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

“He wants more than material wealth,” he growled. “He wants what makes other people happy, he wants to destroy their peace of mind. I have seen him grow, and everything he does leads to death, destruction and tragedy.”

Rather disconcerted by Ash’s passionate words, she said nothing but, “Hmm.” She bent over the paper. The light from the window behind him was more than adequate for her to work by.

A knock came at the door. Unlike Juliana a few moments ago, whoever was outside waited for him to call out, “Come!”

“The gentlemen from Bow Street have arrived, sir,” Baynon said.

Ash got to his feet, scraping his chair back. “I’ll come directly. How many are there?”

“Two, sir.”

“Very well.” He paused, and addressed Juliana. “You may come if you wish, but you don’t have to. I can take your sworn statement, and Amelia’s. They don’t have to talk to you today.”

“Don’t coddle me,” she said, bent over her work. “If they want to see me, then I am happy to talk to them.”

“Very well.”

By the time he came back, she had an answer.

She sat up, stretching her back. He’d been gone for some time. “They don’t need to see you, they’ll be happy with a sworn statement about Wood’s death,” he said. “Amelia talked to them, and she’ll give a statement, too. There’ll be an inquest, and a murder trial if they find a culprit. But they are happy that you were too close to commit the crime. You won’t be accused of it.”

She’d never supposed she would be. Amelia was her witness, and Freeman, too. “I was wondering where you’d got to. I thought there was a problem.”

“I’m glad you stayed here. I don’t want so many people knowing you are here.”

He went to the chair behind his desk, shrugging off his coat and draping it over the back before he sat. His gaze shot to her, and he reached for his coat again. Men did not remove their coats in front of ladies unless they were intimate with them, or related to them.

“No, please don’t. It’s a warm day.” In fact, she was strangely touched that he should do something so familiar, in such a natural way. “I won’t faint because you’re showing your shirtsleeves.”

He laughed. Only short, but light came back to his eyes, and his mouth relaxed. She liked it. She smiled back.

“Well, then,” he said, sitting in his place. “They are removing the, ah, body. We examined the garden, and found the bow propped outside the back gate. Which I have set the staff to strengthening.”

She touched the paper she’d drawn out of the collection before she’d stacked the rest neatly to one side. “I found this.” She glanced down. “Godfrey borrowed a lot of money shortly before we married. He must have used my dowry as security.”

Instead of telling him, she pushed the paper across to him.

Frowning, Ash perused it. He scanned the sheet, then scanned it again before he looked up. “Well, well. Your husband was going into trade using the business he knew best.”

She read the paper in shock. Then she read it again, to make sure she’d got it right. “He was going into business. Creating another House of Correction to rival the Raven’s. No wonder the Raven took an interest in Godfrey.”

Putting the paper down, she noted absently than her hand was shaking. “So he didn’t want me, he wanted Godfrey all along.”

Ash reached out, then withdrew and dropped his hand in his lap. “He wanted you, too. You were a prize to be ransomed, before you married Uppingham. That must have tasted bitter to him. Then your husband attacked his business. If he couldn’t have you, he’d take him.”

“Spite and revenge.” She sighed. “But you got one thing wrong. Godfrey is my late husband. Sometimes good can come of evil. I am free of him.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

The next day Juliana, Ash and the ever-present Freeman took a cab to Bow Street. Juliana would rather have walked, but Ash told her he wanted to get the meeting over with.

He hailed a cab by putting two fingers into his mouth and blowing a sharp whistle. A passing cab stopped, and he helped her into the vehicle. Freeman climbed up behind them.

“I’m impressed. That is a skill worth having,” she told her host. Her friend.

Ash favored her with a small smile. “A necessary one, for survival in this city, but not gentlemanly, or so my sister tells me.”

“Then I must learn it.” She glanced at the footman, who sat opposite them, stoically staring out of the window, his craggy features without expression.

Ash crossed his legs, leaned his elbow on the window ledge and gazed out at the passing city. “Freeman will still be with you wherever you go. Involving the Raven makes your situation more dangerous, not less.”

“I see.” She wouldn’t argue with him about that. Not yet.

Nobody recognized her when she stepped out of the cab on to busy Bow Street. This place was always busy, the narrow street a thoroughfare, with spectators and street sellers about their business, the men carrying sedan chairs barging through them. The usual cacophony.

Today both the magistrates were in their office, sitting side by side, Mr. John Fielding’s assistant stood behind him, ready when needed. The small room they occupied looked out on to the street. Bookcases and cupboards overflowed with papers and legal tomes, and the floorboards creaked as Ash and Juliana walked over them, as uneven as the sea on a calm day.

They sat on the chairs drawn up for them by Freeman.

Henry Fielding scratched under his bob wig and leaned back in his chair. “Shall we start with the maid’s confession?”

John Fielding’s assistant read the full contents of the paper aloud, which made it even more real. This repeated what they had discovered already: the bottle of laudanum and what Wood had done with it, why she had dumped the whole contents into the wine instead of adding a