When Maidens Mourn: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

by C. S. Harris

  “Well, at least the poor woman didn’t need to suffer that.”

  Gibson scratched behind his ear. “There is one thing I noticed that may or may not prove relevant.”

  Something in his voice caused Sebastian to look up from buttoning his shirt. “Oh? What’s that?”

  “I said she wasn’t forced before her death. But then, neither was she a maiden.”

  Sebastian expected Hero to have long since retired for the night. Instead, she was sitting cross-legged on the library floor surrounded by a jumbled sea of books and papers. She had her head bent over some manuscript pages; a smudge of ink showed along the edge of her chin, and she was so intent on what she was doing that he suspected she hadn’t even heard him come in.

  “I thought you had planned a musical evening with your mother,” he said, pausing in the doorway.

  She looked up, the brace of candles burning on a nearby table throwing a soft golden light over her profile and shoulders. “That finished hours ago. I decided I might as well get started looking at Gabrielle’s research materials. I can’t help but think that the key to what happened to her and the boys is here somewhere.” She looked up, her eyes narrowing at the sight of his arm reposing in a sling. “You’re hurt.”

  “Nothing serious. Two men jumped me in Covent Garden and tried to kill me.”

  “And you consider that not serious?”

  He went to sprawl in a chair beside the empty hearth. “The attempt to kill me was definitely serious. The wound to my arm is not.”

  “Who were they?”

  “I don’t know for certain about the one I killed, but the one who got away was swearing at me in French.”

  She was silent for a moment, lost in thoughts he could only guess at. She was far too good at hiding away bits of herself. Then she pushed up from the floor and went to pour a glass of brandy that she held out to him, her gaze on his face. “There’s something else that you’re not telling me,” she said. “What is it?”

  He took the brandy. “Am I so transparent?”

  “At times.”

  She sank into the chair opposite and looked at him expectantly. He was aware of the lateness of the hour, of the quiet darkness of the house around them, and of the absurd hesitation he felt in speaking to his own wife about the sexuality of her dead friend.

  “Well?” she prompted.

  “Paul Gibson finished the postmortem of Miss Tennyson’s body. He says she was not a virgin.”

  He watched her lips part, her chest rise on a sudden intake of breath. He said, “You didn’t know?”

  “No. But then, we never discussed such things.”

  “Yet the knowledge still surprises you.”

  “It does, yes. She was so determined never to marry.”

  “She may have been involved in a youthful passion long forgotten.”

  Hero tipped her head to one side, her gaze on his face. “Are such youthful passions ever forgotten?”

  “Perhaps not.”

  She rose to her feet, and for a moment he thought he caught a glimpse of the soft swelling of her belly beneath the fine muslin of her gown. Then he realized it was probably an illusion, a trick of the light or the drift of his own thoughts. For it was the child growing in her belly—conceived in a moment of fear and weakness when together they had faced what they’d thought was certain death—that had brought them here, to this moment, as husband and wife.

  She went to pick up the papers she’d been reading, including a notebook whose pages showed signs of much crossing and reworking. He said, “What is that?”

  “Gabrielle’s translation of The Lady of Shalott.”

  “Ah. I’ve discovered the identity of the Frenchman she befriended, by the way. He’s a cavalry officer named Philippe Arceneaux.”

  She looked around at him. “You found him?”

  “I’d like to take credit for it, but the truth is, he found me. He says they met in the Reading Room of the British Museum. He was helping her with the translation.”

  Hero stood very still, the notebook in her hand forgotten. “Do you think he could have been her lover?”

  “He says no. But he admits he was at least half in love with her. He seems to have made a practice of timing his walks in the park to coincide with when she took the boys to sail their boats on the Serpentine. And a week ago last Sunday, he drove up to Camlet Moat with her to see the site—although he’ll never admit it since it was a flagrant violation of his parole.”

  She fell silent, her gaze fixed on something far, far away.

  “What is it?” he asked, watching her.

  She shook her head. “I was just thinking about something Gabrielle told me once, perhaps a month or more ago.”

  “What’s that?”

  “She asked if I ever had the sense that I was missing something—something important in life—by choosing to devote myself to research and writing, rather than marrying. She said lately she’d begun to feel as if she were simply watching life, rather than actually living it. She said it was as if she spent her days staring at the pale shadows of other people’s lives reflected in a mirror—entertaining at first, perhaps, but ultimately empty and unsatisfying. And then she said…”

  “Yes?”

  “She said, ‘Lately, I find I’ve grown half sick of shadows.’”

  Her gaze met his. He was aware, again, of the stillness of the night around them. And he found himself thinking of the exquisite softness of her skin, the silken caress of her heavy dark hair sliding across his belly, the way her eyes widened in wonder and delight when he entered her. He gazed deep into her wide, dark eyes, saw her lips part, and knew her thoughts mirrored his own.

  Yet the latent distrust that had always been there between them now loomed infinitely larger, fed by the unknown currents swirling around Gabrielle Tennyson’s death and the lingering poisons of Jarvis’s unabated malevolence and Sebastian’s own tangled, sordid past. They had come to this marriage as two wary strangers united only by the child they had made and the passion they had finally admitted they shared. Now it seemed they were losing even that. Except…

  Except that wasn’t quite right, either. The passion was still there. It was their ability to surrender to it that was slipping away.

  He said, his voice oddly husky, “And what did you tell her, when Gabrielle asked if you ever had the sense you were missing something in life?”

  A ghost of a smile touched her lips. “I lied. I said no.”

  He thought for one aching moment that she would come to him. Then she said, “Good night, Devlin,” and turned away.

  The next morning, a constable from Bow Street arrived to tell Sebastian that one of his Covent Garden attackers had been identified. The dead man’s name was Gaston Colbert, and he was a French prisoner of war free on his parole.

  Chapter 24

  Wednesday, 5 August

  Jarvis was at his breakfast table when he heard the distant peal of the bell. A moment later, Hero entered the room wearing a shako-styled hat and a walking dress of Prussian blue fashioned à la hussar with epaulettes and double rows of brass buttons up the bodice. She yanked off her gloves as she walked.

  “Good morning,” Jarvis said, calmly cutting a piece of steak. “You’re looking decidedly martial today.”

  She came to flatten her palms on the table and lean into them, her gaze hard on his face. “Last night, two men tried to kill Devlin. Do you know anything about that?”

  He laid his knife along the top edge of his plate. “It is my understanding that the assailant whom Devlin dispatched with his typically lethal efficiency was a French officer on his parole. What makes you think the incident has anything to do with me?”

  “Because I know you.”

  Jarvis took a bite of steak, chewed, and swallowed. “I confess I would not be sorry to see someone remove your husband from the landscape. But am I actively attempting to put a period to his existence? Not at the present moment.”

  She held herself ve
ry still, her gaze still searching his face. “Do you know who is?”

  “No. Although I could speculate.”

  She drew out the nearest chair and sat. “So speculate.”

  Jarvis carved another slice of meat. “You’ve noticed the broadsheets that have appeared around town of late, calling for King Arthur to return from Avalon and lead England in its hour of need?”

  “Do you know who’s behind them?”

  “Napoléon’s agents, of course.”

  “And are you suggesting these agents have set someone after Devlin? Why?”

  “Those who make it a habit of poking sticks into nests of vipers shouldn’t be surprised when one of those vipers strikes back.”

  “You think that if Devlin finds whoever is behind the broadsheets, he’ll find Gabrielle’s killer?”

  Jarvis reached for his ale and took a deep swallow. “It might be interesting.”

  “And convenient for you—if Devlin should manage to eliminate them.”

  He smiled. “There is that.”

  She collected her gloves and rose to her feet.

  Jarvis said, “Have you told Devlin of my interaction with Miss Tennyson last Friday evening?”

  Hero paused at the door to look back at him. “No.”

  Her answer surprised and pleased him, and yet somehow also vaguely troubled him. He let his gaze drift over his daughter’s face. There was a bloom of color in her cheeks, an inner glow that told its own story. He said suddenly, “You do realize I know why you married him.”

  Her lips parted on a sudden intake of breath, but otherwise she remained remarkably calm and cool. “I can’t imagine what you mean.”

  “Your former abigail confessed her observations on your condition before she was killed.” When Hero only continued to stare at him, he said, “Is the child Devlin’s?”

  Her pupils flared with indignation. “It is.”

  “Did he force himself upon you?”

  “He did not.”

  “I see. Interesting.”

  She said, “The situation is…complicated.”

  “So it seems.” He reached for his snuffbox. “And the child is due—when?”

  “February.”

  Jarvis flipped open the snuffbox, then simply held it, half forgotten. “You will take care of yourself, Hero.”

  Her eyes danced with quiet amusement. “As much as ever.”

  He gave her no answering smile. “If anything happens to you, I’ll kill him.”

  “Nothing is going to happen to me,” she said. “Good day, Papa.”

  After she had gone, he sat for a time, lost in thought, the snuffbox still open in his hand. Then he shut it with a snap and closed his fist around the delicate metal hard enough that he heard it crunch.

  Lieutenant Philippe Arceneaux was playing chess with a hulking mustachioed hussar in a coffee shop near Wych Street when Sebastian paused beside his table and said, “Walk with me for a moment, Lieutenant?”

  The black and brown dog at Arceneaux’s feet raised his head and woofed in anticipation.

  “Monsieur!” protested the mustachioed Frenchman, glaring up at him. “The game! You interrupt!”

  The hussar still wore the tight Hungarian riding breeches and heavily decorated but faded dark blue dolman of his regiment. At each temple dangled braided love knots known as cadenettes, with another braid behind each ear. The cadenettes were kept straight by the weight of a gold coin tied at the end of each braid, for Napoléon’s hussars were as known for their meticulous, flamboyant appearance as for their ruthlessness as bandits on horseback.

  “It’s all right,” said Arceneaux in French, raising both hands in rueful surrender as he pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. “I concede. You have thoroughly trounced me already. My situation is beyond hope.”

  Sebastian was aware of the hussar’s scowl following them to the coffee shop’s door.

  “Who’s your friend?” Sebastian asked as they turned to stroll toward the nearby church of St. Clements, the dog trotting happily at their heels.

  “Pelletier? Don’t mind him. He has a foul disposition and a worse temper, but there’s no real harm in him.”

  “Interesting choice of words,” said Sebastian, “given that two of your fellow officers tried to kill me in Covent Garden last night.”

  Arceneaux’s smile slipped. “I had heard of the attack upon you.” He nodded to the arm Sebastian held resting in a sling. “You were wounded?”

  “Not badly. Yet I now find myself wondering, why would two French officers on their parole want to kill me?”

  Arceneaux stared at him, eyes wide. “You think I know?”

  “In a word? Yes.”

  Chien let out a soft whine and Arceneaux paused to hunker down and ruffle the animal’s ears. After a moment, he said, “I make a living teaching French to small boys and working as a translator for a Fleet Street publisher. It earns me enough to keep a garret room in a lodging house, just there.” He nodded to a nearby lane. “My father is able to send money from time to time. But his life is hard too. He owns a small vineyard near Saint-Malo. His best customers were always the English. War has not been good for business.”

  “What exactly are you saying?”

  Arceneaux pushed to his feet. “Only that men whose profession is war can sometimes find that their most lucrative employment involves using their…professional skills.”

  “For whom?”

  The Frenchman shook his head. “That I do not know.” They continued walking, the dog frisking ahead. Arceneaux watched him a moment, then said, “There’s something I didn’t tell you about before—something I think may explain what happened to you last night. When I said I last saw Gabrielle on Wednesday, I was not being exactly truthful. I also saw her Friday evening. She was…very distressed.”

  “Go on.”

  “She said she had discovered something…something that both angered and frightened her.”

  “What sort of ‘thing’ are we talking about here?”

  “A forgery or deception of some sort. She warned me that it was for my own protection that she not tell me more. All I know is that it was connected to the Arthurian legend in some way.”

  “A forgery?”

  “Yes.”

  “And why the devil didn’t you tell me this before?”

  Arceneaux’s face had grown so pale as to appear almost white. “She said it was more than a simple forgery. The motive behind it was not monetary.”

  “Did she say who was involved?”

  “There was some antiquary she had quarreled with over it, but I believe he was only a pawn. Someone else was behind the scheme—someone she was afraid of. Which surprised me, because Gabrielle was not the kind of woman to be easily frightened.”

  “This antiquary—did she tell you his name?”

  Arceneaux shook his head.

  But it didn’t matter. Sebastian knew who it was.

  Chapter 25

  It took a while, but Sebastian finally traced Bevin Childe to an exhibition of ancient Greek pottery being held at the Middle Temple in a small hall just off Fountain Court.

  He was bent over with his plump face pressed close to the glass of a cabinet containing an exquisite redware kylix. Then he looked up to see Sebastian regarding him steadily from a few feet away and his mouth gaped. He jerked upright, his gaze darting right and left as if seeking some avenue of escape.

  “No,” said Sebastian with a soft, mean smile. “You can’t run away from me.”

  The antiquary gave a weak, sick laugh. Then his jaw hardened. “I have no intention of running. I have heard about you, Lord Devlin. My conversation with your wife was bad enough. I am staying right here. You can’t hurt me in a hall full of people.”

  “True. But do you really want them to hear what I have to say?”

  Childe stiffened. “If you expect me to understand what you mean by that rather mystifying pronouncement, I fear you are doomed to disappointment.”

&nb
sp; Sebastian nodded to the ceremonial cup before them. “Lovely piece, isn’t it? It certainly looks authentic. Yet I knew a man with a workshop outside of Naples who could turn out a dozen of these in a week. Forgeries, of course, but—”

  Childe hissed. “Shhh! Keep your voice down.” He cast another quick look around. A fat man with a protuberant mouth and full lips was staring at them over his spectacles. “Perhaps,” said Childe, “it would be better after all if we were to continue this conversation outside.”

  They walked along Middle Temple Lane, toward the broad expanse of the Temple gardens edging the Thames. Once the precinct of the Knights Templar, the Inner and Middle Temples now served as two of the city’s Inns of Court, those professional associations to which every barrister in England and Wales belonged. The morning sun soaked the upper reaches of the medieval walls around them with a rich golden light. But here, in the shadows of the closely packed buildings, the air was still cool.

  Sebastian said, “I’ve discovered that your argument with Miss Tennyson last Friday had nothing to do with the location of Camelot. It was over a forgery. And don’t even attempt to deny it,” he added when Childe shook his head and took a deep breath.

  Childe closed his mouth, his fingers playing with the chain that dangled from his watch pocket. His small gray eyes were darting this way and that again, as his frightened brain worked feverishly to analyze what Sebastian knew and how he might have come to know it. With every dart of those frantic eyeballs, Sebastian suspected the man was revising and editing what he was about to say.

  “What forgery?” Sebastian asked.

  Childe chewed the inside of his cheek.

  “God damn you; a woman is dead and two little boys missing. What forgery?”

  Childe cleared his throat. “Are you familiar with the discovery of the bodies of King Arthur and Guinevere in Glastonbury Abbey in 1191?”

  “Not really.”

  Childe nodded as if to say he had expected this ignorance. “According to the medieval chronicler Gerald of Wales, King Henry the Second learned the location of Arthur’s last resting place from a mysterious Welsh bard. The King was old and frail at the time, but before his death, he relayed the bard’s information to the monks of Glastonbury Abbey. Following the King’s instructions, the monks dug down between two ancient pyramids in their churchyard. Sixteen feet below the surface they came upon a split, hollowed-out log containing the bodies of a man and a woman. Above the coffins lay a stone slab, attached to the bottom of which was an iron cross. The cross bore the Latin inscription ‘Here lies buried the renowned King Arthur with Guinevere his second wife, in the Isle of Avalon.’”