The Barrister and the Letter of Marque Read online

  Books by Todd M. Johnson

  The Deposit Slip

  Critical Reaction

  Fatal Trust

  The Barrister and the Letter of Marque

  © 2021 by Todd M. Johnson

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  www.bethanyhouse.com

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

  www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

  Ebook edition created 2021

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  ISBN 978-1-4934-3150-2

  Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.

  This is a work of historical reconstruction; the appearances of certain historical figures are therefore inevitable. All other characters, however, are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Cover design by Studio Gearbox

  Cover image of Victorian man crossing bridge by Mark Owen / Arcangel

  In memory of Robert C. Dickerson II

  One of the finest men, finest lawyers, and best friends

  I’ve ever had the privilege to have known.

  Contents

  Cover

  Half Title Page

  Books by Todd M. Johnson

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Letter of Marque and Reprisal

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Ads

  Back Cover

  Prologue

  SUMMER, 1797

  CASTLE KITTLESON

  WILTSHIRE COUNTY, ENGLAND

  Early evening shadows blanketed the study lit only by desk candles and a sputtering fire in the hearth. Eighteen-year-old William Snopes watched his father from the entryway, hunched over stacks of papers on his desk.

  Exhausted from the long ride, chilled in his damp riding clothes, William gathered himself in the entry before stepping fully into the room.

  His father rose from his chair and approached.

  “What on earth are you doing home?” he demanded.

  William had grown during his last term at Oxford but had imagined more growth than was the truth. His father, a hint of graying at his temples and iron in his eyes, still looked to exceed him by several inches and at least fifty pounds. He seemed even taller with his granite posture.

  The hours of preparation on his ride fled.

  “What did you do to her?” William said, more inquiry than demand. It was all he could muster.

  “What did I do to whom?”

  “To Mary. What did you do to her?”

  “What impudence! Interrogating me without even a hello? You will not address me in that tone.”

  A year before, those cold eyes would have unmanned him, sending him sulking away. At least he was standing his ground tonight.

  “What did you do to her, Father?” he said more boldly.

  “Who in blazes told you I did anything to anyone?”

  “Our tenants, the Blengens. What did you do to their girl? What did you do to Mary?”

  Discomfort rippled beneath his father’s stolid eyes.

  “That farm girl?” he bellowed. “Their comings and goings aren’t my concern.” He paused, raising a thick hand to his chin. “Though perhaps I heard that her family sent her north to live with relatives for a time. Is that your meaning?”

  The hesitation, the false ease. He’d seen it in his father’s lies before.

  The fear that had floated in him finally took anchor.

  It was true.

  “Sent north to relatives?” William grew stronger. “Father, Mary’s their only child. The Blengens would die before they’d willingly part from her.”

  Silence. A hateful glare. No shame. No denial.

  Sad fury carried William away.

  “How could you, Father?” he said through a sheen of tears. “She’s sixteen years old! Mother’s only been gone these ten months. You’ve always demanded your way with everyone, but this . . .”

  The blow came from William’s left.

  He dropped hard to his hands and knees, shocked. Lightning split his vision. His left cheek and ear pulsed with terrible pain. Blood ran along his cheek in a rivulet down onto the rug.

  Overhead, his father’s furious breaths filled his ears.

  A full minute passed before he even tried to rise from his knees.

  Slowly he stood.

  At full height again, something had changed. The last fear had vanished. Taking with it the final filaments of respect for his father.

  He clenched his fists behind his back and stared unflinching into his parent’s futile, indignant glare. “You shame me, Father. You shame Mother too.”

  “Your mother isn’t alive. I’m your only parent now. Measure your next words carefully, William. Another of these insolent accusations, one single word . . .”

  The threat passed over him, powerless.

  “I’m leaving,” William said.

  “No, you’re not. You’re returning to Oxford and your studies. And in the spring, when you graduate, you’ll take up your commission in the Guards as planned.”

  “No. I’m leaving.”

  “Leaving? Leaving?” Laughter. “To do what exactly?”

  “I’ll study to be a barrister.”

  “Why, for heaven’s sake, would you do that?”

  “To be someone different from you.”

  The stare faltered. “If you leave, you’ll no longer be part of this family. I’ll disinherit you.”

  William turned and left the room for the staircase.

  An hour later, he returned from his bedroom, a small bag over his shoulder. His face still pulsed. A trace of blood lingered in his mouth. He left the manor house through a door that avoided the study, opening onto the garden. Through thin shadows cast by the half-moon, he walked toward the stable.

  Unbearable shame and anger filled him. He had no capacity for anything
more. Just a cloud of fury, all else emptiness.

  Until, slowly, chords of Haydn’s Symphony Number 100 rose in his mind. It was from the last concert he’d attended with his mother, the previous summer in London. They were seated near the front that night, holding hands, both knowing that she was dying. The powerful notes permeated him now, like the palliative of his lost mother’s touch. The arpeggios and triads rose from the hidden vault of mind and heart where lingered every musical note William had ever heard performed—a treasure that sounded at William’s call or seemingly for no reason at all. Stored beyond anyone’s reach, particularly his father’s, whose final touch would be the backhand that had emancipated his only child.

  With Haydn dulling his disgrace and setting his pace, William crossed the estate’s dark, manicured lawns to the stables, avoiding the glow of light that still came from the windows of his father’s study.

  Notes were ascending in the symphony’s third movement as he neared the outbuilding when William stopped abruptly. His heart plummeted. Haydn faded into despair.

  Two stable hands sat on stumps near the doors, a lantern at their feet.

  His father had anticipated his flight because he’d stupidly announced his plan to leave. If his father couldn’t hobble him, he could at least deny him a horse, so many miles from town and many more to London.

  What would he do now without a horse?

  “Master Snopes?”

  A familiar voice with an Irish brogue startled him. William looked about.

  The bearded stable master stood beneath a tree, thick hair rising with the gusts of wind, hands grasping the reins of William’s favorite bay, already saddled.

  William went to him.

  “Forgive me, lad,” the stable master said, “but I was about on the grounds and overheard the row. You were very clear with your da about your intentions, and knowin’ your father’s likely desire not to aid you, I thought I’d sneak Delilah here out of her stall in case you be needin’ her again tonight. She’s fed and rested.”

  William’s heart picked up a beat of hope. “It’s dangerous for you to help me, Aeron.”

  Aeron shrugged. “Danger and the Irish are old chums. Besides, I’m responsible, aren’t I? Sendin’ you word about Mary and all?”

  “I’m glad you did. I needed to know.”

  The stable master frowned. “Well, surely someone needed to know. But havin’ fueled your fight with your da, I need to ask if you’re sure about this, son. It’s a hard world. Tough as it is doin’ your father’s biddin’, it’d be a much easier path than the one you’re considerin’. And I heard the curse by which your da told you that you’d never have his support again if you left.”

  “Mary Blengen’s condition didn’t do this. This had to happen anyway.”

  “Maybe so, Master William, but you can still be a barrister without leavin’ in this fashion. There’s no shame in turnin’ back. I can slip Delilah back into the stable in the mornin’ if you choose, with none the wiser.”

  “I’m going,” William declared.

  Aeron nodded, a sign of approval—maybe even pride. He held out to William a cloth bag. “If you’re certain, then here’s a roll with food and a few crowns. I’ll be bettin’ you snuck out with little more than a change of clothes, didn’t you, sir?”

  “I can’t take your money, Aeron.”

  “You can and you will. If you’re wise, you’ll use it to finish school. And when you get to London, there’s a priest who can help you make your way. Father Thomas at St. Stephen’s Church. Not my cup of tea, mind you—an Anglican—but I come to know him in Belfast. For a soul not respectin’ the pope, he’s still solid as oak.”

  It was all suddenly overwhelming, dizzying even. The pulsing pain and the weight of what he was about to do.

  “I’ll help you when I can, Aeron. You know that.”

  The stable master nodded. “Sure you will. Now be gettin’ along before you change your mind again. And since you’re so determined now, I’ll admit that I thought you should’ve done this last year, after your dear ma died.”

  “I won’t forget this.”

  “Just make somethin’ good out of your life, boy,” Aeron replied, shaking his hand. “It’s a thing easier said than done in this world.”

  Feeling hollow, William hoisted himself into the saddle. With a last farewell, he turned the bay to ride down a slope toward a grove and the back trail that would take him to the road.

  Before he entered the trees, William slowed and looked back. The candles of his father’s study still burned faintly. He thought of his father there, bent over the estate books, putting William and any other distraction out of his mind. Still certain he ruled the world.

  A trace of bloody phlegm had gathered in his mouth. William spat it to the ground and turned the bay away.

  He rode off, the hollowness relenting a little as he heard again the call of the C trumpets of Haydn’s symphony rising gracefully toward its percussive climax and triumphant timpani roll.

  1

  A Winter’s Evening

  FEBRUARY 1818

  MIDDLESEX DISTRICT

  LONDON

  In evening fog, thirty-eight-year-old William Snopes, barrister, strode up the quiet street to Clerkenwell Green. His tall top hat, the closest thing to current fashion he permitted himself, fit snugly, preventing the cool air from touching his forehead. He walked quickly, as was his habit, sometimes silently counting his steps or humming a tune while crossing a bridge or square to keep his mind from running too far or fast ahead.

  The Middlesex Courthouse loomed ahead through the mist. How long had it been? Two months since he’d last been here, at the previous court session. As he approached the edifice, he admired once more its Greek pillars, arched windows, and unmistakable gravitas. Trial would start here in a week. The thought of it—the anticipation—sent a foot tapping out the rhythm of a Strauss waltz he’d heard at Green Park the previous fall.

  It was good to visit the courthouse before the press of trial preparation made it difficult or impossible. It mattered not the case or even the chance of success. A visit steadied his mood, as usual a mix of defiant optimism and excitement. As Edmund, his junior, had reminded him, their defense was shaky, their client’s demeanor a mixed blessing, and William’s plan for the day’s evidence risky. But they’d done all they could. The rest was up to the judge, divine Providence, and the fortunes of luck in the jury they drew.

  He reached out a hand to the courthouse façade to touch the cold, moist flagstone.

  “I’ll be back soon, Middlesex,” he said softly. “Treat me kindly.”

  He turned about and headed home.

  The Strauss piece measured his long strides all the way back.

  THE ROYAL RESIDENCE, CARLTON HOUSE

  LONDON

  A slender girl with midnight-black hair walked the unlit halls of Carlton House, the royal residence of King George III and his son, Prince Regent George Augustus Frederick. Its cavernous splendor was subdued in the dark of early morning. Head down, the girl passed through the quiet grand dining hall to the kitchen, crept past stacked pans and pots awaiting the coming day, walked silently down a hallway to the rear of the residence, and finally stepped out a back door into the cold, mist-speckled moonlight of London.

  She strode through the chill for the few yards necessary to reach and take the steps leading into St. James’s Park. Through grounds crisp from winter frost and guarded by tall rigid pines, she hurried on to a dormant flower bed covered with snow. Halting there in the silence, her limbs began to quake.

  “Here, love,” a high voice hissed behind her.

  A man stood amid a stand of birch. His right eye drooped nearly onto his cheek. His mouth displayed a white-toothed grin that reflected the moonlight. He crooked a finger to summon her, and she reluctantly obeyed.

  “The papers?” he demanded.

  She untied her bodice to remove a sheaf of pages to hand to him.

  “Mmm, still w
arm.” The man’s grin broadened as he stepped forward. “Come, my love. It’s such unnatural cold for the season. Give us a kiss to warm us.”

  “Stay away, Lonny,” she said and pushed him back.

  His brow furrowed. “Ah now, Isabella, you don’t wanna be bitin’ the hand that feeds you. Don’t be forgettin’ who got you your job and what you owe for it, missy. Has it slipped your mind that these are hard times? Hard times that don’t know favorites? Why, I could tell you stories about even the flouncy upper-crusters who dress like sheikhs but haven’t a spare shillin’ for hay for their horses—drained by the king’s taxes these past twenty years. You should be thankin’ me every day for the position I got you! Livin’ and workin’ amid the lucky ones that never miss a meal.”

  “Sure,” Isabella said, shivering again. “So I could steal from them.”

  Lonny clucked his tongue. “Is that what’s botherin’ you now? A bit of conscience? Shall we bring you back home to the streets, then? Is that what you’d prefer?”

  Isabella’s stomach tightened, and she shook her head. “I did what you asked, Lonny. I brought you your papers. Are we done now?”

  “We’re done, my love.” He laughed. “Go on home to your royals.”

  She hurried off.

  Lonny’s grin disappeared. He drew a length of rope from a pocket, sliding the papers into a cloth bag that he tied about his waist beneath his coat. Then he turned in the direction away from the retreating girl.

  His own chilly meandering passed through places alive with London’s nighttime plunderers, drunks, and lost ones. Some recognized and avoided Lonny, while others gave him a frosty glance of disinterest and dismissal. Two hours followed, through back streets ghostly and quiet, sleeping markets and jagged alleys, over the Thames bridges and back again, alternating between smells of fetid decay in neighborhoods dark and narrow to the clean woodsmoke rising from town homes glowing with gaslights.

  Finally, he circled back to the riverbank once more to stop at the base of the towering London Bridge. It took a moment to spot the young boy who awaited him, standing in the shadows. Lonny neared, pleased at the fear in the boy’s eyes. Untying the bag, Lonny passed it on.

  “Get along now, Tad, my boy,” Lonny growled. “Don’t dawdle, but don’t cut it short. Do all of your route to be sure no one’s followin’, then get to the office and leave the package or you’ll pay for my disappointment.”