by C. S. Harris
“Oh, your lordship, I’m ever so grateful for this,” said Mrs. O’Donnell, tearfully clasping the paper to her ample bosom. “I thought sure you must’ve forgotten it, but I didn’t feel right asking you for it.”
“My apologies for keeping it so long,” said Sebastian with a bow.
Looking up, he saw Hero descending the stairs. Their gazes met. He bowed to Mrs. O’Donnell again and said, “Ma’am.”
He waited until he and Hero were back out on the pavement before saying, “Well?”
Hero was looking oddly flushed. “All her things are still there; Hildeyard obviously hasn’t had the will to touch any of it yet. I found the spencer and bonnet immediately. In fact, it looked as if Gabrielle had worn them to church that morning and hadn’t put them away properly because she was planning to wear them again.”
The mist swirled around them, thickening so fast he could barely see the purple skirt and yellow kerchief of the old Gypsy fortune-teller at the end of the terrace. Sebastian said, “Well, we can eliminate Sir Stanley from the list of suspects; he would never have taken Gabrielle’s body to the one place certain to cast suspicion on him. And while I wouldn’t put it beyond Lady Winthrop to cheerfully watch her husband hang for a murder she herself committed, the logistics—” He broke off.
“What?” asked Hero, her gaze following his.
Today the Gypsy had a couple of ragged, barefoot children playing around her skirts: a girl of perhaps five and a boy a few years older. “That Gypsy woman. I noticed her here on Monday. If she was here last Sunday as well, she might have seen something.”
“The constables questioned everyone on the street,” said Hero as Sebastian turned their steps toward the Gypsies. “Surely they would have spoken to her already.”
“I’ve no doubt they did. But you can ask a Rom the same question ten times and get ten different answers.”
The Gypsy children came running up to them, bare feet pattering on the wet pavement, hands outstretched, eyes wide and pleading. “Please, sir, lady; can you spare a sixpence? Only a sixpence! Please, please.”
“Go away,” said Hero.
The boy fixed Hero with a fierce scowl as his wheedling turned belligerent and demanding. “You must give us a sixpence. Give us a sixpence or I will put a curse on you.”
“Don’t give it to them,” said Sebastian. “They’ll despise you for it.”
“I have no intention of giving them anything.” Hero tightened her grip on her reticule. “Nor do I see why we are bothering with this Gypsy woman. If she lied to the constables, what makes you think she will tell you the truth?”
“The Rom have a saying: Tshatshimo Romano.”
Hero threw him a puzzled look. “What does that mean?”
“It means, ‘The truth is expressed in Romany.’”
Chapter 45
“Sarishan ryor,” Sebastian said, walking up to the fortune-teller.
The Gypsy leaned against the terrace’s iron railing, her purple skirt and loose blouse ragged and tattered, her erect carriage belied by the dark, weathered skin of a face etched deep with lines. Her lips pursed, her eyes narrowing as her gaze traveled over him, silent and assessing.
“O boro duvel atch pa leste,” he said, trying again.
She snorted and responded to him in the same tongue. “Where did you learn your Romany?”
“Iberia.”
“I should have known.” She turned her head and spat. “The Gitanos. They have forgotten the true language of the ancients.” She eyed him thoughtfully, noting his dark hair. “You could be Rom. You have something of the look about you. Except for the eyes. You have the eyes of a wolf. Or a jettatore.” She touched the blue and white charm tied around her neck by a leather strap. It was a nazar, a talisman worn to ward off the evil eye.
Sebastian was aware of Hero watching them, her face carefully wiped free of all expression. The entire conversation was taking place in Romany.
He said to the Gypsy, “I want to ask you about the lady who used to live in the second house from the corner. A tall young woman, with hair the color of chestnuts.”
“You mean the one who is no more.”
Sebastian nodded. “Did you see her leave the house last Sunday?”
“One day is like the next to the Rom.”
“But you know which day I mean, because the next day the shanglo came and asked you questions, and you told them you had seen nothing.”
She smiled, displaying tobacco-stained teeth. “And what makes you think I will tell you anything different? Hmm?”
“Because I am not a shanglo.”
No one was hated by the Rom more than the shanglo—the Romany word for police constable.
“Did you see the woman and the two boys leave the house that day?” Sebastian asked.
The light had taken on an eerie, gauzelike quality, the mist eddying around them, wet and clammy and deadening all sound. He could hear the disembodied slap of oars somewhere unseen out on the water and the drip, drip of moisture nearer at hand. Just when he thought the Gypsy wasn’t going to answer him, she said, “I saw them leave, yes. But they came back.”
He realized she must have seen Gabrielle Tennyson and the two children leaving for church that morning. He said, “And after that? Did someone come to visit them? Or did they go out again?”
“Who knows? I left soon after.” The Gypsy’s dark gaze traveled from Sebastian to Hero. “But I saw her.”
Sebastian felt his mouth go dry and a strange tingling dance across his scalp.
The old woman’s lips stretched into a smile that accentuated the high, stark bones of her face. “You didn’t want to hear that, did you? But it’s true. She came here not that day, but the day before, in a yellow carriage pulled by four black horses. Only, there was no one home and so she went away again.”
As if aware that she had suddenly become the topic of conversation, Hero glanced from him to the Gypsy, then back again. “What? What is she saying?”
Sebastian met the old woman’s dark, unblinking eyes. “I want to know the truth, whatever it might be.”
The old woman snorted. “You just heard it. Now the question becomes, what will you make of it?”
They walked along the edge of the terrace, the sound of their footsteps echoing hollowly in the white void. Sebastian could feel the mist damp against his face. The opposite bank, the wherries on the river, even the tops of the tall brick houses beside them had all disappeared behind the thick white blur of fog.
It was Hero who broke the silence, saying, “Where did you learn to speak Romany?”
“I traveled with a band of Gypsies for a time, in the Peninsula.”
She stared at him, her gaze solemn. “And are you going to tell me what the woman said?”
“She says you came to see Gabrielle on Saturday. And don’t even think about denying it because she described your carriage and horses. Did you not notice her? Or did you simply assume she wouldn’t recognize you?”
He watched as her lips parted on a suddenly indrawn breath. Then she said, “Ah,” and turned her head away to gaze out at the fog-choked river.
He studied her tense profile, the smooth curve of her cheek, the faint betraying line of color that rode high along the bone. “There’s only one reason I can come up with that would explain why you’ve kept this from me, and that’s because Jarvis is somehow involved. Am I right?”
“He says he didn’t kill her.”
“And you believe him?”
She hesitated a moment too long. “Yes.”
He gave a sharp bark of laughter. “You don’t exactly sound convinced.”
The figure of a man materialized out of the mist and walked toward them, a workman in rough clothes with what looked like a seaman’s bag slung over one shoulder.
Sebastian saw the flush along her cheekbones darken now with anger. He said, “Tell me what’s going on.”
“You know I can’t.”
He gave a ringing laugh. “We
ll, I suppose that answers the question about where your loyalties lie.”
“Does it?” She brought her gaze back to his face. “You think I should betray my father to you? So tell me, would you expect me to betray you to him?” She laid her hand on the soft swell of her belly. “And twenty years from now, if this child is a girl, would you think it right that she betray you to whatever man she marries?”
When he remained silent, she said, “Have you been so honest with me, Devlin? Will you tell me why you can’t even bear to be in the same room with your father? And will you tell me about Jamie Knox? Will you tell me why a common ex-rifleman and tavern owner looks enough like my husband to be his brother? Neither one of us has been exactly open with the other, have we?”
“No,” said Sebastian, just as the man passing them pivoted quickly, his bag slumping to the pavement as he raised a cudgel and brought it down hard across Sebastian’s back.
The breath left his body in a huff, the pain of the blow dropping him to his knees.
Sebastian fumbled for the dagger in his boot, fought to draw air back into his lungs. He saw the man raise his club to strike again, was aware of Hero beside him, her hands at her reticule.
Then she drew a small walnut-handled pistol from her reticule, pulled back the hammer, and fired point-blank into the assailant’s chest.
“Jesus Christ,” yelped Sebastian as the man staggered back and went down, hard. He gave a jerking kick with one leg, the worn heel of his boot skittering over the wet paving.
Then he lay still.
“Is he dead?” Hero asked.
His dagger held at the ready in his hand, Sebastian went to crouch beside the man.
He looked to be somewhere in his thirties or early forties, his body thick and hard, his face darkened by the weather, his hair a light brown, badly cut. A thin trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth; his eyes were already glazing over. Sebastian dropped his gaze to the pulverized mess that was the man’s chest.
“He’s dead.”
“Are you all right?”
He twisted around to look at her over his shoulder. She stood straight and tall, her face pale but composed. But he could see her nostrils flaring with her rapid breathing, and her lips were parted, as if she were fighting down an upsurge of nausea. “Are you?”
She swallowed, hard. “Yes.”
His gaze dropped to the pistol in her hand. It was a beautiful if deadly little piece, a small muff flintlock with a burnished walnut stock and engraved gilt mounts. “Where did you get that?”
“My father gave it to me.”
“And taught you to use it?”
“What would be the point in my having it otherwise?”
Sebastian nodded to the dead man. “Is he one of your father’s men?”
“Good heavens, no. I’ve never seen him before.”
Sebastian drew in an experimental deep breath that sent a white flash of pain shooting across his back and around his side, so that he had to pause with one arm propped on his bent knee and pant for a minute.
She watched him, a frown drawing her brows together. “Are you certain you’re all right? Shall I get one of the footmen to help you up?”
“Just give me a moment.” He tried breathing again, more cautiously this time. “Are you going to tell me about the connection between Childe and your father?” he asked when he was able. “That is how Jarvis comes into this, isn’t it?”
She met his gaze. “You know I can’t do that. But I see no reason why you can’t ask him about it yourself.”
Sebastian grunted and reached out to grasp one of the dead man’s arms and haul the lifeless body up over his shoulder.
She watched him. “Is that wise, considering you are hurt?”
He pushed to his feet with another grunt, staggering slightly under the dead man’s weight.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Taking your father a present.”
He thought she might object.
But she didn’t.
Chapter 46
Sebastian’s knock at the house on Berkeley Square was answered by Jarvis’s butler, who took one look at the bloody corpse slung over Sebastian’s shoulders and staggered back with a faint mew of horror.
“Good afternoon, Grisham,” said Sebastian, pushing past him into the elegant entrance hall.
“Good gracious, Lord Devlin; is that…is that man dead?”
“Decidedly. Is his lordship home?”
Grisham stared in awful fascination at the dead man’s flopping arms and blue-tinged hands. Then he seemed to recollect himself, swallowed hard, and cleared his throat. “I fear Lord Jarvis is not at present—”
A burst of male laughter filtered down from the floor above.
“In the drawing room, is he?” Sebastian headed for the delicately curving staircase that wound toward the upper floors, then paused on the first step to look back at Grisham. “I trust there are no ladies present?”
“No, my lord. But—but— My lord! You can’t mean to take that—that corpse into his lordship’s drawing room?”
“Don’t worry; I suspect Bow Street will want to come collect it. Perhaps you could dispatch someone to advise them of the need to do so?”
Grisham gave a dignified bow. “I will send someone right away, my lord.”
Charles, Lord Jarvis stood with his back to the empty hearth, a glass of sherry in one hand. “The Americans have shown themselves to be an abomination,” he was telling the gentlemen assembled before him. “What they have done will go down in history as an insult not only to civilization but to God himself. To attack Britain at a time when all our resources are directed to the critical defense against the spread of atheism and republican fervor—”
He broke off as Viscount Devlin strode into the room with a man’s bloody body slung over his shoulders.
Every head in the room turned toward the door. A stunned silence fell over the company.
“What the devil?” demanded Jarvis.
Devlin leaned forward and shrugged his shoulder to send the slack-jawed, vacant-eyed corpse sprawling across Jarvis’s exquisite Turkey carpet. “We need to talk.”
Jarvis felt a rare surge of raw, primitive rage, brought quickly under control. “Is this your version of a brace of partridges?”
“The kill isn’t mine. He was shot by an elegant little muff pistol with a burnished walnut handle and engraved brass fittings. I believe you’re familiar with it?”
Jarvis met Devlin’s glittering gaze for one intense moment. Then he turned to his gawking guests. “My apologies, gentlemen, for the disturbance. If you will please excuse us?”
The assemblage of men—which Sebastian now noticed included the Prime Minister, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and three other cabinet members—exchanged veiled glances, and then, murmuring amongst themselves, filed from the room.
Sebastian found himself oddly relieved to notice that Hendon was not one of them.
Jarvis went to close the door behind them with a snap. “I trust you have a damned good explanation for this?”
“Actually, that’s what I’m here to ask you. I want to know why the hell my wife and I were attacked by—”
“Hero? Is she all right? My God. If my daughter has been harmed in any way—”
“She has not—with no thanks to you.”
“I fail to understand why you assume this has anything to do with me. The world must be full of people only too eager to put paid to your existence.”
“He’s not one of your men?”
“He is not.”
Devlin’s gaze narrowed as he studied Jarvis’s face. “And would you have me believe you didn’t set someone to follow me earlier this week?”
Jarvis took another sip of his sherry. “The incompetent bumbling idiot you chased through the Adelphi was indeed in my employ—although he is no longer. But I had nothing to do with”—he gestured with his glass toward the dead man on the carpet—“this. Who is he?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t be here.”
Jarvis went to peer down at the dead man. “Something of a ruffian, I’d say, from the looks of him.” He shifted his gaze to the dead man’s torn, bloody shirt. “Hero did this?”
“She did.”
Jarvis looked up, his jaw tightening. “Believe it or not, until my daughter had the misfortune of becoming involved with you, she had never killed anyone. And now—”
“Don’t,” said Devlin, one hand raised as if in warning. “Don’t even think of laying the blame for this on me. If Hero was in any danger this afternoon, it was because of you, not me.”
“Me?”
“Two days before she died, Gabrielle Tennyson stumbled upon a forgery that involved someone so ruthless and powerful that she feared for her life. I think the man she feared was you.”
Jarvis drained his wineglass, then stood regarding it thoughtfully for a moment before walking over to remove a crumpled broadsheet from a nearby bureau and hold it out. “Have you seen these?”
Devlin glanced down at the broadsheet without making any move to take it. “I have. They seem to keep going up around town faster than the authorities can tear them down.”
“They do indeed, thanks to certain agents in the employ of the French. The aim is to appeal to—and promote—disaffection with the House of Hanover. I suspect they’ve succeeded far better than Napoléon ever dreamt.”
“Actually, I’d have said Prinny does a bang-up job of doing that all by himself.”
Jarvis pressed his lips into a flat line and tossed the broadsheet aside. “Dislike of a monarch is one thing. The suggestion that he sits on his throne as a usurper is something else again. The Plantagenets faced similar nonsense back in the twelfth century. You might think people today wouldn’t be as credulous as their ancestors of six hundred years ago, but the idea of a messianic return has proved surprisingly appealing.”
“It’s a familiar concept.”
“There is that,” said Jarvis.