What Darkness Brings sscm-8

by C. S. Harris

  Sebastian studied the banker’s homely, haggard face. He wondered if Hope realized he’d just admitted to knowing the true origins of his rare blue diamond. “You don’t still have the diamond, do you?”

  “No. But then, neither did the King and Queen of France when they lost their heads. Or Brunswick when he was killed in battle. Or-”

  “People die all the time. I’ve no doubt if you knew the entire history of any large gem, you’d find many people associated with it who died violently. Apart from which, I don’t believe Jud Foy actually had anything to do with the diamond.”

  “You don’t? But. . They’re saying he’s the one who killed Eisler! Are you suggesting you now believe Yates-”

  “No. To be frank, I still don’t know who killed Eisler. Or why.”

  Hope sank his upper teeth into his lip and worried it back and forth, as if summoning the courage to speak. “I fear I’ve not been entirely honest with you.”

  “Oh?”

  “I told you I didn’t know if Eisler had a buyer interested in my diamond. That was not strictly true.”

  Sebastian waited.

  Hope sucked in a deep breath, then blurted out, “Prinny. Prinny was interested. Most definitely interested.”

  Sebastian said, “I had rather suspected that.”

  “You did?”

  “I don’t imagine there can be many potential buyers for a stone of that caliber.”

  “True, true. But there is one thing you may not know: The Prince’s representative was scheduled to meet with Eisler in Fountain Lane the very night he was killed.”

  “Do you know the identity of that individual?”

  Hope shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. But I should think it would not be all that difficult to discover. I believe Lord Jarvis was also involved in the negotiations.”

  “Jarvis?”

  Hope blinked rapidly several times, so that Sebastian wondered what the man saw in his face. “Yes, my lord.”

  Sebastian’s history with his father-in-law was defined by a level of antagonism that had included-but was not limited to-physical assault, larceny, attempted murder, and a certain memorable kidnapping incident.

  In one sense, Sebastian could not help but admire the big man’s dedication to the preservation of England and her monarchy. But he had no illusions about the level of Jarvis’s ruthlessness. The King’s powerful cousin could have taught Machiavelli a thing or two about duplicity, cunning, and the unswerving elevation of expediency over such maudlin notions as sentiment, principle, and morality.

  To Sebastian’s knowledge, Jarvis possessed only one humanizing trait, and that was his affection for his sole surviving child, Hero. The man despised his aged, grasping mother and his two foolish sisters and would probably have consigned his addlebrained wife to Bedlam had it not been for Hero.

  But when Sebastian reached Carlton House, it was to discover that Lord Jarvis was not there.

  Swearing softly to himself, Sebastian turned toward his father-in-law’s Grosvenor Square town house.

  His peal at the door was answered by a trim, wooden-faced butler named Grisham whom Sebastian suspected had not yet forgiven him for a certain incident a few weeks before, when Sebastian had hauled a dead body up the curving staircase to dump it on Lord Jarvis’s drawing room carpet.

  “My lord,” said Grisham, his professional mask firmly in place. “I am afraid Lady Devlin is no longer here, having left shortly after her conversation with his lordship this morning.”

  “Actually, it’s Lord Jarvis I was interested in seeing.”

  A breath of wariness clouded the butler’s normally impassive features. “Unfortunately, his lordship is unavailable at the moment, as he has retired to his dressing room in preparation for an important audience with-”

  “That’s quite all right,” said Sebastian, brushing past the butler and heading for the stairs. “I won’t be but a moment.”

  There was a time when such an intrusion would have motivated Grisham to call the constables. Now he had to content himself with closing the front door with unusual force.

  Sebastian took the stairs two at a time and entered the dressing room without knocking.

  Jarvis was standing before his dressing table, his back to the door. Pausing in the act of fastening his cuffs, he looked up, his gaze meeting Sebastian’s in the mirror. He calmly straightened his cuffs and glanced over at his valet.

  “Leave us.”

  The man bowed and carefully laid the neckcloths he’d been holding over the nearby daybed. “Yes, my lord.”

  Jarvis waited until the man had closed the door. Then he turned to select one of the cravats. “Well?”

  “The Prince’s representative who was to meet with Eisler the night he was killed-who was it?”

  Jarvis carefully eased the length of starched linen around his neck. “Heard about that, did you?”

  “Yes.”

  “To be frank, I’m somewhat surprised you didn’t make this discovery days ago.”

  Sebastian gave his father-in-law a hard, gritty smile. “His name?”

  “The gentleman’s identity is immaterial-an amateur although highly knowledgeable lapidary who had agreed to inspect the gem prior to its formal presentation to the Prince by Eisler at the Palace.”

  “Which was scheduled for when?”

  “Tuesday.”

  “When one is dealing with murder, no potential witness-or suspect-is ‘immaterial.’”

  Jarvis smoothed the folds of his cravat, his gaze on his reflection in the mirror. “The gentleman in question arrived at the scene nearly an hour after the shooting occurred and, upon observing the commotion, quietly left. He declined to step forward because he has no information of merit to add and because it is of the utmost importance that the Prince not be seen to be involved in anything of this nature.”

  “And does the Prince know, I wonder, that the gem in question was once the French Blue?”

  “As it happens, he does. Indeed, the item he ordered designed for it was to be an emblem of the Golden Fleece.”

  “But he isn’t a member of any of the Orders of the Golden Fleece.”

  “He is confident that he soon shall be.” Jarvis turned from the mirror. “I fail to understand your continuing interest in this affair. The authorities have determined some deranged ex-soldier murdered Daniel Eisler. I understand he was seen actually watching the house.”

  “Jud Foy was watching the house, yes. But I don’t think he killed Eisler.”

  A faint smile curled Jarvis’s full lips. “So certain?”

  Sebastian studied the big man’s half-averted profile. He could not shake the suspicion that behind this subtle play and counterplay of arrest, imminent hanging, and sudden release lurked Jarvis’s long vendetta against Russell Yates and Kat Boleyn. He said, “And does the Prince know that the diamond he covets was once in the possession of his own wife?”

  “That he does not know.”

  “Yet you do?”

  Jarvis turned, his face set in bland lines. “Seventeen years ago, His Royal Highness took an unfortunate, instant dislike to his bride. That dislike has since solidified into an aversion-”

  “Actually, I think I’d be more inclined to call it an irrational but powerful loathing colored by a petty lust for revenge.”

  “-and a determination,” continued Jarvis, ignoring the interjection, “to be rid of his wife. Such a step would, however, be disastrous for the stability of the realm and the future of the monarchy.”

  “Hence the need to conceal from the Prince the entire history of the stone?” said Sebastian. “If my memory serves me correctly, the Prince Regent was named executor of Brunswick’s estate, which means that Princess Caroline technically should have handed over to her husband’s keeping any of the old Duke’s jewels in her possession. Obviously she did not do so.”

  “Caroline may be stupid, but she’s not that stupid,” said Jarvis. “Fortunately, she at least stopped short of publicly accusin
g Prinny of playing fast and loose with her father’s estate.”

  “Unlike her brother, the current Duke.”

  “Just so.”

  Sebastian said, “I think Daniel Eisler knew the circuitous route the stone had taken to come into Hope’s possession and was using that knowledge to apply pressure on the Princess in order to obtain something from her that he wanted. You wouldn’t happen to know what that was, would you?”

  “No.”

  Sebastian studied the big man’s complacent, aquiline countenance. “I don’t believe you.”

  Jarvis possessed a startlingly winsome smile he could use with devastating effect to charm and cajole the unwary and the credulous. He flashed that smile now, a sparkle of genuine amusement lighting his steel gray eyes. “Would I lie to you?”

  “Yes.”

  The sound of Jarvis’s laughter followed Sebastian down the stairs and out of the house.

  Chapter 50

  “I don’t know how I can ever properly thank you,” said Yates.

  The two men were walking along the Serpentine in Hyde Park, the evening sun glittering on the breeze-ruffled expanse of water, the long grass and frost-nipped leaves of the nearby stand of oaks and walnuts drenched with a rich golden light. Sebastian noticed Yates kept lifting his face to the setting sun and breathing deeply of the crisp fresh air, as if savoring every subtle nuance of his new freedom.

  Sebastian said, “You actually don’t have much to thank me for, as it turns out. I had nothing to do with the authorities’ decision to set you free. That was all Jud Foy’s doing-however inadvertent that may have been.”

  “They’re saying he killed Daniel Eisler.”

  “It’s always possible.”

  Yates glanced over at him. “But you don’t believe it?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “So how do you explain the pouch of diamonds they’re saying was found in his possession?”

  “Easy enough to plant evidence on a man’s dead body, thus casting suspicion in his direction. He’s not exactly able to defend himself against the accusation, now, is he?”

  “No. But. . why bother? The authorities were already convinced they had the killer-me-in custody.”

  “You don’t find his death rather convenient, given the timing of the decision to set you free?”

  Yates glanced over at him, a troubled expression drawing his brows together. “And will you still continue looking for the killer?”

  Sebastian paused to watch a duck lift off the surface of the canal, wings beating the soft evening air, its quack echoing across the water. After a moment, he said, “I wish I could believe it’s all over. But I don’t.”

  Yates drew up beside him, his gaze, like Sebastian’s, on the duck’s awkward flight. He said, “Kat doesn’t trust Jarvis.”

  Sebastian shook his head and blew out a long, heavy breath. “Neither do I.”

  Sebastian was walking up Brook Street when he noticed a tall, dark-haired man striding toward him with the long-legged gait of a soldier who has covered many, many miles.

  One hand in his coat pocket, Sebastian paused and let Jamie Knox come up to him.

  “Looking for me?” Sebastian asked quietly.

  Knox drew up, his yellow eyes narrowed to thin slits, his jaw set hard. “Jud Foy is dead.”

  “I know.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “I did not.”

  Knox chewed the inside of one cheek. “I’m thinking he’s dead because I told you where to find him.”

  “I don’t think so. But I could be wrong.”

  Knox nodded. “You remember when you promised that if you ever discovered I shot that French lieutenant, you’d see me hang?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you’ll understand when I say that if I find out you did kill Foy, you’re a dead man.”

  Knox started to turn away.

  Sebastian said, “I didn’t realize Foy was a friend of yours.”

  Knox paused to look back at him. “He wasn’t. Bloody hell, the man was crazy.”

  Sebastian started to laugh. And after a moment, Knox joined him.

  Sebastian walked into the house, poured himself a glass of burgundy, and went to stand staring thoughtfully out the dining room window at the black cat, who was lying on the top step of the terrace, fastidiously engaged in the never-ending task of bathing its long, silky fur. An idea was forming in his mind, a suspicion borne of a series of subtle inconsistencies and improbabilities almost too amorphous to name.

  He drained his wine and sent for Jules Calhoun.

  “What can you tell me about Bertram Leigh-Jones?” he asked when the valet appeared.

  The valet looked vaguely surprised. “You mean the chief magistrate at Lambeth Street Public Office?”

  “I do, yes.”

  Calhoun opened his eyes wide and blew out a long breath. “Well, he’s a piece of work, no doubt about that.”

  “Meaning?”

  “He runs that district like it’s his own private fiefdom. Makes the publicans give him a cut if they want to be certain he’ll renew their licenses. And I suspect his handling of the vestry’s poor fund wouldn’t bear too close an inspection either.”

  “In other words, he’s not exactly what one might call an honest man.”

  “Actually, I’d say he’s fairly typical of East End magistrates.”

  “Someone from Lambeth Street seems suddenly to have been moved to interview the woman at the greengrocer’s on the corner of Fountain Lane. I’d be interested to know when that conversation took place.”

  “I’ll see what I can discover, my lord.”

  Sebastian nodded. “Just be careful. This is a magistrate who thinks hanging half a dozen men before breakfast is good sport.”

  Chapter 51

  That night, as Kat prepared to leave for the theater, a heavy fog rolled up from the river, swallowing the city in a thick white mist.

  She was in the hall, easing the hood of her cloak up over her hair, when Yates appeared in the doorway from the library, a glass of brandy held in one hand. He’d been drinking steadily since his release from Newgate, although Kat couldn’t say she blamed him.

  “I think perhaps it would be best if I were to ride with you in the carriage tonight,” he said.

  “Good heavens, why?”

  He met her gaze and held it. “You know why.”

  She gave a soft laugh that sounded forced even to her own ears. “I’ve never heard of anyone holding up a carriage on the streets of London, if that’s what concerns you.”

  “There’s always a first time.”

  “If it comes to that, I’ve a footman and a coachman to protect me.”

  He drained his glass and set it aside. “Humor me?”

  She smiled, a genuine smile this time. “All right.”

  They drove through streets shrouded in white and unusually light in traffic. Yates said, “Devlin tells me he intends to continue his pursuit of Eisler’s killer.”

  “Does that surprise you?”

  “In a way it does, yes. Eisler was a vile excuse for a human being. What does it matter who killed him? The world is well rid of him.”

  “Perhaps. Yet more people are now dying.”

  “An aging Parisian jewel thief and a half-mad ex-soldier?”

  “Do you consider the world well rid of them too? I suspect there are many who would say the same of a Covent Garden actress-or an ex-pirate with a tendency to frequent the city’s most notorious molly houses.”

  His lips quirked into a crooked smile. “I suppose you do have a point. Still-” He broke off, sitting forward suddenly.

  They were rounding the long, sweeping curve from Oxford Street to Broad. The fog was thicker here nearer the river, the dark trees and squat bell tower of St. Giles looming ghostlike out of the mist.

  “What is it?” she asked, just as a team of black horses erupted from a narrow lane to their left, eyes wild, hooves flashing, nostrils flaring wide in the c
old night. In the horses’ wake, a heavy, old-fashioned traveling coach careened from side to side, its coachman driving straight toward Kat’s delicate town carriage.

  “What the hell?” swore Yates as their own coachman shouted in alarm. Horses squealed, the carriage lurching sharply as their driver hauled his team hard to the right. Kat had a tilted vision of tumbled gray tombstones and the rusty spikes topping the churchyard wall.

  The carriage shuddered to a standstill.

  “Are you all right?” asked Yates.

  “Yes. But-”

  The coachman’s startled cry cut through the night, followed by an ugly thump.

  She said in a low, urgent voice, “Yates,” just as a man dressed in footmen’s livery and a powdered wig jerked open the carriage door, a blunderbuss pistol in one hand.

  “What the devil?” thundered Yates.

  The man grabbed Kat’s wrist and hauled her forward. “If you’re smart, you’ll stay out of this,” he warned Yates in an unexpectedly cultured voice.

  “This is madness,” said Kat, falling heavily against him as he dragged her through the doorway to the pavement. The air was cold and damp against her face, the churchyard’s earthy scent of decay thick in her nostrils. “We have nothing of value for you to steal!”

  He pressed the cold steel of his pistol’s muzzle against her temple and gave her a tight smile. “There’s only one thing I need from you.”

  Panic thundered her heart, caught her breath in her tight throat as she heard the soft snick of the pistol’s hammer being pulled back. She lunged wildly against the hand on her arm, but his grip tightened cruelly, holding her fast.

  She saw Yates rear up in the open carriage doorway, a small pistol in one hand. The night filled with the roar of flames and the acrid stench of burnt powder, and the chest of the man holding her dissolved in a warm, wet spray of blood.