Chapter 41
Sir Humphrey Carmichael was seated at his elegant desk at the Bank, his head bent over some ledgers, when Sebastian walked in and slapped a sheet of paper on the blotter before him.
“What the hell is this?” Carmichael demanded, looking up.
Sebastian went to stand with his back to the window overlooking the street. “It’s a list of the passengers and officers of the Harmony. You do see the pattern, I presume?”
A muscle jumped along Carmichael’s jaw, but he said nothing.
Sebastian leaned against the edge of the windowsill and crossed his arms at his chest. “You didn’t tell me you and Lord Stanton were once shipmates.”
Carmichael settled back in his chair, his lower lip curling in disdain. “What do you think? That I discuss the details of my private life with anyone who should happen to express an interest in them?”
“I think that for once in your life, you’ve found yourself in a situation you can’t control.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you? Did you hear that Captain Bellamy is dead?”
“I had heard.”
“The tale is he fell in the river. I suppose it’s even possible, given the way he’s been drinking lately. But I suspect suicide is the more likely explanation. It must be a difficult thing to live with, knowing your actions in the past have led directly to the death of your only son.”
“Get out,” said Carmichael, his voice shaking with raw anger. “Get out of my office.”
Sebastian stayed where he was, his gaze on the other man’s livid face. “What really happened on that ship?”
“It’s no mystery. The story was in all the papers.”
“Your version of the story.”
“There is no other.”
“Really? That’s not what Jack Parker’s brother says. You do remember Jack Parker, don’t you? Your testimony helped to hang him. Except it seems that according to Jack Parker, Lord Jarvis’s son, David, wasn’t hurt in the mutiny after all. David Jarvis was alive and well when the crew left the ship.”
Carmichael shoved to his feet. “They left us to starve. How can you believe anything one of those blackguards said?”
“Men with a rope around their necks don’t usually lie.”
Carmichael calmly resumed his seat and pulled the ledger toward him. “I’m a busy man, my lord. Kindly close the door on your way out.”
Sebastian pushed away from the windowsill. But he paused at the door to look back and say, “By the way, you wouldn’t happen to remember the name of the Harmony’s cabin boy, would you?”
Carmichael’s head came up, all color slowly draining from his face. He sucked in a deep breath, but all he said was, “No. No, I wouldn’t.”
Sebastian was leaving the Bank, headed up Threadneedle Street, when he heard his father’s deep baritone call peremptorily, “Devlin.”
Sebastian looked around as the Earl’s ponderous town carriage drew up, its crested door swinging open. “Step up,” said Hendon. “I’d like a word with you.” As if sensing Sebastian’s hesitation, Hendon growled, “This isn’t about your bloody aunt Henrietta and her matrimonial machinations. Now step up, will you?”
Sebastian laughed and leapt up beside his father.
“Why didn’t you tell me someone tried to kill you on the Thames the other day?” Hendon demanded without preamble.
“How did you hear about that?”
Hendon pressed his lips together in a tight frown. “It’s because of what you were asking about the other day. These murders. Isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Hendon’s chest swelled. “Damn it, Devlin. What kind of pastime is this for a man of your birth and station? Mixing with the lowest dregs of society? Nosing around for information like some common village constable?”
Sebastian kept his own voice steady. “We’ve been through all this before, sir.”
Hendon worked his lower jaw back and forth in thought. “You’re bored—is that it?”
“Not exactly—”
“Because if it is, there’s no denying the Foreign Office could use a man with your talents. I don’t need to elaborate. I know what you did in the Army.” He paused. When Sebastian said nothing, he added gruffly, “We are still at war, remember?”
“I remember.”
“Napoleon has a new spymaster in London, replacing Pierrepont. Did you know that?”
“I had assumed he would.”
Hendon sat forward. “Yes, but whereas we knew of Pierrepont and could keep an eye on those he contacted, this man’s identity continues to elude us.”
Sebastian stared out the window at a ragged boy sweeping manure from the crossing. His next step, Sebastian had decided, would be to pay a visit to Lord Stanton—
“Devlin. Did you hear what I said? Even if Jarvis is able to persuade this actress to betray Napoleon’s man, your contribution to—”
“What?” Sebastian brought his gaze back to his father’s face. “What actress?”
“I don’t know her name. I gather she was passing information to Pierrepont before he fled the country last winter. Jarvis has given her until tonight to give up the man’s name or suffer the consequences.”
Sebastian’s hand tightened around the swaying carriage strap beside him. He was only dimly aware of his father’s voice continuing. A succession of images from last February flickered through Sebastian’s memory: Kat holding out a red leather book she’d somehow known to retrieve from its hiding place…Kat dressed in black, her face pale after Rachel York’s funeral…
Kat as she’d been these last few days, nervous and afraid.
“Devlin. Are you listening to me?”
Sebastian sat forward abruptly. “Tell your coachman to draw up.”
“What? What are you doing?” Hendon demanded as Sebastian thrust open the carriage door. “Devlin.”
Chapter 42
Charles, Lord Jarvis leaned forward to study the row of hieroglyphs emblazoned against the brilliantly painted red and green tones of the sarcophagus. “Late seventh or sixth century B.C. wouldn’t you say?”
He turned to the curator at his elbow, a painfully thin man whose shrunken skin and bony features reminded Jarvis of the Egyptian mummies the scholar had dedicated his life to studying. “I’d say so, yes,” agreed the curator, clearing his throat.
The sarcophagus was part of a shipment of Egyptian artifacts only recently arrived at the British Museum, and Lord Jarvis was amongst the first in London to see them. His passion for Egyptology was one of the few distractions from statecraft Jarvis allowed himself.
He turned to the enigmatic statue of a cat displayed on a nearby plinth, its eyes, ears, and collar picked out in gold. “Ah. Lovely. Just lovely.”
The sound of footsteps echoing through the empty corridors brought the curator’s head around, his features twisted by a look of annoyance mingled with nervousness. When Jarvis requested a private showing, he did not like to be disturbed. “Sir. The museum does not open to the public again until Octo—”
“Leave us,” said Viscount Devlin, pausing in the doorway to the chamber, his fierce yellow gaze focusing on the curator.
The curator opened and closed his mouth several times, then scuttled away.
Jarvis uttered a bored sigh. “I trust you have a good reason for this interruption, Lord Devlin.”
He was already turning back to the sarcophagus when the Viscount moved, so rapidly as to be but a blur at the periphery of Jarvis’s vision.
Jarvis was a large man, tall and bulky with years of comfortable living. Yet by reaching across to grab a handful of Jarvis’s waistcoat, Devlin managed to bring him spinning back around. Jarvis saw the flash of a blade, felt cold steel at his throat.
“Very well,” he said dryly. “You have my full attention. Now what is this about?”
“I know you’ve threatened Kat Boleyn,” said Devlin, his lips peeling back from his teeth as he spit out
each word. “And I know why. But if you want the name of Napoleon’s new spymaster in London, you’re going to have to find another way to get it.”
“If you think—” Jarvis began.
Devlin cut him off with a quick jerk of the knife that caused the edge of the blade to nick Jarvis’s flesh. “No. The matter is not open for discussion. I’m here to tell you the new situation. All you do is listen.”
Jarvis felt rage boil up within him, hot and impotent. He held it in check.
“By this time next week, Kat Boleyn will be my wife. You make a move to harm her or threaten her again in any way and I’ll kill you. It’s as simple as that. You know I’m a man of my word, and you know I’ll do it. I trust I make myself clear.”
Jarvis returned the man’s hard stare.
“Of course,” Devlin continued, “you could try to have me killed. But I don’t think you’re that stupid. The consequences for you if your lackey were to fail would be fatal.”
With one smooth motion, Devlin withdrew the knife from Jarvis’s throat and stepped back. It was with difficulty that Jarvis resisted the urge to bring his hands up to his throat.
The Viscount was already crossing the room. Jarvis stopped him before he reached the door. “You would do that? You would marry that traitorous whore?”
The Viscount’s hand moved. Jarvis felt a passing breath of air, followed by an ugly thwunk as the blade sank into the wood of the sarcophagus behind him.
“Call her that again,” said Devlin, “and the next knife bites flesh.”
Sebastian found her in the shadows near the stage door. The air was heavy with the scent of dust and greasepaint. She had the hood of her cloak drawn up as if she were cold. Her pale face and haunted eyes were those of a woman with no hope, no future.
He walked up to her and put his hands on her shoulders. What she must have seen in his eyes caused the little color she had left in her face to drain away.
“I know why you’ve been afraid,” he said. “It’s over now. Jarvis won’t bother you again.”
He felt her tremble beneath his hands. “God save us. Please tell me you didn’t kill him.”
“Not yet. But I think I’ve convinced him of the folly of threatening my wife.”
“Your wife?”
“I’ve found a bishop who’s agreed to marry us by special license on Monday evening at seven. I pushed for sooner, but he insists he has other engagements.”
“You can’t marry me.”
“You’ve been saying that for months, and I’ve respected it. But no longer. This is why you refused me before, isn’t it? Because of your arrangement with the French.”
She drew in a breath that shuddered her chest. “Oh, God. Partially. But only partially, Devlin. You know what I am, what I have been. An actress. A whore—”
He pressed his fingers to her lips. “Don’t. Don’t say it.”
She stared up at him. “Why not? It’s the truth. Would you have me live a lie?”
“No. I would have you live a life defined not by what you’ve been, but by what you are.”
“My past is a part of what I am.”
“A part. But only a part.”
He slid his hands down her shoulders to capture her hands in his. “Marry me, Kat. It’s the only way I can truly keep you safe. As Kat Boleyn, actress, you will always be vulnerable. As the future Countess of Hendon, no one would dare move against you.”
“Your father—”
“Will adjust in time. Or not.”
Her hands twisted beneath his. “How can I knowingly cause an estrangement between you?”
He gave a wry smile. “In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s already an estrangement between us.”
“Society—”
“Society be damned. You think I care what Society might think of me?”
“No. I know you do not. But I care.”
“Why?”
“This marriage would ruin you.”
“Losing you would ruin me. I’m not taking no for an answer, Kat,” he added quietly when she only stared at him with wide, bruised-looking eyes. “I listened to you before and almost lost you. I can’t risk losing you again.”
“You think this marriage will protect me from Jarvis?”
“Yes. Nothing I could do or say would signal to him more clearly my intention to keep you safe.”
She was silent for so long he knew a quiet blooming of fear. Then she swallowed hard, her chin jerking up. “It’s true, you know. I did pass information to the French. For years.”
“Do you still?”
“No. Not since February.”
“Then I don’t care.”
Her mouth parted silently, her forehead knitting with confusion. He knew she couldn’t understand him, would never be able to understand how his experiences in the war had affected him in this way.
He ran one thumb across the back of her hand. “You did it for Ireland, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then how could you think I would hold your love of your country against you?” He brought her hands to his lips. “I’m frightened by the fact you put yourself at risk. And I’m hurt because you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth, even before the threat from Jarvis. But my love for you is undiminished, Kat. It always will be.”
A tear escaped from the edge of one eye to roll silently down her cheek. “I don’t deserve this kind of love,” she whispered. “This kind of devotion.”
He gave her a tender, crooked smile. “I intend to spend a lifetime convincing you that you do. The notice of our approaching nuptials will be in the morning papers.”
A shadow crossed her face. “Then there’s something else you must do tonight.”
“What is that?”
“Tell your father.”
Chapter 43
There was a heavy mist that night that brought with it the crisp scent of outlying, newly plowed fields and the distant briny hint of the North Sea. Finding his father gone from his Grosvenor Square home, Sebastian walked the boisterous length of St. James’s, a purposeful and solitary figure. The street rang with the clip-clop of horses’ hooves, the laughter of gentlemen lurching along the footpath in evening dress or calling to one another from passing curricles. He visited first one gentleman’s club, then the next, until he came upon the Earl of Hendon in the reading room of White’s, a book open on one knee, a glass of brandy on the table at his elbow.
Sebastian paused in the doorway. His father sat with his head bowed, his attention all for the volume before him. Hendon had no patience for the likes of Plato or Plautus, Euripides or Virgil. But he had great respect for the works of the Roman statesmen, from Cicero and Pliny the Elder to Julius Caesar himself, and he often spent his evenings thus, reading. In the gentle pool of golden light cast by the oil lamp beside him, he looked much like the father of Sebastian’s childhood, in the years before his brothers’ deaths and his mother’s disappearance.
Remembering those days now, Sebastian felt a pain building in his chest and sought to ease it with a sigh. The relationship between the Earl of Hendon and his last surviving son had never been a comfortable one. But through it all—through the anger and hurt and confusion—Sebastian’s love for his father had endured.
And so it was with a heavy weight of sorrow and no small measure of apprehension that Sebastian crossed the carpet to his father’s side. “Come walk with me. There’s something we must discuss.”
Glancing up, Hendon met his son’s eyes for one long moment, then slipped a marker in his book and stood. “I’ll get my cloak and walking stick.”
Side by side, they walked lamp-lit pavements gleaming with damp, a heavy silence between them. At last Sebastian said, “I wanted to tell you in person that I’ve sent a notice to the Morning Post.”
Hendon’s gaze swiveled toward him, and Sebastian knew by the narrowing of his father’s eyes and the sudden slackness of his jaw that Hendon understood what Sebastian was about to say.
The Earl’s voice was an explosion of sound that startled a dappled gray between the shafts of a passing hackney. “Good God. Don’t tell me you’ve actually done it.”
“Not yet. Monday evening at seven, by special license. I don’t expect your blessing. But I would wish for your acceptance.”
“My acceptance?” Hendon’s lips twisted into a snarl. “Never.”
Sebastian set his jaw. “Nevertheless, it will happen whether you accept it or not. There’s nothing you can do to stop it.”
“I swear to God, I’ll disinherit you. All you’ll get from me is what is not within my power to withhold from you. The title and the entailed estates.”
“I expected as much.”
“Did you, by God?”
Sebastian studied his father’s dark, contorted face. “And would you respect me, I wonder, if I allowed such a consideration to dissuade me?”
Hendon’s fist tightened around his walking stick. Then, to Sebastian’s surprise, the Earl’s jowly features softened for one brief instant. It was as if the fury momentarily ebbed, allowing a glimpse of the hurt and disappointment that fed it.
“Sebastian,” said his father, disconcerting him, for it was rare that Hendon called him by his given name rather than his title. “For God’s sake, think this through.”
“You think I have not? This is what I have wanted for years. As well you know.”
Hendon’s features hardened. “I’ll never regret what I did seven years ago.”
Sebastian met his father’s fierce gaze. “You did what you thought was right. I understand that now.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. But that doesn’t mean it was right. You were wrong about Kat—as she showed when she rejected the money you offered her.”
“Was I wrong about her? Then why the devil has she agreed to this? Doesn’t she understand what this marriage will do to you? For God’s sake, Devlin! Consider the consequences. You’ll be an outcast from everything familiar to you. Turned away from your clubs. Shunned by your friends. And for what? The love of a woman? Do you think your love so strong that it can survive the realization that you’ve allowed it to destroy your life?”
Why Mermaids Sing Page 15