Dicing with the Dangerous Lord - By Margaret McPhee Page 0,71
Friday night.’
She nodded.
‘We’re running a bit late for Miss Bolton’s performance tonight. Go home, Venetia. Get some rest.’
Home. She did not have a home any more.
‘I want you rested and at your best for Friday.’ Then he hurried off to speak to her understudy, Miss Bolton.
Everything moved on around her, while she stood there forgotten. She turned and walked away.
On the coach ride back to the house she looked out of the window at a courting couple strolling along the pavement arm in arm. They were poor, she could tell from their clothes, but they looked at one another with shyness and excitement and affection. She turned her face away, but through the other window in an open-top carriage just across the road were Hawick and a young woman who looked both beautiful and happy. She remembered the night Linwood had saved her from the duke and she felt more miserable than ever.
* * *
At Alice’s she made her way into the drawing room, peeling off her gloves and untying her bonnet.
Alice and Razeby were standing wrapped in each other’s arms before the fireplace. They jumped apart as she entered the room.
‘Forgive me.’ She felt her cheeks warm. ‘I did not realise...’
‘Wait, Venetia,’ Alice said, but Venetia was already walking across the room to escape. ‘Razeby has come from visiting Linwood in Newgate.’
She stopped in her tracks. Stood there a moment and then, unable to help herself, turned slowly around. She tried to keep her face impassive, but her eyes met Razeby’s and inside her chest she could feel the thud of her heart so hard and heavy that she wondered that he did not hear it.
‘How is he?’
‘As well as can be expected under the circumstances.’
Inside she felt a little more of her soul shrivel and die. She let her gaze drop to the floor and stared at the pattern on the Turkey rug, at the intricate intertwining of the gold wool with the blue. There was nothing she could say.
In the silence a piece of coal cracked and hissed.
‘Miss Fox,’ Razeby said.
She glanced up.
‘He denies burning your house, but will say not one word on the rest of the charges.’ Razeby paused before continuing, ‘He means to offer no defence over Rotherham.’
‘Oh, God help him! They will hang him!’ She closed her eyes and clutched a hand to her mouth, afraid of what she had betrayed. Her blood ran cold, the tingle of it through her body making her shiver.
She saw Alice and Razeby exchange a look.
‘Venetia...’ Alice started to say.
‘Please do excuse me.’
Alice made to follow her, but Venetia shook her head and fled from the room.
Chapter Fifteen
‘They have found Rotherham’s missing pistol, Francis.’
Linwood’s father sat across the small table from him. ‘Washed up on a mud bank of the Thames.’ His father’s brow was creased with concern. He had grown older and more haggard than the last time Linwood had seen him. There were bags beneath his eyes as if he had not slept in a long time. ‘The evidence mounts against you.’
Linwood made no comment.
‘Our own newspapers are handling the reporting of the story with sensitivity; the rest of them...well, you can imagine.’
‘I can, indeed,’ said Linwood.
There was a small silence before his father said, ‘I have spoken to all that might hold sway over the case for when it comes to trial, called in every last favour, but...’
‘Rotherham was a duke. And not all of the money or connections in the world can make the murder of a duke go away. An example must be made. A villain caught.’
‘There is a way it might be done.’ His father looked at him. ‘Miss Fox’s evidence is the linchpin in the case. Everything else can be explained away. But not that. If she were to disappear...’
‘Do not dare touch her!’
‘I meant money, a bribe. You always think the worst of me.’
‘I wonder why.’
His father glanced away uneasily. ‘I will give her every penny I have if that is what it takes.’
‘I am warning you. Stay away from her.’
‘Do you honestly think I am going to just sit back and watch you hang because of that whore?’
‘She is not a whore, whatever you may think. And if I hang...well, some things are worth dying for, aren’t they?’
His father closed his eyes and massaged his fingers against his forehead. ‘Why the hell did you tell her?’
‘We played a dangerous game together, Miss Fox and I. I took a gamble and I lost.’