Chapter Fifteen

Daizell sat in the cell, arms on his knees and head in his hands, wondering if he could identify the point at which his life had gone quite so badly wrong.

It depended where you wanted to start. Being fathered by George Charnage had been a tactical error from which he'd never recovered. Expulsion from Eton had primed the world to take a dim view of him. He could have handled himself better around his father's crime, instead of his bewildered efforts to defend his parents, not to mention the drinking. The obscene profiles had been enormous fun to do at the time, but he should have ensured they were gathered up and burned. He probably shouldn't have tried to elope with Miss Beaumont. And he should never, ever have talked to Cassian, or agreed to travel with Cassian, or fallen in love with Cassian.

Perhaps that wasn't the stupidest thing he'd done in his life, but it felt like it. His wretched idiocy, his self-delusion, his pathetic need for once not to be disposed of as a trivial obstacle to someone else's life: they stewed miserably in his stomach, unless that was the gaol food.

If he wasn't a bloody fool, he would have realised that Cassian was far more than he said. Perhaps they might have set up a sensible sort of arrangement, one where they could be friends who fucked, and Daizell lived at the Duke's expense. A kept man, as Martin had suggested. That would have been the sensible thing to do, if he could have borne it, if he'd kept his head and negotiated a satisfactory bargain, if he hadn't wanted Cassian to love him.

He didn't want to be Cassian's shameful secret or paid bedmate. He wanted Cassian as he'd had him over the last glorious weeks, friend and lover and companion, there all the time with his sun-and-rain eyes, that wondering hopeful smile.

But he wasn't going to have that, because Cassian was the Duke of Severn. If he wasn't a damned needy fool, he could at least have taken the news with grace and had another week. He could have taken the fifty quid, come to that. It would have helped.

And , while he was on the subject, he could have refrained from punching Mr Thomas Acaster in the face.

He'd quite forgotten about that business on their travels, relegating the coach spill to his collection of unwanted memories, and entirely disregarding the little turd who'd caused it. He certainly hadn't considered the matter as he and Martin had made their desultory, unenthusiastic way towards Worcester: he'd had other things on his mind. It had been a miserable journey. Martin might have intended sympathy, but nothing he said had actually supplied it, and in any case he wasn't Cassian. Daizell wanted Cassian so badly he felt sick with it, and couldn't seem to come to terms with the fact that he didn't exist.

They'd got off the stage at wherever it was, some place so trivial Daizell couldn't even recall its name, because they were both fed to the back teeth of the journey and each other's company, and who had they encountered but Mr Tom Acaster. Daizell hadn't even noticed him. He'd spotted Daizell all right, and brought a constable.

Daizell had been promptly hauled before the local magistrate, one Sir Benjamin Acaster. That had gone as well as might be expected. Sir Benjamin had listened to his son's complaint, ‘examined' Daizell by bellowing abuse at him without letting him get a word in, and committed him to prison to await trial. And here he was in a cell, glaring alternately at the dirt-streaked lime-washed walls and the earthen floor, cold and damp and hungry, in expectation of a trial that was to be conducted by, wait for it, Sir Benjamin Acaster.

Which meant he was doomed. In a fair hearing he might point out the context of his assault on the young man, but he wasn't going to have one of those, nor would there be anyone to appeal to. Magistrates were meant to sit in pairs, but the turnkey had informed him that Sir Benjamin sat alone, and liked it that way.

Sir Benjamin wouldn't want to send Daizell to the Assizes, where he risked a more severe punishment but would at least get a hearing. Instead, he would use his powers of summary justice. That, as he had said with relish at the preliminary examination, meant a whipping. There would probably be a fine too, and since Daizell had no way to pay such a thing, he was inevitably looking at a spell in gaol as well.

Daizell wasn't sure which prospect was the worst. He did not want to be whipped: the idea made him feel sick. He'd been caned at school and that had hurt, but whipping – he'd seen the mess that made of men's backs, he was not stoic about bodily harm, and his gorge rose at the thought of the pain, the shame, the scarring.

He didn't want to be a gaolbird either. He hadn't conducted himself with any great righteousness throughout his adult life and was used to being a gentleman of uncertain fortune and degraded reputation. But whipping and imprisonment meant a fall he'd probably never recover from.

This was it. This was the moment he stopped being a not-quite-gentleman and became a marked, degraded scoundrel. He'd broken the magistrate's son's nose because he was a stupid, thoughtless fool, and he was going to pay in blood and skin and pain, and nobody was going to help him. Martin probably would if he could, but he couldn't, and Daizell had seen nothing of him since the arrest. Doubtless he had vanished away, like a sensible man. And nobody else in the wide world cared an iota for Daizell.

He wasn't going to wonder if Cassian cared. He'd felt a panicked impulse to call on the Duke of Severn's name in front of the magistrate, and choked it down. It wouldn't work anyway: who'd believe him? How could he prove it, with Cassian miles away and Lord knew where? And he'd consigned Cassian to the devil so it wouldn't be fair to drag him into this.

It wouldn't be fair anyway. This was Daizell's mess, self-created, self-inflicted. It was time he faced up to that, and to the fact that nobody else was going to bring order or certainty or purpose to his life. He wouldn't find value, in himself or anything else, by drifting along, seeing where the currents took him, for the rest of his life. He knew very well where they would take him: inexorably downward till he drowned.

So he'd endure the whipping and whatever other spite Sir Benjamin chose to mete out, and wait for it to be over, and then he'd . . . do something. Go and seek a place in one of the profile studios in London or, better, set up one of his own in a provincial town. Give up trying to be more than he was, use the skill he had, cut shades for shillings all day every day, and if that felt desperately bleak, it was at least better than the pointless existence to which he'd let himself be habituated until Cassian had made him dream that he mattered.

Daizell set his mind to that, trying to imagine himself enjoying life as an independent artisan rather than starving in a gutter, until the turnkey came to get him.

He was marched into a mean and dingy room for trial, hands chained. It was hardly a courtroom, but justice round here was rudimentary at best. Sir Benjamin sat at a table that represented the Bench. Daizell was shoved into a pew, with the smirking Tom Acaster on the other side. His nose had set very badly, Daizell was pleased to note. A scattering of people sat to watch. Daizell didn't look at them: he didn't want to be gawped at.

Sir Benjamin cleared his throat. ‘In the matter of common assault, brought against Daizell Charnage by Thomas Acaster—'

‘These proceedings are unlawful.'

That was Martin's voice. Daizell looked around sharply, and saw him standing in the small crowd.

The magistrate swelled. ‘I beg your pardon? Who are you, sir?'

‘My name is John Martin, and I object. It is not right for the prosecutor's father to sit in judgement of this case. It should be heard by another magistrate.'

‘How dare you?' Sir Benjamin retorted. ‘I am the magistrate here! I rule without favour! Is my son to be denied justice on the basis of his father's name? I think not, sir. He is the victim of a vicious assault, and I will judge the case with impartiality and discretion.'

Martin scoffed. Daizell tried without success to catch his eye in order to indicate Stop it! ‘Sir, you are bent on vengeance rather than justice. This is not right. You should release the prisoner until a fair judge is found, since you are clearly no such thing.'

If Martin was trying to get him hanged, he was going the right way about it. Daizell would have liked to have his hands free, just so he could put his face into them. He contemplated the reddening magistrate with a sinking heart.

‘How dare you insult my impartiality?' Sir Benjamin bellowed. ‘Be silent or I will commit you for contempt of court!'

Martin shrugged. He didn't back down easily in the face of threats, though that trait was less admirable when Daizell would be the one paying for his insolence. ‘Very well, your honour. If that's how you want it, I submit a witness for the court.'

Sir Benjamin's eyes bulged. ‘What witness? None has been bound over for the prosecution except my son. No other will be heard.'

Martin smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. ‘I think your honour will find you're wrong about that.'

He sat down. Cassian stood up.

Daizell's mouth dropped open. He'd been so busy gaping at Martin that he hadn't even noticed Cassian behind him, slim and unobtrusive. Now he walked up to the bench, and Daizell had no idea how he could have missed him. How anybody ever could.

‘What is this?' the magistrate demanded. ‘Who are you, fellow?'

‘I am the Duke of Severn,' Cassian said. ‘You will address me as Your Grace.'

‘Nonsense,' Sir Benjamin said with an incredulous laugh.

He was seated. Cassian stood in front of him, but he didn't have the posture of most men in front of a magistrate. He was very definitely looking down, with an expression of remote displeasure. He wore his old coat, but the golden card-case he took from his pocket was engraved, and when he placed a card on the bench with a click, the wrought gold ring gleamed on his finger.

The magistrate picked up the card and his face changed. Probably a duke's cards felt expensive.

‘I am Severn,' Cassian repeated, and his voice was different, somehow. Remote, and very, very superior. ‘I was travelling with the prisoner when the reckless stupidity of this man, your son, illegally tooling the coach in contravention of numerous by-laws, caused an accident. At least three people were extremely badly hurt, perhaps killed. I note none of them are here, in this room where you propose to try Mr Charnage.' A touch of anger in his voice now. ‘Mr Charnage saved the life of a child in the wreck, acted heroically afterwards in preventing further accident, and aided wounded passengers to escape the coach. While he did so, your son reeled around drunkenly, making oafish jokes, uncaring of the damage he had done. And now you propose to abuse your position and carry out judicial vengeance on Mr Charnage for his very natural anger, while your son goes unpunished for his reckless, drunken destruction. You disgrace your office, Sir Benjamin. This is contemptible.'

The magistrate was the red-purple colour of a raw steak, or an oncoming apoplexy. Cassian went on, voice low and steady, slim form upright, staring down at him as he sat. ‘You are committing an egregious abuse of power and I will not tolerate it. You are unfit for your post, sir, and your son is unfit for the company of gentlemen. I will make both of those things known across England.'

The magistrate opened his mouth. Cassian held up a finger. ‘Weigh your words. I will brook no insolence.'

‘I – but— How do I know you are who you say you are?'

‘I beg your pardon?'

His words fell like stones, clear and separate, and the magistrate swallowed. ‘That is, how do I know, Your Grace?'

Cassian gave him a few seconds' silent scrutiny. ‘You may send to my seat, Staplow, or to London to my solicitors, should you choose to doubt my word. If I am delayed on my travels by this, I will hold you responsible for any consequences. You will in any case release Mr Charnage on my cognizance, now, while we wait for the proof you require. It is regrettable you have not applied such high standards of evidence in your judicial duties.'

‘Your Grace, please.' Sir Benjamin was sweating visibly. ‘I'm sure we can discuss this. As men of goodwill.'

‘Goodwill?' Cassian repeated. ‘I think not. You take up my time. Will this prosecution go forward?'

The magistrate swallowed again, and made a surreptitious gesture to his son, who croaked, ‘No.' His father positively snarled at him, and he amended it to, ‘No, Your Grace.'

‘So Mr Charnage is free to go.'

Sir Benjamin nodded eagerly. ‘Yes, Your Grace.'

‘Then why is he still in irons?' Cassian enquired, and the edge to his voice did more than any bellow could have achieved.

‘At once, Your Grace. Get on you fool!' the magistrate snapped at the turnkey. ‘Your Grace, please believe that this unfortunate misunderstanding – a very natural inclination on a father's behalf – I beg your tolerance—'

‘You seem not to grasp the issue, Sir Benjamin,' Cassian said. ‘I was in that coach. Your son could have killed Severn. There will be consequences.'

Sir Benjamin's mouth opened and shut. Cassian stood in silence, back stiff with hauteur. His coat might have been ermine.

He waited for Daizell to be freed, then turned and swept forward without a word to the magistrate, Daizell and Martin scrambling along in his wake.

Daizell stepped out into his first fresh air and sunlight for two days, blinking. Cassian stopped in front of him, and gave a tiny shudder, like a horse shaking off flies. Daizell shot a glance at Martin, who pulled an appalling face.

When Cassian turned he looked like himself again, without the cold, superior expression and upright bearing. ‘Daizell. Are you all right?'

‘Uh. Yes.'

He couldn't think of anything to say. Probably ‘thank you' would be appropriate, except he didn't want to, unless he did. He was suddenly very aware of his gaol-stink, of the fact he hadn't slept, washed or shaved in two days, still less changed his linen. His coat was torn, his only coat, and he looked like what he was, a shabby ruffian. Cassian was a duke.

Daizell wanted to demand, What are you doing here? Why did you come? but he wasn't sure he could bear the answer.

Cassian seemed equally tongue-tied, for all his earlier poise. They stared helplessly at each other. Martin looked between them, and gave a sigh. ‘Daize, he wants to talk to you. If you want to hear him out, he's taken a parlour in the inn. If you don't, we can go.'

‘Please,' Cassian said scratchily. ‘Would you hear me out? Or even just let me apologise?'

Daizell nodded. Martin touched him on the arm. ‘I'll get your things from the gaol, and be in the public if you need me.'

There was indeed a private parlour in the inn. They walked in, and Cassian shut the door. Daizell wandered over to the other side of the room. He was slightly concerned this might be a dream: that of course the Duke of Severn had not appeared to save him, that he would wake again and still be alone and facing a whipping.

‘Daize,' Cassian said. He sounded real, for what that was worth. ‘Oh, Daize. I have so many things to say to you, but before I start, I really didn't mean what I said then. About the crash, and the important part being what might have happened to me. I truly don't believe that, and please don't think it. I just wanted to give him the worst time I could.'

Daizell couldn't argue with that. The magistrate's face had collapsed in on itself with horror, and young Master Acaster was probably getting pepper at this moment. ‘How were you there? How are you here? Why is Martin here?'

‘I came to find you, and met him on the road,' Cassian said. ‘He said you were going to be prosecuted for hitting that fool, so we, uh, came up with a plan.'

‘For Martin to object, and you to come in if that didn't work. Why?' The answer was all too obvious, but it still hurt enormously, churning miserably in his gut. ‘Were you – were you trying not to lose your wager?'

‘Oh God. No,' Cassian said urgently. ‘Not at all. I wanted him to intervene because I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to sweep in as the Duke of Severn come to rescue you. I hoped that he could make the magistrate realise that his corruption wasn't going unobserved, and get you out of trouble. I didn't want you to owe your deliverance to me when it was all my fault you were in that position in the first place.'

‘No, it wasn't. I hit that idiot.'

‘You were on that coach in the first place because of me. Because of my wager, and my foolishness, and my lies, and I'm so sorry, Daizell. I hurt you horribly, and I will regret it for the rest of my life. You have every right to be furious, and I know an apology means very little when I chose to act as I did, and you don't have to listen if you don't want to. But I'd like to explain myself if you'd hear me out.'

They were standing in the parlour, watching one another. Daizell's pulse was thumping in an unpleasant thready way. He moved to lean on the mantelpiece. ‘You did hurt me. A lot. For a bet .'

‘It wasn't,' Cassian said urgently. ‘That was how I got into the situation, but it isn't the reason I lied. Please, could I – are you all right?'

‘Fine.'

‘No, you're not. You're awfully pale. Have you eaten?'

‘Not for a while,' Daizell said. ‘The accommodations in gaol weren't very generous.'

‘Sit,' Cassian said urgently. ‘And, oh Lord, you want a wash, don't you? Not to listen to me chatter. And your coat— Oh, Daize, this is all my fault. Will you let me put this right, for now? And if you want to hear me once you've had a chance to recover yourself, we'll talk later and if you don't, we won't. But let me do something because you look shocking. Please .'

Daizell was painfully hungry, quite thirsty, unpleasantly aware of his dirt, and entirely exhausted after the battering of the last days. A prouder man might have refused anything from Cassian, even so. Daizell was fresh out of pride, and he had empty pockets and nothing to his name.

So he nodded, and Cassian strode out into the hall, calling for attention. He'd learned. Or he was using his title; Daizell wasn't sure and didn't have the energy to care.

He was conducted to a comfortable room, and brought lavish quantities of food and ale, which he ate in a borrowed gown because his clothes, retrieved by Martin, had been taken for washing and his spare linen had been stolen in gaol. He ate alone while a hot bath was prepared, of which he made good use, scrubbing away the visible evidence of humiliation and misery, and then he slept because he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. He woke for long enough to devour another good meal, and slept again, and woke the next morning feeling at least physically back to something like normal.

That meant he was restive. In fact, he was on tenterhooks, because he was going to have to speak to Cassian and he didn't want to.

He didn't want to hear apologies, or explanations. He absolutely didn't want declarations. He didn't want any of it unless it came with something he was determined not to hope for, because hope was no longer something he could afford to indulge. The cost was too high.

He would have liked to take up his bag and leave, slip away quietly, but he couldn't because he had nothing to wear. This was absurd.

He ate the large breakfast provided in a dressing gown and a bad mood, and then sat by the window, cutting very unkind profiles of Sir Benjamin Acaster for want of anything else to do, when there was a knock and Cassian came in.

He offered Daizell a small, uncertain smile. ‘Good morning. You look a little better?'

‘I feel better, for the sleep and the food. Thank you for those – I assume you're paying; I can't. I'd apologise for my undress, but my clothes have been removed.'

‘Your things will be ready by the afternoon,' Cassian said. ‘Please command whatever you want in the way of food or drink or anything else. And I owe you fifty pounds. I know you didn't take it before but I owe it to you and I'd like you to have it now, before anything else.'

‘What anything else?'

Cassian's shoulders sagged a fraction. ‘I was hoping you'd talk to me, and let me talk to you. It's up to you, but I wish you would. But please take the money first because I owe it to you and you earned it. You found my ring, and nobody else could have done that.'

Daizell took the note he held out, because he'd be a fool not to. This would at least replenish his wardrobe, and if he was sensible it would see him through the year. He intended to be sensible. It was about time.

‘Thank you,' he said again, trying to sound a bit less grudging. ‘I don't want to go over everything. I can't see the point. But you didn't have to come back, or rescue me, and certainly not identify yourself to do it.' The Duke of Severn intervening to rescue a gaolbird Charnage: he wouldn't want that story to spread. ‘So if you want to call it quits here, we could part friends?' It sounded more hopeful than he'd meant. He hadn't quite realised until he spoke that he did want to be friends, or at least to believe in Cassian's friendship.

Cassian stood still, his eyes fixed on Daizell's face. He swallowed before he spoke. ‘Is that what you want? To part?'

‘We have parted. But it wasn't how I'd have wanted to end things, and if you want to put matters on a more amicable footing—'

‘That's not what I want at all.' Cassian had gone rather pale. ‘I don't want to end things. I didn't come back to say goodbye. If – if that's really what you want, though, if you don't care to hear me out because you're not interested, then—'

‘How can you not have come back to say goodbye?' Daizell demanded over him. ‘What else is there to say? You're Severn! I appreciate what you've just done for me, I truly do. But if what you're going to say boils down to, "I'm a duke and I have to go back to my palace", I'd rather we just agreed you have to, and didn't go over it all. What's the point?'

‘I am a duke, and I do have to. The point is, I don't want to.'

Daizell didn't think Cassian was a man for scenes, but his rainswept eyes were wild. This was going to be awful. ‘What is it you want to say that will change anything?' he demanded. ‘You're talking about apologising, but what you need to apologise for is that you were always out of my reach, and you knew that, and I didn't. And however much you apologise for that, you'll still be out of my reach, and I don't need to have that hammered home.' His throat ached. ‘You lied to me and now I'm left loving a man who was never real, and there's no point in you explaining why you did that to me. It won't make things better.'

‘Oh God. Daize, did you mean that?' Cassian took two steps forward and dropped to a knee, grabbing Daizell's hand. ‘You still love me?'

‘We are not going to do this!' Daizell almost shouted. ‘Do you have any idea what it feels like—' He'd had perfection for a handful of days, and briefly believed he could keep it, and he didn't need to be told this mess was bad for Cassian too. ‘You were always on a lark. I understand that. You don't need to rub it in.'

‘No. Listen.' Cassian's eyes were fixed on his. ‘Actually listen , Daizell, because you have entirely the wrong idea. I am begging you to hear me. Please.'

He didn't want to listen. He wanted to run away, to find a blanket and shove his head under it and not have to plough through a conversation that, at best, would only make him feel worse about what he'd lost.

But he couldn't leave the room in a borrowed gown, and the Duke of Severn was kneeling by him with what looked like real pain in his eyes.

‘All right,' he said, with less grace than he'd have liked. ‘Go on.'