The Spider's Touch

by Patricia Wynn

  Besides, the introduction he had used at Ormonde House would not work at Peterborough House since the earl had not committed himself to James’s cause and would not know the cipher they used. Still Gideon wished he knew what the old man thought. He had a notion that Peterborough would be able to explain Ormonde’s indecision. But the earl had little reason to visit his Westminster house since he had been banned the Court and had lost his commission, too.

  Mulling over the danger of presenting himself at the earl’s country house, he slowly retraced his steps to the inn. As he crossed the threshold, the landlord hailed him with the news that a letter had come for him in the Penny Post. Gideon took the letter, which had been addressed to Mr. Brown in a woman’s script. With a mixture of eagerness and worry, he unsealed the wafer and saw that it was from Mrs. Kean.

  “Dear Sir,” he read. “At our last Meeting but one you extracted a Promise that if ever I should need Assistance, I should not hesitate to ask it of you. I find myself in such a Situation now. Rest assured that the Danger does not concern me, but one of my Relations, who might soon be placed in a Dilemma similar to yours.

  “If you find you are able and willing to provide me with Information and Counsel, I shall be most earnestly grateful. If not, or if this Message never reaches you, which I shall assume if I do not receive a Response, then you may still be certain of my continued Friendship. Although I do now see the Foolishness in expressing the latter if you are not even there to receive it.

  “May I suggest a Meeting at seven o’clock in the Morning in St. James’s Park? The fashionable World will not be promenading yet at that Hour, so it is unlikely that you will encounter anyone you know. I shall be on an Errand to purchase Cream from one of the Milk Maids, and hope you will spot me with no particular Difficulty. I shall wear a hood..”

  She had signed it, “Your Friend and Most Obedient Servant, Hester Kean.”

  Gideon’s reaction on reading her note was immediate and unequivocal. As soon as he realized that Mrs. Kean was not in any danger herself, he felt nothing but delight. It was difficult even to be sorry that she had cause to worry, when his relief at being offered an occupation was so intense. Her comment about her foolishness made him smile, and happiness at the promise of seeing her again bubbled inside him the rest of the day.

  * * * *

  Early the following morning, Gideon dressed in his disguise and made his way towards St. James’s Park, wishing that he did not have to wear a wig. Now that he no longer shaved his head, no peruke fit him comfortably. Since becoming an outlaw, he had not had his hair cut once, but had worn it tied at the nape of his neck. At Versailles, and here, he had no choice but to cover it, but the extra layer was itchy and hot. If had not been on his way to see Mrs. Kean, he would have felt very irritable indeed.

  St. James’s was the oldest of the royal parks. It had been added to the royal demesne when Henry VIII acquired the land belonging to the leper hospital of St. James. He laid out a tilt-yard near his palace of Whitehall for bear-baiting and tournaments and introduced game for royal sport. After the Restoration Charles II transformed its rough pastures into formal gardens in the French style, complete with a canal supplied with gondolas from the Doge and Senate of Venice. He opened the park for public use, except on the rather frequent occasions when he feared that his life was in danger, when pedestrians would find the gates locked. Still, theoretically, only accessible by people with keys, the park was continually open by virtue of the number of keys that had been given out, so it had become the chief promenade for all walks of life.

  Gideon had no difficulty passing through the gate to the brick fence and even strolled by the solitary guard without any fear of discovery. The sleepy man, lounging before his tiny guardhouse, would never have recognized the outlawed Viscount St. Mars even without his modest disguise, and, besides, it was not his business to examine his Majesty’s subjects. Gideon made immediately for the Milk Fair, in the corner nearest to Covent Garden, where the cows were milked.

  True to her word, Mrs. Kean was easily found, standing near a pretty, large-eyed cow, whose maid was bending over her pail. Her dark hood distinguished her from the maids in their simple cloth caps and the few other women in their lace.

  Stepping up behind her, Gideon said, “I hope you have not been reduced to fetching milk for my cousin, ma’am.”

  She whirled, with a smile every bit as delightful as the one with which she had greeted him at Vauxhall. She quickly restrained it, though, and returned, in a primmer voice, “No, sir, you have a new clerk in your kitchen who attends to that perfectly well without my assistance. My errand is much less crucial. Isabella once expressed a curiosity about the effects of cream on her complexion, so I thought I would surprise her with a pint.”

  In spite of the lightness in her tone, Gideon thought he saw the signs of a sleepless night. She was paler than usual, and there was graveness in her eyes no matter that she tried to hide it. He made innocent conversation until the milkmaid had finished and had filled Hester’s pot with cream. Then he gave her two shillings from his pocket, which she accepted with a blush of pleasure and several curtsies.

  Mrs. Kean protested his generosity on the spot, but he diverted her with a request to seek a less open space for their talk.

  They walked back across the field in the brisk morning air, with the dew coating their shoes. Mrs. Kean paused when they reached the trees and started her protest again, but Gideon took her firmly by the elbow and steered her onto Birdcage Walk.

  “I know you have something more important to discuss this morning than a gift of two shillings,” he said, annoyed. “So tell me what has driven the colour from your cheeks.”

  His annoyance unsettled her, and she stammered, “I did not mean to bother you with trivialities, my lord.”

  Gideon wanted to kick himself for adding to her distress. “The only thing that bothers me is seeing that something has upset you. And I can see that it has—what is it?”

  She looked as taken aback by this as she had been by his irritation. She blinked then hurried to speak, glancing down, as if afraid to meet his gaze.

  “I do not know if you have heard, but—” She looked up sharply then, as if a thought had struck her, and anxiously searched his face. “Have you ever been acquainted with Sir Humphrey Cove, my lord?”

  “Cove?” Gideon did not know what he had expected, but the name on her lips had taken him unawares. “Yes, I have met him. Why?”

  She seemed distressed to hear it. “Then I regret having to bring you this news, but Sir Humphrey was killed at the opera last night.” She watched him, as if wondering how much pain her news would inflict.

  Gideon hastened to reassure her. “I am sorry to hear it—and astonished, for Sir Humphrey never seemed the kind of gentleman to have enemies. But he was never more than an acquaintance to me. My father knew him better, of course. But how do you come to be concerned with his death?”

  Mrs. Kean’s relief was followed by a rueful glance. “I was a guest in his box when he was murdered.”

  She told him about their evening at the opera, Dudley Mayfield’s drunken assault, and the possibility that he might have killed Sir Humphrey in another fit of temper. Gideon listened as she described the other members of their party. He was particularly interested in the news that she had met Mr. Blackwell at Lady Oglethorpe’s on the evening he had seen them enter her house. And he frowned when he heard that the knife, which had been used to stab Sir Humphrey, had been taken from Hawkhurst House.

  His attention was so riveted by her story that he scarcely noticed their surroundings, until an early stroller was almost upon them. Startled by a gentleman’s approach, he noticed that they were near Duck Island. He took Mrs. Kean’s arm and turned her to face the birds in their hut.

  King William had taken a particular interest in indigenous birds and had supplied this structure for the survivors of the Whitehall volary after the fire that had destroyed the palace. Other fowl had been added to
his collection, and it was a popular distraction for the public to feed the ducks.

  One lonely pelican stared moodily out of his cage at his neighbours, an aging stork, two cranes, and a rare milk-white raven.

  As the stranger strode past them on the way to his own rendezvous, Gideon kept his face turned away. He had nearly forgotten the risk of being recognized this close to home.

  While waiting for the gentleman to walk beyond earshot, Gideon recalled something Mrs. Kean had said in her letter, and a curious uneasiness made him ask, “So the relation you wrote of is Mr. Dudley Mayfield? It is his safety which concerns you?”

  “Yes. Though why I should bother, I do not know. There is very little good to say about Dudley. He takes too much after his mother, my aunt, whom you will recall. But I cannot believe that he killed Sir Humphrey—not in that calculated way, at least. And, as I believe him to be innocent, I should find it hard to sit back and allow him to be arrested for something he did not do.”

  Gideon’s discomfort vanished just as quickly as it had come, and he gave her his biggest grin. “Now, why does that not surprise me? If anyone knows your sense of justice, it is I. I believe, you knew me much less when you decided to befriend me.”

  “Yes, but I assure you that there was always more merit in your case. I never doubted your innocence. With Dudley, it is quite a different matter. I know that he is capable of inflicting injury on an unarmed man, but there some things in the facts about this murder that just don’t seem like Dudley or his temper.”

  She told him about the curtain the murderer had used to protect himself from any splash of blood and explained that she could not imagine her cousin having that much foresight. “If Dudley were to attack someone, he would do it in a fit of drunken rage with no reasoning whatsoever. I cannot believe he would purposely take a knife from his sister’s house—” but here she stumbled— “You must pardon me, my lord. I mean Hawkhurst House—that he would take a weapon with him to the opera and figure how to conceal a very messy crime in such a crowded place.”

  “It certainly shows a cleverness and audacity that your cousin—as you describe him—would not likely have.” Gideon did not use the term “oaf,” but he found it strangely comforting to think of Dudley Mayfield this way.

  He asked her what her own suspicions were, and Hester told him about Colonel Potter and his dismissal from the Guards, just when he had applied to be Harrowby’s secretary.

  “I know that he resented Sir Humphrey for telling me about his dismissal, and in truth, it was due to Sir Humphrey’s indiscretion that I informed Mr. Henry that his politics might cause trouble for the family. I hope I did nothing wrong, but I was persuaded you would not want anyone suspected of disloyalty to be taken into your house.”

  He readily gave her his assurances, in spite of his own involvement with the Jacobites.

  “No, you did nothing you shouldn’t. Until this business is sorted out, one can’t be too careful. I’m convinced that the government is about to move against the Jacobites. If Harrowby is ever suspected, he could lose not only his head, but everything he holds that is mine for either of our descendants.” Not that I am likely to have any, Gideon thought. Not in his current situation, but he pushed away that unwelcome thought for now.

  “So you think Colonel Potter might have stabbed him over this disappointment? The timing would seem right, if, as you say, he had just learned of it. I wonder, though, why he would choose such a public place. It seems inconceivable that someone could commit murder in such a crowd.”

  He tried to picture it and received this help from Mrs. Kean.

  “I suppose,” she said slowly, as if working it out in her head, “that he could have followed Sir Humphrey through the crowd and taken advantage of a moment when Sir Humphrey was alone and was standing by the curtain to that box. If the opportunity had not presented itself then, then he would have waited for another occasion. But Sir Humphrey did stop in a convenient spot, so the murderer stepped behind the curtain and stabbed him. Even if Sir Humphrey had cried out, the noise was such that no one in the theatre would be likely to notice. And in that press of people he could almost be certain of moving away before Sir Humphrey fell. And now, it appears that he did not fall, but stayed leaning against the wall until he marshaled the strength to stagger back to his box.”

  Mrs. Kean gave a visible shudder, then added, “I have even wondered if he ever knew he’d been stabbed.”

  Gideon had to restrain an urge to put his arm about her. But it would not do for Mrs. Kean to be seen in the park in a man’s embrace—no matter how innocent the cause. He wished they had met at night again, but he understood her reluctance to wait.

  She continued, “I imagine that he did not know. There was nothing behind him but a curtain, so perhaps he thought the sudden pain had come from his heart or an attack of the kidneys. He must have been too hurt to cry out and, over the course of many minutes, would have become both weaker and more confused. He bled a great deal, they say.”

  Gideon nodded, disturbed by the image she had drawn. Dudley Mayfield and his innocence aside, whoever had done this deserved to be caught and punished. Even if Mrs. Kean had not asked for his help, he would have felt a compulsion to do something after hearing her version of the event.

  “What do you know of this Potter, and what can I do to help?”

  * * * *

  Hester was so relieved by his offer of assistance that she gave him her most grateful smile. She had stayed up most of the night. Several memories had twisted through her brain—things she had not understood when they had occurred. But now she thought there must be a connection between them. She just did not know for certain what it was or how to establish it.

  Before continuing, she cast a cautious look around, but there was no one to hear them except the ducks, who preened their feathers and napped along the edge of the pond. It would not be long, before the few members of the Court who rose early to take their exercise would begin to appear. It was a beautiful spring morning with just the right sort of breeze to make people who enjoyed a good walk want to leave their beds. The Princess of Wales, herself was a great walker and often led her ladies from St. James’s to Kensington Palace on foot.

  Hester turned back to St. Mars and felt his support in the very directness of his gaze. It struck her that she had not seen him in daylight since before he himself had been arrested. All of their encounters had taken place in the dark, except for that one fateful meeting during an eclipse, when they both had been so focused on preventing a second murder that she had not taken the time to study him. And while those meetings had all been exciting, for her at least, still it was wonderful to see the blueness of his eyes as the sun came over the trees. She wished that it was his own fair hair, reflecting the sunlight, instead of this plain brown periwig.

  She wanted to be completely honest with him, but not being sure of his politics, she was nervous of the ground she trod.

  “When you contacted me,” she began slowly, “it was to warn me against letting our cousins be seen too much in Lady Oglethorpe’s company. We have not seen that lady since, but every gentleman that occupied our box is or was a particular friend of hers. It was through Sir Humphrey that we were presented to her at Court, and we met Mr. Blackwell that very evening at her house. Colonel Potter was there, also, and Lord Lovett was supposed to come, but he had made a different engagement in Arlington Street.”

  “What you’re suggesting is that all these gentlemen are Jacobites. Is that it?”

  Hester gave a quick nod, pleased that he had said it before she’d had to. In running through her memories, she had recalled the visit that she and Isabella’s friends had made to see the baby with the sign of the eclipse on her brow, and especially Sir Humphrey’s odd elation at the sight. Of all their party, only he had seen something prophetic in the mark, and he had likened it to a sign on the eve of King James’s departure. Lord Lovett had been impatient with him—surely for being indiscreet about the Pretende
r, which Hester had realized after Lord Lovett had practically admitted their sympathies with James. What she did not know was how much St. Mars had involved himself with the cause, and whether any discovery of hers could place him in even greater danger.

  “I am not political myself,” she said. “And I cannot pretend to know the merits of one king over another. Nor do I know enough of the law to argue whose right it is to sit on the throne, not when even the legal authorities cannot agree. So, when I ask you about these people, my lord, I do it purely in the interest of uncovering the murderer.”

  She wanted so desperately to ask him what his involvement was, but could not bring herself to be that impertinent. The frown on his brow was enough to keep her silent, and so they remained that way for a full minute longer.

  “I am not committed to James,” he said finally. “And I will not be until I’m convinced that enough good would come from his victory to justify another civil war. I cannot deny, though, that my current plight makes me more sympathetic to his cause than I was. And I cannot forget that my father was willing to risk all he owned for the Stuarts, as you know.”

  He paused, and Hester could understand his desire to honour his father’s loyalties. St. Mars did not dwell on this, but went on to discuss her statement about the gentlemen who had shared her box.

  “You wonder if they are Jacobites? I suspect they are, though I don’tt know either the Colonel or this Blackwell you spoke of. I have glimpsed Lord Lovett at Court, but I did not know his name until you gave it to me the other night.”

  He asked her to describe the other two, so she did her best. Colonel Potter was the easiest with his freckled complexion, his straight military physique, and his sullen expression, which, it seemed, was a constant feature. Mr. Blackwell was harder to describe since what she mostly recalled about him was his clothes. St. Mars agreed, however, that it sounded as if he spent a significant time France. There were other Englishmen who dressed that elegantly, but there had been a touch of something foreign in his arrogance, too.