by C. S. Harris
Chapter 49
Ciorgio Donatelli hurried home through the early afternoon rain, a loaf of bread under one arm. Ducking beneath his front door’s shallow overhang, he was fumbling with his keys when Sebastian moved up behind him.
“Here. Allow me,” said Sebastian, reaching past the stiffening Italian to push open the door.
“Mother of God,” whispered Donatelli, his face paling as the bread started to slip from his grasp. “Not you again.”
Sebastian caught the bread just before it hit the stoop, and gave the artist a wide smile. “Let’s have a little chat, shall we?”
“You didn’t tell me you and Rachel were lovers,” said Sebastian.
Donatelli sat in a worn, tapestry-covered armchair beside the parlor fire, his elbows on his knees, his dark curly head sunk into his hands. He lifted his head slowly, his jaw hardening. “I know this country of yours, the way you English are about foreigners.”
Sebastian stood on the far side of the room, his shoulders against the wall, his arms crossed at his chest. He knew his nation, too, knew its arrogance and its fears and its willingness to blame anyone foreign, without due process or anything even vaguely approaching rational thought. Donatelli was right; if the authorities had known the Italian was Rachel’s lover, it would have been Donatelli they’d have moved to arrest, however much the evidence might have pointed to Sebastian.
“I’ve heard Rachel was planning to leave London,” said Sebastian. “Did you know?”
Donatelli surged to his feet, his dark eyes flashing. “What are you suggesting? That she was planning to leave me? That I flew into a jealous rage when I found out and killed her? Mother of God, of course I knew. She was carrying my baby!”
Sebastian held himself very still. “So you were both planning to leave? Is that it? Why? After years of struggling you’re finally being offered more commissions than you can handle, while Rachel had a promising career ahead of her on the London stage. Why would either of you want to throw all that away?”
Donatelli went to stand beside the hearth, one hand resting on the mantel, his gaze on the fire. After a moment, he let his breath out in a long sigh, and it was as if he let go all his rage with it. “We were going to Italy. To Rome. Rachel . . . Rachel was afraid of something. I don’t know what. She wouldn’t tell me what it was. She said it was better I didn’t know.”
“But you knew she was passing whatever information she picked up from her lovers to the French via Pierrepont.”
Donatelli nodded, his lip curling in disdain. “It’s amazing the things men will let slip in an effort to impress a beautiful woman.”
Sebastian studied the other man’s strong profile. He wondered at the sanguinity with which the painter could discuss the woman he loved flirting with other men, perhaps even coaxing them into her bed in her quest for information. “Did you know she stole a collection of documents from Pierrepont?”
Donatelli nodded, his gaze still fixed on the glowing goals. “God forgive me, I even helped her. Last Sunday, while Pierrepont was in the country, I distracted the butler while she slipped into Pierrepont’s library. She knew right where he kept them, in a secret compartment in the mantelpiece. He’d had just such a hiding place contrived for her, you see, in her rooms in Dorset Court.”
“Exactly how many documents did she take?”
Donatelli shrugged. “I know there was an envelope containing some half dozen of Lord Frederick’s letters, but that wasn’t all. I think she was planning to contact three or four different people. I don’t know for sure. I didn’t want any part of it. I told her it was dangerous, what she was doing, that it was like blackmail. But she said it wasn’t, that the people she was selling those papers to would be glad to get them.” His voice trailed away into a tortured whisper. “I was afraid something like this would happen.”
“And yet you went looking for the papers yourself, when you knew she was dead,” said Sebastian. He was remembering what Kat had told him, about the young man who’d searched Rachel’s rooms the morning after her death. The young man with a key.
Donatelli glanced around, dark color staining his high cheekbones. “I was afraid—afraid that whoever had killed Rachel would come after me, too. I thought maybe if I had the documents, if I could give them to him . . .”
“Give them to whom?” said Sebastian sharply. “Pierrepont? Do you think he knew it was Rachel who took the papers from his house?”
“Perhaps. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d noticed something was wrong these last few weeks. She wasn’t herself.”
“Because of what she was doing for Pierrepont?”
“I don’t think so. She was proud of what she did, of the part she was playing in the fight to bring republicanism and social justice to this country. But then . . .”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know. It was as if someone was making her do something she didn’t want to do, something that frightened her. When she found out about the baby . . .” His voice broke and he had to swallow. “She decided we needed to leave. That’s when she came up with the idea of taking the documents from Pierrepont and selling them, so we’d have money to start over in Rome.”
“Do you think someone discovered she was passing secrets to the French?”
Donatelli swung away from the fireplace, his clenched hands coming up to press against his lips. “I’m not sure. Perhaps. It might have had something to do with that Whig—the one they were saying would be named Prime Minister when the Prince becomes Regent tomorrow.”
“You mean Lord Frederick?”
“Yes, that’s the one,” said Donatelli. “Lord Frederick Fairchild. Pierrepont was using Rachel in a scheme to try to control him.” He let his hands fall to his sides. “You have heard, haven’t you? About Pierrepont?”
Sebastian shook his head, aware of a deep tremor of disquiet. “What about Pierrepont?”
“The government has moved against him. He’s been denounced as a spy, his house raided.”
Sebastian shoved away from the wall. “And Pierrepont himself? Is he under arrest?”
“No. Either he’s very lucky, or someone warned him in advance, because he fled. They say he’s already left London.” Donatelli’s lips twisted into a wry smile. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? All that scheming to entrap a man who won’t even be Prime Minister.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“You are very poorly informed, are you not? It was announced this morning. The Prince has decided not to ask the Whigs to form a government. The Tories will remain in power.”
By the time Sebastian reached Lord Frederick’s townhouse on George Street, the rain had slowed to a light drizzle.
A pattern was beginning to emerge, he thought, a tangled web of plot and counterplot. The key features might still be blurred and indistinct, but they were coming more and more into focus.
Raising his hand, Sebastian beat a sharp tattoo on the townhouse door. “A Mr. Simon Taylor,” he said when the door swung inward to reveal a somber butler with ruddy cheeks, an impressive girth, and the requisite expression of haughty disdain, “to see Lord Frederick.”
The man’s features remained admirably bland as he took in the full insult of Sebastian’s Rosemary Lane breeches and coat, now soaking wet from the rain, and smeared here and there with malodorous muck from his run through the back alleys and stews of the city. The butler’s first instinct, obviously, was to send such a visitor to the service entrance. But there must have been something about Sebastian’s demeanor and calm self-confidence that gave the butler pause. He hesitated, then said, “Is his lordship expecting you?”
“He should be. I am Rachel York’s cousin.”
The man gave a rarified sniff. “Wait here,” he said, and turned toward the hall. . . .
Just as the sharp boom of a pistol shot reverberated on the far side of the closed library door.
Chapter 50
Sir Henry Lovejoy was at his desk, dozing lightly after a pleasan
t meal of steak and kidney pie at the corner tavern, when he was jerked awake by his clerk’s apologetic hiss.
“Sir Henry?” said Collins, his bald head appearing around the door frame. “There’s a lady here to see you. A lady who refuses to give her name.”
Lovejoy could see her now, a delicately built young woman fashionably dressed in a redingote of soft blue with a matching, heavily veiled round hat. She waited until the clerk had reluctantly withdrawn, then lifted her veil to reveal the pale, troubled features of Melanie Talbot.
“Mrs. Talbot.” Lovejoy pushed hastily to his feet. “You need not have put yourself to the trouble of coming here. If you’d sent a message—”
“No,” she said with more force then he would have expected. She looked fragile, this woman, with her fine bone structure and slight frame and sad eyes, but she was not. “I’ve waited too long as it is. I should have told the truth from the very beginning.” She sucked in a deep breath, then said in a rush, “Devlin was with me the night that girl was killed.”
Lovejoy came around his desk, one hand outstretched to usher his visitor toward a chair. “Mrs. Talbot, I understand your desire to help the Viscount, but believe me when I say that this is entirely unnecessary—”
“Unnecessary?” She jerked away from him, her blue eyes flashing with unexpected fire. “What do you think? That I’m making this up? John swore he’d kill me if he ever found out I’d seen Sebastian again. Do you think I would risk that? For a lie?”
Lovejoy stopped, his hand falling to his side, all the old doubts about this case blooming anew within him. “What are you saying? That you met Lord Devlin last Tuesday evening despite your husband’s prohibition?”
She went to stand before the window overlooking the square. “John told me about the duel—bragged about it, about how he was going to kill Sebastian.”
“So you . . . what? Thought to warn his lordship that your husband intended to shoot to kill? Surely his lordship was aware of that?”
She shook her head, her lips curling up unexpectedly into a wry smile. “John could never have bested Sebastian. I went to Sebastian to secure his promise that he would not kill my husband.”
She swung away from the window. “That surprises you, does it?” she said when Lovejoy only stared at her. “You think that if I were truly miserable with my husband I would have been glad to be rid of him in whatever way possible. You don’t understand what it’s like for a woman. As difficult as my life is, John is all I have. My father would never take me back. If anything happens to my husband, I’ll be left destitute. On the streets. I couldn’t face that.”
“Where did you meet with Lord Devlin?”
“In a quiet corner of the park. I don’t think anyone saw us. I swear, all we did was talk. But even if John could be brought to believe that, it wouldn’t matter. He’d—” Her voice cracked and she broke off.
Lovejoy watched her slim throat work as she swallowed. There were bruises there, he realized, nearly hidden by the lace edging of her dress. Four bruises in the shape of a man’s fingerprints. “What time was this?”
“From half past five until just before eight.”
It must have taken a considerable effort, Lovejoy thought, for Captain John Talbot’s beautiful young wife to convince Lord Devlin not to kill her abusive husband. But if she were telling the truth, it would have been virtually impossible for Devlin to have made it to the Lady Chapel of St. Matthew of the Fields in Westminster in time to kill Rachel York either before or after his meeting with Mrs. Talbot.
If she were telling the truth.
Lovejoy fixed her with a hard stare. “What made you decide to come forward with this now?”
A hint of color touched her pale cheeks. “I should have told you the truth before. But Sebastian had sent me a note, through my sister.” Opening her reticule, she drew forth a torn, creased piece of paper and handed it to Lovejoy. “He warned me to keep silent. I kept hoping you’d realize that it was all a mistake, your thinking Sebastian was somehow involved in that woman’s death, that I wouldn’t need to say anything. That John need never know. . . .”
Lovejoy stared down at the hastily written words on the scrap of paper. The ink was smudged, as if with tears. “There is no need for you to say anything.”
“What?” She shook her head, her eyes wide, not comprehending. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that there is no point for you to put yourself at risk by coming forward with this information. Thanks to the duel, your association with Lord Devlin is well known and the worst possible implications have been read into it. It will simply be assumed that you’ve made this story up, that you are lying to protect the man you love.”
“But it’s the truth.” Her narrowed eyes searched his face. “You believe me, don’t you?”
“As a man, here and now, I would probably say yes. But as a judge, weighing your testimony against the other evidence in court?” He shrugged. “I think not.”
“But that’s absurd.”
Lovejoy tucked the Viscount’s note into his pocket. “That’s the law.”
Chapter 51
Lord Frederick’s butler seized the brass handle of the library door, his eyes going wide. “It’s locked.”
Sebastian thrust the man aside and kicked out hard. The wood splintered beneath his boot heel and the door slammed open against the wall with a shattering crash.
The room beyond lay in semidarkness. The fire in the grate had been allowed to burn low, and someone had drawn the heavy brocade drapes across the windows. The only light came from a flickering brass oil lamp on the desk, the frosted glass shade casting a soft glow over what was left of Lord Frederick Fairchild.
He lay sprawled back at an unnatural angle in his desk chair, one hand dangling limply toward the carpet. Blood was everywhere—on the polished wooden desktop, on the tufted leather chair, the bookcases and paneled walls beyond. Sebastian thought, at first, that the man who had killed Rachel York and Mary Grant must somehow have made it here to this house before him. Then his gaze fell on the neat little ivory-handled pistol still gripped in Lord Frederick’s clenched hand, and he understood.
Swiping a trickle of mingling rainwater and sweat from his face, Sebastian crossed the room’s Oriental carpet to jerk open the drapes at the windows overlooking the rear garden. The pale light of a rainy winter’s afternoon suffused the room. Fairchild had held the pistol’s muzzle against his temple, shattering the right side of his head into a bloody, pulpy mess. Sebastian was just turning from the window when the man’s chest jerked, his mouth opening as he sucked in air and breathed. He’d blown away the better part of the side of his skull, so that Sebastian could see the shiver of the man’s brain beneath the white bone of his skull and the torn, bloody flesh of his scalp. But he wasn’t dead yet.
“Merciful heavens,” said the butler with a startled gasp, one fist pressing against his lips as he fled the room. From the hall came the sound of someone violently retching.
Lord Frederick took another labored breath. “Should have put the damned muzzle in my mouth,” he whispered.
Sebastian hunkered down beside him. “Do you know who I am?”
A flicker of recognition showed in the man’s eyes. “He had one of my letters. One of my letters to Wesley.”
“Who? Who has the letters?”
“Jarvis.” The man’s shattered head moved restlessly against the bloody leather of his chair. “Showed it to the Prince. Said it had been found amongst Leo Pierrepont’s papers . . . that I was working with Pierrepont to go behind the Prince’s back and make peace with France.” His next breath rattled in his throat. “Not true. Never betrayed my country. Never would . . .”
“But the Prince believed it?”
The man’s eyes squeezed shut as if in a spasm of pain, his voice fading. “Jarvis . . . Jarvis said if I didn’t go quietly, he’d see the letter was made public. Couldn’t let Elizabeth . . . My little girl . . . Ruin her.”
Sebastian leaned forward, one hand wrapping around the chair’s leather-padded arm. “The letter—how did Jarvis get it?”
Fairchild’s eyes stared back at him, wide and sightless.
Sebastian sat back on his heels, his hand still gripping the chair’s arm. He became aware, suddenly, of the insistent shrill of a constable’s whistle and the butler’s voice shouting, “There. He’s in there. In the library.”
Sebastian was on his feet, tossing up one of the rear windows, when he heard the sound of running footsteps crossing the marbled hall. He threw one leg over the windowsill.
“You there! Stop! Stop, I say!”
Slipping through the window, Sebastian landed lightly in a bed of wet, freeze-browned foliage and darkly sodden earth, and broke into a run.
Charles, Lord Jarvis, startled his valet by returning to Berkeley Square shortly before four that afternoon. He wasn’t a physically vain man, Jarvis, but the events at Carlton House that evening would be particularly momentous. And in an age that placed inordinate importance upon appearance, a wise man attended to such things.
Donning knee breeches and silk stockings with a swallow-tailed coat, he resisted his valet’s efforts to lighten his florid complexion with a hint of powder, and made his way downstairs to his library. Jarvis might keep chambers in St. James’s Palace and Carlton House, but his most important papers were here, in Berkeley Square.
He had to admit that he’d been mildly worried at one point, that the sensational manner of that girl’s death might create difficulties. But in the end all had gone off essentially as planned. The looming danger of a Whig government had been averted; Perceval and the Tories would remain in power and the war against atheism, republicanism, and the forces of evil would continue.