Fortune's Son (29 page)

“You have a caller, my lady. Mr. George Selwyn requesting to see you.”

Sukey paused in her packing and looked up in surprise. “George Selwyn, you say?” If Philip had sent him as an emissary, he was surely wasting the gentleman's time. “You may show him in, Bess, but pray be clear I've little time for social calls.”

The maid promptly returned with the announced caller.

“My Lady Messingham.” George doffed his hat and sketched a bow.

“It has been some time, Mr. Selwyn.”

“A pleasure I have forgone for far too long,” he replied gallantly.

She arched a brow. “Flattery is assuredly wasted if you are come on Philip's account. It is over between us.” She punctuated the sentence by slamming the lid of her trunk.

“You are undertaking a journey, my lady?”

“Not a journey but removing to Leicester House. I have decided to accept a position offered to me long ago. I am to be a Woman of the Bedchamber to the Princess Augusta.”

“Is that so? Then you have not yet heard?”

“Heard what?”

“The Prince of Wales is dead, my lady.”

She froze in disbelief. “Dead?” She shook her head in vehement denial. “Death, especially of a future king, is no jesting matter, Mr. Selwyn.”

“Why do you think I would make this up?”

“You can't be in earnest?”

“Dead earnest.” He couldn't help the pun. “It happened early yesterday, though it was kept quiet until the cause of death could be determined.”

“But the prince is only in his forties and in excellent health. The last I heard he only suffered from a chest cold.”

“The king's physician pronounced it a burst abscess in his lungs.”

She stared at him for a moment, dumbstruck. “Dear God! It's true? He would have been king, you know.”

“And now, mercifully, he won't,” said George.

“You should not speak ill of the dead, Mr. Selwyn,” she chided.

“I am not the first, nor shall I be last,” he replied. “Indeed the body had barely cooled before this irreverent verse began to turn up in every London coffee house.” He pulled the page from his pocket, quoting:

“Here lies poor Fred who was alive and is dead,

Had it been his father I had much rather,

Had it been his sister nobody would have missed her,

Had it been his brother, still better than another,

Had it been the whole generation, so much better for the nation,

But since it is Fred who was alive and is dead,

There is no more to be said!”

“How callous!” she cried.

“Our dear departed Frederick was far from being the most shining example of his line,” George said.

“I daresay you are right about that,” Sukey agreed. “But one must still show the proper respect. I must call upon the princess and offer my condolences.”

“You still intend to accept the position?”

“I don't know,” she replied thoughtfully. “The princess and her entire household will observe an extended period of mourning, and I have no desire to play the hypocrite. Perhaps I will leave London instead. I have a great deal to ponder at the moment.”

George remarked the hollow ring to her words. “Then I must suppose it truly is over between you and Philip.”

“I said it was. I gave him all I had to give. There is nothing left.”

“They have taken him to the King's Bench, you know.”

She started at that, completely betraying herself. “How is that possible? He's an earl, for goodness' sake! What crime other than treason could cast
an
earl
into prison?”

“Why, the crime of insolvency, my lady,” George replied. “To a nation built on trade there can be no greater injury than of that to its commerce. Ergo, there is no higher law in Britain than protecting creditors from those who refuse to pay their debts. It is sacrosanct.”

“But he is an earl!”

“And our dear friend Lord Weston perceived an opportunity to settle an old score.” He eyed her intently, reminding her at once that she, herself, was the original cause of it. “The marquess has pulled some strings at the Court of Chancery, thereby suspending Philip's title and associated privileges.”

“That is unconscionable!”

“Not surprising conduct from a worm like Weston, to kick a man who is already down.”

“Yet, how can this be? Philip made a very
accommodating
arrangement to settle his accounts with the Jew.”

“The unfortunate arrangement you speak of was based entirely upon Philip's rank and station, which is now under dispute. Moreover, it appears increasingly likely the Chancery will decide in favor of Edmund's daughter.”

Once more she started. “So soon? I thought these questions took years to settle.”

“One does wonder at the workings of justice,” Selwyn said noncommittally. “But this unhappy turn of events has placed Philip in a most precarious position.”

“I don't care, Mr. Selwyn. Philip Drake made his bed and he may now rot in it.”

“If that is your wish, it may well be granted, but as his friend I cannot share your sentiments. Even if he could pay off the original debt, the attorney's fees, bailiff's fees, and other so-called ‘taxed costs' will compound to double or treble the amount he owed. He is indeed in a hopeless position. This all brings me to my real point in coming here.”

“If you have more to say, get on with it,” she answered peevishly.

“I have come for any personal effects of his that might be sold for his maintenance. I can't bear the thought of him begging alms at passers-by through the iron grate of the Fleet.”

“I thought you said he was at the King's Bench?”

“Indeed, but 'tis all the same, isn't it? Disgusting, filthy places, habited by the wretched, ragged, and half-starved, deprived of life, liberty, and any means of livelihood to repay the debts that interned them.”

“Surely it is not so bad for
him
,” she insisted.

“Not while he has any coin to buy food, bed, and coal, but his means are limited. Once all is depleted…” George gave a fatal shrug.

“What do you mean to do?” she asked, her urgency showing despite herself.

“There's not a damned thing I can do to release him, but I mean to sell what can be sold so at least the chap doesn't starve. Indeed, I've instructions to meet Lord March in Newmarket on a matter of some horses. I nigh forgot quite another charge I promised to perform on his behalf, against my better judgment I might add.”

George retrieved an elongated, velvet-covered box from an inside coat pocket. He opened it slowly, revealing the almost blinding brilliance of diamonds. The necklace was still magnificent, and the shimmer of refracted light from the central pear-shaped stone, breathtaking. “Perhaps you recognize it?”

She gasped. “It can't be the one! It isn't real!”

“I assure you it is,” said George.

“How did you come by this?”

“I was given a key to his safe deposit box containing certain items with instructions on how to dispose of each. Although the necklace might have kept him in comfort in that hellish place for years, he insisted I give it to you.”

“I believed he had sold it years ago.”

“So had I. I am certain he once intended to pay off your debts with it, but you took that matter into your own hands, if I remember. Even after that it seems he could never bring himself to part with it—the maudlin fool!”

“Why? Why would he have kept it all these years?” she asked in a voice choked with emotion.

“I believe he had hoped it might one day have been your bridal gift.”

“No! I don't believe you!” she cried. “He never intended any such thing!”

“Did he not? Then pray reason for me why the man would have locked away such an item, if not solely out of a mawkish sentimentality?” George asked.

She stared at him in silence, clutching the necklace to her breast.

At times, a jolting revelation overtakes one in a crushing, incapacitating wave, and at others, it unsettles one in steady, subtle stages. It was in this manner, piece by wretched piece, in measured moments of increasing comprehension, that Sukey slowly came undone.

The so-called Crypt compared to nothing better than its namesake, a place for interment of the dead. It was dark, dank, and fetid, redolent of offal. Its location, adjoining the dunghill where the bodily waste of hundreds of inmates was daily discarded, sent Philip retching toward the single tiny window where he gasped futilely for fresh air.

The room was no larger than five feet square and nine feet high, built of brick on all sides. A man of Philip's dimensions would be hard-pressed to lie down, but the irons applied to both his arms and legs already inhibited any posture more recumbent than squatting.

This
was the price he paid for invoking the turnkey's wrath: beaten and now shackled. Philip had already known his tolerable treatment, dependent on money, would end when the money ran out, but by his actions he had hastened the inevitable.

He didn't know how long he'd already languished in the hellish crypt. His throat was so parched that swallowing was nigh impossible. He was weakened from lack of food and near delirium from want of sleep, but the crypt was infested with rats.

Squeaking, scurrying, stinking rats that only chain rattling and wakeful diligence kept at bay, but now he'd grown weak and his eyes heavy. So very, very heavy.

When Philip closed his eyes and dropped to his knees, he wondered vaguely if he would ever wake back up.

***

“Where is he? Damn your eyes!” a familiar voice demanded. “I'm a Member of Parliament, I'll have you know. I'll bring down an investigation the likes of which you've not seen since Oglethorpe's Fleet Committee!”

Philip awoke sputtering to a splash of foul water in his face.

“So you're not dead after all!” George grinned. “Get those infernal irons off him!” he shouted to the jailer.

“How commanding you sound, Bosky. Didn't know you had it in you.” Philip's voice was a barely audible rasp. With the clink of the key releasing the irons, he fell to his hands and knees.

“Thank God I got here when I did, ol' chap. You are the image of impending death.”

“Precisely how I feel,” Philip croaked.

“Don't just stand there! Carry the man!” With George Selwyn taking command of the field, Philip was conveyed to a spacious, almost opulently appointed room on the fourth gallery. “Brought a few creature comforts,” George explained, “but hang me if I'll let you infest the mattress with vermin.”

Philip was shocked at his image in the pier glass.

“Here, old friend.” George handed him a tankard of small beer that Philip gulped so desperately it ran down his face.

“Bring a barber and water for the hip bath,” George instructed his newly recruited minions, while tossing shillings right and left. “We'll have to burn the clothes, of course,” he said to Philip. “And shave your head as well as your face.”

“I wouldn't care if you dragged me naked through the streets. But who is paying for all of this?”

George laughed. “Why, you are, of course!”

“Pox on you, George! How do you think I got into that pit to begin with?”

“Assault with a deadly fork is what I heard.” He sobered at Philip's obvious distress. “You've had a considerable windfall, my friend.”

“Dog's bollocks!” Philip exclaimed.

“No, dear boy. Roderick Random.”

Philip looked his question.

“Remember my commission to take March to the Hastings stables? Well, you couldn't expect a man to buy a horse without seein' him run, could you? We took Roddy boy out to Newmarket, where Devonshire proposed a two hundred guinea match to trial a new runner of his, a chestnut colt got by Snip. When Roddy prevailed, March offered four hundred to buy him, and is considering Chance as well. Plans to make them his wheelers in his chaise match.”

“George, advise March he would be best to place Roddy and Tawny as the leaders. Neither likes running behind the pack, and they are well matched. Roddy would do well to regulate the speed of the team as he won't quickly outrun himself as others might. Tell March if he has not yet decided on his wheelers that he might do well to consider Little Dan.”

“I will convey your recommendations. March is well pleased with the progress of the cartwright and anticipates setting the date very soon. And now you, my boy, are three hundred guineas the richer.”

“Three? I thought it was four hundred?”

“What, you think I took a cut?” George asked in an injured tone. “Spent the first fifty to get a decent Chancery lawyer on retainer and you can look about you for the rest.”

Philip looked contrite. “A thousand apologies. Not quite myself, you know.”

Ever amiable, George replied with forced cheer, “Don't fret, my friend. We'll see this thing through yet.”

“Is there any news from the Chancery?”

“I fear not, but no news is good news. At least while the Chancery deliberates, there is hope.”

While a favorable decision could assure his release, Willoughby had called it an unlikely eventuality. Payment of the debt in full was impossible, and negotiation of terms unfeasible with Weston bent on vengeance. If only he had means to raise the money.

He lived in daily torment knowing that one hundred thousand pounds had once been within his grasp. If only he had played out his life differently. Perhaps if he had dealt differently with Charlotte? But then again, he might have lost Sukey.
Sukey.
God, how he missed her.

“And Sukey, George? You've not spoken of her. Did you give her the necklace?”

“I did.”

“Did she say anything?” Philip prompted. “Is there any message? Is there any hope?”

George opened his palms in a helpless gesture.

“There's something you're not telling me. What is it? What did she say?” he demanded.

“She said it was over, that she had nothing left to give you.”

“After you gave her the necklace?” Philip regarded him with a look of astonishment. He had tried to make amends with her in the only way he knew how. He was sure the necklace would have conveyed to her all he'd always meant to say, but now he feared it was too little, too late.

Philip flung himself into a chair with a helpless groan. Her silence meant she was lost to him, and without her he feared
he
was
lost
as well.