The Wedding Night Affair--An Historical Mystery by L.C. Sharp (books to read as a couple TXT) 📕

He was never angry. A useless, destructive emotion, it interfered with his ability to see matters clearly. But he couldn’t seem to clear it. “So you chose not to come forward, even though your mistress was under the shadow of the gallows tree?”

“How would it help her?”

“Are you deliberately obtuse?” Just in case, he’d spell it out for her. “You drugged both of them. They drank the whole bottle, and if you put the entire bottle of laudanum in the decanter, that was enough to kill them, much less put them to sleep. You could have murdered them. Perhaps the murderer wanted that, hmm? In any case, Lady Uppingham could not have killed her husband. They were both alive when you saw them last, and both under the influence of laudanum. Does that mean nothing to you?”

“She could have done it,” Wood muttered. “People function under the influence of laudanum.”

“Not that much.” He strode to the end of the room, his palms itching. Turning his head, he met Juliana’s gaze. “You couldn’t have done anything except sleep.”

It was a wonder she had woken at all. A miracle.

Ash turned his attention back to Wood, forcing his features into their usual, dispassionate expression. He had never found the task so difficult before. Why, he didn’t know. He’d met duplicitous people many a time, had forced habitual liars into confessing the truth, met hardened criminals who would not admit the truth if a hundred witnesses testified to the event, but he had never felt so angry with someone before. And with so little reason. This was the breakthrough he had wanted. And yet, this hurt him, the proof of what had previously been a conjecture. He had considered laudanum, but not this stuff, the strongest concentration, if he had not missed his mark. This could be lethal. Both Juliana and Uppingham could have died in their sleep.

“He might already have been dead, or close to it, when a dagger was driven between his ribs.” He used the words precisely.

A gasp from Juliana told him she had not understood that part. He knew what a whole bottle of laudanum could achieve. “Did you not know that the medicine is doled out in drops?”

The maid shook her head, but said nothing.

Was Wood an accomplice or an innocent dupe? He would discover that, too.

Slowly, as the implications seeped through the cloud of anger that had obscured his reasoning, Ash came to a new understanding.

He had unlocked the problem. With this evidence, he could free Juliana from the charge against her. If the drug had been administered properly, in drops, not a whole bottle, she could have roused and killed her husband, her mind fuddled by the laudanum. But this much? She’d have been unable to do anything at all, except sleep.

She had been right all along. She had not killed her husband.

Chapter Twenty-One

John Fielding laid his hand on the book by his side, the one his clerk was busily scribbling in. Obediently, the clerk stopped scratching his notes. “This case has kept us more than busy,” he said. “And last week we discovered a counterfeiting mill tucked away in the City. That’s five more for the gallows.” He grunted. “The coins weren’t even good. They were spotted in an instant. But they keep doing it anyway.”

His plain black coat with shiny patches at the elbows only emphasized his role here, as arbiter and helpmeet to his brother. In effect, both heard cases, both acted as magistrate, although only Henry, the appointed magistrate, would declare the sentence of death, where necessary. Ash would always connect the bitter smell of ink mingled with the scent of meat pies with this place.

He gazed into the man’s sightless eyes. “Then I can expect a deferment to Lady Uppingham’s case?”

The dull pebbles stared back at him. Mr. Fielding’s eyes had receded into his head, as if sensing they were not wanted. Observation was vital to what he did, but Fielding seemed to observe plenty of things with his other senses.

“You’ve introduced enough doubt. Two weeks,” he said. “We’ll set the trial then. From what you have told me, if you can produce the maid and perhaps this other fellow, we will not be facing a capital case. However I am still not convinced of her ladyship’s complete innocence. She could have committed the crime while under the influence of laudanum.”

Ash snorted. “Not a dose like that.”

“I’ve known women to swallow half a bottle at a sitting,” Fielding said.

“Her ladyship does not customarily take it, so she had no tolerance to the drug,” Ash pointed out.

“And we only have the word of her maid, a woman devoted to her mistress that she took that much.”

Ash shook his head. “The woman was devoted to her master, Lady Uppingham’s father. Not her ladyship.”

“Hmm. Still, I would prefer corroboration. Find me this Jeremy Black.”

There wasn’t much chance of that. As Ash had expected, he could find no trace of the man. If he could discover who had sent him, though, that would be better. Or why anyone would want to kill Lord Uppingham, apart from the women he had abused.

“Whether Lady Uppingham did it, or someone else, in neither case was this murder. She does not deserve the death penalty,” he argued.

John Fielding frowned, and thought, his eyes fixed on a spot above Ash’s head. “If you can prove that, then yes, you are right. Lady Uppingham is either guilty of manslaughter, perhaps in self-defense, or someone else committed the crime. Nevertheless, the crime must be answered, and since she is not with child, sooner rather than later.”

“Of course, yes.” Ash had considered delaying telling Fielding of Juliana’s condition, but the drive to justice that dictated his life had urged him not to. One slip, one omission would put him on the slippery slope. In any case, if Juliana had not wanted him to know, she could have concealed her condition. He respected her