Page 30 of The Inconvenient Compromise
“There’s a room of the kitchen in the back,” the tavern keeper said. “No offense, but it hurts my business for a copper to be so visible.”
They removed themselves from the taproom. In that small room, the butler confessed everything. He told every secret of Lady Bruxton’s that he knew. Most of them were things that would be of no interest to the police. They were repressible but hardly criminal. And while the accidental death of Miss Weddington was not criminal, the actions taken afterward to conceal it certainly were.
“Will you be arresting her?” Lucian asked once the interview was done.
The officer looked less than pleased as he shook his head. “She tried to hire someone for murder but didn’t actually succeed in doing so. Even then, she did it by proxy, and it would be a servant’s word against a lady’s. It would be more trouble than it was worth, as she’d not be punished. The privilege of peerage leaves the law with no teeth… you’d be better off talking to that husband of hers about locking her in an asylum. Best place for a woman like that… but that’s a matter for other gentlemen of his status to take up with him. I’d have no say in the matter.”
With that, the officer left, and Lucian stared at the butler with complete disgust. “You can’t return. If you return, you’ll warn her, and if she’s warned, we’ll lose any advantage we have.”
“I have the funds her ladyship gave me to hire Mr. Turner. I will take them and flee the city. I have family in the north. It will be enough to live out the rest of my days in peace,” the butler stated.
“It’s better than you deserve,” Lucian observed, but he made no move to stop the man when he rose and exited the tavern.
TWENTY-THREE
Monday—mid-morning…
Fiona awoke to find Lucian stretched out on the bed beside her. Still fully dressed, he was fast asleep. She hadn’t heard him come in, but she was inordinately glad to see him there. Despite her worry after his departure, exhaustion had claimed her.
A moment later, a soft knock sounded at the door, and Moira entered bearing a breakfast tray. “Chocolate for you, my lady, and a bit of coffee should his lordship wake up,” the maid whispered as she placed the tray over Fiona’s lap.
“Thank you, Moira,” Fiona replied in the same low tone. She glanced at the tray and saw the folded news sheet. “What is this?”
“The Lady’s London Gazette, ma’am,” Moira replied. “I think you should read it. Page two especially. It will be of particular interest to both you and his lordship.”
More interested in whatever might be in the gossip sheet than in the breakfast that had been brought up, Fiona reached for it and immediately turned to the second page. She began to read, her eye widening as the ramifications of it all sank in.
I have been deceived.
While I account myself an excellent judge of character, my instincts have failed me. Lady B is not the victim in these schemes but is the villain—the perpetrator. She claimed that L.M., with his newly bestowed Scottish earldom, had been her paramour for several years. But I have, in my possession, courtesy of Miss E.W., the lady’s own journal and an abundance of letters that would indicate otherwise. It would seem, in fact, that the lady in question has had numerous paramours, despite her married state, over the course of that time. In all of her journals (I have only included one here, but the others have been put away for safekeeping) and in all the letters now in my possession, L.M. is mentioned not even once.
Recently, several of Lady B’s long-standing friendships have ended badly, with her friends turning their backs on her. Or perhaps she has turned her back on them? Her journal reveals a sort of pettiness that I have never encountered before, and, as someone who writes gossip for a living, I have encountered a great deal of pettiness. Alas, I have included a few excerpts transcribed from the journal and letters for your benefit. I will leave it to my readers to decide who the true villain is here.
Fiona continuedto read every last published excerpt. There was no mistaking that all had been written by Charlotte. Some of the events depicted there had taken place in Charlotte’s home when she’d had her ‘ladies in waiting’ as she called them, gathered to worship her.
In short, Charlotte was ruined. Socially, the things detailed in that gossip rag would make her a pariah. No one would dare invite her to any events, and she would be given the cut direct. All the power she had wielded had been stripped from her in one fell swoop.
“Lucian!” she exclaimed. He did not stir. More loudly, she repeated, “Lucian!”
At that, he opened one eye. “What is it?”
“The Lady’s London Gazette has exposed Lady Bruxton entirely. All the lies about us, about how we came to be married, and about what the nature of your relationship with her was, have now been laid bare. All of society will know the truth.”
“They will know more than that,” he said, sitting up in bed and leaning against the headboard. “Estelle Weddington is dead.”
“Dead?”
“It was an accident, apparently. She had attacked Lady Bruxton and fell over the railing of the stairs to the landing below. Lady Bruxton and her butler attempted to cover it up… they placed Estelle’s body in a trunk, and he dumped it in the Thames. But the man waiting for us here, Mr. Bosworth, had seen him do it.”
“How did he know that was what he was doing? If she was in a trunk—”
“Butlers rarely undertake menial tasks. No one dumps a perfectly good trunk in the Thames, in the middle of the night, in a clandestine manner, unless the contents of that trunk could get them in a great deal of trouble,” he pointed out.
“Oh, well. I suppose that is all true. I do feel terrible for Miss Weddington. Estelle was not a kind person. She was cruel and often lashed out. But I think she had an inordinate amount of pain and inner turmoil that made existing in this world a very difficult thing for her.”
“She does not deserve your sympathy, but I am glad you have a kind enough heart to harbor it for her. Regardless, Charlotte Farraday is far from harmless. She was attempting, with her butler acting as her agent, to hire a man to murder you and Penelope. Apparently, the reason Charlotte kept the lot of you at odds with one another was to prevent revolution amongst her ranks. If you hated one another, you’d be less likely to share damning information about her with one another.”
“She would have had us killed for that?”
