by C. S. Harris
Sebastian stared at his father. The Earl’s jaw worked back and forth, but he said nothing.
“Why?”
“I thought it for the best.”
“For whom? You, me, or her?”
“For all of us.”
Sebastian brushed past his father and headed for the door. “Well, you were wrong.”
Chapter 54
The Dowager Duchess of Claiborne awoke with a start, one hand groping up to catch her nightcap before it slid over her eyes. A tall, shadowy figure moved across the floor of her artificially darkened bedchamber. She gave a faint gasp, then sat up in bed, her cheeks flushing with the heat of indignation when she recognized her only surviving nephew.
“Good heavens, Devlin. You nearly gave me an apoplectic fit. What are you doing here at this ungodly hour? And why are you glaring at me in such a fashion?”
He came to stand beside the carved footboard of her massive Tudor bedstead, his lean figure held taut. “Seventeen years ago, Sophie Hendon did not die in a boating accident. She simply left her husband and surviving children behind and sailed away. Tell me you didn’t know.”
Henrietta let out a sigh. She wished she could deny it. Instead, she said, “I knew.”
He swung abruptly away, going to jerk open one of the heavy velvet drapes at the window and letting in a stream of bright morning sunshine that made Henrietta groan. She brought up a hand to shade her eyes, and sat up straighter. “I thought at the time you deserved to be told the truth. But it wasn’t my decision to make.”
“I’m told she left with a man. Is that true?”
She stared at the rigid set of his shoulders. “Yes.”
He nodded. “As I recall, there were other men in her life. Had been for years. Why did she decide to leave with this one?”
“The others were distractions—or tools of revenge. I can only assume this one was different somehow.”
“Who was he?”
“I don’t recollect his name. He was a poet, I believe. A most romantic-looking young man.”
“A Venetian?”
“There was some Venetian connection. But the young man himself was French.”
“He was younger than she?”
“Yes.”
“You met him?”
Henrietta twitched at the high embroidered collar of her nightdress. “He was quite the darling of society that spring. Although, if I remember correctly, he left Town early.”
“Where did he go? Cornwall?”
“Evidently.”
Devlin brought up one hand to rub his eyes. Looking at him, Henrietta thought he looked older—and more exhausted—than she could remember having seen him. “Do you know where she is now?” he asked.
“Your mother? No. We were never close, and we certainly didn’t keep in contact after she left. I don’t believe even Hendon knows precisely where she went, although he sends money to her every year.”
“Why? He’s certainly not doing it out of the goodness of his heart. She obviously knows something. Something he’s willing to pay to keep quiet. What is it?”
The Duchess of Claiborne looked into her nephew’s troubled eyes, and for the first time that morning told him a blatant lie. “I honestly don’t know.”
SIR HENRY LOVEJOY WAS ANNOYED. He was making little headway in his attempt to capture the man the press had taken to calling the Butcher of St. James’s Park. He had the magistrates from Bow Street interfering in his investigation of the Carmichael murder. And now he was having to take time away from pursuing several promising leads to deal with an irate foreign embassy and a decidedly peeved Foreign Office.
Leaving Whitehall, Lovejoy hailed a hackney and went to see Viscount Devlin.
He found Devlin just preparing to mount his front steps. “I need to speak to you, my lord,” said Lovejoy, executing a small bow on the footpath.
The Viscount was looking unusually pale and distracted. He hesitated, then said crisply, “Of course,” and led the way into his library. “Please have a seat, Sir Henry. How may I help you?”
“I won’t detain you but a moment,” said Sir Henry, standing with his round hat held in both hands. “One of the wherrymen pulled a body from the Thames last night.”
The Viscount’s features sharpened with interest. “Anyone I know?”
“A foreigner,” said Lovejoy, watching the young man’s face. “From northern Italy.”
Devlin’s brows twitched together in a frown. “A thin man, with blond hair?”
“Ah. So you do know him.”
“He tried to kill me last night.”
“And so you killed him?”
“He fell into the Thames,” said the Viscount blandly. “What made you think to come to me?”
Lovejoy made a noncommittal sound far back in his throat. “He was a known associate of your previous victim. Charles Ahearn,” Sir Henry added, when Sebastian simply stared at him in puzzlement. “The gentleman you killed near Hungerford Market.”
“I didn’t kill Ahearn, remember? He fell, too,” said Devlin with a soft smile. The smile faded quickly. “You’re certain the blond man was Italian?”
“Quite.” Settling his hat back on his head, Lovejoy turned to take his leave. “He was a cousin of the King of Savoy.”
Chapter 55
After Lovejoy’s departure, Sebastian stood for some time with his gaze fixed on an ancient pair of crossed swords hanging on the library’s far wall. The link between the King of Savoy and the effete blond man who had chased Tom through the streets of Smithfield and tried to drown Sebastian in the Thames seemed inevitable; the connection between the conspiracy to depose the Hanovers, Lady Anglessey’s murder, and the ancient bluestone necklace that had once belonged to Sophie Hendon remained less clear. But it was a puzzle Sebastian knew he was never going to unravel as long as he allowed himself to dwell on the events of that distant summer and the lies it had spawned.
And so he forced himself to put away the rage and hurt and focus instead on what his new knowledge of his mother’s true fate added to his understanding of Guinevere Anglessey’s death. The tie between the Countess of Hendon and an unknown French poet with Venetian connections was troubling, although Sebastian was not yet convinced it was significant. Sifting through all that he had learned in the last few days, he decided it was past time he paid another call on the bereaved Marquis of Anglessey.
Reaching out, Sebastian gave the bell beside the mantel a quick tug. “Have Giles bring round my curricle,” he told Morey when the majordomo appeared.
Morey gave a stately bow. “Yes, my lord.”
But when Sebastian stepped out of the house some fifteen minutes later, it was to find his tiger, Tom, reining in the chestnuts at the base of the steps.
“What the devil are you doing here?” Sebastian demanded. “I told you to take a couple of days off and rest.”
“I don’t need no days off,” said the boy, his features pinched and set. “This is my job, and I’m doin’ it.”
Sebastian leapt into the curricle and took the reins. “Your job is to do what you’re told. Now get down.”
The boy gave a loud sniff and stared straight ahead. “It’s on account of I let you down, ain’t it? I flubbed it, and because o’ me, you almost ended up fish bait.”
“No, you didn’t let me down. I let you down by exposing you to unconscionable peril. These people are dangerous, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to be responsible for getting you killed. Now hop off.”
The tiger kept staring straight ahead, but Sebastian noticed he blinked several times, and the muscles of his throat worked hard as he swallowed. “There’s boys younger’n me servin’ as cabin boys in His Majesty’s Navy, and goin’ to war as drummer boys. I guess you reckon I couldn’t do those things, either.”
“Bloody hell,” said Sebastian, giving his horses the office to start. “Just don’t take any more unnecessary risks, you hear? And next time I tell you to do something and you don’t obey me, you’re fi
red. Understand that?”
Clapping one hand to his hat to hold it in place, Tom scrambled back to his perch and grinned. “Aye, gov’nor.”
THE MARQUIS OF ANGLESSEY MOVED ACROSS THE FLOOR of his conservatory with slow, painful steps. It seemed to Sebastian, watching him, that the man had aged visibly in the past week.
He looked around at the sound of Sebastian’s footfalls, one hand tightening on the edge of the shelf of orchids beside him as if for support. “What is it?”
Sebastian paused in the center of the room, the warm humidity of the place pressing in on him like a blanket, the smell of damp earth and lush foliage heavy in the air. “I want you to tell me how your first wife died.”
To his surprise, a wry smile lifted one corner of the old man’s lips. He turned away to begin carefully plucking yellowing leaves from a large China rose. “I take it you’ve heard the rumors about how I pushed her to her death.”
“Pushed her?”
Anglessey nodded. “She slipped on the stairs at Anglessey Hall. She was big with child, clumsy. She couldn’t catch herself.” His hands stilled at their task, his gaze becoming unfocused as he lifted his head to stare away as if into the past. “Perhaps she would have died in childbirth, anyway,” he added softly. “She wasn’t well those last few months. But there’s no way to know.”
He brought his gaze back to Sebastian’s face. “Who told you I killed her?
“Does it matter?”
“No. I suppose not.” Anglessey plucked another leaf and dropped it into the basket he held slung over one arm. “What are you suggesting? That I have a nasty habit of killing my pregnant wives? What possible reason could I have for killing Guinevere?”
“Jealousy, perhaps.”
“Because of the child she carried? You forget how desperately I wanted that child.”
“People in the grip of strong emotion often act against their own interest. It could be she discovered something about you. Something you didn’t want her to know.”
“Guinevere knew about my first wife. I told her of the rumors before we were married.”
“I wasn’t talking about your first wife’s death.”
The old man looked around, puzzled. “Then what?”
“Perhaps she learned of your involvement in a conspiracy to restore the Stuart dynasty to the throne.”
The Marquis looked unexpectedly pensive, his eyes narrowing. The man’s body might be weakening, Sebastian thought, but it would a mistake to assume that his mind was also failing.
“I’ve heard murmurs—innuendo, disgruntled whispers. But I must admit I never credited them. I assumed it was all just wild talk, wishful thinking. Do you mean to say there’s something in it? But…what could it possibly have to do with Guinevere’s death?”
“That’s what I haven’t been able to figure out yet.” Sebastian paused. “I’d like to take a look around your wife’s room, if I may.”
The request obviously caught Anglessey by surprise. He drew in a quick breath, but said, “Yes, of course. If you wish. Nothing has been touched. I know I should let Tess gather Guin’s things together and give them to the poor, but somehow I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it.”
Guin. It’s what Varden had called her, Sebastian remembered. He let his gaze drift over the aged nobleman before him. If Guinevere had been simply shot or even stabbed, Sebastian might have found it easier to consider the Marquis a suspect. But it was hard to see how this frail old man could have played a part in the complicated charade that had followed her murder.
Sebastian turned toward the house, then paused to look back and say, “Is there any possibility that your wife was planning to leave you?”
The Marquis still stood beside the rose, the basket of yellowing leaves gripped in one hand. “No. Of course not.”
“So sure?”
A ragged cough shook the old man’s frame. He turned half away, his hand fisting around a handkerchief he brought to his mouth. When the cough subsided, he tucked the cloth quickly out of sight, but not before Sebastian glimpsed the bright stains of blood against silk.
Anglessey looked up to find Sebastian watching him. A faint band of color touched the old man’s pale cheeks. “So. You see. Why should Guinevere consider leaving me when she’d have been a widow soon enough? According to my doctors, I’ll be lucky to last out the summer.”
“Did your wife know?”
Anglessey nodded. “She knew. It’s ironic, isn’t it? I keep thinking about the day before I was to leave for Brighton. Normally, she was strong about what was happening to me, but I’d had a difficult night and she took it badly. She tried to hide her face from me, but I knew she was weeping. And she said—”
His voice cracked. He looked away in some embarrassment, his eyes blinking, his lips pressed together for a moment before he was able to go on. “She said she couldn’t imagine how she was ever going to live without me.”
SEBASTIAN FOUND GUINEVERE’S ROOMS enveloped in silent darkness, the drapes at the windows drawn closed against the daylight. A light scent hovered in the air, as if the memory of the woman still lingered here, elusive and sad.
He crossed to open the drapes, the thick carpet absorbing his footsteps. The windows overlooked the garden below. From here he could see Anglessey’s conservatory, and the limb of the big old oak that thrust out close enough to give access to the bedchamber, just as Tess Bishop had described it.
Sebastian turned back to the room. The bed’s hangings, like the drapes at the windows and the upholstery of the chairs beside the hearth, were done in a soft yellow. The morning sun filled the room with a warm, cheerful light. He couldn’t have said what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this, this sense of serenity and calm joy. It didn’t seem to fit with what he knew of Guinevere Anglessey, a woman torn between her passion for a lifelong love and her growing affection for her aging, dying husband.
He worked his way methodically through the apartment, starting with the dressing room, not at all certain what he was looking for. The intruder who had come here after Guinevere Anglessey’s death had been desperate to get his hands on something. Had he been successful, Sebastian wondered, or not?
Opening a chest near the largest wardrobe, he found himself looking at tiny caps decorated with delicate tucking and lace, nestled amid stacks of carefully folded miniature gowns and white flannel blankets embroidered with birds and flowers. His chest aching with a strange catch, he searched it quickly and gently closed the lid.
Returning to the bedchamber, he stood in the center of the rug, his thoughtful gaze taking in the sun-filled room. On the mantel above the empty hearth, Guinevere had kept a collection of seashells casually arranged beside an ormolu clock. Mementos from her childhood in Wales?
Intrigued, he was walking over to study them when a flash of white from the rear of the cold grate caught his eye. Crouching down beside the hearth, he reached back to free it from the grate and found himself holding a tightly wadded sheet of paper.
Straightening, he uncrumpled the paper and smoothed it out upon the flat top of the marble mantel. It was a short note, written in a bold masculine hand.
Beloved,
I must see you again. Please, please let me explain. Meet me Wednesday afternoon at the Norfolk Arms in Giltspur Street, in Smithfield, and bring the letter. Please don’t fail me.
The signature was scrawled but still legible.
Varden.
Chapter 56
It took some time, but Sebastian eventually tracked the Chevalier de Varden to White’s in St. James’s.
“There ’e is, gov’nor,” said Tom, jumping down from his perch to run to the chestnuts’ heads.
The Chevalier was descending the club’s front steps in the company of another young buck when Sebastian drew in the curricle close to the footpath. “If I might have a word with you, sir?” he called.
The Chevalier exchanged a few pleasantries with his companion, then strolled over to the curricle’s side. �
��What is it, my lord?” The smile that accompanied the words was pleasant enough, but his eyes were guarded and wary.
Sebastian returned the smile. “Drive with me a ways, won’t you? There’s something I’d like you to see.”
The Chevalier hesitated, then shrugged and bounded up beside him.
“Stand away from their heads,” called Sebastian, bending his hand to give the horses the office to start.
“What is it?” Varden asked as Tom scrambled back up to his perch.
“I was wondering what you might make of this.” Without taking his eyes from the road, Sebastian drew the crumpled note from his pocket and held it out.
He was aware of Varden’s breath quickening as he took the note and read it through. His hand tightened around the paper, his face fierce when he looked up to meet Sebastian’s quizzical gaze. “Where did you get this?”
“It was behind the grate in Lady Anglessey’s bedchamber.”
“But…I don’t understand.” He thumped the back of one hand against the crumpled page, his voice tight with anger. “I didn’t write this.”
“That isn’t your handwriting?”
“No.” Varden shook his head, as much in confusion as in denial. “It looks like it, but it’s not. I tell you, I didn’t write it.”
If it was a lie, it was a very good one. Yet Sebastian had known people who could lie with such ease and apparent sincerity that it would never occur to the unwary to suspect them. Kat could lie like that. It was a gift that served her well on the stage.
“Would you say the writing is similar enough that it could have deceived Lady Anglessey?” Sebastian asked, reserving judgment.
Varden read through the note again. “It must have done so, obviously. This hotel—the Norfolk Arms. Is that where she went? The afternoon she died?”