by C. S. Harris
Everyone else in the room stood.
“Viscount Devlin,” intoned the powdered footman.
A tall woman in emerald silk who was conversing with a group that included the Foreign Secretary, Castlereagh, looked around at Sebastian’s entrance. Their gazes met across the crowded room, and Sebastian saw his betrothed’s eyes widen with surprise before narrowing speculatively.
“Well, this is unexpected,” said Miss Hero Jarvis, separating herself from her circle and walking up to him. “Whatever are you doing here?”
If she felt any awkwardness at their meeting, she didn’t show it. But then, in Sebastian’s experience, her coolness and selfpossession came close to rivaling her father’s. Sebastian was only just beginning to realize that in her case, at least, all was not exactly as it seemed.
“I received an invitation,” he said, accepting a glass of wine proffered on a tray by a circling waiter.
“London’s hostesses are always sending you invitations. You only accept them when you have some ulterior motive.”
Sebastian gave a soft laugh. From where he stood, he was able to watch the new Russian Ambassador, Count Christoph Heinrich von Lieven, bowing low over the Queen’s hand. “Perhaps I’ve developed an interest in Russia.”
She followed his gaze. “So it’s true, is it? You are investigating the death of Alexander Ross.”
“Word does get around, doesn’t it?”
“When the topic of conversation is murder? What do you expect?” She stood beside him, her gaze, like his, drifting over the assembled company. “I must say, I am relieved to hear someone is looking into it. I personally found his sudden death beyond suspicious.”
Sebastian glanced at her in surprise. “You knew him?”
“He was engaged to marry one of my cousins.”
“Ah. The wellborn but impoverished gentlewoman sold off to the highest bidder by her gamester father. She’s a relative of yours, is she?”
“She was. My mother’s cousin Charlotte. Dreadful woman. I always thought old Peter Cox got far more than he bargained for with that match. Her son, Jasper, is just like her. But I rather like her daughter, Sabrina.”
“And how is Miss Cox taking Ross’s death?”
“She is dreadfully cut up about it, as one would expect. Why do you ask? Surely you aren’t seriously considering Sabrina as a suspect?”
“At this point, I’m not ruling out anyone.” He nodded across the room to where an animated young woman with dark hair and a long, graceful neck was charming the Prince Regent. “What can you tell me about the new Russian Ambassador?”
Miss Jarvis followed his gaze. “Well, I see you’ve already identified his beautiful and captivating wife.”
“She is rather difficult to miss.”
“There are those who say Countess Lieven is the Czar’s real representative, that her husband is just a placeholder. But I think that’s rather harsh. He’s a shrewd man, ruthless on the battlefield and at the negotiating table. They make a good team.”
“You’ve met them?”
“We had the senior members of the Russian delegation to dinner two nights ago.”
Sebastian took another sip of his wine. “So which of the military-looking gentlemen accompanying the Count is Colonel Dimitri Ivanovich Chernishav?”
“There,” said Miss Jarvis, nodding to a uniformed officer with a ceremonial sword buckled across a blue coat dripping with gold—gold sash, gold braid, gold plumes. “The blond gentleman with the mustache.”
Sebastian studied the Colonel’s broad, big-boned face. “You had him to dinner, as well?”
“Several times.”
“Good,” said Sebastian, setting aside his wine. “Then you can introduce us.”
The Russian Colonel was studying a massive, full-length portrait of George II when they walked up to him.
“Devlin, is it? I have met your father, the Earl,” said the Colonel, when Miss Jarvis had made the introductions. “He tells us he is a friend of Russia. Yet when it comes to Napoléon, all he is prepared to offer us is words of encouragement. No men.”
“Our troops are rather busy these days,” said Sebastian, “what with fighting the French in the peninsula and defending our interests in India and the New World.”
The Colonel laughed. “You can’t seriously consider the Americans a threat?”
“To Canada, yes.”
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” said Miss Jarvis, adroitly withdrawing.
The Russian watched her walk away. “A formidable woman, that one.”
“Definitely,” agreed Sebastian. He studied the Russian’s cheerful, full-cheeked face, with its soft blue eyes and swooping cavalry mustache. He looked to be in his late twenties, his high rank obviously less an indication of experience on the battlefield than of wealth and birth. Britain and Russia were much alike in this sense, if not in others.
Sebastian said, “I understand you were acquainted with a friend of mine at the Foreign Office. Mr. Alexander Ross.”
Chernishav’s smile faded. “You knew Alexander?” He gave the name its Russian pronunciation, Aleksandr. “A shock, wasn’t it? We were to meet at Cribb’s Parlour the very evening he died.”
“But you did not?”
The Russian shook his head. “No. He never showed up. I finally went round to his rooms and knocked at his door, but he didn’t answer.”
“What time was this?”
“Midnight? Perhaps a little earlier, perhaps a little later. I thought it strange at the time but wrote it off as a matter of miscommunication. Then I heard he’d been found dead in his bed, and it struck me as all the more peculiar. And now ... Now you are asking me questions, and I have been in London long enough to know what that means.”
He stared at Sebastian expectantly, but Sebastian only said, “You were friends?”
“For some years now, yes. We met in St. Petersburg when Alexander was with your embassy there. It’s not easy, being a stranger in a strange land. This time, I am the one who’s far from home. We would meet occasionally for a drink. Talk of Russia.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
The Russian looked thoughtful for a moment. “I suppose it must have been that Wednesday night, at Vauxhall. I formed part of the Ambassador’s party, while Alexander was there with his fiancée and her brother. Lovely young woman—and fabulously wealthy, I understand.” He gave a rueful smile. “I was quite jealous of my old friend’s good fortune, you know. And then, just a few days later—” He kissed his bunched fingers and then flung them open in an ironic gesture. “Alexander is dead. Fate is a strange thing, is it not? Fickle and cruel.”
“Know of anyone Ross had quarreled with recently? Anyone who might have wanted him dead?”
The Colonel’s gaze shifted to the painting beside them. “It’s a thought that naturally occurs to one, is it not?”
“And?”
He kept his gaze on the painting. “Alexander was a diplomat by profession. It can be a dangerous game, diplomacy. A dance of shadows in the darkness.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, I know some of what Alexander was involved in. But not all.”
“Yet you know something.”
Chernishav hesitated, then said, “That night, at Vauxhall, I chanced to come upon Alexander in a heated conversation with Ambassador Ramadani.”
“Ramadani?”
The Russian cast a significant glance toward the dark-eyed, dark-bearded man wearing long crimson robes, goldembroidered slippers, and an elaborately wrapped turban, who was now engaged in conversation with the Marchioness of Hertford. “Mr. Antonaki Ramadani. The Ambassador from Constantinople.”
Sebastian recognized the man. He’d frequently seen him—in different clothes—exercising a magnificent Turkoman in Hyde Park early in the morning. “Ross was involved with the Ottomans?”
“That, I do not know. But he was most certainly involved with Mr. Ramadani in some way.”
“Any idea wha
t the subject of their argument might have been?”
The Colonel shook his head. “Sorry. I only caught the last few words of their discussion. But what I heard was interesting, to say the least. I distinctly heard Ramadani say, ‘Don’t threaten me, you little English shit, or you will be the one to be sorry.’ ”
Chapter 17
“Threaten him about what?” asked Sebastian.
Chernishav shrugged. “I never discovered. They saw me then. Ramadani strode away, while Ross laughed and tried to pass the incident off as nothing. But I knew he was concerned.”
Sebastian was silent for a moment.
Chernishav’s light blue eyes glinted with quiet amusement. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
“Russia and Turkey are well known to be age-old enemies.”
“True,” Chernishav acknowledged. “But since the recent Treaty of Bucharest, we are no longer at war.” He shrugged. “Believe me or not, as you will. But if Alexander did not die peacefully in his sleep as we have been led to believe, you could do worse than to take a look at some of the more questionable activities of the Sultan’s representative.”
Placing one hand on the hilt of his ceremonial sword, the Russian gave a short bow and moved away.
Sebastian was watching the Colonel thread a path across the crowded room when Miss Jarvis walked up to him.
“Learn anything?” she asked.
He turned to look into her shrewd gray eyes. As Lord Jarvis’s daughter, she probably knew more than almost anyone else in London about the delicate diplomatic maneuverings swirling around Ross’s death. Yet the fact that she was Jarvis’s daughter meant that Sebastian couldn’t trust her. And it occurred to him that the implications of that lack of trust did not bode well for their future together.
“What?” she said, her gaze hard on his face.
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
She raised one eyebrow. “Are you planning to tell me what makes you suspect that Alexander Ross did not, in fact, die peacefully in his sleep?”
Sebastian cast a meaningful glance about the glittering assembly. “This might not be the most appropriate setting for such a discussion.”
“I will be spending tomorrow morning at the site of the old Grayfriar’s Priory in Newgate. We can speak more freely there,” she said, and withdrew.
He watched her walk away, torn between amusement and annoyance and the unsettling realization that his coming marriage would alter his life in more ways than he could begin to envision.
From the distance came the peal of the city’s church bells, ringing out the half hour. Soon, it would be time to pay another, more surreptitious visit to Alexander Ross’s rooms on St. James’s Street. But first he had an important stop to make.
He ordered his carriage and set off for Covent Garden.
Auburn haired and beautiful, Kat Boleyn sat at her dressing table, the flickering candlelight casting a golden glow across her bare shoulders, her slender arms raised as she eased the pins from her dark hair. She looked up when he slipped into the room. Their eyes met in the mirror, and for one telling moment her breath caught.
She was the toast of the London stage, an actress famed for both her talent and her beauty. She was also the natural daughter of Alistair St. Cyr, the Fifth Earl of Hendon, and the love of Sebastian’s life.
“Devlin,” she whispered. She did not move.
He stood for a moment, his shoulders pressed against the closed door behind him. He had loved this woman for nearly a third of his life. Once, he’d sworn to make her his wife and to hell with the consequences. Then fate and a long, sordid tangle of lies had intervened. Now she was married to a man named Russell Yates, a dashing privateer whose secret sexual inclinations remained one of the few taboos still rigidly enforced by their otherwise lax society. While Sebastian ...
Sebastian was about to marry the daughter of his worst enemy.
He said, “I’m sorry for coming here, but I had to see you.”
She studied his face in the mirror. The effects of too many sleepless nights and too many brandies would be obvious to anyone who knew him as well as Kat. She said, “I’d heard you were wounded. Are you all right?”
He touched his arm, injured the week before in a fight to catch the killer of the Bishop of London. “It’s stiff, but that is all.” He drew a deep breath. “There’s something I must tell you. I’ve asked Miss Hero Jarvis to be my wife.”
“Jarvis?” She went white, the only sound the clatter of one of her hairpins hitting the surface of the dressing table. Once, Lord Jarvis had threatened her with torture and death. She had found a refuge of sorts through her marriage to Yates, but they both knew she would never really be safe from someone like Jarvis.
She let out a strange sound that might have been a shaky laugh. “I suppose there must be a reason for this. But I can’t at the moment imagine what it is.”
“There is a reason.” It was all he could say. He supposed the reason would be obvious enough in a few months’ time, but it was not something he ever intended to confirm. He owed Miss Jarvis that.
“Does Hendon know?”
“Of the marriage? No.”
“I think you should be the one to tell him.”
When he didn’t answer, she drew in a quick breath, and then another. Yet her voice was still a harsh whisper when she said, “You know I wish you happy, Sebastian.” She hesitated, as if searching for something pleasant to say. “She ... she does not seem overly much like her father.”
“No. I don’t believe she is.” Overly much, he thought, although he didn’t say it. He watched Kat remove the last pins from her hair to send it cascading about her shoulders. The urge to reach out and touch her, to run his fingers through that heavy auburn fall, to draw her into his arms, was so intense that he shuddered with it.
She said, “I hear you are investigating the death of Alexander Ross.”
He was startled enough to smile. “Is there anyone in London who does not know of it at this point?”
“Probably not.”
He studied the familiar contours of her face, the wide, sensual mouth and childlike nose, the intense blue eyes she had inherited from her father. He knew that once she had worked for the French, passing along secrets she hoped would aid her mother’s people, the Irish. It had been more than a year now since she’d severed her connections to Napoléon’s agents. But that had been before—when they’d still been lovers, the truth of the connection between them blissfully unknown. It was possible, he supposed, that her relationship with the French had been resumed. He knew that her husband, Yates, still maintained his contacts with the smugglers who plied the perilous waters between England and the Continent.
He said, “Have you heard anything about Ross’s death?”
She shook her head. “No. But I can make some inquiries, if you’d like.”
“It might be helpful to know more about his activities.”
“I’ll let you know if I learn anything.”
She pushed up from her bench and turned to face him, her hands at her sides, her fingers curling around the edge of the table behind her. She wore only a petticoat, and a chemise beneath a short corset; he could see the heavy velvet folds of her costume thrown over a nearby chest. Her breasts were high and full, swelling above the confines of her corset. Her eyes shone wide and luminous in the candlelight, and for one dangerous moment out of time, he lost himself in looking at her.
She said, “I never would have married you. You know that, don’t you? I’ve been saying it for nearly ten years now.”
“If things had turned out differently, I could have made you change your mind. Eventually.”
She laughed at that, a low, sad laugh rich with love and all the years they’d lost and all the years they’d shared. “Oh, Sebastian. Always so cocksure and arrogant, so certain that somehow the world can be put to right.” Her smile faded and she gave a little shake of her head. “I realized long ago that if I truly loved you—and I do�
�that I couldn’t ruin you by marrying you. The only way I could ever have married you is if I were to fall out of love with you, and that will never happen.”
He felt an ache pull across his chest, but he managed to keep his own tone light. “Is this supposed to make me feel better?”
“It would, if you could ever be brought to believe it.”
“I can’t.”
“Believe it, Sebastian. Believe it.”
She came to him then, her skin soft beneath his touch, her hair sliding across his fingers as he drew her close, her lips yielding to his. It was a kiss of heartbreak and hopeless passion, of a wild, all-consuming yearning.
And a last good-bye.
She was the one who pulled away first. But still her lips came back to brush his, again and again, before she finally brought her fingers up to press them against his mouth. “I will always love you,” she said, her forehead touching his, her breath mingling hard with his. “And I know you will always love me. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn to love someone else.”
He looked into her blue St. Cyr eyes. “And you, Kat? Have you learned to love Yates?”
She drew back then, her lips swollen from his kisses, her chest sill rising and falling with her rapid breathing. “That’s different.”
“Yet you think I can be happy, knowing you are not?”
“It is what I would wish.”
He gave her a crooked smile. “And you say I am the one who likes to believe the world can somehow always be put to rights.”
Chapter 18
T he night was warm, the moon nearly half full and unusually bright.
Sebastian left his carriage on Piccadilly and strolled down St. James’s Street, an evening cape thrown over his shoulders, the heels of his dress shoes clicking softly on the flagged paving. The windows of the gentlemen’s clubs blazed with light. Music spilled from open doors; the laughter of ungenteel women carried on a soft breeze. Passing the Je Reviens coffee shop, he glanced in the oriel window. Despite the hour, the coffee room was still crowded, the burly, gray-bearded Frenchman at his station behind the counter.