by C. S. Harris
Sebastian paused with his foot on the first step. Since the institution of the Regency some eighteen months before, the center of power in the monarchy had naturally shifted from the Palace of St. James’s to the residence of the Prince. There was no reason to assume—
“I ’ung around,” Tom was saying, “ ‘oping ’e’d come out again. And ’e did, not more’n ten minutes later. You’ll never guess who was with ’im.”
“Lord Jarvis?”
Tom’s grin fell. “You already knew?”
Sebastian shook his head. “A lucky guess.” He glanced at the tall clock that stood near the library door. “I’ve another assignment for you: I want you to discover what you can about a Swedish merchant named Carl Lindquist.”
“A Swede?” Tom pulled a face. The tiger did not hold a high opinion of foreigners.
“A Swede. That’s all I know about him.”
Tom swallowed his revulsion. “I’ll find ʹim, gov’nor; ne’er you fear.”
To Morey, Sebastian said, “Have Giles bring my grays around in half an hour. And Tom—”
The boy had started to run off. But at Sebastian’s voice he turned, his head cocked in inquiry.
“Lindquist could well be something more than a mere merchant. Something considerably more ... dangerous. Be careful.”
Charles, Lord Jarvis was striding up Pall Mall when Sebastian came upon him.
Guiding his grays in close to the curb, Sebastian called out, “If I might have a word with you, my lord?”
The Baron kept walking. “If you wish to see me, make an appointment with my secretary.”
“This won’t wait.”
“Unfortunate, since it will simply have to.” Without breaking stride, Jarvis turned onto Cockspur Street.
Sebastian followed along beside him, the grays held to a walk. “What I have to tell you can be said here, if you insist. But I think you’ll find it’s not the sort of thing you’d care to have shouted in the streets.”
Jarvis drew up abruptly and swung to face him.
Sebastian reined in and nodded to his middle-aged groom, Giles, who hopped off his rear perch and took a step back to await Sebastian on the footpath.
“My lord?” said Sebastian to Jarvis.
With unexpected agility, the big man leapt up into the curricle to take the seat beside Sebastian. “Very well. You may drop me at the Admiralty. Now, what the devil is it?”
Sebastian gave his horses the office to start, his attention all for the task of guiding the grays back out into traffic. “Miss Hero Jarvis has consented to become my wife.”
Jarvis remained silent. Then he said, his voice calm, “I take it this is some sort of a jest. A vulgar wager, perhaps, or—”
“You know it is not,” said Sebastian, turning onto Whitehall.
“You would have me believe that Hero has agreed to this? Hero?”
“Yes.”
“Preposterous.”
“Ask her.”
Jarvis’s large fist tightened around the seat’s iron railing. “And if I refuse my consent?”
Glancing sideways, Sebastian studied the older man’s florid, closed face. The thought of having Lord Jarvis as his father-in-law alarmed him almost as much as the concept of taking Hero Jarvis to wife. He said, “I assume you know your daughter better than that. She is determined to wed, with or without your approval.”
Jarvis let out a sound somewhere between a grunt and a snort. “Why are you doing this?”
Sebastian met Jarvis’s fierce stare. He tried to remind himself the man was a father, with a father’s concerns. “Believe me when I say that my motives are nothing except honorable.”
Jarvis turned his head away. “Pull up here.”
Sebastian reined in his horses and waited while the Baron clambered down from the high seat. “The Archbishop’s chapel in Lambeth. Thursday. Eleven o’clock. Be there or not, as you choose,” he said, and drove off to retrieve his groom.
Chapter 15
P aul Gibson limped up Tower Hill, increasingly conscious of a faint but unmistakable stench of putrefying flesh that intensified as he drew closer to his small stone house and the adjoining surgery.
He was met at the entrance by his housekeeper, a squarefaced, foul-tempered matron named Mrs. Federico. “I’m a housekeeper, I am,” she squawked, flapping her stained apron at him. “A housekeeper! Not some bleedin’ sexton.”
“And a wonderful housekeeper you are, too, Mrs. Federico,” lied Gibson, turning on the Irish and giving her a cajoling smile. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”
ʺHmph,ʺ she said, stomping after him down the narrow hall. “I told them, ‘I want nothin’ to do with that thing.’ But did they listen? No. ‘Do you have a key to the buildin’ out the back?’ they ask me. ‘Not bloody likely,ʹ says I. ‘Why, just keepin’ his house and cookin’ his meals is more than a Christian ought to be asked to do,’ says I. ‘Have you seen what he keeps in those jars of his?’ says I.”
Gibson poured a tankard of ale from the pitcher in the kitchen and headed out the back door. The jars—or, more properly, their contents—were the excuse Mrs. Federico used to avoid cleaning most of the rooms in the house. He said, “I take it someone’s brought me a body, have they?”
“If you want to call it that. ‘Then we’ll just have to wait for him,’ they says, like the thing ain’t smellin’ bad enough to put the whole neighborhood off its dinner.”
Gibson grunted.
She followed him out onto the back stoop. “I’ve already had Mel Jacobs here complainin’. And Mrs. Cummings too. Worse than a bloody charnel house, it is.” She stopped at the top of the steps. “You don’t pay me enough for this,” she shouted after him as he cut across the unkempt yard. “You hear? You don’t pay me enough!”
He found the constables waiting for him in the narrow strip of shade cast by the small outbuilding’s stone walls. One was a gnarled, grizzled old codger who looked to be missing most of his teeth. The other, a burly, ruddy-faced man, pushed to his feet with a sympathetic grin as Gibson walked up to them.
“Present for ye,” said the constable, nodding toward the canvas-covered shell at their feet. “From Bow Street. Sir Henry Lovejoy.”
Hunkering down beside the shrouded form, Gibson flipped back the canvas. “Good God.”
“Sorry. Guess I shoulda warned ye.”
“The smell should have done that,” said Gibson, his gaze riveted by the bloated, discolored, insect-ravaged face.
“Quite a sight, ain’t he?”
“Is it a he?” asked Gibson. At this point, it was difficult to tell.
“Well, it’s wearin’ a gentleman’s clothes, all right. Found him in a ditch in Bethnal Green, we did. Sir Henry wants to know what ye can tell him about how the gentleman died—and maybe a bit about who he is, while yer at it.”
“Unidentified, is he?”
“‘Fraid so.” The constable gave him a concise outline of the body’s discovery. Then he nodded to the outbuilding’s padlocked door and said, “Want we should help ye move him inside?”
Gibson pushed to his feet. “Please. Just, ah ... give me a moment first.”
Unfastening the lock, he slipped through the partially open door and quickly pulled a sheet over what was left of Mr. Alexander Ross.
Lady Jarvis’s reaction to the news of her daughter’s approaching nuptials was at first incredulous, then hysterically joyous.
“Married!” she squealed, leaping up from her daybed to throw her arms around Hero. Since Hero stood over five foot ten and Lady Jarvis barely topped five feet, the embrace was somewhat awkward. “Oh, Hero.” She dragged Hero down onto the daybed beside her. “And here I’d no notion. Do tell me everything.”
Hero shifted uncomfortably. She loved her mother dearly, but this was not a tale she ever intended to divulge to anyone. “There isn’t much to tell, actually.”
“How can you say such a thing? When I must have heard you insist a thousand times or more
that you were determined to end your days an old maid.”
“Yes, well ... There are certainly undeniable advantages to the married state.” She searched her mind to come up with one. “This obligation to drag a maid with me wherever I go, for example; I find it beyond fatiguing.”
Lady Jarvis looked puzzled for a moment, then gave a shaky laugh. “The things you do say, Hero.” Her smile faded and she reached up to touch her fingertips to her daughter’s cheek almost wistfully. “I do hope you will be happy, child.”
Hero took her mother’s dainty hand between her own larger, more capable ones. “I’m quite certain that I shall be. Lord Devlin is above all else a gentleman.”
“And so handsome! And dashing.”
“Yes, he is certainly that,” said Hero dryly. She felt her mother’s hand tremble within hers and hastened to add, “And you mustn’t worry about how you shall contrive to manage without me, for I intend to find a companion for you—someone who’ll be able to see to your comfort as well as assist with the household affairs. And of course I shall be able to visit often. It’s no great distance, after all, from Brook Street to Berkeley Square.”
“Don’t be silly. Now is not the time for you to be worrying about me.”
“I shan’t worry about you. But I have every intention of continuing to concern myself with your happiness and well-being.”
Lady Jarvis tightened her grip on her daughter’s fingers. “You know this is the answer to my prayers. For I don’t scruple to tell you that I had quite given up hope of ever seeing you settled.”
Hero sank her teeth into her lower lip and forced herself to keep silent.
“And grandchildren,” gushed Lady Jarvis, her eyes shining. “I do hope we won’t have long to wait.”
“I trust not,” said Hero.
It was some hours later, when Hero was gathering together her papers in the library, that she heard her father’s heavy tread in the hall and turned to find him standing in the doorway.
“Is it true, then?” Lord Jarvis demanded without preamble, his gaze hard on his daughter’s face. “What Devlin tells me?”
“It is.” Hero went back to the task of assembling her papers. “I hope you mean to wish me happy, Papa. But I expect you know me well enough to realize that I shall marry, with or without your blessing.”
“I could cut you off.”
“You could,” she acknowledged. Under the terms of her mother’s marriage settlement, her father had obligated himself to provide any daughters born of their union with a portion of not less than ten thousand pounds. That Jarvis could not avoid. But as Jarvis’s only surviving child, Hero stood to inherit a substantial chunk of all property not entailed to the male relative next in line to inherit the barony—in this instance a plump, vapid young man named Frederick Jarvis. It was well within Jarvis’s power to change his will and leave everything to Frederick.
She said, “I’ve no doubt Cousin Frederick would be pleased.”
Jarvis made a rude noise. “Cousin Frederick is a useless, addlebrained popinjay.”
“True. I suppose you could always use your wealth to endow some charitable institution.”
“Enough of this,” said Jarvis. “I’ve no intention of cutting you off and you know it.” He pointed a thick, steady finger at her. “But I intend to drive a hard bargain on the settlement, make no mistake about that.”
“I should hope so.”
He went to pour himself a glass of brandy from the carafe kept near the hearth. “The entire kingdom trembles with fear at the thought of displeasing me,” he said. “But not my own daughter.”
She smiled. “And you know you would have it no other way.”
“Would I?” He set aside the carafe with a soft thump. “I assume you have your reasons for what you are doing.”
“You’re the one who is always pressing me to marry.”
“But Devlin, Hero? Devlin?”
For more than thirty years, Jarvis had dedicated his life to safeguarding the stability of the British monarchy at home and expanding the nation’s power and influence overseas. Few dared to stand against him for long. Working quietly and ruthlessly through a network of informants, spies, and assassins, he was the kind of man who valued order and stability above all else, who had nothing but contempt for such maudlin concepts as “fairness” and “justice.” As far as Jarvis was concerned, the modern enthusiasm for “equality” constituted the greatest threat ever to confront civilization.
But Devlin was a man for whom power and authority were never sacred, whose values were justice and reason, not expediency and privilege. In the course of his murder investigations, he had not hesitated to probe into the murkiest corners of Jarvis’s activities. Again and again, he had not only confronted the King’s powerful cousin, but dared to thwart him.
And Hero had no doubt he would continue to do so in the future.
She said, “Can you think of another man brave enough to marry Lord Jarvis’s daughter?”
At that, her father gave a reluctant laugh. He took a slow sip of his drink, his eyes narrowing as he studied her pensively. She thought she held up under his scrutiny with remarkable calm.
Then he said, “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
Tucking her notes under one arm, she turned toward the door and simply ignored the comment, saying, “Do you go with Mama and me to the reception for the Russian Ambassador at St. James’s Palace tonight? Or will you form one of the Prince’s retinue?”
“I dine with the Prince. Which reminds me: Sir Hyde Foley tells me Devlin is investigating the possibility that the young man from the Foreign Office who died last week—Alexander Ross—was actually murdered. Do you know anything about that?”
She looked back at him in surprise. “Ross? Whatever gave Devlin that idea?”
“He hasn’t mentioned anything to you about it?”
“No.”
“Interesting,” said Lord Jarvis, turning to pour himself another drink.
It didn’t occur to Hero until she was mounting the stairs that he had not in fact wished her happy.
Chapter 16
“The first man up the stairs must be the one who killed Ross,” said Gibson, his hands wrapped around a pewter tankard, his head resting against the high back of an old oak bench in the corner of the pub where he and Sebastian had met for a pint. “By the time the second man came and knocked on the door, Ross was dead. No one answered the door, so he left again right away, thinking no one was home.”
Sebastian took a deep draught of his ale. “It’s possible. The problem is, we’ve no way of knowing exactly when Ross was killed. It could have been long after Madame Champagne had retired for the night.”
“Aye, there is that.” Gibson blew out a long breath. “What about the mysterious veiled woman? Think she was this Miss Sabrina Cox?”
“Gently bred young ladies aren’t generally in the habit of visiting gentlemen in their rooms—even if they are betrothed.”
“Yet some still do,” said Gibson with a wry smile.
“They do. If I could meet the lady, I might be able to judge the chances of that myself. Unfortunately, she’s in mourning, which means she’s gone into seclusion and the only visitors she’s receiving are relatives or close friends.”
“That does complicate things,” said Gibson, draining his tankard.
“Considerably.” Sebastian signaled the barmaid for two more tankards. “Although, frankly, I’m more inclined to suspect the veiled woman—whoever she was—is someone connected to Ross’s activities with the Foreign Office.”
“According to Dr. Astley Cooper, it was Sir Hyde Foley who called him in to examine Ross’s body.”
“Really? Now, that is interesting.”
Gibson waited while the barmaid set the brimming new tankards on the boards before them. Then he said, “What about this French priest—de La Rocque? Sounds like a queer character.”
“He is indeed. And whatever his dealings with Ross, I
’ll be surprised if they involved old books.” Sebastian paused, listening to the tolling of the city’s church bells, counting out the hour. He took a quick swallow of his ale and pushed to his feet. “Now you’ll have to excuse me. I’m off to visit the Queen.”
Gibson raised his tankard in a mock toast. “Give her my regards.”
Returning to Brook Street, Sebastian donned the formal knee breeches and tails that were de rigueur for a gentleman attending an official function at the palace.
“I had occasion to ask around about your Mr. Ross,” said Calhoun, holding out a fresh cravat.
Sebastian glanced over at him. “And?”
“I discovered nothing of interest, my lord. From all reports, Mr. Ross was a congenial, warmhearted young man well liked by all with whom he came into contact.”
Sebastian wound the long, wide length of linen around his neck. “Except, apparently, by whoever killed him.”
“So it would seem, my lord.”
By the time Sebastian arrived at St. James’s Palace, the parade of carriages lining up to pass through the ancient brick gatehouse and into the paved courtyard had dwindled and the crowds of curious onlookers were drifting away. The Season was rapidly winding its way to an end. Almack’s had already closed; soon the Prince would remove to Brighton and the vast majority of the great noble families would depart for their country estates—if they hadn’t done so already.
Sebastian could hear the soft strains of a chamber orchestra playing one of Handel’s trio sonatas as he mounted the steps to the vast reception suite. Despite the heat of the summer, the rooms were still crowded, the leading members of society mingling with cabinet ministers, foreign ambassadors, and members of the royal family. The Queen herself, a stout, gray-haired matron splendid in blond satin trimmed in gold lace, presided over the evening from a richly carved and gilded armchair situated between the two main rooms. At her side sat her eldest son, the Prince Regent, and, standing beside him, the Prince’s plump, gray-haired mistress, the Marchioness of Hertford.