Page 64 of Miss Devoted
Michael’s instinct was to keep the whole business with Arbuckle to himself, to keep Psyche out of it, to tell no one. To wander alone in the stews his life had become and find a way to bow to the inevitable heartaches the reckoning with Arbuckle would precipitate.
A cozy fire crackled in the fireplace, and somewhere in the kitchen, young Mickey was enjoying the best meal of his cold, hungry, precarious life. He’d mentioned being named for the warrior archangel, an association Michael had forgotten.
“Goddard, I’m tired.”
“One senses as much. Anybody who served under Wellington became intimately acquainted with fatigue.”
Perhaps that potential source of understanding had prompted Michael’s admission, and now he had more to say.
“Not merely tired,” he went on. “I’m exhausted. Have been for years, and now when I must wade into the fight of my life, I have nothing left to take into battle. I haven’t the law on my side, I lack means, I have no expertise with the sorts of tactics my opponent uses. I don’t mind being in disgrace. I don’t mind being defrocked—shameful, I know, but the Church has much to be ashamed of as well. I mind bitterly that blameless, dear, innocent people will be hurt because of me. Some of them will be hurt badly.”
Bea would be made to pray while kneeling on a cold, bare floor until her knees screamed. She’d be made to memorize impossible numbers of Bible verses and restricted to bread and water when she failed to master them. She’d become a mindless cipher whose sole road to survival was to placate Hannibal Arbuckle’s every vanity and arrogance. When Arbuckle’s wife died, Bea would be forced into the role of unpaid housekeeper, and her purgatory would never end.
“I want to break something.” Michael muttered, finishing his brandy and setting the pretty glass aside.
“Somebody’s head, perhaps?” Goddard finished his drink too. “I have from time to time enjoyed breaking an occasional head.”
More understanding. “It’s not that simple.”
“I was accounted something of a tactician before the army decided to question my loyalty. Tell me of these complications, and perhaps I can offer a few suggestions.”
Beyond the tall windows of the office, night had fallen, and in Michael’s heart, darkness was descending as well. “Years ago,” he said, “I kidnapped an infant whom my superior had condemned to the poorhouse. Arbuckle was named as her guardian in a valid will, legally bound to provide for her. He plans to tell all and sundry that I stole the baby rather than give her over into the care of the wet nurse Arbuckle carefully selected to look after her.”
Such a simple tale, and so sad. “He lies, Goddard. He lies so convincingly, and he intimidates others into lying for him, and I have no talent for besting such an enemy. He will condemn my daughter to a fate that makes the poorhouse look like a kindness by comparison.”
Michael rose, unable to keep still under the weight of the rage Arbuckle’s behavior provoked.
“Don’t run off,” Goddard said, fetching the decanter from the sideboard. “I know you want to charge forth like the Scots Greys, but like them, you will come to grief if you discard strategic considerations. You have more resources than you think.”
“The Church will toss me into the ditch like the felon I am.”
“You are not a felon,” Goddard said, “but if you don’t sit back down, you will surely qualify as a fool.”
Michael snatched his cloak from its peg. “I am not your subaltern to be ordered into submission, Goddard. I might be facing the noose, and I’d do so gladly to keep Bea safe, but it won’t.”
“So give her to me. I’ll hide her among my urchin army. She’ll think it a great lark, and Arbuckle will have no child upon which to build his case against you.”
So straightforward and quite possibly… but no. “Then you would be complicit in my crimes.”
Goddard gently peeled the cloak from Michael’s grasp. “We are family, and you are trying to fight a war without rifles, horse, or cannon. I know how futile such endeavors are, and so do you. Every baby you pluck from the cold, dark steps of some church is a casualty of such a war. Arbuckle can try to toss you in jail, but if you allow your allies to form squares, he will have to go through me, Jeanette, MacKay, Dorning, your dear of a papa, Ophelia Oldbach, and any number of urchins, old soldiers, and streetwalkers to get to you.”
Michael surrendered his grasp of his cloak. “Streetwalkers?”
“Easiest thing in the world to find a few ladies of the night who will swear that they know from experience how perverted and voracious Arbuckle’s erotic tastes are. For MacKay, they’d sing ‘God Save the King’ naked at St. Paul’s”
“But that’s…”
“Fighting fire with fire.”
Also bearing false witness, though against a liar.
“My darling urchins,” Goddard went on, “will swear they served as linkboys while Arbuckle roved from brothel to gaming hell, and Tremont’s soldiers will vow they’ve seen Arbuckle stumbling drunk on Sunday. I’m not saying you will choose to take such a road, but let’s put our heads together and toss some ideas around. Set your pride aside and, for the sake of those you love, take a little counsel from a concerned cousin-by-marriage.”
A riot of some sort was building in Michael’s chest. “You thinkMrs. Oldbachwould aid my cause?”
Goddard hung the cloak back on its peg. “I’m sure of it, and that you would question her loyalties is about the most unhappy news I’ve heard since Napoleon escaped Elba.”
Michael looked at the clock. He had time. It wouldn’t hurt to listen, and what was Arbuckle’s greatest flaw, if not the sure conviction that Hannibal Arbuckle alone held all wisdom and worthiness? That he was smarter than everybody else, cleverer, more deserving?
