I Loved a Rogue The Prince Catchers (31 page)

Eleanor stared at Taliesin’s hard profile and her heart beat raucously.

“Duchess,” the lord magistrate said, “have you been absconded with lately by that man?” He gestured to Taliesin.

“No, my lord,” Arabella said. “I believe Mr. Tanner was pointing to my sister.”

“Aha.” He turned his attention on her. “And what is your name?”

“Eleanor Caulfield, my lord.”

“Is what that man”—he pointed to Mr. Tanner—“said true?”

“Yes. But—”

“See there, my lord?” Mr. Tanner looked smug.

“But, my lord—”

“Well, is it true or isn’t it, Miss Caulfield?” Lord Baron demanded. “I’ve no patience for dithering in my court. And I’ve a house party I’ve just left to come here, which I’d like to return to swiftly. Rather, my wife wants me there. Something about making even numbers at the table. Did the accused abscond with you from the county five days ago?”

“Yes, my lord. But we were only riding through. I—”

“Whether you were riding through, commenced, or ended your journey there, the terms of the penalty are clear. I suspect Mr. Wolfe was fully aware of that at the time. Were you, Mr. Wolfe?”

“Yes, my lord.”

Eleanor’s heart twisted into ragged pieces.

Lord Baron lifted his gavel. “Bailiff—”

“No! Arabella,
do
something.”

“Miss Caulfield,” the lord magistrate said, “Lycombe’s magistracy is far distant from mine and as such he has no sway in matters of my court. My interests must be for my constituents and the rule of law, of course.”

“Of course, my lord, but—”

“Clerk, let it be recorded that upon the testimony of these two parties, the accused is sentenced. Bailiff, read the sentence.”

The bailiff lifted a parchment. “For entering the parish of Normanton after legal prohibition set upon him by the court of Caesar Augustus Baron, Lord Magistrate, in the year 1809 due to crimes thereafter forgiven—”

“What crime, by the by?” the lord magistrate asked Taliesin.

“I broke several chairs, my lord.”

“Chairs?”

“And Mr. Tanner’s arm.”

“The accused, Taliesin Wolfe,” the bailiff boomed, “is sentenced to perpetual incarceration in England, commutable upon recommendation of the judge to deportment to the Antilles at which time he will be at his liberty, effective immediately or, in the event of deportation, the securing of whatsoever mode of ship passage can be arranged within seven days from this day, 17 April of the year 1819. All the accused’s goods, chattels, properties, and monies are to be seized forthwith by agents of His Majesty, with a portion to be reserved for payment of jail fees or ship passage, and fees of this court, etc. etc. This sentence is hereby undersigned by etc. etc.”

“No.” It came forth as a strangled whisper. Eleanor’s throat locked. She forced sound through it. “
No
,” she said more loudly. “You cannot punish him for rescuing me from harm.”

“Miss Caulfield,” Lord Baron said, “it is clear from Mr. Tanner’s testimony, as well as yourself, that you’ve lately traipsed about the countryside with a Gypsy on the back of a very fine horse. Have I misunderstood the matter?”

“I did not precisely traipse, my lord.”

“Then what would you call it, Miss Caulfield,” he said with an unsympathetic wag of his finger, “when a young lady puts on die-away airs and insists on being carried on horseback in her nightclothes across the countryside?”

“I—”

“I knew a girl like you in my youth, come to think of it. Pretended to be frail so all the young bucks would swoon over how delightfully delicate she was. Well, I said rubbish to that, and let them waste their time swooning. A lady with spirit, I tell you, that’s the sort of girl a man can admire!”

Die-away airs
.
Frail
.
Delicate
. All uttered with disdain.

“I understand, my lord,” she said. “But you see, when I was residing at my relatives’ house, I took ill briefly. My relatives used the occasion to dose me with laudanum—”

“Aha, splendid stuff! My grandmother has taken a spoonful every night for the past forty years. Sleeps like a baby. She’s ninety-four, by the by.” He narrowed his eye. “Your relatives sound like clever people, Miss Caulfield. But what that’s got to do with the business of my court today, I haven’t an idea.”

Eleanor’s heartbeats were thick and hard. This big, powerful man would never understand what Lady Boswell had tried to do to her, how it could take so little effort to drag a woman into helpless dependency, and how little power a woman like her truly had.

Unless she fought back.

“Yes, well, as I was recovering from my illness I was obliged to go on a journey, and Mr. Wolfe came along as . . .” Her stomach turned. “As a deterrent against thieves upon the road.”

“Had you hired him as a guard?”

“No.” The magistrate’s words rolled around in her mind.
A lady with spirit
. . .
The sort of girl a man can admire
. . .
She knows I cannot deny her
. “But it was understood that the protection he offered was in exchange for certain . . .” Her cheeks flamed. She forged on. “For certain
benefits
during the journey. You see, my lord.” She softened her voice. Made it deeper. “Mr. Wolfe and I have a long acquaintance.”

Her papa’s face was white.

Chains clinked and she realized they came from where Taliesin stood. She saw now the chain hanging down the back of his legs.
Manacles?
Her chest ached.

“My lord,” Taliesin said. “What Miss Caulfield has said is untrue. There was no such agreement or exchange. I escorted her as a favor to her family. Apply to the duchess for the truth, if you will.”

“Mr. Wolfe,” Lord Baron said, “I repeat that you will speak when I bid you do so and only then.”

The chamber door opened and Ravenna and Vitor came into the room.

“Now, who are you?” Lord Baron demanded.

“Vitor Courtenay, my lord.” He bowed. “Good day.”

The magistrate’s brow screwed up. “Airedale’s son?”

“The very same, my lord. And this is my wife.”

“My other sister,” Arabella supplied.

“All right, all right.” The magistrate scowled. “Sit down, Courtenay. I’ll not have you disturb these proceedings either.” He returned his frown to Eleanor. “Miss Caulfield, it seems to me that you are playing a lovers’ game that has no place in this court. Or anywhere in polite company, I daresay. But I am intrigued. Explain how it is that Mr. Wolfe came to be in Normanton despite the prohibition that he knew would put him in the way of breaking the law.”

“I am playing no game, my lord. I am only stating the truth.” Her stomach churned, but he was listening to her lies now when he had not listened to the truth. “I knew he would come if I summoned him. He had said so years before, when he was my father’s servant and infatuated with me. He wrote it to me in a letter. I will gladly produce that letter for you if you require, my lord. After I accepted his assistance traveling, I saw that it was the same with him now as it had been years ago. I depended upon it. You see, as I said, I was residing with my father’s family at the time and found myself in an unpleasant situation. I was desperate to escape it, really. They were horrid. Truly.”

“How so, Miss Caulfield? Other than the laudanum,” he said with a dismissive wave of a large hand.

“They . . . They were trying to force me to marry where I don’t wish to marry.” She trained her voice to subtle complaint. “My cousin, Harold, you see, wants my father’s inheritance.”

“Aha. Well, it’s a good thing to keep the property in the family.”

“But I don’t wish to marry my cousin. He . . . He has warts.”

“Warts?”

“All over his hands.” She shivered dramatically. “And a cowlick,” she added quickly. “And he smells of compost.”

“I see.”

“I said I would not marry him, but they locked me in a room and told me they would not release me until I accepted him.”

Arabella gasped.

“They
locked
you in a room?” Lord Baron exclaimed.

Eleanor nearly sighed aloud in relief.

“Well . . . That is what I wrote to Mr. Wolfe. I told him to come swiftly and rescue me in the middle of the night.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“I was obliged to leave on a moment’s notice, of course, or my cousins might have discovered my escape. Also . . .” She paused. “It was much more exciting that way. And Mr. Wolfe obliged. In the past, he has liked to see me in my nightclothes, when I have allowed it.” She let a wicked little grin curve up the corner of her mouth. Good heavens, this gamble had better work. She felt like retching.

But Lord Baron seemed rapt. The nonchalance on his features when he had proclaimed Taliesin’s fate had turned to fascination.

“But I knew he might not have sufficient funds to carry me away,” she continued, “so I told him I would bring my family’s heirloom to serve as proof to anyone on the road that I am who I said I was. Did you find a gold and ruby ring in his possession?”
Please, God
.

“Bailiff?”

“Yes, m’lord. We did.”

“I want to see this ring. Bring it.”

The bailiff approached the magistrate. Eleanor could not look at Taliesin or her sisters. Shame burned like coals in her cheeks.

The lord magistrate studied the ring. “Duchess,” he said, “does this ring belong to your family?”

“It does,” Arabella said tightly.

“Have you any idea of how it came to be in Mr. Wolfe’s possession when he was arrested five days ago?”

“I do not.” She set a hard eye on Eleanor. “I have no reason to disbelieve my sister’s word. In this.”

The lord magistrate stared for a long moment at Arabella, then at Eleanor. “Who is your father, Miss Caulfield? Who is the man who ought to have put you over his knee and taught you a lesson in propriety years ago?”

“I am Captain Edward Bridgeport-Adler, her father.” He stood, frail and gaunt, with round, sunken eyes ringed with gray, but the aristocratic cast of his features and his military stance was unmistakable. “I take full responsibility for my daughter’s immodesty, my lord. I have been a negligent parent in the past. But I promise to see to it that she is suitably controlled in the future.”

“I should think that this nephew of yours, Harold, has had a near miss,” the magistrate said with asperity. “And how
you
, miss,” he said, pointing at her, “came to be such an immodest troublemaker when your sisters are ladies, I cannot imagine. It is a travesty.” He turned to Taliesin. “As for you, Mr. Wolfe, I commend your loyalty, if not your thorough stupidity for giving it to a woman of lax morals, however pretty she is. I am also impressed with your bravery. She manipulated you and you ought to be ashamed of that. But show me a man who hasn’t made a foolish mistake because of a woman and I’ll eat my wig. I’ve a mind to waive the penalty for breaking the old injunction against you.”

Eleanor’s blood raced.

“But I’ll only do it on the condition that you cease all connection with Miss Caulfield at once.”

“I cannot agree to that, my lord.” He spoke so calmly. “Miss Caulfield has just told you a tale that I cannot corroborate.” He swung his black gaze to her and everything inside her melted, her courage, her hope, her last shred of resistance to loving him. “She seeks to protect me from the consequences of my actions,” he said, “but I need no such protection.”

“Well,” Lord Baron said, “that’s nicely said. But you are sealing your fate, you understand?”

“Of course he understands it, my lord.” The vicar of St. Petroc stood. “He speaks only as honor allows him to speak. He is that rare example of a man born into an inferior station who, nevertheless, with education and good rearing, has risen above his lot. And admirably so. If only we Christians extended our charity to all races less civilized than ourselves, England would never be obliged to jail or deport its hardworking sons. We ought not to punish men like this, but to applaud them for the challenges they have overcome and the struggles over which they have triumphed.”

The earl’s shaggy brows disappeared beneath his wig. “A reformer, eh? And you are . . . ?”

“A poor country vicar, my lord.” Her papa folded his hands. “Only here at the request of Mr. Bridgeport-Adler, and prepared to take this wayward woman into my home as a pupil.”

“As
your
pupil?”

“Rather, my wife’s. She is eager to teach Miss Caulfield the maidenly modesty she lacks.”

The earl sat back in his chair and looked at Taliesin. “Hm. Mr. Wolfe, what say you to that?”

“I could not imagine a better tutor than that gentleman, in truth,” he said.

Sinews strained in her papa’s folded hands as he looked at Taliesin.

The lord magistrate drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “I’ve heard all you’ve argued.” His eyes scanned them. “But who’s to say this isn’t simply an elaborate scheme to convince me other than the truth, which is that you, Miss Caulfield, would say and do anything to save this man from jail or deportation because you are in love with him?”

The room seemed to tilt back and forth. She opened her mouth.

“I am to say so, my lord,” rang a clear, masculine voice throughout the chamber.

“Robin?” she whispered.

“Who now are
you
?” the lord magistrate demanded.

“My name if Robin Prince,” he said firmly. “And I know for certain that Miss Caulfield has no real interest in Wolfe.”

“And how do you come to know that, Mr. Prince?”

“Because I myself would have wrested her from her cousins’ home if I had known of her trouble. A month ago I left her there in order to travel to my home to prepare it for her. You see, my lord, five weeks ago I asked Miss Caulfield to marry me, and she accepted.”

The lord magistrate swung his satisfied gaze to Eleanor. “Aha. It becomes clear now. This wasn’t really about cousin Harold, was it, Miss Caulfield? Had yourself a final hurrah before the vows are said, did you?”

She could not speak. She nodded.

Mr. Tanner sputtered. “But, this is preposterous!”

“Merely the typical folly of young lovers.” Lord Baron lifted his gavel. “Let it be declared that the condemned is forgiven his imbecilic misstep on behalf of a woman, with the understanding that he cease any further connection with her. And if Miss Caulfield bothers Mr. Wolfe again simply because she gets the whim for a bit of adventure, I’ll throw
her
in jail the next time. You too, Mr. Prince, for your poor choice of a wife. I maintain that spirited fillies are the best sort. But a man can’t let himself be minx-led, now can he?” He smacked his gavel on the table beside his chair. “This court is adjourned. Now I’m going to return to Lady Baron’s party before she decides to serve
my
head on a platter for dinner.” He stood.