Without a Summer (33 page)

The Solicitor General stood. “Objection, sir. This is an argument, not a question.”

The judge nodded. “Quite right. Please confine yourself to questioning the witnesses, Mr. Leighton.”

The barrister bowed. “Pardon, your honour. Since the purpose of this trial is to consider Mr. O’Brien’s guilt or innocence, Sir David’s testimony is an important part of this. I merely wanted to set the stage for the jury so that they understood the context in which I asked Sir David these questions.” He turned back to Vincent. “Now then, sir. What is your relation to Miss de Clare?”

“I first visited her when I was sixteen. Though I am ashamed to admit it, I continued to patronise her services until I was twenty and left for university.”

“You have not seen her since?”

“No.” Vincent looked at Jane and spoke as if she were the only one in the room. “Absolutely not.”

The defence consulted the note that Jane sent him and grimaced. “Sir David, would you oblige me by removing your shirt?”

Clenching his jaw, Vincent stood and removed his jacket. As he did so, the defence again turned to the audience. “Ladies, I apologize for this indecorous exercise. The more sensitive of you may wish to depart.”

No one moved. Indeed, most of the ladies leaned forward with eager eyes as Vincent’s waistcoat and shirt came off.

The defence asked, “Would you show us your back?”

Vincent turned and showed the mass of scars crossing his back. Some of the wheals were still an angry red tone. It had been a long time since Jane had seen them by the light of day. She had not realised, until this moment, that Vincent had developed the habit of dressing with his back away from her.

Mr. Leighton appeared stricken by the severity of Vincent’s scarring, but he composed himself quickly and leaned in. “The mole that Miss de Clare said you possessed was … where? The right shoulder, I believe.” He pointed to the skin there, where only a corner of brown showed through the scars, and spoke to the jury. “It is barely visible. I find it interesting that Miss de Clare did not mention the scars he bears. Would they not merit some comment?”

Looking away from her husband, Jane watched the jury. All of them were awake now, staring fixedly at Vincent’s back. For the first time she saw doubt and some sympathy in their faces. Mr. Leighton continued to study Vincent. “Will you tell the jury how you acquired these?”

“I was flogged by French soldiers while in Binche prior to the Battle of Quatre Bras.” He still faced the wall, but his voice was strong as the court glamourist magnified the sound.

“How long did this go on?”

Every time he inhaled to speak, the scars stretched and shifted. “Nearly a fortnight.”

“And why?”

Vincent looked over his shoulder, pursing his lips. “I was in possession of a state secret, which the Duke of Wellington asked me not to disclose.”

“Did you disclose it?”

“No.”

“Thank you. You may resume your clothing.” Before moving on to other questions, he waited for Vincent to pull on his clothes, though her husband left his cravat undone. “You marched with the coldmongers, did you not?”

“I did.” Vincent faced the front with admirable calm. The set of his shoulders betrayed his tension to Jane, but she thought that others would attribute his perfect posture to good breeding. Lord Verbury might be on the verge of reaping that which he had sown.

“And why did you choose to do that, rather than advising the government of the danger that the prosecution asserts was present?”

“First, the march was composed largely of boys under eighteen, so there seemed little danger from the marchers. Second, I assisted Mr. O’Brien in attempting to stop the march, after recognising that the coldmongers had been deceived as part of a bid to displace Lord Eldon from the Lord Chancellor position. The coldmongers were used, but not by Mr. O’Brien.”

If Jane thought that the courtroom had been disordered before, this new recital overturned that.

“And so you believe Mr. O’Brien to be innocent?”

“Yes. Completely. I believe that Mr. Devenny duped him into holding a march, and has contrived the entire event.”

“As part of a conspiracy? By whom?”

She could not hear Vincent’s small whine of protest, but she could see it as he held his breath, lips pressed close together. The muscles in his jaw stood out. Wetting his lips, Vincent blew out his breath in a long stream. He swallowed and looked to the gallery. “The Earl of Verbury.” His face had become quite pale. “He is widely known to seek the Lord Chancellor seat, and turned Mr. Devenny to his own purposes.”

“I have no further questions. Sir David, I thank you for your service to England during the war.”

Jane wanted to jump to her feet with applause, but barely managed to restrain herself.

In part because she was quite certain that Lord Verbury had additional plans involving her husband and Mr. O’Brien. Likely her as well.

As the defence yielded the floor, the prosecution swept up, surveying Vincent with something like disdain. “You seem to be stating that Mr. O’Brien is not guilty of conspiring against the Crown because someone else is conspiring to make him appear to be conspiring. A complicated knot. Have you proof of this vast conspiracy?”

“You have had two witnesses who had little to say that was true. The defence, I believe, has discredited Miss de Clare’s testimony. We may continue then by discussing Mr. Devenny’s assertion that the coldmongers are capable of altering the weather. This is decidedly false. It is unequivocally impossible.”

“You are a glamourist. We have Mr. Devenny’s testimony that this is an ability that coldmongers hide. Might not a glamourist also have a stake in this secret?”

“To what purpose? The ability to make rain would be invaluable in a drought, yet no one does. No one makes ice in the summer. It cannot be done.” Speaking about glamour relaxed Vincent some, and his little sneer of disdain became apparent as if he were thinking—which he probably was—that only a fool would believe such patent absurdity.

“Would you really have the jury believe that snow in May is natural? What can account for it, or the snow still on the hills in June, if not the coldmongers?”

“Sometimes the weather is simply bad. One does not always need to look for a supernatural explanation. Nature does quite enough on its own. Volcanoes, for instance.” Vincent shrugged. “The ash they expel can cause cooling.”

“I do not know if you are aware of this, but there are no volcanoes in Britain.” The prosecution offered his own sneer, as if saying that only a fool would believe Vincent. Jane wanted to shake the man. The weather was simply bad fortune, yet the prosecution made it out to be man’s fault. “And yet you also assisted Mr. O’Brien in creating a secret area in the musicians’ loft—an area that we have already heard testified was intended to allow an assassin to fire, unobserved, on the Prince Regent. One might suppose by this that you have an interest in proving Mr. O’Brien’s innocence, since your own case is tied directly to his.”

“If I were presently being charged with anything, that might be true.” Vincent bowed his head. “I am not, however, as the Prince Regent’s letter makes clear. The area in Mr. O’Brien’s musicians’ loft is intended to allow musicians to tune without requiring them to leave the gallery. Nothing more.”

“Yes. Testimony from an irreproachable character.” The prosecution referred to his notes. “And you are also Lord Verbury’s son, are you not?”

Vincent’s gaze narrowed and he nodded, slowly. “Although his lordship disowned me when I pursued a career in glamour.”

The prosecution merely smiled at that. Jane suddenly remembered Lord Verbury’s own version, which he had presented to Admiral Brightmore. Had she told Vincent about that? She knew, however, with dread certainty, that Lord Verbury would have witnesses prepared to swear that he doted on his son.

“You have reason, then, to dislike your father.” The prosecution turned to the jury. “Is it any wonder the Earl cast him off, however unwillingly, so that this … man did not sweep the rest of his family into his depravity? Even now he continues his contemptible behaviour, in the guise of being an ‘agent to the Crown’ and testifying on behalf of a known conspirator. Oh yes, a man of irreproachable character.” He gestured to Miss de Clare. “Even if her more recent testimony is in question, you do not deny that you visited her in your youth.”

“My father took me to her. As a birthday present. I was sixteen.”

“In fact, your father was
forced
to take you to a prostitute because, given your interest in the womanly art of glamour, he naturally thought you an effeminate.” He paused and then looked at Jane. “You have no children, still.”

Jane clenched her jaw, seeing what he was trying to do. By assassinating Vincent’s character, he would render all of his testimony suspect.

“My wife miscarried while we were on the Continent, carrying out the Crown’s business at the Battle of Quatre Bras.”

“Yes … your
wife,
who dresses like a man, as she did the night of the Coldmongers’ Uprising. A model of femininity. Anyone need only look at her to see exactly how ‘feminine’ she is.”

“That is quite enough.” Vincent had flushed with anger and his voice was dangerously low. To Jane, his fury was apparent, but she was not sure if another would see it so, or see his heightened colour as a sign of embarrassment. “You may condemn my character all you like, but you may not speak so of my wife.”

“As you say, that is enough, Sir David,” the prosecution drawled. “No further questions.”

Vincent stood for a moment longer in the witness stand, as though he wanted to continue to speak. Jaw clenching, he stepped down and returned to the box. Vincent sat next to Jane with an audible sigh. He reached for her hand and clenched it. Through her grasp, she tried to submit all the love and approbation she felt for him. The heat of his palm gave some indication of the duress he had been under. When they were alone, Jane would do all she could to soothe him.

“The court calls Lady Vincent to the stand.”

Vincent pressed her hand as she stood. Jane struggled to draw steady breath as she went to the stand. She had nothing to fear and was already cleared of wrong by the Prince Regent. The defence took his spot and smiled amiably at Jane, as though they were alone in the room. “I understand that you were instrumental in your husband’s escape from Napoleon, so I judge you to be a woman of quick understanding and discernment. Thus I hope you can tell us your opinion of Mr. O’Brien’s character?”

Jane could feel Mr. O’Brien’s gaze on her back. She kept her face forward, though she longed to say this directly to him. “Mr. O’Brien is a man of integrity. I believe he was misled by Mr. Devenny.” She would have known this all along, if she had not been blinded by her own prejudices.

“In what way was he misled?”

“I overheard Mr. Devenny speaking to him and encouraging him to march. It was quite clear that the idea did not originate with Mr. O’Brien.” That caused some surprise in the courtroom. Jane continued, “This is why we at first thought we could stop the march, since it had been intended as an entirely peaceful gathering. Indeed, if you consider disinterested accounts of the coldmongers’ passage through London, it consisted entirely of marching and singing. The only incidents of violence I witnessed were committed
against
the coldmongers. They only wished for their concerns to be heard, as is the right of every British citizen.”

“Can you tell the jury where and when you overheard this?”

“In the ballroom at Stratton House the afternoon prior to the march. Mr. Devenny had come expressly to speak to Mr. O’Brien about it.” She then repeated their conversation for the jury to the best of her recollection.

“And they were comfortable having this discussion with you present?”

“I was hidden by glamour, and Mr. O’Brien had reason to believe that my husband and I were not in the building.”

From there Mr. Leighton asked her simple questions to establish the course of events and her own motives for participation. In spite of his genial manner, Jane was shaking by the time he yielded the floor to the prosecution. Jane eyed the Solicitor General with disquiet. She had no doubts that Lord Verbury—who had clearly prompted the prosecution, if not outright purchased him—would do everything in his power to degrade her and destroy her reputation.

The prosecution’s first question did not disappoint her. “I wonder if you could explain to the jury why a ‘lady’ such as yourself wore trousers to the march.”

“I first wore them out of necessity—”

“Ah—
first
out of necessity, and then you found that men’s clothing suited you better?”

“No. My husband—”

“Your husband prefers you in masculine dress.”

Jane blushed, remembering that Vincent did, in fact, like her in trousers. “No. Perhaps
you
prefer ladies attired thus?”

The courtroom tittered. The prosecution frowned. “Please, only answer the questions asked.”

Oh, they were going to play this game, were they? Fortunately, she had recent practice in verbal sparring through the offices of Lord Verbury. Jane stared at him with a placid expression and waited. “By all means, ask me a question.”

The door at the back of the courtroom opened and Melody slipped in, but paused when she saw Jane on the witness stand. Jane could not tell by her countenance if her errand for Vincent had succeeded. She relaxed somewhat as Melody gave a folded paper to one of the ushers, who in turn passed it to the defence.

Watching this exchange, Jane almost missed the prosecution’s question. Clearing her throat, she answered, “I recognised Mr. Devenny because I had seen him on several other occasions and noted his livery as that of Lord Verbury’s daughter.”

“I find it interesting that you describe Mr. O’Brien as a man of integrity with one breath, and with the next speak of overhearing a plot, which you did not report.”

“At the time we still thought it possible to stop the march peaceably, while Mr. Devenny thought that firing on children was more appropriate.”