The Virgin Who Ruined Lord Gray - Anna Bradley Page 0,55
wild animal. He’d seen the glitter of fury in her eyes, the thrust of her chin, her cold determination. How had he not anticipated something of this sort would happen?
Ives, dead? No. Tristan would wager every guinea he had Ives was still alive when he was taken from his cell. But how could they have managed it? He’d been as deep in the bowels of Newgate as one could get, locked behind thick iron doors hidden at the end of an endless stone passageway. One didn’t simply wander into Newgate, then wander out again with the prisoner of their choosing.
Jeremy Ives had been hanging on to life by a fraying thread. It would surprise no one to find out he’d succumbed to the brutality of Newgate, just as so many others had before him. It would vex the citizens of London he’d escaped the noose—they did like to see their murderers hang—but no one would question Ives’s death.
No one, that is, who didn’t know Lady Clifford. If anyone could steal a condemned murderer right from under the noses of Newgate’s guards, it was her. No doubt Daniel Brixton was also involved.
Brixton, and Sophia Monmouth.
She’d used him to do it. The tempting curve of her lips when she’d smiled at him yesterday, all that nonsense about his scar, the sweet way she’d taken his hand in his carriage and asked him to tell her about Henry—had it all been just a ploy to distract him so she could gain access to Newgate and plot Ives’s escape? His instincts had screamed at him not to trust her, but he’d done so anyway, and for no better reason than a pair of pretty green eyes.
She’d fooled him. Him, the Ghost of Bow Street.
Tristan crushed Lyndon’s note in his fist and tossed it aside. He snatched up the Times Tribble had left on the table beside his bed, and there it was, right on the first page. It wasn’t much—just a short notice that the notorious murderer Jeremy Ives had died in Newgate Prison the previous night.
Whatever Lady Clifford had done, it was plausible enough to convince the papers Ives was really dead. The rest of London would follow suit, particularly those who’d attended his trial and seen for themselves how feeble he was. There would be no public outcry, no demand for his return. Miss Monmouth and her conspirators had done the impossible.
They’d committed the perfect crime.
Tristan threw the coverlet aside, dragged on a pair of breeches, and tugged a shirt over his head. He had to see Lyndon at once, and after that he had a call to pay at the Clifford School. If he had his way, he’d wring a confession from Sophia Monmouth, and then—
He paused, his foot hovering over his boot.
Then what? An arrest? Could he truly bring himself to arrest her? He could still see the despair in her eyes, still hear her soft voice, her tenderness as she’d soothed Jeremy. And Jeremy himself, an innocent man—a boy—starved, beaten, and chained up like a dog…
Tristan’s boot slipped from his hand and dropped to the floor.
Had she truly had any other choice? If it had been Henry in that cell, or Lyndon, wouldn’t Tristan have done the same in her place? Did saving her innocent friend make her a criminal?
Tristan dragged a hand through his hair, his jaw ticking.
Damn her. Damn her to hell.
This wasn’t complicated, no matter how much she tried to make it so. She’d helped a condemned murderer escape from Newgate Prison, and she’d implicated Tristan in the crime. Perhaps he could understand her reasons, but she’d still broken the law. At the very least, he’d have the truth from her.
He snatched up his boot, shoved his foot into it, and stalked towards the door of his bedchamber, shouting for Tribble to see his carriage readied.
He’d do what he must, green eyes be damned—
“Lord Lyndon is here, Lord Gr—”
“For God’s sake, Tribble. Do you suppose he can’t see me for himself? Step aside, man, and let me through.”
Tribble stood in the doorway with Lyndon right on his heels, huffing impatiently. “It’s all right, Tribble.” Tristan waved Lyndon in, then motioned to Tribble to leave and close the door behind him.
Lyndon frowned after him. “That manservant of yours has gotten awfully high and mighty of late—”
“How do you know there’s mischief afoot?” Tristan wasn’t in any sort of mood to quibble over servants. “It’s not difficult to imagine Ives is really dead, given his condition.”