Epilogue
The banns were called the very next Sunday, and by the following week—despite Lady Upton’s repeated observations that civilization itself might not survive such haste—the date of the wedding was fixed.
In the wake of events which had so nearly placed Francesca’s name in proximity to treason, it had been universally agreed—by those whose opinions carried weight, and by several whose opinions did not—that the most efficient means of securing her reputation was to place it immediately under the protection of a name that required no defence.
The name of the Upton family, it appeared, would answer admirably.
“It is not,” Lady Upton had declared, upon receiving the intelligence, “that I object to Francesca.”
Francesca, who had been summoned to hear this pronouncement in person, inclined her head with what she hoped was appropriate humility.
“Of course not,” Arch murmured beside her, with a composure that suggested long familiarity with such declarations.
Lady Upton cast him a look of mild reproof. “It is the timing I object to,” she continued. “One does not, as a rule, conduct a wedding in the shadow of a national scandal. It suggests a want of proper planning.”
Francesca could not help herself. “Next time we will be certain to consult the conspirators before arranging our next engagement, will we not, Arch?”
Arch made a sound which might, under charitable interpretation, have been a cough.
Lady Upton regarded her for a moment, as though reassessing the opposition.
“Well, you are not without spirit,” she said at last.
“She is not,” Arch agreed.
“You might, however, remember that spirit is not always an advantage in a wife,” she scolded.
“I find it preferable to its absence,” he responded.
Francesca glanced at him. He did not appear to regret the remark.
Lady Upton sighed, as though accepting a defeat she had anticipated from the first.
“Very well, if it must be done, it must be done, but I shall insist upon at least some degree of propriety.” She sighed as though she felt much put upon. The degree, thankfully, was limited.
During the month between the engagement and the wedding, Arch and his troop had travelled to Devon to assist in something clandestine to do with one of their number, called Chum.
The details, when Francesca had pressed him for them, had been conveyed with admirable vagueness and a degree of charm that did not quite disguise the fact that he intended to tell her nothing at all.
“This is to be my life, is it not?” she said one evening, as she folded a letter he had sent her from Devonshire.
“It will be only a part of it,” he replied in his next letter.
She smiled at that, though she could not entirely deny the truth of her earlier thought.
This was what it would mean to marry him: absences without explanation, dangers hinted at but never fully disclosed, and a loyalty to duties which would, at times, take him far from her.
She considered it carefully. Then, with a reasonableness that surprised even herself, she determined that having him when she could was infinitely preferable to having him not at all.
The wedding was a small, private affair, but not nearly so solemn as might have been expected.
The small church had been chosen precisely because it discouraged spectacle; nevertheless, it was not empty.
Sir Percival stood ready, composed though watchful, his arm offered to his niece with a familiarity that conveyed more than any speech might have done.
Nelly hovered, her eyes suspiciously bright.
Lord and Lady Upton, along with Lord Dandridge and Arch’s younger sister, Lucy, who had been sent for from school for the occasion, took their places on one side of the church.
Then there were Arch’s friends, who took up the other side.
Francesca had been introduced to them only in fragments before, under circumstances that allowed little leisure for observation; now, gathered together in the mild chill of the church, they presented a very different impression—no less formidable, perhaps, but undeniably more human.
The ceremony began before any further commentary could be offered.
Sir Percival led her forward. For a brief moment, as they approached the altar, Francesca felt again the weight of all that had preceded this day—the uncertainty, the danger, the choices made in haste and necessity—and yet, as she glanced towards Arch and saw him standing there with that same composed steadiness she had come to recognize, she found that the weight did not oppress her as she might once have feared.
“You are quite certain?” Sir Percival murmured, so quietly that only she could hear.
“Quite,” she answered with a smile.
“Very well,” he replied, and though his tone remained even, there was a depth of feeling beneath it that required no elaboration.
He placed her hand in Arch’s, and the rest seemed to unfold with a quiet inevitability, as though the path to that moment had been determined long before either of them had understood it.
The words were spoken, the vows made, and though Francesca was aware, in some distant and orderly part of her mind, of the responses required of her, of the cadence and structure of the ceremony, what she felt most keenly was the unyielding certainty in his voice as Arch spoke, and the answering assurance within herself as she replied.
When it was over, there was a subtle easing of tension within, and the unmistakable sense that something which had begun under the most improbable of circumstances had now been rendered irrevocable.
“Well, that was disappointingly respectable,” Baines said as he congratulated them before they departed.
Renforth gave the faintest inclination of his head. “Welcome to our little troop, Mrs. Manners. If it is not already apparent, you have acquired a family of the most inconvenient description.”
“I begin to suspect it,” she said.
Arch turned to her. “Allow me to make the introductions properly.”
Captain Edmund Cholmely—Chum, as they called him—stood among them, and though she had been told he was the most jovial of the group, little of that quality was in evidence that morning.
There was a restraint about him, a shadow where levity ought to have been, as though some private grief had not yet relinquished its hold.
Had something happened to him in Devonshire?
When he bowed to her, it was with warmth, but also with a quiet gravity that made her instinctively return it with equal sincerity.
Arch led her first to him. “Captain Edmund Cholmely, now Lord Ormond.”
“Chum will do, thank you.” Chum bowed over her hand, his expression brightening just slightly. “I regret I was not here to meet you sooner.”
“I am glad to meet you at last,” she said.
He smiled then, faint but genuine. “Then I shall endeavour to deserve the sentiment.”
Stuart stood with his wife, Patience, whose warmth of manner contrasted pleasantly with her husband’s dry humour.
“I shall expect you to call upon me,” Patience said with genuine enthusiasm. “We must establish a proper society of wives who are never told anything.”
“It sounds exclusive,” Francesca remarked.
“There are but three members so far,” Stuart added.
Nearby, Fielding stood with his wife, Merry, both quieter in their welcome but no less sincere. Merry’s smile, though gentle, carried an understanding that required no explanation. Francesca liked her at once.
“I believe,” Merry said softly, “we shall all contrive to manage them.”
“I am full of good suggestions,” Patience added.
Francesca glanced towards Arch. “I have no doubt of it.”
“We are glad of you,” Merry said simply.
Francesca smiled. “As am I of you.”
As they stepped out into the pale light beyond the church, with the quiet murmur of their small assembly behind them and the future—unexpected, inconvenient, and entirely welcome—before them, Francesca found that she did not regret, in the least, the haste with which everything had been arranged.
For once, it seemed, urgency had been entirely in her favour.
In contrast, the trial, when it came, was anything but quiet.
London, which had already begun to tire of speculation, revived its interest with remarkable vigour once the proceedings were made public.
The conspiracy, which had existed in rumour and fragments of intelligence, was now laid out in full: the plan to attack the Cabinet, the intended assassinations, the capture of the conspirators in the loft on Cato Street.
Names were spoken openly. Evidence was presented with a thoroughness that left little room for doubt.
Francesca attended court on one day only. She had not been required to do so, and she found it exceedingly painful.
Indeed, it had been determined that her presence would serve no useful purpose, as there was already sufficient testimony to establish her lack of involvement.
Kendall’s own statements, together with those of the informant and the men taken with him, had made it abundantly clear that whatever role she had played in his affairs had been entirely incidental, and, more importantly, unwitting.
She was, in the eyes of the court, not a participant, merely a witness. Even that, it seemed, was unnecessary.
“I am relieved,” she remarked to Arch upon learning this, “to discover that my reputation may be preserved without my assistance.”
“You have already assisted sufficiently,” he said.
“In what manner? I believe they incriminated themselves without my help.”
“In creating the urgency and means for Kendall to further his scheme,” he replied.
She considered that. “I should not have thought it so. The dinner gave them opportunity.”
“I have often found such matters to be not one thing alone, but the culmination of several.”
The trial itself was as grave as the outcome was inevitable.
Arthur Thistlewood stood among the principal figures, his earlier fervour replaced by a self-possession that, if not dignified, was at least controlled. Others appeared less composed, their confidence having deserted them entirely once the reality of their situation became unavoidable.
Francesca saw Kendall only once.
He was altered. The restless assurance she had once known for charm had been stripped away, leaving behind a man who appeared older, harsher, and diminished by the collapse of the vision to which he had so fervently attached himself.
When his gaze moved across the room and, for a fleeting instant, met hers, she did not look away.
She did not pity him, nor did she hate him… she understood him. That, she found, was something altogether different.
“He will not hang,” Arch told her later.
“No?”
“No.”
The decision had been made with care. Though many of the conspirators faced the full severity of the law, there were distinctions drawn—degrees of involvement, considerations of evidence, active violence, and, in some cases, the practical advantage of making examples in different ways.
Kendall, it seemed, would not be counted among those examples chosen for immediate execution.
“He is to be transported,” Arch said.
“Where will he be sent?”
“To Botany Bay, most likely.”
She was silent for a moment.
“To begin again,” she said softly.
Arch glanced at her. “In a manner of speaking.”
She inclined her head. “I wonder,” she said, “if he will find the fairness he so admired.”
“Do you?”
“I certainly hope so,” she said, wishing the same for England.