Page 92 of The Marchioness Who Tempted Fate
“Why . . .why . . . someone must,” Lord Ronald sputtered, seeming to have difficulty putting two thoughts together.
Percival felt that someone needed to speak for Sophie, who stood in the midst of the gathering, looking terrified. “Sophie, why would you want to place blame on Tiffany? What would that do for you?”
“It would keep me from getting turned off. My Da was in debt, ‘cause my Ma needed medicine and food. He borrowed money from some really bad people, an’ he needed to pay it back. I took money from the poor box ‘cause it was too long till quarter day. Jones caught me at it, an’ said he’d tell if I didn’t step out with him.”
“Oh, Sophie!” Tiffany exclaimed. “That is awful! Why didn’t you tell someone?”
“Cause I couldn’t. By the time you came an’ got him turned off, he’d made me steal the silver an’ put stuff in the flour. He said he’d turn me in, and make it all my fault if I didn’t do as he said. An’ that he’d send those bad men after my Da and Ma. He tol’ me that he burned an inn once, all on Lord Ronald’s say-so, an’ that it was fun!”
Mr. Ironholder leaped to his feet, and the room exploded in sound. Jones tried to leap to his feet, and Lord Ronald made a run for the door.
Members of Constable Brooks’ Watch grabbed Lord Ronald most rudely, while the two young men who had charge of Jones held him close between them in spite of his struggles.
“Enough!” Lord Nevard bellowed. “Enough, I say.”
The crowd quieted, and turned their eyes to look at Lord Nevard.
“Constable Brooks came to me three years ago. He was concerned about the hunting accident that took the late Lord Northbury’s life, but he was not able to prove anything. Bit by bit, we have been putting information together. But it was not until Michaels came to us with a story about a little girl who looked far too much like his former sister-in-law that we began to sum up all the parts.”
“His what?” Tiffany blurted out.
“Sorry not to tell you, Girlie, but I think I’m your uncle,” Michaels said. “You were safe, at least I thought so, and I left Northbury under something of a cloud. It wasn’t really safe for me to speak out. Better by far to be thought dead.”
Tiffany sat back down by Mr. Ironholder, looking as if her world had just turned upside down. Percival longed to go to her, but he held his place for he had a feeling that the drama unfolding before him still had a way to go before its finish.
“So tell us, Michaels, what happened the night the inn burned.”
“I was playing cards that night with my brother, Jones, and Lord Ronald. I didn’t know any of them well, but my sister-in-law had asked me to stop in an’ to walk her home after. She was worried about my brother, said she thought he’d got into bad company. She would’ve gone to my older brother, but he was too high in the instep to talk to a blacksmith’s daughter.”
“Pride,” Mr. Ironholder said sagely. “Too much pride on every side. We’ve paid for it grievously.”
“Yes, indeed,” Michaels agreed. “I had helped Susan and Elizabet smuggle the baby in to visit with her grandmother that night, whilst my father was out, so I had some time to learn what manner of company he was keeping.”
“When Sir Barrette came in, he threw a fit,” Old Elizabet put in. “Said that the inn had burned with both parents inside, and we needed to get that ‘cursed brat’ out of his house before he was stuck with her.”
“I had no idea what to do with the child,” Old Elizabet put in. “So I took her to the orphanage. By the time Mr. Ironholder came looking for her, she’d been adopted out. We didn’t have any idea where until Michaels slipped back into the old neighborhood.”
Percival raised a finger for point of information. “I am puzzled about one thing,” he said. “How was it that you were an American sailor?”
“Well, you see,” Michaels explained, “I was wanted for murder because Jones and Lord Ronald accused me of causing the fire that burned the inn.”
“Did you?” Percival asked with morbid fascination.
Michaels shook his head. “No. I had just stepped out to stretch my legs when I heard the commotion and tried to run back in. But I could not get past the crowd of people who were running out. By the time I got clear of them, the roof collapsed. Lord Ronald and Jones grabbed me, an’ told me that I was a murderer and that it was all my fault. I ran from them, an’ got taken up by a press gang. Several years later, I was buying rations for theAntelope, an’ I saw this little girl at Bentley’s Bakery. She looked a lot like my sister at that age, but I wasn’t certain, an’ I still had a price on my head, so I just made sure to check in on her when I was in port.”
“This is quite a story,” Percival said to Constable Brooks. “All of this was going on under my roof?”
“In your neighborhood, at least, My Lord.”
“And next door to mine,” Lord Nevard put in. “Worlds within worlds…it is very strange.”
“Not so very strange,” Tiffany said. “It is as I told Lord Northbury. There is the world of Lords and Ladies that is seen out front of the manor houses. And then there is the world out back of the manor houses where the trades people, the poor, the rag pickers, and the beggars all live. The two hardly ever meet each other.”
"But,” Mr. Quentin interjected, “Yeoman farmers, guild workers, the clergy, and knights can create a bridge between these worlds.”
“An interesting concept,” Lord Nevard said. “One that we have often debated, is it not so?”
“Indeed, Lord Nevard,” Mr. Kenault put in.
