When Maidens Mourn (37 page)

The rain drummed around them, pounding on the puddles in the courtyard and sluicing off the brewery’s high roof. Knox stared back at him, silent, watchful.

Sebastian said, “It’s a clever, lucrative rig you’re running, but it’s also dangerous. Did Gabrielle Tennyson discover what you were doing? Is that why you were quarreling with her by the York Steps last Thursday? Because there’s some men who might consider that kind of threat a good motive for murder, if they thought a woman was going to give their game away. Did Arceneaux accuse you of killing her, I wonder? Did you decide to kill him before he could cause you any trouble?”

A cold, dangerous light glittered in the depths of the rifleman’s eyes. “And the two lads? Am I to have killed them too, just for the sport of it?”

“In my experience there’s a certain kind of man who can turn decidedly lethal when he’s feeling cornered. Maybe you saw an opportunity to strike against her and you didn’t let the fact that the boys were there, too, stop you.”

“And what was I doing out at that moat with Miss Tennyson and the two brats? Mmm? You tell me that. You think she drove out
there with me? Her in love with Arceneaux and thinking me a smuggler and all-around degenerate character?”

It was the one inescapable flaw in Sebastian’s theory, and he’d known it when he decided to approach the rifleman. “I don’t know why she went out there with you. Maybe you followed her. Maybe she wasn’t even killed at the moat. Maybe that’s why the two lads’ bodies have never been found, because you killed and buried them someplace else.”

The tight smile was back around Knox’s lips. “Someplace such as St. Helen’s churchyard, perhaps? Now, there’s a clever place to hide a couple of bodies, don’t you think? In a graveyard full of moldering corpses?”

“Perhaps,” said Sebastian. “Then again, it’s always possible you didn’t kill Miss Tennyson at all—that someone else killed her for a different reason entirely. But Arceneaux would have no way of knowing that, would he? Something he said to me the other day suggested he was afraid he might be responsible for what had happened to her. So maybe he accused you of killing her, even when you hadn’t. Maybe he threatened to expose you once his friends escaped. The timing of his death is curious, wouldn’t you agree?”

All trace of amusement had drained from the rifleman’s face, leaving it hard and tight. “I’ve killed many men in my day; what soldier hasn’t? But I’ve never killed a woman or a child, and I’ve never murdered a man in cold blood.”

The two men stared at each other. The rain poured around them, loud in Sebastian’s ears. He settled his hat lower on his forehead. “If I find out you shot Philippe Arceneaux, I’ll see you hang for it.”

Brother or no brother,
he thought. But he didn’t say it.

S
ebastian stood at the top of the Cole Harbour Steps, the storm-churned waters of the Thames slapping the ancient masonry at his feet. Behind him loomed the soot-covered brick walls of the brewery and the steelyard beyond that. Dark clouds pressed down on the city, heavy with the promise of rain.

More and more, he was beginning to think there was something in Gabrielle Tennyson’s life that he was missing, something that would explain the puzzle that was her death and the mysterious disappearance of her two young cousins. He had pieced together much of it—her love for the scholarly young French lieutenant, the conflicts swirling around her work on the legends of King Arthur and Camelot, the ill-fated escape attempt by Arceneaux’s fellow officers. But something still eluded him. And he couldn’t shake the growing conviction that the missing children were the key.

Had Gabrielle and the two boys driven up to Camlet Moat in the company of their killer? Or was her body simply planted there for reasons Sebastian could only guess at? Why would the killer
leave Gabrielle at the moat and then take her young cousins elsewhere to kill or bury them?
Had
the cousins been killed, or were they even now out there, somewhere, alive?

Sebastian turned, his gaze narrowing as he stared up the river. From here he could look beyond the soot-blackened expanse of Blackfriars Bridge to the distant bend marked by the rising arches of the new Strand Bridge. Farther beyond that, lost in the mist, lay the imposing facade of the Adelphi. An idea was forming in his mind, a scenario that made more sense as the different possibilities he was looking at spiraled narrower and narrower.

Swinging away from the river, he darted through the rain to Upper Thames Street, where he flagged down a hackney and directed the driver to Tower Hill.

“Come to collect your dog, have you?” asked Gibson, limping ahead of Sebastian down his narrow hall.

Sebastian swung off his wet cloak and swiped his sleeve across his dripping face. “Is he going to be all right, then?”

Gibson led the way into his tattered, cluttered parlor, where the little black and brown dog raised his head, his tail thumping against the worn rug in welcome. But Chien made no effort to get up, and Sebastian could see blood still seeping through the thick bandage at his shoulder.

“It might be better if you left him with me a wee bit longer, just so I can keep an eye on him.” Gibson rasped a hand across his chin, which from the looks of things he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning. “Although there’s no denying he’s a sore trial.”

“What have you been doing, Chien? Hmm?” Sebastian went to hunker down beside the dog. “Stealing the ham Mrs. Federico had intended for our good surgeon’s dinner?”

“As a matter of fact, he tried. But that’s not the worst of it. I let him out in the yard to answer nature’s call, and what does he do but
bring me back a bone. Thankfully, he wasn’t chewing on it—just presented it to me like he’d found something precious and expected a reward.”

“Did Mrs. Federico see it?” Gibson’s housekeeper, Mrs. Federico, was both extraordinarily squeamish about her employer’s activities and blissfully ignorant of what lay buried in his yard.

“Fortunately, no. But if he starts digging holes out there, I’m going to be in trouble.” Gibson eyed Sebastian darkly. “Go on, then, laugh if you want. But if you’re not here for the dog, then why are you here?”

“Do you still have the clothes Gabrielle Tennyson was wearing when she was murdered?”

“I do, yes. Why?”

“Something’s been bothering me.”

Sebastian found Hero sipping a hot cup of tea in the drawing room. She wore a sarcenet walking dress and her hair was damp, as if she had just come in out of the rain. He set a brown paper–wrapped bundle on the table beside her and said, “I’m beginning to think it’s more and more likely that Gabrielle Tennyson was actually murdered in London and then taken up to Camlet Moat.”

Hero looked at him over the rim of her cup. “I thought Gibson said there was no evidence that she’d been moved after death.”

“He did. But just because he found no evidence of it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.” He untied the string holding the bundle together. “This is what Gabrielle was wearing when she was killed. Is it the sort of thing she would be likely to put on to go up to Enfield?”

She reached out to touch one of the gown’s short puffed sleeves, a quiver passing over her features as she studied the bloodstained tear in the bodice. “The material is delicate, but it is a walking dress, just the sort of thing a woman might wear for a stroll
in the country, yes.” She turned over the froth of petticoats to look at the peach half boots. Then she frowned.

“What is it?” asked Sebastian, watching her.

“Is this everything?”

“Yes. Why?”

“She had a pretty peach spencer with ruched facings and a stand-up collar I would have expected her to be wearing with this. Only, it isn’t here.”

“Sunday was quite hot. She might have left the spencer in the carriage. The shade in the wood is certainly dense enough that she wouldn’t have needed to worry about protecting her arms from the sun.”

“True. But I wouldn’t have expected her to take off her bonnet, as well. She had a lovely peach silk and velvet bonnet she would have worn to pick up the color of the sash and these half boots. And it’s not here, either.”

“Would you recognize the spencer and bonnet if you found them in her dressing chamber?”

Hero met his gaze. Then she set aside her tea and rose to her feet. “I’ll get my cloak.”

“Hildeyard could have already directed Gabrielle’s abigail to dispose of her clothes,” said Hero as they drove through the rain, toward the river.

“I doubt it. His energy has been focused on the search for the missing children. And even if he did, the woman will surely remember what was there.”

Hero was silent for a moment, her gaze on the wet streets. “If you’re right, and Gabrielle was killed here in London, then what do you think happened to the children?”

“I’d like to think they’re in the city someplace, hiding—that they ran away in fear after witnessing the murder. But if that were true, I think they’d have been found by now.”

She turned to look at him. “You think it’s d’Eyncourt, don’t you? You think he killed George and Alfred over the inheritance and hid their bodies someplace they’ll never be found. And then he drove Gabrielle up to Camlet Moat to make it look as if her death were somehow connected to the excavations or her work on the Arthurian legends.”

Sebastian nodded. “I keep going back to the way he was just sitting there, calmly reading
The Courier
in White’s. What kind of man wouldn’t be out doing everything he could to search for his own brother’s children? He’s either more despicable than I thought, or—”

“Or he knew they were already dead,” said Hero, finishing the thought for him.

They arrived at the Adelphi to find Hildeyard Tennyson still up at Enfield.

Rather than attempt to explain their mission to the servants, Hero claimed to have forgotten something during her previous visit and ran up the stairs to Gabrielle’s room, while Sebastian asked to see the housekeeper and returned George Tennyson’s poem to her.

“Oh, your lordship, I’m ever so grateful for this,” said Mrs. O’Donnell, tearfully clasping the paper to her ample bosom. “I thought sure you must’ve forgotten it, but I didn’t feel right asking you for it.”