When maidens mourn ssm-7

by C. S. Harris

  `You have both been most kind. Please don't bother ringing; I can see myself out.'

  `I'll walk down with you,' said Sebastian, aware of Hero's narrowed gaze following them as they left the room.

  `It occurs to me there may be something else you felt reluctant to mention in front of Lady Devlin,' Sebastian said as they descended the stairs.

  Tennyson looked vaguely confused. `No, nothing.'

  `Any possibility someone could be seeking to hurt you by striking at those you love?'

  `I can't think of anyone,' he said slowly as they reached the ground hall. `Although in my profession one never...' He broke off, his eyes widening. `Merciful heavens. Emily.'

  `Emily?' said Sebastian.

  A faint suggestion of color touched the barrister's pale cheeks. `Miss Emily Goodwin, the daughter of one of my colleagues. She has recently done me the honor of agreeing to become my wife, although the death of her paternal grandmother has perforce delayed the formal announcement of our betrothal.'

  `You may count on my discretion.'

  `Yes, but do you think she could be in danger?'

  `I see no reason to alarm her unnecessarily, especially given that the particulars of your betrothal are not known.' Sebastian nodded to Morey, who opened the front door. `But it might be a good idea to suggest that she take care.'

  `I will, yes; thank you.'

  Sebastian stood in the open doorway and watched the man hurry away into the hot night. Then he went back upstairs to his wife.

  `And what precisely was that about?' she asked, one eyebrow raised, as he walked into the room.

  Sebastian found himself smiling. `I thought there might be something he was reluctant to discuss in front of such a delicate lady as yourself.'

  `Really. And was there?'

  `No. Only that it seems he's formed an attachment to some Miss Goodwin, the daughter of one of his colleagues, and now he's hysterical with the fear that his sister's killer might strike against her next. I suspect it's a fear shared by virtually every father, husband, and brother out there.'

  `You think it's possible Gabrielle's death could have something to do with her brother's legal affairs?'

  `At this point, almost anything seems possible.'

  Tom squinted down at Hero's map, his lips pursing as he traced the dotted line of London's old Roman walls, which she had superimposed on her sketch of the city's modern streets.

  `Can you follow it?' asked Sebastian, watching him. He knew that someone at some point had taught Tom to read, before the death of the boy's father had driven the family into desperation.

  `Aye. I think maybe I even know the place yer lookin for. There's a tavern called the Black Devil about ere...' He tapped one slightly grubby finger just off Bishopsgate. `It's owned by a fellow named Jamie Knox.'

  Sebastian looked at his tiger in surprise. `You know him?'

  Tom shook his head. `Never seen the fellow meself. But I've eard tales o'him. E's a weery rum customer. A weery rum customer indeed. They say e dresses all in black, like the devil.'

  A somewhat dramatic affectation. It wasn't unusual for gentlemen in formal evening dress to wear a black coat and black knee breeches. But the severity of the attire was always leavened by a white waistcoat, white silk stockings, and of course a white cravat.

  `Not sure what that means,' said Tom, `but I do know folks say e musta sold is soul to the devil, for e's got the devil's own luck. They say e as the reflexes of a cat. And the eyes and ears of...'

  `What?' prodded Sebastian when the boy broke off.

  Tom swallowed. `They say e as the eyes and ears of a cat, too. Yellow eyes.'

  Chapter 15

  The Black Devil lay in a narrow cobbled lane just off Bishopsgate.

  Sebastian walked down gloomy streets lit haphazardly by an occasional sputtering oil lamp or flaring torch thrust into a sconce high on an ancient wall. The houses here dated back to the time of the Tudors and the Stuarts, for this was a part of London that had escaped the ravages of the Great Fire. Once home to courtiers attached to the court of James I, the area had been in a long downward slide for the past century. The elaborately carved fronts overhanging the paving were sagging and worn; the great twisting chimneys leaned precariously as they poked up into the murky night sky.

  By day, this was a district of small tradesmen: leather workers and chandlers, clock makers and tailors. But now the shops were all shuttered for the night, the streets given over to the patrons of the grog shops and taverns that spilled golden rectangles of light and boisterous laughter into the night.

  He paused across the street from the Black Devil, in the shadows cast by the deep doorway of a calico printer's shop. He let his gaze rove over the public house's gable-ended facade and old-fashioned, diamond-paned windows. Suspended from a beam over the door hung a cracked wooden sign painted with the image of a horned black devil, his yellow-eyed head and barbed tail silhouetted against a roaring orange and red fire. As Sebastian watched, the sign creaked softly on its chains, touched by an unexpected gust of hot wind.

  Crossing the narrow lane, he pushed through the door into a noisy, low-ceilinged public room with a sunken stone-flagged floor and oak-paneled walls turned black by centuries of smoke. The air was thick with the smell of tobacco and ale and unwashed, hardworking male bodies. The men crowded up to the bar and clustered around the tables glanced over at him, then went back to their pints and their bonesticks and their draughts.

  `Help ye, there?' called a young woman from behind the bar, her almond-shaped eyes narrowing with shrewd appraisal. She looked to be somewhere in her early twenties, dark haired and winsome, with a wide red mouth and soft white breasts that swelled voluptuously above the low-cut bodice of her crimson satin gown.

  Sebastian pushed his way through the crowd to stand half turned so that he still faced the room. In this gathering of tradesmen and laborers, costermongers and petty thieves, his doeskin breeches, clean white cravat, and exquisitely tailored coat of Bath superfine all marked him as a creature from another world. The other men at the bar shifted subtly, clearing a space around him.

  `A go of Cork,' he said, then waited until she set the measure of gin on the boards in front of him to add, `I'm looking for Jamie Knox; is he here?'

  The woman behind the bar wiped her hands on the apron tied high around her waist, but her gaze never left his face. `And who might ye be, then?'

  `Devlin. Viscount Devlin.'

  She stood for a moment with her hands still wrapped in the cloth of her apron. Then she jerked her head toward the rear. `He's out the back, unloading a delivery. There's an alley runs along the side of the tavern. The court opens off that.'

  Sebastian laid a coin on the scarred surface of the bar. `Thank you.'

  The alley was dark and ripe with the stench of rotting offal and fish heads and urine. The ancient walls looming high above him on either side bulged out ominously, so that someone had put in stout timber braces to keep the masonry from collapsing. As he drew nearer, he realized the tavern backed onto the churchyard of St. Helen's Bishopsgate, a relic of a now-vanished priory of Benedictine nuns. He could see the church's ancient wooden tower rising over a swelling burial ground where great elms moaned softly with the growing wind.

  He paused just outside the entrance to the tavern yard. The courtyard looked to be even older than the tavern itself, its cobbles undulating and sunken, with one unexpectedly high wall of coursed flint blocks bonded with rows of red tile. Sebastian could understand why a woman with Gabrielle Tennyson's interests would find the site fascinating.

  Someone had set a horn lantern atop an old flat stone beside a mule-drawn cart filled with hogsheads. The mules stood with their heads down, feet splayed. At the rear of the tavern the wooden flaps of the cellar had been thrown open to reveal a worn flight of stone steps that disappeared downward. As Sebastian watched, the grizzled head and husky shoulders of a man appeared, his footfalls echoing in the wind-tossed night.

  Sebast
ian leaned against the stone jamb of the gateway. He had one hand in his pocket, where a small double-barreled pistol, primed and loaded, partially spoiled the line of his fashionable coat. A sheath in his boot concealed the dagger he was rarely without. He waited until the man had crossed to the cart, then said, `Mr. Jamie Knox?'

  The man froze with his hands grasping a cask, his head turning toward the sound of Sebastian's voice. He appeared wary but not surprised, and it occurred to Sebastian that the comely young woman behind the bar must have run to warn her master to expect a visitor. `Aye. And who might ye be?'

  `Devlin. Lord Devlin.'

  The man sniffed. Somewhere in his mid-thirties, he had a compact, muscular body that belied the heavy sprinkling of gray in this thick, curly head of hair. Far from being dressed all in black, he wore buff-colored trousers and a brown coat that looked in serious need of a good brushing and mending. His face was broad and sun darkened, with a long scar that ran down one cheek. Sebastian had seen scars like that before, left by a saber slash.

  The man paused for only an instant. Then he hefted the hogshead and headed back to the stairs. `I'm a busy man. What ye want?'

  The accent surprised Sebastian; it was West Country rather than London or Middlesex. He said, `I understand you knew a woman named Miss Tennyson.'

  The man grunted. `Met her. Came sniffin' around here a while back, she did, prattlin' about Roman walls and pictures made of little colored bits and a bunch of other nonsense. Why ye ask?'

  `She's dead.'

  `Aye. So we heard.' The man disappeared down the cellar steps.

  Sebastian waited until he reemerged. `When was the last time you saw her?'

  `I told ye, 'twere a while back. Two, maybe three months ago.'

  `That's curious. You see, someone saw you speaking to her just a few days ago. Last Thursday, to be precise. At the York Steps.'

  The man grasped another hogshead and turned back toward the cellar. `Who'er told ye that didn't know what he was talkin' about.'

  `It's possible, I suppose.'

  The man grunted and started down the steep stairs again. He was breathing heavily by the time he came back up. He paused to lean against the cellar door and swipe his sweaty forehead against the shoulder of his coat.

  `You were a soldier?' said Sebastian.

  `What makes ye think that?'

  `It left you with a rather distinctive face.'

  The man pushed away from the cellar. `I was here all day Thursday. Ask any o' the lads in the public room; they'll tell ye. Ye gonna call 'em all liars?'

  Sebastian said, `I'm told Jamie Knox has yellow eyes. So why are yours brown?'

  The man gave a startled laugh. `It's dark. Ye can't see what color a man's eyes are in the dark.'

  `I can.'

  `Huh.' The tavern owner sniffed. `They only say that about me eyes because of the sign. Ye did see the sign, didn't ye? They also like t'say I only wear black. Next thing ye know, they'll be whisperin' that I've got a tail tucked into me breeches.'

  Sebastian let his gaze drift around the ancient yard. The massive flint and tile rampart that ran along the side of the court was distinctly different from the wall that separated the yard from the burial ground at its rear. No more than seven feet high and topped by a row of iron spikes designed to discourage body snatchers, that part of the wall lay deep in the heavy shadows cast by the sprawling limbs of the graveyard's leafy elms. And in the fork of one of those trees crouched a lean man dressed all in black except for the white of his shirt. He balanced there easily, the stock of his rifle resting against his thigh.

  To anyone else, the rifleman would have been invisible.

  Sebastian said, `When he comes down out of his tree, tell Mr. Knox he can either talk to me, or he can talk to Bow Street. I suppose his choice will depend on exactly what's in his cellars.'

  The stocky man's scarred face split into a nasty grin.

  `I don't need to tell him. He can hear ye. Has the eyes and ears of a cat, he does.'

  Sebastian turned toward the gateway. The stocky man put out a hand to stop him.

  Sebastian stared pointedly at the grimy fingers clenching his sleeve. The hand was withdrawn.

  The man licked his lower lip. `He could've shot out both yer eyes from where he's sittin. And I'll tell ye somethin' else: He looks enough like ye t'be yer brother. Ye think about that. Ye think about that real hard.' He paused a moment, then added mockingly, `Me lord.'

  Chapter 16

  Sebastian walked down Cheapside, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his coat, the hot wind eddying the flames of the streetlamps to send leaping shadows over the shuttered shop fronts and dusty, rubbish-strewn cobbles.

  Once, he had been the youngest of three brothers, the fourth child born to the Earl of Hendon and his beautiful, vivacious countess, Sophie. If there had ever been a time in his parents marriage that was pleasant, Sebastian couldn't remember it. They had lived essentially separate lives, the Earl devoting himself to affairs of state while the Countess lost herself in a gay whirl of balls and routs and visits to country houses. The few occasions when husband and wife came together had been characterized by stony silences punctuated all too often with stormy bouts of tears and voices raised in anger.

  Yet Sebastian's childhood had not been an entirely unhappy one. In his memories, Sophie's touch was always soft and loving, and her laughter when her husband was not around came frequently. Her four children had never doubted her love for them. Though unlike each other in many ways and separated in age, the three brothers had been unusually close. Only Amanda, the eldest child, had held herself aloof. Sometimes I think Amanda was born angry with the world, Sophie had once said, her thoughtful, worried gaze following her daughter when Amanda stormed off from a game of battledore and shuttlecock.

  It would be years before Sebastian understood the true source of Amanda's anger.

  He paused to look out over the gray, sunken tombs and rank nettles choking St. Paul's churchyard, his thoughts still lost in the past.

  In contrast to his gay, demonstrative wife, the Earl of Hendon had been a stern, demanding father preoccupied with affairs of state. But he'd still found the time to teach his sons to ride and shoot and fence, and he took a gruff pride in their prowess. An intensely private man, he had remained a distant figure, detached and remote especially from his youngest child, the child so unlike him in looks and temperament and talents.

  Then had come a series of tragedies. Sebastian's oldest brother, Richard, was the first to die, caught in a vicious riptide while swimming off the coast of Cornwall near the Earl's principal residence. Then, one dreadful summer when the clouds of war swept across Europe and the fabric of society as they'd always known it seemed forever rent by revolution and violence, Cecil had sickened and died too.

  Once the proud father of three healthy sons, Hendon found himself left with only the youngest, Sebastian. Sebastian, the son most unlike his father; the son on whom the Earl's wrath always fell the hardest, the son who had always known himself to be a disappointment in every way to the brusque, barrel-chested man with the piercingly blue St. Cyr eyes that were so noticeably lacking in his new heir.

  That same summer, when Sebastian was eleven, Hendon's countess sailed away for a day's pleasure cruise, never to return. Lost at sea, they'd said. Even at the time, Sebastian hadn't believed it. For months he'd climbed the cliffs overlooking the endless choppy waters of the Channel, convinced that if she were in truth dead, he'd somehow know it; he'd feel it.

  Odd, he thought now as he pushed away from the churchyard's rusted railing and turned his feet toward the noisy, brightly lit hells off St. James's Street, how he could have been so right about that and so wrong about almost everything else.

  Lying alone in her bed, Hero heard the wind begin to pick up just before midnight. Hot gusts billowed the curtains at her open window and filled the bedroom with the smell of dust and all the ripe odors of a city in summer. She listened to the charlie cry one o'c
lock, then two. And still she lay awake, listening to the wind and endlessly analyzing and reassessing all that she had learned so far of the grinding, inexorable sequence of shadowy, half-understood events and forces that had led to Gabrielle's death and the disappearance of her two little cousins. But as the hours dragged on, it gradually dawned on Hero that her sleeplessness had as much to do with the empty bed beside her as anything else.

  It was a realization that both startled and chagrined her. Her motives for entering into this marriage had been complicated and confused and not entirely understood by anyone, least of all herself. She was not a woman much given to introspection or prolonged, agonized examination of her motives. She had always seen this characteristic as something admirable, something to be secretly proud of. Now she found herself wondering if perhaps in that she had erred. For who could be more foolish than a woman who doesn't know her own heart?

  A loose shutter banged somewhere in the night for what seemed like the thousandth time. Thrusting aside the covers with a soft exclamation of exasperation, she crossed the room to slam down the sash. Then she paused with one hand on the latch, her gaze on the elegant, solitary figure strolling down the street toward the house.

  The night was dark, the wind having blown out most of the streetlights and both oil lamps mounted high on either side of the entrance. But Hero had no difficulty recognizing Devlin's long stride or the lean line of his body as he turned to mount the front steps.

  She knew a wash of relief, although she had been unwilling to acknowledge until now the growing concern his long absence had aroused. Then her hand tightened on the drapery beside her.

  They were strangers to each other in many ways, their marriage one born of necessity and characterized by wary distrust leavened by a powerful current of passion, a grudging respect, and a playful kind of rivalry. Yet she knew him well enough to recognize the brittle set of his shoulders and the glitteringly dangerous precision of each graceful movement.

  Eleven months before, something had happened in Devlin's life, something that had driven him from his longtime mistress Kat Boleyn and created a bitter estrangement between the Viscount and his father, the Earl. She did not know precisely what had occurred; she knew only that whatever it was, it had plunged Devlin into a months-long brandy-soaked spiral of self-destruction from which he had only recently emerged.