by C. S. Harris
Stripped down to shirt, waistcoat, and breeches, his épée held in a light, sure grip, the Frenchman parried and thrust with a skill virtually equal to that of his instructor. Sebastian stood for a moment and watched as, swords flashing, their stockinged feet dancing back and forth, the men surged across the stone flagging. Most gentlemen of their circle practiced the art of fencing at Angelo’s salon on Bond Street. But de Brienne’s fencing master obviously came to him.
“Impressive,” said Sebastian when the fencing master had finished the exercise and bowed himself out.
De Brienne accepted the towel presented by a waiting manservant and wiped his sweaty face. He was a boyishly slim man in his late thirties, of medium height, with delicate, aristocratic features and thick dark hair he wore just a shade too long. His intricately tied cravat, figured waistcoat, and high shirt points suggested a tendency toward dandyism without veering into the ridiculous. “I hear you yourself are no mean swordsman. We must test each other’s mettle sometime.”
“Perhaps,” said Sebastian.
The Frenchman looped the towel around his neck and nodded a curt dismissal to the manservant. “I take it you’re here because of that boy they found in Clerkenwell? You’ve heard I like to play with whips, and you naturally leapt to the conclusion I might have had something to do with his death.”
“And did you?” said Sebastian. He had been expecting the Frenchman to indignantly deny any such inclinations. But de Brienne was obviously too clever for that.
“No, I did not.” The Frenchman sat on a white iron bench and reached for his boots.
“But you do like to play with whips?”
He thrust a foot into the first boot and stomped, hard. “I play with like-minded adults, not children. And I don’t make a habit of littering London with discarded corpses.”
“Do you know anyone who does?”
De Brienne gave a startled laugh. “Seriously? Do you?”
“No. But then, I don’t like to play with whips.”
De Brienne’s lips curled into a tight, mocking smile. “How do you know? Have you tried it?”
“No.”
“You should. You might find you enjoy it.”
Sebastian studied the Frenchman’s thin, bony face. His English was barely accented, for he had fled France more than twenty years before. In those days he had been a wellborn but impoverished youth, with an uncle and two cousins standing between him and the family title. All were now dead.
Sebastian said, “How did you know I was investigating Benji Thatcher’s death?”
Still vaguely smiling, de Brienne reached for the second boot. “You haven’t exactly been secretive about it, have you?”
“Benji’s little sister, Sybil, is still missing,” said Sebastian as de Brienne shoved his last foot home, then stood to reach for his coat. “Do you know anything about that?”
The Frenchman’s attention was all for the task of drawing on his coat and adjusting the cuffs. “I did mention that I like to play with adults, did I not?”
“So you did.”
De Brienne looked up. “Who told you of my tastes, anyway?”
“Why? Do you think someone dislikes you enough to suggest that you might be guilty of murder?”
The Frenchman shrugged. “I have many enemies. It’s the inevitable result of revolution and war, is it not? Passions are aroused, grudges are held, and resentments build. One accumulates enemies.”
It was an unexpectedly revealing comment. Sebastian said, “Where were you early Monday morning at half past one?”
De Brienne dabbed at his damp face again with the towel. “Playing with a friend. And no, I will not give you her name.”
“What about Friday evening between, say, five and seven?”
De Brienne looked thoughtful for a moment, as if he could not immediately recall. Then he shook his head. “Same answer, I’m afraid. I am very fond of . . . play.” He threw a significant glance toward the row of long French doors that led back into the house. “And now you really must excuse me. I’m promised to Lady Aldrich’s for dinner this evening before her rout. She has a young cousin from Yorkshire staying with her, and the poor girl is sadly in need of social experience. I’ve offered to sit beside the girl and draw her out.”
“You’re very accommodating.”
“I try to be.”
It was not uncommon for gentlemen in their thirties or even forties to be partnered with seventeen- and eighteen-year-old girls. But given what Sebastian now knew about the Frenchman’s sexual tastes, the thought of de Brienne with an innocent young girl barely out of the schoolroom now struck him as more than distasteful. He said, “I thought you didn’t like to play with children.”
Something flared in the Frenchman’s eyes, something dark and dangerous. But rather than reply, he simply sketched an elegant bow, his lips curling into that practiced smile as he turned toward the house. “I’ll send James to show you out. Good day, monsieur le vicomte.”
• • •
“We’ve heard back from two or three of the area’s public offices,” said Sir Henry Lovejoy when Sebastian met with him later at a coffeehouse just off Bow Street. “So far all the responses have been negative. I’d like to think that’s encouraging, but after my conversation with Hatton Garden I’m not convinced it signifies anything.”
Sebastian looked up from his own glass of wine. “Met with them, did you?”
Lovejoy took a sip of his hot coffee and grimaced. “Sir Arthur Ellsworth. He insists that Benji Thatcher’s injuries were most likely sustained in whatever accidental fall killed him.”
Sebastian rested his shoulders against his bench’s high, old-fashioned back. “And the ligature marks around his neck?”
“Sir Arthur doesn’t seem to recall those.”
“They’re there.”
Lovejoy cleared his throat. “I know. I went to Tower Hill to see for myself.” He fell silent for a moment, as if lost in the horror of what he had found in the stone-walled outbuilding at the base of Gibson’s yard. “Have you made any progress at all?”
Sebastian shook his head. “I’ve a few suspects. But their links to the boy vary from tenuous to nonexistent.”
“And you still think there could be other such victims?”
Sebastian blew out a harsh breath. “I wish I knew.”
Lovejoy nodded. “I’ve assigned two of my constables to make inquiries around Clerkenwell. They haven’t turned up anything useful, but I’ve told them to keep looking.” He hesitated, then wrapped both hands around his coffee mug. “I’ve also been reading up on that Frenchman you were talking about—Gilles de Rais. It’s difficult to believe such evil exists.”
“Yet it does.”
Lovejoy raised his gaze to meet Sebastian’s, and his eyes were bleak and haunted. “Let us pray to God it doesn’t exist here.”
• • •
Hero was standing at the entrance to the nursery, the evening sun streaming in through the high windows, when Sebastian came upon her. She was still wearing her carriage dress of French blue kerseymere, made high at the neck with a stomacher front and long, full sleeves tied up with primrose ribbons. She was leaning against the doorframe and quietly watching Simon maneuver his way around and around a footstool with outthrust arms and woefully unsteady legs.
Sebastian walked up behind her, slipped his arms around her waist, and drew her close. “What happened to his howling tears?”
“The tooth came through this morning.”
“Thank God.”
They watched together as Simon lurched from the footstool to a nearby armchair, hands reaching, his fat, bowed legs wobbling precariously. Hero said, “Your son is getting ready to walk.”
“He’s too young to walk.”
She leaned her head back against his. “He doesn’t think so.”
Sebastian
studied her tired, tightly held profile. “Something’s wrong. What is it?”
She gave a soft huff of amusement. “How do you know something’s wrong?”
“I’m a very perceptive man.”
At that she laughed out loud, her hands coming up to rest atop his at her waist. “I was simply thinking how fortunate I am. How comfortable and safe my life is. How I’ll never need to worry that Simon might someday end up spending the night under a bridge or market stall, so cold he can’t sleep and so hungry it hurts. I don’t often pause to appreciate that, and it shames me.”
Sebastian was silent for a moment, his gaze on her strong, aquiline profile. “Started your interviews with the street children of Clerkenwell today, did you?”
She nodded. “A girl and a boy. The boy is growing up as wild, amoral, and ignorant as a puppy—although to tell the truth, I suspect his life isn’t too terribly different from what it would have been had his mother not been sent to Botany Bay for dispatching his father with an iron skillet.”
“Sounds like a charming fellow. And the girl?”
“Her story is far more haunting, and I suspect I don’t know the half of it. She tells me she had an older sister named Mary who recently disappeared.”
“How recently?”
“Last spring. I suppose it’s possible the older girl decided her life would be easier without a little sister in tow and simply moved on, perhaps to the Haymarket. But Thisbe is convinced something dreadful happened to her, and I can’t help but think about Benji Thatcher and his sister. You’ve still found no trace of the little girl, Sybil?”
“None. I’ve accumulated a few new suspects, including a decidedly unsavory French count and a Clerkenwell fence who was once transported for murder. But at this point, it’s all just conjecture and supposition.” He hesitated, then said, “How well do you know Sir Francis Rowe? He is your cousin, isn’t he?”
“He is, yes. Although fortunately the relationship is distant enough that I can generally avoid him.”
“You don’t like him?”
“I’m afraid he’s far too much like his grandfather for my taste.” She shifted around so that she could see his face. “Why do you ask?”
“His name came up,” said Sebastian, and left it at that.
• • •
That evening, Charles, Lord Jarvis, put in an appearance at a fashionable rout given by Sir Basil and Lady Aldrich. He frequently attended such functions, for it was important that a man in his position be seen. But on this occasion he had a secondary purpose, a purpose that brought a suggestion of a smile to his lips as he entered Lady Aldrich’s flower-bedecked, overcrowded ballroom.
He found his quarry at the edge of the dance floor, the man’s full-cheeked, pug-nosed face suffused with paternal hope as he watched his rather plain daughter circle the room on the arm of some eligible young suitor.
Sinclair Pugh, the bloviating and decidedly imprudent member of Parliament for Gough, was a short, middle-aged man slowly growing stout despite his determined efforts to stave off the creeping pounds with regular sessions at Angelo’s and Gentleman Jackson’s Salon. His self-opinion and arrogance were legendary, although his background was more genteel than aristocratic and his wealth the product not so much of his estates—which were modest—as of a series of astute investments. He had grown very, very rich off King George III’s wars.
His expression nothing but pleasant, Jarvis walked up to stand beside him, his gaze, like Pugh’s, on the dance floor. “Your daughter, I take it?” said Jarvis, nodding toward the plump, pudding-faced Miss Pugh.
Pugh stiffened. “What do you want with me?”
“How shockingly uncivil,” said Jarvis, his own voice unfailingly cordial. “Particularly when my purpose is simply to give you a word or two of advice.” He watched as the laughing dancers arranged themselves into two facing lines. “Your opinion of His Highness’s plans for the reorganization of Europe after Napoléon’s coming defeat are best kept to yourself. I trust I make myself clear?”
“Very,” snapped Pugh. “However, if your intent is to intimidate me into silence, then I fear you have failed.”
“I suspected that might be the case,” said Jarvis, his voice still even and pleasant. “Nevertheless, I did feel you deserved to be warned. The responsibility for anything that happens to you from here on out will now be on your own head.”
“Is that a threat?”
Jarvis possessed an unexpectedly winning smile that he could use to cajole, placate, deceive, or confuse. He used it now with particularly chilling effect. “I suppose you could take it that way.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” said Pugh with an ostentatious show of foolish bravado.
“No? You should be.”
And with that Jarvis walked away, still faintly smiling and leaving Pugh staring after him.
Chapter 24
The gentleman paced up and down the dimly lit courtyard, his silk evening cloak swirling about his hard-muscled thighs, the heels of his dress shoes going click-click on the paving stones.
Painfully aware of the silence of the night around them and the smell of his own rank fear, the boy watched him.
“I hear you’ve been talking to Devlin,” said the man. “What did he want with you?”
The boy sucked in a quick, frightened gasp of air. “How did you know that?”
The gentleman tightened his face in a way that made his nostrils appear pinched. “Answer the question.”
“He—he wanted to know when was the last time I seen Benji.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I lied.”
The gentleman nodded. “What else?”
The boy frantically cast his mind back over that frightening conversation. “He asked about Sybil.”
“Sybil? Who is Sybil?”
The boy felt as if his heart had plunged down into his gut. “Benji’s sister.”
“Why would Devlin be interested in Benji’s sister?”
“’Cause nobody’s seen her. It’s like she just . . . disappeared.”
The gentleman was silent for a moment. Thoughtful. Then he said, “It’s possible she knows something.”
“Sybil? How could she?”
“Then what has happened to her?”
“I don’t know!”
“Is she hiding?”
“Why would she hide?”
“Because she may have seen something, you fool. You’d best find her. Quickly.”
The boy sucked in a breath that hitched in a way that made it sound like a sob. He knew only too well what the gentleman would do to Sybil if he found her. “But I’ve tried!”
The gentleman’s face had taken on that cold, flinty look that always made the boy’s throat seize up and his bowels loosen. “Try harder.”
The boy nodded, his throat so tight now he could barely force the words out. “Y-yes, sir.”
Chapter 25
Thursday, 16 September
The next morning dawned cold and blustery, with bunching gray clouds that promised rain.
Shortly before eight, Sebastian reined in beneath the shelter of one of the twin rows of plane trees that stretched along the southern boundary of Hyde Park. His neat black Arab shifted beneath him, wanting to stretch her legs. But he held the mare in check until the slim, golden-haired young rider he was waiting for appeared, followed at a proper distance by her groom.
He’d known she would come. Her restlessness was one of the things Miss Stephanie Wilcox shared with Sophia, the errant Countess of Hendon who had run off and left them all so many years ago. Her restlessness and a deep, elemental connection with horses. Sebastian could remember watching her as a girl of eight and ten gallop wildly along the cliff tops of Cornwall, the wind streaming her hair out behind her. He found himself thinking of that child now as he nudged his m
are forward to bring the Arab in alongside Stephanie’s big bay gelding.
“Uncle!” she said with a smile that flashed even white teeth but didn’t quite reach her eyes. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were lurking here with the intention of intercepting me.”
“Well, I’m glad you know better.”
She laughed out loud. She was nineteen and beautiful, and she knew it. She had her grandmother’s elegant, graceful build and even, aristocratic features combined with the intensely blue eyes that were the hallmark of the St. Cyr family. He could see nothing in her to remind him of Martin, Lord Wilcox, the brutal, disturbed man who had fathered her. And it occurred to Sebastian to wonder what her childhood had been like, growing up with an angry, sour mother and such a father.
Sebastian said, “Hendon told me of your betrothal.”
“Oh? And are you here to congratulate me, Uncle?”
“No.”
She turned her head to look directly at him. “Mother warned me that you disapprove. I suppose I should thank you for your honesty if nothing else.”
“Did she tell you why I disapprove?”
Stephanie shifted her gaze to something in the misty distance, her body moving easily with the motion of her horse. “You think I don’t know what Ashworth is like?”
“I’m quite certain you don’t.”
“In that, Uncle, you are wrong. I even know why he was blackballed from Almack’s. Do you?”
“No.”
“It was over something that happened years ago, when he was quite young. He fell in love with a girl down in Devonshire whose family had a long-standing quarrel with his. They refused even to consider the match, so the young couple eloped. They were intercepted before they reached Gretna Green, but the girl never got over it and eventually died of a broken heart. The family blamed Ashworth and have hounded him with lies ever since. It was the great tragedy of his life and the cause of much of the wildness for which he is condemned.”
Sebastian said, “I’m not talking about the wildness of youth.”
“So what are you talking about, Uncle? Debauched, brandy-soaked nights of vingt-et-un and faro? Decadent interludes with naked actresses and opera dancers? Pistols at dawn? And would you have me believe you were a saint before you married Hero? Is there anything I mentioned that you have not done?”