Chapter 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

T he Talbots’ house opened onto one of the lesser squares. An obliging footman asked Oakley if he would like his carriage called for, and Oakley explained they only meant to take the air. He knew not what else to expect from the stroll, but it was enough for now that Bess had agreed to come with him. He could not stand another moment pretending indifference towards her. He led her down the stairs and out of the house, across the street. They remained in silence as they entered the square; she glanced up at him with a questioning look, and he said, “Let us not go too far. It would not do to have the footpads come upon us.”

“I do not fancy that idea myself,” she said lightly.

He turned to face her, unable to resist the temptation of a light brush of her bare arm. “I have done my best to honour your request of me tonight.”

“My request.” She sighed, looking down at her hands chafing against one another. She looked up. “I despise how we ended things at our last meeting.”

“As do I.”

“Do you like Miss Talbot?”

Oakley nodded. “She is a sweet girl. I think she would make you a fine sister-in-law.”

“Sister-in-law?” Her eyes widened. “Do you think Leighton likes her so much?”

“He certainly got on with her far better than I did.” Oakley enjoyed the look of relief that crossed Bess’s countenance. “She is connected to Penrith; it would be a good match for him.”

“Dear Ollie.” She nodded, looking pensive. “I cannot say whether he thinks to seek matrimony as yet or not.”

“Seeking matrimony is a difficult thing,” he observed. “It seems far easier to me to allow matrimony to find you rather than the other way round.”

“I am sorry,” she said feelingly. “I wish it were not so. You deserve…you deserve the best of the best, dear Oakley.”

“Alas, that is you…and you cannot be mine.”

“I shall forever be yours,” she murmured. “Even if it is only in friendship.”

His heart swelled so at her words that it robbed him of his breath. The moon was full and its pale light traced the alabaster of her cheek as he stood simply drinking in the sight of her. He longed to taste the sweetness of her cheek, to touch her hair, to feel her warmth pressed against him. She belongs to Beamish , he reminded himself but found that, in the moment, he could not much care about that.

“I wish for far more, but as it is impossible”—he swallowed, hard—“I shall take friendship. I am honoured you offer me as much.”

He took up her hands then, bringing them to his lips for feather-light kisses. She had not donned her gloves after dinner, and her hands were petal-soft against his lips. They stirred him, and he imagined how it might be to continue up her arm, onto her shoulder, her neck, and then meet her lips with his own.

She belongs to Beamish! Gentlemanly honour asserted itself more forcefully this time. To seduce a married woman would make him no better than Damian, for pity’s sake!

He forced himself to drop her hands and to take a step back, making his eyes move away from the beauty of her countenance. He stared into the dark shadows of the square, forcing his breath to become even, his body to cool. He could not so much as look to see what she did, if she was similarly affected.

“Forgive me,” he finally said.

“There is nothing to forgive.”

“If we stay out here much longer, there will be, I assure you.” He smiled, feeling weak. “Come, let us go back to the party.” He extended his arm that she should precede him and she did.

“You will want to go to see the man on a Tuesday,” Lady Lenora informed Lord Tipton and Oakley. “It is the day that they are least busy with pleasure-seekers and gadabouts.”

“Pleasure-seekers at the gaol?” Lord Tipton frowned. “Not tourists, surely?”

“There is nothing the wealthy love so much as having a glimpse of the wretched,” she replied with a wry grin. “Short of an execution, there is nothing that delights them more than seeing the men in their chains shuffling about.”

“Absolutely ghastly,” Lord Tipton pronounced and Oakley agreed. That these desperate souls should be subjected to the further indignity of having their misery gawped at by the idly curious!

They were at last to see the man who ostensibly had information about Damian and his doings, and they would not press into the throng of the curious. Lady Lenora had helped them arrange it all and had even offered to accompany the men, much to her mother’s dismay. They had kindly refused her in any case.

On the day appointed, they travelled the short distance to Fleet Street. Oakley was relieved to see that Lord Tipton appeared well in health and in spirits; he hoped both would serve his father well in enduring whatever it was Mr Shaw would say.

Lord Tipton had used all the power of his hauteur, and his coin, to insist on a private room for their interview; they were given one reluctantly by a stinking warden who had tobacco-stained lips and shifty eyes. “I should not be surprised if he absconded with my money and we never saw him again,” Lord Tipton murmured as he went off, supposedly to fetch their man. Oakley murmured an agreement through the handkerchief pressed to his nose; the stench of so many unwashed and sick men was nigh on unbearable.

The man who came to them was called Mr Whittaker Shaw, and he was an inmate of the Common Side of the ward. They had been told he was the third son of a baronet—a notion which made Lord Tipton scoff—and that his father had disowned him for descending so far into debt. He was painfully thin, as would be expected for a man who had been in gaol for a twelve-month complete, and his chains made a clinking sound as he slowly shuffled towards them. Lord Tipton and Oakley rose to greet him.

“Good sirs,” he said with an awkward bow. “How good you are to meet me.” He spoke in educated accents, making Oakley think that it was perhaps true, that the poor man was a disowned third son. Like my birth father. He immediately felt greater compassion for the man.

“Pray sit.” Lord Tipton gestured towards the bench that had been placed for the purpose across from their own. Mr Shaw sank onto it gratefully. Oakley and Lord Tipton also sat, and for a moment, no one seemed to know how to begin.

“You understand, sir,” Lord Tipton began, “that we are by no means certain that you possess information of use to us?”

Mr Shaw nodded. “I do.”

“And that any information you provide to us will not be used for further conviction? I say that to encourage you to speak freely, for there is nothing for you to lose by candour.”

Mr Shaw nodded again.

“Lastly, if we do find your information to be of use, only then shall we meet your demand of twenty pounds.”

“Pray know that it pains me to ask for anything at all. Only my own desperation compels me to request it, and as soon as I am able, you will see it returned to you,” Mr Shaw promised earnestly.

Lord Tipton made a wordless noise of disbelief. “Well, we shall see about all of that. First let us discuss what information you have and why it is that you, and only you, have it.”

Mr Shaw moved on the bench, seeking a better position. “Your brother?—”

“Mention him only as Damian,” Oakley inserted immediately. “We do not recognise the family connection, though it cannot be hid.”

“Forgive me. Damian, then.” Mr Shaw gave Oakley an apologetic smile.

“How did you know him?” Oakley asked.

For a moment, Mr Shaw pressed his lips together. “I found myself in a bit of trouble from time spent at the gaming hells,” he admitted. “As many do, I always believed that the next hand should save me. Always the next hand, then the next and the next after that with no alteration of fortune, forever digging myself deeper into debt. I soon found myself well beyond the reach of my means, approaching sums that would leave me with nothing.”

“You squandered your entire fortune?” Oakley asked.

Mr Shaw hung his head. “Through my own foolishness, I would be destitute. Destitute and without family, for even then I knew what my father would do, once he learnt of it. I was panicked, knowing not what I could do to set things to rights. Then a kindly older gentleman took an interest in me, telling me he had a way out for me.”

“Damian?” Oakley guessed.

“I knew him first as Mr Milliard, but yes, it was Damian Richmond. I did not know it then. He had a very persuasive way about him, and I was desperate to recover whatever I could, in whatever way I could. So it was that I became a party to his scheme.”

“The thieving?” Lord Tipton asked.

“Somehow he made it seem right. Ladies always have more jewels than they can wear, and the great houses are laden with too many silver trays to count. A burden to the servants to polish! Why not move a few such items about and line my own pockets in the process? He made it all seem so…so harmless.”

Oakley and Lord Tipton glanced at one another, then Oakley nodded to Mr Shaw to continue.

“What I did not immediately know was that Damian was involved with the Carter gang of smugglers, a particularly bloodthirsty group, but they positively adored him. I believe he began as merely an investor but soon realised there was more to be had. The Carters, you see, were only bringing things in, mostly from the French. Damian persuaded them to be active in also sending things out of England.”

“Things? Things like what?” Oakley enquired.

“Jewels mostly, silver, an occasional piece of art. Whatever someone somewhere might want, Damian would see that they had it—for a price.”

Lord Tipton looked troubled, but dubious. “I can scarcely credit this, with all due respect. Damian was not the sort who liked to get his hands dirty and certainly not for the occasional watch fob.”

“It was far more than an occasional watch fob. That was where men like me came in. He would employ younger gentlemen of upper levels of society—many of us choked in the stranglehold of debt—men whom no one would ever suspect of taking things from the house. There were many of us, each of us on any given night taking a candelabra or a bracelet, perhaps two from among the lady of the house’s finest necklaces. We would bring our wares to Damian and he would pay us, then pass them along to the Carters. The Carters would see that the goods got out of England, and Damian would receive a share of the profit.”

“You stole from the houses you visited?” Lord Tipton asked, his tone severe.

Mr Shaw nodded miserably. “Only a few times…perhaps five. I do not mean to diminish my role in it, but I had not the disposition for thievery. I did what needed to be done to cover my debts and then wanted to be out of the scheme. I told Damian, no more, I was out. Alas, like most groups of that sort, once you are in, they do not like you to leave. Thus it was by his hand that I was sent to the gaol, although if I am being perfectly fair, it was also by his hand that I was not hanged for theft as could have been done.”

“What you are telling me is that Damian was the leader of this gang of gentlemen thieves in London, taking things from the houses of the ton which were then smuggled from the country for a share of the profit for him,” Lord Tipton summarised. “Yes?”

“That is correct,” Mr Shaw confirmed. “It went on for several years and was profitable for all involved until Damian unknowingly gave paste jewellery to the Carters, thinking they were real. He was being crossed by one or perhaps several of the other men and had no suspicion of it until one of the Carters’ men told him he would be killed—slowly and painfully—if he ever tried such a thing again.”

“How did that happen?” Oakley asked. “I should have imagined Damian quite shrewd, if nothing else.”

“The men, one in particular, who made the paste jewels had become exceedingly talented at it. One could hardly know the difference seeing two pieces side by side. Apparently the man in question would steal something, make a forgery of it, and then Damian would buy it, thinking it real. Damian would then send it through the Carters. In the meantime, I would imagine the man making the paste jewels intended to make his own arrangements for the real jewels; I know not if he actually did.

“Needless to say, Damian was enraged that this upstart thief had endangered him so, and he went into Bicester, wishing to lay low while he determined who had deceived him. Alas, due to some other matter with a nobleman, Damian found himself being sent to gaol.”

Of course, Oakley—and Lord Tipton as well, he suspected—knew exactly the matter of which Mr Shaw spoke, but he said nothing of it.

“I, too, was in Bicester gaol for a time, and presuming me a friend, Damian confided that he meant to be freed at once. The Carters would give him money, he said, but first he would make good to them by providing the real jewels. Thus, he summoned the man he suspected of betraying him?—”

“Why would the fellow go? Who was he?” Oakley asked, intrigued by the tale despite himself.

Mr Shaw shook his head. “I do not know the gentleman’s name. Damian called him the Corgi, and that was how I knew him. He was a handsome fellow, I shall give him that, but then again so were we all once. Damian did not like to employ the ill-favoured—he said it boded ill for a caper to have ugly fellows stamping about enacting it. In any case, whosoever the Corgi was, he came to Damian because, I believe, he would have had no notion that Damian was on to him. I should imagine that he believed he was being summoned to help Damian and was happy to act as agent, likely imagining some reward would result.”

Lord Tipton said, “So this unnamed man, this Corgi, came to the gaol in Bicester?—”

“Two of them came, but alas I knew the second even less than I knew Corgi,” said Mr Shaw. “There were few of us in the yard when it all happened, but Damian had drawn aside the men for their discussion. I know not when or how things went awry, but a fight ensued, one which proved fatal for Damian.”

Shocked, Oakley asked, “The man killed him?”

“Several were involved in the fight, and I know not who dealt the death blow. I have heard it was the Corgi who, it is said, brought in a blade.”

“Allow me to put a conclusion on this,” Lord Tipton said. “Damian was in fact involved in a ring of jewel thieves—a ring leader of sorts—but was likely killed by one of his underlings.”

He looked pained, Oakley noticed. He was not surprised. Their estrangement notwithstanding, it could not be pleasant hearing the gruesome details of his brother’s death. To hear the full extent of his infamy at the same time must be painful indeed. For himself, Oakley only grew angrier still with his uncle. There truly was no end to the ways in which he had damaged the Richmond family while he was alive.

“Yes,” Mr Shaw agreed.

“And is it likely, do you think, that jewels or money remain that these Carters might like to get hold of?”

Mr Shaw considered that a moment. “I am not an authority on the matter, of course, but I shall say that the Carters were not investing in the schemes. It was Damian who put up the blunt to get the goods and pass them on in hopes of the return. The Carters’ part began when Damian delivered to them.”

“So if the supply had dried up…?” Lord Tipton asked.

“I do not think the Carters would go looking for it. They likely kept Damian’s portion from the last shipments and moved on to greener pastures. The Carters steal entire shiploads of goods at a time; I know not how much these jewels signified to them.”

“And this business of Rundell, Bridge and Rundell. Do you know anything of that?”

“I heard Damian mention that in reference to the Corgi,” said Mr Shaw. “The Corgi had a talent for fashioning replicas with paste, it seemed, and he used that to advantage in the matter of Rundell, Bridge and Rundell. I do not think Damian had any involvement. He thought the whole thing too damn tricky. Liked easy money, did Damian. He was not one to risk his neck.”

Lord Tipton looked thoughtful as he nodded. “Anything else we should know, sir?”

Mr Shaw shook his head.

“Oblige my curiosity, if you will,” Lord Tipton said. “Twenty pounds is a very small sum for this information. Why did you not try to ask me for more?”

“It may not seem so now, my lord, but I am a gentleman,” said Mr Shaw. “The information is about a dead relation and thus worth only a nominal amount, I felt. I asked only for that which was desperately needed to broker my release from here, and I do say, again, that I shall return it to you.”

“We appreciate your candour,” Oakley told him.

“That we do,” said Lord Tipton. “I intend to see the magistrate next to pay your twenty pounds, Mr Shaw, and wish you Godspeed.”

Lord Tipton and Oakley rose to leave as did Mr Shaw. It was a relief to Oakley’s posterior to leave the hard wooden bench, and it was this he was mostly thinking of when he said, idly, “Why was the man called the Corgi?”

Mr Shaw paused. “All gangs adopt nicknames for one another. It would not do to utter family names amid such schemes, so the leader will always begin calling a person this or that. I was the Lily, for being too nervous, too lily-livered. The Corgi was…well, he was the Corgi after those dogs from Wales with the enormous ears.”

Oakley felt himself stiffen. “A handsome fellow but large ears?”

“Oh yes. Quite comical in fact, could scarce be contained beneath his hat.” Mr Shaw chuckled wanly.

For a moment, Oakley stood rooted to the spot, implications of it all racing through his mind. It was the clearing of Lord Tipton’s throat that returned him to his senses, and he followed him from the room.