by C. S. Harris
A fierce, ugly light blazed up in the depths of those cold, calculating eyes. And he had the satisfaction of seeing her smile tighten into something less confident—but more lethal.
Chapter 40
Sebastian sat in the Abbey’s cold, ancient nave, his head tilted back as he stared up at the soaring vaulted ceiling.
Last night’s deadly attack in Seven Dials had already swung his suspicions back toward the Grand Duchess and her sinister lady-in-waiting. But the revelations contained in the sealed letter found amongst Edward Digby’s few remaining belongings were damning. As uncharacteristic as it seemed, Ashworth had obviously taken the threat from the Russians seriously. Perhaps not seriously enough to fear for his safety and take steps to protect himself, but enough to record what he’d overheard in case Ivanna should actually manage to have him killed.
Or kill him herself.
Had she done it? Sebastian was beginning to think it more and more likely. True, neither the Viscount nor his valet had shown signs of torture. Except how much torture would it take to convince a man like Ashworth to give up his valet? None, Sebastian decided. All someone would have needed to do was to hold a sharp blade to his throat or genitalia, and Ashworth would have given up friends, father, wife, infant sons—anyone. He wouldn’t have hesitated to sacrifice Edward Digby.
Of course, Digby hadn’t shown signs of torture either, nor had he surrendered the letter. That might seem to rule out the Russians, except that Sebastian had no difficulty envisioning several scenarios in which a plan to nab the valet had gone awry and ended in simple murder.
He was still pondering these possibilities when Colonel Nikolai Demidov slid into the pew beside him.
“Good,” said the Russian in his heavily accented English. “You are still here.”
“Have something you wished to say to me, do you?”
“You were warned to stay away from the Princess,” said the colonel. Except that with his pronounced accent, it came out sounding more like, You vere varrrned to stay a vay from dee Prrreencess.
Sebastian settled more comfortably in his seat, crossing his right foot over the opposite knee in a way that brought the dagger he kept sheathed in his boot within easy reach. “And you assumed I would comply?”
The colonel’s eyes narrowed. “You are amused?”
“Hardly. There’s nothing the least amusing about a fifteen-year-old girl dying alone and afraid in an alley.”
“What girl?”
“Sissy Jordan.”
“I know not of what you speak.”
“No? Initially I’d assumed that Ashworth’s death must have been something in the nature of an accident—that perhaps the lovely Princess got carried away while playing one of Ashworth’s erotic games—”
Demidov’s breath came out in a furious hiss. “Speak of the Princess again in this manner and I will cut out your—”
“But now I’m inclined to suspect there was nothing accidental about it,” Sebastian continued, ignoring the Russian’s interruption. “If I’m right, then it—”
“—tongue and feed it to the—”
“—was a stupid thing to do. And the more you kill to try to clean up your mess, the worse you’re making it.”
The colonel’s eyes were two narrow slits. “I have killed no one. Not yet.”
Sebastian kept his hand resting by his boot. “You’d have me believe you had nothing to do with what happened last night in Seven Dials?”
“If you were wise, you would see it as a warning.” You vould see it as a varrrning.
“Oh, believe me, I do.”
“I think not. The next time, we will not miss.” Vee veel not mees.
“The word you’re looking for is ‘miss.’ We will not miss.”
“Still, you make the fun.” The colonel leaned in closer, his breath washing over Sebastian’s face as he made a low tssk-tssking sound. Then he pushed up from the pew and walked away.
Sebastian stayed where he was, listening to the click-click of the Russian colonel’s receding boot heels on the Abbey’s ancient paving stones.
The pieces were finally beginning to fall into place, Sebastian decided. The angry confrontation between Ashworth and Ivanna Gagarin on the Pulteney Hotel’s stairs had never quite made sense before. Why would a man like Ashworth—who didn’t give a fig about either young Princess Charlotte or the new Anglo-Dutch alliance—quarrel with the Grand Duchess’s lady-in-waiting over some secret Russian scheme he chanced to overhear?
The truth was he wouldn’t, and he hadn’t. But Colonel Demidov hadn’t realized that. And so, the colonel had confronted Ashworth. Threatened him. And that was what had sparked Ashworth’s anger and led to the confrontation with Ivanna Gagarin.
Was that when she’d decided to kill him?
Sebastian kept thinking of something Ashworth’s friend and longtime companion, Sir Felix Paige, had said the morning after Ashworth’s murder. “A dangerous woman” was how he’d described Ivanna Gagarin. And because it fit her so well, Sebastian had never thought to question the designation.
Now he found himself wondering whether Paige actually knew more about Ashworth’s last, fateful encounter with the Russians than he’d been willing to admit.
* * *
Sir Felix was leaving Angelo’s fencing academy on Bond Street when Sebastian fell into step beside him. The Baronet gave him one swift glance and kept walking. “You do realize this is becoming tiresome?”
“Answer my questions and I’ll leave you alone,” said Sebastian.
“I was under the impression I had already answered your excessively tedious questions.”
“Not quite all of them. I’ve discovered that not only did Ashworth see Ivanna Gagarin on the afternoon of the day he died; he actually had a rather heated and potentially dangerous confrontation with her. Do you know anything about that?”
Paige gave a faint shake of his head, as if puzzled. “Dangerous in what way?”
“Seems he overhead the Russians plotting to break up Princess Charlotte’s betrothal to Orange with the assistance of a couple of handsome German princes.”
Paige lifted his eyebrows in an exaggerated grimace and shrugged. “So that’s the plan, is it? Clever—if they can manage it.”
“But you knew nothing of it?”
“Ash never said anything to me, if that’s what you’re suggesting.” He grinned unexpectedly. “You’re not thinking that’s why he was killed, are you?”
“It did occur to me, yes. Yet you obviously find the idea unbelievable. Why?”
“Because it’s ridiculous. Why would Ash have cared what they were plotting?”
“He’d care if his possession of such knowledge put his life at risk.”
“Why would it?”
“Governments generally prefer their secret machinations to remain secret.”
“It’s not as if Ash were the type to go running to either the palace or Fleet Street with such information.”
“Perhaps. But I’m not convinced the Russians knew that—or would be willing to take a chance on it.”
Sir Felix threw back his head and gave a throaty laugh that sounded both genuine and oddly chilling.
“Something’s funny, is it?” said Sebastian, watching him.
“Getting a bit desperate, aren’t you?”
“Meaning?”
Sir Felix drew up and turned to face him. “Husbands kill wives and wives kill husbands all the time. Why keep chasing after phantom illusions of foreign ‘sculduddery’? There are occasions when the obvious solution to a problem really is the correct one.”
“Not this time.”
The Baronet’s smile was still firmly in place. “So certain? When I was in India, we had a fellow in my regiment by the name of Boyne—Lieutenant Lester Boyne. His father was a simple Shropshire vicar, but he thoug
ht he was better than the rest of us because he was heir presumptive to his cousin’s earldom—that, and because he had an extraordinarily pretty little wife whom virtually every man in the regiment wanted. But then one day we learned that his cousin’s wife had miraculously given birth to a child at the age of thirty-eight. A healthy boy child. Overnight, Lieutenant Boyne went from being an earl’s heir to just another officer trying to survive on inadequate pay in a hot hellhole far from England.”
“I presume there is a point to this tale?”
“I’m getting to it. Less than two months later, Boyne was dead. A ‘fever,’ was the official claim. But more than a few of us suspected his pretty little wife, Victoria, had actually poisoned him. Seems she numbered a startlingly detailed knowledge of plants and medicines amongst her numerous other talents.”
Something about the other man’s broad grin told Sebastian this tale was neither as random nor as innocent as it was made to seem. “Victoria, you say?”
“Mmm. I’ve been thinking about the incident because I chanced to see her a few weeks ago—here, in London. Of course, she has a different name now. Married a lord’s son who came into the regiment not too long before Boyne died. Hart-Davis was his name, John Hart-Davis. Son and heir of Lord Hart-Davis. Although, unfortunately for little Victoria, I hear Captain Hart-Davis got himself killed at the siege of San Sebastián before she managed to become Lady Hart-Davis or produce an heir.”
Sebastian studied Paige’s mobile, clownlike face. His mouth was still stretched into a wide, cheerful grin. But his eyes were hard and glittering with a calculated malice that told Sebastian the man was only too familiar with Victoria Hart-Davis’s relationship to Hero.
“Deaths in a line of succession frequently do provoke ugly rumors,” said Sebastian, also smiling. “You’re lucky you were in India when all your male relatives died.” Sebastian hesitated a beat, then added, “Or were you?”
Paige’s smile slid into something ugly and revealing. “Meaning what?”
Sebastian met the other man’s gaze and held it. “How did you put it? Ah, yes. There are occasions when the most obvious solution really is the correct one.”
* * *
“So, was he?” Hero asked Sebastian later when he found her working on her article in the library and relayed the conversation with Paige to her. “In India when all his relatives died so conveniently, I mean.”
Sebastian poured himself a glass of wine. “I looked into it, and the answer is no, he wasn’t. From what I understand, his own father was the first to die—in his sleep, shortly after Paige returned to London to convalesce from his wounds. The father was a barrister—as was Paige’s elder brother.”
“Had he been ill?”
“Not at all. He was actually fairly young—just forty-eight. Paige’s uncle, the baronet, died shortly afterward, at his estate up in Leicestershire. He’d had a long battle with bowel cancer, so presumably that death at least was natural.”
“Let me guess: The cousin was next?”
Sebastian nodded. “His body was found in an alley near Birdcage Walk. He’d been stabbed in the back, but because his purse and watch were missing, the verdict was footpads.”
Hero frowned. “I suppose it’s possible, if suspiciously convenient. What happened to Paige’s brother?”
“He appeared to have fallen from his horse and broken his neck.”
“‘Appeared’?”
“I’m told some of the circumstances surrounding the incident were rather strange. The accident occurred up in Leicestershire while the new Baronet was surveying his recently inherited estate. Seems he made the mistake of taking Brother Felix with him.”
“A mistake, indeed. And did no one find this run of sudden, convenient deaths suspicious?”
“Apparently not. From the sound of things, Paige played the grieving son-nephew-cousin-brother to perfection. And then, of course, he was said to still be quite ill—much more seriously incapacitated than was first thought.”
“In other words, he could have been exaggerating his illness in order to deflect suspicion while he went on his killing spree.”
“The thought had occurred to me.”
Hero was silent for a moment. “I suppose it makes a certain kind of sense. Ashworth was a vile, dangerous human being. Anyone who could be friends with such a man since Eton must be of a similar type.”
Sebastian nodded. “To be frank, I’m starting to wonder if he might not have been involved in some of the killings up in Clerkenwell last year.”
“Dear God. Could Paige have killed Ashworth—and all the others?”
“If he killed his own father, brother, and cousin—which admittedly at this point is a big if—then he would certainly be capable of it. The main problem—apart from the fact that the Russian explanation seems far more likely—is that I can’t come up with a reason why he would want to kill Ashworth. Particularly in such a spectacular fashion.”
“Just because you don’t know the reason doesn’t mean he didn’t have one. After all, how much do you know about Sir Felix?”
“Not nearly enough,” Devlin acknowledged, draining the last of his wine.
Hero hesitated a moment, then said, “I could pay another visit to Cousin Victoria. I suspect she saw a side of Paige in India visible to few of his London cohorts.”
“I thought you were making notes for a new interview you wanted to do today.”
“I am. But the interview isn’t until later this evening.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’ve found a night-soil man who has agreed to meet with me before he begins his rounds.”
“A night-soil man? Good God. You’re a brave woman.”
Her eyes crinkled with a smile. “Not really. If I were truly courageous, I’d have arranged to interview him in the morning after his rounds.”
* * *
Later that afternoon, Hero went for a walk in Hyde Park with her cousin Victoria. The most fashionable hour for the promenade wasn’t until early evening. But with the Season in full swing, the park was already crowded with throngs of equestrians and pedestrians as well as phaetons, curricles, barouches, and landaus.
“Any progress in Devlin’s investigation into the death of his niece’s husband?” asked Cousin Victoria as they walked along a grassy path.
“Not as much as one might hope,” said Hero, choosing her words carefully. “Although he’s recently taken an interest in one of Ashworth’s friends, a former army officer named Sir Felix Paige.”
Victoria glanced over at her. “Felix Paige? He was in my husband’s regiment in India. I know him.”
“I hoped you might. Can you tell me more about him?”
Victoria stared across the park, toward the noisy congestion of Rotten Row. “He comes across as pleasant and easygoing—a man with a ready smile and laugh and little guile or conceit. But . . .”
“But?” prompted Hero when she paused.
“He’s not as he seems. I once found him forcing himself on a local girl who couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen. At first, he simply laughed at me for being shocked. But when he realized I was inclined to take the incident seriously, he threatened me. Said if I dared to breathe a word about what I’d seen, he’d tell everyone that I’d killed Lester—my first husband.”
“What did you do?”
“I went to the colonel. Unfortunately, the only thing he did was call the lieutenant in for a tepid sermon about how such activities damaged the regiment’s relations with the natives. The next thing I knew, everyone was whispering that I’d poisoned Lester.”
She was silent for a moment, her thoughts obviously lost in the painful past. Then she said, “You know that head wound he tells everyone he received at the Battle of Assaye? The one that led to his being sent home to recuperate? He got it at Assaye, all right, but not in battle. John—my second husband—challenged him to a duel ov
er the things he was saying about me.” She drew a deep breath. “Devlin thinks Paige could have killed Ashworth?”
“At the moment, it’s just a theory. The thing is, Ashworth was his friend. Why would he kill him?”
“Who knows? Rivalry? Wounded pride? Men like Paige, they like to humiliate and hurt others—even those they call their friends.”
“Yes,” said Hero. “I can see that.”
Victoria glanced over at her. “How did you know he was in my husband’s regiment in India?”
“He mentioned it to Devlin.”
“Along with the suggestion that I’d poisoned Lester?”
Hero met her gaze squarely. “As a matter of fact, yes.”
Victoria gave a sharp little nod of her chin. “I thought so. I ran into him recently here in London, when I was visiting Madame Blanchette.”
“The fortune-teller?” Hero was unable to keep the surprise out of her voice.
“Yes.” Victoria’s eyes narrowed. “That’s significant for some reason. Why?”
“Was Lord Ashworth with him?”
“I didn’t see him. But Paige did mention that he was there with a friend who was already closeted with Madame when I arrived. She has a separate door through which her clients can leave if they prefer, so I never saw him myself.”
“Had you been to her before?”
“No. That was the first and only time. An acquaintance of mine found her readings so credible that I was curious to see for myself.”
“And?”
Victoria gave a little shrug. “I believe she is a very astute, observant woman. But how much she actually ‘sees’ in her cards is open to debate.”
“Do you know why Paige and his friend were there?”
“A lark, surely? I didn’t know Ashworth, but I can’t believe Paige would take such things seriously.”
“Is that the way it struck you? I mean, did it seem they were there on a lark?”