Page 60 of The Lawrence Browne Affair
Courtenay smirked, the insolent bastard. “I have some business in London as well,” he said. “Some loose ends that need to be tied up before I return to the Continent.”
So it was settled. Lady Standish and Lord Courtenay worked out the details between themselves, and early the next morning Lawrence found himself packed into the Standish carriage along with Simon and Lady Standish. Courtenay was to ride alongside while Medlock would return home by post chaise.
Lawrence moved as if in a fog, allowing himself to be bundled in a blanket like an invalid, a hot brick placed beneath his feet.
As the carriage began to roll, Lawrence squeezed his eyes shut. It had been years since he had been in a carriage, since he had been anywhere farther than Penkellis’s borders. But this was what he needed to do to make sure Georgie was safe, so he’d do it.
He felt a light touch on his arm and looked down to see Lady Standish’s gloved hand resting on the sleeve of his coat. “Is there anything I ought to know?” she murmured. “Any way to make this less unpleasant? I gather that there must be a pressing reason for you to make this trip, and if I can help in any way, you must know that I’ll be only too glad to help.” Lady Standish was no fool and didn’t need to be told that Lawrence’s venturing any further than the garden gate was a major event.
Lawrence nodded. “Thank you.” He tried to imagine what Georgie would do, what measures he would invent to make Lawrence feel more at home, less in the wilderness of confusion and nerves. “If you could see to it that I have bread and ham when we stop for supper, perhaps?” It sounded childish, pathetic.
“Of course,” Lady Standish said briskly, as if nothing were amiss. This, Lawrence reminded himself, was friendship.
As the carriage drove past the Penkellis gates, Lawrence absently dropped his hand to his side, unconsciously reaching for Barnabus, who, of course, wasn’t there. No Barnabus, no Georgie, no familiar places or things.
He tried to put his rising anxiety to the side. He couldn’t conquer it, so perhaps he could ignore it. Or, at least, exist alongside it for as long as he needed to get to London and ensure that Georgie was safe. As soon as he knew that Georgie hadn’t foolishly delivered himself part and parcel to the man who wanted to kill him, then Lawrence would go back to Penkellis and hole up in his study for the rest of his life.
“Look!” Simon called, his voice alive with excitement. “Tell the coachman to stop!”
“Oh, dear,” Lady Standish clucked. “We’ll have to bring him back to the house. Otherwise, the poor creature will jog alongside us until he becomes quite exhausted.”
Lawrence opened his eyes and peered out the window. There, running beside the carriage, was Barnabus. He rapped on the roof. “Stop!” Once the carriage had come to a stand, he unlatched the door and patted his knee. Barnabus promptly jumped into the already cramped carriage and settled himself on the floor on top of Lawrence’s feet.
“Well,” Lady Standish said. “That’s loyalty, I suppose.”
“More like he’s never seen me step outside the house without him,” Lawrence countered. He felt the edge of his anxiety blunt a little bit, as he focused on the dog’s heavy weight on his feet, the rhythm of the sleeping animal’s breathing.
He shut his eyes and slept.
Prisons all smelled the same, like piss and illness, with a hint of blood and gin. It was the same odor as the gutters Georgie had come from, so in a way it felt only right that he ought to be here now, iron bars separating him from all the things he didn’t deserve—freedom, warmth, sunlight. Born in the rookery, dead on the gallows—it had a certain symmetry that to Georgie’s exhausted mind looked like justice. He was getting exactly what he deserved.
He slumped against a damp, sticky wall. No sense being precious about his clothes anymore, was there? He couldn’t shut his eyes for more than a minute, because he knew enough not to sleep too deeply in the kind of company you found in a jail cell, but the next thing he knew, there was a man standing before him, nudging Georgie’s leg with his heavy, booted foot.
“You. Turner,” the man said, continuing to prod even though Georgie’s eyes were open. “Up. The governor wants to talk to you.”
Georgie got to his feet and brushed the dust off his trousers, even though they were beyond salvation after so much time on that little boat and even more on the stagecoach.
“On with it,” the man insisted, impatient. “Haven’t got all day.”
They went down a corridor and into a small cube of a room that held nothing more than a deal table and a couple of chairs. The single dirty window was covered in bars, affording no possibility of escape. Not that Georgie wanted to escape. He had, after all, come here on purpose.
The door slammed behind him, and he was momentarily alone, the heavy oak blocking out the sounds of the prison beyond. He sat in one of the chairs, every joint in his body aching with fatigue. He shut his eyes, only opening them when the door slammed shut behind him.
“What do we have here?” The man who entered the room was of middle age, slightly balding, wearing the sort of somber, nondescript clothing that Georgie would don to play the part of a clerk. He consulted a paper that he held in his hand. “Smythe says you tried to turn yourself in, saying you know something about the Brewster gang and confessing to—well, that’s quite a list, isn’t it?”
“You aren’t a magistrate,” Georgie said, his voice sounding thick and remote.
“Lord, no.” The clerk seemed amused by the notion. “Can’t bother the judges with every lunat—ah, helpful fellow who comes in off the streets. Tell me what you know, and I’ll make sure that it gets passed on to the right people.”
After all this, they weren’t going to listen to him? And what if the right people included Mattie Brewster, who must have an informant in Newgate? Georgie would have laughed if he weren’t too tired to force out the sound. “I’m George Turner. I worked for Mattie Brewster for almost ten years. I know the password to speak to him. I can give you details about the Herriot case and the Landsdowne forgeries. I played a principal role in both. I’m confessing to larceny, forgery—”
“Steady now, Mr. Turner,” the man said, smiling patiently.
“George Turner. I’ve been in Newgate before, for God’s sake. I was ten years old the first time I was arrested.” He had stolen a lady’s reticule. After shedding a few tears and telling the magistrate a pretty story, he had gotten off with a slap on the wrist and a shilling from the lady herself. He tried to tamp down his desperation and summon up some remnant of that crafty Georgie Turner who had outwitted and outlied thieves and thief takers alike.
The trouble was, now that he actually wanted to tell the truth, to finally confess his sins and do something decent for a change, he didn’t know how to be persuasive.
“The Brewster gang’s meeting place is the top story of a warehouse on Ironmonger Lane. Knock twice, and when they open the door, say you’re there to see the old codger about a pot of prawns.” Georgie had come up with that himself, and for a few days it had been highly diverting to hear everyone who entered Mattie’s inner sanctum—lords and ladies, ruffians and penny whores—utter such a stupid, commonplace phrase. After a while the joke had staled, but Mattie hadn’t bothered to change the password.
