Chapter Thirteen #2
Constable Boyle unlocked the cell door and dumped the tray so unceremoniously that the ale slopped onto it.
“Five minutes,” he growled. “Then you’re up before the justice of the peace. Both of you.”
“Uh-oh,” Rupert murmured. Bending, he took up a chunk of bread from the sopping tray and lifted one of the tin cups before using his foot to ease the tray toward Salter.
“Never tell me they’re going through with this nonsense,” Salter said in clear disgust. “What are they thinking of? Sending down a man of God!”
“Worry about your own case,” the constable advised, plonking himself down on the chair by the door.
“Floods receded, have they?” Rupert asked, and took a bite of the now-ale-flavored stale bread.
“Not fully.”
Then either the magistrate had decided he couldn’t wait any longer to move Rupert…
or Kate had sent word to Winster as soon as he was locked up, and the old gentleman was here chewing out Remington’s heart.
Neither seemed a good outcome. The younger Kate wouldn’t have blabbed against Rupert’s wishes.
But her first loyalty could no longer be to him.
It was to her husband. Which caused a very odd twinge of regret.
Time changed everything, good and bad.
Although Salter clearly had no appetite, he was systematically consuming the bread and ale. A soldier never had any idea when his next meal would be, so he was used to eating at every opportunity. As, Rupert supposed, were vagrants.
Constable Boyle stomped across the room, his keys clanking. His colleague had entered from the inside stairs.
“No trouble now. This is important,” Boyle said sternly as he unlocked the cell door. “Out you come.”
Rupert drained his cup and set it on the tray before slouching into his coat and sauntering out of the cell after Salter.
They were marched up the inner staircase between the two constables, and like some stage comedy, they all walked up each other’s heels when the lead constable stopped suddenly outside the magistrate’s room.
Rupert wanted to laugh, although it wasn’t really funny.
Not if Winster was here—Don’t be here, don’t be here—nor even if he was not.
Rupert wasn’t sure how he would fare in a real gaol. Not well, he suspected, although it would certainly be an experience, and an opportunity. He focused on that opportunity.
“You first,” Boyle said, pushing Rupert forward. He thumped the door once and stuck his head in. “Ready for us, your honor?”
“Yes, yes, bring him in,” came Remington’s impatient reply.
Boyle opened the door wide and stood aside, waving Rupert in.
“Good luck, sir,” Salter muttered.
Rupert paused to shake the sergeant’s hand. “You too.”
And then he was in the magistrate’s room, with the constable rigidly at attention in front of the door, and Remington himself glowering from his desk. They were not the only people in the room.
Lord Chadbon was seated some yards in front of the magistrate’s desk. And beside him was Kate.
At least there was no sign of Winster.
Boyle prodded Rupert forward. There was no time for more than a quick interrogative flicker of his eyebrows before he walked past Kate and stood before Remington. Again, he felt like a schoolboy hauled up to the headmaster for the umpteenth time.
“Mr. Grande,” Remington said, “I hope you understand exactly why you were arrested and charged with this heinous crime.”
Since it was not a question, Rupert did not respond. He was beyond the days of shuffling his feet with discomfort.
The magistrate continued. “The fact that new evidence tends in your favor should not detract from the reasons I had to detain you at the time.”
Where the devil is this going? What new evidence?
“Mr. Grande, you are free to go.”
Rupert blinked.
“Knock me down with a feather,” he said to no one in particular.
A gurgle of laughter came from behind him, hastily cut off. Kate, of course.
His lips twitched. “Thank you, Mr. Remington. I’ll stay for your next case, if I may, and, by your favor, speak on the sergeant’s behalf.”
Now it was Remington’s turn to look baffled. But he clearly felt unable to turn down the request. He waved somewhat feebly toward Chadbon and Kate.
“Chair for Mr. Grande,” he commanded. “Then bring in the drunk.”
Boyle marched across the room, moved a straight-backed chair, and set it beside Lord Chadbon before stalking to the door.
Rupert strolled to the chair, trying to disguise the unexpected weakness of his knees.
Relief, he supposed. He wanted to grin at Kate, who looked pretty and summery and fresh as a daisy in a sky-blue gown and ivory spencer.
She wore a fetching, wide-brimmed ivory bonnet tied with ribbons of the same shade of blue.
She cast him a quick, conspiratorial smile, but somehow, he couldn’t smile back. The sight of her seemed to hurt.
So he sat beside Chadbon and said, “What new evidence?”
Chadbon’s face shuttered.
“Tell him, my lord,” Kate advised in a stage whisper.
Rather to Rupert’s surprise, Chadbon did. “Someone shot at Lady Ambrose last night.”
“What?” Now, it seemed, he had no difficulty staring at Kate. His ears were singing.
“I’m fine,” she said carelessly. “The shot missed. But clearly, the culprit was not you, and everyone thinks it thoroughly unlikely that we have two murderers in these environs.”
Rupert closed his mouth. He had no words.
Vaguely, he was aware of Salter marching in as though he were on the parade ground, which at least jerked him back into awareness of his duties.
“Name?” Remington snapped.
“Samuel Salter, sir.”
“Charged with being drunk and disorderly,” he read from his notes. “How do you plead?”
“Guilty, sir.”
“Then—”
Rupert rose to his feet. “If I might speak for this man, sir?”
“Oh, very well,” Remington said crossly. “But please be brief.”
“I shall. This man is known to me. Sergeant Salter of the 95th Rifle Regiment, whom I first met just after the Battle of Waterloo—where, as you see, he was severely injured. I know for a fact his army record is exemplary, and that he is one of the heroes without whom there would have been no victory on that day, or on many previous days.”
“The charge is one of drunkenness and disorderly behavior,” Remington snapped. “To which the accused has already pleaded guilty.”
“I don’t dispute his guilt. I ask only for understanding and leniency in his sentencing—since he has hardly been shown any in his welcome home to the country he served through seven arduous years of war.
Sir, after sacrificing so much, and returning to no work, no home, and no help, is it so surprising that he slipped into the comfort of a little too much ale? ”
Rupert turned his head and gazed at Lord Chadbon. “Should something not be done for these men who gave so much for so little acknowledgment?”
Chadbon met his gaze. The champion of the returning soldiers bill, who had made at least one speech in Parliament on the subject, even before Waterloo, had an opportunity to do something practical in the cause. And keep Rupert sweet at the same time.
He cleared his throat. “I believe, on the character provided by Mr. Grande, I can vouch for the sergeant and humbly petition your honor toward leniency.”
Remington growled deep in his throat. “Fined a shilling and dismissed.”
Rupert dug out the last few coins in his pocket and walked up to place them on the desk. Remington regarded him uneasily.
“One question for now,” Rupert said. “The night that Dinah died, I believe you were returning from a dinner engagement when His Lordship’s messenger found you. Did you encounter anyone else on the road?”
The magistrate’s jaw slackened with fresh astonishment. “No. No, I saw no one else.”
Which made it less likely that either Kit Carver or his jealous betrothed had been anywhere near Chadbon Court that night. The culprit had to be someone in the house.
“Actually, two questions. Dinah owned a silver necklace, a little figurine of a dancer on a chain. Was it found on her body?” A wave of fresh grief surged through Rupert, shaking him all over again. Even the words “her body” seemed obscene.
Remington closed his mouth, utterly baffled now. “No. Nothing like that, according to Dr. Paxton.”
Rupert turned away and found Salter grinning at him.
“Did I get off?”
“We both got off,” Rupert replied. “And I’m going to need your help.”
*