Unraveled Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Epilogue

  Thank you!

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  For DKH and KG, who don’t deserve the mention.

  And for RG, who does.

  Chapter One

  Bristol. October 1843.

  “WELL, BILLY CROGGINS, WHY are you here again?”

  The petty sessions had already started when Miranda Darling slipped into the dingy hearing room. She ducked her head and contemplated the floor, trying not to attract attention. She was playing a young lady today: posture erect, eyes cast demurely down, elbows at her sides. A young lady wouldn’t fuss with her hair. Especially not to scratch where her wig drove an errant pin into her scalp. Today, her future rested on her performance.

  Nothing new in that. The future was a perpetual burden, weighing her down. Sometimes she felt like one of the acrobats her father had taken her to see at Astley’s as a child, dancing atop a bareback horse. One foot put false on a backflip, and she was like to come crashing to the ground. Like the acrobat, she could only pretend her footing was secure, do her best, and smile for the audience no matter what came.

  There was a bit of a crowd today, maybe ten or fifteen men and women seated on the wooden benches of the hearing room. Her palms prickled with an edgy energy. She smoothed her hands against the fine muslin of her borrowed gown and counted breaths until the tension inside her faded to a passive lump of nerves.

  The white-haired man at the front of the room—Billy Croggins, he’d been called—didn’t seem nervous at all. His face was red, and he shrugged, unembarrassed, at the question that had been put to him.

  “Why, Your Worships, I’m here for the same reason I’m always here. I had myself a little bit to drink.” He raised his hand, miming. “I ended up a bit disorderly. You heard what my daughter had to say.” Croggins flashed an ingratiating grin.

  He had nice teeth for a drunkard. Miranda sidled down the aisle and slipped into an empty spot in the front. Billy Croggins had a nice nose, too. His white, disordered hair gave him an air of respectable eccentricity. Useful, if you were a layabout.

  Nobody noticed her as she arranged her skirts. All eyes were trained on the unfolding drama, insignificant though it was.

  These weren’t the quarter sessions, where murderers and burglars would be sentenced to death or transportation. The magistrates here judged little thefts, brawls gone bad, acts of public lewdness. Fines were levied; men were imprisoned for a few days. The stakes were low, and the crimes were interesting only because a neighbor had committed them.

  She’d not yet allowed herself to look in the direction of the magistrates. Old superstition, that—one didn’t peek through the curtains at an audience before a performance. That spelled ill luck.

  The austere white walls seemed to magnify the autumn chill, but Miranda slipped out of her worn cloak and removed her straw bonnet, taking care not to disturb the blond wig she’d donned that morning.

  “What is this?” one of the magistrates asked. “The fifth time you’ve appeared before us?” His voice was familiar. Too familiar.

  She mustn’t look up at him in betraying consternation. Miranda’s hand clenched around the wool of her cloak instead; she forced it open before the gesture could betray her.

  “Correct as always, Your Worship,” came Croggins’s cheery reply.

  At her immediate right, the clerk sat, his pen arrested over the inkwell. He hadn’t written a thing in minutes.

  Miranda leaned over and spoke in an urgent whisper. “Sir. I happened to witness one of the crimes today. The accused is a boy, perhaps twelve years of age—”

  He glanced at her, frowning, and then looked away. “Tell me when he’s up,” he whispered gruffly. “I’m busy now.”

  He didn’t look busy. The register before him read only: Drunk. Admits he did it. Convicted. Billy Croggins hadn’t been convicted yet, but she couldn’t blame the man for prematurely recording the result.

  “If we keep convicting you, why do you keep at it?” This voice, thin and reedy, came from the left. “Turner—what is the punishment, again?”

  Turner. So she had recognized that earlier voice. Another flash of nervousness traveled through her, this one tinged with a hint of fear. Still, she kept her gaze trained on Croggins.

  The defendant grinned unabashedly. “I wager I know the punishment by now. Ten pounds for the repeat offense, which I haven’t got—and so six hours in the stocks instead.”

  “Don’t worry, Billy,” someone called from the audience. “We’ll make sure all the turnips are nice and rotten before we throw them, so they don’t scratch your pretty face.”

  The room erupted into laughter.

  “Gentlemen,” another voice said, “it’s a conviction, then?”

  Everyone else shifted to look at the magistrates to the left of the room. It would seem out of place if she didn’t follow their lead, and so Miranda raised her head. The three men tasked to hear the sessions today sat behind a heavy oak bench. They were dressed identically: curled, white-powdered horsehair wigs atop, and heavy black robes beneath. The man in the center with the red face was the mayor. On his left sat a fellow she’d never seen before. That man’s wig was askew.

  “Indeed,” Croggins was saying, “what’s another conviction amongst friends?”

  On the right, sitting a good two feet from his compatriots… “Perhaps,” this last magistrate said, “I might ask a few questions before we rush to judgment.”

  Miranda swallowed. He was Magistrate Turner—better known as Lord Justice.

  His face wasn’t red. His wig was straight. And while the other magistrates were smiling at Croggins’s antics, Lord Justice looked as somber as a crow in his black robes, stern and implacable. She could almost believe the stories that were told about him.

  “Always covering the ground, Turner,” the mayor said in exasperated tones. “Very well. I suppose you must have your way. But I hardly see the point, as the man has admitted his guilt.”

  Compared with his colleagues, Lord Justice looked like the statue of a magistrate instead of irresolute flesh and blood. He fit the name he’d been given. Justice made her think of hard lines and inflexible resolve. Lord Justice scanned the room with sharp, mobile eyes, which seemed to take in everything all at once.

  Lord Justice, everyone said, could smell a lie at twenty paces. Miranda sat no more than fifteen from him.

  Just looking at the man gave her gooseflesh. She’d appeared before him once. Even thinking of the questions he’d asked, the way his eyes had pierced her, made the skin on the back of her neck prickle. And that time, she’d been telling the truth.

  “Perhaps,” Lord Justice said, “you could help me understand the events of last night. I’ve heard the testimony from your daughter. But I wish to hear it in your words. How did the fire start?”

  “Ah,” Billy Croggins said, “that would be the drunk part of drunk and disorderly.” H
e smiled winningly.

  Lord Justice was not so easily won. He steepled his fingers. “Were you voluntarily drunk? Or did you have your drink forced upon you?”

  “I’d be much obliged, Your Worship, if people forced drink upon me. As it were, I had to purchase it like a regular booby.”

  The only response to that witticism was a thinning of the magistrate’s lips. “When you were inebriated, you went to your daughter’s house?”

  “Yes, and can you believe my own child wouldn’t open her door for me? Told me to go away and come back sober. If I waited for that, I’d never see my grandchildren at all, not ’til Gabriel sounded his trump at the last.”

  A woman in the crowd let out a harsh bark of laughter at that, and the mayor hid a smile behind his sleeve.

  Lord Justice still found no amusement in the proceedings. He tapped his fingers against the bench. “Was it then you threw the lantern into the woodshed and threatened to burn her out?”

  The smile on Croggins’s face fixed in place. “Might have done, might have done. Wasn’t thinking so clearly at that point. I didn’t actually burn her woodshed down—just wanted to scare her a little, so she’d show some respect for her father. Besides, it seemed like a good idea. At the time.”

  Lord Justice sighed and leaned back. “You see, Billy Croggins, this is what has me worried. Everyone in this courtroom seems to think you’re a jolly old fellow. Everyone thinks you’re amusing. Everyone is laughing. Everyone, that is, except your daughter. Why do you suppose that is?”

  “She’s got no sense of humor.”

  A few chuckles rose from the audience, but they were weaker, and held a nervous edge.

  “Here’s my theory: her two infants were in the house when you tried to burn her out. Maybe she didn’t see the joke in putting their lives at risk.”

  “Aw, it was just the woodshed!”

  “It was an outbuilding, within the curtilage and attached to the dwelling-house,” Lord Justice said. His gaze focused on some point in the distance, as if he were reading those words off some page that only he could see. “According to the Statute of George, that’s arson.”

  “Arson! But the wood scarcely even caught!”

  Lord Justice leaned over the bench. “Arson,” he repeated firmly. “As you didn’t succeed, attempted arson, and as such, punishable by one year’s hard labor. Do you think that might dry you out?”

  “Your Worship, I was drunk. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  “Under the rule of Lord Hale, a man who becomes voluntarily drunk is responsible for his actions, the same as if he was sober.”

  Croggins glanced about. There was no laughter in the courtroom now. Lord Justice had emptied it of all humor. This little display, after all, was just another demonstration of how Magistrate Turner had come by his name.

  Miranda clenched her hands together and bit her lip. She could only hope he would not examine her so closely.

  “Turner,” the mayor said, “this is the petty sessions. We’ve no authority to consider a charge of arson at a summary conviction.”

  “Quite right,” Lord Justice said. “Nor was arson charged in the indictment. But we can dismiss the case and commit him until the Assizes. I’ve heard enough testimony to have him charged when next the grand jury meets.”

  It wasn’t Magistrate Turner’s looks that had earned him the sobriquet “Lord Justice.” In the two years before he’d become a magistrate, the petty sessions had convicted every man but one who had stood before them. In Turner’s first six months in office, he’d let more than a dozen people go, claiming the crimes had been unproven. But he wasn’t kind; far from it. He punished the guilty with harsh efficiency.

  The Lord part came about because his brother was a duke. But they called him Justice because he was as cruel—and as kind—as the weather. You never knew what you were going to get, and no complaint would change the result.

  Billy Croggins licked his lips. “Lord Justice. Please. Have mercy.”

  The man shook his head. “The proper form of address is ‘Your Worship.’”

  Croggins frowned.

  “In any event,” Lord Justice continued, “if the house had truly caught fire, you might have killed your daughter and your grandchildren.” He paused and looked round the room.

  He stole the breath from his audience, packed a thousand years of expectation into those bare seconds. If this had been a performance, Miranda would have applauded the perfection of his timing. But this was no play, put on for public amusement. This was real.

  Lord Justice looked back at the defendant. He spoke quietly, but his words carried in the waiting silence. “I am having mercy, Mr. Croggins. Just not on you. Not on you.”

  Miranda shut her eyes. She’d done this before—stolen down to the hearings at the Patron’s behest and delivered testimony designed to prevent the conviction of a particular defendant. The other magistrates never doubted the testimony of a genteel young lady.

  But Turner asked questions. He listened. He heard the things you didn’t intend to say. She’d spoken before him only once—the first time she’d testified, well over a year ago. It was the only time she had actually witnessed the crime in question. He’d wrung every last drop of truth from her then.

  She surely couldn’t afford Magistrate Turner’s brand of mercy today.

  “I’ll conduct the examination,” Turner said. “Palter—hold Mr. Croggins.”

  A blighted silence reigned in the hearing room, broken only by the shuffling of feet.

  “Call the next case,” the mayor muttered.

  Beside her, the clerk began to speak. As he did, Lord Justice’s gaze traveled over the spectators. His eyes briefly rested on Miranda. It was only in her imagination that they narrowed. Still, she shivered.

  Under Lord Justice’s voluminous black robes, he might have been fat or slender. He might have had tentacles like a cuttlefish, for all she knew. His long white wig made his features seem thin and severe. Perversely, all that black and white made him appear almost young. That couldn’t be the case. A man had to be ancient to deal justice as he did without flinching.

  Don’t lie to this man. The instinct seemed as deep as hunger, as fierce as cold. But if she walked away now, she’d lose the protection she so desperately needed. And Robbie… It didn’t bear thinking about. One didn’t say no to the Patron’s requests. Not even when justice threatened.

  She’d received her orders less than two hours before. She was to speak on Widdy’s behalf, to make sure that he wasn’t convicted.

  She didn’t know why. She was never told why. But she’d asked, once, in a fit of lunacy, and she’d never forgotten the answer the Patron’s man had given her.

  In Temple Parish, justice belongs to the Patron, not the magistrates.

  An officer was shuffling about, bringing to the front… Oh, yes. It was Widdy this time.

  At the front of the room, the boy looked fragile and scared. The harsh life of a street-urchin in Temple Parish had broken him long ago. She doubted Widdy’s release mattered except as a symbol, proof that the Patron was more powerful than the law.

  She listened attentively as the baker who was prosecuting the case—a florid-faced gentleman by the name of Pathington—railed against Widdy specifically, and all small scourges upon honest sellers in general. The urchin looked confused and desperate against that onslaught.

  When the baker had completed an exaggerated recounting of crime, infamy, and a missing half-loaf of bread, it was Lord Justice who turned to Widdy. “What is your name, young master?”

  Widdy swallowed. “Widdy.”

  There was a pause. The clerk next to Miranda wrote the word, then looked up. “I beg your pardon, Your Worships. Is that his Christian name or his surname?”

  Widdy looked beleaguered.

  “Well?” the mayor said. “Speak up. Is that short for something?”

  “Yes?” Widdy shifted his feet uneasily.

  A faint chuckle rose from the onloo
kers.

  “Well, what for?”

  “I don’t know. Me mam called me Widdy, back when.”

  “And what is your mother’s name?”

  Widdy looked away.

  “Well, boy,” the magistrate in the lopsided wig thundered, “what is your mother’s name?”

  Widdy shrunk in on himself. “People called her ‘Spanky.’”

  The laughter rang out again, darker and just a little more cruel.

  Lord Justice cast a quelling glance over the room. “What did she do?”

  “She’s dead,” Widdy replied earnestly. “But she used to drink gin.”

  The hearing room erupted at that. Lord Justice didn’t even crack a smile. “Do you have work? A place to stay?”

  “I sweep streets, sometimes. I hold horses, when gentlemen go into the shops. That’s my favorite. Sometimes, I deliver billy-dos.”

  “Billy-dos?” The mayor’s mouth quirked up.

  “For ladies,” Widdy explained earnestly. “When they don’t want their words to be seen.”

  Skew-wig reached over and nudged the mayor’s elbow. “I believe the boy is referring to billets-doux.” His mouth twitched in a self-satisfied smile.

  Lord Justice cut his eyes briefly in their direction, and did not join in their merriment. “Did you take the bread?”

  “No, sir. It wasn’t mine.”

  “That’s what they all say,” Skew-wig said, shaking his head. “It’s his word against a respectable business-owner. I believe the man who doesn’t carry billy-dos about.”

  That was as good an entry cue as any. Miranda took a deep breath, expelling all her fears. Then she reached out and tapped the clerk again. The man jumped, spattering ink, and then caught her eye. She pointed at Widdy, and the man coughed once more.

  “Your Worships,” the clerk said, “there is a lady here who claims to have witnessed the whole affair.”

  “Where is she?” the mayor asked.

  The clerk jerked his head at Miranda. She felt as if she’d been thrust onstage: every eye in the room trained on her. She went from cold to too-hot. Still, as she pushed to her feet, she also felt a hint of excitement for the performance.

  “Your Worships.” The girl she was playing might have that slight tremor to her hands. She would drop her eyes from the intensity of Lord Justice’s gaze. “I saw the events in question. This boy merely watched.” Her words felt almost mushy in her mouth. She pitched her accent somewhere between aristocratically smooth and street-wary, with an added touch of broad country. She needed to hover on the brink of respectability. In this gown, she’d never manage wealthy.