London, 1685
“Why would you want to marry a condemned man?”
Claire Hamilton’s thoughts echoed her cousin, Lily’s. Out of breath, Claire clutched Lily’s hand and raced toward Newgate Prison. She didn’t want to get married, especially to a criminal, yet her survival and her cousin’s future depended on it.
“What has provoked this lunacy?” Lily pleaded.
“Trust me.” Rarely did Claire give into an impulse, but the past twenty-four hours had precipitated a desperate plan to forestall impending disaster.
At the corner of Old Bailey, Claire stopped, her eyes fixed on pure bedlam. Around the prison, crowds amassed in staggering chaos to witness the next round of gallows-bound felons. London’s lowly and highborn readied to commence their sordid recreation. Men hawked meat pies. The smoke of roasted chestnuts curled through the air. A minister prayed over his well-thumbed Bible, accompanied by a chorus of women crooning a psalm, their hands crossed over their hearts. Street urchins erected miniature gallows and played at hanging dolls. The bawdy remarks of men, shrill laughter of unkempt women, and discordant screams of children playing “hunt the hare” rent the air.
The wealthier classes haughtily bordered the fray. Claire narrowed her eyes in disdain at the irreverence of her own class. Ladies of fashion in their carriages conferred with bucks on horseback. No doubt, she fumed, to ease their boredom.
“I never dreamed my wedding day would be this way.” Claire laughed bitterly over her shoulder. She had lived an unremarkable existence in a modest home on the edge of London town. “Lucky me, having the unfortunate circumstance of running into Uncle. Now I’m being sold to the highest bidder.” Despite her show of indifference, Claire seethed with frustration and rebellion.
“You would have a nice house and servants aplenty,” Lily offered.
No. Claire would never wed the duke to enrich her uncle. She shivered at the memory of the Duke of Hawthorne, the hunched, emaciated knight with balding pate and ancient enough to be her grandfather, his fingers gnarled and rough against her hand when he bowed over it with lecherous greed. His eyes when he had signed the agreement to wed her held the penetrating cold of a reptile. She swallowed against the remembered scratch of his hand on hers. No. She would never commit herself to such a fate. To be sold into that kind of slavery would be worse than a living death.
“He is the oldest excuse for a man I’ve ever known,” Claire said. The nightmare of her past shifted before her eyes, the year of living in constant fear. The image gave sudden rise to hot, angry, impotent tears. Never would she be vulnerable again. She poked her furled parasol to dislodge the crush of bodies in front of her. “Thinking about him makes my skin crawl.”
“I don’t like the duke, either,” Lily admitted. “There must be another way.”
“I’ve already tried and failed. When Uncle learns of my humiliation and the ensuing scandal that is firing through London as we speak, he’ll expedite my marriage to the duke.”
“What scandal?” Lily halted and pushed up her spectacles. “What else have you done?”
Claire turned to stare at her. Telling Lily the whole truth would mean a long conversation, and she wanted to spare her cousin the worry. “My whole life, I’ve lived by all the rules, and I’ve fallen from grace due to one stupendous error. Now, I’m picking up the pieces to make things right.”
Through backstairs information, Claire had learned that a noblewoman could marry a condemned man for his name, so that the legal rights of her widowhood would protect her from being forced into an unwanted marriage. She had attempted to confirm this with her solicitor, but he was not in London. With the dreaded engagement to be announced tomorrow, she had no time left. The last convict of Newgate was to be executed this eve.
“But at what cost? Lily cried. “Marriage to a condemned man? What about love?”
Claire snorted. “There’s no knight in shining armor to come to my rescue. Your romantic notion of love comes with chains. There is no freedom. That kind of love is what society dictates and it’s not for me. I like my independence.”
“What about your uncle’s wrath?”
Claire squared her shoulders. Ever since her uncle arrived in London from Jamaica, she had been thrown into a whirlwind of dressmakers, fittings, and other entrapments to snare a wealthy husband. She had been transformed, according to Lily, from plain to devastating. Claire dismissed Lily’s notion of her appearance. There was nothing in the world she could do to change her unobtrusive and ordinary attributes. She cared not one whit how she looked. She was content with herself.
Yet more than anything else, Claire wanted to go back to her quiet existence at the edge of London, and the freedom it allowed her. Dealing with her greedy uncle would be another matter. “I’ll incur his wrath for a short time. There will be nothing he can do to enforce the engagement.” Her scheme would solve all of her problems, freeing her from her uncle’s control and preventing her marriage to the duke. “I’ll be married today and widowed tomorrow.”
“You sound so cold.” Lily’s voice raised an octave.
Claire cringed. Right now she was too anxious to make excuses to Lily’s unfailing principles. “Don’t worry. I have matters thought out. No man will ever dictate to me again.”
“What if he refuses to marry you?”
Claire dragged her cousin to the entry and knocked. She stared at the mildewed and menacing door and shivered, wondering what ghastly crime her intended had committed to merit a hanging. Yet Lily’s question tore at her insides. Would he reject her? “That’s a ridiculous consideration, Lily.” But her voice sounded high, near hysteria.
The day itself grew gray and cold and the rawness penetrated into the prison office of old Newgate. Mr. Goad, Newgate’s master gaoler, greeted them with a bow. He was a large, scarred guard with a bottom lip that protruded far enough to hold a saucer, and a countenance sallow enough to look as if he had been hanged the week before.
“It’s to meet your betrothed, I expect. I received your message this morn. It’s a matter of expenses, beggin’ your pardon.” He came forward, palm up.
“I understand.” Claire dropped some coins into his hand. He stuffed them away like a squirrel stowing nuts. “Before we begin, I have a few requests,” she said in a controlled voice.
“The preacher’s coming later. Anything else fancier will cost ye more.” He swiped a horny hand across his mouth.
“You’ve already profited.” Despite her knees shaking, Claire maintained an air of distinction. “I wish to speak with my betrothed alone before the ceremony. I also wish to have a sheet dividing us.”
He studied her with a gimlet eye. “You quality always have strange requests and that one, I’ll be denying. Going it alone with the ruddy bastard will not sit well if something happens to you, and I gets the blame. A regular devil he is, took six extra guards to get the bloke in his cell. ‘Tis said after his judgment come down, he outfought a dozen o’ the King’s Guardsmen.”
Claire gripped her cousin’s hand like a drowning woman to a life rope. The shouting outside was muffled by the thick greasy walls of Goad’s office.
“You cannot go through with this,” Lily squeaked.
Of course, the Master Gaoler wanted to frighten her. He let Claire simmer a few moments longer while he examined a broken fingernail. Prepared for such an event, Claire produced another precious coin. “I believe this will do, Mr. Goad.” Claire looked down her nose, using her presence of the highborn she hoped would kindle a sense of inferiority in Mr. Goad.
“Your servant, m’lady.” He grabbed for the coin.
Claire snatched it back. “You’ll have a neat little profit after my requests have been granted. It’s a matter of negotiation.”
His sallow face puckered as he heaved a sigh through rotted teeth. “Very well, wait here while I get your betrothed ready for his weddin’ day.”