Chapter 21

 

They traveled to Bristol by train. Alexandra had never taken the train before. She was enthralled with the scenery that flew past her window and the crowds of people who waited on the platform of each new station along the way.

An older woman and her young daughter shared their car, and Alexandra couldn’t help but take exception to the way the daughter’s eyes darted back to Nathaniel every few moments. The mother, a Mrs. Haws, glanced sharply at the girl each time she giggled in response to something Nathaniel said, but the daughter seemed oblivious to her mother’s censure.

If Nathaniel noticed Bessie Haws’s interest, he did not give himself away as he talked to Trenton about the Clifton Suspension Bridge currently being built across the Severn.

“Oh, we’ve seen it, haven’t we, Mother?” the girl interrupted, blushing to the roots of her hair when Nathaniel looked up.

He smiled politely. “It’ll take a while to finish yet.”

“Bessie, perhaps you should rest,” her mother suggested, tapping her daughter on the knee with her fan. “You’re looking a bit peaked.”

Flushed would be a better word, Alexandra thought irritably.

Bessie opened her mouth to refute this charge when the train stopped in Farringdon and several new passengers boarded. A man near Nathaniel’s age joined them in the compartment.

“The train’s nearly full.” He showed white teeth beneath a brown mustache as he smiled. “I hope you don’t mind me joining you.”

“Not at all.” Nathaniel and Trenton moved their legs to make more room as the man took a seat on the other side of Bessie Haws.

“I’m Thomas Madsen,” he said, nodding as they each introduced themselves in turn. Alexandra thought him rather handsome with his brown eyes, brown hair, long sideburns, and mustache. Smile lines around his eyes indicated he laughed often, and he had an air about him that was pleasantly appealing.

He struck up a conversation with Alexandra while Nathaniel responded to a question put to him by Bessie about the hot springs at Bath.

“Do you live in Bristol?”

“No, I was born in London, but we moved to Manchester when I was so small that I don’t remember it.”

“I see.”

“And you? Are you returning from holiday, by chance?”

Madsen shook his head. “No. My work brings me to Bristol. I’m an inspector with Scotland Yard.”

“But you got on at Farringdon.”

He smiled sheepishly. “The motion of the train makes me sick. I had to get off the last one.”

“I’m sorry. I hope you’re feeling better.”

“I’m fine as long as I keep myself well enough occupied and don’t make the mistake of trying to read.”

“Ah,” Alexandra nodded knowingly, but never having suffered from motion sickness herself, she didn’t truly understand. “Do you enjoy your work?” She caught a subtle glance from Nathaniel and noted a wry smile on Trenton’s face. Bessie continued to ply them both with questions, but it was Trenton who elaborated. Nathaniel was too busy keeping her and Mr. Madsen under close regard.

“Sometimes. Other times I find it can get quite drab, usually when I’m filling out the reports.” Madsen laughed. “Are you and your husband on holiday?”

“No.” Alexandra shook her head, taking the opportunity to avenge herself for Bessie’s fawning interest by adding, “We’re not married.”

“Yet,” Nathaniel inserted, staring pointedly at Mr. Madsen. “We’re on our way.”

“To be married?” This time Bessie spoke, and the disappointment that rang in her voice brought Mrs. Haws’s brows into thundercloud position.

“‘Tis none of your business, my dear.”

Evidently, Bessie heard the steel edge in her mother’s voice, because her gaze dropped to her lap. “I was simply asking,” she mumbled.

Mr. Madsen smiled genially. “You are very lucky to have found such a lovely bride,” he told Nathaniel. Turning back to Alexandra, he continued, “There is no better place than Bristol in which to be married. I was born there and sorely miss it. I wish you both all the happiness in the world.”

“Thank you.” Alexandra felt Nathaniel take her hand in his own and smiled sweetly at Bessie Haws.

* * *

They arrived in Bristol in a little more than two hours. Alexandra, Nathaniel, and Trenton bid good-bye to the now silent Bessie and her mother, and waved to Mr. Madsen.

With Nathaniel’s help, Alexandra descended from the platform while Trenton rented a cab. They had no bags, and were therefore able to move quickly. They wove through the throng, loaded up, and started down the paved road ahead of the other passengers.

Bristol was more crowded than when Alexandra had seen it last. As July approached and the heat of London became unbearable, many of the capital’s citizens fled to Bath or Bristol for a reprieve. Alexandra watched the assorted carriages, carts, and wagons that clogged the street as they moved, snail-like, through the melee.

“I wrote back to the Lord High Admiral and told him I am bringing the guns to London,” Trenton told Nathaniel. “He’s expecting me Monday week. I think it best if I handle it, just in case they believe the duke and the magistrate who sentenced you to the hulks and send you back—or hang you.”

Nathaniel frowned. “What about your own neck?”

“I haven’t gained sufficient notoriety to be too concerned. Even if they charge me with piracy, it’s unlikely they’ll hang me.”

Nathaniel considered his words. “Newgate is not a pleasant fate.”

“So you are the only patriot among us?”

Nathaniel shook his head. “Evidently not.”

“Besides, the guns will take center stage.”

“I think you’re right there.” Nathaniel’s voice was decidedly neutral, but Alexandra knew he worried still the same, and she couldn’t help saying a silent prayer for them all.

* * *

It was raining by the time they reached the docks, large drops that splattered when they hit the ground. Nathaniel peered out of the carriage at the darkening sky and cursed the weather. They’d be soaked to the skin by the time they finished unloading the entire warehouse, even if they hired help.

“Perhaps you should wait in the carriage, my love,” he said to Alexandra as he descended. “You can watch us from here.”

She nodded and kissed him briefly. Nathaniel would have lingered in her embrace, but now that they’d arrived, he felt the need to deal with the guns and be done with them.

“It might be a while,” he called, “but we’ll hurry.”

Alexandra’s drooping ringlets gave a slight bob as she nodded her head, and he envisioned having a daughter with the same yellow hair. His fiancée was beautiful, he thought, the only one who could make him whole. Strangely enough, he felt whole already, for the first time since he could remember.

Turning away, he rounded the warehouse and made his way to the alley behind. He easily found the rock beneath which he had buried the key, and dug it up.

“Would you have been able to find it if need be?” he asked Trenton.

His friend nodded. “Aye. The directions you gave were good ones. Shall I hire a wagon?”

“In a moment.”

They headed back to the front entrance together amid the crush of people along the wharves. Nathaniel glanced about, hoping to hail a few burly chaps to help, and thought he saw a face he recognized. When he looked again the man had gone, but something about him stirred a memory.

He was likely one of the blokes he’d hired to help him the last time, Nathaniel thought. Turning the key in the lock, he pressed in on the door.

It groaned on its hinges, then swung wide.

Nathaniel stood staring, his jaw agape. The warehouse was empty.

“They’ve found them.” He turned back to push Trenton away. “Let’s get out of here.”

The two of them began to sprint to the carriage when the familiar-looking man appeared again, a sturdy bloke with bulging biceps. He grabbed Nathaniel by the arm and began to haul him back, as four others separated themselves from the crowd and stripped him of his pistol. They shoved him and Trenton back inside the empty warehouse, and Lord Clifton moved into the light that streamed in through the high windows, one of which was open.

Sailors called to each other outside as his half brother’s voice echoed within. “Looking for something?” the marquess asked.

“Clifton, this won’t do you any good,” Nathaniel said. “The Lord High Admiral already knows about the guns.”

The marquess shrugged. “No one will believe my father guilty of treason. But the guns are quite valuable. I must say, I’m relieved to have them back.”

The door opened and a gush of fresh air swept into the room as Captain Montague entered with a struggling Alexandra.

“Alexandra, how wonderful to see you.” Lord Clifton bowed in mock courtesy. “I feared our paths would never cross again, but fate has been kinder to me than I deserve.”

Nathaniel’s heart began to race. He glanced beyond the marquess, trying to sense any movement in the shadows. How many men accompanied his half brother?

As if six, including Clifton, weren’t enough.

“You’re right. The only thing you deserve is to swing at the end of a rope,” Alexandra said breathlessly.

The marquess chuckled and glanced above them, where a large metal hook was attached to a pulley system designed to help move cargo around. “Funny you should mention a rope.” He gave Nathaniel a meaningful smile, motioning with his head to one of his men. “Charles, I do believe it would be wise to be quick about this.”

The man named Charles stepped forward and pulled the hook closer while two others grabbed Nathaniel by his clothes.

“And now we see that my prophecy comes true,” Montague said, giving Nathaniel a mocking salute. “You will test the rope long before me, no?”

“Then I’ll see you in hell,” Nathaniel told him.

Lord Clifton smiled at the exchange. “I saved a few rifles for you.” He indicated one of the familiar long, flat crates. “They can provide the stool—a bit of irony I could not resist.”

The marquess’s men dragged the box forward as Nathaniel’s mind flailed for something, anything with which to gain an advantage. He could think of nothing until a thought surfaced—a memory, really—of Alexandra telling him that his father had syphilis and had given the disease to Clifton’s mother. Did his half brother know? If not, would it upset him enough to buy some desperately needed time?

“It’s a miracle you were ever born, you know,” Nathaniel said, staring defiantly at Clifton as another man started to force him onto the box of rifles. “Syphilis is no small thing. With your father carrying it home from his whores, I wonder that your mother didn’t leave him sooner.”

His words acted on Lord Clifton like a douse of cold water. The marquess blinked in surprise, and the men who held Nathaniel paused uncertainly. Clifton’s brows drew close, and he bared his teeth. “I’ll not tolerate such rubbish from the likes of you. My mother might be sick, but she’s not gone mad. Her illness has nothing to do with syphilis. And my father has been well for over a year.”

“So you didn’t know.” Nathaniel shrugged, feigning a haughtiness he did not feel. “Evidently it hasn’t made itself apparent enough in either parent yet. But it will. It always does.”

The marquess’s men glanced at one another, and Nathaniel felt the hands that held him lose a bit of their tension.

At his full height Clifton was several inches shorter than Nathaniel. He had to tilt his head back to stare him in the eye, but he did so as he advanced, coming within inches. Nathaniel saw how the marquess’s nostrils flared with rage and knew he had hit his target. His half brother had been caught completely unaware.

“That’s a lie!”

“Certainly even you can see it’s the truth, now that you know.” Nathaniel watched Clifton’s hand ball into a fist, and prepared himself for the blow. The others stood still, out of surprise or perverse interest, Nathaniel didn’t know. “Evidently, he cared little about whose thighs he parted before sharing your mother’s bed—”

The marquess’s fist slammed into his stomach and Nathaniel doubled over. For the tiniest moment the men’s grip on him slackened. Using that moment to twist violently away, he wrenched himself out of their hold.

Nathaniel wasn’t as strong as he used to be. He was still recovering from his knife wound, but he preferred to take his chances against a pistol than to swing from a rope.

Two of Clifton’s men scrambled to catch him, but with a blow to the chin and a quick kick to the groin, he sent them flailing onto their backs. He lunged for the marquess while Trenton used the sudden distraction to wrest free as well. But they both froze when the man who held Alexandra put a gun to her head.

“Such impetuous actions will surely cost you,” Lord Clifton gritted out. “Now you will watch her hang first.” He nodded to one of his thugs, who was still gasping for breath.

The surly, muscular man with a rounded paunch began to drag Alexandra toward the rope. Nathaniel’s muscles tensed. He remembered the numerous floggings on the Retribution, the hunger, the chafing on his ankles from the chains. He recalled the hospital ship with its sick, desperate men, the dampness, the putrid smell of vomit and sweat, and the itch of lice. The memories converged upon his mind, all mingling with each other in the same fraction of a second. The marquess was to blame for it all. And now he threatened Alexandra. “If you harm her, I’ll kill you before I die,” he vowed. “The only way to ensure that I won’t is to hang me now.”

Something akin to fear flickered in Clifton’s eyes. He ordered his men to grab Nathaniel, but Nathaniel had his long fingers about his half brother’s neck before anyone could move.

“Let her go,” he whispered harshly, squeezing until Clifton’s mouth opened and closed like that of a fish and his eyes bulged from their sockets.

Nathaniel felt a surge of strength course through his body, enabling him to squeeze tighter and tighter until the marquess’s face turned bright red. “Now! Tell them to let her go!”

The thugs backed away from Alexandra while the one who held the gun leveled it at Nathaniel’s back.

“Kill him,” Clifton wheezed, trying to wrench Nathaniel’s hand away from his throat.

The report of the gun almost deafened them all, but the bullet missed its target by a wide margin. Trenton had lunged at the man, knocking him off his feet, and the two of them were grappling with each other on the ground.

Someone shouted from outside, “They’re in here!”

Suddenly Inspector Madsen, the man from Scotland Yard who had ridden the train with them, charged into the warehouse with four constables following in his wake.

“Hold everything,” he said, drawing his pistol and pausing long enough to take in the scene.

Nathaniel slowly released the marquess. Trenton stopped fighting, and Alexandra raised her tearstained face in stunned disbelief.

“Well done, Captain Montague,” Inspector Madsen said. “You’re free to go.”

“I don’t know where you’ll have me go, monsieur,” Montague replied, his voice clipped. “My life is safe no more.”

“You made that choice, not I,” Madsen replied, gathering Clifton and his men-into one group.

The marquess turned to Montague. “You did this?”

Montague looked away. “I had no choice.”

Madsen quirked an eyebrow at Lord Clifton. “Captain Montague was arrested at a pub in London a few weeks ago. It seems he took a liking to a certain actress with a jealous husband. The two were involved in a scuffle, and your friend killed the man. He offered us evidence on the gun runs in exchange for leniency.”

Madsen glanced at Montague. “Perhaps it’s time to return to your homeland, Captain,” he said. Though his words were polite on the surface, Nathaniel got the distinct impression Inspector Madsen didn’t like the Frenchman.

“You’re a dead man,” the marquess whispered to Montague. “Do you hear me? No one betrays me. You can’t go far enough. When I get out of this, I’ll find you.”

“I don’t believe you’re in a position to be making threats,” Madsen said, waving Clifton and his small band toward the door.

“Wait.” Clifton pointed at Nathaniel. “What about him? He’s the pirate who’s been plaguing my father’s ships.”

Inspector Madsen glanced over his shoulder at Nathaniel. “Sir John told us all about him. Your father’s magistrate friend was afraid he’d be implicated in the gun runs as well, so it didn’t take much prodding to get to the truth. From what I’ve heard, Mr. Kent has paid for his crimes.”

He stopped as the constables continued to herd the others out. “He does, however, need evidence to prove his identity as the Duke of Greystone’s son, I believe.” He looked to Nathaniel. “And now you have it. With a bit of persuasion Sir John agreed to testify to what he knows of you and your, er, father, too.”

He grinned, then winked at Alexandra. “Oh, and congratulations again on your upcoming marriage, miss.”

* * *

Hangings always drew a large crowd, but today’s throng was bigger than most. The punishment of one so high in society, combined with the heinousness of his sin, made this execution of particular interest to layman and nobility alike.

Shops closed at midday so their owners and employees could attend. Nearly fifty thousand people clogged the streets. They climbed any tree with a limb strong enough to support the weight, leaned out windows, and sat on rooftops all the way to Ludgate Hill along the Old Bailey, north to Cock Lane, Giltspur Street, and Smithfield, and back to the end of Fleet Lane. Wagons and carts teemed with people who had paid to stand on them for a glimpse of the action. And more than a few carriages belonging to notable public officials and members of the aristocracy waited at the fore.

The gallows stood ready in the Old Bailey outside Newgate Prison. A temporary roof enclosed the east part of the stage and offered shade to two sheriffs, who sat on either side of the stairs leading to the scaffold. Around the north, west, and east sides were galleries for the reception of officers and attendants, and a short distance away, the constables waited inside a fixed, strong railing. In the middle, where the convict would stand, the floor was raised a bit higher than the rest of the platform.

Nathaniel stood watching with his arm around Alexandra as two men shouted to each other, checking and double-checking the apparatus to make certain that everything was in working order. One tested the lever that dropped the trapdoor from under the victim’s feet, while the other proved the rope. Originally a notorious murderer was to be hanged today—a man who had killed his wife and cut her into four pieces, each of which had been discovered in a different section of London—but Nathaniel had heard that the prison officials had decided to wait. The execution of a nobleman was already creating quite a stir. Important people were going to be watching, and Nathaniel didn’t doubt that those in charge wanted everything to go as smoothly as possible. In degree of seriousness, treason topped the list, after all, creating the common sentiment that the perpetrator of such deviltry deserved to die alone, center stage. It would appease the anger of many, though it must cause the sadness of some, Nathaniel thought, thinking of Lady Anne.

It was a cold day in late September, and snow had fallen through the night, leaving a thin white blanket on the ground that had quickly turned to slush. Nathaniel and Alexandra shivered with the others as they waited for the prisoner to appear, but despite the chill weather, no one left.

Nathaniel’s mood was nervous, somber. He did not want to be here, yet he couldn’t stay away. He had spent many years hating his father and brother. Now he felt empty. He could scarcely believe what the papers had reported—a wild fervor had surrounded this hanging above all others—though he knew the truth had finally been revealed.

Alexandra gave him a reassuring smile. “Are you sure you want to see this?”

Nathaniel nodded. “But you don’t have to stay, my love. I’d rather you not have to witness—”

“We’ll see it through together,” she insisted.

He could feel her love flowing through him at the slightest touch, supporting him like the wind at his back. How he admired her inherent strength and beauty. He hugged her closer to him. He had thought he didn’t know what love was, but he had proven himself wrong. He loved Alexandra with a ferocity that surprised him.

She smiled at him again, and he turned his attention away, focusing on the comments of those around him.

“He deserves what he’s getting, that he does,” a heavyset country woman said to her friend. “If it was one of us, they’d string us up in two shakes.”

The man behind her said, “But why did he do it? There was no call to take such a risk.”

Nathaniel had spent many long nights wondering the same thing. But he thought he finally understood—as well as he ever would, anyway.

Scanning the crowd, he searched for Lady Anne. She stood near the front, weeping uncontrollably, alone except for her maid. He couldn’t help but feel a twinge of remorse at her pain.

Finally two servants forced their way through the mass of people and escorted the duke’s daughter back to her carriage. Evidently she could not bear to watch.

Alexandra nudged him. “You didn’t do this to her,” she murmured.

Nathaniel nodded slowly. Lady Anne was gone now. There was nothing left to see but the gallows.

* * *

Inside a small rectangular cell, the Duke of Greystone paced back and forth. He couldn’t imagine more outrage than he felt, and wondered if he could bear it. All his life he had been able to take what he wanted, change the rules if need be, break them if they wouldn’t bend. And there had been no punishments. He had gotten away with murder, literally. Yet he could do nothing now, nothing to save his son—the one person in life whom he truly loved—despite his money, despite his power, despite it all.

“Just tell me why, Jake. Why did you do it?” he asked, trying to keep his voice from trembling.

The marquess sat in the corner of his cell, slumped against the bars, staring at the floor. His eyes, when they lifted, were filled with contempt. “You still don’t understand, do you? You probably never will. You gave me control of Greystone Shipping and assumed I’d run it expertly, like you always did. But I’m not like you. Or Nathaniel. I couldn’t do it any other way.” The bitterness in his voice deepened. “And I wanted you to be proud of me. Can you believe that? You, who cared no more for my mother than to bring her syphilis from your whores—”

The duke’s hand struck almost of its own accord. “How dare you—”

“What? Face you with the truth?” Jake touched his cheek where the blow had left a red mark. “Nathaniel, of all people, had to tell me. Yet I lived with you, nursed you when you were ill not two years past, and all the while my mother grew sicker, alone, in Scotland. That’s how gullible and trusting I was. Will you deny that it’s true?”

Greystone thought he heard a trace of hope in his son’s last question. For a moment he considered telling the boy what he wanted to hear. They couldn’t part this way forever.

But he knew Jake’s eyes had been opened. The boy could not ignore the steady decline of his mother’s health as if he didn’t finally understand the cause. Nor could he deny the cursed reason for Greystone’s own illness before the disease went into its latent stage.

Nathaniel had truly robbed them at last. “I don’t expect you to understand,” the duke said.

Jake’s lips twisted in a sneer. “There’s never been anything to understand but your own selfishness.” He laughed—a cold, humorless sound that reverberated in the cold cell. “I thought if I rebuilt Greystone Shipping into the giant it once was, you’d have to acknowledge me as a son worthy of your legacy. Montague claimed he knew how, and you provided the opportunity for the first shipment with the load of supplies you wanted to send to the Turks. It took a bit of doing, but it wasn’t a difficult matter to sell the stuff and use the money to purchase guns, from which we planned to achieve a high profit. An investor had to be brought in when Nathaniel interfered, but our banker made a healthy return, like Montague and myself. Perhaps you would have figured it all out, had you not been so busy bringing shame upon my mother and our family.”

As Jake’s words poured out, Greystone felt as though a knife turned in his gut. Nathaniel was to blame for this, and ironically enough, his own damn patriotism. If he’d never planned to send blankets, clothing, and medical supplies to the Turks, his son couldn’t have...

The duke cut off his thoughts, knowing they did little good now, and closed his eyes to shut out the vision of his son’s derision. Jake had been imprisoned twenty-four days since being sentenced to death. By law three Sundays had to pass between sentence and execution to give him time to repent, and every day had been an agony for them both.

But nothing like this. When he had thought Jake still respected him, he could be the doting, blameless father, and could believe, to an extent, the part he was playing. Now he felt utterly exposed, as if his son had peeled back the husks of an ear of corn to reveal nothing but crawling worms.

“Haven’t I given you everything?” he asked.

The marquess looked up. “Everything? You’ve abused my mother’s trust, cost her her life. You’ve ignored my sister, and for years I could garner only the smallest crumb of your attention. In a way, even Nathaniel had more of your respect and admiration than I.”

Greystone covered his face with his hands. The fact that he had somehow brought this calamity on himself, and Jake, seared him to his soul.

“It’s time.” The guard outside the cell moved closer. The duke knew the man had allowed them time together only because he had been ordered to do so from somewhere much higher in the chain of command. The Greystone title still held some weight, but it was getting late, and even a duke could stall the wheels of justice only so long.

“I’m sorry, Your Grace, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave now,” the guard told him.

Greystone could hardly believe that this horror was reality. Leave so they could kill Jake? His son? His heir? He hesitated. They couldn’t part like this.

“Your Grace?”

The duke tried to swallow the lump that threatened to choke him. He wanted one kind word from Jake, who had stood at the guard’s request and waited to be led out onto the gallows, one small sign of forgiveness.

“I’m sorry,” he said to his son, uttering the words so softly that at first he wasn’t sure if Jake had heard him.

The marquess’s gaze rose. “Not sorry enough.”

As the guard led Jake out of his cell, Greystone tried to do something he had never done before: he tried to take his son in his arms and hold him tightly for an instant. But Jake’s body was stiff and unresponsive.

“Don’t touch me,” he said, and the duke turned away. He wouldn’t have a mere guard witness his humiliation. Besides, he couldn’t bear to watch his son pass through the door and enter the blinding light of day.

* * *

When the trapdoor dropped away, Nathaniel had to avert his gaze. He was sick at the sight of Lord Clifton’s body writhing as the life was wrung from it. His half brother had had everything—the money, the power, the family. And he had thrown it all away. For what?

Nathaniel stared at those privileged members of the aristocracy who watched at the fore. Somber and downcast, they murmured to each other. That one of their own could swing from a rope like any common man struck at the very heart of England’s social order. From what Nathaniel saw and read in the papers, they felt sorrier for themselves than they did Clifton.

He would have been one of them, had his life taken a different path. There had been a time when he had wanted to take his place among the gentry, but now they seemed more like the living dead. Worried over a crease in their clothes, or a pudding that lacked a little spice, they were not alive in the same way Alexandra was. Her heart beat strong and true, and she had a mind that knew what mattered.

Nathaniel’s gaze came to rest on the woman he loved. Her head was bent; he couldn’t see her enormous green eyes, but he knew what he would find in them. Pity. Despite everything Clifton had tried to do to them both, she knew what the marquess did not: that he had never truly lived.

As Nathaniel led Alexandra away, she instinctively buried her face into his coat. They had both seen enough.

Though the crowd resisted his efforts to get through, so enthralled were they in watching Lord Clifton’s body swing, Nathaniel insisted. He physically removed those from their path who would not bend to his words until they were finally free and hurrying toward their rented carriage.

Before Nathaniel handed Alexandra inside, he put his arms around her and held her close. She was crying. “How brave you are, my love,” he soothed. “It’s over now.”

They clung to each other until the pounding of his heart slowed with the spasms of her tears. Now that his father’s title and lands were not forfeit, Nathaniel knew he would inherit them someday. And his sons after him. But they wouldn’t do so in England. No, he would take Alexandra to America and have a family there. And he would teach his sons what it truly meant to be of noble birth.