At midday, Trace set out in his stepfather’s coach, heading to his mother’s family estate in Northampton. He had intended to sleep longer, but his feather bed offered little respite from the discomfort of his mind. As soon as his servant brought word that Elizabeth had survived the night he had packed up and said his good-byes to his stepfather. He stared out of the window at Claegburn Woods. This time, he would not come back.
The day was bright and fair, a perfect day for an imperfect purpose. He cursed the blasted sunshine, wishing instead for dark thunderous clouds, wild winds, and a thrashing rain. In answer, birds twittered inanely.
The coach bumped unexpectedly and lurched to the side, skidding to a halt. A smooth road. Nothing there to break an axle on. He’d ridden down this road ten dozen times in the past weeks. What could be amiss? He peered out of the window and then closed his eyes tight, falling back against his seat, astonished. He must be dreaming, still in his bed, and this simply another fitful nightmare.
But no, he was wide awake and this was unbelievably real.
He flung the door open and charged out of the coach ready to strangle them—one and all. “This is outside of enough! Are you mad? It’s broad daylight! You’re bound to be seen. And who’s taking care of Elizabeth?”
Bertie stood unmoved, black eye mask, absurd beard, a cocked French cap, and a rather capable looking over-and-under pointed directly at him. “Stand and deliver.”
“Deliver what? Have your wits gone begging? I have no jewels. If you wanted blunt, I would gladly have obliged you without this charade.”
“Quiet.” She growled, and then gestured with her pistol. “Turn around. Do as I say. I’m not above putting a vent in your spleen.”
“Have at it.” He opened his arms wide. “I don’t give a fig if you do.”
From the rear of the coach, he heard a familiar old voice rasp. “Stop yammering with him and get on with it. Can’t stand here all day. I’ve got mending to attend to.” Trace turned to find Rose, in black pantaloons, a purple satin sash with eyeholes tied around her head, her hair waving wildly like a white bush, as she bound the footman’s hands.
Trace shook his head in disbelief. “Heavens above, Bertie. What did you do? Bring them all?”
Lavinnia, scarcely disguised in a pirate’s bandanna and mask, toddled toward him. “I don’t usually come. Thought I’d better this time, what with Lizzy . . . Oh, but that’s the point, isn’t it?” She waggled her foil in his direction. “Come along without a fuss.”
He heard light footfalls on the top of the coach. That, he suspected, must be one of the twins. Clad in black men’s garb, a small figure leapt nimbly down from the top of the coach. Bonnie.
Bertie hissed to the girl under her breath. “Did you pay them?”
“Oui!” Bonnie grinned, beneath a crooked beard. “I thought we agreed to tie this one up as well.”
“Mad as hatters, all of you. Reasonable human beings do not behave in this manner. Women, most of all. You’re supposed to be the gentler sex—”
Nana Rose grumbled. “Get on with it. Don’t feel like standing here all day listening to him prose on.”
“Turn around.” Bertie prodded Trace’s shoulder.
What ought I do? What can I do, aside from thrashing the lot of them—widows, spinsters, and chits? Hardly the gentlemanly thing. He shook his head and turned around.
Lavinnia nudged him in the side with her foil, obviously unaware of the sharpness of the point. “Bend down. I can’t reach. I’m supposed to put this wretched sack over your head. Now there’s a good lad.”
A good lad. Lunatics. Am I nine? And this a parlor game? They bound his hands securely and shrouded his head in one of the highwayman’s infamous black hoods.
It was a dark bumpy trip in the back of their old dogcart. He hadn’t the least notion why they bothered to hide his eyes. From the turns and condition of the roads, he knew exactly where they were taking him. What he could not comprehend was their purpose.
“Do you think I don’t know where we are?” When they arrived at the dower house, they led him upstairs. “Did she die? Is that it? Is this retribution? If so, I welcome it. Do your worst. I deserve to be punished for not seeing what was directly under my nose. I failed her. Failed my stepfather. Chased a phantom that didn’t exist.”
The dower house thieves were oddly silent. They locked him in a closet. Bound and blind. What were they planning? Did they intend to leave him here to rot? He could, without a doubt, wrestle his hands free of the ropes and kick the door down. Instead, he sagged against the wall. What did it matter? If, indeed, Lizzy had died, he may as well follow suit. Weariness settled into his soul. He closed his eyes hoping sleep would take him. However, like his fitful struggle the previous night, he found no pardon in the darkness.
Time amassed itself in indecipherable clumps. When they finally opened the door, he didn’t know if it had been two days or two hours. Only his bladder marked the time, and it was full. “I need to relieve myself.”
“In a moment,” came the delicate reply. Blythe. She led him gently by the hand, and he wondered if the girl was helping him escape, or if she was merely following orders from the madwomen of the dower house.
“Where are you taking me?”
“To wash up and make ready.” She loosened the hood and slid it up over his head.
The sudden rush of daylight blinded him more than the darkness had. “Make ready for what?”
Blythe untied his hands without answering. “You will find everything you need here. Your word, sir, that you won’t climb out the window?”
He made no promise. He’d jolly well climb out of this madhouse if, and when, he pleased.
She shrugged and she left him standing in the small bedroom, in the welcome company of a chamber pot and a washstand.
Bertie scratched at the door before she burst in. “Excellent. You’re up and about. No worse for the wear, I see.”
She behaved as if nothing were amiss, as if he’d been taking a nap, and this merely a dream run amok. It was entirely possible that his coach had skidded sideways and crashed. Perhaps, he’d hit his head, and was experiencing a convoluted delusion. He remembered wounded soldiers in their stupors, crying out at invisible dragons and fantastic monsters. A shame his infertile mind could only drum up a gaggle of barmy women.
Lavinnia ambled into the room carrying a bundle, which she plopped on the bed. “Everything is ready. Let’s see if these fit.”
She held a long black gown up to his shoulders. “Oh dear, he’s broader than I anticipated.”
Bertie snorted. “It’ll do. Only for one day, after all.”
“What is it for?” Trace couldn’t keep the snarl out of his voice. “Burial garb?”
“Oh, good heavens, no.” Lavinnia twittered. Her faded gold ringlets bounced ridiculously under her mobcap. “Although, I suppose, if you think of it, in one fashion it may well signify a death.”
“Enough jabbering. Put the robe on him.” Bertie reached for a lump of wadding and shook it out. “Lord Mulvern will be here shortly.”
“Mulvern! Blast it all, Bertie! What does my stepfather have to do with any of this? One thing to waylay me, but if you’ve harmed one hair on his—”
Bertie held up her hand. “Arriving on his own accord. And I’ll thank you to mind your tongue around gentlewomen, young man.” She glanced pointedly at Lavinnia.
The widow smiled graciously at him and shook out the black cloak. “Oh, never mind that. Bound to be overwrought, isn’t he?”
Overwrought? He laughed sourly. Am I overwrought, or on the verge of joining your ranks and becoming a bedlamite myself? He allowed plump little Lavinnia to slide the garment on his arms, tug, and adjust it to fit his shoulders.
“That will suffice.” Bertie prodded him forward. “Across the hall with you then.”
They led him into the parlor.
“Lizzy!” Alive. Thank God! A part of his heart sprang back to life. At least, in all this madness, there was good news.
She sat in a peculiar enclosure, a square table turned on its side, boxing her in. Elizabeth lowered her head, averting her eyes from his, arm and shoulder bound in white bandages, her pallor ashen. She should be in bed.
The rest of the room had been oddly rearranged. Bertie guided him toward the far end, where a small desk sat, each of the legs propped up on a stack of books. The old Elizabethan chair Bertie was so fond of sat behind it raised up on an old woodbin.
“Sit.” Bertie ordered.
He recognized the tableau then, and guessed their plan. They’d arranged the chairs to mimic a magistrate’s court. Elizabeth sat in a makeshift dock. And Bertie was directing him to the judge’s bench.
“I’ll have no part in this.” He shoved back and bumped into the wall.
Bertie folded her arms across her sagging bosom. “You will step up and do your duty, or do I have to get out my blunderbuss?”
Two could play at this intimidation game. He crossed his arms and towered over her. “You may choose whichever weapon from your arsenal you desire. I. Won’t. Do. It.”
Lavinnia patted his arm, as if he was a small boy she could cajole into behaving properly. “You won’t do what, dear?”
“Judge. Judge her. I won’t.”
“You already have, I’d say.” Bertie muttered, while fiddling with the wadding in the wig she held.
“She’s right, you know.” Earnestness sat oddly on Lavinnia’s normally cheery face. “The least you can do is finish the job.”
Rose snarled at him from the doorway. “Unless you’re a coward.”
He held his roiling temper in check. “This is nonsense! If you insist on judgment, call a magistrate.”
“We have. He should arrive at any moment.” Bertie held up the wig as if sizing it to his head.
He glared at her, too late remembering exactly who the magistrate was.
Lavinnia smiled at him. “Naturally, we all hold our magistrate in high esteem, but do you think your step-papa would be able to send the women of his own house to Newgate?”
“Humph. I say, he would do it in a trice.” Nana Rose snapped her fingers.
Lavinnia shook her head mournfully. “No. It would break the dear man’s heart. It falls to you, Trace. You are the only one who can judge fairly.”
“Fairly? Me? How can I possibly judge her fairly? Don’t you know—”
“Yes. Are you daft? Of course, we know.” Nana Rose marched toward him. “Lavinnia’s idea to put you up to this. Any fool could tell you loved Lizzy. Saved the gel’s life, didn’t you? But you also had the backbone to turn your back on her because of her crimes.”
“Don’t you see?” Lavinnia asked brightly, as if it were simple mathematics, the adding of two numbers to arrive at a sum.
Only he did not see. This was some convoluted female logic designed to muddle a man’s thinking – like Eve convincing Adam to take a bite. They surrounded him, an army of irrational females.
Bertie tried to elucidate. “Being a military man, you’re the only one who wouldn’t whitewash it. You go by the rules, don’t you, lad?”
He frowned. They were trying to trick him. Even so, this line of reasoning tempted him too much not to refine upon it for this merry band of thieves. “Without laws, society would be intolerable. Ruthless. Anarchy. No one, not even you, ladies, would be safe without the rule of law.”
“Exactly.” Lavinnia nodded. “And yet, you didn’t report our Lizzy.”
His breath seemed to hang up in his neck somewhere. He glanced uncomfortably at the docks and caught Elizabeth peering attentively in his direction. She hastened to look away.
Trace didn’t know what to say.
“That’s how we know you’re the perfect man to act as judge. ‘Justice tempered with mercy.’ Mr. Milton said that.” Lavinnia seemed quite pleased with herself.
“Shakespeare,” Nana Rose corrected.
“Oh, no, I’m quite certain it’s Mr. Milton.”
“No matter.” Rose waved away her daughter-in-law’s protestations. “Point is, the silly girl won’t eat.” She nodded in Lizzy’s direction. “She’s lost the will to live. We can’t force her to get well, now can we? This is the only way.”
“Yes. We’ve all agreed.” Lavinnia’s head bobbed sagely. “After you hear our case, we’ll abide by your decision, no matter what it is. We trust you’ll choose the wisest course. If you think we should turn ourselves in, we will. They might hang us. But, I rather think, it would be deportation.”
Bertie brightened. “Australia. Whales in that hemisphere. I wouldn’t mind seeing another part of the world—”
“Bertie!” Nana Rose snapped.
“It would be a terrible burden to leave this task upon your stepfather’s shoulders.” Lavinnia took the old parliamentary wig from Bertie and held it up to Trace. “Will you do it? For Lizzy’s sake?”