The Apsley House Incident, page 2
Bet reached for her glass and took a deliberate drink of brandy. "Then you should ask Sandy."
Alistair Rannoch swirled the brandy in his glass. "In addition to wanting what's best for Sandy, I assume you want what's best for your brother."
Bet's fingers bit into her glass. "Of course I want what's best for Robby." And her brother Robby's future (as in his safety in the next week, or even the next hour) had frequently been a source of concern, even after she moved in with Sandy. But Robby was now employed as a groom to the new Lord Carfax and doing very well in his position, so no longer quite such a frequent source of concern to Bet and her sister Nan.
Mr. Rannoch took a sip of brandy. "You must have been pleased when Carfax took him on."
"We have a number of reasons to be grateful to Lord Carfax." Still so odd to use that name for a man she had once called Mr. St. Juste, and now improbably addressed as Julien, for he told her couldn't abide being called Carfax.
"Yes, you have powerful friends, but I don't know that they'll be able to help you now." Alistair Rannoch returned his glass to the table. "I am desolate to be the bearer of bad news, Miss Simcox, but your brother is presently under arrest at the Bow Street Public Office."
Bet's glass tilted in her fingers. "At the—''
"Unless he's already been taken to Newgate."
Panic closed round her throat. The fear of arrest had been a commonplace part of her life growing up. Her father had been arrested for stealing a pocket watch when she was six. He'd been hanged five days before her seventh birthday. But Robby was too clever for thievery now. Julien—Lord Carfax—paid him well. And Robby was intensely loyal to Julien. "He wouldn't—"
"Difficult to know what anyone would or wouldn't do, I find. But as it happens, he didn't steal. He fired a pistol at the Duke of Wellington."
The knot round her throat tightened. That should be even more incredible. But—
Alistair Rannoch held her gaze, his own as cold and lethal as a knife blade. "At the duke's carriage, I should say. The unrest in London is an epidemic these days. Perhaps not surprising your brother was caught up in it."
London had been at a fever pitch since the summer over the new King George IV's efforts to divorce his long-estranged wife, Queen Caroline. Most common folk were (quite sensibly, in Bet's opinion) on the queen's side. There had been demonstrations outside Parliament, where the trial was taking place in the House of Lords, and demonstrations outside of the houses of many prominent noblemen in the government, such as Wellington. The trial was about to resume with the queen's defense. Robby had worn a white cockade in support of the queen for months and had gone to several demonstrations, Bet knew. But he didn't even own a pistol. "If the duke—"
"Wellington is unharmed. But the bullet struck a bystander, who is under a doctor's care."
Her stomach lurched. "If there was a crowd, they can't know Robby did it."
"No, that's true." Alistair Rannoch lifted his glass and took a slow drink of brandy. "But the case against him is strong. It would take considerable influence to get it dismissed."
Bet drew in and released her breath, willing the tightness in her throat to relax enough that she could say what needed to be said. "What do you want me to do?"
Chapter 2
Mélanie Rannoch set down her pencil. "That helps. I think the scene between Ginette and Nick still drags on too long. But we need all the information."
Simon Tanner leaned over the rehearsal table to look at the script of Mélanie's latest play. They had stayed to go over it after a read-through with some of the actors in the Tavistock company. Simon was a part owner of the Tavistock Theatre and a playwright himself. He'd also become one of Mélanie's closest friends since she'd left all she had known and come to the alien world of the British beau monde with her husband. "What if you moved the discussion about Nick's past to the end? I've been thinking Ginette and Nick need another scene in Act III in any case."
"Of course." The pieces of the story reformed in Mélanie's mind, like cards with plot points. Or fragments of evidence in an investigation. "And then the tension of exactly what Ginette is thinking about it hangs over the whole play. Simon, that's brilliant."
Simon grinned. "Just shifting your brilliant words about."
The boards of the stage creaked as Mélanie's children, Colin and Jessica, played hide and seek in the wings with Amy and Jamie Craven, the younger of Simon's four wards. And then there was another creak from the front of the house, and the patter of feet. Mélanie tensed at the memory of the body she and the children had discovered in the wings of the Tavistock less than a year ago.
The footsteps pounded closer. A cloaked figure ran down the aisle.
"Mélanie." Nan Lucan stopped at the edge of the stage, breathing hard, the hood of her cherry red cloak thrown back, her curly dark hair slipping from its pins and falling round her face. "Robby's been arrested."
Mélanie sprang to her feet.
"Is he in the Tower?" Jessica ran to the edge of the stage.
"Probably Newgate." Colin wrapped his arms round his little sister before she could tumble into the pit.
"Not yet." Nan gripped the edge of the stage and boosted herself up. "I think he's still at Bow Street."
"With Uncle Jeremy?" Colin asked.
"I don't know." Nan's hands slipped on the wood.
Simon ran forwards and helped her up onto the stage. "What's the charge?"
"Shooting. At the Duke of Wellington's carriage." Nan's gaze shot to Simon, scouring his face for answers to an unspoken question.
Simon bent to scoop up four-year-old Jamie, who had hurtled into his knees. "Robby's come to some Leveller meetings." The Levellers were a group dedicated to reform that centered round the theatre, and they were firmly behind Queen Caroline. "But however we may skirt the law, we don't advocate violence. And I haven't heard Robby give any indication that he does."
"He's been set up," Nan said. "But even if he hasn't—"
Mélanie tightened her arms round her children, who had run to her side. "We have to get him out."
Malcolm Rannoch took a drink of wine and turned over the last of the papers on the table before him. "It's a good speech, Henry."
Henry Brougham picked up the decanter of Bordeaux and refilled their glasses. "It needs to be better than good. It needs to be the most bloody brilliant speech I've ever given. And yes, I have a healthy respect for my own speeches."
"You could feel the restlessness in the chamber by the time the prosecution wrapped up." Julien Mallinson, whom Malcom could still not quite get used to remembering was Lord Carfax and therefore one of those presiding over the queen's trial, scanned the first page of the speech again. "It was quite entertaining watching you shred prosecution witnesses to bits. Even some Tories are calling the prosecution's witness the non mi ricordos. Much of the king's case is already discredited."
"Much, not all." Brougham leaned forwards, shirtsleeved elbows on the polished cherrywood of the table. His coat dangled by one shoulder over the chair behind him. "We still don't have the votes. There are more Tories in Parliament than Whigs. It comes down to politics in the end. My case has to be good enough to give enough Tories cover to vote with us. They've got to feel they'd be fools to see the situation any way but in the queen's favor." He tossed down a drink of Bordeaux. "Take a pen to it."
Malcolm looked back at the draft speech. He too was in his shirtsleeves, as was Julien. The three of them had been closeted in the sitting room at Brooks's for over an hour. "I'm not a barrister."
"I need another eye. And you're the only one of my colleagues who may possibly write better than I do."
Malcolm reached for his glass, gaze on the speech. "That's mostly Mélanie."
Julien slouched back in his chair. "Mélanie's a brilliant writer, but you're not bad yourself, Malcolm."
"And together you're a force to be reckoned with." Brougham frowned. "Why isn't Mélanie here?"
"We're at Brooks's," Malcolm pointed out.
"That's a point." Brougham stretched out his legs. "Stupid club conventions. We should meet in Berkeley Square."
"She's at the Tavistock," Malcolm said. "Plays don't stop premiering just because Parliament and the royal family and the British populace are turned on their heads."
Brougham nudged the speech closer to Malcolm with the edge of his glass. "Take it home and see how the two of you can sharpen it."
Malcolm took the papers and folded them. Brougham was set to open the queen's defense on charges of carrying on "a most unbecoming and disgusting intimacy" with her courier Bartolomeo Bergami. As Julien said, Brougham had done an able job cross-examining during the prosecution's case, but as Brougham had pointed out, they still did not have the votes. The Tories, the governing party, were backing the king, largely out of self-preservation to stay in power. The Whigs were backing the queen for the reverse reason. Many of them believed in her constitutional rights, but they also had hopes of bringing down the Tory government. And Brougham, a noted Radical, was leading the charge. Because it could further his ambitions, personally and in terms of what he could achieve for reform. And just possibly also because he cared about the queen. "We'll see what we can do."
Brougham nodded. "Thank you." The ring in his voice was heartfelt. "If—"
The door opened to admit one of the Brooks's footmen. "Forgive me, Lord Carfax. Mr. Rannoch. Mr. Brougham. There's a gentleman—"
"I need to see Carfax. And Rannoch." A broad-shouldered man pushed past the footman.
It was Sam Lucan, former gun dealer who had worked with Mélanie in the Peninsula. And then turned broker of various mostly illegal things in St. Giles. He was now semi-legitimate and also a good friend. "I need your help." Sam looked from Julien to Malcolm without even glancing at Brougham. "Robby's been arrested."
"What?" Julien pushed back his chair, nearly toppling it onto the Axminster rug. Robby Simcox, whose sister Nan was married to Sam, was in his employ as a groom.
Malcolm nodded at the footman to withdraw. "Why?"
"Shooting at the Duke of Wellington, they say."
"Oh, for God's sake," Julien said.
Brougham pushed himself to his feet. "Simcox was protesting?"
"Well, yes. Robby doesn't like what the duke stands for—"
"No argument there from me," Brougham said.
"But he wouldn't shoot a gun at him."
"No, Robby's too sensible to shoot at anyone these days," Julien said.
"Wellington's been damned intractable lately," Brougham said. "I can imagine someone shooting at him. There are moments—quite a few of them, actually—when I'd find myself more than in sympathy with someone who wanted to shoot at him." He glanced at Malcolm. "Sorry."
"Is the duke all right?" Malcolm asked. He had worked with Wellington in the Peninsula, during the Waterloo campaign, and in Paris after Waterloo, as a diplomat and an intelligence agent. He and the duke were poles apart politically, but he liked Wellington. Mélanie would claim he'd never entirely get past his loyalty to the duke. Malcolm wasn't sure he agreed, but he certainly wished no harm on Wellington. Or on anyone.
"He wasn't hit," Sam said. "But the bullet struck someone else. Not sure of the name. He's with a doctor. And God yes, I'm sorry, for the man, but a doctor's seeing to him. Now we need someone to make sure Robby doesn't hang."
"He won't." Julien grabbed his coat from the back of his chair.
Malcolm reached for his own coat. "I'll go to Bow Street. Brougham—"
"Go," Brougham said. "I'm a lawyer. I know when a case is urgent."
Bet stared at Alistair Rannoch. Sandy's father. The man who seemingly held her brother's fate in his hands. "What do you want me to do?"
Alistair Rannoch sat back in his chair, as though it were the sort of leather arm chair that she imagined men like him lounged in in clubs instead of straight-backed wood with cracked slats, and took a sip of brandy. "Merely what we both know you're going to have to do sooner or later in any case. Leave Alexander to get on with his life."
She should have seen it coming. A part of her had seen it coming from the moment he first tried to blackmail her. Her fingers tightened round her own glass. "If it's inevitable, why go to such lengths?"
"Alexander's a romantic. He'll drag it out."
"You don't know him." Her voice came out sharper than she intended.
"Just because I haven't hovered over him the way Raoul O'Roarke has over Malcolm doesn't mean I haven't had reports on him all his life."
A chill cut through her. Strange that anything else could be frightening beside the threat to Robby, but the thought of this man, who she hadn't known had any connection to Sandy until little over a year ago, whom Sandy hadn't known he had a connection to himself, watching over Sandy and getting reports on him cut like icy air in winter when one couldn't afford coal.
Alistair Rannoch picked up the bottle and refilled both their glasses. "If he drags his feet he'll miss out on opportunities in life."
"What sort of opportunities?"
"My dear Miss Simcox. You can hardly expect me to confide in you. But if you want what's best for Alexander and your brother, you'll do as I ask. I can make sure you don't want for creature comforts."
"Do you think I care—"
"I do you the credit of thinking you're hardheaded enough to have a care for your future. Sandy may have delusions about the future—or more likely ignore it entirely—but surely you are too sensible to see anything lasting in a relationship that wouldn't thrive in the most romanticized novel. You must know it's only a matter of time before this ends. End it now and I can protect your brother and see to it neither of you wants for anything."
"How can you protect Robby if he's been arrested?"
"I may be presumed dead, but I can still bring influence to bear. It would be enough to get your brother released."
"Or to keep him imprisoned."
"As you say."
Bet forced her glass to her lips and took a swallow. It burned a trail down her throat. "Are you saying you'll do all that if I simply give you my word I'll leave Sandy?"
"My dear Miss Simcox. I rarely do anything based on anyone's word. Even that of a fellow gentleman."
"So you'll hardly take mine. What then?"
Alistair Rannoch folded his arms across his chest. "I have great faith in your ingenuity, Miss Simcox. Surely you can find a way to make your decision clear to Sandy. And to me."
Chapter 3
Malcolm scanned the Brown Bear tavern as he and Julien stepped over the threshold. Hopkins, one of the patrols, had told them Jeremy Roth was at the Brown Bear and that Robby Simcox was being held upstairs. The Brown Bear served almost as an extension of the Bow Street Public Office.
He caught sight of Roth in the shadows on the far side of the tavern, at a table, long legs stretched out, shoulders hunched as he bent over his notebook.
"Thank God you're here," Malcolm said, when he and Julien had picked their way across the room.
Roth pushed himself to his feet. "I was about to send to Berkeley Square. I've only just got the details. I'm not the one who brought him in."
"How bad is the case?" Julien asked, dragging out a chair as they all sat round the table.
"He was found near the pistol, and several witnesses have informed against him. But a lot of it's circumstantial." Roth cast a glance round. A number of men Malcolm recognized as runners and patrols were huddled at other tables. "Everyone's on edge right now with the trial and the protests. Wellington's involved. Obviously they want to find someone to punish and to be able to say we've got the perpetrator in custody. But it's more than that." Roth leaned forwards, his voice a rough whisper. "Pressure's been brought to bear. To arrest Simcox and to pursue the case against him."
"From whom?" Malcolm asked.
"I don't know." Roth's mouth tightened. "I haven't been able to discover it."
"Simcox was set up," Julien said.
Roth regarded him in the flickering lamplight. "You seem very sure."
"I am. I know him. And yes, I know a number of people capable of all sorts of criminal acts. Simcox wouldn't do this. Whatever your opinion of me, I'm a reasonable judge of character."
Roth gave a faint grin. "I have an excellent opinion of you, Carfax."
"God, can't you call me Julien?"
"When my superiors aren't present to look askance at me." Roth flipped a page in his notebook. "I understand Simcox had been to protests before."
"Yes, I know he had. He talked quite freely about it. Half London have done the same."
"People can do things in a crowd they'd never do on their own," Roth said. "I saw that in battle."
"But the crowd weren't firing pistols," Julien said. "It's rare for anyone in London to fire a pistol in the general run of things. And Simcox doesn't have a pistol."
"Could he have stolen it from you?"
"We only have one in the house, and I keep it locked up. We have young children. I'm sure you appreciate that."
"Quite," said Roth, who had children himself. "But there are any number of other ways he could have acquired a weapon. I know he used to associate with quite a different crowd in St. Giles."
"Whose side are you on?" Julien demanded.
"I'm trying to explore all the options. And see if I can pick apart the case against him by defending it."
Julien inclined his head. "Start with your opponent's perspective. Good spycraft."
"Who are the witnesses?" Malcolm asked.
Roth flipped to another page. "An assortment of those in the crowd. One of the Apsley House footmen. They seem solid on the surface, but all sorts of people can be paid to say all sorts of things. And Lady Fitzroy Somerset."
"Harriet was in the carriage?" Malcolm asked. Harriet Somerset, Wellington's neice, was married to Fitzroy Somerset, who had been the duke's secretary since the Peninsula and was a good friend of Malcolm's.
"She and Fitzroy Somerset and their daughter were in the carriage with the duke," Roth said. "I understand the little girl is—"
