by C. S. Harris
Sebastian shook his head. He’d done it all and more. But he’d never dabbled in the kind of evil offered by Number Three, although he knew there was no way he could ever make her understand just how vile that place was.
And so he said instead, his voice as calm and gentle as he could make it, “There will be no going back from this, Stephanie. If you find you’ve made a mistake, it can’t be undone.”
He saw her lips part, saw her throat work as she swallowed. She turned her face away. “I’ve made many mistakes in my life, Uncle. But marrying Ashworth isn’t one of them.”
He studied her beautiful, tense profile and knew an ache of sadness and useless foreboding. “Believe me in this, child: Even if I can’t bring myself to congratulate you on your betrothal, I do wish you all the happiness in the world.” He hesitated, thinking he probably should leave it at that and yet not quite able to stop himself from adding, “But you don’t look very happy to me.”
She gave a sharp, brittle laugh. “Is any of us ever really happy, Uncle? Truly, blessedly happy?”
“Always? No; of course not. But I am happy in my marriage, Stephanie; profoundly, passionately, and yet also peacefully happy—more than I could ever say and far more than I ever dreamt possible. There’s no reason you can’t have that too. But you won’t find it with a man of Ashworth’s ilk. That way lies heartache and a world of grief.”
Her chin came up, her blue St. Cyr eyes flashing. “I’m glad you’re happy, Uncle. But you’re not me.” And with that she touched her heel to the bay’s side and brought her crop down on its withers sharply enough to send the big gelding in a wild gallop down the Row. Her groom scrambled to follow her.
Sebastian watched her go. Proper ladies did not gallop in Hyde Park. But then, Stephanie had never been one to trot sedately, to follow conventions or play by the rules. And as troubled as Sebastian had been before, he was even more disturbed now.
• • •
Wheeling his horse, Sebastian rode across Hyde Park to the grand Park Lane residence of the Dowager Duchess of Claiborne.
She’d been born Lady Henrietta St. Cyr, elder sister of the current Earl of Hendon. For more than fifty years she’d reigned as one of the grandes dames of Society. She was proud, opinionated, bossy, judgmental, nosy, and ferociously intelligent. She was also one of Sebastian’s favorite people. And even though she was, in truth, only a distant relative of his, he still called her Aunt Henrietta. The affection between them ran deep and had little to do with things like bloodlines and tangled family trees and the expectations of their world.
It was the Duchess’s well-known practice never to leave her dressing room before one. The bells of the city’s churches were just striking the half hour when Humphrey, her oh-so-proper butler, opened the door to Sebastian’s knock.
“My lord,” said the butler, so far forgetting himself as to groan out loud. “Please. No.”
“Sorry, Humphrey,” said Sebastian, heading for the stairs. “I won’t be long. Make certain that urchin I’ve left holding my mare doesn’t steal her, would you?”
He ran up the grand, curving staircase to the second floor and entered his aunt’s bedchamber after the briefest of knocks. He could hear her snoring gently from the depths of her grand, velvet-hung bed, and crossed quickly to pull back the heavy window drapes with a cheerful, “Good morning, Aunt.”
“What?” She sat up, one hand groping for the quizzing glass she kept beside her bed. “Good God. Devlin. It’s you. What in heaven’s name are you doing here? Go away and come back at a decent hour.”
“I’m sorry, Aunt, but this is important.”
She glared at him, the lens of the quizzing glass hideously distorting her eye. “What is important?”
“I need to know why Ashworth was blackballed from Almack’s.”
The Duchess let her quizzing glass fall. She was a large woman, built much like her brother but with more flesh. She also shared Hendon’s heavy, blunt features and his gruff way of talking. “What time is it?” she demanded.
“Half past eight.”
She lay back with a groan. “You wake me up at the crack of dawn to ask me about something that happened ten years ago?”
“Was it ten years ago?”
“Nearly.”
“So what happened?”
Henrietta gave a heavy sigh and sat up again. “It’s quite a sordid tale. Ashworth persuaded the younger sister of one of his friends to run off with him. The foolish chit thought they were headed for Gretna Green. Instead he took her to a hunting lodge in Melton Mowbray. By the time her father and brothers tracked them down some weeks later, the girl was already with child.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t kill him.”
“They tried. Unfortunately, it was one of her brothers—Ashworth’s friend—who was killed. And since the brother had fired first, the death was ruled justifiable homicide.”
“What happened to the girl?”
“She died in childbirth. She was so very young.”
“How young?”
“Thirteen.”
“Good Lord. You say this was ten years ago?”
“Thereabouts.”
“Ashworth was—what? Twenty-two? Twenty-three?”
“Yes.”
“Why did the tale never get out?”
“The family confided the truth to the patronesses of Almack’s in the hopes of protecting other gently reared young girls. But they asked that the details be kept quiet out of respect for their dead daughter. Even Sally Jersey can keep her mouth shut when she needs to.”
“Have you told Stephanie?”
“Of course I told her. But the girl is nineteen. She refused to listen. She’d already heard Ashworth’s version of the story and accused me of simply trying to discourage her.”
“Which you were.”
“Well, of course I was.”
“What about Amanda?”
Henrietta gave a derisive snort. “You think Amanda would let a little thing like rape and kidnapping stand in the way of seeing her daughter become a marchioness? She knew the truth long ago.”
“Yet you haven’t told Hendon.”
“Seriously, Devlin; do you want to give him an apoplectic fit?”
Sebastian went to stand at the window overlooking the park. After a moment, he said, “What can we do?”
“I’m afraid there is nothing we can do.”
“Ashworth will make her life a living hell.”
“Yes. But it’s her choice, isn’t it?”
He pushed away from the window. “What does she know of men? She’s nineteen—and she grew up with a man like Wilcox as a father. Not to mention Bayard as a brother.”
Henrietta sat up a little straighter and cleared her throat.
“What?” said Sebastian, watching her.
“You do know Wilcox wasn’t actually her father.”
Sebastian stared at her. “He wasn’t? So who was?”
“I’ve no idea. All I know is that once Amanda provided Wilcox with Bayard and that other little boy—what was his name?”
“William.”
“That’s right; William. Who names a child William Wilcox? At any rate, once she’d provided Wilcox with two heirs, she shut him out of her bedroom. Refused to relent even after the younger boy died.”
“Does Stephanie know?”
“She may suspect, but I doubt Amanda ever told her the truth. It’s rather ironic, isn’t it? Amanda always hated your mother for playing Hendon false. Yet she turned out to be far more like Sophia than she’d ever care to admit.”
“Amanda is nothing like my mother.”
Henrietta sniffed. “Well, you can hardly say the same about Stephanie. She even looks like Sophia, which is more than Amanda ever did. Perhaps she’ll prove us all wrong and somehow manage to reform Ashw
orth. It does happen.”
“Ashworth isn’t wild. He’s evil.”
“Now you’re starting to sound like some sort of Papist.” She wrinkled her nose. “What is that dreadful smell?”
“Probably me. I’ve just come from riding in the park.”
“Oh, lovely. It wanted only that.” She hesitated a moment, then said, “Hendon tells me Hero has been bringing the baby to see him. It’s very kind of her. He quite dotes on the boy, you know.”
Sebastian knew what she was trying to do, and simply remained silent.
She said, “One of these days, Devlin, you really must find your way to putting the past behind you. Not simply for Hendon’s sake but for your own.”
“I can’t forgive him for what he’s done.”
“Are you so certain that’s what’s driving this, Sebastian?”
“What the devil is that supposed to mean?”
“Think about it.” She flopped back down and put a pillow over her eyes. “Now go away. You’re making my bedroom smell like a stable.”
• • •
It was a short time later, when Sebastian was changing into clean clothes, that Calhoun said, “I’ve discovered the answer to your question about Icarus Cantrell, my lord.”
Sebastian made a final adjustment to his neckcloth. “And?”
Calhoun held up Sebastian’s coat of Bath superfine. “Seems he murdered a fellow student while up at Cambridge. He claimed it was self-defense, but the jury convicted him of murder.”
Sebastian shrugged into his coat. “So he was at Cambridge.”
“He was, my lord.”
“How did he kill this fellow?”
Calhoun assembled Sebastian’s hat and gloves, his features grave. “He strangled him, my lord.”
Chapter 26
Sebastian arrived at the Professor’s Attic just as the first drops of rain were beginning to fall. As he watched, a ragged, dark-haired young girl of twelve or thirteen darted from the shop’s door. She threw Sebastian a frightened glance, then scurried away through the ancient central arch of the nearby St. John’s Gate, her head bowed and her shawl drawn up in a way that hid her face.
“Thought you’d be back,” said Icarus Cantrell when Sebastian pushed open the battered door and walked inside. The old man was standing at a table with a tub of water near the back of the room and was using salt and a cut lemon to polish a badly tarnished brass tray.
Sebastian carefully closed the door behind him. “Oh? Why?”
The Professor gave a curiously tight smile and returned his attention to his tray.
Sebastian said, “Do I take it the young girl I just saw leaving is one of your”—he paused, searching for the right word—“suppliers?”
Cantrell kept his gaze on his work. “Most of the district’s street children find their way to my door at one time or another.”
“Oh? Did you know a young girl named Mary Cartwright?”
“Can’t say I did. Why?”
“She disappeared last spring.”
“Benji wasn’t the first street child to disappear around here, you know.”
“So I’m beginning to realize. Although I don’t recall you mentioning that when I was here before. Why?”
“I wasn’t convinced you were ready to listen.”
Sebastian let his gaze drift over the jumbled pile of tarnished brass waiting to be polished. “I hear you were once at Cambridge.”
Cantrell dipped the now gleaming tray into the water, washing away the salt and lemon juice. He did not look up. “Do I take it you’ve also heard what happened there?”
“I have. Although not in detail.”
“The details are not important.”
“They might be. Why did you kill him?”
Cantrell lifted the tray from the water and reached for a drying cloth. “The lord’s son I killed was six feet tall and weighed close to eighteen stone. Sound anything like Benji Thatcher to you?”
“Why did you kill him?” Sebastian asked again.
“He left me no choice.”
Sebastian shook his head. “I might believe that if you’d shot him or bashed in his head. But you strangled him. It takes a long time to strangle someone to death. And it’s not something you do accidentally.”
“I did strangle him, yes. And the world is a much better place with him out of it. I don’t regret what I did, even taking into consideration the seven years of hell I endured in the sugarcane fields of Georgia because of it.”
“How old were you?”
“When I killed him? I was fifteen.” The Professor hesitated, then added, “Benji’s age.”
Fifteen was young for a lad to head off to Cambridge, but it wasn’t unheard of.
“My father disowned me, of course,” said the old man, carefully drying his tray.
“And your mother?”
“She cried. I don’t know what she’d have done once I made it back from Georgia. But by the time I’d served my sentence and managed to return, she was dead. If I regret anything, it’s the impact my actions had on her.” He set the tray aside and selected a badly tarnished chocolate pot from the pile. “So tell me: Did you look into Sir Francis Rowe?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“He made no attempt to deny killing the six-year-old pickpocket in August. In fact, if anything I’d say he is rather proud of it.”
“And Benji?”
“That he does deny. And while I might have reason to suspect him of killing Benji, he has no reason I know of to harm Sybil—or any of the other children who seem to be missing from around here.”
“True.” The Professor sprinkled salt on the pot, reached for another sliced lemon, and scrubbed for a moment in silence. Then he said, “I knew a young girl once who went into service as a parlormaid in a gentleman’s household. She was a pretty, winsome thing. But her master abused her terribly. He used to tie her up and take a whip to her.”
“Oh?” said Sebastian, wondering where the old man was going with this. “Why did she endure it?”
“He threatened to accuse her of theft if she complained or left.”
“And?”
“The girl usually came home to visit her mother on her half days off. Except, one week she didn’t come. The mother feared the girl must be sick, so she went to the gentleman’s house to see her daughter. They told her the girl had been dismissed three days before. The mother didn’t believe it; she was convinced something had happened to her—that the gentleman must have killed her. But no one would listen to her.” Cantrell paused. “She never saw her daughter again.”
Sebastian watched the old man rub the lemon over the dull surface of the chocolate pot, leaving it gleaming. He couldn’t shake the conviction that Cantrell was toying with him—had been toying with him. That the man knew far more than he was actually saying. “What was the girl’s name?”
“Bridget Leary. It’s been—oh, two or three years now.”
“I’d like to speak to Bridget’s mother.”
Cantrell shook his head. “Unfortunately, she’s dead. Died less than a year later of a broken heart.”
“And the gentleman’s name?”
“Ashworth. Viscount Ashworth.”
Sebastian crossed his arms at his chest. “You do know Ashworth is betrothed to my niece?”
“I didn’t know yesterday, but I do today.” Cantrell plunged the chocolate pot deep into his tub of water. “Even if Ashworth had nothing to do with what happened to Benji, you don’t want him marrying your niece. Believe me.”
“Unfortunately I have no say in the matter.”
“That is indeed unfortunate.”
“As it happens, Ashworth was with my sister and niece Sunday night.”
“And you think that eliminates him as a suspect, do you?”<
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Sebastian studied the Professor’s aged, sun-creased face. “What aren’t you telling me?”
He lifted the chocolate pot from the water and reached again for his towel. “A stint as a slave in the sugar fields of America teaches a man much about the human capacity for evil. About the depraved things some men—and women—will do when they think they can get away with it.”
“Whoever did this won’t get away with it. And they won’t do it again.”
“You’re very confident, my lord.” Cantrell set the gleaming brass pot aside. “Only I’m not convinced you know what you’re up against.”
“And you do?”
Something flickered in the depths of the old man’s eyes, something he hid as he turned to survey the waiting collection of tarnished brass. “Enough to tell you to be careful, my lord. Very, very careful.”
From another man, the words might have been taken as a threat. But they weren’t a threat. They were a warning.
• • •
Lindley House, the grand London residence of the Marquis of Lindley, lay on Park Lane, not far from the home of the Duchess of Claiborne. But the Marquis’s heir, Viscount Ashworth, kept his own establishment in Curzon Street.
The address was fashionable enough, although the house itself was modest and not particularly well kept. As he climbed the front steps, Sebastian found himself remembering what Hendon had said about the Marquis cutting his son off financially in order to force him to wed. The red paint on the front door was dull and beginning to peel, the area steps were in want of sweeping, and the aged butler who answered Sebastian’s knock looked as if he should have been pensioned off years before.
“Is his lordship expecting you?” asked the wizened old butler, peering at Sebastian with watery, myopic eyes.
“He should be.”
“It is very early.”
“Shockingly so,” agreed Sebastian. It was half past twelve. “But I’ve no doubt you’ll find his lordship agreeable.”