Reforming Lord Ragsdale (Carla Kelly’s Regency Romances)

Chapter 17

N o, it is not pretty, he agreed after a night of twisting and turning in his bed until he was a prisoner of his sheets and weary with no sleep. As dawn was beginning to tinge the sky, he dragged himself to his arm-chair by the window and propped his bare feet on the ledge. I wonder that she can endure. May the Lord smite me if I ever whine again.

The rest of her story was told in fits and starts. How Eamon had been ripped from them and thrown into a cell for the condemned. They heard gallows under construction for some and learned from their triumphant jailers of Robert Emmet’s death by beheading. They begged, they pleaded, but the authorities did not bother to tell them who else had died, as though Irish grief was as dismissible as a gnat before the face.

On his lap again, Emma spoke of her escape, her voice still wondering at the mystery of it all. They had kept her in Prevot for another week, and then suddenly all the prisoners were removed to Marlborough Street Riding School, hurried along through the streets of Dublin as night was falling.

“It was typhus, and they moved everyone,” she explained into his soaked waistcoat. “Da and I were not chained together, and I know it must have been an oversight. When we passed a crowd and the guard wasn’t looking, he pushed me into the mob and said, ‘Indenture,’ to the man who caught me.”

Her voice lost some of its tightness as she told of being hustled that very night to the Dublin docks and put aboard a ship bound for America and the West Indies. “And so I came to the Claridges,” she concluded. “I never thought I would have a chance to look for my family again, but when Mr. Claridge said he was sending Sally and Robert to England, I knew I had to come.”

“And you have been treated shabbily,” he concluded. “That will change tomorrow, Emma. We are returning to the Office of Criminal Business, and I assure you that Mr. Capper will see you.”

“You would do that for me?” she asked in surprise, not realizing how her spontaneous question deepened his own shame.

“I will do that for you, Emma.”

“I will do that for you,” he repeated at dawn to the window. And then what? Will there be tidy lists of prisoners bound for Australia, or am I only letting Emma in for more frustration and heartache? Put baldly, is this a kindness?

He decided that it was as he watched, bleary-eyed an hour later, as the maid put more coal in the grate and started the fire. He knew he looked worse than usual because of her darting glances and the way she almost ran from his room. Even if Emma continues to be disappointed at every turn, at least she will know that we tried everything we could , he reasoned. This is far better than going through life never knowing.

Dressed and ready for the day, he came downstairs at six, surprising Lasker. “There is no breakfast yet, my lord,” he apologized, even as he hurried to light the candles in the breakfast room.

Lord Ragsdale shrugged. “Tea then, Lasker,” he said and sat down at the empty table with the newspaper. He looked up at his butler, whose face wore a quizzical expression. “Tell Emma to come here. ”

“Yes, my lord.” The butler hesitated. “I do not believe she slept last night,” he said. “The scullery maid heard her crying in the next room.”

Emma, and I was not there to hold you? he thought. I would have. I was sleepless only one floor below you. He considered the paper a moment, then rejected it, struck by the fact that he was the best friend she had at the moment. “She’ll be awake, won’t she?” he asked and turned back to the paper. “Bring two cups.”

She was there in a few minutes, pale and serious in the deep green wool dress he had commissioned for her. He gestured to a chair, but she did not sit. He looked up.

“My lord, it is not my place to sit here,” she reminded him.

“It is if I say so. Sit.”

She perched on the edge of the seat, as if ready for flight if another family member were to appear. He filled a teacup and pushed it toward her. She sipped it slowly, cradling her hands around the cup as though she were cold inside and out.

He read through the newspaper without comment, then folded it and looked at her. “I am remiss in something, Emma,” he said.

She looked at him then, curious.

“Do you remember when I asked you what would make you happy?”

Emma nodded. “That seems so long ago, my lord.”

“I think it was longer ago than either of us can really appreciate,” he murmured. “You have your own bed and your own room, do you not?”

She nodded again, obviously mystified and wondering where he was leading.

He stood up and gestured for her to follow him. “I believe you also wanted to hear Mass. Let us go.”

She took him by the arm. “You don’t need to do this, my lord,” she said.

He took her hand and pulled her after him into the hall. “Of course I do, my dear. I will take you to St. Stephens, where you will have ample time for confession first and then Mass.”

“You want me to tell this whole story to a priest,” she asked, but it was more of a statement.

“I do indeed.” He allowed Lasker to help him into his overcoat, and then he waited for Emma to retrieve her cloak. “Unless I have been misjudging the Almighty all these years—and I probably have—you are about to discover that you have nothing to be forgiven for.”

She said nothing as they rode toward the city, only beginning to stir now with carters and other early risers. She stared straight ahead, but he knew it was not the angry, sullen mistrust of their earlier acquaintance. Again, he had the feeling that she was seeing things out of his vision. He looked down at her hands and noticed that they were balled into tight fists. He put his hand over hers.

“Don’t worry, Emma. Have you ever considered the possibility that the Lord might be on your side?”

He could tell from her expression that she had not, and he wisely gave himself over to silence too.

There were only a few worshipers in St. Stephen’s, a small Catholic church on the outskirts of the financial district that he knew about only from driving by on several occasions. The earlier Mass had just finished, and the smell of wax was strong in the low-ceilinged chapel. Emma took a deep breath of the mingled ecclesiastical odors and sighed.

“It has been so long, my lord,” she murmured as she started toward a confessional. She looked back at him once, real fear in her eyes, and he longed to follow her, but he only smiled and seated himself in the back of the church, crossing his fingers and hoping that the Lord was the kind of fellow Lord Ragsdale thought He was.

She was a long time in the confessional, but he knew it was a long story and felt no impatience. He was content to breathe deep himself and allow the aura of the place to work its way into his spirits. When she came out, he made room for her on the bench.

He wanted to speak to her, but she dropped immediately to her knees and began to recite the rosary, murmuring softly. She had no beads, so she ticked off the litany on her fingers. He watched Emma and resolved to find a rosary from somewhere for her. What a paltry gift for someone who has given me so much , he thought.

When she finished, she sat beside him. “You were right,” she whispered.

He leaned closer until their shoulders touched. “I thought so. Any penance?”

She smiled at him, and his heart flopped. There was nothing in her smile of reticence, calculation, or wariness this time, only a great relief probably visible to ships at sea or Indians in distant tepees. “He told me to recite one rosary,” she whispered back.

“Small penance, my dear,” he said, wishing she would turn her marvelous, incandescent gaze on some other man.

She grinned even wider. “Faith, my lord, he’s an Irish priest.”

He burst into laughter, forgetting where he was. Heads turned, parishioners glowered. He rested his long legs on the prayer bench and sank down lower in the pew, stifling the laughter that still threatened, and thinking suddenly of Clarissa, who wouldn’t recognize a joke if it said hello.

The Mass began. He nudged her. “You know, Emma, we’re very much alike,” he commented.

She digested this, her attention divided between him and the priest at the altar. “Oh, we are?”

“I drowned myself in bitterness and alcohol, and you let yourself be captured by guilt. Such foolish damage we have done ourselves.”

She nodded and sighed. “I probably would have taken to the bottle, my lord, but I had no money like you.”

“Ah, my dear, the toils of the too wealthy. . . ”

The parishioner in the pew in front of them turned around and put a finger to her lips. Lord Ragsdale winked at her, and she turned back swiftly.

“D’ye know, I think I will seek out the man I hate the most and give him the contents of my wine cellar,” he whispered to Emma. “And my first choice is the porter at the Office of Criminal Business.”

She laughed this time, and the priest paused momentarily, glaring at her. “Hush, my lord,” she insisted. “You are a bad influence on me. In another moment, I really will have something to confess, and it will be your fault.”

Lord Ragsdale behaved himself for the rest of the Mass, marveling at the prescience of the priest to deliver his homily on forgiveness. He watched, great peace in his heart, as Emma took the sacrament at the altar, then returned to kneel beside him. He knew she was crying, and he kept his hand on her shoulder for the remainder of the service.

“Well, my dear, can we face the porter now?” he asked her in front of the church as he helped her into another hackney.

“I can face anything,” she assured him.

“It may be that we learn little or nothing,” he warned her. “We may come away feeling worse.”

“I know, my lord,” she said quietly. “But at least we will know we are trying.”

Her hand tight in his, they approached the porter in the Office of Criminal Business, who practically threw himself off his stool and asked in unctuous, kindly tones if they would like to see Mr. Capper.

“Indeed we would,” Lord Ragsdale said. “You must want to keep your job.” He looked the cowering man in the eye. “Do you know, it probably wouldn’t be too hard to get you transported.”

To his grim amusement, they found themselves hurried into a cluttered office. “Mr. John Henry Capper,” the porter announced and then beat a hasty retreat.

Capper stood and motioned them into chairs in front of the desk. He took a few swipes at the piles of paper surrounding him, gave up, then seated himself.

“I am Lord Ragsdale, and this is my servant, Emma Costello,” he began, gesturing to Emma. “She has a story for you.” He sat back then, and let Emma tell it all again, leaving nothing out. He watched the clerk’s face, wondering if such a man in such a job would be moved by her words. I wonder if it is possible to become hardened to such wretchedness , he thought and then decided it was not. Capper listened intently, asking questions quietly but not disturbing the flow of her narrative. Several times he passed his hand across his eyes, but his attention never wavered.

When she finished and blew her nose on the handkerchief Lord Ragsdale kept handy, Capper looked from one to the other, his lips set in a tight line. He asked her the names of all her family members and scribbled them on the pad in front of him.

“Your mother, Miss Costello. Do you think she is yet alive?”

Emma shook her head and reached for Lord Ragsdale’s hand again. “She was so sick when I was taken out for torture in Prevot.”

Capper drew a line through her name, and Emma flinched.

Lord Ragsdale tightened his grip. “And here, your little brother, Timothy?” he asked, his pencil poised over the next name.

“Oh, no,” she whispered. “He is the only one I am certain of.” Lord Ragsdale felt his own nerves tingling at the pencil’s brief scratch.

Capper quickly drew a line through Eamon’s name. “I suspect he was hanged, as you fear. You say he was separated from you after his confession?”

Emma nodded, her face pale. Capper sighed and drew a circle around the two remaining names. He stared at them a moment, as though wishing the names would turn into information, then reached behind him to pull down a ledger. He searched through the pages, then opened it on his desk.

“Miss Costello, you must be aware of one thing that might render any search futile. A great number of those Irish insurrectionists were never tried but were sent directly to Australia or Van Diemen’s Land. I am telling you this because there will likely be no record of them in any Home Office or judicial files.”

“They just vanish then, as though they had never lived?” Lord Ragsdale asked in amazement.

Capper nodded. “It certainly makes for untidy records,” he said.

“Blast your records,” Lord Ragsdale said. “These are people we are talking about.”

“I know, my lord, I know,” Capper said. He directed his attention to Emma. “Miss Costello, I can think of only one way to learn anything, and that is to locate the ship’s manifests for those convict voyages. They may or may not contain the information you seek on prisoner rosters.”

He turned back to the ledger and ruffled through several more pages before pausing. He pounded on the ledger in triumph. “And here we have the ships, my dear.” He leaned closer to the book, then began to write on his pad again. “There were six ships in the 1804 transport.” He looked up at them. “And we are only assuming here that they were transported in 1804, and not 1805. It could not have been 1805?”

Emma shook her head. “I think it was almost October when I was taken to Prevot.”

“Well, then, here we are. The Minerva , the Lady Penthyn , the Friendship , the Marquess Cornwallis , the Britannia , and the Hercules .” He wrote down the names of the ships and handed it to Emma. He spoke to Lord Ragsdale. “I will send you with a porter to the Home Office archives. I do not know that they can offer you any assistance, but the records could be there. ”

Lord Ragsdale rose and shook hands with Capper. “We appreciate your efforts.”

“It was paltry,” he said, nodding to Emma. “And you must also realize, my dear, that even if you discover they were transported, that is far from being a guarantee that they are alive.”

“I know that,” Emma replied, looking at the names on the paper she held. “But I must try.”

Capper nodded and walked them to the door. He handed a note to the porter, who led them quickly through the corridors to the Home Office, looking over his shoulder in fear at Lord Ragsdale several times. They followed him up a flight of narrow stairs and into a room filled with file boxes. “Criminal Business there in the corner,” he said, gesturing to a row of boxes stuffed on shelves.

“You are all kindness,” Lord Ragsdale murmured. He rubbed his forehead, feeling the beginnings of a headache. “Well, Emma,” he began when the porter left. “Shall we start?”

Hours later, his head was pounding in dreadful earnest as he paused and looked at the pile of papers that surrounded them. His good eye was beginning to tear and blur, and he knew he was defeated. Emma watched him from the middle of her pile of papers, and he could see nothing but concern in her eyes.

“You have to stop, Lord Ragsdale,” she said, her voice practical, as though she admonished him over tea and biscuits. “I am discovering how much I can bear, but I could not bear it if you lost the sight in your eye because of this.”

“I’m sorry, Emma,” he began, but she stopped him with a gesture.

“I’ll stay here a little longer,” she said. “Why don’t you go home?”

“I feel like a quitter,” he protested. “Perhaps if I just lie down for a while and close my eye. . .”

“I won’t hear of it,” she insisted as she got to her feet and pulled him to his. “You used to tease me about ‘too much exertion,’ but this is truly too much for you. Just leave me a little money for hackney fare.”

He fished in his pocket for some change and handed it to her.

“We can return tomorrow. . .,” he began, then sighed in exasperation. “Oh, bother it! Emma, I am to go to Bath tomorrow with Clarissa Partridge!”

She smiled at him, “That is hardly lover-like, my lord. It is a good thing I do not intend to tattle to her. I will return here tomorrow, if I have your permission. And you will go to Bath and fix your fate.”

He wished she would not put it like that and nearly told her so.

Before he could speak, she stood before him on tiptoe and dabbed at his eye. “Please go right home and have Lasker give you a cold cloth for that. I’ll follow soon enough. I promise.”

“Oh, very well,” he grumbled.

He was still muttering to himself as he descended all those stairs and found himself on the street again. He hailed a hackney, gave his direction, and sank into it with some relief as the jarvey cracked his whip and they started off. He closed his eye, wondering if he would be dreaming of ships and lists all night, and praying that Mama and Sally had no evening plans that would affect him beyond a little polite conversation over dinner.

They had traveled several blocks toward Mayfair when he suddenly realized where they had gone wrong. He sat up and pounded on the side of the cab. “Stop this thing!” he roared.

The jarvey did as he was bid. “Sir?” he asked in frosty surprise.

“Turn around,” Lord Ragsdale said decisively. “Take me to the docks.”

~

He sank back into the cab two hours later, just as the sun was going down. He could scarcely see out of his good eye, and he wondered how much of a peal Emma would ring over him. He held the lists tight in his hand and brought them close to his face. “Yes!” he said in triumph and closed his eye for the return trip.

His eye had stopped blurring by the time the jarvey let him off at Curzon Street, and he had no trouble negotiating the steps to his front door. He knew that Emma would be waiting for him as soon as he opened the door, and she was. He wanted to grab her and whirl her about, but the look on her face brought him back quickly to his own state.

“Where have you been?” she asked, and she helped him from his coat, ignoring Lasker, who hovered nearby. “I have been beside myself.”

He knew she was telling the truth. Her own eyes were puffy from crying, and it touched him to the bone that she cared so much. He let her help him to the book room, where she pushed him down on the sofa and told Lasker to bring a cold cloth for his eye, scolding all the while.

“I am certain your doctors tell you not to strain your eye, my lord,” she said as she took off his shoes and made him swing his legs onto the sofa. She covered him with a light blanket and gently put the cloth to his eye when Lasker returned. The darkness was soothing, and he almost allowed himself to sleep. The lists. He sat up, even as she tried to push him down again.

“Emma, don’t be a carbuncle,” he protested. “Hand me my overcoat. I have something for you.”

She did as he asked. He kept the cloth to his eye as he groped in the inside lining. He held up the sheaf of papers to her. “I was starting home when it occurred to me that I should check some ships’ offices at the docks. Emma, we were looking at this problem from the wrong end!” He handed her the papers and lay back down again.

“My lord, these are three rosters!” she said, her voice filled with wonder .

He grinned at her. “There they were, languishing on yet another dusty shelf. Mr. Capper didn’t stop to consider that sometimes the prisoners were transported in vessels contracted by the Royal Navy and other times, by commercial carriers arranged by the Colonial Office. I can only conclude that 1804 was a year for the merchants, and not the navy.” He paused then and took the cloth off his eye. “Much better, Emma.” He rose up on his elbow. “I do have some bad news. The Lady Penthyn went down in a gale with all hands.”

She considered that information, sitting beside him on the sofa.

“I intend to believe they were not on that ship,” she said quietly. She looked at the papers in her hands. “Thank you, my lord.”

“You’re ever so welcome, Emma,” he said. “You peruse them, and then I must see the lists are returned. I have promised half my kingdom and my firstborn son as ransom for those rosters.”

She smiled and looked at the lists. “That leaves the Hercules and the Minerva unaccounted for now. No trace of them?”

“None,” he agreed, “but they’re out there somewhere. They have to belong to someone.”

Emma nodded, then looked up as Lasker came into the room.

“Yes?” she asked. “Lord Ragsdale should not be disturbed, if you can help it, Lasker.” She rested her hand on his shoulder, and his cup ran over with the pleasure of it all. “He’s had such a day.”

“Then I hate to add to the misery,” came a vaguely familiar voice. “Lord Ragsdale, may I trouble you to take your miserable cousin off my hands before he causes the complete downfall of Oxford University?”