Chapter Eighteen
AT NEWGATE, ONE received a remarkably different reception with a duke and a duke’s brother in tow.
Thanks to Mickey greasing numerous fists the day before, Valentin had been moved to the Stone Hall, a prison wing housing debtors and those able to pay for better accommodations.
Even so, as they were escorted along a dark passageway, there was no escaping the purpose of the place, with its grey, cold walls and the air thick with the stale scent of stone.
Time felt like a slow drip. There was no warmth here, no sense of human touch, just the dull monotony of concrete and iron.
At least now, Valentin only shared a cell with two others.
The chains around his ankles clanked behind him as, in deference to the presence of a duke, he was hauled into a private room.
Thank heavens he appeared vaguely clean.
And, judging by a resumption of his usual languid style, he had also been somewhat rested, fed, and watered.
“Tell me who you are, monsieur,” Ashington stated without preamble, whilst Fitzsimmons simply adopted the habitual glower that most chaps found themselves on the receiving end of, unless their name was Rollo Duchamps-Avery.
“Valentin Beauregard, Fifth Vicomte de Verdille.” Beauregard eyed them both coolly, as if he’d summoned the duke to his drawing room.
“Your Grace,” he added with a slight nod after a noise not dissimilar to a growl emanated from Fitzsimmons.
Mickey loved Valentin to death, but good God, the man wasn’t helping himself.
“Stop buggering about,” the duke’s brother barked. “Until you have proven yourself otherwise, you are nothing but a common thief like every other lice-ridden fiend in this damned place.”
“I heard you used to be moderately adept yourself, dear Fitzsimmons,” drawled Valentin.
“I distinctly recall one evening not so long ago at the Café de la Paix in Paris, where I was gossiping with some chaps just arrived from London. They took great delight in telling me that when you were on your uppers, you—”
“This is unhelpful.” Ashington very rarely drew upon his ducal might, but when he did so, people tended to stop and obey.
Even his brother and Valentin were not impervious.
“Let me rephrase, Beauregard. Tell me who you were prior to adopting that blasted foreign title. I need convincing pretty damn sharpish that you are not the son of a man who murdered my grandmother. Otherwise, my itchy brother here—” He jerked his chin to a thunderous Fitzsimmons. “—may do something rash.”
“His Grace has read the letter you gave me,” Mickey added testily, hoping his frown and tone were enough to get his message across. “He is here to seek clarity and may perhaps be able to assist you in clearing your name.”
“Informing us what it really is would be a start,” grumbled Fitzsimmons.
Unhurriedly, Valentin crossed his legs, the chains sliding over each other, each abrupt clink like a series of doors slamming, one by one.
“I am Valentin Beauregard-Roberts. My father is Samuel Valentine Roberts. He worked as a footman for the twelfth Duke of Ashington. More than a quarter century ago, during a shooting party held by the duke, he witnessed a private quarrel between the duchess and a much younger drunken male guest with whom it had been rumoured that she was conducting an affair. The young male guest could barely stand; in my father’s words he was ‘as sloshed as Napoleon on the eve of Waterloo, knowing he was about to get spanked’.
The quarrel ended when the guest drunkenly waved his shotgun around and, possibly accidently, shot the unarmed duchess in the belly.
At point-blank range. I swear on all that’s holy I’m telling the truth as relayed to me by my father. ”
Ashington’s hand flew to cover his mouth.
Even Fitzsimmons paled. Knowing your grandmother had been killed in cold blood was one thing, hearing the bleak account first-hand another entirely.
It was such a pithy, tawdry short tale. From his mien, even Fitzsimmons, previously convinced Beauregard had snaffled the parure, no longer seemed to question the veracity of it.
Valentin’s features softened. “You have my deepest sympathy, Your Grace. My father’s eternal regret is in not having interceded sooner. Alas, when he reached Her Grace’s side and shouted for assistance, the duchess was no more.”
“Your father would most likely have been shot too, if he had.” Ashington’s voice cracked as he shook his head. “And perhaps then we’d never have known the truth.”
And Mickey would never have known love.
“I heard my father make the same observation,” answered Valentin. “The young gentleman’s behaviour had been unpredictable all afternoon.”
Moistening his lips, he continued. “Drawn to the noise, another gentleman appeared, older, whom my father understood to be the shocked young gentleman’s own father.
” Valentin permitted himself a tiny smile.
“My father described this chap as astonishingly unperturbed by the scene unfolding. His primary concern was that a lowly servant bore witness to his son’s dreadful lapse in decorum. ”
Valentin swallowed drily, giving away that he was more moved by the ghastly tale than he was letting on.
“To cut a distressing story short, in amongst all the hoo-ha that followed, the older gentleman escorted my father to his bedchamber, threatened him with a pistol, and forced him to sign a confession to murder, with his motive being the theft of the duchess’s jewellery.
With a pistol an inch from his head, my poor petrified father had very little choice but to comply. ”
“And then the chap threw your father some blunt, ordered him to scarper, and threatened that if he ever returned to England or told his tale, his confession would be handed over to a magistrate quicker than he could say it wasn’t me, your honour,” finished Mickey.
“Correct.” Valentin threw him a grateful look. “For what it’s worth, my illiterate father can barely sign his own name, let alone pen a confession.”
“Who was this man?” Ashington demanded. “The one who shot my grandmother?”
“There were a lot of guests that weekend, and my father wasn’t privy to his name, Your Grace.
” Valentin gave a rueful smile. “He never knew, in fact. But he took his money and hastened to France on a naval boat and made a moderately happy life for himself there.” He gave a rueful shrug.
“When I became of suitable age, he told me his story, and I determined to avenge him.”
Ashington’s deep brown eyes bored into Valentin. “By finding the true murderer.”
“Yes. It has taken me many, many years and much money to track him down.”
Money earned by disreputable means, thought Mickey.
By stealing and selling the Devil’s Diamonds, amongst others, the profits buying smart manners, a title, a position in European society.
But how else could one track down a member of the ton who’d attended a shooting party decades earlier?
Especially a shooting party the host never spoke of again.
That Valentin had got this far was a minor miracle.
The whole enterprise sounded akin to finding a single particular grain of wheat in an entire field.
“How did you finally achieve it?” questioned Fitzsimmons sharply.
Valentin turned to offer him a smile. “At first, I travelled to England many times. Alas, I never came close; the former Duke of Ashington wasn’t much for society.”
“Like the present one,” muttered Ashington.
“Yes, so imagine my excitement when Fitzsimmons here—” Valentin smiled again. “—appeared in Paris one evening?”
“I told you nothing, though you plied me with liquor. I remember that evening well.”
“Precisely.” Valentin nodded. “You and your forebears are all cut from the same cloth. Thus, a year ago, I almost resigned myself to never discovering who the murderer and his father were. Then, by chance, whilst idling the summer months in Florence, I came upon Miss Amelia Chesterton. I attended a ball, whereupon the girl was wearing an unusual and striking parure, which appeared awfully like that which my father had described. It was hardly difficult to ingratiate myself with the Chestertons, and upon deepening that acquaintance, I discovered the parure had been lent to her by her betrothed, a certain…Marquess of Talybridge.” Valentin held out his chained hands, still somehow managing to make the gesture elegant.
“The rest, as they say, is history. I sent for my father, who confirmed Talybridge’s identity by contriving to pass the marquess in the street as he exited his bootmakers.
” Valentin’s eyes lifted to meet the duke’s.
“I have it on my father’s authority that the man is the spit of his deceased father. ”
“He is,” Ashington confirmed. “I recollect him.”
The room fell quiet as the weight of Valentin’s story pressed against all of them. Valentin sat calmly, awaiting whatever would come next. That Ashington and Fitzsimmons believed him was no longer in doubt.
“Where is the parure that Miss Chesterton was wearing now?” Ashington asked.
“It was not in the safe.” Valentin’s eyes slid to Mickey. “As Mr Maurice can attest. I did not remove it. The only item of interest to me in that safe was the letter preventing my father from returning to England, which is now in your possession.”
Fitzsimmons snorted disbelievingly. “There were other valuable belongings in the safe. Rings, watches, and money. Given that you loathe Talybridge, and theft is your trade, why did you not take the opportunity to steal those?”
The smallest of smiles glimmered on Valentin’s lips.
“Recently, I’ve found my appetite for thieving on a grand scale has been quite ruined.
My financial situation is more than comfortable, thanks to…
ah…various business matters. Over the last few weeks, other objectives”—again, his mossy gaze flicked to Mickey—“have taken precedence.”
Not entirely ruined, Mickey would have pointed out if they were alone. One didn’t conceal pearls and a tiepin beneath one’s sensitive collywobbles for mere pleasure.
Ashington regarded him with interest. “What other objectives?”
The Valentin Beauregard that Mickey had fallen for had rallied somewhat, despite his dire predicament. He raised his eyebrows at Mickey in a thoroughly roguish manner.
“I came to England seeking revenge on Talybridge. Once taken, I intended to hastily return to France and live out a quiet life in my country home. If my innocence could somehow be proven, that still remains my goal. And yet”—his eyes softened affectionately—“somehow returning there alone feels like it would be less sweet.”
The duke’s innocent gaze darted between the two of them. “Oh…oh. I see. I thought you were simply a…a dalliance. But…ah…jolly good.”
“It is, Your Grace,” Valentin answered, never taking his eyes from Mickey. “Jolly, jolly good.”
Mickey stayed awhile after the duke and Fitzsimmons departed, the duke insisting on sending a second carriage for when Mickey was ready to leave.
“Your ankle,” Valentin queried. “It’s mending?”
Mickey shook his head. “Time and again you ask after my ankle. When you are the one shackled in here and I am free to roam.”
“Free to hobble,” corrected Valentin. “And you hobbled all the way out to here and brought a duke and a lord with you.”
“We arrived in the most beautifully upholstered landau I’ve ever laid eyes on; my common arse has never sat on cushions quite so fine. And my ankle will soon heal. It spent the journey cossetted on its own soft pillow, much softer than the one underneath your head last night, I’ll be bound.”
Mickey took Valentin’s hand and brought it to his lips.
“’Tis a gateway to heaven, your mouth,” said Valentin as Mickey pressed a light kiss against each fingertip. “I never told you.”
“Whimsical tosh,” groaned Mickey, predictably, though he carried on kissing Valentin’s fingers all the same. “When I have finished devouring these, I shall rub your aching neck.”
Valentin rolled his shoulders. “Each night, I distract myself from the scrabble of the rats by imagining your hands on my body and your lips on mine.” Tears shone in his eyes.
“One…one always imagines oneself to be a stoic should a situation such as mine arise. Brave, you know. But I confess, London, that I am far from it. With your small acts of kindness, I find my innards dissolving.”
“You will walk out of here a free man,” Mickey insisted. “Now Ashington is on your side. That must count for something. We must continue to hope.”
“Even His Grace’s reach will not convince a magistrate that dozens of men’s eyes deceived them.
Especially men whose pockets and purses and cravats have been lightened, whose wives have mysteriously mislaid favourite trinkets and baubles.
And Fitzsimmons still believes I have the parure.
Even if it is located, those men shall want to see me hanged. ”
Mickey opened his mouth to disagree, then closed it again, his words evaporating before they reached his tongue. Valentin was right; the veracity of it occupied his thoughts day and night.
“For a crime that, two nights ago, you did not commit,” he said instead.
“No,” Valentin agreed sadly. “They will not care who I truly am, or the value of that letter to me, or that Talybridge is a murderer.” He shrugged. “C’est la vie, non? Nobody ever promised a just world.”
“Talybridge should have realised that the letter is missing by now.”
“Yes, but I wonder how concerned he will be? I’d wager that by now he assumes my father is dead and his crimes have gone undetected.”
“Unaware Roberts’s son has made his way up in society to avenge him,” Mickey mused.
“Through stealing from his fellow gentlemen. I am not especially proud, though I do not regret it. It brought me to Talybridge. And to you.”
Mickey regarded his lover. “It is a compulsion for you,” he commented. “The petty thieving.”
“Like laudanum,” agreed Valentin with a half-smile. “Though I might have found the cure in you. Alas, I shall not live to discover if it is a long-lasting one.”
Squeezing Valentin’s hand in his, Mickey wished with all his might he could walk out the door still holding it. “It is a potion which will last until the ends of time.”
Voices outside signalled a changing of the guard, and reluctantly, Valentin withdrew. Their time was up.
“We must stay strong,” beseeched Mickey. “Talybridge and those gentlemen may well have their day in court. But you shall not swing as a common thief. I promise.”