Page 51 of A Duchess of Mystery (The Mismatched Lovers #3)

And she was back to thinking about him again.

She would be hanged for this, and he would go on living at Stourbridge without her.

Perhaps Dora would marry Philip Sanders now she’d no longer fear abandoning Isabella to Marcus.

Instead of running off to find employment elsewhere, Philip would be able to remain at Stourbridge.

Yes, Dora needed Philip’s solid stability.

If anyone could help her overcome her guilt, he could.

But he would have to be told. She needed to tell Richard that Philip should be told the truth.

If he came to visit her, she could do that.

Then Dora might have a chance at happiness, and, one day, she and Philip might have children. Long after she, Isabella, was gone.

But what of Richard? Dear, kind Richard.

He would forget about her and marry some young debutante he met during the Season.

If not the one approaching, then the one after that.

He’d have children. An heir. And then he might go back to his regiment as he’d said.

If he’d married her, she’d have made sure he didn’t do that.

She’d have wanted him by her side forever. Safe from harm.

She frowned. What was she thinking? He didn’t love her, and surely she was mistaking her own maudlin feelings for love when they couldn’t be? You couldn’t fall in love like this. Could you? Not with someone you hardly knew.

She drew in a deep, steadying breath. She was going mad. That was it. Madness was taking her over, fueling her imagination, making her think things that could never be true.

Something squealed and feet scampered close by the bed. She drew her knees closer still to her chest and hugged them tighter. This was going to be a long night.

It was long after dark when Dickens drew the coach up outside Colonel Jarvis’s house and Richard, Sir Oswald Peverel, whom Richard had snatched away from his dinner, and a reluctant and cowed Mr. Hopkins descended from it.

Sir Oswald, a rotund man whose very appearance spoke of his fondness for his dinner, was in a bad humor.

The unfortunate Mr. Hopkins, who’d spent the journey trying to sink into the shadows of one corner in the coach, looked as hangdog and guilty as it was possible for someone to look.

He’d waited in the carriage, under Dickens’s watch lest he turned chicken and fled, while Richard went inside Wormstall House and apprised Sir Oswald of his mission.

With bad grace, as he hadn’t yet reached his dessert, which he declared was to have been his cook’s specialty, a plum pudding, Sir Oswald had agreed that it was indeed an emergency, and a duchess could not be allowed to suffer such an indignity as being locked up for a crime she hadn’t committed.

With nearly as much reluctance as Mr. Hopkins, he agreed to accompany Richard to the Colonel’s house.

When they arrived, it was late, but lights still shone in the downstairs windows of Hampstead Manor indicating that the owner had not yet retired to bed.

His butler, a little surprised by the lateness of their arrival, escorted them into the colonel’s library, where they found that gentleman ensconced before a blazing fire, his stockinged feet on the fender, and accompanied by a half-empty decanter of brandy.

His nose was notable by its shiny redness.

Richard did not beat about the bush. With every hour that passed, his anxiety had been rising, although he realized there would be nothing gained by racing to the jail and trying to see Isabella unless he held the right cards.

The confession of Mr. Hopkins alone, who had at first insisted that he had indeed witnessed the murder and had only caved in under severe threat from Richard, would not be enough.

He needed the power of the magistrates behind him.

He explained once again, just as he had to Sir Oswald, but only what he wanted them to know rather than what was strictly true. He couldn’t allow Dora to be exchanged for Isabella’s freedom. He had to gain her release without implicating his fragile cousin.

When he’d finished, he handed the signed statements of his three servants to the colonel.

Each of them had sworn that they had been the only ones involved that night, and Atkins had attested to having been first on the scene after the duchess.

No one else had been up and about at that time, and neither had any of them had reason to be.

The colonel listened without saying anything until Richard had finished. Then his gaze moved to Mr. Hopkins, who’d been standing, twisting his fingers together in anxiety, near the door as though poised to flee. “And who is this fellow?”

There was no getting around it. Richard had to reveal Mr. Hopkins’s part in this.

“This is Albert Hopkins, who was valet to my cousin. He was motivated to give false witness due to his demotion from valet to under footman. You see, I brought my own man with me from the army, so there was no place for a second valet at Stourbridge.” He glanced at Mr. Hopkins, who was looking most un-valet-like.

“The investigator whom the Ladies Dangerfield and Brocklebank hired bribed him to lie for them. To say he witnessed the duchess shooting her husband. He has owned up to being bribed. We have his signed confession.” He paused, seeking to soften the implication if he could.

Poor Mr. Hopkins, whatever the consequences of his lie, didn’t deserve to be transported.

The poor man had lost his position in the house and he, his employer, had not even noticed.

“The investigator, a Mr. Barker, preyed upon Mr. Hopkins’s dejection, which I must confess is partly due to the fact that I knew nothing of his predicament.

Had I been made aware, I would have sought to help him to a new position of similar standing, and he would have had no need to nurture thoughts of revenge.

But I’ve not been back long, as you know, and I’ve yet to find my way about my estate and gain an understanding of the way it’s run.

Although that is a poor excuse for all the mistakes I’ve made.

” He glanced back at Mr. Hopkins. “I can assure you that this is a lesson learned, for me as well as for Mr. Hopkins, and one of the things I shall be doing in the near future is talking to all my servants and asking about their situations. My tenants as well. I do not intend to be a harsh master or landlord. There are things going on at Stourbridge, of which Marcus approved, that I intend to change.”

Whether this little speech would have any mitigating effect on Mr. Hopkins’s or Jem’s problems he had no idea, as undoubtedly both magistrates present would also themselves be landlords.

In Richard’s experience, landlords everywhere put their own incomes before the situations of their tenants.

They may well not be sympathetic at all to a servant who had born a grudge against his masters.

Both of these magistrates might even disapprove of his sentiments to the extent of wishing to make an example of the poor man. A risk that had to be taken.

Luckily for Richard, as the colonel clearly wasn’t at his sharpest with half a bottle of brandy in him, Sir Oswald interrupted.

“The fellow has recanted his statement and declared he made it under undue pressure. He’s already confessed to me in the carriage on our way here.

That is why he’s here, so that you and I, Jarvis, can hear his confession and present it to Theodore.

I already have it on paper but the fellow’s own words should carry more weight.

He, it seems, was taken in by this man Barker, who, in turn, was keen to earn his reward from Lady Dangerfield.

This is a sorry mess and has resulted in one of our own, a delicate lady of the highest order, at that, being incarcerated in the town jail.

I say she must be removed from there with alacrity. ”

The colonel nodded, blustering. “Good God. They’ve put her in the jail at the Guildhall, or even worse, the Bridewell? I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. No fit place for a lady for even an hour. We must get her out of there immediately.”

“She’ll be in the Guildhall cells,” Peverell said. “Being as she’s accused of a capital crime. They only put the vagrants and drunks in the Bridewell cells.”

Richard nodded. “I believe that is where she’s been taken.” His anxiety rose. He’d never seen the inside of a jail. Was it as bad as these two were painting it? The thought of what Isabella must be suffering tore at his heart. “Can we go now, straightaway, and have her released?”

The colonel lost a little of his angry bluster, and shook his head.

“I’m sorry, Your Grace, but I happen to know that there’s no turnkey at the jail overnight.

No warder. The prisoners are left to themselves until seven in the morning.

The Guildhall will be deserted and locked but for any prisoners being held there. We won’t be able to get in.”

Good God. Was she stuck there until the morning? Richard fished out his pocket watch. It was already past eleven and heading for midnight. Seven or eight hours before anyone came on duty at the jail. “We can’t just leave her there. Someone must have a key.”

The colonel and Sir Oswald exchanged worried glances.

“We can’t leave her there all night,” Richard repeated, his anger rising by the moment. If he had to, he was ready to break down the doors of the prison to get to her.

“I think the warden at the Bridewell might have a key,” Sir Oswald said. “He lives on site, as the Bridewell is beside the workhouse of which he’s in charge. You could go there.”

“Me?” Richard snapped. “I’m not risking going alone in case they turn me away.

You’re both coming with me. I need the weight of your positions behind me.

And I need something signed right now agreeing to the duchess’s release without prosecution.

With Hopkins’s confession to having been coerced into lying, then no evidence exists against her. I want it in writing. Now.”

The colonel and Sir Oswald once again exchanged glances. They’d probably never before been asked to sign release papers in the middle of the night for a duchess accused of murder.

Richard glared at them. “And you’d better send out a warrant for the arrest of Mr. Silas Barker for coercing false evidence and bribing witnesses while you’re about it.

” He clapped a hand onto Mr. Hopkins’s shoulder, feeling the fellow flinch.

“Hopkins will be giving evidence against him. I’ll see the venal snake transported for his crime.

” If only his prosecution would result in the transportation of the appalling Lady Dangerfield as well, but that was too much to hope for.

Likely she would get away scot free of this crime. The nobility so frequently did.

Sir Oswald, more compos mentis than the colonel by far, even though he was without his plum pudding, nodded with vigor.

He was probably a lot happier about pursuing a member of the working class than he was going after a lady.

“A damned good idea, Your Grace. We’ll set the wheels in motion for nipping that fellow’s career nicely in the bud.

He’ll enjoy the antipodes not one jot. I promise you. ”

Richard heaved a sigh of relief. “Now, can we go and rescue the duchess please? I feel it should be done forthwith. As a matter of urgency.”