The Virgin Who Ruined Lord Gray - Anna Bradley Page 0,25

aside from his intimidating size, there wasn’t much about him that spoke of violence. Tristan couldn’t see him well, but from here Ives didn’t look to be more than nineteen or twenty years old, and there was a soft, slack quality to his face that made him look even younger, almost childlike.

He was filthy, his ragged clothing hanging on his emaciated frame. Prisoners condemned to await trial at Newgate did tend to lose weight, even as much as a stone or two, but Ives’s extraordinary height exaggerated the effect. He was gaunt, reduced to nothing more than a pale, wasted pile of flesh and bone, like a cock plucked of its feathers.

Ives had been accused of an unusually brutal crime, but he wasn’t at all the hardened criminal Tristan had expected. He gaped at the assembly before him, bafflement mixed with abject terror on his face. He didn’t seem to understand how he came to be there, or for what reason.

The courtroom stilled as Peter Sharpe, the only witness to the crime, stepped into the witness box to give his testimony. His mouth was pulled into a stern line, as befitted the solemnity of the occasion. He was seated in full view of the accused in the dock, but if Jeremy Ives remembered Sharpe, he gave no indication of it. He stared dumbly at him, mouth agape, as if he didn’t recognize Sharpe at all.

As for Sharpe, he seemed to relish having the attention of everyone in the courthouse fixed on him, and delivered his testimony in a tone of self-righteous defiance.

It was one of the quickest trials Tristan had ever seen. Sharpe gave his account of the crime committed against him, then Willis briefly took the stand and testified that yes, Sharpe had come to No. 4 Bow Street that night in a panic, shrieking about leaking brains and murder. All the Runners being out at the time, Willis himself had followed Sharpe to St. Clement Dane’s Church, where he’d found Jeremy Ives lying unconscious next to Henry Gerrard’s body, his hands dripping with Henry’s blood.

And finally, they heard from the accused, who professed himself innocent with tears running down his cheeks. When the judge demanded he explain the evidence against him, he could offer nothing but a fumbling account of having come across Sharpe in front of St. Clement Dane’s Church, along with a somewhat incoherent insistence that he “’adn’t hurt or stolen nothing from no one, if it please yer lordships.”

The verdict was swift, and the sentence harsh.

Jeremy Ives was found guilty of the crimes of theft with violence and murder, and sentenced to hang. A hush fell over the courtroom as the punishment was handed down, but if the crowd wanted tears and wailing and pleas for mercy, they were disappointed. Ives didn’t appear to understand any of what had transpired. He stared blankly at the judge as the sentence was read, and then he was dragged from the courtroom, his head bowed.

Tristan watched him go with an uneasy sensation in his stomach. He’d seen too many innocent people hurt by criminals in London to feel any sympathy for those who were convicted, but there’d been something off about the proceeding he’d just seen. He couldn’t explain it, but he felt none of the fierce satisfaction he’d anticipated at seeing Henry’s murderer brought to justice.

Sophia Monmouth didn’t appear any more satisfied with the verdict than Tristan was. She followed the prisoner’s progress from the courtroom, her gaze lingering on the doorway through which he’d been taken long after he disappeared. Tristan caught a glimpse of her face when her head was turned, and his chest tightened at her expression.

She couldn’t have expected Ives’s fate to be anything other than what it was, yet for all the grim resignation on that exquisite face, she looked…devastated.

Tristan moved away from the edge of the balcony and further into the shadows, poised to follow her from the courtroom now Ives’s trial was over, but to his surprise, she didn’t move. She remained where she was throughout the next trial, then the next. The day wore on into the late afternoon, and still she stayed in her place at the edge of the column, her slender form unnaturally still, as if she’d been frozen there.

She didn’t move until the last trial concluded, then she left in such haste Tristan found himself having to chase her once again as she exited the courtroom and made her way into the yard. Most of