Tamed By The Marquess (Steamy Historical Regency) Page 4

  “Beathan?” Old Sal guessed.

  “Athan’s a fine lad, and he’d make a good match for the lass. He’s keen on her, all right, judgin’ by the time he spends at our campfire of an evening, hopin’ for a single kind word from our Lady Muck. But I’ve never seen her give him a second glance.”

  “Ah, well.” Old Sal had no answers to offer.

  And in truth they all were about to encounter much more serious problems than Joanna’s love life, did they but know it.

  * * *

  Cormac came rushing into camp one evening in a red-faced panic. “Where’s Domnall?” he asked Maggie Mae.

  “He went off hunting,” she answered. “He’s late comin’ back, now I think of it.”

  “Who was with him?” he asked the old woman. “Hurry, Maggie. Think, now.”

  “Well, there was Dristin, young Beathan’s Da. And another. Padraig, I think. Yes, ‘twas Padraig. Why, man? What’s the matter with ye?”

  “Give me a sup o’ the whiskey, before I have to say it.” He tossed the poteen down his gullet. “The word’s all over town, at The Shield and Crown and elsewhere. Three Travelling men were taken poaching game today by Brown, the Duke’s man. They’ve been put in irons and marched away. That bastard Brown’s boasting that the Duke will make an example of them—flog them, cut off their hands, hang and quarter them. I’ll have to go tell Dristin’s wife. And Maggie Mae, would you tell Joanna—before she hears it from someone else? This’ll kill the lass.”

  * * *

  Christopher heard the news at supper that evening. His empty-headed sisters, Lady Daphne and Lady Henrietta, sat across from him at the long, carved table. His father sat at the head of the table, as befitted his position as paterfamilias.

  “Well, Brown did a good day’s work today,” the Duke said. “Caught three of those Traveller blighters trying to steal my game. They’ve been taken in irons to the gaol in town. Magistrate’s a friend of mine. Getting a guilty verdict at Assizes should be no problem. Like to have the whole thing over and done before the Prince and his friends come here to hunt in a fortnight.”

  He thrust his table knife with relish into his portion of baron of beef, and he smacked his fleshy lips in satisfaction. Christopher turned away, sickened.

  “It serves the filthy creatures right,” said Lady Daphne primly. She was the sanctimonious one of the sisters; she delighted in reading long, gloomy religious tracts that promised sinners eternal perdition.

  “What will happen to them, Father?” Lady Henrietta asked. She was by far the prettier sister, but no more charitable than Lady Daphne. She was the fairest noblewoman at every ball, and the cruelest horsewoman at every fox hunt.

  “I mean to make an example of them. The maximum penalty under the law. Flog them publicly, then hang, draw, and quarter them. Give the worthy townspeople a show to enjoy, eh? Then I’ll have some of Brown’s boys deliver the body parts back to the gypsy camp. What odds the rest of them don’t dare show their faces on my property next year?”

  The girls uttered little squeaks, delighted and disgusted in equal measure. Christopher could willingly have strangled them, one with each hand.

  “Are the prisoners’ names known, Father?”

  “What? Their names? How the bloody hell should I know? Not sure these savages even have names. But ask Brown. He’ll know, I’d imagine.”

  * * *

  The Duke and his son were walking to the stables the next morning, when they ran into Brown.

  “Good work yesterday, Brown.”

  The man tugged his forelock at the Duke and Marquess. “Thank you, Your Grace. A pleasure to serve.”

  “My son had an interest in knowing the thieves’ names.”

  “Yes, Your Grace. And Lord Clydekill, sir. There were three of them, one called Dristin, I think? One named Padraig—I remember that, I used to have a dog named Padraig. And the third Domnall, I believe. Yes, the third was named Domnall.”

  Christopher went white. “Domnall Bagley?” he asked.

  “Yes, My Lord, that is correct. Does his lordship know the man?”

  “No—that is, I’ve heard the name before.”

  “I can’t imagine where, if your lordship doesn’t mind my saying so. Not at all the sort of person my lord would know.”

  “Oh, my son keeps odd company sometimes, Brown,” the Duke chuckled.

  “Of course, Your Grace. Indeed, sir.”

  Christopher turned on his heel and walked away. He could not stand the conversation for another moment.

  * * *

  This would kill Joanna. Her Da, as she called him, was the dearest person in her little world. If something happened to him, on my own father’s orders, she’d hate me. I’d hate myself.

  He went to the kitchen and asked the cook, who was soft-hearted and very fond of the young Marquess, to make up a parcel for him. “Some blankets, maybe. A flask of decent brandy. Some food—bread, cheese, and ham or beef, maybe?”

  “What are you up to then, My Lord? Running away from home?” He could swear that Cook still thought of him as a boy of ten.

  “No. Just a poor tenant cottager who’s taken sick. I thought I’d stop by with some nourishment.”

  “You’ll be a good master to us, when you’re Duke. We all say it.” The plump old woman beamed sweetly at him. “A good boy makes a good man. Now, take your parcel, and get ye out of the kitchen, My young Lord, I’ve got dinner to fix!”

  * * *

  From behind the bars of his cell, Domnall saw a finely-dressed young man—gentry, by the look of him—argue heatedly with the gaoler. “If you won’t let me talk to him, at least give him this.”

  “I dunno, My Lord, it’s most irregular.”

  “Don’t worry. If anyone questions this, I’ll speak for you.”

  “And who will speak for you, My Lord? His Grace won’t like this one bit when he hears of it, I can tell you.”

  “My father won’t hear of it. Now do as I say.” The Marquess turned and left.

  Domnall thought he’d faint when the gaoler came to his cell and said, “For you especially, by name, I’ll have you know. From his young lordship the Marquess. Seems you’ve got friends in high places. Who’da thought?”

  Domnall shook his head. Why would any of the gentry know who I am, much less bring me comfort? It was a puzzlement.

  * * *

  Christopher’s next stop was at the lodgings of the magistrate’s young clerk, Reginald Smyth. Smyth was of humble origins, but smart as they come. Years before, he used to join Christopher at the ducal manor, where the boys studied Latin and mathematics under the dolorous eye of Mr. Rhys, the melancholy Welsh tutor.

  For a charity boy, Smyth had done well. The county magistrate, old Sir William Dobbie, had hired Smyth as a law clerk, and the young man was prospering under Dobbie’s patronage.

  Christopher needed a favor from his former schoolmate. The courtesies exchanged, Smyth got right to the point. “What can I do for you, My Lord?”

  “I need information. The three gypsies they put in gaol today—is there any hope for them?”

  “I shouldn’t think so. They were caught red-handed. In flagrante delicto, as we lawyers like to say. His Grace, your father, is fit to be tied. He wants an example made of them. You can imagine what that will mean.”

  “Yes, I can, unfortunately.” After a few more pleasantries, Christopher said goodbye to his friend and returned to the ducal manor.

  It seemed his only hope lay with his father. He dreaded the argument that would ensue. He cringed at the thought of what bullying his father would subject him to. But he had to do this for Joanna. Even if she never knew that it was he who had done it.

  * * *

  “Father, may I speak with you?”

  They were in the library, one of his father’s favorite rooms. The chairs scattered around the room were well-worn oxblood leather. Books, untouched for decades, lined the shelves. Sporting prints—scenes from fox hunts and wrestling bouts—cov
ered the darkly papered walls.

  Right now, I know just how the fox feels.

  “Well, then, what’s this about?” the Duke asked brusquely. “I have other things I need to be doing.” He rather obviously looked at his pocket watch to underscore his point.

  “Father,” he began. “Sir, I believe we’d be best served by letting the gypsies off with a stiff fine. They’ve got plenty of guineas now, I’m sure, right after the county livestock fair.”

  “Oh, you think that, do you? All right, I’ll humor you and listen to your arguments. Why would we be best served by that?”

  “There’s a lot of unrest among the common people. Remember what happened during the French Revolution. Or even with the American colonies seeking their rights. We’ve got to use a delicate touch.”

  “The French business was more than a decade ago—the colonial debacle over twenty years back. I hardly think they’re relevant. And besides, your average Anglo-Saxon commoner despises the gypsies even more than we do. That’s a pretty damn foolish argument. Wait a minute.” The Duke was always quick to smell a rat. “You’ve got some personal stake in this, don’t you? Else how did you know one of the thieves’ names this morning?”

  Christopher willed himself to stay silent.

  “Nay, my boy, I mean to make an example of them, and that’s that.”

  Christopher played his last card. “Then let at least one of them go. You don’t need all three.”

  “And let me guess—the one you’d release is this Donnell fellow. Whom you seem to know.”

  “Domnall. And yes, Father, he’s the one. Let him go free, back to his family, his people. And I swear I’ll do whatever you like in return.”

  The Duke turned to him with a crafty smile.

  Now he has me where he wants me.

  “Very well, Christopher, here are my terms. I will let your thieving friend off scot-free. It’s no matter to me—I can deliver the same message by publicly hanging and butchering two men instead of three. And in return, you will attend the London Season. You will do so cheerfully and dutifully, as befits my son. By the end of the Season, you will have entered into holy matrimony with a wealthy bride of my choice—my choice, do you hear me? You will get a child on her as soon as possible. And through it all, you will treat your wife as if you were the luckiest man in the kingdom to have won her hand. Do we understand each other, Christopher?”

  Christopher understood all too well. His life was over.

  But at least he had saved Joanna’s Da for her. That was something, he supposed.

  Chapter 6

  Promises Kept

  The Travellers waited daily for some news of the three prisoners. Tempers ran high. More than one man swore that if others would join him, he’d mount an attack on the county gaol. Padraig, Dristin, and Domnall would be freed, even if it meant the town streets ran red with Outsider blood.

  But other voices talked them down. There was a regiment of soldiers garrisoned in Wycliffe, not twenty miles from Gresham. Did they want to bring the wrath of the Redcoats down on themselves, not to mention on their innocent wives and children?

  So the Travellers waited for word. Dristin and Padraig’s wives, who were cousins, clung together and took what comfort they could from each other. Dristin’s son Beathan, a fine young man of two-and-twenty, saw that his mother and her cousin were already well attended. He offered his consolation to Joanna and Maggie Mae instead.

  Beathan’s solicitude for the two Bagley women did not go unnoticed in the Traveller camp. But it came as no surprise, either. For a couple of years now, young Athan had followed the lovely young Joanna around the camp as a puppy trails his mistress. In group gatherings, his eyes rarely left her—and he never seemed to know that other pretty girls shared the camp.

  Indeed, it seemed all but certain that Athan would ask Domnall for his daughter’s hand, if he had not already done so. No one begrudged poor Maggie Mae and Joanna any help the boy now gave them, with their own man likely never to return to his family.

  For the Travellers had little hope they would see the missing men again in this life. The gentry held all the power, and they did not make idle threats.

  Cormac served as their eyes and ears in Gresham Town. It was he who brought word that a trial would be held before the magistrate, one William Dobbie by name, at midday the following Monday.

  The trial would not be open to the public, but in the likely event of a guilty verdict, any punishment would be publicly delivered immediately afterward, on the Gresham town commons.

  Joanna was inconsolable, despite Athan’s best efforts to comfort her. He, too, was about to lose a father. But Joanna could think of no other grief beyond her own.

  Da, will I ever talk with you again? Da, I need you, don’t leave me. Da, I love you.

  Beathan could only imagine that in his cold prison cell, Domnall’s thoughts, like his own father’s, must be as bleak as Joanna’s own.

  * * *

  It seemed on Monday afternoon that all of Gresham Town, and half of the county besides, was crammed into the area surrounding the commons.

  Because capital punishment was likely, soldiers had been posted to keep the crowds back. Their muskets, fitted with needle-sharp bayonets, glittered in the late summer sunshine. The soldiers were well trained in dealing with unruly mobs.

  Here and there among the crowd, the bright, homespun garb of a Traveller could be spotted. They clustered in twos and threes among the townsfolk, keeping their eyes peeled for any trouble. The crowd’s mood was ugly, and the gypsies unpopular. It wouldn’t take much to set off a riot.

  What are they saying about him in the magistrate’s chambers? Is he frightened? I know he will try to appear brave, if only to keep Dristin’s and Padraig’s spirits up. Oh, Da.

  Something was happening. The magistrate came striding through the crowd, dressed in his judicial robe and wig. The first prisoner was led out from the gaolhouse to the center of the commons, and mounted on a platform beneath a tree. It was Padraig.

  He looked gaunt and weak, but he held his head up as they placed the rope around his neck. Fiona, his wife, called out to him hysterically. He turned his head to look at her, and in an instant, he was hanging from the rope, his neck snapped.

  They took him down, still only half-dead, and several soldiers carried him over to a clearing. They tied him by the neck to one horse, and by the legs to another, facing in the opposite direction.

  This was the part the crowd liked best.

  The horses were loosed and whipped. Moving with their full strength, the horses ripped Padraig’s body in two. Then soldiers cut his mutilated carcass free from the horses, and with their sabers sliced the halves into quarters.

  The crowd went wild at the bloody spectacle.

  “Clear this up,” the magistrate ordered. “Bring out the next prisoner.”

  Dristin came next, managing to keep a defiant smirk on his face, even when he saw the remains of his comrade on the grass. In the crowd, Athan clutched at Joanna’s hand, and despite her own grief, she tried to comfort him.

  “Close your eyes, Athan. He wouldn’t want you to see this,” Joanna murmured. But Athan fought not to look away. If his father was brave enough to endure this, at least he should be brave enough to watch and endure with him.

  Again, the snapping rope, the galloping horses, the final butchering by the soldiers’s swords. Witnessing the last, Athan finally broke down, gulping sobs.

  Joanna, aching for him, took Athan in her arms, holding his shaking body against her breast like a mother.

  She did not see Christopher in the crowd, watching in disbelief as his Joanna embraced this unknown young man with what seemed to be the passion of a lover. She didn’t see him turn away sadly with his shoulders slumped, pushing his way out through the crowd.

  * * *

  After Dristin’s dismemberment, the soldiers tried to disperse the townsfolk. “Come on, then. Off home. The show is over here.” The crowd gradually shuf
fled away in disappointment. It was anticlimactic—they had expected three prisoners, three executions.

  The Travellers were similarly dismayed, although for different reasons. Where was Domnall? Had he already been executed in private? Was he being held for some worse fate, some more grotesque manner of execution? During the long walk back to the gypsy encampment, they debated these things.

  Maggie Mae tried to keep Joanna’s spirits up. “Where there’s life, there’s hope, girl. Don’t ye go givin’ up, now.” But in truth, they both could only imagine the worst.

  Da. If you were gone from this earth, I think I’d feel it. But how could you possibly still be alive?

  Once back at the camp, they found that some of Brown’s men on horseback had arrived hours before them. Just as the Duke had promised, the riders carried a box with the mangled remains of Dristin and Padraig. The box had been dumped on the edge of the gypsy camp, where it could not be missed.

  At the sight, Fiona fell onto the ground, convulsing. She howled like an animal, tearing at her clothes, her skin. The other women eventually were able to quiet her. They took her back to her own caravan, where they sat through the night, keening with her.

  Deirdre, Dristin’s wife, bore her grief more quietly. But from that night forward, she was a broken woman, and she hardly ever spoke a word.

  The other Travellers sat around their campfires, singing sorrowful songs and passing the jugs of whiskey, as was their age-old tradition. One by one, they told stories of the three lost men—funny tales revealing their fondest memories. Thus the Travellers laughed at Death, which was also their tradition.

  Then Domnall walked into camp.