by C. S. Harris
“And to beg the loan of a horse. I was forced to slip out the basement to avoid my watchdog.”
“We could take a hackney.”
“Then I would need a lady’s maid, not a groom,” she pointed out.
“True. Unfortunately, I don’t own any ladies’ horses.”
“Neither do I.” She glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantel. “If you have finished your tea and bread?”
“It’s a trap, you know,” he said, suddenly serious.
“Will you do it?”
“Drink your tea,” he told her, “while I transfer myself into a more humble attire.”
The day was overcast and cold, with the kind of biting wind more typical of March than May. Pausing his gelding at the head of the lane, Sebastian let his gaze flick to the watch house and church of St. Mary’s that had been left marooned in the center of the Strand by the widening of the street. “It seems an unlikely place for a frightened prostitute to go to ground,” he said.
“Perhaps she grew up around here,” said Miss Jarvis, reining in her mount beside him.
He kneed his horse forward between aged gabled houses of timber and whitewashed daub that nearly met overhead. The buildings might be old, but they were well kept, the cobbles and worn doorsteps swept clean. A little girl dashed past, laughing as she chased a kitten through flowers tumbling out of green-painted window boxes. They passed a ramshackle old inn, the Cock and Magpie, and a livery. But within a hundred yards or so, the lane unexpectedly opened up to their right and Sebastian found himself staring out over a tumbledown stone wall at a stretch of open land.
“It’s a curious place for a meeting,” he said, reining in. He could see, scattered amidst rioting wisteria and lilacs, the broken, ivy-covered statues and rusted iron gates of an abandoned garden that stretched all the way to the terrace and neoclassical side elevation of Somerset House in the distance.
“It’s the ruins of the eastern gardens of the original Somerset House,” said Miss Jarvis. “When they tore down the old palace, the plan was to construct an eastern wing on the new building that would stretch nearly to Surrey Street. But the government ran out of money. My father is always raging about it. He thinks the capital of a great nation needs impressive government buildings, and London is woefully lacking in anything majestic or monumental.”
Sebastian narrowed his eyes against the glint of the light reflected off the Thames. Down near the river’s edge, to their left, stood a lumberyard, its great stacks of drying timber towering twenty to thirty feet in the air. But a strange air of quiet hung over the area. “I don’t like it,” he said, thankful for the weight of the small, double-barreled flintlock pistol he’d slipped into the pocket of his groom’s coat before leaving Brook Street.
“Surely if it were a trap,” she said, “the rendezvous would have been set for tonight. What are they going to do? Cosh me—and my servant—over the head in broad daylight? It’s not exactly a disreputable neighborhood.”
“Would you have come here at night?”
“Of course not.”
Sebastian studied the expanse of overgrown gravel paths and untamed shrubbery. “Where exactly is this Hannah Green supposed to be?”
“There,” said Miss Jarvis, nodding to what looked like a caretaker’s cottage at the base of the garden near the water’s edge.
Sebastian swung out of the saddle. “Wait here,” he told her. “Your groom is going to knock on the door.”
He expected her to argue. Instead, she took his reins in her strong gloved hand, a frown line forming between her eyes as she studied the small stone house.
The original Somerset House had been built in the mid- sixteenth century by the Duke of Somerset, uncle and Lord Protector of the boy king Edward VI. A vast Renaissance palace, it had been pulled down late in the previous century and replaced by the current Somerset House, now used by various Royal societies and government offices. Only this stretch of the old gardens had survived. Once, the sandstone cottage near the river might have been a part of the ancient Tudor palace itself. A retainer’s lodge, perhaps, or a delightful garden retreat for the dowager queens who had once used the old palace as their Dower House. The echoes of the original house’s renaissance glory were there, in the crumbling stone steps, in the sweet-scented damask rose blooming stubbornly from amidst a thicket of thistles.
Sebastian walked up the neglected path, the gravel crunching beneath his feet, his senses alert to any movement, any sound. The garden appeared deserted.
Studying the cobwebs draping the delicately carved tracery of the windows and the leaded panes, Sebastian knocked on the warped old door and listened to the sound fade away into nothing. He was raising his fist to knock again when he heard a furtive whisper of sound from the far side of the thick panels. The scrape of a slipper over stone flagging, perhaps, or the brush of cloth against cloth.
He waited, aware of a sense of being watched. Tilting back his head, he scanned the crenulated decoration at the wall’s edge, then heard the rasp of a bolt being drawn back.
The door creaked inward a foot and stopped. He had a glimpse of a young woman’s pale face, her brown eyes widening in fear. Behind her stretched an empty stone-flagged passageway with thick whitewashed walls.
“Miss Jarvis sent me to inquire—” he began, only to have the woman let out a little mewl of terror. Her hands slipping off the door’s latch, she whirled, her fists clenching in her skirts, her brown hair flying as she pelted back down the passageway.
Thrusting open the door with one outflung hand, Sebastian sprinted after her. He took two steps, three, then felt a blinding pain that crashed down upon the back of his head and brought with it the bright darkness of oblivion.
Chapter 40
The pain was still there. He realized he was lying on something cold and hard. That confused him. He considered opening his eyes to investigate, but at the moment, that seemed more effort than it was worth. He lay still, trying to recall where he was and what he was doing here. He remembered handing the reins of his horse to Hero Jarvis. He remembered walking through the abandoned garden. Stone steps. A warped door. A brown-eyed woman running.
He shifted his weight, wincing as a jagged agony arced around the side of his head. From somewhere quite close, he heard Miss Jarvis say, “You were right. It was a trap.”
He opened his eyes.
He found himself staring at a stone groined vault high above where he lay. The stones were old and worn, and stained with damp. Turning his head ever so carefully, he was able to see a row of thick, crude pillars holding up the roof and the no-nonsense face of Miss Jarvis.
He groaned again and closed his eyes. “Where the hell are we?”
“I’m not entirely certain what this place was originally. At first I thought it might be the crypt of one of the churches or chapels Somerset pulled down to build his palace. But more likely it’s simply a storeroom or cellar from one of the medieval bishops’ palaces he also tore down.”
Sebastian brought up a hand to probe gingerly at the back of his head. “And why precisely are we here?”
“I am told the vault floods when the tide comes in.”
He opened his eyes again, his hand falling. He realized he was lying on a wide, elevated stone ledge some three feet off the ground that ran along as much of the crypt wall as he could see. She sat perched on the edge of the ledge beside him. She was hunched forward, her arms crossed at her waist, her hands hugging her elbows in close. From the way she had her jaw set, he suspected she was having to try very, very hard to keep control of herself. He realized her veiled hat was gone, her sleeve torn. However she had come to be here with him, she obviously had not come without a fight.
“What happened?” he asked.
She rocked gently back and forth in a movement so subtle he doubted that she even knew she was doing it. “I waited for you for about five minutes, but you never came back. Just as I was trying to decide what to do, a gentleman walked out of the Cock and M
agpie and asked if I needed help.”
“A gentleman?”
“Most definitely a gentleman. He was both well dressed and well spoken. Just like the gentleman with the gig on the road from Richmond.”
“And?” he prompted.
“I wheeled my horse, meaning to flee. But he reached up and grabbed my reins just above the bit. And then he pulled a pistol on me.”
“In a respectable neighborhood in broad daylight.”
“Quite,” she said evenly. “I freely admit to deserving any and all reproaches you care to heap upon my head. It was a trap.”
He might not like Hero Jarvis, but there was much that he found he did, reluctantly, admire about her. And so he surprised himself by saying gently, “We all make mistakes.”
She raised her head to look at him. “When they dragged me down here—”
“They?”
“Yes. Another man joined us in the garden. They had simply dumped you at the foot of the steps. I thought you were dead.”
“What steps?” he said, trying to sit up.
She turned to help him. “Do you think that’s wise?”
“What time does the tide come in? Any idea?”
“It’s been running at about half past five, I think.”
“And what time is it now?”
“You can hear the bells of St. Clements down here. They just tolled three.”
Sebastian had aborted his attempt to stand and contented himself with sitting, slumped, while he regained his breath. He said, “If I was on the floor, how did I end up on the ledge?”
“I requested they pick you up and put you on the ledge. They ridiculed me for it, but in the end they did it.”
He could imagine her high-handed orders to her captors, the men’s laughing compliance. She said, “They also left the lantern at my request. I told them I was afraid of rats.”
His gaze fell to the simple tin lantern with horn windows at their feet, its single tallow candle spilling a faint golden glow that left the farthest reaches of the chamber in darkness. “Are there rats?”
“I haven’t seen any.”
The giddiness was beginning to recede. He said, “Tell me about the steps.”
“They’re there, just to our right. They’re barred by an iron gate at the base and a stout wooden door at the top.”
He could see them now, worn shadowy steps disappearing upward. He lurched to his feet and reached for the lantern. She got to it first.
“If you insist on inspecting the gate, I’ll carry the lantern. If you drop it, I’ve no way to rekindle the candle and neither do you.”
“How do you know I’ve no tinderbox?”
“I checked your pockets.”
He clapped a hand to the capacious pocket of his groom’s coat. His pistol was gone. With difficulty, he overcame the impulse to swear long and crudely.
The gate covered an arched opening some four feet wide. Built of iron, with thick vertical bars braced top and bottom by stout crosspieces, it looked newly installed, without a trace of rust. A thick chain had been wrapped around the bars twice, then secured by a heavy padlock well beyond his reach. He clasped both hands around one of the iron bars and pushed. Its solidity mocked him.
She said, “I did check it. It’s quite strong.”
He tested each bar and crosspiece himself, just to be certain, but he doubted even the strength of ten men could dislodge them. Breathing heavily again, he leaned against the gate, his gaze on the stairwell it protected. From here he could see that the steps led up to a stout wooden door set into a corbeled arch at the top. He said, “There was a woman in the house. A young woman. Did you see her?”
Miss Jarvis shook her head. “They never took me into the house. These steps lead down from an alcove in the garden wall near the river.”
He could see a point, some ten or twelve steps up, where the stonework used for the steps changed, became darker, less worn, as if it were of more recent construction. He’d heard tales of the building of the old Somerset House by Edward Seymour, about how he’d appropriated land occupied by the inns of the Bishops of Chester and Lichfield, Coventry and Worcester. The old bishops’ palaces had been pulled down, their building materials either reused or dumped as fill to raise the height of the garden for a terrace.
“Let me see the lantern,” he said, reaching for it.
“Are you quite certain you’re—”
“I’m fine.” Holding the lantern aloft, he explored the crypt. Built of worked sandstone blocks, it was a space some forty-five to fifty feet long and five bays wide, the ceiling vaults supported on rows of squat, plain pillars. One end was neatly walled off with a darker sandstone that reminded him of the upper steps. At the other end, the far reaches of the chamber disappeared beneath a cascade of rubble.
He played the lantern light over the jumble of stones, some rough, others shaped but broken. Here and there he saw glimpses of carvings, of scrollwork and carefully incised patterns.
“That’s where the river is,” she said, coming to stand beside him.
“How far?”
“Some ten or twelve feet, I’d say.”
So much for any wild schemes of digging through the rubble to freedom.
“I’ve seen engravings of the Thames from the days when the bishops’ palaces stretched from the river to the Strand,” she said. “Some of them were constructed over arches that opened to the river. Barges used to come up the river and then pull in under the arches to unload. It could be that’s what this is from.”
“So maybe it won’t flood completely,” he said, his head falling back as he studied the worn stone of the ceiling vaults.
“I suspect they tested the theory before they left us down here to die,” she said drily.
He glanced over at her. She’d kept pace with him as he prowled the crypt, her hands still clutching her elbows in close to her sides. He said, “Why leave us down here? Why not simply kill us outright?”
She squared her shoulders. “As I understand it, their intention is to throw our bodies in the river. Make it look as if we suffered an accident. Any autopsy would simply show that we’d drowned, wouldn’t it?”
“Why would they care whether or not it was obvious we were murdered?”
“That I don’t know.”
He met her gaze. Her eyes were dilated so wide they looked black. “I don’t intend to drown,” he said, turning back toward the steps.
She trailed after him—or, more exactly, after the light. “Well, that’s reassuring.”
He laughed softly, the lantern making a chink as he set it down on the stone paving. “We could try shouting.”
“I did. Do you have any idea how much earth there is on top of us?”
He was trying not to think about that.
“Where are you going?” she asked as he headed back toward the rubble wall.
He selected a massive chunk of what looked like a broken ionic capital from some long-ago despoiled church. Bending his knees and grunting, he hoisted it to his chest, his head swimming sickeningly. She watched, silent, as he staggered back toward the gate and heaved it at the padlocked chain. It clattered against the iron, then crashed to the stone floor. The chained gate held firm.