by C. S. Harris
Sheridan stared back at him. “I did not.”
“Yet I assume you are opposed to the match with Orange.”
“Of course I am. But I didn’t advise Jane to tell Charlotte. What would be the point, at this stage? The girl will never be allowed to back out of the betrothal now.” Sheridan shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “You think that’s why Jane was killed? Because of Orange? But that makes no sense. There must be dozens in London who know the truth.”
“Yes. But how many have Charlotte’s ear?”
Sheridan blew out a troubled breath. “There is that.” He sat for a time with his gaze on the fire, his brow furrowed with thought.
Sebastian said, “Who do you think killed her?”
Sheridan looked up. “You mean besides that worthless husband of hers?”
“Was he faithful to her?”
“Ambrose? What do you think?” The vehemence of the old man’s words caught Sebastian by surprise. “Of course he wasn’t. He’s one of the most successful dramatists working today, which means he has opera singers and dancers falling all over themselves to convince him to give them a part—and he’s not the sort of man who’d fail to take advantage of that.”
“Did Jane know?”
“I assume she did. How could she not? But she never said anything to me about it, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Was she faithful to him?”
Sheridan gave a derisive grunt. “You think she’d tell me? Her aged, decrepit uncle?”
“What do you know about Liam Maxwell?”
“Maxwell? He’s a firebrand.” A slow smile spread across the man’s unshaven face. “I might have alarmed the palace in my day with my support of Catholic emancipation and Irish independence, but Maxwell! Even after two years in Newgate, he’s still about as radical as they come—unlike poor Christian. Prison broke him, I’m afraid. Now he publishes rubbishy romances about vampires and dark, mysterious counts.” He gave a derisive snort. “Can you imagine? He actually brought me one a couple of weeks or so ago. Me! Fortunately, the bailiffs took it.”
Sebastian found himself smiling. “Jane went out to Connaught House last week to see the Princess of Wales. You wouldn’t happen to know why, would you?”
The old man looked visibly, genuinely startled. “She went to see Caroline?”
“Yes. That surprises you. Why?”
“I suppose it shouldn’t, but . . .” He hesitated, his jaw hardening. “Have you spoken to Jarvis about this?”
“As it happens, yes, I have. You’re something like the third person to ask me that.”
Sheridan cocked one eyebrow. “Suggestive, wouldn’t you say?”
Sebastian studied the clever elderly playwright’s wily, unreadable face. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“Me?” Sheridan laughed out loud. “What could I possibly have to hide?”
“A great deal, I suspect.”
But Sheridan only laughed again and refused to be drawn further.
Chapter 28
It was shortly after her return from Newgate, while Hero was changing clothes and scrubbing the prison stink from her skin, that she received a message from Miss Ella Kinsworth, alerting her to the Princess’s plans to venture down to the Thames that afternoon to observe the strange spectacle of Londoners walking on their river.
“You weren’t entirely honest with me,” Hero said to Miss Ella Kinsworth as they strolled along the terrace of Somerset House overlooking the frozen river. Her Royal Highness Princess Charlotte of Wales, clad in white fur trimmed with red ribbons, raced ahead with her dog, an elegant white Italian greyhound.
“I told you what I felt I could,” said Miss Kinsworth, her gaze on the laughing girl and joyously barking dog. “It wouldn’t have been right to repeat the Dutch courtier’s words about Valentino Vescovi. I mean, what if the accusations weren’t true? I would simply be helping to spread false rumors about an innocent man.”
“I’m not sure anyone could describe Valentino Vescovi as an innocent man.”
The older woman’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “Probably not.”
Hero watched Charlotte chase after her dog, then whirl laughing as the greyhound cavorted around her. The girl might have only just turned eighteen, but she looked more like twenty-five, with a well-developed figure and mature features. In many ways she resembled both her mother and her father, with the typical big-boned Hanoverian build and long nose, although she managed to be considerably more attractive than either parent. Her lips were beautifully molded, and she had an open, honest expression that was gentle without being insipid.
Yet Hero had to admit that the Duchess of Leeds was right in one sense: There was nothing either elegant or princess-like about Charlotte’s ways. She was boisterous and loud and overflowing with boundless energy and good cheer. And while she carried herself with that innate self-confidence unique to those who are born and bred royal, as far as Hero could see, she was utterly lacking in conceit or condescension or an overweening sense of haughty self-importance. Lady Leeds might condemn that tendency, but Hero found it both admirable and refreshing.
“So why did the Princess lock Lady Arabella in the water closet last week?” Hero asked her friend.
Miss Kinsworth pressed the fingers of one hand to her lips to hide a smile. “It’s wrong of me to laugh because it was a shocking thing to do, but I can’t help it. It was such a well-deserved retribution. Lady Leeds tells everyone that she introduced her daughter into the household as a favor to Charlotte, to provide her with a companion closer to her age. But Charlotte despises the girl. She’s always finding the little sneak in her bedchamber with no good excuse for being there, or listening at keyholes and creeping about where she has no business to be. That’s why Charlotte and I began speaking to each other in German—although that didn’t work for long.” The older woman shook her head. “There’s no denying Lady Arabella is clever; she learned German with enviable facility. So we switched to Italian, and now she’s learning that. I fear I’m running out of languages—and unlike Her Grace’s daughter, I do not acquire new ones easily.”
“Latin?” suggested Hero with a laugh.
“I suspect her little ladyship’s Latin is already better than mine.” Miss Kinsworth’s smile slipped. “It didn’t occur to me she might be eavesdropping on my conversations with Jane Ambrose, too. How can someone so young be so conniving?”
“It must be innate. What I don’t understand is, why all the spying on Charlotte?”
“I suspect it’s because both the Regent and Orange are afraid she will try to back out of her betrothal.”
Hero watched the Princess form a snowball and throw it for her dog. “Would she do that?”
“If she learned the truth about Orange? I think she might try. She’s already furious over the plans to force her to leave England, and honesty is so very important to Charlotte.”
Hero glanced over at her friend in surprise. “You know, then?”
“About Orange’s disinterest in women? Oh, yes—at least, I do now. Unfortunately, I didn’t know last December. Otherwise I would have cautioned her before she agreed to meet him.”
“Did you tell Jane Ambrose?”
“About Orange? No.”
“Toby! Come!” called the Princess. The two women watched together as the girl waded through the snow to the edge of the terrace and stood staring out at a smooth section of the river that was thick with ice-skaters.
Miss Kinsworth said, “It’s horrible, what Prinny is doing—marrying her to Orange without telling her the truth. After the miserable, lonely childhood she’s had, she wants desperately to find love and happiness in her marriage. But there’s no chance of that with him as her bridegroom.”
“It sounds as if Prinny’s keeping any number of truths from her.” The dog was frolicking at the Princess’
s feet, wanting to run. But Charlotte stood transfixed by the intricate maneuvers of a pair of experienced ice-gliders. “Does she know her father is plotting to divorce her mother as soon as she’s out of the country?”
“She doesn’t know for certain, but there’s no denying she fears it. It’s why she’s fighting so hard over the marriage contracts—to try to insert a clause saying Orange won’t be able to force her to leave England against her will.”
“Do you think she’ll succeed?”
Miss Kinsworth looked troubled. “I don’t know.”
They watched as Charlotte reached down to scratch the happily panting dog behind its cropped ears. Hero said, “The greyhound is lovely.”
“She is, isn’t she? She used to belong to Napoléon’s Empress, but was taken aboard a French ship we captured.”
“So she’s a prisoner of war?”
Miss Kinsworth laughed. “I suppose in a sense she is. The captain sent her to the Prince, except of course Prinny hates dogs, so Charlotte rescued the poor creature.”
Hero looked over at her friend. “What kind of man hates dogs?”
“Dogs don’t like him. They growl and snap at him.”
“The wisdom of animals,” murmured Hero as the Princess turned to come running up to them, the dog at her heels.
“Oh, I wish I could try skating,” she said, laughing. “Do you think Papa would permit it, Miss Kinsworth?”
“You could ask him,” said Miss Kinsworth in a voice that didn’t hold out much hope for success.
The Princess pulled a face at her, then turned to Hero. “Do you skate, Lady Devlin?”
“I never have. Although if this weather keeps up, I fear we all may need to learn.”
Charlotte laughed again, then grew serious. The carefree child who’d been playing with her dog disappeared, her features schooled into a sober expression that gave a glimpse of the splendid queen she would one day be. “Miss Kinsworth says you wished to ask me about Jane Ambrose—about our lesson the day she died.”
“You’re the last person known to have had any meaningful interaction with Jane that day. Can you remember anything about that morning—anything at all—that might shed some light on what happened to her?”
“Sorry, no. Believe me, I have gone over our conversation in my mind. But I can’t think of anything.”
“Do you know where she planned to go after she left Warwick House?”
“I assumed she would be returning home, although I don’t believe she ever actually said. We spoke of the cold, and she told me she’d heard the Cambridge stage was snowed up for eight hours before they managed to pull it out with most of the passengers nearly frozen to death. But I can’t recall our discussing anything of a personal nature.”
“Did she seem worried or troubled to you?”
The Princess considered this a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t think I would say she was troubled. But there was something different about her I can only describe as a sort of fierceness. As if—” She broke off.
“Yes, Your Highness?” prompted Hero.
“It was as if she had finally made up her mind about something and was both relieved and determined to carry through on her decision.” Charlotte gave a rueful smile. “I know it sounds an odd, fanciful thing to say, but I can’t think of any other way to describe it. And it’s no use asking me what she’d made up her mind about, because I’ve no notion at all.”
* * *
“It could mean nothing,” Hero said to Devlin later, after she’d related the conversation to him. She was leaning against the doorway of his dressing room and watching him tie a rough black cravat around his neck. The cravat was black for the same reason his breeches were worn and his shirt frayed: Kat Boleyn had arranged for him to meet a smuggler named Archibald Potter at a tavern called the Cat and Fiddle near Ratcliff Highway, and one did not venture into an area such as Whitechapel dressed like a Bond Street beau.
Devlin met her gaze in the mirror. “I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss Charlotte’s observations. When you grow up at court surrounded by toadies, scheming courtiers, and a family as uniformly peculiar as the Hanovers, you learn to read people early—and well.”
“True,” said Hero. “But what does it mean?” She pushed away from the doorframe to go stand at the window overlooking the snow-filled street. “I feel as if we aren’t getting anywhere. We just keep going round and round the same people and incidents, learning perhaps a bit more each time and yet never really discovering what we need to know.”
He glanced over at her, his eyes crinkling with a hint of a smile. “That’s because we’re missing something. Something important.”
“But . . . what?”
He reached for a battered, low-crowned hat with a jaunty red feather in the band and settled it on his head. “I don’t know yet.”
She frowned. “How will you recognize this Archibald Potter?”
“I’ll know him by his cocked hat and green striped waistcoat, and he’ll know me by this decidedly garish red feather—with our identities further confirmed by a prearranged conversation about my supposed recent travels to Jamaica.”
“Sounds decidedly insalubrious. You will be careful.”
Devlin checked the knife he kept sheathed in his boot, then slipped a small double-barreled flintlock into his pocket. “You keep saying that.”
She came to tug at the brim of his hat. “And you never listen.”
Chapter 29
The Cat and Fiddle was a smoke-fouled, ramshackle old half-timbered structure on John Street, not far from the vast warehouses of the East India Company. Sebastian selected a high-backed booth in a quiet corner, ordered a tankard of ale he had no intention of drinking, and settled in to wait.
Archibald Potter, when he appeared, looked more like a comfortable middle-aged shopkeeper than a smuggler. Somewhere in his late forties, he had full, ruddy cheeks, bushy side-whiskers, and a round, knobby nose. The combination could have made him look jovial and soft. It did not. His clothes were typical of an older generation, his waistcoat long and striped with green, his coat square-cut with broad lapels and large pockets. In place of a cravat he wore a stock, and he had a cocked hat perched above a periwig. He stared at the red feather in Sebastian’s hatband, then walked up to stand stiffly with his fingers tapping on the scarred tabletop. He was not smiling.
“I hear you’re just back from Jamaica,” he said in guttural French with a strong Kentish accent.
“The weather’s much better there than here,” replied Sebastian in the same language.
“Huh. Where isn’t it?” With a grunt, the free trader slid into the opposite bench. “Miss Kat says you want to know about smuggling in the Channel—with a particular emphasis on the activities of a certain Frankfurter we all know but few love. Says it’s got something to do with that lady found with her head bashed in up in Clerkenwell.”
“Yes.”
Potter stared at him long and hard. “She swears I can trust you.”
“You have my word.”
The free trader turned to call for a tankard of ale before resting his shoulders against the bench’s high back, his thick, bushy brows drawing together in a frown. “I’ve only ever known one other fellow with yellow eyes, and he wasn’t somebody I’d care to mess with. See well in the dark, do you?”
“Yes.”
Potter nodded. “So did this fellow. I met him in Dunkirk.”
“I take it you spend a fair amount of time in France.”
“I was born there, for all that my parents were from Dover. Still got a sister in Gravelines. She takes care of the French end of the business, while I deal with things over here.”
“Convenient.”
Potter waited while a young barmaid slapped an overflowing tankard of ale on the table before him. “It is that.”
“Graveline
s, you say?”
He took a deep swallow of his ale, then wiped the foam from his lips with the back of one hand. “That’s right. It ain’t like in the old days, when we used to have to collect our contraband either in the Low Countries or off neutral ships in the Channel.”
“So what’s changed?”
“Few years ago, Napoléon got clever. He realized that if he worked with us smugglers—made it easy for us to do business with France—he could use us to get French goods into England while at the same time keeping control over what we were bringing into France. So he issued this imperial decree, officially opening up a couple of French ports—first Wimereux and Dunkirk, then Gravelines—to smugglers. He even built special warehouses for us. Keeps them filled with lace, silk, leather gloves, brandy—whatever we want.”
“That was indeed clever. So what do you take to France—besides the usual spies, of course?”
Archibald Potter grinned and leaned forward. “Letters. English newspapers. Escaped prisoners of war. And gold. Lots of gold. They even built a special quarter just for us in Gravelines—they call it the ‘ville des smoglers.’”
“You’re saying the entire operation is officially sanctioned by the French government?”
“It ain’t just sanctioned—it’s controlled. Organized. They got the Ministers of Police, Finance, Interior, War, and What-have-you, all writing reports and procedures and the like. You know the French. Ain’t nobody like ’em for security passes, articles, rules, regulations, and any other kind of government paperwork a body could dream up. They’ve got something like seventy merchants and bankers in Gravelines officially designated to deal with us.”
“‘Us’ being the smugglers?”
“That’s right.”
“How many vessels are we talking about?”
“Hundreds. Most of ’em are small—under ten tons, with some of ’em smaller still. Smugglers like galleys, you see—especially for gold smuggling. They’re light and easy to build, they don’t need a lot of rowers, and they’re fast. Plus, you can turn a galley and row it into the wind if you’re unlucky enough to stumble upon the bloody Water Guard.”