Two molten brown eyes skewered him. “Angry doesn’t even begin to describe how I am feeling,your grace.” He was back to being “your grace” again and that didn’t bode well. She jabbed the air between them. “How would you feel if you had just been beaten into submission by your employer after being made a scapegoat by a liar? Oh… but that would never happen to you, would it? Because you are ofnoblebirth so none of those unfair laws ever apply to you, and nobody gets to tell you to do as you are told or to know your place!”
She was right of course. “If we can find proof that the constable lied, you have my word that I will appeal this conviction and get it struck from your record.”
She scoffed in disbelief. “And how long will that take?” She folded her arms. They were bare because at some point she must have been separated from her coat. Finger-sized bruises marred her upper arms, and her wrists were ringed with red where the manacles had been attached too tight. Nolley would pay for both of those things as soon as Leo got his hands on him. “One year? Two? Never—because I am not important? I pleaded guilty, after all, and apparently of my own free will.” Her expression now was one of complete disgust andit was him that she was disgusted with. “Because as you so rightly pointed out, I was done for anyway. I never stood a chance.”
“But at least you are safe now.”
“For how long?”
“I am going to look after you, Portia, I promise.” He moved to sit beside her and wrapped a comforting arm around her, leaning his forehead against hers, needing the contact. “We can put all this behind us and…” Rather than blurt out how he felt about her when his emotions were all over the place, he placed a soft kiss on her lips. “I swear on my life that I won’t let anyone or anything hurt you ever again.”
Rather than be relieved by that heartfelt reassurance, she pushed him away as she shook her head, her voice catching while she proudly held back her tears. “Can you not see that every single bit of that was wrong? From the overreaction to the protest to the arbitrary arrests by the authorities, to your blue-blooded sister’s release without charge to the constable’s bloody lies to charge me for her offenses. And the court’s readiness to do favors for a duke irrespective of the truth—just because he has the privilege of being a duke. And their keenness to find me guilty until proven innocent just because I had the audacity to be lowborn.” She turned toward the window again as if she couldn’t stand the sight of him. “But thank goodness that I know my place, kept my mouth shut, and did as I was told by one of my betters,your grace. For heaven forbid that I dare to expect the basic courtesy of either the benefit of the doubt or a fair trial in a country that is so unjust, unequal, and institutionally unfair to people—like me—who do not matter that it is rotten to its very core!”
Unsurprisingly, Portia barely slept despite her physical and emotional exhaustion. She was too infuriated, too hurt, and too disgusted by her shocking treatment from the authorities and her disappointment at Leo’s awful solution that she could do nothing other than rage at the unfairness of it all. She gave up trying before dawnand headed to the newspaper. She didn’t care that it wasn’t her day off or that she was supposed to be working her notice for the duke. Now that she had a criminal record thanks entirely to him and his stupid sister, she no longer felt obligated to fulfill her contract no matter how hurt and conflicted her feelings for the wretch were. Frankly, the sooner she left his house, the better. However much her heart would ache for him, she was all done playing with fire and now that the constable had it in for her, only an idiot would remain working for the magistrate that paid that crook’s wages.
She also needed to vent some of her frustration at yesterday’s travesty, and the only way that she could make any sense of it all was to write it all down. Thankfully, the newspaper office was as silent as the quay outside, so she locked herself inside, pulled out a piece of paper, and dipped her pen in some ink.
BATH—THE CITY OF CROOKED COURTS AND CORRUPT CONSTABLES!
By K Pendle
Ironically, Lady Abigail’s placard gave Portia the perfect headline for a piece that she knew was going to be too incendiary to ever print, but that she needed to write regardless. One which didn’t need a question that required debating, because there was nothing to debate.
The usually calm city of Bath was marred by unspeakable violence last night when the heavy-handed and heavily armed militia were sent in to quash a protest. While that protest was undoubtedly ill-informed, it certainly did not warrant the force or the state-sanctioned malevolence that was unleashed upon it. Bloodthirsty soldiers cut through the crowd indiscriminately, using fists, bayonets, and rifle butts to wound everyone in their path. Once down, the abusedwere beaten into submission before they were dragged to the goal where, sadly, the real crimes of last night were committed. In the name of the law and with the abominable statutes of suppression not on their side, the accused were paraded one by one before a mockery of a court and were charged with whatever fabricated offenses vomited out of Constable William Gabriel Nolley’s lying mouth.
The lucky ones—and by lucky, I mean those with blue blood coursing through their veins and connections powerful enough to warrant special dispensation for the heinous crime of having an opinion—were released without charge irrespective of the evidence against them. Those not lucky enough to be related to the persuasively dimpled Duke of Debden—or born into any rotten branch of our despicable and dishonorable ruling class for that matter—had the book thrown at them. And it was thrown indiscriminately by a bunch of privileged and entitled blue-blooded idiots who have the effrontery to call themselves justices of the peace.
However, I can assure you that not one of those morally moribund men metered out any justice last night.
Hang ’em or flog ’em is the Bath magistrates’ motto.
Oppression is their sole purpose.
So rather than scrutinize the evidence and search for the truth they pretend to stand for, they gleefully listened to the constable’s lies and then casually ruined the lives of all those poor lowborn individuals stood before them with a callous swipe of their sanctimonious pens.
Everyone chargedhadto be punished whether guilty or not. As it serves the nefarious purpose of the few who rule us to use whatever unscrupulous means they have to repress or force to confess the disposable many rather than making any attempt to fight for any actual justice for them!
“Portia?” William’s voice made her jump. “Why are you here so early?” But before she could answer, he frowned. “And did you make doubly sure that you weren’t followed? Only there was apparently a great deal of trouble in town last night and the constable would love nothing more than to be able to arrest one of us for it.”
“Of course I wasn’t followed but—” Before she could finish her sentence, the floodgates opened and she burst into tears, and the whole sorry tale of the dreadful night before spilled out.
Chapter
NINETEEN
Portia was nowhere to be found when Leo got up. Her things were still in her room so he assumed she was coming back, but nobody knew where she was or had seen her leave and that bothered him. He bitterly regretted giving her some space to calm down while he read Abigail the riot act. And he wished he had begged Portia to speak to him after she had barricaded herself in her bedchamber. He was already second-guessing himself over the way he had dealt with the situation last night. Especially now that he had dragged the whole truth out of his troublesome sister, who had corroborated every single bit of Portia’s story. He now knew that he could have and should have handled it all better if only he hadn’t allowed his panic to overwhelm him. Portia had been rightly furious at being pushed into pleading guilty to a crime that he had known in his heart that she did not commit.
And as he had spiraled into contemplating apocalyptic what-ifs, hehadpushed her.
Instead, he probably should have guarded her all night rather than harangue her into seeing his panicked version of sense in her hour of need. Or sent in a couple of burly guards to protect her while he interrogated every single witness himself. Used his privileged position as a magistrate to put the fear of god into those soldiers whowere lying for the constable. Found other witnesses. Put Abigail on the stand rather than try to keep his foolish sister out of further trouble. Then used his extensive knowledge of the law to blow holes in the rest of Nolley’s flimsy arguments and call the man a liar and a perjurer in that court too. Worse than that! A petty, vengeful, morally corrupt bully, who was only using Portia as a way to get back at him.
Powerless to do anything other than worry about her while he waited for her to return, he fired off a message to the constable to report to him as soon as he received it. That had been hours and hours ago and there was still no sign of either of them. While relieving Nolley of his duties could wait a few more hours, making amends with Portia couldn’t. Her obvious disappointment in him was eating him from the inside. He needed her to understand that she mattered—especially to him. That he would always be on her side. And that he was going to do his very best to move mountains for her and clear her good name if it was the last thing he ever did.
Hence he was here.
Riding into Newton St. Loe.
Hoping that Portia had run home to her mother so he could beg her forgiveness and start to make those amends.
