The Devil's Necklace (27 page)

“His wife won’t be there—she doesn’t have that kind of courage. His children will be too afraid of the scandal.
I want him to know there is someone there who believes in him, someone who cares what happens to him.”

A muscle clenched in Ethan’s jaw. For a moment, he looked as if he would forbid her to go. Then very curtly, he nodded. “If you are that determined, I will take you.”

Grace gave him a curt nod in return, the most she could manage without tears. “Thank you.”

“Are you sure, Grace? Are you certain this is what you want to do?”

“I have to be there, Ethan. He is my father.”

Turning away, he spoke to the butler. “Mr. Baines—send one of the footman to summon the carriage.”

“As you wish, my lord.” Baines cast them a glance and she wondered how much the servants knew of her relation ship with the viscount. It was difficult to keep secrets in a household the size of a marquess’s and after her inquiries about the young man, Peter O’Daly, it was certain they knew more than they let on.

It didn’t matter. At least not to Grace. She no longer cared who knew Viscount Forsythe was her true father. She didn’t believe he was a traitor and she wasn’t ashamed of him. At the Bird-in-Hand Inn, she had called out to him and afterward Ethan had worried that Colonel Pendleton might have heard, that if the colonel knew she was the viscount’s daughter, she might fall under suspicion of aiding his escape.

But nothing had come of the incident and Ethan figured, having recaptured Forsythe, the authorities were content to let the matter rest.

The carriage set off toward its grisly destination, the cobbled street in front of Newgate prison. The hanging was scheduled for eight o’clock in the morning. They were leaving in plenty of time to get there, plenty of time to join the throng around the gallows waiting with eager
anticipation to see the man they believed had betrayed their country pay the ultimate price for his crime.

Though traffic was heavy this time of morning, the streets teeming with drays and freight wagons and a stream of hackney carriages, they arrived at Newgate well before eight. Ethan ordered the carriage parked on a side street among a line of expensive coaches filled to overflowing with members of the
ton,
there for the excitement of seeing one of their own meet what they believed was his well-deserved fate.

As Grace departed the carriage, she blinked back a sudden well of tears, unprepared for the sight that met her eyes. A sea of Londoners stretched before her, a motley mix of pickpockets and ladies of the evening, coxcombs and dandies, highborn ladies and gentlemen of the
ton.
Pie sellers, gingerbread merchants, and rag sellers all strolled about. A woman roasting apples hawked her wares. There was dancing and laughter, eating and drinking. Except for the soldiers armed with pikes who stood at the edge of the crowd, it was a celebration of the highest sort.

Grace took a shaky breath and Ethan reached out to steady her. “All right?”

She nodded. Unlike the others, some of whom wore velvet and fur, Grace was dressed head to foot in black—black gown, black shoes, black bonnet and sheer black veil.

Her heart was cloaked in black, as well. She had come this day for her father, a man she had only begun to know. Still, she intended to stand by him, as she had from the start.

She craned to see around the crowd clustered in front of the wooden gallows that a team of horses had dragged out in front of the prison. For an instant, the throng seemed
to swell, pushing her back. Determinedly, Grace started forward and behind her, she heard Ethan curse.

“Dammit, Grace, there is no need for you to get closer. You have done more for your father than anyone of his acquaintance.”

“I want him to know I am here.”

“Don’t do this to yourself, love. I can tell you from experience, these sorts of memories haunt you for the rest of your life.”

She looked up at him and fought not to cry. “I have to do this, Ethan. I don’t have any other choice.” Turning away from him, she started walking, trying to find a spot where her father would be able to see her. Ethan walked beside her, helping her clear a path through the crowd, close-by should she need him.

“This way,” he said, guiding her to a place at the top of a set of steps in front of a nearby building. She felt his hand at her waist, lending his support, and thought that if she didn’t already love him, she would love him boundlessly now.

“They are coming,” he said softly, and she followed his gaze to a door being opened in the dismal brick building that dominated the street. There were no other prisoners being hanged today. The execution of a traitor, a viscount, no less, a man who had escaped the hangman for nearly a year, was an important enough event in itself.

Grace’s heart squeezed painfully as she stared out over the grotesquely jubilant scene toward the man who made his way out the door of the prison, his legs encased in iron shackles. He no longer wore his beard, she saw, nor the spectacles he had used to disguise himself for so long. In stead, he was dressed in the fashionable clothes of a gentleman, dark brown breeches, a velvet-collared tail
coat and crisp white stock. He held his head high as he prepared to face the final minutes of his life.

Grace’s throat closed up and tears blurred her vision. “Father…” she whispered. She felt Ethan’s hand reach for hers and lace her fingers with his, felt his reassuring presence as he moved a little closer beside her.

The crowd was jeering now, throwing things at the man they believed to be a traitor, calling him filthy names. He kept his gaze fixed ahead, an aristocrat to the end, and Grace’s heart swelled with pride that she was his daughter.

The group of men halted just outside the door and the iron leg shackles were removed. For an instant, the crowd surged forward and she couldn’t see what was happening. As the wave of humanity settled back down, she spotted the familiar figure of a woman and sucked in a breath.

“Aunt Matilda!” she cried out, starting down the steps, trying to make her way toward the older woman and her companion as they shoved through the crowd. “Lady Tweed!”

Both women looked up at the sound of their names and Grace waved at them madly.

“Stay here,” Ethan commanded. “I’ll bring them back to you.”

A few minutes later, she was clinging to her great-aunt Matilda, both of them weeping, Lady Tweed dabbing at the tears running down her plump cheeks.

“I should have known you would be here,” Aunt Matilda said, silver hair glinting in the thin rays of early morning sun. “My dearest child, you have such courage. You make me so very proud.”

Grace clung to her aunt for a few minutes more, neither quite willing to let the other go. “How did you know
about the hanging? He was only just captured. How did you get here so quickly?”

“We were already on our way to London. We arrived just last night. I received a letter from Harmon that he was in the city and I hoped somehow to find him, to see if there was any way that I might be able to help him prove his innocence. And I hoped to see you, of course, and my new nephew, little Andrew. Then on my arrival, I heard the terrible news.”

“Oh, Aunt Matilda, I know how much you love him. I can scarcely believe this is happening. I wish there was something we could do.”

“You have done more than anyone could ask.”

“I am so glad you came.” She swallowed a lump of tears. “I wanted him to know he was loved and now he will.” She dragged in a shaky breath. She had to be strong. For her father, and now for the woman who had raised him.

“He is innocent,” Aunt Matilda said, her eyes filling with tears. “I had so hoped he would find a way to prove it.”

Grace said nothing. Her throat was aching, the knot making it hard to speak. She simply nodded. “If only we’d had more time.”

She took hold of her aunt Matilda’s hand and squeezed as her father was led toward the gallows. The men reached the short set of stairs and the viscount started climbing, taking each wooden step resolutely, head held high, eyes straight ahead. On the platform, a clergyman stood next to the hangman. The vicar spoke briefly to the viscount, though it was too noisy to hear what was said.

Still holding on to her aunt’s hand, Grace gazed toward the platform and for a brief, heartbreaking instant, her father’s eyes came to rest on her face. He had seen her,
she knew, seen Aunt Matilda and Lady Tweed, seen the women who loved him, there to silently lend him their strength.

The hangman lifted the noose and settled it around the viscount’s neck. In seconds he would be dead. Grace fought to control the vicious pain in her chest and the ache in her throat and prayed that the end would be merciful and quick.

The men on the platform took their places, the vicar mumbling passages from the Bible; a lean, bald-headed man in dark clothes who was officiating the proceeding; and the hangman, garbed completely in black. Grace closed her eyes and began to pray.

She was still in silent prayer when she heard a commotion behind her. Glancing briefly in that direction, she was amazed to see Cord Easton making his way through the crowd, dragging a tall, skinny youth by the scruff of the neck. A few feet behind him, she recognized Jonas McPhee, hurrying alongside a short, stout man she had never seen.

“God’s blood! They’ve found something!” Ethan caught hold of her shoulders. “Stay with your aunt and Lady Tweed until I get back.”

She couldn’t stay, of course. This was the chance she had been praying for, their last hope of saving her father.

“What is happening?” Aunt Matilda asked. “What is going on?”

Grace pointed toward the men shoving their way toward the platform. “Those men are my friends. They are trying to help prove Father’s innocence. I must go to him. I might be able to help.”

Pulling the ties on her bonnet, she lifted the sheer black veil and tossed the hat away, hoisted her skirts,
and started to shove through the throng in front of the gallows. From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of two more familiar faces, heading in the same direction. Hope swirled through her as she recognized the duke of Sheffield and the man he forced toward the platform with the barrel of his pistol—none other than the earl of Collingwood!

“Excuse me! Please! You must let me pass!” Gaining a few precious feet forward, she glanced toward the platform and for an instant, her gaze locked with her father’s. She saw that the viscount was staring at the group with the same hope in his eyes Grace knew shined in her own.

Please, God, let them have the proof we need!

T
aking a side route, Ethan reached the platform at the same time as the group converging on the gallows.

Rafe forced Lord Collingwood, his face pale and his mouth grim, up the platform stairs.

“I implore you to stop this hanging!” Rafe shoved the earl forward. “We have just discovered irrefutable proof that the man you are about to execute is innocent of the crime.”

Cord climbed the steps with the young man, Peter O’Daly, in tow and jerked him around to face the three men standing next to the viscount. O’Daly was older than Ethan had imagined, and far harder, his face a sullen mask of defiance. He had sold his youth for money. Odds were, he wouldn’t live to enjoy his old age.

“The duke is correct,” Cord told the men on the platform. “We’ve proof enough. We just need time for you to hear us out.”

Jonas McPhee climbed the stairs, the stranger right be hind him. “This man’s name is Silas McKay,” Jonas said. “He is a resident of Folkestone, a place whose coastline has long been associated with smuggling activities.
Mr. McKay has come forward to give testimony against the earl of Collingwood. He says he has seen the earl on more than one occasion in secret meetings with the French.”

“This is preposterous!” Collingwood said.

One of the magistrates from Forsythe’s trial stood at the bottom of the platform. He began climbing the wooden steps to join the group at the top. “If this man, McKay, has evidence, why then did he not come forward before? Why did he wait so long?”

“He was afraid for his family, my lord,” Jonas said. “It seems the earl wields a great deal of power in Folkestone. I have assured him, once the truth is known, his family will come to no harm. They will have nothing to fear from the earl or anyone who might be in league with him. I told him the marquess of Belford would personally guarantee his family’s safety.”

“That is correct, Mr. McKay,” Ethan said as he also climbed the wooden stairs. “You have my word that you and your family will be protected.”

Cord dragged the tall, thin youth, Peter O’Daly, over in front of the magistrate. “Tell him what you told me. Any thing but the truth and I will shoot you right here.”

O’Daly muttered a curse. His hands were tied in front of him and Ethan could see the dirt beneath his fingernails. He cocked his head toward Collingwood.

“It were ’im. ’E paid me to steal information from ’is lordship’s files. It were a goodly sum, more’n I’d ever seen. It were ’im,” he repeated, tilting his head toward the earl. “I didn’t know the bloody bastard was sellin’ out to the Frenchies, but Collingwood—e’s yer traitor.”

Everything happened at once. Ethan spotted Grace making her way to the foot of the platform just as Collingwood bolted forward, knocking the gun from Rafe’s
hand, snatching it up off the wooden planks, hitting the steps at a run, grabbing hold of Grace as he went past.

“Hold it right there!” he commanded, whirling Grace around to face them. He clamped an arm around her waist, jerked her backward, and pressed the gun against her head. “Make any sort of move and Lady Belford is dead.”

Ethan’s chest constricted. God’s breath, he should have known she wouldn’t stay where he had left her. He should have brought her with him, should have—

Ethan shook his head. There wasn’t time for recrimination. Grace was in danger. Nothing else mattered. He focused his attention on the earl, a calmness settling over him. “Let her go, Collingwood. You can’t escape. They’ll find you no matter how far you run.”

The earl ignored him. “Clear a path!” he commanded the crowd, who had fallen nearly silent. “Get out of my way or I shoot the lady!”

The throng parted like the Red Sea, allowing him to pass, and Ethan slowly followed, descending the wooden steps one at a time, keeping his eyes on the earl. Inwardly, his stomach churned with a sickening fear. Outwardly, he looked as calm as if threats against his wife were an everyday occurrence—which lately they had been.

His calm facade was a trick he had learned in prison, a matter of self-preservation that required intense control. He used it now, keeping his expression carefully bland, praying the earl would not see the terror for Grace that sat like a lump of ice in his stomach.

“Let her go.” He pronounced each word slowly, conveying a silent threat. It was the voice he had used on his ship, a cold, chilling tone of command that projected dire consequences should his orders not be obeyed.

Collingwood backed up, dragging Grace along with
him, and Ethan moved forward, stalking his every step like a panther after its prey.

“You had better stop right there,” Collingwood warned, his voice a little shaky, holding the weapon against Grace’s head. “I will shoot her, I swear it!”

“Pull the trigger and you’re a dead man,” Ethan warned, inching closer. “Put down the gun and step away.”

“It doesn’t matter if I shoot her or not. They will hang me anyway and we both know it. I prefer to take my chances.”

Ethan fought down the icy rage running through his veins. “You’re a thief and a traitor, Collingwood, not a murderer. Put down the weapon.”

“Back away—I am warning you!” He took another step backward and Ethan doggedly followed, his eyes never leaving Collingwood’s face.

The earl moved backward and the crowd parted, some of them whispering, most of them silent. Another step and another, Ethan matching each one. From the corner of his eye, he spotted Rafe and Cord, moving along the edge of the crowd, trying to get behind the earl.

Collingwood continued to back away. He had almost reached a line of carriages parked across the street from the prison when his foot hit a cobble and he stumbled. Grace seized the chance to break free. Ethan’s heart clenched as she kicked backward, hitting the earl in the shin, then dove forward out of his grip.

With a growl low in his throat, Ethan lunged, wrenching the pistol from Collingwood’s hand, swinging a blow that snapped the man’s head back so hard he lost his balance and went down on the cobblestone street.

Ethan shoved the pistol into the flesh beneath Collingwood’s chin, hatred welling inside him, so thick and black it nearly blinded him.

It was Collingwood—not Forsythe.
Collingwood who had betrayed him.

Images of the men on his ship rose up, the screams and the shouts, the blood and the dying. At last, here was his chance for revenge.

His finger tightened on the trigger. In an instant, it would be over and he would be free of the vow he had made. Sweat beaded on his forehead and his hand trembled.

“Ethan…” The soft sound of Grace’s voice pierced the haze of his fury. He shook his head, trying to clear the im ages, and the pistol wavered.

Do it!
his mind screamed.

But another part of him thought of his wife and the future that lay ahead of him. He thought of his tiny infant son and how much he had come to love him.

His hand shook and he tightened his hold on the gun.

“Shooting him is too quick,” Cord said softly from be side him. “The bastard deserves to hang.”

Ethan pressed the pistol harder into the earl’s neck and the man began to tremble.

“He isn’t worth it, Ethan.” Rafe’s voice floated toward him from somewhere to his left.

Collingwood stared up at him, fear bringing tears to his eyes. Ethan shuddered, swallowed hard and turned the gun away. Handing the pistol to Cord, he came to his feet. With a deep, cleansing breath, he turned to look for Grace.

She was there, standing at the edge of the circle of people around them, her eyes filled with tears. Ethan started toward her. Two long strides and he swept her into his arms.

He buried his face in her hair, which had come loose
from its pins, and inhaled the familiar sweet scent of her. “God, I was so frightened. I couldn’t bear to lose you.”

She looked up at him and the tears in her eyes spilled over onto her cheeks. “You didn’t kill him.”

He shook his head. “Killing him no longer mattered. You’re all that matters, Grace. You and little Andrew. I love you both so much.”

Grace swallowed. “I love you, too, Ethan.” Her lips trembled. “Sometimes it seems I have loved you forever.”

Grace went back into his arms and clung to him, and Ethan held her tight against him, his heart beating almost painfully with the fierce love he felt for her.

He took a steadying breath and focused once more on the scene around him. Forsythe was innocent and he would live. Collingwood faced a trial that would undoubtedly end in a hanging. It was over.

Ethan would get his revenge, but it was no longer important. Love, he had learned, was the only thing that mattered. It was a lesson hard-learned, one he vowed he would never forget.

It was half an hour later, the excitement over and the crowd dispersed, that Ethan led his beautiful wife and her father, her aunt and Lady Tweed back to his carriage.

Viscount Forsythe stopped him for a moment as they neared the coach and drew him a few feet away. “There are not words to convey my thanks to you for what you and Grace have done.”

“It is your daughter who deserves your thanks. I would never have given a thought to your innocence if it hadn’t been for her.”

Forsythe cast a glance at Grace and his expression softened. “I am so very proud of her.”

“I love her,” Ethan said. “I want you to know that.”

“It is obvious whenever you look at her.”

Ethan just nodded, certain it was true. As they returned to the others, he reached for Grace’s hand to help her into the carriage and for an instant their eyes met. A warm look passed between them, a promise of love and future. It occurred to him in that moment that for the first time since he had been freed from prison, Ethan felt truly free.

He raised Grace’s hand to his lips and pressed a soft kiss against her fingers, silently thanking her for the precious gift her love had given him, vowing he would return that gift every day for as long as they lived.