by C. S. Harris
“I believe you,” said Sebastian. “Where was this man when you saw him?”
Cian kept his gaze on his feet, his voice barely more than a whisper. “The other side of the bridge. Not far from the barn we was goin’ to.”
“What did he look like?”
“I dunno. It was dark, and he was wearin’ some sort of flowin’ black robes with a floppy hat on his head.”
“You mean, on the head attached to his own shoulders? Not on the head he carried?”
The color in the boy’s cheeks deepened. “Aye.”
“So it couldn’t have been the Dullahan. It was simply a man dressed in a black cassock and carrying a head.”
The boy looked up, his features contorted with a swirling inner agony of confusion and a nameless fear that wasn’t going to go away. “But whose head? You tell me that. Ain’t no other body missin’ a head that I heard of.”
“Did you see anyone else at the bridge that night? Perhaps nothing more than a shadow moving in the shrubbery edging the stream?”
The boy took a step back, then another. He was sweating now, although the day was cold, the wind flattening the thin cloth of his smock against his chest. “I don’t know what I seen no more! I told that fellow from Bow Street: It was dark, and the wind was blowin’ the trees somethin’ fierce.”
Sebastian frowned. “This man from Bow Street; when was he here asking you questions?”
“I dunno. Some days ago.”
“What did he look like?”
“Dressed fine, he was, like a gentleman. Not flashy; but real fine.”
“How old?”
The boy shrugged. “Older’n you, I s’pose. But not by too much.”
“Dark or fair? Tall or short? Thin or fleshy?”
The lad’s features contorted with the effort of memory. “’Bout as tall as me and dark headed, but I wouldn’t say he was either overly thin or fleshy.”
Sebastian knew all of Lovejoy’s constables, and the boy’s description fit none of them. “He told you he was from Bow Street?”
“Aye.”
“Did he ask you anything else?”
“Only if Molly seen anythin’.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said no. If she’d seen what I seen, she wouldn’t be laughin’ at me. She wouldn’t be goin’ around tellin’ folks I’m simpleminded.”
“I don’t think you’re simpleminded. But the man who asked you those questions wasn’t from Bow Street.”
The boy’s face went slack. “What you sayin’?”
“I’m saying that if you see him again, you need to be careful.”
“But . . . who is he?”
“I think he may very well be the killer.”
Sebastian arrived back at Brook Street to be met by Morey wearing a disapproving face.
“A lady to see you, my lord,” said the majordomo. “Miss Anne Preston. I told her both you and Lady Devlin were out, but she insisted on waiting.” His frown deepened. “I’ve put her in the drawing room.”
“Thank you,” said Sebastian, handing Morey his hat and walking stick as he headed for the stairs.
She was sitting stiffly upright on one of the cane chairs by the bow window, her hands clenched in her lap, her face a tight, unsmiling mask of control. At the sight of Sebastian, she thrust up from the chair, her arms held stiffly at her sides. “I’m here because of Jane—Miss Austen,” she said without preamble.
“May I offer you some tea, Miss Preston?”
“No, thank you; your majordomo already did.” She drew in a deep breath and said in a rush, “I—I’m afraid I haven’t been exactly honest with you about some things.”
Sebastian suspected she hadn’t been honest with him about a number of things. But all he said was, “Please, have a seat.”
“No.” She jerked away to stand at the window, looking out at the scene below. “Bow Street thinks Hugh killed Father. But Jane—Miss Austen—tells me you don’t agree with them.”
Sebastian studied her tightly held profile. “Exactly what are you trying to tell me, Miss Preston?”
She kept her gaze on the carts and carriages filling the street. “Hugh had this idea that if he could meet with Father—talk to him, man to man—then maybe he could convince Father to change his mind about our marriage.”
“Was this before or after your father stormed into the Shepherd’s Rest and threatened to horsewhip him?”
She sucked in a quick breath that flared her nostrils and caused her chest to jerk. “After.”
“So, Sunday?”
“Yes. I told Hugh he was mad, that Father would never agree. But Hugh said he was honor-bound to formally ask for my hand in marriage.”
“Admirable.”
She gave a small, ragged laugh. “Admirable, perhaps. But mad, nonetheless.”
“So what happened?”
She ran her fingers down the curtain beside her to smooth it, although it was already hanging straight. “A predictable disaster. It probably didn’t help that Hugh arrived at the house just after Douglas Sterling had been there. I don’t know what Dr. Sterling told Father, but whatever it was, it left him in an odd humor. He took one look at Hugh and flew into a rage—right there in the hall in front of Chambliss, our butler.”
“You obviously have very loyal servants,” said Sebastian. “None of them breathed a word of Captain Wyeth’s visit to the constables.”
“I begged Chambliss to keep it to himself. It was wrong of me, I know. But I feared Bow Street would put the worst possible construction on Hugh’s visit. I mean, Father was standing in the hall, shouting that he’d see me die an old maid before he’d allow me to align our house with some penniless vicar’s son.”
“You were present at their meeting?”
“Not at first, no; Hugh had thought they’d do better alone. But the way Papa was shouting, it’s a wonder they didn’t hear him in the next county. I tried to stay away, but I finally couldn’t bear it any longer and came downstairs. I told Papa that if I couldn’t marry Hugh, I would die an old maid, and that if he was opposing the match in the hopes that I would become Lady Knightly instead, then he was living in cloud-cuckoo-land.”
She paused, her face wan and tired. “That’s when Papa said the strangest thing. You must understand that he’d been wildly enthusiastic at the prospect of a match between Sir Galen and me. But when I mentioned Knightly’s name, Papa flew into such a rage, he was shaking. Said he’d rather see me married to some English chimney sweep than Sir Galen. He rounded on Chambliss, who was still standing there with a wooden face—it was most mortifying—and told him that if Sir Galen ever came to the door again, he was not to be admitted. Then Papa grabbed his hat and stormed off.”
“In the hackney?”
“Yes. Bow Street says he went to Fish Street Hill, although I can’t for the life of me imagine what could have taken him there.”
Sebastian now thought he had a fairly good idea what might have driven Stanley Preston to the streets surrounding Billingsgate Market. But all he said was, “When you quarreled with Captain Wyeth at Lady Farningham’s, was it over that morning’s confrontation with your father?”
“Not exactly.” A touch of color crept into her face. “If you must know, I wanted Hugh to agree to elope. I knew Father would fly into one of his rages over it, but I was convinced he’d eventually calm down and accept our marriage, particularly if for some reason he’d given up his dream of seeing me as Lady Knightly.”
“But Captain Wyeth refused?”
The color in her cheeks darkened. “Yes.”
Sebastian said, “What made you decide to tell me this now?”
“It was something Jane—Miss Austen—said. She said I was wrong to keep back anything that happened that day. That each event by itself might not seem to mean anything
, but that when taken together with everything else, it might very well provide the key you need to understand what happened to Father.”
She tented her hands over her nose and mouth, her eyes squeezing shut a moment before she said, “I didn’t tell you of it before because I was afraid it would make you even more convinced that it was Hugh who’d killed Papa. But he didn’t! You must believe me. He’s not some conniving fortune hunter; he’s a worthy, honorable man—far more noble and high-minded than I am. He didn’t kill my father.”
“No,” said Sebastian. “But I think I know who did.”
Chapter 52
S ometimes, solving a murder could be as simple as asking the right questions. Except that in this case, Sebastian hadn’t been asking the right questions.
At least, not about the right person.
He spent the next several hours visiting those London coffeehouses and pubs favored by men with extensive connections to the West Indies. The conversations were oblique, the queries carefully worded, the answers often guarded or merely suggestive.
But in the end, the information he gleaned was damning.
Hero was strolling the rear gardens with a bundled-up Simon in her arms when Sebastian walked up to her. Her cheeks were pleasantly flushed by the cool air. But her eyes were troubled, and he knew that whatever costermonger’s story of hardship and deprivation she’d heard that morning still haunted her.
He said, “Difficult interview?”
She drew a deep breath and shifted Simon’s weight so that she could press her cheek against the child’s. “A little girl. She sells nuts in taverns. Alone.”
He wanted to say, Why don’t you stop doing this to yourself? Why torment yourself with the ugly realities of a part of London life of which most gentlewomen remain blissfully ignorant? But he knew that was precisely what she wanted to change; she wanted the spoiled, complacent, self-satisfied residents of the West End to know what life was like for those less fortunate. In her own way, she was as driven as he.
The baby fussed, and she loosened her hold on him, saying, “I’ve heard back from my Fish Street Hill costermonger. He contacted me after I talked to Sarah.”
“And?”
“He says Stanley Preston was in Bucket Lane to see a woman. Unfortunately, she refuses to speak with us, although he did accidentally let slip a name: Juba.”
Juba. It was an African name, often given in the American colonies to girls born on a Monday morning. Sebastian suspected it belonged to the beautiful, dusky-skinned woman who had confronted him in the lane.
“You think this Juba could be Preston’s daughter?” said Hero.
“Actually, I think it far more likely her connection is to Sir Galen Knightly.”
“Knightly?” Hero stared at him. “Are you serious?”
She listened while he told her of the sudden aversion to Knightly that Preston had expressed the morning of his murder, of the dark-haired gentleman who had questioned Cian O’Neal, and of Sebastian’s own conversations with various West Indies planters.
“Knightly told me once that he inherited his plantations and slaves,” said Sebastian. “He claimed to be a kindly master who would gladly free all of his slaves if the law didn’t make it so onerous. But none of that is true. He’s actually extended his holdings of both land and slaves in the years since his great-uncle’s death. And while there isn’t a planter in Jamaica who doesn’t make use of the whip, I’m told Knightly’s punishments can be unusually brutal—particularly if he’s enraged. They say he doesn’t lose his temper often, but when he does, he’s vicious. He once personally slashed a slave’s throat with a cane knife when the man mishandled a favorite mare.”
“Killed him?”
“Yes. Practically took off the poor man’s head—although of course they made up some tale for the authorities.”
“So what do you think Stanley Preston and Douglas Sterling could have done that drove Knightly into a murderous rage?”
“I think Sterling must have told Preston something that Sunday morning, something that convinced Preston he didn’t want his daughter to marry Knightly and that sent him to talk to Juba in Bucket Lane.”
“But Preston knew Knightly well. He had to know of his temper and his treatment of his slaves. So what could Sterling possibly have said that would suddenly turn Preston against the man?”
“Knightly told me once that Preston had a horror of miscegenation. And Juba is part African.”
“You think she could be Knightly’s daughter?”
“No; she’s not young enough for that. But she could very well have had a child by him.”
“Dear God,” said Hero softly. “Would he kill her too, do you think? If he thought she was a threat to him?”
Sebastian reached out to lift his son from her arms and hold Simon close. “This is a man who owns other human beings and has them whipped when they refuse to work. Who’s capable of slitting a helpless slave’s throat for mishandling a horse and who probably bashed in the skull of Rowan Toop on the off chance the virger might have seen something that could incriminate him. So yes, I think he’d kill her if he thought she might betray him.
“Her and her child both.”
Chapter 53
I t was early afternoon by the time Sebastian reached Fish Street Hill. The crowds had thinned, the cries of the sellers in Billingsgate Market largely stilled.
Leaving the curricle with Tom, he cut through the noisome alley to Bucket Lane. The sky had grown increasingly dark and heavy with clouds, the light thin and white and flat, the lane deserted except for a knot of ragged children playing some game with broken pieces of brick.
Sebastian walked up to one of the lads, a delicately boned, brown-eyed boy of perhaps ten or twelve, and held up a coin. “I’m looking for Juba. A shilling if you lead me to her.”
The boy stared at Sebastian with a hard, emotionless face. Then he made a quick grab at the coin.
“Ah-ah,” said Sebastian, lifting the shilling out of his reach. “You’ll get it, but not until you’ve led me to Juba.”
The boy’s expression never altered. Then his gaze broke to someone behind Sebastian.
“It’s you, ain’t it?” said a familiar voice.
Sebastian turned to find the woman called Juba standing in the middle of the lane, her fists on her slim hips, her head thrown back as she stared at him with suspicion and hostility and what he recognized as a touch of curiosity.
“Yes,” he said.
“Who are you? Really.”
“Lord Devlin. I want to know why Stanley Preston came to see you last Sunday.”
“He didn’t come to see me.”
“Then who did he see?”
She shook her head. “First you want me t’ believe you’re an idiot, and now you’re pretending t’ be some grand lord?”
“I am a lord. Not exactly what I’d call ‘grand,’ but a lord, nonetheless.”
She huffed a scornful expulsion of air. “And what’re you claiming is your interest in Preston this time? My lord.”
“I’m trying to figure out who killed him, and why.”
He saw the sudden leap of fear in those turquoise-hued eyes. “I didn’t kill him,” she said huskily. “I had no reason to kill him.”
“I know.”
“What difference it make to you, who killed this Preston, or why?”
“I happen to have a moral objection to people getting away with cold-blooded murder.”
“Sure then,” she said, her lip curling. “Rich man gets hisself killed, ev’rybody from Fleet Street to Bow Street is interested in finding who done it. But let somebody stab an old fishmonger in the back, and ain’t nobody cares.”
Sebastian shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“Come. I’ll show you.”
She turned and strode tow
ard a nearby battered door without waiting to see if he followed, as if whether he did so or not were a matter of supreme indifference to her.
He found himself in a narrow, dilapidated corridor smelling strongly of fish, thanks to the dripping pile of baskets and hampers stacked near the street. She pushed open the first door to the left, revealing a room that was small and meanly furnished but clean, with a scrubbed trestle table and crude benches and two pallets laid out near the cold hearth. On one of the pallets lay the body of an old woman, her face pale and waxy with death.
She looked to be perhaps sixty years old or more, her café-au-lait skin wrinkled and sunken with age, her hair steel gray and thin. But once she must have been beautiful, for the exquisite, regal bone structure she had bequeathed to her daughter was still clearly visible despite the ravages of age and mortality.
Sebastian raised his gaze from the dead woman to Juba. “When was she killed?”
“Last night. They be comin’ anytime now to sew her int’ her shroud.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Ain’t nothin’ to tell. She went out t’ fetch water, only she never come back. Banjo went lookin’ and found her not five feet from the pump. Breathed her last in his arms.”
“Banjo?”
“My boy.” She jerked her head toward the street. “That’s him you was talkin’ to just now.”
Sebastian studied her beautiful, tightly held face and read there a powerful mixture of grief and shock and fury. He said, “Tell me why Stanley Preston came here a week ago Sunday.”
She stared back at him. “Why should I?”
“Because whoever killed your mother also killed Stanley Preston—and at least two other men. And because if he feels threatened, he may not stop there; he may decide he needs to eliminate you and your son as well.”
A pulse had begun to beat wildly at the base of her long, elegant neck. But a lifetime of suspicion and resentment held her silent.
“Tell me,” he said softly.
She went to stand before the cold hearth, where a few chipped cups and plates rested on a rough shelf.