The Purloined Heart (The Tyburn Trilogy) (22 page)

If I love you, what business is it of yours? 
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Weak sunlight crept through the drawing-room windows, past the damask drapes, across the polished wooden floor toward the shield-back sofa where Mrs. Tate sat surrounded by the morning newspapers. On the mahogany end table beside her rested a cooling cup of chocolate. Maddie had slept late, unlike her sons, who were with their tutor in the schoolroom, attempting to trace the flight of Mr. Sadler’s balloon, which had landed in the Mucking Marshes forty exhilarating minutes after its ascent. In an effort to elevate her spirits, she had donned her favorite black-and-white striped dress.

The newspapers had a great deal to report about the late celebrations: the illuminations weren’t up to recent standards, the transparencies insignificant, the Chinese lanterns too dim; alternately, the proceedings had been an enormous success (aside from the unfortunate circumstance that two men had been killed and a number injured trying to put out the fire in the Pagoda, and several Royal swans lost to smoke and fire), the crowd in such good humor that the few troops on duty needed do no more than stand idly by, to the disappointment of those spectators looking forward to a rousing riot. During the fireworks in Hyde Park, several accidents had occurred; an oak branch broke off and fell, breaking the thigh of a young woman standing beneath it, as well as two young men’s arms, thereby giving rise to ribald speculation concerning the pre-accident configuration of the afflicted limbs. In other news, Johanna Southcott had announced that she was pregnant with the True Messiah and expected to be delivered of him in a few weeks.

Maddie lowered the newspaper to her lap. At least she might be grateful the boys had managed to return home without their grandfather learning of their misadventures.

And her own.

She’d managed not to dwell on Angel Jarrow for a full ten minutes, and now here he was again, because thought of misadventures led her to recall how they had met. If only she hadn’t agreed to go to the masquerade
.
If only she hadn’t abandoned Tony to go off exploring on her own. If only Angel had never kissed her. If only he hadn’t stopped.

If, if, if.

Maddie moved to the window, stood gazing blankly out. Angel had been willing to make love to her, but she’d lost her courage, and she hadn’t yet decided whether she was more exasperated with him or with herself. Having ruminated herself into a fit of the blue devils, she was grateful when a footman interrupted to inquire whether she was at home to Mrs. Holloway and Mr. Rhodes.

Moments later, Jordan and his half-sister entered the drawing-room. Louise paused in front of the pier glass to scrutinize her reflection —  walking dress adorned with lace, tall Parisian hat crowned with flowers, the late Frederick’s pearls —  then swung round to inform Maddie, “You will be surprised to see me dressed in something
old! J
ordan insists I purchase nothing new until my debts are satisfied, which isn’t the way these things work, but he won’t let me tell him so. I am banished to Margate with Great-Aunt Mathilda, and so I have come to say good-bye.”

       Jordan frowned at his sister. “I wanted to see you, Maddie. How are the twins? I received your note but wanted to make sure they are safe.”

“Why shouldn’t they be safe?” inquired Louise. “Were they savaged by that dreadful dog? Have you come to your senses and had him put down?”

“I have not.” Lappy had been banished to the stables while Maddie decided whether he should be punished for his part in the previous evening’s proceedings, or praised.

Louise cast one last glance at her reflection. “You will have to persuade someone else to pretend to admire you. Jordan is leaving soon, for India. He thinks I don’t know it, foolish man: I find out everything. Or almost everything! Now attend me carefully, Maddie, because I saved the most shocking news for last. Angel Jarrow has been arrested for murdering his wife!”

Maddie felt her mouth drop open. Jordan snapped, “And how do you know that?”

Louise clasped her hands to her chest. “You cannot expect me to tell you! If I betray my sources, no one will ever confide in me again. Isabella Jarrow’s body was discovered at a house of ill reputation. She died between eleven and twelve o’clock last night. Poor, dear Maddie! I’m sure I’m not one to say I told you so. But I warned you to have nothing to do with Angel, did I not?”

Maddie didn’t answer. Isabella Jarrow, murdered? Between eleven and twelve o’clock last night?

Turning his back on his sister, Jordan spoke so low that Maddie alone heard. “I also brought information. About the matter we discussed.” He moved closer, and spoke softly in her ear.

Maddie gripped the back of the sofa. Her thoughts were bouncing around in her brain like an India rubber ball.

Louise peered around Jordan’s shoulder. “What are you whispering about?”

He shrugged her off. “Intriguing, is it not? You must decide what you want done.”

Louise edged closer. “I don’t know why you must keep secrets! We are all old friends.”

“Says the least untrustworthy person in all London,” Jordan jeered. “This is no concern of yours.”

Louise protested. Jordan parried. Maddie ignored them both. When at last Mr. Rhodes and Mrs. Holloway took their leave, she moved to the writing desk, seated herself, drew in a deep breath and picked up her pen.

Sir Owen was reading an account of the expenses incurred in preparing for the Prince Regent’s latest extravaganza —  £15,392 total, which put the lie to Prinny’s assertion that his Grand Jubilee would cost the nation next to nothing —  when his daughter entered the room. He welcomed the interruption, feeling the need to vent his spleen. “I’ve told you before that stripes don’t suit you. You look like a zebra in that dress.”

“I have always disliked conflict,” Maddie said, as she walked toward his desk. “If the people around me were cross or unhappy, that made me unhappy too. But I’ve come to realize those same people have no similar consideration for
my
feelings. And so I feel free to tell you I don’t care a button what you think.”

Though Sir Owen had sometimes wished his daughter would grow a spine —  paradoxical in him, since her lack of gumption was to be laid at his door, but there was scant satisfaction to be derived from bullying someone who refused to defend herself —  this display of backbone made him wish to give her a thundering scold.

 “Nor am I afraid of you,” Maddie continued, before he could speak. “I’ve simply been afraid you would separate me from my sons.”

“And so you should be!” Sir Owen blustered. “I will—”

“You will do nothing.” Maddie folded her arms across her chest. “Should you try, I’ll inform the world that you are involved up to your ears in the Fanny Arbuthnot affair.”

Sir Owen experienced an unpleasant sinking sensation. “
W
hat nonsensical notion have you taken into your head now?”

 She ignored the insult. “You recently had in your possession sensitive documents that certain people are anxious to see destroyed. Other people are equally anxious that they be preserved. With the Congress soon to open in Vienna, it is an inconvenient time for the things to be floating around.” Maddie paused. Sir Owen said not a word.

 “As long as the Whigs retained possession of those documents,” she continued, “they held the political advantage. Unfortunately for you, Fanny Arbuthnot thrust in her oar. Which is no more than you deserve for dallying with a woman half your age. ”

Sir Owen stood up so abruptly that his chair crashed over backward. “You meddle in matters that don’t concern you, you ungrateful child!”

She thrust out her chin. “I don’t see that I have any reason to be grateful. No, stay where you are! You needn’t try and browbeat me. Jordan Rhodes knows the whole.”

 “The whole? What whole? You are talking a great deal of nonsense! Er, what does he mean to do with this nonexistent information?” All too well, Sir Owen could imagine the reaction were Rhodes to air it in the House.

“He leaves that to me.” Maddie leaned forward, one hand on the desk, and stared her father in the eye. “And my decision rests on whether or not you attempt to further interfere with me or my boys. I trust you understand?”

Sir Owen understood how a man’s offspring might drive him demented. Before he could tell her so, she added, “You may not know that Angel Jarrow has been arrested for the murder of his wife.”

“The deuce you say.”

Maddie stepped back from the desk. “He couldn’t have killed her. As all London will shortly learn.
Mr. Armitage won’t bypass an opportunity to double his readership by means of revelations written out in my own hand. You do know of Mr. Armitage? He is the editor of the
Post.”

He who doesn’t lose his wits over certain things has no wits to lose.  
—Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Due to his many influential friends, not least among them Lord Saxe, Angel Jarrow found himself lodged not in Newgate but King’s Bench Prison, Southwark, where he passed an interesting interval conversing with the much-maligned Lord Cochrane, who had been assigned two rooms on the upper story of the building known as the State House. Since his lordship could not resume his parliamentary duties until he served out his sentence, he was putting his time to good use by developing a plan for illuminating the public streets by means of a lamp that introduced a steady current of fresh air into a glass globe. He went on at length about naval abuses, the state of Greenwich Hospital, and the treatment of prisoners of war; mentioned that earlier this year he had presented the Admiralty with an innovative gas warfare plan which was rejected on the grounds that, while technically realistic, it was inhumane; spoke briefly of his plans for inventing a projectile to blow up and annihilate naval fleets. The gentlemen discussed neither the Great Stock Exchange Fraud nor Mr. Jarrow’s dead wife, even though the question of innocence or guilt was uppermost in at least Angel’s mind. Not the question of his guilt, or even Lord Cochrane’s, but the question of who had succumbed to temptation and throttled his wife.

A long range of four storeys with a central chapel, King’s Bench Prison occupied approximately four acres at the corner of Blackman Street and Borough Road. In addition to the rooms reserved for prisoners, the chambers facing the yard superior to those around the back, the complex contained a kitchen, coffee house, stalls and public houses, racket grounds and courts, a yard with three pumps. High stone walls blocked any view of the outside world.

No longer confined to those four acres, Angel savored the sight of the busy street. “Ah, sweet freedom. The privilege of doing what one likes, when one likes, or not at all. I find myself tempted to rhapsodize.”

“You needn’t try and humbug me,” said Lord Saxe, who had arrived armed with a writ of release. “I have realized you are a sham. So far from a rakeshame that you are prepared to go to the gallows to preserve a woman’s good name.”

Angel followed Kane into his coach, and settled on the opposite seat. “Calumny! I am as dissolute a dastard as ever drew breath, and should not be given credit when the universe forces me to act a better man than in truth I am.
And
I trusted you would intervene before a noose was placed around my neck.”

Kane instructed his driver to proceed to Curzon Street. “Did it never occur to you that your faith in me might have been misplaced?”

Many things had occurred to Angel during his imprisonment. He did not care to dwell on them. “I take it you have not unmasked our villain.”

“Villain or villainess,” Kane amended. “I daresay there may be women strong enough to wring someone’s neck. Apropos of which, your sister was enjoying the spectacle in St. James’s Park during the critical moments, her husband at her side.”

Angel was relieved to hear it. “Bea isn’t the only woman who harbored resentment. Bella was unrepentantly unscrupulous, and had a positive genius for intrigue.”

“One trusts you will not be asked to write her epitaph,” Kane said drily. “You may not be surprised to learn that it was Isabella who revealed her relationship with Corbin to the press.”

He shouldn’t have been surprised, but Angel was, all the same. “Had I known that, I might have throttled her myself.”

“How fortunate, then, that you were otherwise occupied.”

Angel regarded the baron with suspicion. “How do you know that?”

Kane ignored the question. “Could Isabella have been involved in espionage?”

“Has anyone informed you that you are developing a positively Machiavellian manner of reasoning?” Angel rested his head against the back of the seat. “I doubt Bella had time to dabble in matters of state. She was much too busy interfering with my affairs. I give myself full marks for never murdering her myself, despite her efforts to turn me into a Bedlamite.”

Kane spared a thought for Angel’s affairs, which might have outnumbered even his own. “Ah, but you are not a man of action. Or not that sort of action, at any rate. Consider this: your wife was murdered the same night as someone tried to kidnap Mrs. Tate’s sons. Shortly after
a certain newspaper published a list of Dianas present at the Burlington House masquerade.”

Angel considered, and disliked his conclusions. “Horus believed Maddie would be cooperative if her sons were put at risk? The bastard grows desperate. That attempted kidnapping can hardly have been a premeditated act.”

“It wasn’t Horus who tried to kidnap those boys,” said Kane. “Still, I’ve no doubt he was behind the attempt. A ‘Mr. Falconer’ hired the room where your wife’s body was found. Let me be sure I have this right. ‘A sternly handsome man with hair dark as a blackbird’s wing, wearing well-cut clothing and a half-mask’.”

A room in a brothel—  “Ah. You learned this from Mrs. Kingston?”

“Lilah made inquiries. She prefers we keep her helpfulness to ourselves.” Kane stretched out his long legs. “Horus may have believed Mrs. Tate made you her confidante —   you
did
accompany her all over town looking for her sons —  and killed Isabella knowing you would be suspected and taken out of play.”

Angel hoped that the departed weren’t privy to their survivors’ conversations. The suggestion that her death had been no more than a diversion would bring Isabella fuming from her grave. “Be that as it may —  or not, one hopes —  Bella’s absence has created a vacuum. One becomes accustomed to even constant aggravation, it appears.”

“So one does,” Kane responded, pointedly. “Console yourself by contemplating the myriad things you may do, now that you are not so busy devising new ways to aggravate her in turn.”

“I don’t understand why you sprang me from gaol,” lamented Angel, “if you are so determined to interfere with my melancholic state of mind. You haven’t yet explained how
you managed my release when Bella’s murderer remains at large.”

Kane gestured to the folded newspaper lying beside him on the seat. “You are not capable of being in two places at the same time.”

With an unpleasant premonition, Angel unfolded the
Post.
Surely Maddie had not—

But she had, the
Post
informed him, and in far more detail than Angel deemed seemly. While he was doing his damnedest to save her reputation, she’d shredded it instead.

He folded the newspaper, and tossed it on the seat. “She makes it sound as if we enjoyed a lover’s tryst. It was nothing of the sort.”

“Oh?” inquired Kane. “You didn’t—”

“No.”

“I see. She didn’t wish to?”

Angel gave his friend a look.

“You expect me to believe
you
didn’t wish to?” Kane said skeptically.

“Of course I wished to. But at the last moment I developed scruples —  damned odd in me, I admit —  and decided I would not. Then temptation overcame me, and I would have done, but she wouldn’t let me, though I know damned well she wished to as much as I. Don’t smirk; it doesn’t suit you. Nor need you point out that these things happen when a man goes around kissing Dianas. This paper is several days old. What took you so long?”

“I was in no position to take the lady’s word.” Or anybody else’s, reflected Kane. “And there were other revelations to deal with as well. It turns out that Princess Caroline came into possession of those damned documents during the invasion of the Allied Sovereigns. She was in alt until one of her servants, acting for the Whigs, stole the documents from her. They were next given to Sir Owen Osborne for safekeeping. Fanny Arbuthnot in turn stole the documents from him. The two of them were, let us say, engaged in an amour.”

“Let us
not
say so!” Angel begged. “My imagination is already over-taxed.”

 “Fanny must have pilfered the papers on Caroline’s behalf and then decided to use them herself. As to how she learned they were in Sir Owen’s possession, the Whigs are no more capable of keeping secrets than anyone else. You may be interested to learn I received this intelligence from Jordan Rhodes. What with one thing and another, you may want to throttle
him
. Mr. Rhodes is on his way back to India, with the divine Daphne in tow.”

Angel gave Daphne his blessing. He was not feeling so charitable toward Mrs. Tate. “Confound it! There was no need for Maddie to broadcast our business to the world.”

“There was every need,” said Kane. “You stood in serious peril of standing your trial for murder, and Mrs. Tate stood in serious peril of being bullied into another politically expedient marriage. She managed to prevent both things with one simple act.” He paused, quietly added, “You might have trusted me.”

Might he? Angel was not so certain. Politics, as Shakespeare had observed, made for strange bedmates. “It wasn’t a matter of trust. I was trying to do the right thing.”

Kane snorted. “Maybe if you had been in the habit of behaving honorably, you might not have botched the attempt.”

Angel couldn’t argue. “You’re keeping watch on her?”

“I was. Until she packed up and left town.”