The Wedding Night Affair--An Historical Mystery by L.C. Sharp (i have read the book .TXT) 📗

realize this is a delicate matter. Is there a chance that you might be carrying your late husband’s child? In other words, was your marriage fully consummated?”

Her breath sawed in and out rapidly as the recollection of her wedding night returned. The part where Godfrey was still alive. “Yes,” she managed to croak. “It was.”

“Then I will not set the trial date until we know if you are with child or not,” Mr. Fielding responded. “If we discover that you are, you will be given time to birth the child before we commence. It is not the practice of the law to punish an innocent for its mother’s crime.”

Juliana’s breath came out in one long rush. No more cosmetics, and not for disguise. No more sitting through long music recitals that threatened to send her to sleep. No more agreeing with everyone, looking to the future, praying her life would improve when this happened, or when that took place.

No more.

However long she had, she would make the most of it the rest of her life.

Chapter Nine

Mr. Fielding had his clerk write the required authorization for Sir Edmund, took a brief account of her initial statement, and showed them a way out that did not involve them walking out of the front door. A crowd had gathered outside. Not as terrifying as the one around Juliana’s father’s house, but bad enough for her to fear for her life if she went out that way.

“Also,” Sir Edmund said in a sanguine manner as they walked down a narrow alley in the direction of Holborn, “If we evade them now, they will have no idea what you look like. You really do appear completely different like this.”

“I am glad of it.” She lifted her head and gazed at the blue, cloud-scattered sky.

He followed her stare. “A fine day,” he commented dispassionately, as if he did not care one way or the other.

“Better than rain.” Juliana returned her attention to their surroundings, lest she met something unfortunate like a pair of fully laden chairmen or a street seller, balancing her wares precariously from every part of her body. “I can discuss the weather for hours. My mother always told me to avoid difficult subjects. A lady does not comment on scandals, she said. Now she has borne a living, breathing scandal.”

“You sound amused.” He guided her around the corner to the main thoroughfare.

“I am. Why shouldn’t I be? My mother is a superior being. As soon as she heard what happened, she left for the Thames villa. She did not think to take me with her, nor did she stop to speak to me.”

They walked a few paces in silence. “Is that not harsh?” he said eventually. “I was told that your father sent her away.”

She laughed bitterly. “I am no longer any use to her. Since I gave my first cry into this world I’ve been a disappointment to her.” She bit her lip and decided to say it anyway. “I’m the wrong sex and a disobedient child according to her, although I have done nothing but obey her all my life.” She paused. “But that will not happen again.”

He let a short silence fall. “Can you walk?” he asked her abruptly. “I live a mere ten minutes away.”

She nodded. She would not admit how stiff and painful she felt. After all, how much longer would she have to enjoy this kind of freedom? So what if she had to walk with her feet apart, like a man?

He didn’t question her further. She didn’t want to talk about her mother any longer, but perhaps he should know, since he’d said he would investigate her circumstances. “I am her failure. She could not bear another child after me, so either I should have been a boy, or I should have made her labor easier. She told me so herself.”

The silence beside her was ominous. It had a presence. A quick glance at him confirmed that he was closed down, no expression at all on his face.

“I do not tell you to evoke sympathy from you. After all, I was born in the lap of luxury. Until last night, I knew nothing else. I could not conceive of such treatment, which is probably why I allowed it. But, here we are...” She shrugged. “I will confess to you that I do not regret Godfrey’s death, only the circumstances of it. If he had suffered an apoplexy last night, I would have been glad.”

“You will not repeat that to anyone,” he said sharply. “Wishing him dead may be seen as tantamount to killing him.”

Shocked, she swallowed. She’d allowed her tongue free reign. “No, I will not.” What had made her say that? After a lifetime of taking great care with what she said, suddenly she had become a chatterbox?

She was here, with no followers, no spies, nobody staring at the heiress as if she was an exhibit in a collection rather than a real person. She set to enjoying the City of London as she had never been allowed to before.

Juliana loved London in all its noisy, dirty glory, the streets she had only seen from the windows of her carriage and read about in the atlases and gazetteers in her father’s library.

As always, people from all ranks of society jostled together, all intent on their own business. Small children sat leaning against the walls of the shops and houses they passed, others darted about, pushing their way past ladies wearing enormous hooped skirts, and gentlemen whose coats were so stiff with buckram they could have stood up on their own. She drank it all in, part of it at last.

“Where are we going?”

“Lincoln’s Inn Fields.”

She should probably have asked before, but their destination did not matter much. Only that she was out, and free of the attendants that kept her from hobnobbing with the common people. Her servants would also have cleared her path from obstacles, like the small pile of dog dirt she