by C. S. Harris
They were a common enough sight in London these days. After some twenty years of nearly continuous warfare, there was hardly a child in England who hadn’t grown up with the sight of soldiers marching in the roads, of wagon after wagon piled high with kegs of powder and boxes of muskets heading for the wharves where they’d be loaded onto ships bound for the Peninsula and the West Indies, India, and the South Seas.
Only, this powder wasn’t heading toward the coast. It was disappearing into the cellar of the inn Lady Anglessey was thought to have visited the very day she died. And that was something Tom—after several moments of quiet argument with himself—decided he couldn’t ignore.
He didn’t need the echoing memory of Lord Devlin’s warnings to tell him these men were dangerous. Tom had spent enough time on the streets—at first with Huey, then alone—to know danger when he saw it. Sometimes he imagined Huey was still with him, a kind of guardian angel watching out for him, warning him of danger. He thought he could feel Huey at his shoulder, now, telling him not to go into that alley.
“I gotta do it, Huey,” Tom whispered. “You know I gotta.”
He crept closer, his back pressed against the rough brick of the wall beside him, the dank, stale air of the alley thick in his nostrils. Another man had come out of the inn, a big, bald-headed man with African features whom Tom recognized as the innkeeper himself, Caleb Carter.
Carter and the man in the greatcoat were talking. Lowering his body until he was bent almost double, his footfalls soft in the damp earth of the alleyway, Tom ventured even closer.
“There was supposed to be two wagons,” said the innkeeper, his bald head shining in the light thrown by the lamp behind him. “What happened?”
Not even daring to breathe, Tom crouched behind a pile of warped old boards and broken window frames.
“This is it. They say it’ll be enough.”
The innkeeper turned his head sideways and spat. “If there’s resistance—”
“There won’t be,” said the man in the greatcoat, stepping into the rectangular shaft of light thrown by the inn’s open doorway.
Tom could see him now. He was a small man, slightly built, with longish, pale yellow hair and a thin face. His clothes were definitely those of a gentleman, and Tom wondered what he was doing, supervising the unloading of a cart like some common workman.
“This is just a precaution,” said the blond man. “It’ll be 1688 all over again.”
Carter grunted. “From what I hear, they mighta called that the Bloodless Revolution, but you know it really wasn’t. Not by a long shot.”
From someplace out in the street came a sudden popping explosion followed by children’s laughter, as if someone had set off a firecracker. It was so unexpected, and Tom’s nerves so raw, that he startled, his foot involuntarily shifting sideways to crunch on a piece of broken glass.
The blond gentleman swung around, one hand flying to his greatcoat pocket. “What was that?”
The innkeeper took a step forward. Tom imagined he could hear Huey screaming, Run, Tom! But Tom didn’t need to be told. Pushing off from the wall, he ran.
He took off for the eddy of noise and movement that was Giltspur Street, his feet slipping and sliding in the slimy mud of the alleyway. Bursting out the mouth of the passage, he nearly collided with a dogcart. He heard the blond man’s voice behind him, raised in anger. “Stop him! Stop, thief!”
Oh, Jesus, thought Tom, his heart beating so hard in his chest it hurt. Oh, Jesus, no. He darted down a narrow street, heard a whistle blowing shrill and insistent behind him. His breath soughing in his throat, Tom leapt over the smoldering barrow in his path and kept running.
It was nearly dark now. He could see the looming, shadowy stalls of the marketplace up ahead. If he could make it to the open ground, lose himself amongst the deserted stalls, maybe hide beneath one…
The whistle blew again. He threw a quick glance over his shoulder and ran straight into the outstretched arms of a market beadle who stepped from behind the nearest stall.
The beadle’s big, strong hands closed over Tom’s shoulders, holding him fast. “Gotcha, lad.”
Tom reared back, his blood pounding in his ears, his breath coming hard and fast. The beadle’s face was broad and fleshy, his nose bulbous. In the last light of the dying day, the brass buttons on his coat gleamed like gold.
“Whadjah do then, lad? Hmmm?”
“Nothing,” said Tom with a gasp. “I didn’t do nothing.”
The blond man crossed the open ground, his greatcoat flaring with each step. “The little bugger stole my friend’s watch.”
Tom squirmed in the beadle’s grasp. “I didn’t!” He was so scared, his legs were trembling. It was only by concentrating very, very hard that he kept from wetting himself.
“No?” said the blond man, reaching out. “Then what’s this?”
It was an old trick. Tom saw the gold watch hidden in the man’s palm and tried to flinch away, but the market beadle held him firm. Held him there, while the gentleman slipped his hand into Tom’s pocket and seemingly drew the watch out by its chain.
“See. Here it is.”
Tom lunged against the beadle’s hard grip. “He palmed it. You saw it, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”
“There, there, lad,” said the beadle. “You’ve been caught red-handed. Best you can do now is take the consequences like a true Englishman.”
“I tell you, I didn’t steal anybody’s bloody watch. I’m Viscount Devlin’s tiger and these men—”
The beadle roared with laughter. “Ho. Of course you are. And I’m Henry the Eighth.” He looked over at the blond man. “You’ll be laying charges?”
The blond man had a queer look on his face, sort of thoughtful and calculating. Tom suddenly regretted having mentioned Lord Devlin’s name in his presence.
“My friend will,” said the blond man, giving Tom a cold, hard smile. “We aim to see the little bugger hanged.”
Chapter 42
Sebastian awakened early the next morning to the alarming intelligence that his tiger had not yet returned.
“Send Giles to have the carriage brought around immediately,” Sebastian told his valet.
“The carriage, my lord? For Smithfield?”
“That’s right.” This time, Sebastian decided, there would be no subterfuge. He intended to use the full weight of his wealth and position, stopping at nothing to find out what had happened to the boy.
Sedlow stared straight ahead, his countenance wooden. “And will you be wearing one of your Rosemary Lane coats this morning, my lord?”
Sebastian paused in the act of tying his cravat and glanced over at his valet. “I think not.”
Sedlow sniffed, his normally placid features drawn. “Yes, my lord. It’s just that…if you were by any chance expecting events of a nature such as you have already encountered twice this week, I wouldn’t want to think that you were exposing your wardrobe to destruction merely out of consideration for my sensibilities.”
“Rest assured, my consideration of your sensibilities was in no way responsible for the destruction of my coat and waistcoat in Covent Garden the other night.”
“And your doeskin breeches,” added Sedlow. “I fear they are beyond repair.”
“Do what you can, Sedlow,” said Sebastian, turning at his majordomo’s knock. “Yes? Has he returned?”
“I fear not, my lord. But there is a person here to see you.” Morey’s inflection of the word person precisely conveyed his opinion of the visitor. “She says she was Lady Anglessey’s abigail.”
Sebastian swore softly to himself. He was half tempted to have Morey tell the woman his lordship had already gone out. Except that whatever had brought Tess Bishop here to see him had to be important. And it would take time to have the horses put to. He shrugged into his coat. “Show her into the morning room and tell her I’ll be down in a moment. Oh and, Morey,” he added as the man turned to leave, “have some tea and biscuits sent in to he
r.”
Morey kept his face wooden. “Yes, my lord.”
Sebastian found Tess Bishop sitting straight-backed in one of the morning room’s silk-covered chairs, her hands in her lap, the tea service and plate of biscuits on the table beside her untouched. At the sight of Sebastian, she surged to her feet.
“No, please sit,” he said, going to the tea service. “How did you know who I was?”
Sinking back into her seat, she watched him pour a small portion of milk into a cup, then add the tea. “I saw you Monday, when you come to visit Lord Anglessey.” She gave a small sniff. “I never thought you was no Bow Street Runner.”
Caught in the middle of pouring the tea, Sebastian looked up quickly. Something of his reaction to this pronouncement must have shown on his face, because she hastened to add, “Don’t get me wrong. You done the accent and the manner real good. Only, you was too nice.”
Sebastian laughed and set aside the teapot. “Sugar?” he asked, holding out the tea.
“Oh, no, thank you, my lord,” she said, unexpectedly flustered.
“Take it.”
“Yes, my lord.” Taking the tea, she gripped the cup and saucer so tightly Sebastian wondered the fine china didn’t crack. She made no move to drink it.
Pouring himself a cup, he asked almost casually, “Why have you come to me now?”
She took a deep breath and said in a rush, “There’s some things I didn’t tell you. Some things I’ve decided you ought to know.”
“Such as?”
“Last Wednesday—when her ladyship didn’t come home—I didn’t know what to do. I kept going to her room, checking to see if she’d somehow slipped in unseen. In the end, I fell asleep there.”
“In her room?”
“Yes. On the couch. It was hours later when I awoke—two, maybe three in the morning. The candle had burned out so that at first I was confused, not quite knowing where I was. Then I remembered, and I realized that what roused me was someone trying to get in the window. Her ladyship’s room overlooks the back garden, you see, and there’s a old oak with a sturdy limb what has grown quite close.”
Sebastian went to stand with his back to the empty hearth, his cup in his hand. “What did you do?”
“I screamed. William—he’s one of the footmen—he heard and came, and whoever it was ran away. I thought at the time it was just housebreakers. Then the next day we received notice of what’d happened to her ladyship, and all thought of the previous night’s prowler went out of my head.”
She paused in a way that told him there was more to this story. “And?” he prodded.
Tess Bishop brought the tea to her lips and took a small sip. “I slept in my own bed that night, of course. But when I went into her ladyship’s room the next morning to open the windows and air things out, I found the latch on one of the windows broken.”
Sebastian frowned thoughtfully. “That would have been Friday morning?”
“Yes.”
“What was taken?”
“Well, you see, that was the strangest thing. Nothing was taken. At least, not so’s I could tell. At first glance, you wouldn’t have thought anyone had been in the room at all. But I soon realized things weren’t quite right. It was as if someone had gone through everything, then tried to put it back exactly the way it was before.”
“You mean, as if they were searching for something?”
“Yes.”
Sebastian stared down at the cup in his hands. He had never sought Anglessey’s permission to search his wife’s room, an oversight Sebastian now regretted—and intended to rectify.
He looked up to find Tess Bishop watching him. “Did you tell the Marquis?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “He’s not well. After what’d just happened to her ladyship, I was afraid something like that might overset him completely. I asked William to fix the lock and made out it must have been broken by the intruder I scared away on Wednesday night.”
“You’re quite certain it wasn’t?”
“Oh yes. I checked the locks very carefully.”
Sebastian went to stand at the long window overlooking the street below. The morning had dawned clear and still, promising another hot day.
He had no reason to doubt the abigail’s story. Yet if it were true, it suggested that whoever killed the young marchioness had believed he had cause to fear something in her rooms. Something that might have incriminated him.
“There’s something else,” said the abigail, her voice a frightened whisper.
Sebastian looked around. “What’s that?”
Tess Bishop’s tongue darted nervously across her lower lip. “You asked if I knew where her ladyship had gone that afternoon. The afternoon she was killed.”
“You mean to say you do know?”
“Not exactly, my lord. But I know who she went to see.” She hesitated, then swallowed hard. “It was a gentleman.”
“Do you know his name?”
Her thin chest jerked with her suddenly labored breathing. “I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. Her ladyship would never have been untrue to the Marquis. Only…his lordship, he was that desperate for an heir. And when it become obvious he couldn’t have one…” Her voice trailed away in embarrassment.
“I know about their arrangement,” said Sebastian. “Do you mean to say she discussed it with you?”
The abigail shook her head. “But she was so upset when his lordship first suggested it, I couldn’t help but overhear things.”
“Do you know what happened to change her mind?”
A faint tinge of color touched the abigail’s pale cheeks. “There was this young gentleman come to town. A gentleman she’d known before, from when she was a girl in Wales.”
“What was his name?” Sebastian asked again, knowing already what the answer would be.
Tess Bishop’s hands shook so badly her teacup rattled against the saucer and she set it aside. “It couldn’t have been him what killed her,” she said, hunching forward, her hands clenched together, her head bowed. “It couldn’t.”
Sebastian looked down at her bowed head, at the bones of her neck showing prominently against the pale flesh. “When her ladyship didn’t come home that Wednesday night, did you think she might have run away with this man?”
“No! Of course not.” The abigail’s head came up, her gray eyes flashing with indignation. “Her ladyship would never have done such a thing to the Marquis.”
But then Sebastian saw her eyes slide away, and he knew that at some point in those long, anxious hours as the abigail waited for a mistress who would never return, the thought had occurred to her, however briefly.
“You don’t understand,” she said, leaning forward. “No one understands. They look at a beautiful young woman married to an old man and they see a marriage of convenience.” She pushed her thin, colorless hair off her forehead in a distracted gesture. “Oh, it began that way, to be sure. But they were well suited to one another—truly they were. They could spend hours together, just talking and laughing. You don’t see many couples like that amongst the nobs.”
She hadn’t used the word love, but it hung there unacknowledged in the air between them.
“Yet even after she conceived the child, she continued to see her young gentleman,” said Sebastian softly.
Tess Bishop bit her lip and looked away.
“Is it possible she tried to break off with the young man?” Sebastian suggested. It would hardly be the first time a passionate, rejected young lover had killed the object of his affection.
The abigail shook her head. “No. But they did quarrel.”
“When was this?”
“The Saturday before she died.”
“Do you know what the quarrel was about?”
“No. But it was…it was as if she’d found out something about him. Something that…” She hesitated, searching for the right word.
“Something that disappointed her?”
Tess Bishop
shook her head. “It was worse than that. She and the Marquis, they were good friends. But that young gentleman, he was like a god to her.”
Sebastian turned to stare out the window. Only, he wasn’t seeing the sun-warmed bricks of the houses across the street, or the baker’s mule trotting past with a slow clip-clop below. He was remembering a time when he had loved like that. When he had known the bitter, soul-destroying shock of disillusionment.
For Sebastian, the disillusionment had been false, a carefully crafted charade played by a woman who loved him enough to want to drive him away from her for his own good—although he hadn’t known that at the time.
He was like a god to her. What happens when your god dies? Sebastian wondered. When someone is your sun and moon and stars, and then you discover something, something that reveals a hitherto unknown weakness so fundamental, so shattering that it destroys not only your trust in the other person, but your respect, too.
Some people never recover from that kind of disillusionment. Sebastian had taken up a commission and gone off to war. What would Guinevere Anglessey have done?
Sebastian glanced over to where Tess Bishop sat watching him with a pale, almost frightened face. “His name,” Sebastian asked again, pressing her. He needed to have her say it, needed to have every suspicion confirmed. “What was his name?”
For a moment he thought she meant to keep the man’s identity to herself in some final act of loyalty to the mistress who had once loved him. Then she hung her head and said in a torn whisper, “Varden. It was the Chevalier de Varden.”
Chapter 43
The screams were starting to get to him. The screams and the never-ending drip, drip, drip of water.
Tom drew his knees up against his chest and hugged them close, his teeth gritted against the shivers that ripped through his body. Outside, the sun might shine warm and golden from a clear June sky, but here within the dank, filth-encrusted walls of Newgate, all was darkness and damp and the bone-chilling cold of perpetual winter.
“You there. Boy.”
The seductive whisper was close. Tom turned his face away and pretended not to hear.