Madness (29 page)

Gabrielle shivered. “And who are those three people?”

“Randall, Isolde and Michael Avenel.”

“I see. And you want to tell me now because—” Gabrielle prompted.

“Because if it hadn’t been for your brother being dead, none of this would have happened.”

She sighed. “No, I would say it might have been even worse. He was a killer and a degenerate. Poor Simon has been branded these things and he’s innocent, I’m sure of it.”

“And yet I am, and I get to walk in and out of here freely,” she said with a shake of her head.

Gabrielle insisted, “But you've reformed your life.
 
You’re not a prostitute any longer. You've learned to read, write, do sums, become a great healer. Even if you think that being a prostitute harms anyone other than yourself, you've changed. Look at all the people you’ve helped at the clinic, the sick, and the girls who want to reform too.”

“I've done it all with bloodstained hands.”

Gabrielle shook her head. “Michael thought that as well, so he kept himself away—” Her eyes widened as a thought struck her. She grabbed her companion’s arm. “Is that why—”

Clarissa nodded. “I work and keep myself to myself. Oliver tells everyone what a fallen man he was. He tries to atone for it every day. But as bad as everything you know about me is, I can never tell what I did. But you and your sister deserve the truth.”

"All right, if you really want to tell me, I promise to listen and not judge."

She took a deep, ragged breath. “Yes, your brother died at Cheddar Gorge. But it wasn't a suicide. It was because I blew his head off with a musket.”

Gabrielle gasped and felt as though she were about to faint. She sat down on the edge of the cot, and pressed her hands together as if in prayer.

“I don’t understand. How? Why?” she forced out from between her clamped teeth as she tried not to vomit. She clutched the metal bedstead and stared at the pretty but hard face of the older woman staring before her, a face that had suddenly changed beyond all recognition.

“He was a monster preying upon women. Killed a friend of mine, Molly, who was young, a virgin. She sold herself into a boarding school for the highest price she could get to help her young family. Brothers and sisters. I look after them now. They had no one else. Your brother tortured her before she died.

“And Oxnard is no better. I can only guess what he’s done to Lucinda. I don't know him personally, but I've heard of him. He's a beast and she's better off in here than with him. But she never would have married him if I hadn't killed your brother and left the two of you without a male protector."

"Why are you telling me all this now?" Gabrielle asked, near tears.

Clarissa's mouth was a thin line. "So that you never think for a minute I’m a kind or decent person. Every time you thank me, I want to kill myself. And now to see you here in this place with that man—well, it’s too much. You deserve so much better. All this is my fault.”

Gabrielle shook her head. “If Chauncey were alive he would have found a way to use me just as he used Lucinda, to lure people into doing his bidding. He would have squandered any money he had and ours too, I have no doubt. The lawyers would only have been able to hold him off until I came of age. Then he would have wrung it out of us both bit by bit.

"I know what you did was terrible, but perhaps I always knew he would come to a bad end.
 
I suspected a great deal was amiss, and found out the most horrible facts after he died.

"As for being here with Simon, it's fate. I love him. He saved me and Lucinda, and I'm saving him. And as bad as Bedlam is, with the howling, smells, freezing cells running with damp, I would rather be here with him than in a fine home with no love."

Clarissa gave a snort of contempt. "
Love
, indeed. We women are fools for it. I wasn't always a tart, you know. Fell in with the wrong man, so I did. Next thing I knew, well--" She shook her head regretfully.

Gabrielle reached out to pat her forearm. “It wasn't your fault. It's not like you chose it as a profession. Circumstances drove you to it. And you've more than made up for it since. You just told me yourself, you avenged Molly, and are a mother to her siblings.

"Look, Clarissa, I know what a burden you must carry around with you, the guilt and feeling of being unworthy. But it's time to leave the past behind. No purpose is served in having all these regrets. I forgive you for what you did to my brother, and my sister would too.

"And I know you’re a kind person, so all this talk of owing me is silly. You loved your friend, have taken on her family when most other people wouldn't have cared. I'm sure you're doing your best to keep all of them off the street.
 
I can’t pretend I’m not shocked at you shooting Chauncey, but it’s the past. The three of us and Simon and this little kitten are all I care about now.”

“I’ll go to the police if—”

She gripped her arm hard. “No! What point would there be? He’s dead. He fell in the Gorge, cracked his skull open. Or jumped. After all, he was facing ruin. Many a man has committed suicide for less."

They stared at each other for a time, Clarissa in surprise, Gabrielle assessingly.

"You say my cousins know?” she asked after a time.

Clarissa nodded. “Yes, your brother was trying to kidnap Isolde in the Gorge, and when he saw he couldn't get away, he tried to kill her. He was trying to murder Randall for his title. He didn’t know Michael was still alive.”

Gabrielle digested this information in silence for a moment, then nodded. “Hmm, I suspected a fair bit of this from things he said and did, but thank you for the last pieces of the puzzle about his death. It explains why my cousins have always acted a bit stilted around me. It's not that they hold a grudge, it's that they've been keeping this secret. They probably feel guilty, or are trying to protect me."

Clarissa nodded, and looked relieved. "Just like me. I'm sorry if I acted, well, funny to you.
 
I just felt guilty all the time. A lady like you should be having her London season, not consorting with whores and lags."

Gabrielle perched on the end of the cot to take the weight off her trembling legs. "A job I'm very glad to have, just like I'm glad to know you. And to finally know the truth. I was aware that there was no love lost between my brother and Randall. After all, they were close in age, and Isolde was originally Chauncey’s fiancee.

"Though it was actually more of a family match, from the time they were young," she added a moment later. "And from what I gathered also, my brother had told her the marriage was off as soon as her father lost his money and passed away. Chauncey took up with Fanny Clarence to try to marry her for her money next, but I'm pretty sure he wanted to manipulate Isolde into becoming his mistress."

"The blighter." She spat into the basin. "She be worth a hundred of him."

"Aye, that she is. Isolde had a lucky escape if all you tell me is true, and the best of good fortune to marry Randall. I always liked her. Liked her far more than my own brother, if the truth be told." She sighed heavily.

Clarissa nodded. "She's a good woman, always kind to me even after everything I've done, and a wonder with all those children they say are his little bast—"

Gabrielle shot her a quelling look. "No matter who their parents are, or what they've done, the children should never be blamed for it. So please don't use that word."

"Sorry, Miss."

"It's all right. It's a common enough speech habit.
 
In any event, thank you for coming clean with me. And in case you didn't know the whole tale, well, just consider that you finally brought a killer to justice at last."

"Oh?"

"Chauncey didn't just harm your friend. He also killed Michael’s younger brother years ago."

She looked stunned. "
What
?"

Gabrielle nodded grimly. "It's true, He made it look like a riding accident, and then murdered Randall’s fiancee. They found her remains when Chauncey tried to kill Randall by setting fire to the stables and locking him inside."

"My God, what a way to die."

"Isolde saved him, and most of their prize stables, but it was a damned close thing by all accounts. But in the process, the body was uncovered, and they finally had proof that she nevver eloped from the district, Chauncey had strangled her."

Clarissa shook her head.
 
"I've had no idea anyone could be so evil."

"Neither did I.
 
Everything he did, he did for greed and lust, not for love."

"I see. Well, thank you for trying to make me feel better." She looked a bit doubtful, however, which prompted Gabrielle to say,
 
"It's all true, I swear. Now it is all starting to make sense. I thought the Avenels acting oddly toward me was because of my brother's crimes. It was certainly reason enough. They’ve tried to be kind, but it can’t have been easy for them. That’s why I came to live with Antony. I didn’t want to be a reminder of....” She sighed.

"I see."

“Thank you for telling me. I’m going to go back to Simon now,” she said, getting to her feet.

“Is that all you’re going to say?” Clarissa asked in surprise as she headed for the small hole.

She shrugged. “I suppose I could say thank you.”

“Thank you?” she echoed, puzzled.

“Shooting him as though you were putting down a rabid dog was far better for all of us than having the whole of London watch him die upon the gallows.”

Clarissa shook he head. “You’re a remarkable woman. Anything you ever want me to do—”

“Not for me, but look after Lucinda, will you?” She gave a tight smile and squeezed back into the hole and went to lie down beside Simon, feeling more cold than she ever had in her life.

All that she had heard from Clarissa just proved that you could never really know another person. You simply had to trust blindly, and pray for the best.

But as Gabrielle wrapped her arms around Simon’s body and he snuggled tightly against her in return, she decided that there was such a thing as a knowledge of the heart. She might not know about Simon’s childhood, family, even his surname, but she was sure he was a good man, and the one she was destined to spend her future with.

The revelations about her cousins had been startling, however. She had been reluctant to ask them for any help, but with Antony so angry with her over Simon, she wondered if they might not go down to Somerset to try to let bygones be bygones.

Forgiveness was important to her, and she could really use a powerful ally like Randall, the Earl of Hazlemere, if she was ever to protect the people she loved.

She knew what Lucinda’s husband the Earl of Oxnard was like. Clarissa's assertions just now about his bad character didn't surprise her in the least. The baby would be a bone of contention as soon as it was born. It would become a weapon for him to wield against his wife to get her to cooperate. Expecially if it were a son and heir.