“Wife selling was a practice of the last century, very much as were the Fleet Street marriages. It was a means of divorce for the poor. A man would take his wife to a marketplace whether it was near the docks or a small town, where he would parade her about with a halter around her neck or waist and then publicly auctioned her off to the highest bidder. Local magistrates often looked the other way or even sometimes forced a man to sell his wife, rather than the workhouse being responsible for the wholefamily. Even Henry Brydges, 2ndDuke of Chandos, reportedly bought his second wife from an ostler back in the mid-1700s.”
“I have no words to express my dismay,” Emma said softly.
Therefore, Theodora continued her tale. “Robert Dutton, during a drunken binge, executed such a scheme against his wife Madelyn. He sold Madelyn Dutton to a man setting sail for the British West Indies.”
“Oh, my,” Lady Emma breathed the words.
“Dutton also sent his young daughter Annalise with his wife. Alexander was near seven at the time and stood witness to his father’s duplicity. He has made it his life’s work to find them. Once his father passed and the earldom fell into Alexander’s hands, he then had the money and the means to conduct his own search for them, and, as one of my father’s agents, he accepts every assignment dealing with the British trade in the islands south of the American states in hopes of learning something of his family.”
Emma frowned. “How long has he been searching?”
“More than a decade,” Theodora confessed. “It is as if he cannot permit himself to be happy until he knows their fate.”
“Has he any legitimate hope of discovering his family?” Emma asked.
“Though his lordship follows every bit of information, to date, he has learned nothing of importance. It all has proven fruitless,” Theodora explained.
“That leaves you with no hope of a future with Lord Marksman.” Lady Emma summarized what Dora did not wish to admit, even to herself.
“I hold no desire to marry another, but I do not believe Alexander will ever speak a proposal, at least not until there is no hope of his mother being returned.”
“That may be never,” Lady Emma said in sadness.
“Then what type of husband would he be and what type of life would we have together? He would be disillusioned and heartbroken,” Theodora said with another heavy sigh of resignation. “I must face the fact I may never know what you and our Richard will claim.”
Monday, 11 May 1812
Alexander Dutton, 12thEarl Marksman, attempted not to fidget when Lord Macdonald Duncan presented him with what Alexander and his “brothers” called “the evil eye,” but what Alexander knew was the man’s continued disappointment in him, not with the investigation, but rather with Alexander’s lack of a proposal addressed to Duncan’s daughter Theodora.
“What do we know of what occurred at Parliament today?” Duncan asked, though he was still recovering from being shot in the chest in mid-March. Even so, the man was again in charge of part of the Home Office’s investigation.
“It appears to be some sort of revolutionary act,” Justin Hartley explained. With the necessity of Duncan’s recovery, Hartley had remained in charge of the Home Office in Duncan’s absence, rather than to leave for India, as he had originally planned. “One John Bellingham walked into the lobby of the Houses of Parliament and shot Prime Minister Spencer Perceval. The Prime Minister is dead.”
“That is what everyone has heard. What else do we know? Where was Perceval at the time?” Duncan demanded. “How did Bellingham achieve such easy access to the Prime Minister? Benjamin, what do you know?” Duncan asked pointedly.
“I fear, sir. I did not see how it happened. I was at the other end of the hall and responded with the sound of the gunshot,”Thompson reported. “I was concentrating on Perceval’s wound, not the mayhem going on behind me.”
Orson shared instead. “According to Sir Hunter, a committee of the House of Commons was meeting over Orders in Council relating to trade.”
“Is Sir Hunter part of the committee?” Duncan asked.
“Yes, sir,” Orson responded. “Shook him up majorly, to say the least.”
“What else did Sir Hunter Wickersham share?” Duncan continued.
“They were discussing Napoleon’s Continental System plans. Portugal and Russia have both refused to accept Napoleon’s port closures and will continue to trade with Britain. Evidently, Lord Brougham realized Perceval had not shown for the meeting and sent a servant to remind the Prime Minister. According to Sir Hunter, the attack came as the servant crossed the lobby towards Perceval’s offices.
“So far, accounts differ as to where Bellingham was hiding, but he stepped from where he had disclosed himself and fired the pistol at point-blank range. Perceval fell over backwards, supposedly saying, ‘I am murdered!’ but I cannot guarantee that bit of information. However, all say Bellingham did not attempt to escape. He simply stood by and waited to be arrested.”
“I am not surprised about the assassination,” Navan Beaufort ventured. “On paper, Perceval was the perfect target for a number of revolutionaries. He has proven to be opposed to any type of reform, as well as Catholic emancipation. He only agreed to serve under Pitt in 1804 as long as the idea of Catholic emancipation was tabled. Many in Ireland will rejoice with the news of the Prime Minister’s death.”
Lord Aaran Graham, who had spent a great deal of time of late impinging on the Luddites, said, “Perceval is despised by the average working man, for the Prime Minister has done allhe could to destroy the Luddite unrest. Perceval has dispensed troops over and over again and declared martial law in parts of Lancaster and Yorkshire. Like the Irish Catholics, these men also have a bone to pick with the late Prime Minister.”
Lord Benjamin Thompson said the obvious, “So, Perceval was not well respected beyond the government’s inner circle; that is not new information. Our mission is to discover what his death means for us as members of the Home Office and as lords of the Realm. Is it a one and no more or is Perceval’s death an announcement of a free fest on assassinating political figures?”
“First,” Duncan began, “we must learn all we may of John Bellingham. We must discover what motivated his appearance in Parliament’s halls on this day. How was today different from yesterday or tomorrow, for example? Or was today just the day the man rose from his bed and said, ‘I think I will kill the Prime Minister today’?”
Graham suggested, “There is talk of the arrival on English shores of a mysterious count, who once held connections to Edward Despard and the machine-wrecking activities of ‘General Ludd.’ This count is expected to arrive soon.”
