Page 74 of The Ladies Least Likely
“I made inquiries, sir,” Ross said, stung. “The Vaughns could tell me nothing, as they hadn’t seen you. Remember, though, you hadn’t told me you were setting out for Newport that morning. I thought you were going to Weston-super-Mare with Mr. Turbeville. He also asked around about you,” Ross added, “and ended up getting rather badly beaten for his efforts. I gather he fell afoul of the moneylender’s men.”
Pen paced across the room. He neared the grog, then veered away. He had no appetite for it any longer. Even the smell was vile.
“I have a notion of how to deal with the Black Hound,” Pen said. “But I left everything I was working on at sodding St. Sefin’s.”
“You’re not limping any longer,” Ross observed with surprise.
Pen had grown so accustomed to feeling at ease in his body that he’d nearly forgotten the constant pain that had been his companion since Tenerife. In tending him after his various thrashings, Gwen had healed those old wounds, too.
His time with her had transformed him in so many ways. After all she had shared with him, how could she simply let him walk away?
He’d make her regret that. He would find an appropriate response to her treachery. It would involve having her in his bed, stripping off every piece of her clothing, moving his mouth over every delicious inch of her body until she was mindless and quivering and begging him to fulfill her.
She’d known he was a viscount and that hadn’t moved her. She’d known he held St. Sefin’s, and she’d still not chosen to come away. What would make her wanthim?
Pen handed the glass of grog to Ross and gestured for him to send it away. He ran a hand through his hair and glared toward the mountain of correspondence.
“The first order of business is to put down the Black Hound. Send for Lydia and Prunella, and tell them to leave Miss Who’s-it where they found her. I’ll deal with them next.”
If Gwen were his viscountess, she would deliver him from matrimonial schemes. She would save him from dealing with women in general.See the viscountess, he would say to his stepmother and sister-in-law and every other woman who importuned him. And in return he would give her splendid houses, carriages and gowns, jewels and horses—as soon as he could afford them, anyway. He would ensure she wanted nothing, that she need never work again.
Would it be enough to win her?
Perhaps she had merely thought he meant for her to be his mistress. She didn’t know what he could offer her. Somehow, he had to make her trust him. Choose him. Put her faith in him, instead of thinking she could do everything herself, all of the time.
Pen stared out the window, across the Bristol Channel to Wales and its dark hills. “The hound, and the women,” he decided. “And then I will call Miss Gwenllian ap Ewyas to account for her crimes.”
“Next case,”the clerk called. “Gwenllian ap Ewyas of St. Woolos parish, Newport. Accused of keeping an ill-governed and disorderly house and entertaining diverse men and women of suspicious and ill repute, to the common nuisance of her neighbors.”
The bailiff motioned her forward, and Gwen obeyed, sweating beneath the blonde lace. The bodice of her redingote felt tighter than usual. This justice, Sir Robert, controlled her fate.
Mr. Stanley had explained the workings of English law, after the constable came to St. Sefin’s with his writ summoning her to appear. Her case fell under summary justice, in which case the justice of the peace could act alone, examining the evidence and pronouncing what sentence he wished. At a whim he could convict her and demand a fine, imprisonment in the workhouse, or a whipping, and it was unlikely he would be challenged.
If he found her guilty and there was an indictment, her case would go to the petty sessions. There she would come before two or more magistrates, and the punishment could be harsher, a steeper fine or imprisonment of six months or more. And if the offense were considered a serious threat to public peace, her case would move to the quarter sessions and the assizes, held every three months. There her sentence could be much worse, perhaps transportation. The thought turned her blood to ice.
She could be cast into the bridewell for years and her friends turned out of St. Sefin’s. Once again Daron Sutton could destroy her life and cast her into the outer darkness. And Calvin Vaughn, whom she had thought an idle menace, might manage what she had once feared Pen would do: end St. Sefin’s entirely.
Sir Robert Salusbury was a man she’d had no business with. Mr. Stanley could tell her that he’d studied at Trinity College and Cambridge and Lincoln’s Inn. Gwen had passed Llanwern, the manor house he’d inherited through his wife, on her way to harpat Pencoed Castle. Sir Robert had recently been elected mayor of Newport, but he was also MP for Brecon and had Parliamentary duties, so she couldn’t vouch that he knew of St. Sefin’s and the people she’d helped.
The travelers they lodged when the inns were full, earning much-needed extra coin. The girls like Mathry they took during their lying-ins for children they would be forced to give away. The foreigners they housed while they looked for work in the mines and coalfields and shipyards. The widows and orphans turned out of their homes, the men deprived of work, the ailing who had found refuge under their roof until better circumstances arrived, or they were transferred quietly to the pauper’s section of the graveyard in the cemetery at St. Woolos.
The room fell silent as she shed her hat and moved toward the wooden table where Sir Robert sat. He looked like a decent man. He wore a white bag wig, the sign of his office, and was dressed in a somber black wool suit. But he had children, daughters. Surely his heart could be moved in her favor.
Gwen looked about hesitantly. Sir Robert had chosen to hold court in one of the upper rooms of the Fleur-de-Lys, a pub just off High Street. In Tudor times the house had belonged to the powerful Herberts, high sheriffs and lords of St. Julian’s Manor outside of town. St. Julian’s was an ivy-covered ruin now and Herbert lands had been absorbed by other lords as Dame Fortune turned her wheel.
Gwen cast her eye over the plasterwork ceiling and shivered. She recognized the Aragon pineapple in the bas relief. Wales had celebrated when their Tudor prince, Arthur, was betrothed to the beautiful Katherine, princess of the powerful realm of Aragon. But Arthur died before his prime and Katherine passed to the cruel hands of his brother, Henry VIII. The once-admired princess had ended her life impoverished and divorced, denied by her husband, stripped of her pride and her child whenanother woman caught Henry’s eye. He had riven England from the Roman church in order to have Anne Boleyn, and then chopped off Anne’s head when she displeased him. A chill ran down Gwen’s back. The fortunes of the powerful were changeable, and the fates of women more fragile yet.
She lifted her chin and wondered why the silence stretched out. A small crowd of people was gathered in the room, other plaintiffs and defendants awaiting their turn, witnesses waiting to be examined, spectators there for a diversion. The May afternoon promised sun after the morning mist rolled away, and dust motes glittered in the air. The clerk of the peace stared at her. Sir Robert stared at her. Even the bailiff, craning his neck for the source of the quiet, couldn’t take his eyes off her face.
“Don’t be taken in by her beauty, judge,” Calvin Vaughn said. “There’s a tart’s heart beneath that lace.”
“Hold your tongue, Vaughn.” Daron Sutton stepped forward. The two men had been standing in a corner, shielded by the ostrich plumes on the hat of a woman wearing a heavy veil.
“I meant for her to be my wife.” Daron reached for Gwen’s hand. “I would still have you, Gwen. Say the word, and the charges against you will be dropped.”
Gwen stared into his face. His petulant, self-satisfied face. Even now he thought she was his for the asking.
Deliberately she moved her gloved hands away from his outstretched one. “I decline the honor of your hand, Mr. Sutton,” she said, and then ruined the dignity of her reply with a muttered Welsh curse. A gasp told her someone in the back knew she’d compared him to sheep’s poo, though Sutton didn’t.
