The Suffragette Scandal (Brothers Sinister 4)

“Do you believe that presumption can be rebutted?” someone asked.

“I believe I am honor-bound to rebut it,” Lowery said. “You see, it has come to my attention that Edward Delacey is alive.”

Edward’s hands were shaking. He pressed them against his trousers, but it didn’t help. He’d avoided this as long as he could. The thought of being called by that name again, of taking his father’s seat…

Yet here he was. It was too late. Even if he stood and left the room, they’d know now, and he’d never escape again.

There was a long pause in the other room.

“I have been presented with evidence to that effect,” Lowery continued, “which I shall present to this body, if I am so allowed.”

He could hear murmured voices in the other room—his brother, no doubt, coming alive and objecting. He couldn’t hear their words, didn’t care about the objections James lodged or the matters of procedure he argued. He just wanted this over with.

After five minutes, the man who had been reciting facts before spoke again, loud enough for him to hear once more. “Lowery may proceed.”

“But—” That was James, speaking loudly enough that Edward was certain of the identification.

“James Delacey, you are not a member of the committee, and may only speak before it when duly called upon.”

Silence. And then, the voice of Baron Lowery. “I call Patrick Shaughnessy, my stable master, to testify.”

Beside him, Patrick shut his eyes and heaved a great breath.

“Go,” Edward said. “It will be all right.”

The man who had greeted them eyed them with a far more avid interest now. The door to the hearing room had been scarcely ajar; he opened it wide and gestured Patrick forward. Patrick stood, clenching his fists. He had never been easy speaking to a crowd. But he marched forward bravely into the high-walled hearing room in the House of Lords.

The greeter didn’t close the door this time. Through the opening, Edward could see Patrick make his way slowly to the front. He lowered himself gingerly into the seat that had been pulled forward.

“State your name, sir.”

Patrick leaned forward; Edward could see his lips moving, but nothing more.

“Loud enough for the lords to hear, if you please.”

“I’m Patrick Shaughnessy,” his friend said more loudly. “If it please you.”

“Can you tell us where you were born?”

“I grew up on the estates of Viscount Claridge.” His back was a rigid line. “My father was stable master there. My mother was a seamstress.”

“Did you know Edward Delacey?”

“We met when I was five, when my parents came over. We became friends almost instantly. My father taught Edward how to ride; Edward taught me how to read. From the time we were young until the day he was sent to school, we were inseparable.”

“Did that friendship continue after he went to school?”

“His father didn’t wish it to,” Patrick said slowly. “But Edward wasn’t the sort of child to turn his back on a former friend. We would sneak out together when he was home on holidays—going to boxing matches and the like.”

“Do you have any proof of this friendship?”

“Edward Delacey was accounted a competent artist,” Patrick said. “He painted a miniature of the two of us when we were thirteen. I’ve brought it with me.” Patrick groped through the bag he carried and handed over an item.

“Did Edward maintain this friendship with you?”

“We got into a spot of trouble when we were seventeen,” Patrick said. “My father was injured.” The line of his back bowed momentarily. “Our family was sent away. Edward protested the treatment and was sent to Strasbourg in punishment.”

That was one way to describe what had happened—a way that left out the radical sentiment and Edward’s own foolish choices. But Patrick’s revelation had caused another murmur in the adjoining room. The men out there likely hadn’t heard that Strasbourg was a punishment.

“Did he write you while he was there?”

“A few letters, yes. And then hostilities broke out, and I heard nothing for months.”

“For months,” the man said, sounding somewhat perplexed.

“Months,” Patrick repeated. “Not quite a year. He sent me a letter in April of 1871 saying that he was in a bad way. At the time, I was only a groom for Baron Lowery.”

Patrick had become more easy as he spoke on, but Edward grew tense. That April had been awful. He’d been wounded. Desperate. Destitute. He hadn’t known who he was, had only known that he’d done some terrible things. His entire world had been ripped to shreds. He’d had nothing at all.

“He asked me to help. So I sold everything I had and got on a steamer.”

“Everything you had, even though you were only a groom?” the man said dubiously. “Really?”

No, Edward realized. He’d never had nothing.

“We’re that sort of friends,” Patrick insisted. “He’s like a brother.”

Even at his worst, there had been constants in his life: Patrick. Stephen. People he couldn’t eradicate from his heart and hadn’t wanted to. He’d always had that much.

The questions continued on. “And did you find him?”

“I did. He was alive, but…” Patrick shook his head. “He barely talked, and he’d been hurt. Badly. He wasn’t well.”

They would no doubt imagine that Patrick spoke of physical harm. But the physical harm had been minimal—his fingers, a lingering cough in his lungs from the water. It was his mind that had been splintered.

“So I took care of him for a few weeks, and reminded him…” Patrick stopped, coughing.

Edward knew what he’d been about to say. He’d reminded Edward that he wanted to live. But while Patrick was no liar, even he wouldn’t announce to the House of Lords that Edward had harbored thoughts of suicide.

“I reminded him,” Patrick said, “that war had ended and life went on. When he was well enough to be left on his own, he told me to get back to England, but that he was not coming with me. His family had left him in Strasbourg, you see. He felt they’d abandoned him, and he had no wish to return to them.”

This was met with a longer pause. “So the last you heard from Edward Delacey was when you left him in 1871 then? Do you have proof of any of this remarkable tale?”