When maidens mourn ssm-7

by C. S. Harris

  `Nonsense,' said Hero. `You should know by now that I am not so easily shocked.'

  Molly paused outside the closed door, her broad, homely face troubled. `Ye ain't heard wot she's got to say yet.'

  Charlotte Roach couldn't have been more than fourteen or fifteen years old. She had a thin, sharp-boned face and straw-colored hair and pale, shrewd eyes rimmed by short, sparse blond lashes. Her tattered gown of pink and white striped satin had obviously been made for someone both older and larger, and then cut down, its neckline plunging to expose most of the girl's small, high breasts. She sat in an unladylike sprawl on a worn settee beside Molly's empty hearth, a glass of what looked like gin in one hand, her lips crimped into a tight, hard line that didn't soften when Hero walked into the room. She looked Hero up and down in frank appraisal, then glanced over at Molly. `This the gentry mort ye was tellin' me about?'

  `I am,' said Hero.

  Charlotte brought her gaze back to Hero's face, one grubby finger reaching out to tap the sketch of Childe lying on the settee beside her. `'E yer Jerry sneak?'

  `If by that you mean to ask if the man in that sketch is my husband, then the answer is no.' With slow deliberation, Hero drew five guineas from her reticule and laid them in a row across the surface of the table before her. `This is for you if you tell me what I want to know. But don't even think of trying to sell me Grub Street news, for I'll know a lie if I hear it.'

  A flash of amusement shone in the girl's pale, hard eyes.

  `What ye want to know, then?'

  `When was the last time you saw this gentleman?'

  The girl took a long swallow of her gin. `That'd be goin' on two years ago, now. I ain't seen 'im since I was at the Lambs Pen, in Chalon Lane.'

  Hero cast a quick glance at Molly. She had heard of the Lambs Pen, a discreet establishment near Portland Square that catered to men who liked their whores young - very young. Two years earlier, Charlotte Roach couldn't have been more than thirteen. Even though the girl was only confirming what Hero had already suspected, she felt her flesh crawl. With effort she said,

  `Go on.'

  `'E used t' come into the Lambs Pen the first Monday o' the month. Always the first Monday, and at nine o'clock exactly. Ye coulda set yer watch by 'im. A real rum duke, 'e was.' Charlotte sucked her lower lip between her teeth, her gaze drifting back to the shiny guineas laid in a row across the top of the table. `Anythin' else ye want t' 'ear?'

  Swallowing the urge to simply give the girl the money and leave, Hero went to sink into the broken-down chair opposite her. `I want to hear everything you know about him.

  'Chapter 35

  Hero paused at the entrance to the Reading Room of the British Museum, her gaze sweeping the rows of clerics, physicians, barristers, and antiquaries hunched over their books and manuscripts. The room was dark, with rush matting on the floor and a dusty collection of stuffed birds that seemed to peer down at her from above.

  Bevin Childe was not there.

  `Miss. I say, miss.' A bantam-sized, plumpish attendant in a rusty black coat and yellowing cravat bore down on her, his hands raised in horror, his voice hushed to a hissing whisper.

  `This room is not part of the museum tour. Only registered readers are allowed in the library. You must leave. Leave at once.'

  Hero let her gaze sweep over the little man with a look that not only stopped him in his tracks, but also caused him to stagger back a step. `I am Lady Devlin,' she said calmly. `Lord Jarvis's daughter.'

  `Lord J...' The man broke off, swallowed, and gave a shallow titter. `Oh Lady Devlin, of course!' He bowed so low his bulbous nose practically touched his knees. `How how may we assist you?'

  `I require a word with Mr. Bevin Childe.'

  `I'm afraid Mr. Childe is in one of our private research rooms.'

  `Then if you would be so kind as to direct me to him?

  `I m afraid Mr. Childe does not like to be disturbed when... I mean, of course, Lady Devlin. This way, please.'

  He led her down a cramped corridor and around a dogleg to pause before a closed, peeling door. `Mr. Childe is here, my lady,' he whispered, his somewhat prominent front teeth digging into his lower lip. `Shall I announce you?'

  `Thank you, but I'll announce myself. You may leave us.'

  A wave of relief wafted across his lumpy features. `Yes, my lady. If you should require anything - anything - please do not hesitate to call.'

  Hero waited until he had bowed himself back down the corridor. Then she turned the door's handle and quietly pushed it open.

  The room was small, lit only by a high dusty window, and hemmed in by piles of crates and overflowing shelves. Seated in a straight-backed chair, Bevin Childe had his head bent over the tattered pages of a manuscript held open on the table before him by a velvet-covered, sausage-shaped weight. He had a pen in one hand and was running the index finger of the other down a row of figures. Without even looking up, he said tartly, `You are disturbing my concentration. As you can see, this room is already engaged. Kindly remove yourself at once.'

  Hero shut the door behind her and leaned against it.

  Childe continued frowning down at the figures, apparently secure in the assumption that he was once more alone. She walked across the room and drew out the chair opposite him.

  `Did you not hear what I said?' His head jerked up. His myopic gaze focused on Hero and he dropped his pen, the loaded nib splattering a blot of ink across the pages of his notes. `Good heavens. Not you again.'

  Smiling, she settled herself in the chair and leaned forward, her elbows on the table, her chin propped on her hands. `What a nice, private place for a comfortable little chat. How fortuitous.'

  He half rose to his feet.

  `Sit down,' said Hero.

  He sank back into his seat, hands splayed flat on the surface of the table before him, lips puckering out in a scowl that clenched his eyebrows together. `When will you and your husband simply leave me alone?'

  `As soon as you stop lying to us.'

  Childe stiffened. `I'll have you know that I am a respected scholar. A very respected scholar! Nothing I have told you is false. Nothing!'

  `Really? You told me your argument with Miss Tennyson last Friday was a scholarly disagreement over her identification of Camlet Moat as Camelot. That certainly wasn't true. The quarrel was over the Glastonbury Cross.'

  His face reddened. `Miss Tennyson was a very contrary woman. After a point it becomes difficult to correctly separate these choleric episodes in one's mind.'

  `I might believe you if she hadn't ended that particular confrontation by hurling the cross into the lake. That strikes me as a comparatively memorable moment.'

  Childe pressed his lips into a tight, straight line and glared at her from across the table.

  Hero settled more comfortably in her chair, her hands shifting to the reticule in her lap. `I can understand why you were selected to play the starring role in this little charade. Your skepticism toward all things Arthurian is well-known, which means that for you to be the one to step forward and present the Glastonbury Cross and a box of crumbling bones - particularly with the added fiction that they were found amongst Richard Gough's collection - would obviously help to make the discovery more believable.'

  `This is an outrage!' blustered Childe. `Why, if you were a man I would...'

  `You would what, exactly? Challenge me to a duel? I m a very good shot, you know.'

  `To the best of my knowledge,' said Childe through clenched teeth, `the cross I discovered in Mr. Gough's collection is the very same artifact presented to the world by the monks of Glastonbury in 1191. As it happens, the scholarly community will soon have the opportunity to judge for itself. The cross has been recovered from the lake and will be made available for inspection next week.'

  `Having a new one made, are you?'

  Childe leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. `I see no reason to dignify that statement with a response.'

  Hero smiled. `But
there's another reason you were selected for this charade; is that not so, Mr. Childe? You see, I kept thinking, Why would a respected scholar possessed of a comfortable independence lend himself to such a scheme? And then it came to me: because you have a deep, dirty little secret that makes you vulnerable to blackmail.'

  Childe shifted uncomfortably, his jaw set.

  `That's why you killed Gabrielle, isn't it? Not because she somehow discovered the true origins of your so-called Glastonbury Cross, or because she spurned your suit, but because she found out about your taste for little girls.'

  He jerked, then sat very still. `I don't have the slightest idea what you re talking about.'

  `I'm talking about the Lambs Pen. And don't even think about trying to deny it. They keep very good records, you know. And...'

  Childe came up out of his seat, his face purple and twisted with rage, one meaty hand flashing toward her. `Why you bloody little...'

  Hero drew a small brass-mounted flintlock muff pistol from her reticule, pulled back the hammer, and pointed the muzzle at his chest.

  `Touch me and you're dead.'

  He froze, his eyes flaring wide, his big, sweaty body suspended over the table, his chest heaving with his agitated breathing.

  `If you will recall,' she said calmly, `I did mention that I am a very good shot. True, a weapon of this size is not particularly accurate, but then at this distance it doesn't need to be. Now, sit down.'

  He sank slowly, carefully back into his chair.

  `You, Mr. Childe, are a fool. Did you seriously think that I would closet myself in private with a man I believe could be a murderer and not come armed?'

  Having been red before, his face was now pasty white. `I did not murder Miss Tennyson.'

  `You certainly had a motive - several, actually. You have just displayed a shocking propensity for violence toward women. And last Sunday, you were at Gough Hall in the afternoon and in your rooms in St. James's Street that night. You could easily have killed Gabrielle and her young cousins while traveling between the two.'

  `I wouldn't do that! I would never do that!'

  `And why, precisely, should I believe you?'

  Childe swallowed.

  Hero rose, the gun still in her hand. `Stand up, turn around, and put your hands on the boxes in front of you.'

  `What are you going to do?' he asked, throwing a quick glance at her over his shoulder as he moved to comply.

  `Keep your eyes on the wall.'

  `But what are you going to do?'

  Hero opened the door behind her. `That depends largely on you, does it not?'

  `What does that mean?'

  She heard him repeat the question again when she was halfway down the hall.

  `What are you going to do?'

  By the time Sebastian made it back to London, the setting sun was casting long shadows through the streets.

  He found Hero seated at the bench before her dressing table. She wore an elegant, high-waisted evening gown of ivory silk with tiny slashed puff sleeves and an inset of rose silk laced with a crisscross of ivory down the front, and she had her head bowed as she threaded a slender ribbon of dusty rose through her crimped hair. He leaned against the doorframe of her dressing chamber and watched as the flickering candlelight played over her bare shoulders and the exposed nape of her neck. And he knew it again, that baffling swirl of admiration and desire combined with a troubling sense that he was losing something he'd never really had. Something that was more than passion and far, far different from obligation or honor or duty.

  She finished fastening the ribbon in place and looked up, her gaze meeting his in the mirror. Whatever she saw there caused her to nod to the young abigail waiting to assist her. `That will be all, Jane; thank you.'

  `Yes, miss,' said the woman, dropping a curtsy.

  Sebastian waited until Jane left; then he came into the room and closed the door. `Rory Forster is dead. I found him floating in Camlet Moat.'

  `Good heavens.' Hero swung around to stare at him.

  `What happened to him?'

  `He was shot point-blank in the chest. Sometime this morning, I'd say. Gibson should have the body by now, although I'd be surprised if he's able to tell us much more.'

  `But why was he killed?'

  `I had an interesting conversation with Rory's widow, who owns a prosperous farm to the east of the old chase. She married the man just last year, and if you ask me, she was well on her way to regretting the bargain. Forster might have been a handsome devil, but he seems to have been far more interested in searching for buried treasure than in taking care of things around the farm. I suspect he also wasn't above using his fists on his wife when she angered him and his kind anger easily and often.'

  `Maybe she's the one who shot him.'

  Sebastian huffed a surprised laugh. `I confess that thought hadn't occurred to me. But I think it more likely Rory was trying to blackmail someone and ended up getting his payment in the form of a bullet.'

  `You think he knew who killed Gabrielle? But how?'

  `According to the Widow Forster, Rory took his shovel out to Camlet Moat at sunset on Sunday and came back later that night soaking wet and full of big talk about buying her silks and satins and a carriage to rival the Squire's lady. At the time she seems to have thought he must have found some of the island's famous treasure.'

  `When in fact he'd witnessed the brutal murder of a woman and two children?'

  `I suspect so. The first time I spoke to him, he laughed at the men out looking for the Tennyson boys. He said no one was going to find them nippers.'

  `Because he knew they were already dead,' said Hero softly. `Dear God.'

  `His wife says he made a trip into London yesterday, which may have been when he confronted the killer and offered his silence in exchange for gold.'

  `With the payment to be made this morning at Camlet Moat.' Hero pushed up from her dressing table. `Interesting choice of locales and telling, perhaps?'

  `It might be more telling if it weren't for the fact that Sir Stanley and his wife both happen to be in London at the moment.'

  `I know.' She went to select a pair of long ivory gloves from her glove box. `My father has invited them to a dinner party tonight at Berkeley Square.'

  `Ah. So that's where you're going.'

  She looked over at him. `You are invited as well, if you'd like.'

  He let his gaze rove over her face. She looked as calm and self-possessed as ever. Yet he was coming to know her better, and he was uncomfortably conscious of a sense of artifice, of concealment about her. And it occurred to him that in her own way she was as gifted an actress as Kat Boleyn.

  As if aware of the intensity of his scrutiny, she gave a sudden laugh and said, `What? Why are you looking at me like that?'

  `There's something you re not telling me.'

  She tipped her head to one side, a strange smile lighting her eyes. `And would you have me believe that you have been entirely open with me?'

  He started to tell her that he had. Then he remembered the folded paper that lay in his pocket, a note he had received just moments earlier that read, I have some information you might find interesting. Come to the theater before tonight's rehearsal. K.

  The words of assurance died on his lips.

  He watched her eyes narrow. She had her father's eyes: a pale silvery gray at the outer rim with a starlike burst of sooty charcoal around the pupil and a gleam of intelligence almost frightening in its intensity. She said, `I don't imagine there are many couples who find themselves thrown into a murder investigation within days of their marriage.'

  `No. Although I suppose it's appropriate, given how we met.'

  She turned away. `Am I to take it that you're declining my father's dinner invitation?'

  `I have an appointment with someone who may be able to provide me with information about Jamie Knox.'

  She waited for him to tell her more, and when he didn't, he saw the flare of some emotion in her eyes, although w
hether it was hurt or suspicion or a gleam of malicious satisfaction, he couldn't have said.

  Chapter 36

  War was very much the topic of conversation that evening in the reception rooms of Lord Jarvis's Berkeley Square residence. War in Europe, war on the high seas, war in America.

  Hero discussed Wellington's successes in Spain with Castlereagh, the depredations of those damnable upstart Americans on British shipping with Bathurst, and Napoléon's newest rampage against Russia with Liverpool. Most of the members of Liverpool's government were in attendance, along with the city's premier bankers, for war was very much a financial enterprise.

  She found the night almost unbearably hot and close, the air in the crowded rooms unusually stifling. The hundreds of candles burning in the chandeliers overhead only added to the heat, and she could feel her cheeks start to burn. Ignoring the discomfort, she was working her way through her father's guests to where she could see Sir Stanley Winthrop in conversation with her mother, Lady Jarvis, when the Earl of Hendon stopped her.

  `I'd hoped I might find my son here with you tonight,' said Devlin's father, his intensely blue St. Cyr eyes narrowed with a combination of anxiety and hurt. She did not understand the obvious estrangement that had grown between father and son, yet at the same time she didn't feel quite right inquiring into it.

  `I fear it will take more than a mere wedding to affect a rapprochement between Devlin and my father,' she said lightly.

  `But he is well?'

  `Devlin, you mean? He is, yes.'

  `I heard he was set upon the other night in Covent Garden.'

  `A minor wound. Nothing serious.'

  Hendon sighed. `I'll never understand why he continues to involve himself in these murder investigations. Is it boredom? Some quixotic delusion that he can somehow make all right with the world?'

  `I don't think Devlin suffers from any such delusions.' She tipped her head to one side. `Who told you of the attack on Devlin in Covent Garden?'