The King`s Coat

presented in court. Surely that shall suffice.’

’I believe that would suit, Sir Hugo. Though I still worry that asking him to put his name to so many documents will bring his suspicions up-’

‘To the devil with his suspicions! The means of removal has to come up from Portsmouth, so we shall let that little dammeboy stew in his own skin for a few days. By that time I am sure he shall be most agreeable.’

There was a soft knock on the door, and Belinda entered the room, now dressed in high fashion and bearing a cloak, hat and muff for an evening out. She crossed to her father and planted a gentle kiss on his cheek. He put an ann around her. ’Off, are you?’

‘Lady Margaret is giving a drum,' Belinda said calmly. ’Now I shall be fashionably late for it. Did I do well, Father?’

‘Excellently well, my girl. And you shall share in my gratitude and munificence once this is behind us.’

’I never doubted it, Father.' She beamed, then bade them both goodnight, leaving Sir Hugo humming to himself, and Pilchard fidgeting as he thought upon his new document's form and content.

'Where's the chamber pot, then?' Alan demanded as he was shoved into a dark: and cheerless garret servant's room at the back of the house. ’Criminals don't deserve none.' Morton smirked. ’I'm sure you know about criminals, Morton, you were born one! Candles, too, and a bed. ’

‘An' why not a bottle an' some bird, an' a servant girl while you're askin', young sir,' Morton jibed back. 'Scandalous goin's on, I swear to heaven. Rapin' your own sister!’

‘And you the innocent babe just down from the country.

Goddamn you, fetch me light and some sort of bedding-’

‘I'll fetch yaa ticket to your own hangin', and that's all, you little bastard,' Morton said, shoving him back into the dark room with a horny fist and slamming the door. 'Ye'r not the high an' mighty little buck 0' the first head now, are you, young sir?' he crowed through the wood, then laughed his way down to the landing and out of hearing.

There was a thin slit of light under the door, which did little to banish the gloom of that tiny garret cell, and Alan sat down next to it, arranging his coat over his knees and chest as a makeshift blanket.

Now what the hell is this all about? he pondered again, now a bit more levelheaded than when the posse had broken in on him. Why should they all show up at the same time, as if it were arranged…? There had, though, never been much sense in the household, from the way Sir Hugo ran his own affairs to the way he allowed Belinda and Gerald to run riot with their own pleasures and interests. Sir Hugo had never shown much discipline toward them, or much affection, either, too far gone in his own cares ever to notice his children. Alan had come into the house a three-year-old waif in rags, to a paradise of food and good clothing and the life of a moneyed scion of a great man, or so it seemed. Quite a change from the parish poorhouse he had known since birth and the death of his mother (at least they'd told him she'd been poor and was dead). He had been prepared to be grateful and loving, but there had been a vast gulf that he could never bridge, made of his father's icy indifference. By the time he was breeched and off to the first in a long succession of schools he had stopped trying to bridge the gulf and only took advantage of the man's largesse. He had wanted for nothing, had been allowed to run riot like the son of a titled lord with few warnings to correct his behavior. And now, suddenly, this…? 'What in hell did I do?' he asked the darkness. 'Hopped onto my half sister. Well, that's almost fashionable these days, isn't it? All the good families do it, and without witnesses, too. Now I'm on my way out because of it. Why?' He tried to think that he had crossed Sir Hugo's interests in some way but could not think of any woman he had had that Sir Hugo wanted. He wasn't exactly champion wasteful with money; in fact, he had a fair amount of his allowance hidden away, since he had gotten his fingers burned gambling the year before and had lost his taste for the tables. He had not purchased anything extravagant, or at least nothing so extravagant that would make his father bite furniture over it.

God's Balls, he thought suddenly; the old fart's gone smash over some investment and I'm now expendable. He can't afford to keep all of us and I'm only half a son, not like Gerald. If I'm not careful I'll end up some drudging clerk. Maybe someplace brutal and nasty, like Liverpool. But why not just call me in and tell me I'm chucked…? He shivered with the cold, and with his misery, clamping his knees together to control his aching bladder, and waited for the dawn, soon too foxed by wine to keep his eyes open, dreaming of revenge and triumph.

It was four days before Alan was freed from his cold and gloomy garret prison to be brought down to the study. He did not make a very pretty picture by then. His light brown hair was lank about his face and his queue was loose. He wore no neckstock, and his fashionable white silk waistcoat all sprigged with red and blue flowers was crumpled from service as a pillow. His silk stockings had ladders in them, and his tightly cut grey blue satin suit looked more like a stained and bedraggled bad bargain from a ragpicker's barrow.

On the way down he had seen Gerald entertaining a strange man in the parlor by the fire, the man swathed in a voluminous darkblue cape held open for warmth from the grate.

Court official? Alan wondered. Or one of Gerald's lovers getting his equipment to room temperature? But there's no sign of the Charlies about. No one seeming to be a member of the watch, usually spavined oldsters with cudgels, was in evidence, and he considered that a reason for cheer. God knew he needed some badly at that point. He had fretted and pondered feverishly all the time of his confinement as to what last straw he had broken, if any, and what was to be his fate.

He was led to face his father, who glowered at him from the study fireplace. Pilchard stood behind the writing desk with his most serious legal face on. ’You know Mister Pilchard.' Sir Hugo began. 'He has paid you out of trouble often enough in the past for you two to be good friends by now, hasn't he? Well, hasn't he?’

‘1 suppose so, sir,' Alan meekly responded. ’What could have possessed you?' Sir Hugo demanded. ’You realize this isn't some country girl to be fobbed off with twenty pounds. This is your own sister you tried to rape. You are finished. boy.’

’What rape?' Alan shot back, but shuddering cold inside. 'Not until that Bible Thumper stuck his beak in, it wasn't rape. ‘

‘You're facing a hanging offense,' Sir Hugo intoned. 'But it wasn't rape! She was the one that wanted to do it and I went along with it. You know her nature, surely-’

‘What's worse, I know yours,' Sir Hugo shot back. 'Then you know I wouldn't have to depend on rape. The town's full of quim to be had, without a bit of struggle. ’

‘That nature of yours could get you hanged, Alan,' Sir Hugo said. 'You were caught in the act, and we have witnesses. ’

‘And I can provide a platoon of witnesses for myself, and for my dear sister's character as well, ifit comes to that.’

’Only if it comes. to trial, boy.’

’What is this? Just what do you want from me? Since when have you gotten so holy?’

‘Sir Hugo and I… that is, we… have come to what we believe to be a most salutary solution to the contretemps which you brought about by your unnatural act of forcible rape upon your sister,' Pilchard said from behind the desk. 'For the sake of your family we-’

‘Oh, don't prose like a front bencher in Parliament, Pilchard,' Sir Hugo said crossly, going to the sideboard for an early morning brandy. 'Get to the meat of it.’

’You are to be banished.' Pilchard summed up. 'You may never more lay claim to the Willoughby name-’

‘1 never did, you miserable ass.’

’Pray allow me to continue, young sir,' Pilchard said, wagging a finger at him. 'You must go away, for the family's best interests. You can no longer reside under this roof, in London or in England. And it would be most inadvisable for you to return, for obvious reasons.’

’You're raving-' Alan blanched. ’If you do not, then we shall summon the watch and have you taken before the magistrate. We have no choice,' Sir Hugo warned, making happy sounds from the brandy decanter with his back to the show. ’Your sister is the one who wishes to prefer charges,' Pilchard informed him. 'While we wish to spare her reputation, and the family reputation, she has decided otherwise. If this does go to court you would throw undying shame on your own family, and it would most likely cost you your life. At best, commitment to Bedlam as an uncontrollable lunatic. Do you understand the seriousness of what you have done?' Alan was stunned into silence, beginning to doubt his memories of the incident. Belinda wants to prosecute me? She's a brainless whore. No, there's something here that isn't right.

The whole thing was astonishing, too astonishing to be credited. Part of the shock to his system, admittedly,