by C. S. Harris
“Do you know the story of the mice and the cat?” asked Emma Wilkinson, looking up at Sebastian with her father’s big gray eyes.
They were seated before the feeble fire in Annie Wilkinson’s tiny Kensington parlor. He had come here, as promised, to tell Emma a story before she went to bed. He’d expected the experience to be awkward, for he was a man with little exposure to children. But as Emma settled more comfortably against him and he felt her baby-soft curls brush his chin, he was surprised to find his thoughts drifting to the child that would be born to Hero in just a few short months.
“It’s my favorite,” said Emma.
“I might not tell it exactly the same as your papa.”
“That’s all right,” said Emma. “Papa always tells it a little differently each time.”
Sebastian glanced over to where Annie sat darning a sheet by the fading light of the rainy day. And he knew by the quick rise and fall of her chest that the child’s use of the present tense was not lost on her either.
“Very well,” he said. “Once upon a time, a colony of mice lived a happy, peaceful existence within the walls of a small village shop. The mice were well fed and content. But the man who owned the shop wasn’t happy with all those mice stealing his grain and nibbling on his cheese. So he bought himself a cat, who patrolled his shop and quickly terrorized the poor mice to the point they were too afraid even to come out of their little holes in the wainscoting and eat.”
“What color was the cat?” Emma asked.
“A big black cat with a bushy tail.”
“Papa always says, ‘a tabby.’”
“Sorry.”
Emma giggled.
“Anyway,” said Sebastian, “the mice quickly realized that if they didn’t do something about the cat, they would either starve to death or get eaten themselves. So they all got together to try to come up with a solution. There was much arguing and shouting, but no one could think of anything that would work. Finally, a clever young mouse stood up and said, ‘The problem is that the cat is so quiet we can’t hear him when he’s sneaking up on us. All we need to do is tie a bell around his neck, and that way we’ll always know when he’s coming.’
“Now, all the other mice thought this was a splendid idea. Everyone was cheering and clapping the young mouse on the shoulder and telling him how very clever he was and calling him a hero. All except for one old mouse, so aged his hair had turned as white as the frost. He cleared his throat and stood up to say”—Sebastian dropped his voice into a gravely Glaswegian rasp—“‘I’ll not be denying that tying a bell about the cat’s neck would surely warn us of his approach. There’s only one wee problem.’ The old man paused to let his gaze drift around the assembly of anxious mice and said—”
“‘Who bells the cat?’” shouted Emma, jumping up to clap her hands before collapsing against him again in a fit of giggles.
“You’ve heard this before,” said Sebastian in mock solemnity.
“Only about a hundred times,” said Annie, setting aside her darning to come take the child into her arms. Her gaze met his over the little girl’s dark head. “Thank you.”
“It was my pleasure. Truly.”
A faint smile touched her lips. “You’ll make a wonderful father.”
Afterward, he wondered whether it had been an idle remark, or if something of his own thoughts and emotions had shown on his face.
Later that evening, Sebastian was looking over a history of the French Revolution while Hero sat reading Abigail McBean’s English translation of The Key of Solomon. The black cat lay curled up on the hearth beside them.
“Listen to this,” she said, reading aloud. “‘I conjure you Spyritts by all the patryarchs, prophets, Apostles, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, vyrgyns, and wyddowes, and by Jerusalem, the holy cytty of godd, and by heaven and earth and all that therein is, and by all other vyrtues, and by the Elements of the worlde, and by St. Peter, apostle of Rome, and by the croune of thorne that was worne on godd’s head.’” She looked up. “I thought this was supposed to have been written by Solomon.”
“Details, details,” said Sebastian, looking up as a distant knock sounded at the front door.
“Expecting anyone?” asked Hero.
Sebastian shook his head.
A moment later, Morey appeared in the doorway. “The Earl of Hendon to see you, my lord.”
Sebastian was aware of Hero’s silent gaze upon him. In all the weeks of their marriage, Hendon had never yet paid a call on Brook Street, nor had Sebastian taken his bride to Hendon’s sprawling pile in Grosvenor Square. Yet she had never asked him that most obvious question: Why?
Morey cleared his throat. “His lordship says it is a matter of the utmost importance. I’ve taken the liberty of showing him to the library.”
Sebastian was aware of a deep sense of disquiet. After all that had been said between them, he could think of few developments that would motivate Hendon to come here.
None of them were good.
“Excuse me,” he said to Hero, and left the room.
He found the Earl standing before the library’s empty hearth, his hands clasped behind his back, his heavily jowled features sagged with worry.
“What is it?” asked Sebastian without preamble. “What has happened?”
“Kat was attacked this evening in Covent Garden Market.”
“Is she all right?” It came out sharper than he’d intended.
Hendon nodded. “Yes. Fortunately, the costermongers and stall keepers rallied and helped her drive the assailants away. She suffered a slight injury to her arm, but that is all.”
Wordlessly, Sebastian walked over to pour two brandies. He handed one to the Earl.
Hendon took it without hesitation. “She says she doesn’t know who the men were or why they attacked her.”
Sebastian took a long, slow swallow of his own brandy and felt it burn all the way down. “You don’t believe her?”
“I don’t know what to believe—although frankly I’m inclined to suspect it has something to do with this damned business about Yates.”
“If so, why wouldn’t she tell you?”
“I don’t know. I was hoping perhaps you knew the answer to that.”
Sebastian shook his head. “I’m afraid there’s far too much going on here that I don’t understand yet.”
Hendon stared down at his brandy. “She tells me you have undertaken to prove Yates’s innocence.”
When Sebastian remained silent, Hendon cleared his throat and said gruffly, “Thank you.”
“I’m not doing it for you.”
There was a long, pained pause. Then Hendon said, “No. Of course not.” He set aside the brandy untasted and reached for his hat. “Give my regards to your wife.” Then he bowed and left.
Sebastian sent at once for his carriage to be brought around. He was waiting with one arm propped against the mantel, his gaze on the cold hearth before him, his thoughts far away, when he felt the black cat brush against his leg and looked up to find Hero watching him.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, straightening. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“That’s a first.” She bent to scoop up the purring cat into her arms. “Has something happened?”
“Kat Boleyn was attacked this evening in Covent Garden. She’s unhurt, but it’s . . . worrisome.”
A frown line appeared between Hero’s eyes. “You think it’s connected in some way to Eisler’s murder?”
“Yes.”
She said, “Why would Hendon bring you word of Kat Boleyn?”
His gaze met hers. And he found himself thinking, When enemies become friends and then lovers, at what point do the last barriers drop? When are the final secrets revealed? She had been his wife for six weeks; she shared his bed every night and was carrying his child. Yet there was so much they did not know about each other, so many things he’d never told her, so much of which they’d never spoken.
And neither had ever uttered thos
e three simple but powerful words, I love you.
He said bluntly, “Kat is Hendon’s natural daughter. None of us knew it until last autumn. To say the discovery was distressing would be one of the year’s great understatements.”
He saw the shock of comprehension in her eyes, along with something else he hadn’t expected.
“Oh, God,” she whispered. “Sebastian. I’m so sorry.”
He drained his brandy and set the empty glass aside. “If you’re imagining our quaint family circle as some grand tragedy, don’t. In the end, that discovery—as sordid and shocking as it was—turned out to be only the first act in what has since come to resemble nothing so much as a tawdry farce.”
“You don’t look to me as if you’re laughing.”
“Yes, well . . .” He would have said more, for there was so much else he needed to tell her. Only, at that moment Morey appeared in the doorway to say, “Your carriage is ready, my lord.”
He hesitated.
She reached out to touch his arm lightly. “Go on, Sebastian. I understand.”
And so he left her there, the black cat held cradled in her arms like a child.
Chapter 40
H
e found Kat curled up on the sofa before a fire in her drawing room, her left arm resting in a sling.
“Please don’t get up,” Sebastian said, as she struggled to do so.
She sat up anyway, her small stockinged feet peeking out from beneath the hem of her muslin gown. “I asked Hendon not to carry this tale to you. But he obviously didn’t listen.”
Sebastian came to rest his hands on her shoulders and stare down into her upturned face. “How are you? Truly.”
“Gibson says it’s nothing serious—a sprain only. One of the men grabbed hold of my arm and I must have twisted it in my attempt to get away.”
“What the bloody hell happened? And why the devil did you go to Hendon rather than to me?”
“Stop glowering, Sebastian. I didn’t go to Hendon. He stopped by this evening by chance to see how I was doing, and I made the mistake of giving him an honest answer when he asked how I came to injure myself.”
“Did you give him an honest answer?”
She smiled. “For the most part. I have no idea who those two men were. But I don’t think their intent was to kill me—at least, not right away. They were trying to drag me to a cart they had waiting nearby.”
Sebastian walked away to stand at the window overlooking the darkened square below. “Did you act on the question I asked you this afternoon?”
“I did, yes. But I only sent a vague message to someone requesting a meeting. I didn’t go into detail on why.”
He glanced over at her. “They might know why.”
She shook her head. “I don’t believe this individual would harm me.”
“So certain?”
She smoothed her free hand down over her lap and did not answer him.
He said, “I think Napoléon’s men are still looking for that diamond. If they didn’t kill Eisler but believe that Yates did, they might think he has it.”
“So why snatch me?”
“To use as a bargaining chip, perhaps?”
“As in, ‘You give us the diamond and we will give you your wife’?” She considered it a moment, then said, “I believe one of the men who tried to grab me may have been French.”
Sebastian frowned. “Thin? With a pockmarked face?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“I tangled with him in Seven Dials last night.” He paused. “Did you have a chance to speak to Yates?”
She nodded. “You were right about Beresford and Tyson. They are mollies.” She kept her gaze on his face. “That’s significant; why?”
“Eisler liked to collect information on people.”
“You mean for blackmail?”
“I don’t think he extorted actual cash payments in return for his silence. He used what he knew to influence people, to force them to do what he wanted them to do.”
“I’d call that blackmail.”
“In a sense, I suppose it is.”
She frowned thoughtfully. “According to Yates, Blair Beresford is the younger son of a small Irish landowner. What could he possibly have that Eisler either wanted or could use?”
“I wasn’t thinking about Beresford.”
“You mean Tyson?” She was silent for a moment, as if considering this. Then she said, “He’s also a younger son.”
“He is. But he had gems he was selling to Eisler. Eisler may have tried to use the information he had to drive a hard bargain.”
“You’re suggesting this gives Tyson a motive for murder?”
“I’d say it does, yes. Although if Eisler tried to use threats to pressure Matt Tyson, he was a fool. Tyson is the kind of man who would as soon slit your throat as look at you.”
“Where does he say he was last Sunday evening?”
“Beresford claims they spent the evening in Tyson’s rooms in St. James’s Street.”
She raked the curls off her forehead with a hand Sebastian noticed was not quite steady. “We’re running out of time, Devlin. Yates’s trial has been scheduled for Saturday.”
He wanted to go to her, to take her in his arms and hold her in comfort. It occurred to him that if she were, in truth, his sister, then he could have done so and no one would have thought twice about it.
And that suddenly struck him as the cruelest irony of all.
He said, “The person you sent your message to—who was it?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
“Even to save your own life?”
But she only shook her head, a sad smile playing about her full, beautiful lips.
Leaving the house in Cavendish Square, Sebastian walked into a crisp night scented by a pungent mixture of coal smoke and damp stone and the hot oil from the street lamps that flickered faintly, as if stirred by an unseen hand. He started to leap up into his waiting carriage, then changed his mind and sent his coachman home.
Turning toward Regents Park, he walked down wide, paved streets lined with stately brick and stucco houses that stood where just twenty-five years before he and his brothers had run through meadows golden with ripening hay. In those days, there’d been a small pond shaded by chestnuts—just about there, he decided, where that livery stable now stood. He remembered one time when his brother Cecil had found an old Roman coin buried in the mud while they were collecting tadpoles, and Richard, the eldest and therefore their father’s heir, had tried to claim it as his own in some twisted interpretation of the rules of primogeniture. Their mother had been there too, the sun warm on her fair hair, her voice gay with laughter as she separated the squabbling boys. And none of it—none of it—had really been as he’d thought it to be.
At what point? he thought again. At what point do the last barriers drop? When are the final secrets revealed?
But when he arrived back at Brook Street, it was to find Hero’s bedroom in darkness. He stood for a moment in the doorway and watched the gentle rise and fall of her breathing. Then he turned away.
By the time he awoke the next morning, she had already left for more of her interviews.
Thursday, 24 September
At precisely five minutes to eleven the next morning, Sebastian walked into the Lambeth Street Public Office to find Bertram Leigh-Jones bustling about with flapping robes, his wig askew as he sorted through a stack of files.
“We don’t open until eleven,” snapped the magistrate. “What do you want?”
“I’m wondering if you have a list of the people who owed Daniel Eisler money.”
Leigh-Jones grunted, his attention all for his files. “Now, why would I want something like that?”
“From what I’m hearing, Eisler dabbled in everything from blackmail to magic to sexual exploitation. A man like that accumulates a lot of enemies.”
The magistrate looked up. “Maybe. But that doesn’t alter the fact that Russell Yates
is the one who actually killed him. He’ll be standing trial this Saturday.”
“Rather hasty, don’t you think?”
“As it happens, no, I don’t. The man is clearly guilty. Why keep him locked up at His Majesty’s expense when he could provide a spot of sport for the populace by dancing at the end of a rope?”
Sebastian studied the man’s overfed, self-confident face. “I’ve heard it said that when King George was still in his right mind, it was his habit to personally examine the cases of each and every prisoner condemned to death in London. They say he could frequently be found weighing the evidence against them in the small hours of the night, and that he would closet himself with his chaplain to pray at the time of their deaths.”
“Did he, now?” Leigh-Jones banged his files together and gathered them under one beefy arm. “Well, it’s no wonder he went mad, then, now, isn’t it? If you ask me, a morning spent watching a half dozen rascals hang is nearly as good a sport as a foxhunt.” He gave Sebastian a broad wink. “You could join us afterward at the keeper’s house for a breakfast of deviled kidneys. It’s quite the tradition, you know. Now, you’ll have to excuse me; I’ve a hearing to attend.” He put up a hand to straighten his wig. “Good day to you, m’lord.”
Chapter 41
H
ero spent much of the morning in the shadow of Northumberland House, interviewing the gang of young sweepers who worked Charing Cross. An irregular open space at the end of the Strand where Whitechapel, Cockspur, and St. Martin’s Lane all came together, the intersection was heavily traveled. All agreed it was a “capital spot” with lots of “gentlefolk” passing to and fro. The problem was, there were simply too many of the lads for any of them to do well.
She was talking to a tall, gangly redhead named Murphy when she became aware of the sensation of being watched. She glanced around, her gaze assessing the intersection’s fenced-in bronze equestrian statue, the classical facade of the Royal Mews, the flock of ragged, barefoot boys clutching brooms. She had never considered herself a fanciful woman. But the unsettling conviction remained.
