There’d been no ghosts last night. No blood, no daggers, and no murder. Neither gravestones nor confessionals nor white marble crypts had haunted Tristan’s dreams. Even Henry, who died anew every time Tristan closed his eyes, hadn’t appeared in his nightmares last night.
No, last night he’d been haunted by shifting images of an emaciated boy with dull, frightened blue eyes. His thin wrists were locked in irons, but instead of Newgate he was imprisoned in a while marble crypt, and with him a lady wearing a silver locket, tears glitteringon her lashes.
It wasn’t the grisliest of the nightmares he’d had, but it disturbed Tristan like no other nightmare before it. He was still in bed, propped up on a stack of pillows, and he might have remained there for most of the morning if Tribble hadn’t appeared with a note from Lord Lyndon.
Gray,
Jeremy Ives is dead. He died in Newgate Prison last night, or so we’re meant to believe. There’s some mischief afoot, Gray, and your pixie isinvolved in it.
Lyndon
Tristan stared down at the note, his lassitude giving way to shock and then anger as his gaze darted over the paper. Miss Monmouth, involved in some sort of mischief regarding Jeremy Ives? Of course, she was bloodyinvolved in it.
He’d seen the despair on her face when she’d knelt beside Jeremy yesterday, chained to the floor of his cell as if he was some kind of wild animal. He’d seen the glitter of fury in her eyes, the thrust of her chin, her cold determination. How had he not anticipated something of this sort would happen?
Ives, dead? No. Tristan would wager every guinea he had Ives was still alive when he was taken from his cell. But how could they have managed it? He’d been as deep in the bowels of Newgate as one could get, locked behind thick iron doors hidden at the end of an endless stone passageway. One didn’t simply wander into Newgate, then wander out again with the prisoner oftheir choosing.
Jeremy Ives had been hanging on to life by a fraying thread. It would surprise no one to find out he’d succumbed to the brutality of Newgate, just as so many others had before him. It would vex the citizens of London he’d escaped the noose—they did like to see their murderers hang—but no one would question Ives’s death.
No one, that is, who didn’t know Lady Clifford. If anyone could steal a condemned murderer right from under the noses of Newgate’s guards, it washer. No doubt Daniel Brixton wasalso involved.
Brixton, and Sophia Monmouth.
She’d usedhimto do it. The tempting curve of her lips when she’d smiled at him yesterday, all that nonsense about his scar, the sweet way she’d taken his hand in his carriage and asked him to tell her about Henry—had it all been just a ploy to distract him so she could gain access to Newgate and plot Ives’s escape? His instincts had screamed at him not to trust her, but he’d done so anyway, and for no better reason than a pair of pretty green eyes.
She’d fooled him.Him, the Ghostof Bow Street.
Tristan crushed Lyndon’s note in his fist and tossed it aside. He snatched up theTimesTribble had left on the table beside his bed, and there it was, right on the first page. It wasn’t much—just a short notice that the notorious murderer Jeremy Ives had died in Newgate Prison theprevious night.
Whatever Lady Clifford had done, it was plausible enough to convince the papers Ives was really dead. The rest of London would follow suit, particularly those who’d attended his trial and seen for themselves how feeble he was. There would be no public outcry, no demand for his return. Miss Monmouth and her conspirators had donethe impossible.
They’d committed theperfect crime.
Tristan threw the coverlet aside, dragged on a pair of breeches, and tugged a shirt over his head. He had to see Lyndon at once, and after that he had a call to pay at the Clifford School. If he had his way, he’d wring a confession from Sophia Monmouth, and then—
He paused, his foot hoveringover his boot.
Then what? An arrest? Could he truly bring himself to arrest her? He could still see the despair in her eyes, still hear her soft voice, her tenderness as she’d soothed Jeremy. And Jeremy himself, an innocent man—a boy—starved, beaten, and chainedup like a dog…
Tristan’s boot slipped from his hand and dropped to the floor.
Had she truly had any other choice? If it had been Henry in that cell, or Lyndon, wouldn’t Tristan have done the same in her place? Did saving her innocent friend makeher a criminal?
Tristan dragged a hand through his hair, his jaw ticking.
Damn her. Damn her to hell.
This wasn’t complicated, no matter how much she tried to make it so. She’d helped a condemned murderer escape from Newgate Prison, and she’d implicated Tristan in the crime. Perhaps he could understand her reasons, but she’d still broken the law. At the very least, he’d have thetruth from her.
He snatched up his boot, shoved his foot into it, and stalked towards the door of his bedchamber, shouting for Tribble to see his carriage readied.
He’d do what he must, greeneyes be damned—
“Lord Lyndon ishere, Lord Gr—”
“For God’s sake, Tribble. Do you suppose he can’t see me for himself? Step aside, man, and let me through.”
Tribble stood in the doorway with Lyndon right on his heels, huffing impatiently. “It’s all right, Tribble.” Tristan waved Lyndon in, then motioned to Tribble to leave and close the door behind him.
