by C. S. Harris
“What does her husband say?”
“He is devastated, naturally. But he claims to be utterly baffled by his wife’s activities.”
Sebastian brought his gaze back to the little magistrate’s grim-featured face. “You believe him?”
“One can hardly call the Ambassador to the Court of St. James from the Sublime Porte a liar.”
“You may not be able to,” said Sebastian. “But I can.”
His Excellency Antonaki Ramadani may have been devastated, but not so devastated as to forgo his usual evening ritual, which typically began with dinner at Steven’s before progressing to Limmer’s.
Located at the corner of Conduit and George streets just across from the Church of St. George, Limmer’s was the evening resort for the sporting world. A sprawling brick edifice from the previous century, the hotel essentially served as a late-night Tattersall’s. Pushing through the crowd that filled its dark, spartan public room, Sebastian found the Ambassador looking for all the world like a country squire in buckskins and high-top black leather boots, his only condescension to his presumed state of mourning being a black ribbon tied around his arm.
“Mind if I join you?” asked Sebastian, pulling out a nearby chair.
Ramadani met Sebastian’s gaze, his own narrowing. Then he turned to the slim, middle-aged man beside him and said quietly, “You’ll excuse us for a moment?”
Sebastian watched the former jockey walk away. “I didn’t know you were a passionate follower of the turf.”
“I find it amusing.” The Turk settled back in his chair. “Take a glass of the hotel’s famous gin punch with me, my lord? Or do you prefer port?”
“I’ll have the punch, thanks,” said Sebastian, watching the Ambassador signal the barmaid. “I was sorry to hear about the death of your wife.”
“It is tragic, is it not? She was a very beautiful woman.”
“She was indeed.” Sebastian waited while the barmaid set their punch on the table before them. “Who did she go to Queen Ann Street to meet?”
“That I do not know.”
“Really?”
The Turk returned a bland stare. “Difficult to believe, I know. But nonetheless true.”
Sebastian watched the Turk’s face—and his hands. “I’ve heard the oddest rumor: that Yasmina was not your wife. That she was in fact brought here to function as a spy.”
Ramadani gave him a thin, tight smile. He kept both hands wrapped around his punch, although he did not taste it. “Did you know that ambassadors posted to the Court of St. James are subjected to closer scrutiny by your government than at any other court in the world?”
“Closer even than at the Porte?”
“One might wish that we were so thorough. History tells us that Walpole spent a million pounds sterling on his secret service, and I am given to understand that such expenditures have only increased in the last seventy-five years. Our servants are bribed and hectored into becoming spies who read our private papers and report our every move. All incoming and outgoing mail is routed through the Foreign Office, where it is opened, read, copied, and then resealed before being sent on its way.”
“So you’re saying—what? That a nation with so little respect for the sanctity of the diplomatic corps shouldn’t object when some of its guest diplomats engage in a bit of their own spying?”
“I certainly wouldn’t expect such a people to stoop to murder.”
Sebastian sipped his gin punch. “Are you accusing the British government of murder?”
“The government?” Ramadani pursed his lips and shook his head. “Perhaps not. But certain members within that government? Now, that’s a different matter altogether.”
“Did you have anyone in particular in mind?”
The Turk gave a harsh smile. “May I suggest you address some of these questions to your prospective father-in-law? He is said to be omniscient, is he not? And the ruthlessness of his methods is legendary.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, I told you I prefer the garrote, did I not?”
“Antoine de al Rocque was garroted.”
“True. But not by me,” said Ramadani.
And he walked away, leaving his gin punch untasted.
Charles, Lord Jarvis, was standing at the elbow of the Prince Regent in a gaming hell off Pickering Place when Sebastian walked up to him and said quietly, “If I might have a word with you, my lord. Outside.”
Annoyance and something else flared in the big man’s eyes. But he flattened his lips and turned to murmur his apologies to the Prince.
“Well, what is it?” snapped Jarvis as he and Sebastian strolled toward King Street.
“The spies in the households of the various ambassadors posted to London,” said Sebastian. “Who controls them? You? Or the Foreign Office?”
“The Foreign Office. Why?”
“But you have access to their reports.”
“Naturally.”
“So you knew why the woman known as Yasmina Ramadani was sent to London as part of the Turkish Ambassador’s household.”
“We had our suspicions, yes.”
“Did you have her killed?”
Jarvis snorted. “I did not.”
“Yet you knew she had seduced someone at the Foreign Office. Who was it?”
Jarvis’s full lips curved into a smile. “Even if I knew, you don’t seriously think I’d tell you, do you?”
With effort, Sebastian suppressed the urge to plant his fist in the middle of his future father-in-law’s complacent face. “What about the Swede, Carl Lindquist? Did you have him killed?”
A man in a swirling evening cape walked toward them. Jarvis dropped his voice to a harsh whisper. “Don’t be absurd. The Swede’s death has complicated an already delicate state of affairs.”
“How many people besides Ross knew of the transfer of the gold?”
Jarvis kept his voice low. “It’s impossible to keep arrangements of this nature a closely held secret. By necessity it is known to individuals in the Treasury, the Cabinet ... even some members of Parliament.”
Sebastian waited until the gentleman in the evening cape had passed them, then said, “And Antoine de La Rocque? How did he figure into it?”
The King’s powerful, omniscient cousin drew a gold snuffbox from one pocket and flicked open the lid. “I know nothing about de La Rocque. To my knowledge he was merely an expriest with a rather curious passion for collecting old books.”
Sebastian smiled. “Of course.”
Jarvis lifted a delicate pinch of snuff to one nostril and inhaled. “You haven’t asked if I killed Alexander Ross.”
Sebastian met the older man’s hard gray gaze. “Would you tell me if you had?”
Jarvis closed his snuffbox with a snap. “I suppose that would depend on why I had him killed.”
Lost in thought, Sebastian was walking up St. James’s Street when one of Kat Boleyn’s young pages found him.
Breaking the seal of her note, Sebastian read through the brief missive. Then he turned his steps toward Covent Garden.
Chapter 41
H e found Kat waiting for him at the stage door.
She wore a crimson velvet cloak with the hood pulled up over her auburn-shot dark hair. He walked toward her, his footsteps echoing in the stillness, his gaze drinking in the sight of her.
She held out her hand to him. “I didn’t think you were coming.”
He took her hand in his, held it a moment too long, then released it. “Your page had a difficult time finding me.” He searched her beautiful, beloved face. “What is it?”
“You’ve heard of the death of the woman known as Yasmina Ramadani?”
“Yes. Why?”
They turned to walk up the narrow lane. She said, “The friendship between France and the Sublime Porte goes back hundreds of years.”
“Thanks largely to their mutual dislike of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the grand tradition of ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend.’”
“Something like that.”
Sebastian glanced sideways at her. “Are you telling me that the information Yasmina collected was being shared with the French?”
“Yes.”
“Via whom?”
She smiled and shook her head. “You know I can’t tell you that.”
He nodded. “Can you tell me who Yasmina targeted at the Foreign Office? Was it Alexander Ross? Or someone else?”
“I’m not certain, although it’s possible she may have had more than one lover.” Kat hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “It has occurred to you, I suppose, that it is in France’s best interest to prevent an alliance between Britain and Sweden?”
“Are you saying the French acted on the information Yasmina gleaned from Ross—or someone else—and killed Lindquist in an attempt to disrupt any alliance between Britain and Sweden?”
“I’m saying it’s a possibility. But do I know for certain? No.”
“And Ross? Why was he killed?”
“I haven’t been able to learn anything about Alexander Ross.”
Sebastian blew out a long, frustrated breath. “I suppose it’s possible his death isn’t related to any of this at all.”
“It’s related,” she said. “The manner of his death tells us that.”
They walked along in silence for a moment, their footsteps echoing hollowly in the narrow, empty street. Then she said, “Have you considered Jarvis?”
“When one is dealing with what looks like the work of a professional assassin, the possibility of Jarvis’s involvement does tend to suggest itself, yes. Although if Jarvis had Ross killed to prevent him from spilling state secrets to a Turkish spy, I don’t see why he wouldn’t simply admit it.”
“You asked Jarvis if he killed Ross?”
“Yes.”
She let out a peal of laughter, soft and melodic and so belovedly familiar it brought an ache to his chest. “Oh, Sebastian,” she said, “your future family gatherings ought to prove beyond interesting, to say the least.”
Then she must have read something he didn’t want her to see in his eyes, for her smile faded and she reached out to touch her fingertips, ever so briefly, to his arm. “I know why you’re doing this, Sebastian.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “How can you?”
“The British government isn’t the only one who pays servants to spy on their masters. Get your bride a new abigail.”
That night, Hero received an urgent note from her cousin Sabrina.
I need to talk to you, the girl had written, her penmanship wobbly, agitated. Could we meet for a walk in the park tomorrow?
Intrigued, Hero wrote back, Of course. I’ll see you at ten.
Then she sat for a time, her cousin’s note in her hand, her mind busy with a series of conjectures that in the end seemed to go nowhere.
Tuesday, 28 July
The morning dawned cool and overcast, with a soft white mist that swirled through the trees in the park.
Hero found Sabrina looking pale and heartbreakingly lovely in a walking dress of the deepest mourning topped by a black spencer. At first, Hero was content to simply allow the conversation to ramble as they walked. Her abigail, Marie, followed languidly behind—thankful, Hero suspected, for the moderating effect Sabrina’s presence had on Hero’s normally brisk pace.
They spoke for a time of Alexander Ross, and Sabrina’s grief, and her inability to respond with enthusiasm to Jasper Cox’s plans to remove to the seaside for a few weeks.
Hero said, “I suppose you must find some comfort in your music.”
Sabrina choked back a sob. “I haven’t been able to play since I heard ... since I knew . . .” Her voice trailed away.
Hero reached out to touch her cousin’s shoulder in an awkward but sincere gesture of comfort. “It will come back, eventually. I know it will.” Then, feeling profoundly dishonest, even contemptibly sly, she added, “You play the harp, don’t you?”
Sabrina shook her head. “Pianoforte.”
“Of course. How could I have forgotten?”
Hero stared off across the park, to where the waters of the Serpentine glinted in the distance. She had never actually believed sweet, dainty Sabrina capable of wrapping a harp wire around a man’s neck and twisting it until his face turned purple and the veins in his eyeballs burst.
Hero wasn’t so sure about Jasper.
Hero said, “Were you by chance acquainted with a French émigré named Antoine de La Rocque?”
“De La Rocque? I don’t believe so. Why? Who is he?”
“He was a collector of old and rare books.”
Sabrina frowned. “A rather peculiar-looking man with a long neck and a small head?”
Hero glanced at her in surprise. “Yes, that’s he. So you did know him?”
“I met him once, when I was with Alexander.” She sucked in a quick breath, her eyes widening with sudden comprehension. “You said he ‘was’ a collector of old books. Why? What has happened to him?”
“He was killed yesterday.”
Sabrina shuddered and turned so alarmingly pale that for a moment Hero worried she might faint. “You mean, murdered?”
Hero eyed her warily. “Yes. I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to distress you. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
Sabrina swallowed hard and shook her head. “No. You were right to tell me.” She walked on in silence for a moment, her gaze on an old-fashioned closed carriage pulled by a pair of showy dapple grays that was drawing abreast of them at a sedate pace. The park was largely deserted at this hour; they could see only some children laughingly playing chase under the watchful gaze of a nursemaid, and a tall, broad-shouldered gentleman in fashionable trousers and a black coat walking briskly toward them.
“Hero,” said Sabrina, as if suddenly coming to a decision, “there’s something I need to tell you—”
She broke off with a frightened gasp as the tall gentleman reached out to seize her arm, spin her around, and slam her back against his chest. In his left hand he held a pistol, its muzzle pressed against Sabrina’s temple.
“Do anything stupid,” he said to Hero, his rough accent at decided variance with his natty clothes, “and yer cousin here gets popped. Understand?”
Hero held herself perfectly still, although she could feel her heart pounding wildly in her chest. “I understand.”
“Hero,” wailed Sabrina, her legs buckling beneath her, her face slack with terror.
Hero’s maid, Marie, had come to an abrupt halt a few feet away, her eyes wide in a sickly pale face.
“It’s all right,” Hero told Sabrina calmly. “They won’t hurt you.” She cast a quick glance at her abigail. “Marie, stay where you are.”
She was aware of the showy grays coming to a stop beside them. The door of the ancient carriage flew open. Another man—his buff coat well tailored but ill fitting, his cravat clumsily tied—leapt out to seize Hero’s arm in an ungentle grip. “Yer comin’ wit’ us,” he hissed. He tried to drag her back toward the carriage, but he was a good head shorter than Hero, and slight.
“I will not,” she said.
The first man pulled back the hammer of his pistol. “Do what yer told.”
“Hero!” screamed Sabrina, lunging against his hold.
“I’ll go with you on two conditions,” said Hero.
“Oh, ye will, will ye?” jeered the buff-coated man, shoving his beard-roughened, tobacco-stained face unappetizingly close to hers. “And what are yer conditions, yer ladyship?”
“My cousin is allowed to leave safely.”
The black-coated man with the pistol laughed. “And?”
Hero glanced down at the broken, dirt-encrusted nails digging into the fine cloth of her walking dress. “You take your filthy hand off my arm.”
Chapter 42
S ebastian arrived in Berkeley Square to find the Jarvis household in an uproar.
“What the devil is going on?” he demanded when the harried butler fina
lly answered his peal.
“I beg your pardon, my lord,” said Grisham, his normally impassive face ashen, “but I am not at liberty to—”
“If that’s Devlin,” boomed Lord Jarvis’s gravelly voice from the back of the house, “send him in. Now.”
Sebastian followed the butler through a hall filled with milling servants, Bow Street Runners, and the steely-eyed, former-military-looking types Jarvis tended to favor for doing his dirty work. From somewhere abovestairs came the sound of hysterical weeping that inexplicably raised the hairs on the back of Sebastian’s neck.
Lord Jarvis stood before the great empty hearth of his library, surrounded by a throng similar to that in the hall. “Leave us,” he snapped. He waited until the others had filed from the room, then shut the door and said to Sebastian, “Hero has been taken. She was walking with her cousin in the park when they were set upon. It appears that at least two men were involved, plus a coachman.”
Sebastian knew a strange numbing sensation of disbelief. As if from a great distance, he heard himself say, “Both young women were seized?”
Jarvis shook his head. “Only Hero—and her abigail. Not Miss Cox.”
Sebastian took a deep breath, and when that didn’t help the sudden, crushing ache in his chest, he took another. “Their object is obviously not ransom,” he said, walking over to pour himself a brandy. His voice came out calm, even cold, but the hand that reached for the carafe was not quite steady.
“Obviously,” snapped Jarvis. The Jarvises might be an ancient and powerful family, but most of their wealth was tied up in land. For anyone interested in extorting a fortune, Miss Cox would have been the more logical target.
Sebastian sloshed a generous measure of amber liquid into a glass. “Is it an attempt to influence you on some looming policy decision, do you think?”
“I’ve received no demands.”
Sebastian threw him a long, cold look. “I’ll take you at your word.”
A flare of rage, primitive and uncharacteristically out of control, flared in the big man’s eyes. “Damn you, you impudent bastard. This is my daughter we’re talking about. My daughter.”