When Maidens Mourn (30 page)

By the time Sebastian made it back to London, the setting sun was casting long shadows through the streets.

He found Hero seated at the bench before her dressing table. She wore an elegant, high-waisted evening gown of ivory silk with tiny slashed puff sleeves and an inset of rose silk laced with a crisscross of ivory down the front, and she had her head bowed as she threaded a slender ribbon of dusty rose through her crimped hair. He leaned against the doorframe of her dressing chamber and watched as the flickering candlelight played over her bare shoulders and the exposed nape of her neck. And he knew it again, that baffling swirl of admiration and desire combined with a troubling sense that he was losing something he’d never really had. Something that was more than passion and far, far different from obligation or honor or duty.

She finished fastening the ribbon in place and looked up, her gaze meeting his in the mirror. Whatever she saw there caused her to nod to the young abigail waiting to assist her. “That will be all, Jane; thank you.”

“Yes, miss,” said the woman, dropping a curtsy.

Sebastian waited until Jane left; then he came into the room and closed the door. “Rory Forster is dead. I found him floating in Camlet Moat.”

“Good heavens.” Hero swung around to stare at him. “What happened to him?”

“He was shot point-blank in the chest. Sometime this morning, I’d say. Gibson should have the body by now, although I’d be surprised if he’s able to tell us much more.”

“But…why was he killed?”

“I had an interesting conversation with Rory’s widow, who owns a prosperous farm to the east of the old chase. She married the man just last year, and if you ask me, she was well on her way to regretting the bargain. Forster might have been a handsome devil,
but he seems to have been far more interested in searching for buried treasure than in taking care of things around the farm. I suspect he also wasn’t above using his fists on his wife when she angered him…and his kind anger easily and often.”

“Maybe she’s the one who shot him.”

Sebastian huffed a surprised laugh. “I confess that thought hadn’t occurred to me. But I think it more likely Rory was trying to blackmail someone and ended up getting his payment in the form of a bullet.”

“You think he knew who killed Gabrielle? But…how?”

“According to the Widow Forster, Rory took his shovel out to Camlet Moat at sunset on Sunday and came back later that night soaking wet and full of big talk about buying her silks and satins and a carriage to rival the Squire’s lady. At the time she seems to have thought he must have found some of the island’s famous treasure.”

“When in fact he’d witnessed the brutal murder of a woman and two children?”

“I suspect so. The first time I spoke to him, he laughed at the men out looking for the Tennyson boys. He said no one was going to find ‘them nippers.’”

“Because he knew they were already dead,” said Hero softly. “Dear God.”

“His wife says he made a trip into London yesterday, which may have been when he confronted the killer and offered his silence in exchange for gold.”

“With the payment to be made this morning at Camlet Moat.” Hero pushed up from her dressing table. “Interesting choice of locales—and telling, perhaps?”

“It might be more telling if it weren’t for the fact that Sir Stanley and his wife both happen to be in London at the moment.”

“I know.” She went to select a pair of long ivory gloves from her glove box. “My father has invited them to a dinner party tonight at Berkeley Square.”

“Ah. So that’s where you’re going.”

She looked over at him. “You are invited as well, if you’d like.”

He let his gaze rove over her face. She looked as calm and self-possessed as ever. Yet he was coming to know her better, and he was uncomfortably conscious of a sense of artifice, of concealment about her. And it occurred to him that in her own way she was as gifted an actress as Kat Boleyn.

As if aware of the intensity of his scrutiny, she gave a sudden laugh and said, “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“There’s something you’re not telling me.”

She tipped her head to one side, a strange smile lighting her eyes. “And would you have me believe that you have been entirely open with me?”

He started to tell her that he had. Then he remembered the folded paper that lay in his pocket, a note he had received just moments earlier that read,
I have some information you might find interesting. Come to the theater before tonight’s rehearsal. K.

The words of assurance died on his lips.

He watched her eyes narrow. She had her father’s eyes: a pale silvery gray at the outer rim with a starlike burst of sooty charcoal around the pupil and a gleam of intelligence almost frightening in its intensity. She said, “I don’t imagine there are many couples who find themselves thrown into a murder investigation within days of their marriage.”

“No. Although I suppose it’s appropriate, given how we met.”

She turned away. “Am I to take it that you’re declining my father’s dinner invitation?”

“I have an appointment with someone who may be able to provide me with information about Jamie Knox.”

She waited for him to tell her more, and when he didn’t, he saw the flare of some emotion her eyes, although whether it was hurt or suspicion or a gleam of malicious satisfaction, he couldn’t have said.

W
ar was very much the topic of conversation that evening in the reception rooms of Lord Jarvis’s Berkeley Square residence. War in Europe, war on the high seas, war in America.

Hero discussed Wellington’s successes in Spain with Castlereagh, the depredations of those damnable upstart Americans on British shipping with Bathurst, and Napoléon’s newest rampage against Russia with Liverpool. Most of the members of Liverpool’s government were in attendance, along with the city’s premier bankers, for war was very much a financial enterprise.

She found the night almost unbearably hot and close, the air in the crowded rooms unusually stifling. The hundreds of candles burning in the chandeliers overhead only added to the heat, and she could feel her cheeks start to burn. Ignoring the discomfort, she was working her way through her father’s guests to where she could see Sir Stanley Winthrop in conversation with her mother, Lady Jarvis, when the Earl of Hendon stopped her.

“I’d hoped I might find my son here with you tonight,” said Devlin’s father, his intensely blue St. Cyr eyes narrowed with a
combination of anxiety and hurt. She did not understand the obvious estrangement that had grown between father and son, yet at the same time she didn’t feel quite right inquiring into it.

“I fear it will take more than a mere wedding to affect a rapprochement between Devlin and my father,” she said lightly.

“But he is well?”

“Devlin, you mean? He is, yes.”

“I heard he was set upon the other night in Covent Garden.”

“A minor wound. Nothing serious.”

Hendon sighed. “I’ll never understand why he continues to involve himself in these murder investigations. Is it boredom? Some quixotic delusion that he can somehow make all right with the world?”

“I don’t think Devlin suffers from any such delusions.” She tipped her head to one side. “Who told you of the attack on Devlin in Covent Garden?”

An uncharacteristic softness stole over his features. “A mutual friend,” he said, then bowed and moved on, leaving her staring thoughtfully after him.

She was brought out of her preoccupation by a woman’s voice saying, “My dear Lady Devlin, please allow me to offer my felicitations on your recent marriage.”

Hero turned to find herself being regarded by Sir Stanley Winthrop’s wife, who was looking hot and vaguely sweaty in a gown of pink tulle and satin made high at the neck and with long sleeves.

It was the knowledge that Lady Winthrop would be at tonight’s dinner that had inspired Hero to attend.

“Why, thank you,” said Hero, smiling as she drew the banker’s wife a little to one side. “I’m so glad you were able to come tonight; I’ve been wanting to talk to you about Gabrielle Tennyson.”

Lady Winthrop’s own somewhat ingratiating smile vanished, her gaze darting anxiously from left to right as if she were embarrassed by the thought that someone might have overheard Hero’s
remark. “But…do you think this is quite the proper place to discuss—”

“Did you know her well?” Hero asked, ignoring the woman’s discomfiture.

Lady Winthrop cleared her throat and swallowed. “Not well, no.”

“But you are an intimate of Miss Tennyson’s cousin, Mary Bourne, I believe.”

“I don’t know if I would describe myself as an
intimate
, precisely—”

“No? I thought someone told me you frequently study the Bible together with the Reverend Samuel at Savoy Chapel.”

“We do, yes. God’s chosen ones may be saved by his irresistible grace, but with God’s grace comes an imperative to examine and consider the wisdom and beauty of his teachings.
Particularly
in these dangerous times, when so many are tempted by the blandishments of Satan and the lure of those ancient pagan beliefs so hostile to God.”

“Ah, yes; I’d heard Mrs. Bourne is the author of a pamphlet warning of the dangers of Druidism—written under a pseudonym, of course. Is she familiar, I wonder, with the legends associating Camlet Moat with the ancient Celts?” Hero let her gaze drift, significantly, to where Sir Stanley, looking splendid in silk knee breeches and tails, stood in conversation with Liverpool.

Lady Winthrop followed her gaze, her jaw hardening; something very like hatred flashed in her eyes as she stared across the room at her tall, handsome husband. “I’m not certain I understand precisely what you mean to imply, Lady Devlin,” she said, her voice low.

“Only that it’s fascinating, don’t you think, the subtle linkages that can connect one person to the next?”

“We are all joined together in sin.”

“Some more so than others, I suppose,” said Hero wryly.

Lady Winthrop’s nostrils flared on a quickly indrawn breath.
“Gabrielle Tennyson was a woman separated from God. St. Paul tells us that it is a woman’s place to receive instruction with utter submission. The Lord does not allow women to teach or exercise authority over men, but enjoins them to remain quiet. Eve was created after Adam, and it was she who was deceived and fell into transgression. That is why a godly woman does not seek to go forth into the world and challenge men, but submits herself to a husband and devotes herself to the care of her household. I sometimes find myself wondering, if she had lived, what Miss Tennyson would have done, once her brother married. I don’t imagine his recent betrothal sat well with her.”

“What recent betrothal?”

A slow, unpleasant smile slid across the other woman’s features. “Oh, dear; have I betrayed a confidence? I knew the betrothal was being kept quiet due to the death of Miss Goodwin’s maternal grandmother, but I had assumed that as an intimate of Miss Tennyson’s, you would have known. Did she not tell you?”

“No,” said Hero. “She did not. How came you to know of it?”

“Emily Goodwin’s mother is a dear friend of mine.”

Kat Boleyn was wiggling a heavy costume of purple velvet trimmed with gold braid over her head when Sebastian slipped into her cramped dressing room at Covent Garden Theater and closed the door behind him.

“I was beginning to wonder if you were going to make it before rehearsal,” she said, turning her back to him and lifting the heavy fall of auburn hair from her neck. “Here. Make yourself useful.”

It was a natural request, for she was pressed for time and they were old friends. As his fingertips brushed against her warm body, he tried to think of her as an old friend—as a sister, although he knew only too well that she was not.

“You’ve learned something?” he asked, his voice strained.

She busied herself clasping a bracelet around her wrist. “You were right about Jamie Fox. He is indeed involved with a group of smugglers plying the Channel. They work out of a small village near Dover, running mainly French wine and brandy.” She hesitated a moment, then added, “But there’s something more going on…something I can’t tell you about.”

He swung her around to face him, his narrowed gaze studying the gentle curve of her cheek, the childlike upturned nose, the full, sensuous lips. “I thought you knew you could trust me—that nothing I learn from you will ever go any further, no matter what it is.”

“This confidence is not mine to betray.” Her familiar blue eyes narrowed with some emotion he could not name. “The only thing I can tell you is that what’s going on here is dangerous—very dangerous. Jamie Knox is dangerous. He’s loyal to no one except himself—and perhaps to his friend, a fellow rifleman named Jack Simpson.”

“I’ve met him.”

She touched his arm lightly. “I heard you were set upon the other night and hurt. Are you all right?”

“Where did you hear that?”

She gave him a jaunty smile. “Gibson told me.”

“Gibson has a big mouth. It’s just a scratch.”

“Uh-huh.”