Dangerous Beauty Read online

  The carriage stopped at the forbidding building. Vaughn helped her out and escorted her towards the gaping maw of the prison.

  Rhys arrived in his own hack and reached the gate at the same time they did. Rhys spoke to someone behind a smaller grille, quiet words she could not make out. Then the gate opened, sliding upwards with a rumble of hidden machinery and a squeal of un-oiled metal.

  Rhys waved them through—clearly, he was familiar with the prison. If he had spent his career defending the hardest cases, then he may well have ventured here in the past. The gate dropped down behind them with a shudder that Natasha could feel through her slippers and she shivered.

  Seth was here, in this place? She lifted her skirts and stepped over filth she was in no hurry to identify and followed Rhys to a narrow stair that cut into the wall of the tunnel they were in and ended at a stout door.

  Rhys pushed the door open. Inside, the room seemed quite normal. There was a raw wooden floor, to be sure, and a roughly hewn counter, but the windows were whole and there was a stove in the corner that belched a welcome heat.

  There were many people in the room already and Natasha was dismayed to see her mother, her father’s butler and Sholto Piggot talking to an officious-looking man, who was nodding and scratching things down with a badly trimmed pen.

  Of all the luck, Natasha thought. She tried to edge behind Vaughn, to hide herself, but it was already too late. Her mother’s face tightened and her lips pursed when she saw Natasha.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded in a loud voice. It seemed that since her father’s death, her mother had lost any self-control or sense of propriety. Even her usually immaculate appointments were sloppy, poorly tied or fastened and with no finishing details like lace edging showing anywhere.

  At her mother’s loud exclamation, everyone paused to look up or look around at Natasha.

  Then her mother gave a low, choking moan. “You…” she gasped, staring at Rhys. Her face turned ashen and her hand went to her chest. She seemed to stagger a little and Jones, her father’s butler, caught her and held her upright.

  “You have nothing to fear from me, Lady Munroe,” Rhys said. “My father chose to be absent from my life. You need not share the blame.”

  “What are you doing here?” Caroline whispered. “Why, why? To torture me in my hour of mourning?”

  “I am here to speak with a client, madam. That is all. I am a practicing barrister at the Old Bailey.” There was an unforgiving chill in Rhys’ voice. “The Queen’s Bench,” he added, when Caroline’s puzzled expression did not change. “The criminal court of London.”

  At that moment, there was a clash of steel and the sound of a heavy door shutting. From an inner doorway, three men emerged, the center figure moving heavily and awkwardly.

  It was Seth and his arms and ankles were shackled and tied to his waist with thick chains.

  He looked badly beaten. One of his eyes was swollen almost shut and ringed with blue and purple flesh. But his eyes were alive, snapping with the simmering edges of temper and Natasha was inordinately pleased to see it. Seth simmering with fury was the man she had come to love—the man full of passion, life and the will to face anything.

  “Oh, Seth, what happened?” she asked, moving towards him.

  At the same time the guards snapped to attention beside him, their hands on their long rifles, Natasha was halted by a hand squeezing her forearm, the nails digging in sharply.

  She looked back. Her mother had found the energy to spring after her and yank on her arm.

  Her mother pulled her back now, with a strength that gave lie to her white face and weakness of a moment ago. “You stay away from that murderer, or so help me god I will keep you prisoner in your room for the rest of your life,” her mother muttered.

  Rhys gave Lady Munroe a cool stare. She blinked and dropped Natasha’s arm.

  Rhys glanced up at the constable manning the high desk. “I need to speak to the prisoner in private. He is to appear at the Bailey tomorrow. I must be allowed to prepare for the case.”

  The constable nodded. “You can have the usual room, Mr. Davies, sir. The guards’ll see him settled.” He nodded to the two guards on either side of Seth and they hurried him through another door and away, almost lifting him off his feet as his bound ankles wouldn’t let him move fast enough.

  Natasha clenched her teeth against the need to protest at his treatment. If he really were guilty of murder, she would want him dragged around in chains, too.

  She glanced at Rhys. “I will come with you,” she said quietly.

  Natasha’s mother gasped and looked at her in horror. “What have you done, Natasha?”

  “Lady Munroe,” Vaughn said quietly. “Do you not want to know the truth of your husband’s death?”

  “I already know the monster who made me a widow,” Caroline snapped. “And I’m here to ensure he’s properly hanged.”

  Vaughn shook his head a little. “Then, if you insist on such shortsightedness, I will leave you to go about your business. Good day, Lady Munroe.” He gave a short bow and turned to slide his hand beneath Natasha’s.

  “Rhys, would you show the way?” he murmured. Rhys took them through a dank, dim corridor of raw brick walls that seeped moisture. Some way along that corridor, the light from a strong lantern shone from an open doorway and it was into this doorway that Rhys ducked, and Vaughn and Natasha followed him.

  Seth was still standing between his guards, who looked stoical enough to remain in their place for the rest of the day if necessary.

  “You can go,” Rhys told the guards, placing a very large carpetbag on the plain wooden table in the middle of the room.

  “But he’s a murderer, Mr. Davies!” one of the guards protested.

  Rhys pulled from the bag an enormous revolver and placed it squarely on the table. “I’ll be quite safe,” he assured them. “Why don’t you two fellows just step outside the door, then? You can hear if anything goes amiss.” He flipped them a coin each.

  “Me thanks to you, as always, Mr. Davies, sir,” one of the guards said, tugging on the brim of his cap. The other pocketed the coin with a nod. Both of them left the room and Rhys gave a big gusty sigh.

  Natasha went to Seth, but he held out his hands, holding up the fingers of one, warding her off. “No, Natasha, I’m filthy and smell to high heaven thanks to those damned cells. Not until I’ve bathed for a week will I touch you.” He gave her a smile. “But it’s fine indeed to see you, my sweet one.”

  She stopped just short of him. “Oh, Seth, did you think I would not come?”

  He glanced at Vaughn, then back at her face. “It would not have surprised me if you’d found this all too overwhelming to bear.”

  “You think so little of me?” It emerged almost as a whisper. Her throat was tight with unshed tears. “You think I would rather see you hang than face this?”

  Seth shook his head a little. “I’m a bitter, twisted man inside, ‘Tasha. Transportation teaches ye that ye can’t rely on anyone but yourself. Forgive me, but I thought I’d never see ye again and it was like slipping back into those black clouds that I live with all those years.”

  “Well, I’m here,” she said, straightening up and dashing away her tears with the back of her hand. “And I’ve brought help. I would like you to meet Mr. Rhys Davies, Esquire, a barrister of the court of London, who will defend your case before the Queen’s Bench tomorrow.”

  Vaughn tugged on Natasha’s arm. “Let him sit down, Natasha. Step back. Come.” She allowed herself to be drawn away and Rhys brought the single hard chair that was clearly intended for him around to Seth’s side of the table.

  “Sit, Mr. Williams. I know well the conditions in the Newgate cells and have come prepared. Sit.”

  Seth shuffled over to the chair and sat carefully, the chains clanking in a way that made Natasha moan and turn her head away.

  “I can do nothing about the chains for now,” Rhys explained, digging into the ca
rpetbag. “But, here.” He stepped around the table and held out a silver flask. “A small measure of restorative brandy.” He held out his other hand. “Fresh bread, to fill your stomach.”

  “Lord above, food,” Seth muttered and grasped the small loaf with his manacled hands and tore into it, eating hungrily.

  Rhys propped the flask on his lap and returned to the bag. He produced an apple, which he left on the table, a hair comb, a small pile of clean, folded cloth and a corked bottle.

  “Water,” he explained when Seth eyed it. “Can you listen well enough while you eat?”

  “Certainly,” Seth said, uncorking the flask.

  “Your friends here have—”

  “Natasha is not just a friend, is she?” Seth interjected.

  Rhys looked up from his ledger and blinked. “If you’re implying—”

  “The eyes, man. The eyes,” Seth added impatiently. “You’ve both the same sire, or I’m no judge of men.”

  Rhys absorbed this without expression. “That is correct,” he said at last.

  “Yet you’re going to defend me, the man that’s supposed to have killed your father?”

  “Strange as it seems, yes,” Rhys answered quietly. “Natasha can be very convincing.”

  “What did she tell you?” Seth demanded.

  “I told him the truth, Seth,” Natasha said gently. “Nothing else will withstand the trial ahead.”

  “More truth,” Rhys answered quietly. “May I continue?”

  Seth sighed and pushed his hand through his hair, the other following it, bound by the manacles that clinked softly against the chains hanging from it. “Why not?” he said, at last. “This world grows stranger by the moment.”

  “In 1824, in Harrow, Ireland, you were found guilty of the murder of two English soldiers during the Riot of 1823. You were transported to Australia for a sentence of seven years. Correct?”

  Seth glanced at Natasha and she saw him swallow. “Yes,” he said at last.

  She hid her dismay. She had quite forgotten the past that dogged Seth’s heels. Murder. If the world thought him capable of murder once, they would do so again.

  Rhys led Seth through the highlights of his fifteen years in Australia, then turned to the death of her father. “I spoke to the bobbies that attended the Lady Munroe’s calls for help,” Rhys said. “I learned that Lord Munroe fell upon his pocket watch, smashing it. It was stopped just past the hour of two o’clock.” Rhys looked up from his page. “Where were you at two o’clock two mornings ago, Seth?”

  Seth glanced at Natasha before looking at Rhys once more. “I was aboard the Artemis.”

  “Can you prove it?”

  Seth nodded. “Harry, my first mate saw me at midnight when I went to my cabin.”

  “And at midnight you…went to sleep?”

  “Yes.”

  “Alone?”

  Seth stared at Rhys, unblinking. “Yes.”

  Rhys stared right back, challenging the lie.

  Natasha felt sick to her stomach. Seth was a convicted criminal. He would swing for this murder if she didn’t speak the truth aloud and in public. And if she did reveal the truth, all of London would know of her scandalous behavior. She would be ruined, but Seth would be freed. Turmoil swirled within her.

  She saw that Vaughn was watching her and remembered, suddenly and unexpectedly, the night he had faced the world with Elisa at his side and dared them all to reject them.

  Only moments before, in the middle of the ballroom floor, while the entire cotillion had watched them, he had spoken to Natasha and exposed to her his love for Elisa and his fear for what that love would bring down upon them.

  “True love has an inevitability about it, Natasha,” he’d tried to explain and she had seen the weariness in his eyes, the stress. “I’m quite powerless to stop it and I know that both of us are going to pay a terrible price for it. But Natasha, I don’t want to stop it. I will pay that price to keep Elisa in my life. I know you don’t understand it, that right now you’re too full of hurt. But one day, you will fall in love and then, you might be able to look back on this moment and understand what I’m telling you. I just hope you never have to face the choice I’m making this night.”

  And Vaughn had turned to face the world, with Elisa by his side and by some small miracle, had found acceptance. He was looking at her now and she knew that he was remembering the same moment.

  The corner of his mouth turned up a little. Sympathy. But he would not help her make her decision. He knew that she must do that.

  She looked at Seth. He, too, was staring at her and she read his message as clearly as if he’d spoken. “Keep your silence.”

  She shook her head. She could not. Silence would kill him. “I was with him, Rhys. You know that. All of you know that. And it seems we must tell the world this fact if Seth is to survive.”

  Seth closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. Rhys turned to her. “Are you sure, Natasha?”

  “Don’t, ‘Tasha, love,” Seth said softly. “Don’t. Not for me.”

  “If not for you, then who?” she demanded, turning to him. “I love you, Seth, and I don’t give a damn what the rest of the world thinks, anymore.”

  She laid her hand on Rhys’ arm. “How do we do this, Rhys? How do I get myself heard?”

  He nodded. “I’ll arrange it.”

  “No!” Seth cried, trying to stand and sending the flask flying and the chains crashing about him.

  The sound was enough to bring the two guards rushing into the room to grab him by both arms and restrain him.

  “We’ll need to see the warden immediately,” Rhys demanded. “And is there a police chief here?”

  “Yes, sir,” one of the guards said.

  “Bring the prisoner with you,” Rhys said, packing up his copious carpetbag once more. “Natasha, Vaughn, please follow me.”

  Rhys returned them to the office. Natasha saw that her mother and Sholto Piggot were still there and even as her heart sank, she was pleased. The more people that heard this, the better. Like Vaughn, she intended to declare the truth to the world. Nothing less would save Seth, now.

  They were all staring at her and the group emerging from the inner workings of the prison, now.

  Her mother was fanning herself, lifting her curls. “Oh, my…” she exclaimed in a die-away voice that Natasha knew now was false. The strength of her mother’s grip on her forearm, earlier, gave lie to the helpless widow. Even now, her mother was playing games, concerned about appearances.

  Rhys was facing a man in a blue uniform with brass buttons, who sat at the high desk. “Sir, concerning the murder of which my client, Seth Williams, son of Marcus Williams, the Earl of Innesford, has been accused, I have new information.”

  “You are Rhys Davies, the barrister, are you not?” the police chief interrupted.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What is a barrister doing down in these parts? Shouldn’t you be sending a lawyer?”

  “The circumstances are somewhat extenuating, sir,” Rhys explained, with a wave of his hand. “Are you familiar with the case?”

  “Familiar enough. I arrested the man.”

  “Good. Then, you’ll be aware that the time Lord Munroe died was just after two a.m., yes?”

  “That’d be correct.” The police chief rested his hand on his chin, clearly intrigued by Rhys’ manner and words.

  “Sir, this young lady, here, can account for the accused man’s time that night, and prove he did not kill Lord Munroe.”

  The police chief’s sharp gaze swung to Natasha and she held up her chin and stepped forward. He lifted his hand in a signal that she halt.

  “Mr. Davies, I think it best we clear the room, don’t you? Let’s listen to what the lady has to say in private.”

  “No,” Natasha said firmly. “I want everyone to hear it, sir. I want there to be no doubts about Seth’s innocence in this matter.”

  The police chief considered this and nodded. “Very well, then. P
lease continue, Miss.”

  Seth surged against his guards. “For god’s sake, Natasha, no…don’t.”

  She gave him a smile and looked back at the police chief. “Seth Williams, or as you know him, Seth Harrow, was with me the night my father died. All night.”

  “Oh, my dear lord,” Sholto Piggot exclaimed, his voice trembling.

  “You lie!” her mother cried. “My good man, my daughter is lying for reasons beyond comprehension. I had her locked up in her room, all night.”

  The police chief looked to her and lifted his brow.

  “My maid let me out later that night,” Natasha said, as calmly as she could muster. “When I returned just after dawn, I climbed the ivy outside my bedroom window. Send someone to check—you’ll find the ivy pulled away from the wall in a dozen places.”

  “I will,” the police chief said. He turned on his high stool and flicked a finger at a couple of the uniformed men sitting at the tables behind him. “And talk to the maid, too,” he added.

  They saluted and hurried out of the room. The police chief turned back to her. “The ivy will only prove you climbed in or out of your room. It doesn’t prove the night you did it. Did anyone see you on this…escapade, miss?”

  She thought about it. “Seth’s… Mr. William’s first mate. Harry, I think he’s called.” Natasha took another step forward. “Sir. After what I have said here today, I will never be accepted in society again. My family will disown me. I will lose everything I have. And I may still lose the man I love. I could have simply kept my silence and avoided that cost.”

  Vaughn cleared his throat. “Sir, as Miss Winridge has already committed herself to this confession, I should also point out that I drove her to Seth’s ship that night and picked her up again in the morning.”

  The chief stared at him, the shaggy eyebrows lowering. “Did you now, Lord Fairleigh? Well, here’s a fix, for certain.”

  “It’s a fix that’s easily resolved,” Rhys said. “Get Williams to write the words found on the note in Lord Munroe’s hand. Compare the writing. You have the note, do you not?”

  “As it happens, yes, I do.” The chief stirred himself. “Someone take the chains off that man. Hurry about it, lads. Get him some ink and a pen. Let’s get this matter settled.”