Cecilia slid her glass aside and tucked her legs under her. Have you ever told anyone this before? she wanted to ask. Something in his tone suggested that he had not, and she wondered why he was speaking to her. Of course, Mrs. Dupree always did say that people liked to confide in her. “It’s your special gift, dearie,” her employer had told her on more than one occasion.
“There he stood, not more than seven years old, I think, with only rags to cover him, and it was a frosty morning. It was all he could do to hold himself upright, so frightened was he.”
She must have made some sound, because Lord Trevor looked at her. He sat down on the hassock. “Did he . . . was he represented?” she asked.
He nodded, his face a study in contempt. “They all are. We call ourselves a law-abiding nation, Miss A, don’t we? His rep was one of the second year boys at Gray’s Inn, getting a practice in. Getting a practice in! My God!”
Impulsively she leaned forward and touched his arm. He took her hand and held it. Something in her heart told her not to pull away. “He had copped two loaves of bread and, of all things, a pomegranate.” Lord Trevor passed his free hand in front of his eyes. “The magistrate boomed at him, ‘Why the pomegranate, you miscreant?’ ” He put her hand to his cheek. “The boy said, ‘Because it’s Christmas, your worship.’ ”
Cecilia felt the tears start in her eyes. She patted his cheek, and he released her hand, an apologetic look in his eyes. “Miss A, you’ll think I’m the most forward rake who ever walked the planet. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I am thinking that you need to talk to people now and then,” she told him.
He tried to smile, and failed. “His sentence was transportation to Van Diemen’s Land. Some call it Tasmania. It is an entire island devoted to criminals, south of Australia. Poor little tyke fainted on the spot, and everyone in the courtroom laughed, my client loudest of all.”
“You didn’t laugh.”
“No. All I saw was a little boy soiling his pants from fear, with not an advocate in the world, not a mother or father in sight, sentenced to a living death.” He looked at her, and she saw the tears on his face. “And this is English justice,” he concluded quietly.
She could think of nothing to say, beyond the fact that she knew it was better to be silent than to let some inanity tumble out of her face, after his narrative. She glanced at him, and his own gaze was unwavering upon her. She realized he was seeking permission from her to continue. “There must be more,” she said finally. “Tell me.”
He seemed to relax a little with the knowledge that she was not too repulsed to hear the rest. “Is it warm in here?” he asked, running his finger around his frayed collar.
“Yes, and isn’t that delightful? I never can get really warm in this country!” she countered. “Don’t stall me, sir. You have my entire attention.”
He continued. “I could not get that child out of my mind. In the afternoon I went back to Old Bailey, found the magistrate—he was so bored—and went to Newgate.”
Cecilia shivered. Lord Trevor nodded. “You’re right to feel a little frisson, Miss A. It’s a terrible place.” He grimaced. “I know it must be obvious to you that I am no Brummel. Nowadays, when I know I’m going to Newgate, I wear my Newgate clothes. I keep them in a room off the scullery at my house because I cannot get the smell out.” He sighed. “Well, that was blunt, eh? I found Jimmy Daw—that was his name—in a cell with a score of older criminals. I gave him an old coat of mine.”
Lord Trevor hung his head down. Cecilia had an almost overwhelming urge to touch his hair. She kept her hands clenched in her lap.
“My God, Miss A, he thanked me and wished me a happy Christmas!”
“Oh, dear,” she breathed. She got up then and walked to the window and back again, because she knew she did not wish to hear the rest of his story. He stood, too, his lips tight together. He went to the fireplace again and rested his arm on the mantel.
“You know where this is going, don’t you?” he asked, surprised.
She nodded. “I have lived a little in the world, my lord. I’m also no child.”
“The magistrate met me in my chambers the next morning—it was Christmas Day—to tell me that those murderers, cutpurses, and thieves had tortured and killed Jimmy for the coat that I left for him, in my naïveté.”
She could tell by looking at his eyes that the event might have happened yesterday. “That is hard, indeed, sir,” she murmured, and sat down again, mainly because her legs would not hold her. She took a deep breath, and another, until her head did not feel so detached. “I did not know about Jimmy,” she said softly, “but I told you that I have read about your work—or some of it—in the papers. I know you have made amends.”