When maidens mourn ssm-7

by C. S. Harris

  Sebastian strode into the Black Devil with the Baker rifle still gripped in his fist. His shirt front and waistcoat were drenched dark red with Arceneaux's blood; his cravat was gone. His once elegant evening coat hung in dusty tatters. He'd lost his hat, and a trickle of blood ran down one side of his dirty, sweat-streaked face.

  `Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and all the saints,' whispered the buxom, dark-haired barmaid as Sebastian drew up just inside the door, the Baker propped at an angle on his hip, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the smoky, low-ceilinged room.

  `Where's Knox?' he demanded, his words carrying clearly over the skittering of chairs and benches, the thumps of heavy boots as the tavern's patrons scrambled to get out of his way.

  The girl froze wide-eyed behind the bar, her lips parted, the half-exposed white mounds of her breasts jerking and quivering with her agitated breathing.

  `Where the bloody hell is he?' Sebastian said again.

  `You do favor the dramatic entrance, don't you?' said a sardonic voice from a doorway that opened off the back of the room.

  Sebastian turned. His gaze met Knox's across the now empty expanse of the public room, twin pairs of yellow eyes that shared an ability to see great distances and at night with an accuracy that struck most normal men as inhuman.

  Or evil.

  Sebastian laid the Baker on the scarred surface of the bar with a clatter. `I'm returning your rifle.'

  A faint smile curled the other man's lips. `Sorry. Not mine. Did someone lose it?'

  `Where were you an hour ago?'

  Jamie Knox advanced into the room, still faintly smiling. He wore his usual black coat and black waistcoat and black cravat, his face a dark, handsome mask. `Here, of course. Why do you ask?'

  `Ever meet a Frenchman named Philippe Arceneaux?'

  `Arceneaux?' Knox frowned as if with the effort of concentration. `Perhaps. It's rather difficult to say. I own a tavern; many men come here.'

  `Lieutenant Philippe Arceneaux.'

  `Does he say I know him?'

  `He's dead. Someone shot him through the heart tonight from a distance of some three hundred yards. Know anyone who could make a shot like that?'

  `It's a rare talent. But not unheard of.'

  `Your friend tells me you can shoot the head off a running rabbit at more than three hundred yards. In the dark.'

  Knox glanced over to where the wide-eyed girl still stood behind the bar. `Leave us.'

  She let herself out the front door, pausing on the threshold to throw him a last, questioning glance that he ignored. The public room was now empty except for the two men.

  Knox sauntered behind the bar and reached below the counter for a bottle of brandy. `You've obviously been talking to my old mate, Jack Simpson.' He eased the stopper from the brandy.

  `He'll also tell you that I can catch a will-o-the-wisp out of the air and hear the whispers of the dead. But just between you and me, I wouldn't be believing everything he says.'

  Sebastian wandered the room, his gaze drifting over the low-beamed rafters, the massive old stone fireplace, and broad hearth. `I've heard it said you won this place at the roll of the dice or that you killed a man for it. Which was it?'

  Knox set the bottle and two glasses on the counter beside the Baker. `Like I said, you don't want to be believing everything you hear about me.'

  `I also hear you were at Corunna. Lieutenant Arceneaux was at Corunna, as well. Is that where you met him?'

  `I never met your Lieutenant Arceneaux, God rest his soul.' Knox poured brandy into the two glasses and tucked the bottle away. `Here. Have a drink.'

  `Thank you, but no.'

  Knox laughed. `What do you think, then? That I'm trying to do away with you?' He pushed both glasses across the bar. `There. You choose one; I'll drink the other. Will that allay your superstitions?'

  Moving deliberately, Sebastian came to select one of the glasses of amber liquid.

  His yellow eyes gleaming, Knox lifted the other to his lips and drank deeply. `There. Now, shall we wait to see if I drop to the floor and start thrashing about in my death throes?' He took another sip, this time letting the brandy roll around on his tongue. `It's good stuff, this. Comes from a château just outside Angoulème.'

  `And how did it make its way into your cellars?'

  Knox smiled. `Would you have me believe you've no French brandy in your cellars, then?'

  `Arceneaux hailed from Saint-Malo, another wine region. He told me once his father owned a vineyard. Perhaps that's how you met him.'

  Knox was no longer smiling. `I told you. I never met him.'

  `I'll figure it out eventually, you know.'

  `When you do, come back. But as it is, you've nothing against me but conjecture.'

  `So sure?'

  `If you had anything you thought might begin to pass as proof, I'd be down at Bow Street right now, talking to the magistrates. Not to you.'

  `Thanks for the brandy.' Sebastian set his glass on the bar and turned toward the street.

  `You're forgetting your rifle,' Knox called after him.

  `Keep it. You might need it again.'

  The tavern owner laughed, his voice ringing out loud and clear.

  `You remember how I told you my father was a cavalry officer?'

  Sebastian paused with one hand on the doorjamb to look back at him.

  Knox still stood behind the bar. `Well, I lied. My mother never knew for certain which of the three bastards she lay with had planted me in her belly. She was a young barmaid named Nellie, you see, at the Crown and Thorn, in Ludlow. According to the woman who raised me, Nellie said her baby's da could've been either an English lord, a Welsh captain, or a Gypsy stableboy. If she'd lived long enough, she might have recognized my actual sire in me as I grew. But she died when I was still only a wee babe.'

  Sebastian's skin felt hot; the abrasions on his face stung. And yet he knew the strangest sensation, as if he were somehow apart from himself, a disinterested observer of what was being said.

  Knox said, `I saw the Earl of Hendon in Grosvenor Square the other day. He looks nothing like me. But then, it occurs to me, he don't look anything like you, either. Now, does he?'

  Sebastian opened the door and walked out into the warm, wind-tossed night.

  Chapter 40

  The storm broke shortly before dawn, with great sheets of rain hurled through the streets by a howling wind and thunder that rattled the glass in the windowpanes with all the savage power of an artillery barrage.

  Sebastian stood on the terrace at the rear of his Brook Street house, his outstretched arms braced against the stone balustrade overlooking the garden. He had his eyes closed, his head tipped back as he let the rain wash over him.

  When he was a very little boy, his mother used to take him for walks in the rain. Sometimes in the summer, if it was warm, she'd let him out without his cap. The rain would plaster his hair to his head and run off the tip of his nose. He'd try to catch the drops with his tongue, and she wouldn't scold him, not even when he waded and splashed through every puddle he could find, squealing as the water shot out from beneath his stomping feet.

  But his favorite walks were those they took in the rain in Cornwall, when the fierce winds of a storm would lash the coast and she'd bundle him up and take him with her out to the cliffs. Together they would stand side by side, mesmerized by the power of the wind and the fury of the waves battering the rocks with an awe-inspiring roar. She'd shout, `Oh, Sebastian; feel that! Isn't it glorious?' And the wind would slam into her, rocking her back a step, and she'd laugh and fling wide her arms and close her eyes, surrendering to the sheer exhilaration of the moment.

  So lost was he in the past that he failed to mark the opening of the door behind him. It was some other sense entirely that brought him the sudden certainty that he was no longer alone.

  `Devlin?'

  He turned to find Hero standing in the doorway. She still wore the ivory gown with the dusky pink ribbons, and he wondered if she had aw
akened and dressed to come in search of him, or if she had not yet made it to her bed.

  He had stripped off his torn, blood-soaked coat and waistcoat, but he still wore his ruined shirt, his collar askew. `My God,' she said, her eyes widening when she saw him. `You're covered in blood.'

  `It's not mine. Philippe Arceneaux is dead.'

  `Did you kill him?'

  `Why would I kill him? I liked him.'

  She walked out into the rain, the big drops making dark splotches on the fine silk of her dress as she reached up to touch his cheek.

  `You're hurt.'

  `Just scratched.'

  `What happened?'

  `Whoever killed Arceneaux shot him from a distance of three hundred yards. In the dark.'

  `Who can shoot accurately at such a distance?'

  `A Bishopsgate tavern owner and ex-rifleman named Jamie Knox, for one.'

  `Why would a tavern owner want to kill Arceneaux?'

  `I don't know.' He stared out over the wind-tossed garden, a jagged flash of lightning splitting the sky. The rain poured about them. `There's too much I don't know. And because of it, people keep dying.'

  `It's not your fault. You're doing everything you can.'

  He looked at her again. `It's not enough.'

  She shook her head, an odd smile hovering about her lips. In the darkness, her eyes had a strange, almost luminous quality. The rain ran down her cheeks, dripped off the ends of her wet hair, soaked the bodice of her gown so that her high, round breasts showed clearly through the thin silk of her gown.

  His voice hoarse, he said, `You're ruining your dress. You need to go inside.'

  `So do you.'

  Neither of them moved.

  Slowly, she slipped her hand behind his neck, her thumb flicking across his throat in a soft caress, her gaze tangling with his. Then, her eyes wide-open, she tilted her head and touched her lips to his.

  He opened his mouth to her, drank deeply of her kiss, swept his hands up her back. He felt her tremble. But before he could pull her to him, she slipped away from him.

  She paused at the door to look back. He saw a succession of raw, naked emotions flash across her face - guilt and regret and a fierce, hopeless kind of longing. She said, `When this is all over, we need to begin again.'

  The rain pounded down on him, the wind billowing his wet, bloodstained shirt and plastering his hair to his head. He was aware of the lateness of the hour, the fullness of her lips, the unexpected raw wanting that surged through him for this woman who was his wife, the mother of his unborn child and his enemy's daughter.

  He said harshly, `And what if it's never over?'

  But she had no answer, and long after she had gone, the question remained.

  Friday, 7 August

  The next morning, the rain was still falling out of a gunmetal gray sky when Sebastian climbed the steps of the elegant Mayfair town house of his sister, Amanda, Lady Wilcox.

  The door was opened by Lady Wilcox's well-trained and normally stoic butler, who took a step back and said, `My lord Devlin!' in a voice pregnant with consternation and a touch of fear.

  `Good morning,' said Sebastian, handing his hat, gloves, and walking stick to the butler before heading for the stairs.

  `I assume my sister is still in the breakfast room?'

  `Yes, but... My lord...'

  Sebastian took the steps two at a time. `Don t worry; I'll announce myself.'

  He found his sister seated at a small table overlooking the rain-washed rear gardens, an empty plate before her. She'd been reading the Morning Post but looked up at his entrance, a delicate pink floral teacup arrested halfway to her puckered lips.

  `Good morning, Amanda,' he said cheerfully.

  She set the cup down with enough force to send its contents sloshing over the rim. `Good God. You.'

  The first child born to the Earl of Hendon and his beautiful, errant countess, Amanda had never been a particularly attractive woman. She had inherited her mother's slim, elegant carriage and striking golden hair. But there was a bluntness to her features that she owed to Hendon, and at forty-two she had reached an age at which her disposition showed quite clearly on her face.

  She wore a simple morning gown of dove gray made high at the waist and edged along the neckline with a dainty ruffle of lace, for she had been widowed just eighteen months and was not yet completely out of mourning. The role Sebastian had played in the death of her husband was a subject brother and sister did not discuss.

  She reached for her tea again, her lips turning down at the corners as she took a sip. `What do you want?'

  Without waiting for an invitation he suspected would not be forthcoming, Sebastian drew out the chair opposite her and sat.

  `And I'm delighted to see you too, dear sister.'

  She gave a delicate sniff. `I've heard you're doing it again - that you've involved yourself in yet another murder investigation, this time of some mere barrister's sister, of all things. One might have hoped that your recent nuptials would put an end to this plebeian nonsense. But obviously such is not the case.'

  `Obviously not,' said Sebastian dryly.

  She sniffed again but said nothing.

  He let his gaze drift over the familiar features of her face, the tightly held lips, the broad, slightly bulbous nose that was so much like her father's, the piercing blue St. Cyr eyes that had come to her, too, from her father. He was her brother or at least, her half brother, her only surviving acknowledged sibling. And yet she hated him with a passion so raw and visceral that it could at times steal his breath.

  As Hendon's firstborn child, she would have inherited everything - land, wealth, title - had she been a boy. But because she was a girl, she had been married off with only a dowry - a handsome one, to be sure, but still a mere pittance compared to all that would someday pass to Sebastian. Her two children, Bayard, the new Lord Wilcox, and Stephanie, his eighteen-year-old sister, were Wilcoxes; by the laws of male primogeniture, they had no claims on the St. Cyr estates.

  It was the norm in their society. And yet for some reason, Amanda had always felt cheated of what she still somehow stubbornly believed in her heart of hearts should by rights have been hers. Even Richard and Cecil, Hendon's first- and second-born sons, had earned her resentment. But her true hatred had always been reserved for Sebastian. For she had known or at least suspected from the very beginning that this last son born to the Countess of Hendon had not in truth been begotten by the Earl.

  She set her teacup down again. `Whatever it is you are here for, say it and go away so that I can read my paper in peace.'

  `I'm curious about the December before I was born; how well do you remember it?'

  She twitched one shoulder. `Well enough. I was eleven. Why do you ask?'

  `Where did Mother spend that Christmas?'

  She thought about it for a moment. `Lumley Castle, near Durham. Why?'

  Sebastian remembered Lady Lumley quite well, for she'd been one of his mother's particular friends, nearly as gay and beautiful and faithless as the Countess herself.

  He saw Amanda's eyes widen, saw the faintly contemptuous smile that deepened the grooves bracketing her mouth, and knew that she understood only too well his reason for asking. `I can do sums, Sebastian. You're trying to figure out who her lover was that winter. Well, aren't you?'

  Pushing up, he went to stand at the window overlooking the garden, his back to her. In the rain, the daylight was flat and dim, the shrubbery a sodden green, the slate flagstones of the terrace dark and shiny wet. When he didn't respond, she gave a sharp laugh.

  `An understandable exercise, given the circumstances, but unfortunately predicated upon the assumption that she took only one lover at a time. She could be quite shameless, you know.'

  Her scornful words sent a surge of raw fury through him. It startled him to realize that no matter how much Sophie had lied to him, no matter how cruel and destructive her betrayal and abandonment, the protective urge he'd felt for her as a boy sti
ll flared in him.

  `And that Christmas?' he asked, keeping his voice level with difficulty, his gaze still fixed on the scene outside the window.

  `I actually can't recall.'

  He watched the long canes of the arbor's climbing roses bend in the wind, watched the raindrops chase each other down the window glass.

  Amanda rose to her feet. `You really want to know who begat our mother's precious little bastard? Well, I'll tell you. It was her groom. A lowly, stinking groom.'

  Turning, he looked into her familiar, pinched face and didn't believe her. Refused to believe her.

  She must have read the rejection of everything she'd said in his eyes, because she gave a harsh, ringing laugh. `You don't believe me, do you? Well, I saw them. That autumn, on the cliffs overlooking the sea, in Cornwall. He was lying on his back and she was riding him. It was the most disgusting thing I've ever witnessed. Jeb, I believe his name was. Or perhaps Jed, or something equally vulgar.'

  He stared into his sister's hate-filled blue eyes and knew a revulsion so intense as to be physical. `I don t believe you,' he said out loud.

  `Believe it,' she sneered. `I see him every time I look at you. Oh, his hair might have been darker than yours, and he might not have been as tall. But there has never been any doubt in my mind.'

  A sudden gust of wind blew rain against the window with a startlingly loud clatter.

  He wanted to say, `Was the groom a Gypsy?' But he couldn't so betray himself to this cold, angry woman who hated him more than she'd ever hated anyone in her life. So instead he asked,

  `What happened to him?'

  `I neither knew nor cared. He went away. That was all that mattered to me.'

  Sebastian walked to the door, then paused to look back to where she still stood, her hands clenched at her sides, her face red and twisted with hatred and some other emotion.

  It took him a moment to recognize it, but then he knew.

  It was triumph.

  Sir Henry Lovejoy hesitated at the entrance to the Bow Street public office, his face screwing into a grimace as he stared out at the ceaseless torrent driven sideways by the force of the wind. Water sluiced in sheets from the eaves, swelled in the gutters, pinged off the glass of the building's tall windows. Sighing, he was about to unfurl his umbrella and step out into the deluge when he became aware of a gentleman crossing the street from the Brown Bear toward him.