’m a proven breeder, in his view. Clearly, given Peter’s downward spiral, the wastrel’s not long for this world. One or two times in Roderick’s bed and the nasty deed of securing his estate is done…”

“In his twisted way, Darnly likes you better than most women, I think,” Hunter replied somberly. “I think you underestimate your charm, my love… even to that misbegotten sod.”

“Roderick once said something similar,” Sophie mused. “He said I underestimated my
value
to a man of his artistic sensibilities… and he then took up with Mavis Piggott! I thought he’d be done with all these machinations for revenge.”

Hunter shook his head in agreement. “’Tis all a terrible coil, but we’ll sort this out somehow.”

Sophie sunk her face into her hands, a feeling of hopelessness welling in her chest. “Dear God, Hunter,” she cried, her voice muffled. “What are we to
do?”

“Attempt to get the damages reduced,” Hunter said grimly. “Otherwise Lord Darnly will have succeeded in using this ruse to imprison me for debt for the rest of my natural life.”

***

Oddly, neither Peter nor Hunter was allowed to testify personally in court. Hunter’s barrister, a Mr. Lasley secured for them by Garrick himself, swiftly proved that Peter Lindsay had falsely styled himself “baronet” by calling the head of the King’s College of Arms as a witness. Lasley asserted, on Hunter’s behalf, that a man of no rank and such perfidy was not entitled to such astronomical damages as ten thousand pounds.

Sophie sat at the back of the courtroom disguised in a pair of breeches and a man’s cuffed coat, a tri-cornered hat pulled down to shield her face. She watched grim-faced as the court proceedings moved to their astonishingly swift conclusion.

“Foreman, what is your verdict?” demanded the judge, Lord Mansfield.

Darnly’s guest, the gentleman to whom Peter had lost at cards the night of the earl’s masquerade ball, had artfully been installed as chief jurist. He rose to face the bench.

“We, the jury, find the defendant guilty as charged,” he declared, “with costs and damages to be seven hundred pounds. Had not the plaintiff been proven a fraudulent baronet,” the foreman continued, “ten thousand pounds would have stood, m’lord.”

Lord Mansfield peered down from the bench at Mr. Lasley.

“Seven hundred pounds seems prudent,” he nodded, “…for a wife’s adultery is a grievous crime against society, as we all would agree. As the plaintiff is related legitimately to noble stock and has been cuckolded by the defendant’s own admission, seven hundred pounds shall be entered as the court’s judgment.”

Lord Mansfield motioned for Hunter’s barrister to approach. “If Robertson cannot pay in full this very day,” the judge advised, his wig dangling over the edge of the bench, “he will be arrested forthwith and dispatched to debtor’s prison. You have until sundown to secure payment of damages. Court dismissed!”

***

For Sophie, the summer and autumn of 1776 rivaled the horrifying months she’d spent in Bedlam with Aunt Harriet, although this time, she was the visitor and Hunter the inmate.

At first, he had been assigned a chamber in Newgate prison at the Old Bailey with felons of the most notorious sort. Recalling the fiefdom of turnkeys that had existed at Tolbooth Prison, Sophie bribed the warden with whatever money she could spare to secure a small, private chamber in which Hunter could sleep, write, and even entertain guests. Debtors in Newgate could import food, wine, and even whores, if they had the funds.

“Many here are as unfairly imprisoned as I,” Hunter commented bitterly one afternoon when Sophie came to visit. They had repaired to what amounted to a public house inside Newgate, as the sale of beer was recognized as a legitimate source of profit to the jail keeper. “I have learned that the size of potential damages in these criminal conversation suits has tempted all sorts of scoundrels to sue third parties as a means of earning blunt.”

“Darnly’s not after money,” Sophie replied grimly. “He’s after blood.”

A day later, Sophie’s worst fears were confirmed.

“Peter, I must speak with you!” she cried, falling into step beside her estranged husband as he emerged from the Blue Periwig around midday. He looked haggard and frail, weaving unsteadily down the road away from the whorehouse. “I want the truth! Did Darnly put you up to the suit?”

“Don’t challenge him on this,” Peter warned hoarsely, looking around furtively to see who might overhear them. “None of us is safe.”

“What do you mean?” she demanded. “Do you stand to make money off of this, Peter? Because, if you do, I shall—”

“Ha! The paltry hundred pounds he gave me doesn’t begin to cover what I owe that Jack Nasty!” Peter exclaimed bitterly. “I never saw a shilling of it, as usual.”

“So why are you doing this?” Sophie wailed.

“Darnly threatened to have
me
shut up in Newgate for my debts if I didn’t agree to the scheme.”

“Oh, Peter…” she groaned.

His skin was like pale parchment except for the web of broken blood vessels on his nose and cheeks. He paused, a look of utter misery flooding his eyes.

“What a botch I’ve made of everything,” he whispered. “Your life… mine…”

Sophie watched, full of pity as well as repulsed, as he stumbled into a nearby alley and was thoroughly sick behind some rubbish.

When Sophie informed Hunter of this latest development during her next visit to the infamous prison, he actually appeared encouraged by the news.

“Bribing someone to bring suit against a third party and then threatening him if he refuses
is
a form of extortion, you know,” Hunter said thoughtfully.

“Believe me, darling,” Sophie said heatedly, “we cannot fight this battle in the courts when our opponent has the ways and means to control the powers-that-be. We must simply find a way of raising seven hundred pounds and
buy
your release.”

Hunter glanced at the thick walls surrounding them.

“We’d best start penning some clever farces, Sophie my love,” he replied. “Else I could have served you better by remaining in the Colonies. I’d have joined the rebels to fight against this wretched king and his diseased government.”

“Speaking of that,” Sophie said, happy to shift the subject from their predicament. “Has anyone told you? The upstart Colonists officially declared their independence from Britain on the fourth of July in Philadelphia!”

Her eyes suddenly widened with excitement and she suddenly clapped her hands. “What a brilliant notion we’ve just had!” she crowed. “What if we write something that spoofs
both
sides of this tempest? Nothing too terribly rude, so we avoid infuriating that toad, Capell… just a witty little farce based on the latest news dispatches—calculated to merely amuse and divert!”

Hunter leapt up and whirled her around his small prison cell. “A brilliant notion!” he chortled, bussing her on the cheek. “Lud, but you are a little treasure, Sophie!”

During the remainder of 1776 and into the early months of the new year, Sophie and Hunter worked furiously on a project they ultimately called
Battle Royal.
Each wrote a scene and then traded with each other for a critique. Soon they had created a series of vignettes that chronicled the foibles committed by both sides in the conflict.

“We must take care to make the Colonials appear more obstreperous and inane than the British,” Hunter warned one chill day in February after Sophie bribed the warden to remain in his cell for the entire day with food brought in from a local eatery. “Else your nemesis, Capell, will never approve it.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Sophie said moodily, staring out Hunter’s barred window as she chewed on her quill’s feathered tip, “although I’d like to write what I truly think of those British generals—”

“Sophie…
” Hunter exclaimed with exasperation.