by C. S. Harris
Amanda’s hand flashed through the air in a sharp, dismissive gesture. “Seriously, Devlin? She’s barely a month out from childbirth. What do you mean to imply?”
“The twins sleep with their wet nurses?” he asked Stephanie.
“Yes.”
Amanda’s lips curled into a sneer. “You don’t seriously think my daughter would turn herself into a milk cow?”
It was a barb directed at Sebastian’s own wife, Hero, who had nursed their young son herself. He ignored the taunt and said to Stephanie, “When did you last see your husband?”
“It must have been a week ago, at least—if not more.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“I would caution you to be careful not to lie. Not when the subject is murder.”
“I am not lying. Ashworth married me to satisfy his father’s increasingly insistent demands for an heir, and as soon as he learned I was with child, he was as happy to ignore me as I was to be left alone. And I am now frankly quite overjoyed to be a widow.”
“A truth I suggest you keep to yourself.”
Stephanie tilted her head to one side, a strange smile tightening her lips. “Really, Uncle? And yet you just advised me not to lie.”
“About your movements, never. But I believe your joy at widowhood can be safely concealed.”
Amanda let out a huff of disgust. “You aren’t seriously suggesting anyone would dare suspect Stephanie? Stephanie?”
“I’m afraid it’s highly possible, given that Ashworth appears to have been killed by a woman.” He watched Stephanie’s eyes widen and said, “That frightens you. Why?”
“Of course it frightens me. Mother might believe I won’t be suspected, but I fail to share her confidence.”
Her voice cracked when she said it, giving him a glimpse of the quiet terror she was struggling so valiantly to keep hidden. And he felt momentarily overwhelmed by a rush of his lifelong affection for this beautiful, vibrant, troubled young woman. He said gently, “If you know anything—anything at all—that might shed some light on what happened to Ashworth, you must tell me.”
She pushed up from her chair and went to stand staring out at the garden, one hand resting on the windowsill. “I don’t know anything.”
He studied her half-averted profile. “I’ll help you in every way I can, Stephanie. But you must be honest with me.”
“We don’t need your help,” said Amanda, going to give the bell a sharp tug. “One of the footmen will show you out.”
Sebastian met his sister’s stony gaze. “I hope to God you’re right.” To Stephanie, he said, “If you need me, you know where to find me.”
She stared back at him, and he saw something flicker in the shadowy depths of the girl’s vivid blue eyes.
Then she turned her face away and said nothing.
* * *
Sebastian went next to the Grosvenor Square residence of Alistair James St. Cyr, the Fifth Earl of Hendon, for many years now Chancellor of the Exchequer and the man known to the world as his father. But according to Hendon’s butler, the Earl had departed for Oxford two days before.
After leaving a carefully worded note, Sebastian drove back to his own house in Brook Street. “Stable them for now,” he told Tom, handing the boy the reins. “And grab yourself something to eat while you’re at it. I have a feeling this is going to be a long day.”
“Aye, m’lord.”
Sebastian watched the boy drive off, then turned to mount the steps to the house. “Is Lady Devlin in?” he asked his majordomo, handing the man his driving coat, hat, and gloves.
“I believe she’s in the library, my lord,” said Morey.
“Ah. Thank you.”
Sebastian found his wife, Hero, leaning over the library table, so focused on the map she had spread out to study that she didn’t hear his approach. He paused for a moment in the doorway, a faint smile playing over his lips as he quietly watched her.
She was an extraordinarily tall woman—nearly as tall as he, with a Junoesque build, warm brown hair, and strong, slightly masculine features. She was also one of the most brilliant people he knew, fiercely logical and passionately devoted to identifying and righting the injustices of their world. For some time now, she’d been writing a series of articles on the poor of London—an endeavor that profoundly irritated her father, the King’s omnipotent cousin, Charles, Lord Jarvis. As the real power behind the Prince of Wales’s fragile Regency, Jarvis terrified nearly everyone in the kingdom. But not Hero.
She’d been Sebastian’s wife for going on two years, but she was still a wonder to him. She’d come into his life at a particularly dark period, when he’d lost, first, the woman he’d loved for years, and then his own sense of who and what he was. Now he couldn’t imagine his world without her. Sometimes in the haunted darkness of the night, the fear of losing her or their young son, Simon, could come upon him out of nowhere with a ferocity that took his breath and scared the hell out of him. He suspected it always would.
She looked up then, saw him, and smiled.
“New project?” he asked, pushing away from the doorframe.
“I’m thinking about writing an article on the street scavengers—mainly the pure finders and rag-and-bone pickers, but perhaps also the night-soil men, if I get up the nerve.” The night-soil men were the laborers who emptied the city’s hundreds of thousands of cesspits and privies, and always reeked of their occupation.
“Sounds lovely,” said Sebastian, going to pour himself a brandy.
“Is it true?” she asked, watching him. “Ashworth is dead?”
Sebastian eased the stopper from the brandy carafe. “He is. Hacked to death while tied naked to his bed. They’ll never keep that tidbit out of the papers.”
“Poor Stephanie. How is she taking it?”
“With unnerving aplomb.”
Hero watched him set aside the decanter and reach for his glass. “You can’t seriously suspect Stephanie of murder?”
He took a slow sip of his brandy and felt it burn all the way down. “I wish I didn’t.”
“Is she capable of that sort of violence?”
“If pushed? I think so. I imagine a man such as Ashworth would drive almost any wife to want to murder him.”
Hero walked over to take a sip of his brandy, then handed him back the glass. “I’ll never understand why she married him.”
“Because she was three months gone with child and couldn’t bear to face the consequences.”
Hero gave a wry smile. “That I can appreciate. I suppose what I can’t understand is why she involved herself with such a man in the first place.”
“Well, he was a marquis’s heir, extraordinarily rich, and undeniably handsome in a rakish, dangerous sort of way. He could also come across as quite charming when he wanted to.”
Hero made a face. “I suppose.”
He took another sip. “According to Stephanie, the list of people who wanted Ashworth dead is virtually endless.”
“No doubt. Where do you propose to start?”
“With someone who knew the man well and yet somehow still managed to like him.”
“I suppose there must be someone.”
“Oh, there is.” Sebastian drained the rest of his drink in one long pull and set the glass aside. “I went to school with him.”
Chapter 6
His name was Sir Felix Paige, and he’d been a friend of Ashworth since the two were boys together at Eton. Sebastian had been at Eton at the same time, but he’d never called either man a friend.
Unlike Ashworth, who’d been born into his position as his father’s heir, Paige began life as the younger son of a younger son. At the age of seventeen, rather than going off to Oxford or Cambridge, he’d bought a pair of colors with his uncle’s assistance and headed to India to make his fortun
e. Instead, he’d nearly died there—first of fever, then from a nasty head wound acquired at the Battle of Assaye. Sent home to recuperate, he’d had the good fortune to bury, in short order, his father, his uncle, his uncle’s childless only son, and his own unmarried elder brother. Having thus unexpectedly acceded to the family’s title and fortune, the new Baronet immediately sold out and settled permanently in London, visiting his estates only during hunting season.
Like Ashworth, Sir Felix was a Corinthian, a sportsman with a reputation as a bruising rider who spent hours at both Angelo’s fencing academy and Jackson’s boxing saloon in Bond Street. It was there that Sebastian found him going a couple of rounds with Gentleman Jackson himself.
Sebastian stood for a time leaning against a nearby wall as the two men sparred. Paige was a tall, lanky fellow with sandy hair, a high forehead, and a mobile, expressive face that habitually seemed to be breaking into a broad smile—although the smiles rarely reached his pale blue eyes, which were watchful and assessing.
Sebastian was impressed with the Baronet’s footwork and science and the way his intense focus on his opponent never wavered. But Sebastian could tell the man knew he was there, and that he resented the scrutiny. When the last round ended, the Baronet looped a towel around his neck and walked up to him.
“I take it you’re here for a reason,” said Paige, his face gleaming with sweat and his chest lifting with his labored breathing.
Sebastian pushed away from the wall. “You’ve heard about Ashworth?”
Something flickered across the Baronet’s rawboned features, an unreadable expression that was there and then gone. “I have.”
“So, you know why I’m here.”
“Do I?”
“You were one of his closest friends, were you not?” Sebastian paused a perceptible moment, then added, “Especially now that Rowe is dead.”
“I never knew Rowe well. But Ash and I were friends, yes. Old friends.” The Baronet’s words were as guarded as his eyes.
“Who do you think killed him?”
Paige brought up a hand to swipe one end of the towel across his sweaty face, then turned toward the dressing rooms. “I have no idea.”
“No?” said Sebastian, keeping pace with him. “Yet you must have some idea who his enemies were.”
Paige glanced sideways at him. “I didn’t exactly keep a list, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Were there so many?”
“Most men have enemies.”
“But Ashworth had more than a few?”
Paige shrugged.
Sebastian said, “When was the last time you saw him?”
“Yesterday afternoon, actually. At Tattersall’s. Why?”
“Did he happen to mention how he planned to spend the evening?”
“Not so’s I recall, no. Sorry.”
“How did he seem?”
Paige stripped off his sweaty shirt and went to pour water into a basin. “Meaning—what?”
“Was he nervous? Angry? Upset?”
Paige shook his head. “Hardly. If anything, I’d say he was in good spirits. He usually was.”
“You heard how he was found?”
Paige’s mouth thinned into a flat line. “I heard.”
“You’re familiar with the sort of games he liked to play?”
“Vaguely.”
“Do you like to play those games too?”
Paige froze in the act of washing his hands. “No.”
“I can find out, you know.”
The Baronet’s nostril’s flared on a quickly indrawn breath. “Suit yourself. But call me a liar again, and you’ll meet me for it.”
“If you found his activities so distasteful, then why stay friends?”
“That was none of my affair.”
“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.” Sebastian watched Paige bend over the washbowl and splash his face. “You wouldn’t happen to know the name of the woman Ashworth was with last night, would you?”
“Sorry, but no.”
“There wasn’t anyone in particular he’d been involved with lately?”
Paige looked up, his face dripping.
“I take it there is someone?” said Sebastian.
Paige reached for a clean towel and dried his face. “Ash always did like dangerous women. He saw them as a challenge.”
“So who was his most recent ‘dangerous woman’?”
They were alone, but the Baronet still cast a quick look around and lowered his voice. “You’ve heard about this Grand Duchess who’s in town?”
There was only one Grand Duchess in London who mattered: Catherine of Oldenburg, the attention-loving, Russian-born sister of Tsar Alexander. “You aren’t seriously suggesting that Ashcroft was involved with Grand Duchess Catherine?” said Sebastian. “She’s only just arrived.”
Paige shook his head. “Not her; one of her ladies. Ivanna is her name; Princess Ivanna Gagarin. She’s been here for weeks.”
Sebastian studied the other man’s face, looking for some evidence of subterfuge. He saw none. “You’re certain?”
“That she was with Ash last night? No, of course not. I’ve no idea. But I understand she does like to play his kind of games.”
Sebastian watched Paige pull a clean shirt over his head. “Who else has he been playing his games with lately?”
“That I couldn’t say.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
Paige gave a faint smile and reached for his cravat.
Sebastian said, “Out of curiosity, where were you last night?”
“Me? White’s. Why?”
“Until when?”
“Two? Maybe three.”
“And then you went home?”
“Yes. I made an early night of it.” The Baronet kept his gaze on the mirror, his focus on the intricacies of his neckcloth. “Please tell me you aren’t seriously suggesting that I might have had something to do with what happened to Ash. I understand your compulsion to try to protect your niece, but you won’t do it by shifting the blame to me. Believe me, you’ll have far better luck with Princess Ivanna.”
“Oh? Why’s that?”
Paige turned from the mirror, his eyes now crinkled with genuine amusement. “Look into her. You’ll see.”
Chapter 7
Sebastian pondered the Grand Duchess’s presence in London as he drove toward the Pulteney Hotel.
Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna of Russia had taken London by storm. Gorgeous, incurably dramatic, and just twenty-five years old, she possessed a knack for playing to the crowds that greeted her with roars of acclaim whenever she drove through the streets or showed herself on the balcony of the Pulteney Hotel—which she had hired in its entirety for a vast sum. Yes, she was haughty and demanding, with an inordinately excessive opinion of herself. But she responded to the people’s cheers with smiles and a wave of her hand, and they loved her for it.
Sebastian had heard that George, the Prince Regent, despised her.
Part of the Regent’s animosity, Sebastian knew, stemmed from the simple fact that he hated anyone the people loved, including his own eighteen-year-old daughter. But Sebastian suspected that didn’t explain all of it—or the fact that the antipathy was reportedly mutual. The two royals were said to have despised each other on sight.
The problem was, Sebastian couldn’t begin to imagine how or why Ashworth could have become involved with the Russians. There’d been a time when his father, the Marquis of Lindley, had played an influential role in government, having served first as Master-General of Ordnance and then as Foreign Secretary. And Sebastian had heard that despite his age, the old Marquis still felt duty bound to take his seat in Parliament whenever it was in session. But, unlike his father, Ashworth had never shown any interest in public aff
airs, preferring to spend his time gambling and riding to hounds and playing his nasty bedroom games. So of what possible use could such a man be to the Tsar’s wily sister or anyone in her retinue? It made no sense.
But that didn’t mean it wasn’t true.
* * *
The Pulteney Hotel stood on the corner of Piccadilly and Bolton Streets, overlooking the gentle acres of Green Park. It occurred to Sebastian as he sent his card up to Princess Ivanna Gagarin that the Pulteney was less than two blocks from Ashworth’s house on Curzon Street.
A lady traveling in the household of Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess didn’t receive just anyone. But no member of a diplomatic delegation to the Court of St. James was going to turn away the son and heir of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Princess Gagarin received Sebastian in a pleasant parlor overlooking the hotel’s cobbled mews. She was attended by a hatchet-faced older woman in black who sat silently tatting in the corner and a barrel-chested, mustachioed colonel in the green-and-white uniform of the elite Imperial Guard.
“Lord Devlin,” said the young Princess, greeting him with a wide smile. “What a pleasant surprise. How kind of you to call and make us feel welcome.”
Sebastian bowed low, acutely aware of the stiff, unsmiling officer watching them from his position by the hearth. “Thank you for seeing me.”
Like her mistress, the Grand Duchess, Princess Ivanna Gagarin was somewhere in her twenties, slender and of above average height, with gleaming dark hair and milky white skin. There was a distinctly Slavic cast to her features, her face flat and wide, her cheekbones pronounced, her nose small. She was not a beautiful woman, but she was undeniably attractive, with a raw earthiness that somehow managed to be both subtle and powerful.
She introduced the burly, full-faced officer as Colonel Nikolai Demidov. The colonel clicked his heels, gave a jerky bow, and grunted. She did not introduce the older woman. The Princess then offered Sebastian wine, which he politely refused, and invited him to sit, which he did. The colonel simply remained standing by the hearth, a silent but unforgettable presence. And all the while they went through the rituals of polite society, Sebastian was conscious of Princess Ivanna quietly assessing him, her eyes half-hidden beneath thickly lashed lids.