by C. S. Harris
In some indefinable way, Kat knew that the child she’d once been had resented the joy and peace her mother found in her garden. But she’d never been able to decide if her selfishness came from the wish that her mother would find that deep, unalloyed joy in her daughter alone, or if she’d simply envied the tranquility she glimpsed in her mother’s face. And it shamed Kat now to remember that she had begrudged her mother those brief interludes of peace and happiness.
There had been so little of either in Arabella Noland’s short life.
Now, as she breathed in the heady scents from the banks of Michaelmas daisies, ferns, and chrysanthemums, Kat found herself wondering if it was her mother’s spirit that had guided her here, to the peace of this place. Or was this love of growing things a trait passed down from mother to daughter, like dark hair and a talent for acting? A tendency that had always been there, nestled hidden within her, only waiting to be discovered.
She smiled at the thought. Then the smile faded as she became aware of a sudden charge of tension in the atmosphere, the rush of heavy feet. A trader’s high-pitched voice whined, “’Ey! Wot the ’ell ye doin’?”
Kat’s eyes flew open.
Rough hands seized her from behind. She lunged against the unseen man’s fierce grip, tried to scream. A calloused palm slapped down across her mouth, grinding her lips against her teeth and flattening her nose so that she had to fight to draw air. She smelled dirt and onions and fetid breath as he pressed his beard-roughened cheek against hers and whispered, “Come wit’ me quiet-like, an’ I’ll see ye don’t get hurt.”
Chapter 39
K
at heaved against the man’s hold and felt his arms tighten around her in a fierce hug. He dragged her backward, toward the shadowy, narrow lane that ran along the old, soot-stained nave of the church. She tried to bite the thick, dirty fingers smothering her, but the pressure was so brutal she could get no purchase.
“I say, there,” bleated one of the florists, stepping from behind his stall. “You can’t do that!”
A second man—a wiry, black-haired brute with a pock-scarred face and small, sharp nose—turned to thrust a blunderbuss pistol into the trader’s face. “Mind your own business or lose your head.” His English diction was careful and precise, but Kat caught the faint, unmistakable traces of French inflection and knew a new leap of terror.
The florist backed off, hands splayed out at his sides, face slack.
Her heart was pounding, her mouth achingly dry, the shouts of the scattered costermongers and stall keepers echoing oddly in her head, as if she were at the base of a well. The market square spun around her in a blur of startled, frightened faces, wet paving, spilled chrysanthemums. A flock of pigeons whirled up from the church portico, pale outstretched wings beating the cool damp air. She tried to twist her body sideways, but her captor’s fingers dug into her cruelly, his breath hot against her ear. “Ye want to live, don’t give me trouble. Ye hear, girl? Because wot I do wit’ ye afterward is up t’ me. Ye got that?”
She made herself go utterly limp, as if fainting from fear, her hands dangling slack at her sides. She heard him give a grunt of satisfaction. “Have yer friend bring the bloody cart up, quick,” he told his pockmarked companion. “Let’s get out o’ ’ere.”
They were passing the last stall in the row, a rough shed given over to the sale of earthen crockery, the stall’s seller cowering wide-eyed against the rickety frame, as if he could somehow make himself disappear into the weathered post behind him. Kat’s captor was half dragging, half carrying her now, a drooping deadweight that sagged in his arms, so that his effort was more focused on keeping her upright than on restraining her.
Flinging out one hand, she grasped the lip of a stout pitcher from the edge of the stall’s counter and swung it up and back to smash it against the side of her captor’s head. He let out a rumbling roar, his grip on her slackening with surprise and pain.
She twisted sideways, ignoring the wrenching pain that shot from her wrist as he tried, too late, to tighten his hold on her. “You bloody son of a bitch!” she screamed, grabbing a platter off the stall and breaking it against his face. “I ought to cut out your bloody liver and feed it to the crows!”
He howled, blood spurting from his cut face, his arms flinging up to protect his head as she snatched up a bowl and hurled it at him.
“Oy, wot ye doin’ to me crockery?” bleated the stall owner.
“Your bloody crockery?” shouted Kat, whirling to heave a plate at him. “You worthless, stinking coward! You would have just stood there and watched him kill me!”
“You fool,” screamed the pockmarked man to his companion as a shouting, angry crowd of stall keepers and costermongers, bouquet girls and nurserymen bore down on them. “Don’t just stand there. Grab her!”
“’Tain’t no way to treat a lady!” hollered a big, black-haired porter.
“You mind your own business,” growled the pockmarked man, flourishing his pistol.
A rotten tomato flew through the air to break in a red splat against his face.
The air filled with the day’s unsold produce, spoiling turnips and overripe melons, moldy pears and putrid apples. For one moment, the two men held their ground. Then the plucked, gutted carcass of a chicken whacked against the side of the bigger ruffian’s head. He turned and ran, feet slipping and sliding on a sea of rotten vegetables, splattered fruit, and smashed crockery. His companion hesitated a moment, then followed, swerving around the church steps to duck down the side street.
“Lay a hand on me again, and I’ll kill you! You hear?” yelled Kat, hurling a last earthenware bowl after them as they pelted down the lane to their waiting cart. She was no longer Kat Boleyn, the toast of London’s stage; she was Kat Noland, the scrappy, angry young orphan who’d struggled to survive in the fetid back alleys of a vast, unfriendly city. “I’ll cut off your pathetic yards and feed them to the stray dogs in Moorefield. I’ll decorate London Bridge with your entrails. I’ll—”
But the men were already piling into their waiting cart, its driver whipping up his horses into a mad gallop that took them careening around the corner and out of sight.
Kat let her hand fall back to her side, her fingers clenched tight around the lip of the rough mug she still held, her heart thundering in her chest.
“Do you know the story of the mice and the cat?” asked Emma Wilkinson, looking up at Sebastian with her father’s big gray eyes.
They were seated before the feeble fire in Annie Wilkinson’s tiny Kensington parlor. He had come here, as promised, to tell Emma a story before she went to bed. He’d expected the experience to be awkward, for he was a man with little exposure to children. But as Emma settled more comfortably against him and he felt her baby-soft curls brush his chin, he was surprised to find his thoughts drifting to the child that would be born to Hero in just a few short months.
“It’s my favorite,” said Emma.
“I might not tell it exactly the same as your papa.”
“That’s all right,” said Emma. “Papa always tells it a little differently each time.”
Sebastian glanced over to where Annie sat darning a sheet by the fading light of the rainy day. And he knew by the quick rise and fall of her chest that the child’s use of the present tense was not lost on her either.
“Very well,” he said. “Once upon a time, a colony of mice lived a happy, peaceful existence within the walls of a small village shop. The mice were well fed and content. But the man who owned the shop wasn’t happy with all those mice stealing his grain and nibbling on his cheese. So he bought himself a cat, who patrolled his shop and quickly terrorized the poor mice to the point they were too afraid even to come out of their little holes in the wainscoting and eat.”
“What color was the cat?” Emma asked.
“A big black cat with a bushy tai
l.”
“Papa always says, ‘a tabby.’”
“Sorry.”
Emma giggled.
“Anyway,” said Sebastian, “the mice quickly realized that if they didn’t do something about the cat, they would either starve to death or get eaten themselves. So they all got together to try to come up with a solution. There was much arguing and shouting, but no one could think of anything that would work. Finally, a clever young mouse stood up and said, ‘The problem is that the cat is so quiet we can’t hear him when he’s sneaking up on us. All we need to do is tie a bell around his neck, and that way we’ll always know when he’s coming.’
“Now, all the other mice thought this was a splendid idea. Everyone was cheering and clapping the young mouse on the shoulder and telling him how very clever he was and calling him a hero. All except for one old mouse, so aged his hair had turned as white as the frost. He cleared his throat and stood up to say”—Sebastian dropped his voice into a gravely Glaswegian rasp—“‘I’ll not be denying that tying a bell about the cat’s neck would surely warn us of his approach. There’s only one wee problem.’ The old man paused to let his gaze drift around the assembly of anxious mice and said—”
“‘Who bells the cat?’” shouted Emma, jumping up to clap her hands before collapsing against him again in a fit of giggles.
“You’ve heard this before,” said Sebastian in mock solemnity.
“Only about a hundred times,” said Annie, setting aside her darning to come take the child into her arms. Her gaze met his over the little girl’s dark head. “Thank you.”
“It was my pleasure. Truly.”
A faint smile touched her lips. “You’ll make a wonderful father.”
Afterward, he wondered whether it had been an idle remark, or if something of his own thoughts and emotions had shown on his face.
Later that evening, Sebastian was looking over a history of the French Revolution while Hero sat reading Abigail McBean’s English translation of The Key of Solomon. The black cat lay curled up on the hearth beside them.
“Listen to this,” she said, reading aloud. “‘I conjure you Spyritts by all the patryarchs, prophets, Apostles, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, vyrgyns, and wyddowes, and by Jerusalem, the holy cytty of godd, and by heaven and earth and all that therein is, and by all other vyrtues, and by the Elements of the worlde, and by St. Peter, apostle of Rome, and by the croune of thorne that was worne on godd’s head.’” She looked up. “I thought this was supposed to have been written by Solomon.”
“Details, details,” said Sebastian, looking up as a distant knock sounded at the front door.
“Expecting anyone?” asked Hero.
Sebastian shook his head.
A moment later, Morey appeared in the doorway. “The Earl of Hendon to see you, my lord.”
Sebastian was aware of Hero’s silent gaze upon him. In all the weeks of their marriage, Hendon had never yet paid a call on Brook Street, nor had Sebastian taken his bride to Hendon’s sprawling pile in Grosvenor Square. Yet she had never asked him that most obvious question: Why?
Morey cleared his throat. “His lordship says it is a matter of the utmost importance. I’ve taken the liberty of showing him to the library.”
Sebastian was aware of a deep sense of disquiet. After all that had been said between them, he could think of few developments that would motivate Hendon to come here.
None of them were good.
“Excuse me,” he said to Hero, and left the room.
He found the Earl standing before the library’s empty hearth, his hands clasped behind his back, his heavily jowled features sagged with worry.
“What is it?” asked Sebastian without preamble. “What has happened?”
“Kat was attacked this evening in Covent Garden Market.”
“Is she all right?” It came out sharper than he’d intended.
Hendon nodded. “Yes. Fortunately, the costermongers and stall keepers rallied and helped her drive the assailants away. She suffered a slight injury to her arm, but that is all.”
Wordlessly, Sebastian walked over to pour two brandies. He handed one to the Earl.
Hendon took it without hesitation. “She says she doesn’t know who the men were or why they attacked her.”
Sebastian took a long, slow swallow of his own brandy and felt it burn all the way down. “You don’t believe her?”
“I don’t know what to believe—although frankly I’m inclined to suspect it has something to do with this damned business about Yates.”
“If so, why wouldn’t she tell you?”
“I don’t know. I was hoping perhaps you knew the answer to that.”
Sebastian shook his head. “I’m afraid there’s far too much going on here that I don’t understand yet.”
Hendon stared down at his brandy. “She tells me you have undertaken to prove Yates’s innocence.”
When Sebastian remained silent, Hendon cleared his throat and said gruffly, “Thank you.”
“I’m not doing it for you.”
There was a long, pained pause. Then Hendon said, “No. Of course not.” He set aside the brandy untasted and reached for his hat. “Give my regards to your wife.” Then he bowed and left.
Sebastian sent at once for his carriage to be brought around. He was waiting with one arm propped against the mantel, his gaze on the cold hearth before him, his thoughts far away, when he felt the black cat brush against his leg and looked up to find Hero watching him.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, straightening. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“That’s a first.” She bent to scoop up the purring cat into her arms. “Has something happened?”
“Kat Boleyn was attacked this evening in Covent Garden. She’s unhurt, but it’s . . . worrisome.”
A frown line appeared between Hero’s eyes. “You think it’s connected in some way to Eisler’s murder?”
“Yes.”
She said, “Why would Hendon bring you word of Kat Boleyn?”
His gaze met hers. And he found himself thinking, When enemies become friends and then lovers, at what point do the last barriers drop? When are the final secrets revealed? She had been his wife for six weeks; she shared his bed every night and was carrying his child. Yet there was so much they did not know about each other, so many things he’d never told her, so much of which they’d never spoken.
And neither had ever uttered those three simple but powerful words, I love you.
He said bluntly, “Kat is Hendon’s natural daughter. None of us knew it until last autumn. To say the discovery was distressing would be one of the year’s great understatements.”
He saw the shock of comprehension in her eyes, along with something else he hadn’t expected.
“Oh, God,” she whispered. “Sebastian. I’m so sorry.”
He drained his brandy and set the empty glass aside. “If you’re imagining our quaint family circle as some grand tragedy, don’t. In the end, that discovery—as sordid and shocking as it was—turned out to be only the first act in what has since come to resemble nothing so much as a tawdry farce.”
“You don’t look to me as if you’re laughing.”
“Yes, well . . .” He would have said more, for there was so much else he needed to tell her. Only, at that moment Morey appeared in the doorway to say, “Your carriage is ready, my lord.”
He hesitated.
She reached out to touch his arm lightly. “Go on, Sebastian. I understand.”
And so he left her there, the black cat held cradled in her arms like a child.
Chapter 40
H
e found Kat curled up on the sofa before a fire in her drawing room, her left arm resting in a sling.
“Please don’t get up,” Se
bastian said, as she struggled to do so.
She sat up anyway, her small stockinged feet peeking out from beneath the hem of her muslin gown. “I asked Hendon not to carry this tale to you. But he obviously didn’t listen.”
Sebastian came to rest his hands on her shoulders and stare down into her upturned face. “How are you? Truly.”
“Gibson says it’s nothing serious—a sprain only. One of the men grabbed hold of my arm and I must have twisted it in my attempt to get away.”
“What the bloody hell happened? And why the devil did you go to Hendon rather than to me?”
“Stop glowering, Sebastian. I didn’t go to Hendon. He stopped by this evening by chance to see how I was doing, and I made the mistake of giving him an honest answer when he asked how I came to injure myself.”
“Did you give him an honest answer?”
She smiled. “For the most part. I have no idea who those two men were. But I don’t think their intent was to kill me—at least, not right away. They were trying to drag me to a cart they had waiting nearby.”
Sebastian walked away to stand at the window overlooking the darkened square below. “Did you act on the question I asked you this afternoon?”
“I did, yes. But I only sent a vague message to someone requesting a meeting. I didn’t go into detail on why.”