Authors: Kate Moore

To Tempt a Saint (31 page)

BOOK: To Tempt a Saint

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Again the small number of participants in the little drama all had to have their say at the exact same moment, so that the deliberations of the four investigators at their table on the dais went unheard. When once again the gavel came down, the chief investigator spoke the following words, “We find that the marriage between Sir Alexander Jones and Cleopatra Spencer, hereinafter, Lady Jones, conforms to the criteria of both God’s and man’s laws and constitutes a valid marriage, entitling them to the rights and prerogatives associated with their status as man and wife.”

I
N a smaller room on the upper floor of the Brown Bear Public House, Will Jones found himself before his superiors. They’d rolled the big guns into place to knock him out.

A plain table and bench had been placed before the fire. The magistrate occupied one end of the bench, the chief the middle, and a clerk with a loose folio of papers, the other. A sergeant stood at the door. A few coals sputtered in the grate, and the windows rattled as the wind rose. Dark had fallen.

The Brown Bear was not known for the luxury of its accommodations, but a man who spent the night there in a gale would be warm and dry and well fed. With a few coins and the right smile, he could even manage to entertain a female companion in his bed.

In short Will’s position was far superior to Kit’s, wherever he was in London’s shivering streets. That was a thought to keep in mind.

The door opened, admitting a burst of bright sound from the crowd below stairs, and one other man. Jack Castle, a rising man on the force, took the chair next to Will, enduring a fierce glare from the chief. Will supposed Jack had a right to be there. He had, after all, found Will dumped in the yard of the Blue Ball, where he’d been dragged from March’s club.

The magistrate leaned his elbows on the table and propped his wise and ponderous chins on his joined hands. “This hearing is in session. Complaints have been lodged, Jones, and inquiries made into your conduct as an officer of the law.” His voice was weary and stern. The clerk dutifully scratched the words on one of the loose sheets.

Will did not blink or shift his gaze. This day of reckoning was not wholly unexpected. His injuries had nearly healed, and though he still felt a twinge in his ribs with any sudden move, his head was clear. In a matter of minutes he would leave the Brown Bear and start a new chapter of his life. His one regret at the moment was having Jack there. A man didn’t want his friends to witness his fall.

“Have you anything to say for yourself?” the magistrate asked.

“March is a maw worm.” No point in backing down now.

“We serve the public, Jones. Private quarrels, private causes are not for us.”

“Murder seems sufficient cause for an officer of the law to interest himself in March’s affairs.”

The magistrate controlled himself with effort. “Unsupported accusations against men of consequence are not evidence at this hearing.”

Especially not if the Home Secretary had anything to say about it.
“Has March been located?” Will’s injuries had kept him laid up long enough for March to leave London.

The magistrate’s jaw twitched, a tremor that shook his chins. “We are not concerned at this hearing with the whereabouts of Mr. March. We are concerned with a bill for damages to his club in excess of five hundred pounds.”

Will’s careless snort cost his ribs a sharp pang. “Shall I send my draft directly to the Home Secretary?”

The magistrate’s head came up, and his fist came down.

“Jones, a small number of dedicated men hold back the tide of thievery and violence in this hoary old city. You seem determined to undermine every one of them by breaking furniture, destroying artwork, and generally offending peaceful subjects of His Majesty at their club. Furthermore, you put four men in jeopardy by sending them to Bread Street on a false trail, interfering with their duties, and wantonly ignoring your own by failing to bring in your brother.”

“My brother was innocent, however. Is there anything else?”

A dangerous purple sort of rage seemed to make the magistrate incapable of speech.

The chief glared at Will. “Be grateful not to be taken in charge, Jones.”

“Get on with it.” He wanted the proceeding over.

“Rise.” The magistrate managed through clenched teeth.

Will came to his feet. He sensed Jack standing beside him.

In a voice of iron the magistrate pronounced the expected sentence. “You are dismissed from this force. You will surrender your badge and staff of office at once.”

Devil take it
. He had expected a kind of relief that he had often imagined other men felt when sentence was passed. Instead there was a queer hollow feeling in his chest.

He took the black staff imprinted with the gold insignia of the crown, worn a bit from use, and put it on the table before the magistrate. He had carried it for three years. The sergeant picked it up. It didn’t matter. Still his hand clenched around air.

“This hearing is concluded.”

The clerk finished his scratching and gathered up the folio. With a nod from the magistrate, the three men negotiated their rising from the bench, pushing back from the table with a harsh grating sound. The sergeant opened the door, and they left without a word.

Will waited for the footsteps to fade. “Good night, Jack.”

“You know this is not the way this ends,” Jack said.

Will shook his head. “Take my cases, if you want.”

“I’ve got my own now, you know.”

The quiet pride of it threatened the perfect carelessness of the moment. He needed Jack to leave. “Best that you not know me again, Jack.”

“Right. Not know you.” He clapped his hat on his head and moved to the door. “I’ll not know you whenever I hear something about March. How’s that? I’ll not know you when Bredsell’s snatching boys out of the dock for that place he calls a school. I’ll not know you when I find what Nate Wilde’s up to. How’s that? I’ll not know you, all right.”

The door slammed.
Thanks, Jack
.

Will had no trouble passing through the crowd in tap intent on keeping warm with ale and company.

The wind caught him as soon as he stepped outside, driving him back against the building. He pulled his greatcoat tight about him and leaned into the gale to bull his way up the street.

Strange to step into the London night as an ordinary man. That odd hollow feeling came to him again. Without his staff he felt weightless, as if the gale might blow him away the way it blew scraps of paper along the stones at his feet.

The streets were empty. The whole dark city huddled under the blast. But Kit was alive in it somewhere, lost to them still. The thought that had been lying in wait for him for days as he faced the inquiry now sprang.
If he had not gone to March’s club, if he had stuck to Xander’s plan, Kit would be home.

Well, he had to live with that. He’d lived with worse.

Epilogue

C
LEO put her hand on her husband’s shoulder, solid as ever under the fine wool of his coat as he bent over the letter he was writing. He lifted those smoky eyes of his to her, and she let her fingers drift behind his ear.

Around him, packing crates covered most of the library floor while the bookshelves stood empty.

“Wife.” His voice was almost a growl, as he put down his pen and turned to catch her between his legs. His hands instantly tugged at her skirts, lifting the fabric above her knees, sliding under the silk along her thighs and pushing upward to cup her bottom.

“Are you sure about this move?” she asked him, leaning into his embrace.

“Yes. I’m just writing to my mother. Explaining. She’ll want to be back in London now. Now that we know he’s alive.” His voice was muffled, his lips against her swelling belly.

“But you, do you want to give up this house?”

“We need a larger establishment for our expanding family, and you want your brother to live in his own home.”

“I do, but . . .”

“Then we’ll live at Woford House until he comes of age. You know I have another house for us.”

“You do?”

“On Wimpole Street, perfectly respectable. I did have to promise Charlie one thing about the move.”

“You promised Charlie?” She was enjoying the play of rough masculine hands on her skin and that deeper note in her husband’s voice to which her being made an answering vibration. Her skin was, if anything, more sensitive to touch as her pregnancy advanced.

“I told him that I would not allow you to redecorate his house in the Egyptian style.”

Cleo laughed and leaned down to steal a kiss. “I’m sure he was vastly relieved. You are a nice man, Sir Xander Jones.”

“I wonder that you can say that to a man whose hands are wrapped around your bottom.”

C
LEO laughed, all the way to the bank with Roger, the newest of her footmen. She carried a parasol that Xander claimed matched the green of her eyes and that ended in a wicked point.

Xander had discovered an endless supply of footmen in soldiers down on their luck, and really since their duties might run to protecting the family from its enemies, Cleo could not object to either their size or their number. Besides, she thought Roger might make a strong impression on Mr. Meese.

Meese, of course, bustled out of his office to greet her the moment she entered the bank. She let him practice his bowing and scraping. Someday he might get it right, if he did not knock himself senseless against the floor. She was in no hurry. She strolled across the vast chamber, drawing looks and even stares from the gentlemen gathered there.

Meese made an especially deep bow at the door to Evershot’s office. It was still Evershot’s bank, but there had been a restructuring of the board of directors to include the first female member.

“Lady Jones, go right in; Mr. Evershot is waiting for you.”

Meese reached to open the door, but Roger snagged him by the tail of his threadbare jacket. The fabric parted, exposing the shiny bottom of Meese’s worn trousers. He backed away, and Cleo sailed past him. “Ah, Mr. Evershot, I believe you have some money for me.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I am grateful to many wonderful writers of fiction and history for allowing me to roam the streets of London in my imagination, to the occasional airline for permitting me to roam in person, and to the Internet for virtual access to every corner of a city that Samuel Johnson said one could only tire of when one tired of life itself. Impressions from those excursions have shaped my own fictional London of the Regency period. It is a London defined by stark contrasts between rich and poor, light and dark, glittering West End palaces and unlighted rookeries. While my Bread Street is entirely fictional, I hope Dickens, Orwell, Dore, or Morrison would find its stones and people familiar. Any flaws in this fictional creation are my own.