Elyse Mady Read Online Free PDF Page A

individuals, at a public-house, called the White Swan, in Vere-Street, Clare-market.

    The report then listed all of the men who had been detained. She could scarcely decipher the small print, it wavered so before her eyes, but she could not miss seeing Robert’s name amongst them. Just as Thomas had said.
    Impetuously, she tore the paper in half and threw it down. “This is insupportable. Nonsense. What has he done that is so bad it cannot be printed in a paper? They have printed everything else, it seems. His name. His address and trade.”
    Thomas’s face was grim. “He has been charged with the crime of sodomy, Hester. Do you know what that is?”
    She shook her head and he sighed, his reluctance to illuminate her obvious. He hesitated for a long while, as though weighing his words. “It is a carnal act between…between men. Robert was discovered having relations with a man. That’s why he has been arrested.”
    “I beg…I beg your pardon?” She understood the words. They were simple enough. Carnal. Act. With. A. Man. Separately they made sense, but together she could not seem to draw meaning from them. “This is not possible. It must be an error. The paper has misprinted the details of the crime. Robert could not be involved in such a thing. You must see that it is not possible!”
    “The details are quite convincing,” Thomas said gently, taking her hands once more between his. “It is not only his name but profession and your directions that are printed. You must acknowledge the faint likelihood of there being two such individuals with the same particulars, both missing in London at the same time.”
    Tears filled her eyes, pricking and stinging as she tried to blink them back. “He is to be married, Mr. Ramsay. To have such lies printed about him, only weeks before he is to be wed… What will this mean to his reputation? To his shop and custom? Of course he is innocent, but there are many who will readily believe such vile gossip.” She began to cry, covering her face, then blotting her tears with the warm, scented handkerchief he gave her.
    When his arms crept around her, she ought to have protested and drawn away in outrage. She had imagined all sorts of calamities befalling her brother but never this. Never. The shocking unfairness of it all overset her hard-won calm and she wept unrestrainedly.
    * * *
    “Hush,” Thomas murmured, rubbing her back as one would to reassure a small child, with careful, calming strokes. “Do not take on so. It may yet be a misunderstanding, a nine-days wonder that will be forgotten by the time he appears at the altar.”
    “Truly?” she said, looking up at him, her eyes puffy and her face moist. He had meant to comfort her but now, her lips only inches from his own, he could not deny the surge of awareness that swept over him.
    “Anything is possible,” he said, releasing her abruptly and striding to the window. He kept his gaze fixed on the street below, ashamed of his weakness and how near he had come to kissing her. She was sitting down, hunched against the misery he had inflicted and all he’d been able to think of was how soft and appealing she felt, gathered in his arms like that.
    He did not think he could bear it if she began to weep again; all he wanted to do was to sweep her up and promise her the moon, if only to make her smile again. Of course, he could not do that, and regret made his voice harsh. “Come, Miss Aspinall. I am sure that the carriage is ready by now. I will drive you to Bow Street, and we will discover for ourselves your brother’s situation.”
    “I am well able to walk.” She stood, holding out his linen, neatly folded.
    He ignored her offering. “And I’m well able to insist on my way in this. Covent Garden is no place for a young lady such as yourself, even when the theatres are dark midday. Not without someone to accompany you.”
    She blinked, and another tear rolled down her face. She did not seem inclined to wipe it away,