Page 41 of The Rebellious Lady and the Phantom Lord
“If you aren’t another pretty fool.” Her grandfather poked the tip of his cane at Jonathan. “Taking the money you’ve worked so hard for all your life and flinging it into patronage. Foundling homes, charity schools, and your hospitals, bah! More like shelters for a pack of sluggards feigning sickness.”
Weylin flung up his arms in a frustrated gesture. “Stap me, you might as well lock me up in Bedlam. I suppose I must be mad, since I seem to be the only one not inclined to empty my pockets for a lot of undeserving rascals.” He scowled. “Mind you, if I had known about the Wilkens child?—”
He hesitated and then shrugged his shoulders, stumping impatiently to the door, looking at his watch again.
What would her grandfather say, Phaedra wondered, if he knew it really had been Armande who had helped the woman? It would vastly change his impression of the marquis, even as it had done her own. It was no coldhearted villain who had called upon Mrs. Wilkins today. Phaedra still marveled at what Armande had done. It went beyond a gesture of noblesse oblige, beyond flinging a handful of coins to the peasants. He had obviously put himself to no little trouble, seeking out Eliza Wilkins, arranging for the funeral of her child. It showed agreat depth of feeling she would have never thought Armande possessed.
And what of his reason for behaving in a manner that seemed so out of character? Eliza Wilkins’s explanation echoed through Phaedra’s mind. He said he knew what it was like to be at the mercy of the powerful and ruthless. Men like her grandfather, men like Armande de LeCroix himself. So Phaedra had once thought. Now she was no longer sure. Armande’s sympathy for Wilkins, that haunted expression she had on occasion glimpsed in his cold blue eyes. What was there in his past that inspired such things, the past that he was at such pains to conceal?
If only instead of threatening her, Armande had chosen to confide. But perhaps she had seemed to him like another Muriel Porterfield, a selfish lady of the haut ton. Perhaps he thought she would never have understood. There was little use in speculating. It was too late now, far too late.
Phaedra stared back into the fireplace grate, the stones so cold. Despite the warm evening, she could almost fancy the chill from it creeping into her bones. What was it like to spend a night in Newgate Prison? She shuddered.
As if her nerves were not stretched taut enough, some imp of perversity had taken possession of her grandfather this evening. Perhaps her own guilty reflections made it seem so, but her grandfather appeared able to talk of nothing but the very subjects Phaedra most wished to avoid.
“I declare,” he huffed. “London is naught but a city of rogues these days. I was coming up High Street and what did I see, but a footpad as bold as you please, leaping atop a sedan chair. The rogue cut a hole in the roof and snatched a wig from a man’s head. In full light of day! A twenty-farthing wig! The villain will swing for that if he is ever caught.”
Phaedra, who had been trying to blot out the sound of her grandfather’s haranguing, stiffened at his last words. “Hang for twenty farthings?” she faltered. “Most surely not.”
“Most surely could.” Her grandfather rocked back on his heels, his lips pursed in evident satisfaction at the thought. “A man may hang for any theft over five shillings, and so he should. Lazy ‘rogues fleecing honest, hard-working men!”
Five shillings. Phaedra’s hand crept to the lacy shawl knotted round her shoulders and she tugged uncomfortably at the fringe. The ring she had planted upon Armande was well above five shillings in value. But they don’t hang noblemen, she reminded herself. All the same, she hadn’t known men could die for so little cause. What if she was wrong about the immunity of noblemen, as well?
Of a sudden, she remembered Muriel’s gossip about Tony Ackerly being flung into Newgate. Only fancy! That some shabby shopkeeper could have a gentleman treated thus! Of course, Tony was not a lord. But so many of the English had a strong antipathy toward foreigners, especially the French. What if Armande’s rank as Marquis de Varnais counted for nothing?
Jonathan sighed. “I have always thought the law too harsh. The gallows at Tyburn are put to far too great a use.”
Weylin eyed him contemptuously. “Fortunately we are all saved a great deal of trouble by gaol fever. It carries off most of the rascals.”
“Gaol fever?” Phaedra asked weakly.
Aye, girl. What d’you think Newgate is? Some charming country manor house? The fever runs rampant through that pest hole so that few who take it ever recover.” Weylin grinned. “I heard old magistrate Harbottle goes in such fear of the fever, he came to court with a nosegay pressed to his face the other day. He kept the prisoners at such a distance from him, he could hardly hear their pleas.”
Her grandfather might find that amusing, but Phaedra was wracked with a vision of Armande tossing upon a filthy cot, caught in the grip of a raging fever. In the midst of his agony, would he curse her? Dear God, she had never meant to kill the man. She wished her grandfather would be quiet.
But his voice droned on without mercy, talking about executions now, recounting every one he had ever witnessed. “Now I’ve seen it take a good hour for some of ‘em to die. They struggle so hard, fair dancing at the end of the rope.” And then others snap!” Her grandfather gestured as though breaking a twig. “Just like chicken bones popping.”
Phaedra’s fingers flew involuntarily to her own throat. No! They would never hang Armande. They never would.
“They hung this one rogue, see, for pilfering a snuffbox, chunked his body into a coffin. Well, the guards given the task of his burial stopped off for a pint of bitter.” Weylin shook with chuckles. Phaedra pressed her hand to her mouth lest she shriek at her grandfather to hold his tongue.
Oblivious to her distress, the old man went on, “The guards had been followed by a pair of rascally resurrection men, with an eye to swiping the body, to sell it to a surgeon for his ghoulish studies. While those guards were swilling at the inn, the resurrection men snatched the coffin and?—”
“Truly, Sawyer.” Jonathan made a mild attempt to intervene, casting a pained glance at Phaedra. “I think you are about to make Phaedra ill with all this talk.”
“Here’s the best part of it.” Weylin wheezed with suppressed laughter, scarcely able to speak. “The lid of the coffin was not properly nailed down. They’d not gone far, when the lid burst open and the corpse sat up.”
Weylin doubled over, slapping his knees. “The man wasn’t dead. They said those resurrection men took off running, all the way to Yorkshire. Hah! And by the time the guards caught up tothe cart, they were so fearful of losing their posts because of their bungling, they quick found a tree and hanged the poor wretch all over again. “
Weylin clouted Jonathan on the back and roared with laughter. Jonathan summoned a thin smile in response. Phaedra bolted to her feet. She could not endure a moment more of this.
“Grandfather, about the marquis—” she began.
Weylin wiped his moist eyes with the back of his hand. “Aye, what about him, girl?”
She glanced down at the carpet, her voice rife with guilt and misery. “I don’t imagine that Armande will be here.”
“Do you not, milady?”
