Where Shadows Dance (8 page)

“That doesn’t make him a traitor,” Sebastian said.

“No. But it makes him a liar. Remember that when you speak to him.”

Hero Jarvis sat at the heavy oak table in the library of the Jarvis town house on Berkeley Square. She held a pen in one hand; piles of maps and books lay scattered about her. She had intended to devote the afternoon to a survey she was preparing on the few surviving traces of London’s lost monastic houses. But the ink had long ago dried on the nib as she stared unseeingly at the garden beyond the room’s tall windows.

She’d told Lord Devlin the truth when she said it had been her intention never to marry. She might work hard to change England’s draconian marriage laws and the unconscionable powers granted husbands over their wives, but she was realistic enough to know that real change was still generations away. And so she had poured the energy that other women her age devoted to their families into studies and articles and draft legislation. She’d told Devlin she intended to continue her efforts, and she did. But she was no fool, and she suspected her life was about to change in ways she couldn’t begin to imagine and didn’t want.

There was also the matter of who would take over from Hero the management of her father’s big house on Berkeley Square. Hero’s grandmother, the Dowager Lady Jarvis, had long ago retired to her rooms on the second floor and rarely ventured forth to do more than complain or criticize; Hero’s own mother, Annabelle, Lady Jarvis, was so feeble both physically and emotionally that the mere thought of trying to select a menu or deal with tradesmen was enough to send her tottering toward her couch, vinaigrette in hand.

Hero would need to find a companion for her mother, someone capable of both overseeing the household and sheltering her ladyship from the worst of her husband’s venom. Jarvis did not suffer fools lightly, and Lady Jarvis’s mental stability was always at best precarious. Hero was running a list of possible candidates through her head when the butler appeared bearing a sealed missive on a silver tray.

“A message from Lord Devlin, Miss Jarvis,” he said with a bow, his face impassive.

“Thank you, Grisham.” She set aside her pen but waited until the butler had withdrawn before breaking the seal and spreading open the single, folded sheet. The message was brief and to the point.

The signature was a simple, scrawled
Devlin
.

She sat for a time, conscious of an uncharacteristic disquiet yawning deep within her. It was one thing, she’d discovered, to analyze the various unpleasant options available to one and choose what appeared to be the most reasonable course of action. But it was something else entirely to find oneself actually catapulting toward that fate.

Especially when that fate was marriage to a man like Devlin.

Resolutely refusing to allow herself to dwell on all such a marriage would involve, she dipped her pen in the ink and scrawled a simple, three-word answer.

She sealed the note and entrusted its delivery to one of the footmen. Then she went in search of her mother.

T
he ancient, well-worn paving of Westminster Hall bustled with self-important clusters of barristers and judges in wigs and gowns, who pushed their way through the motley crowds gathered around the stalls of the sempstresses and milliners, law stationers and old booksellers, who lined the entrance of the vast, soaring hall.

A few discreet questions brought Sebastian to a stall halfway down the eastern row, where a thin, middle-aged man dressed in gently worn buckskin breeches, a ruffled shirt, and an old-fashioned green velvet coat stared with thoughtful concentration at a slim volume bound in battered brown leather and marbled paper. He had a sallow complexion and wispy, strawcolored hair he wore cropped short, which had the unfortunate effect of accentuating his unnaturally long neck and small head.

“Monsieur de La Rocque?” asked Sebastian, walking up to him.

The Frenchman turned to give Sebastian an intense, unexpectedly hostile look. He had pale blue eyes and a narrow face, his nose high arched and long. “That’s right,” he said. “And you are ... Devlin, no?”

“I am.”

De La Rocque held up the volume and said in French, “An early copy of Newton’s
Method of Fluxions
, from the library collected at the Château de Cirey by Voltaire and his mistress, the Marquise du Châtelet. Here it sits, at the stall of some ignorant secondhand book dealer on the banks of the Thames. Bizarre, no?”

“Will you buy it?” asked Sebastian, answering in the same language.

De La Rocque tucked the book back into its row of tattered old volumes and switched to English. “If it is still here tomorrow, perhaps.”

They turned to walk together beneath the soaring medieval windows. Sebastian said, “I understand you trained as a priest.”

De La Rocque gave a faint, polite smile. “Under the ancien régime there were but two careers open to a nobleman’s son: the sword and the church. My three older brothers chose the Army. I was the bookish one, which meant I was consigned to the Jesuits at the tender age of seven. If things had worked out differently, I would have been a bishop by the age of thirty. Now—” He spread his arms wide, taking in the stalls displaying ribbons and gloves, the maids buying white scarves, the law students with their pale complexions and shiny coats, then dropped his hands back to his sides. “Behold my noble see.”

“And would you have enjoyed being a bishop?”

Rather than answering, he simply smiled and let his gaze drift away. “As flattering as your visit is, Monsieur le Vicomte, I’m afraid I can’t help but wonder why you have sought me out.”

“I’m told you were acquainted with Alexander Ross.”

“I was. But I fail to see—” The man’s eyes suddenly widened, his lips puckering as he chewed distractedly at the inside of his cheek.
“Mon Dieu.
Ross was murdered? Is that it?”

“You obviously find the possibility somewhat disturbing,” said Sebastian. “Why?”

“It is a natural reaction, is it not? To be troubled when one learns of the murder of a friend.”

“Was Alexander Ross a friend?”

“Of a sort.”

“And what sort was that?”

“Ross had a burgeoning interest in rare and old books.”

Sebastian studied the other man’s small, narrow face. There’d been a few books on Ross’s shelves, but none of them had struck Sebastian as particularly old or rare. “He did?”

“Mmm. From time to time I came into possession of a choice volume that interested him.”

“Any kind of books in particular?”

“Many of my books come out of France. With the dissolution of the monasteries there, countless volumes of astonishing antiquity have been thrown on the market.”

“In France.”

De La Rocque laughed. “Yes, well ... there are ways, you know.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

De La Rocque shrugged. “Last week sometime, I suppose. Wednesday or Thursday, perhaps?”

“Not Saturday night?”

De La Rocque frowned as if with thought, then shook his head. “No. It was earlier. Wednesday. Yes, definitely Wednesday.”

“Interesting. You see, I spoke to someone who rather thought they saw you leaving Ross’s rooms last Saturday night.”

It was a lie, of course. But it was curious to watch the Frenchman’s reaction. Rather than appearing alarmed or angered at the possibility he might have been observed, he merely shrugged and said, “Saturday? No. Whoever told you that was mistaken.”

“But you did sometimes visit Ross at his rooms?”

“From time to time.”

“Any idea who some of his other sources of old books might have been?”

The Frenchman shook his head. “Sorry. No.”

“How familiar were you with some of Ross’s other activities?”

The Frenchman looked confused. “Other activities?”

“I think you know what I’m talking about.”

De La Rocque paused at the top of the steps, his gaze on the crowded, noisy square below. “There is a diplomatic revolution under way in Europe at the moment,” he said slowly. “The man who is your friend this morning may be your enemy this evening, and vice versa. That was Alexander Ross’s world. If I were you, Monsieur le Vicomte, I would tread carefully. Very carefully, indeed. You are wading into treacherous waters.”

“Is that a threat?”

“A threat?” The Frenchman twisted to face him, the light from the hot summer sun falling across his features.
“Mais non
. Consider it merely a friendly warning.” He nodded across the square, to where the walls of the Houses of Parliament rose, tall and soot stained. “More than mere lives are at stake here. The fates of kingdoms hang in the balance. Russia. Sweden. Austria. Prussia ... Believe me, nothing is as it seems.”

It all sounded rather grandiose and flamboyant—like de La Rocque himself. Sebastian said, “Who would benefit from the death of Alexander Ross?”

“I suppose that would depend on what Ross knew.”

“About what?”

De La Rocque’s eyes narrowed with his smile. “Ah. But if I knew that, then I too would be at risk. And believe me, Monsieur le Viscomte, I am a man who believes in minimizing risks.”

“Yet you’re not, obviously, averse to taking risks, when necessary.”

“When the odds are good.”

“The odds? Or the price?”

Rather than being offended, the Frenchman laughed. “Both, actually.” He hesitated a moment, then said, “There is one man you might find it productive to speak with. A Swede.”

“A Swede?”

“Tall man, blond. Name of Lindquist. Mr. Carl Lindquist.”

Sebastian frowned. “Who is he?”

“To all appearances, he is a trader.”

“Meaning that appearances in this case could be deceptive?”

De La Rocque smiled. “Appearances generally are.”

H
is modest round hat gripped in both hands, his mind swirling with conjecture, Sir Henry Lovejoy followed a succession of clerks through the warren of damp, badly lit corridors that led to the Downing Street office of Sir Hyde Foley.

He found the Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs seated behind a broad, old-fashioned desk, its surface covered with what looked like dispatches and stacks of reports. The room was large and darkly paneled, with a massive mantel of carved sandstone and a window of diamond-paned, leaded glass overlooking a court below. As the somber clerk bowed himself out, Foley leaned back in his chair and breathed an exasperated sigh. “Well. It’s about time. I expected you an hour or more ago.”

Lovejoy gave a slight bow. “My apologies. I was in Bethnal Green, at the scene of a murder.”

Foley grunted, obviously unimpressed. He did not invite Lovejoy to sit. “I called you here because I want to know what the devil is going on.”

Lovejoy blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“I’m referring to this business about Alexander Ross. The man died of natural causes. So what precisely is Bow Street doing, poking around and asking questions about his death? It presents a very odd appearance. Very odd indeed.”

Lovejoy dredged up a faint recollection of reports of a young man attached to the Foreign Office who had died the previous week. “To my knowledge, we’re not doing anything, Sir Hyde.”

The Undersecretary’s nostrils flared. “Don’t even think of playing me for a fool, Sir Henry. I had Devlin questioning me this morning.”

“Devlin? You mean, Viscount Devlin?”

“Of course I’m talking about Viscount Devlin. Who the bloody hell do you think I’m talking about?”

Lovejoy considered himself an even-tempered man. But he found he needed to draw a deep, steadying breath before he could trust himself to answer temperately. “Lord Devlin may have his own reasons for inquiring into the death of Mr. Ross. But if so, I am unaware of them. I can assure you that he is not doing so in cooperation with our office.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

Lovejoy simply held the other man’s cold stare and returned no answer.

Foley leaned forward. “Do you have any idea of the havoc that could be wrought if news of this were to leak out?”

“You mean, the news that Ross was murdered?”

“Good God, man; have you heard nothing I said? Ross was not murdered! I was referring to the turmoil that could result if rumors of some bizarre investigation into his
possible
murder were to be bandied about in the streets.” Foley pushed to his feet and swung away to where the ancient mullioned window overlooked the flagged court below. “It’s no secret that the situation on the Continent has reached a pivotal point. It would be difficult to overstate the importance of the diplomatic negotiations currently under way. The last thing we need is this sort of irresponsible nonsense mucking things up.”

Lovejoy studied the other man’s sharp-boned, tightly held profile. “I’ll discuss your concerns with his lordship.”

“See that you do,” snapped Foley, turning back to his desk. “My clerk will escort you out. Good day, Sir Henry. It’s to be hoped we won’t meet again.”

S
ebastian returned to Brook Street to find a response from Jarvis House awaiting him. He hesitated a moment, then broke the seal to spread open the single sheet with its terse message.

He stared at the bold, almost masculine handwriting, aware of an odd, heavy sensation in his chest. He knew he should feel something. Relief, surely, combined perhaps with a pang of loss as the future he’d once envisioned slipped forever from his grasp. Instead, he felt dead inside.