by C. S. Harris
“I can’t argue with that.” Sebastian slid off the table. He was feeling sore and stiff and utterly bone weary. “How is Tom?”
“His back should heal in a couple of weeks.”
“It’s not his back I’m worried about.”
Gibson looked up from gathering together his implements. “You reached him before Rowe had time to do any other damage.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes. I’d like to keep him here for a day or two, mainly to make certain he gets the rest he needs. I’ve put him in the front bedroom, but he’s refusing to go to sleep until he sees you.”
Sebastian eased on the ragged, stained remnants of his shirt. “I wish to God this had never happened to him.”
“Tom’s a plucky lad. He’ll be all right.”
• • •
Sebastian found Tom lying facedown in Gibson’s bed, his face turned toward the wall. At the sound of Sebastian’s footsteps on the old house’s stone flagged floor, the boy swung his head to look at him, his gray eyes wide and stark in a pale face.
“Does it hurt much?” asked Sebastian.
“Not so much,” Tom lied. “Gibson says I can go back to work in a few days.” He paused. “If you’ll let me.”
Sebastian came to sit on a nearby straight-backed chair, his hat turning round and round in his hands as he searched for the words that were so difficult to say. “When I stopped taking you with me as my tiger, I thought I was keeping you safe from a truly monstrous killer. But all I did was leave you vulnerable to the very danger I was trying to avoid, and for that I will forever be sorry.”
Tom swallowed, hard. “I been layin’ ’ere, thinkin’. I’ll ’ave been yer tiger fer three years come February. I ain’t denyin’ I was a young ’un when ye took me on. But I ain’t so young anymore.”
“No. No, you’re not. And you’re right; it’s time I quit treating you as if you were.” Children as young as five risked their lives every day going down in the mines, while boys of eight and nine went off to war as cabin boys and drummer boys. Perhaps it was because Sebastian had buried too many of them over the years that he’d found himself so protective of Tom. But Tom would soon be a man grown and he deserved to be treated that way. “Giles tells me you’ve ambitions of becoming a Bow Street Runner.”
“Aye,” Tom answered warily, obviously worried about where Sebastian was going with this.
Sebastian rose to his feet. “I’m thinking that with a future Bow Street man as my groom, I should start giving him more responsibility when he’s ready to come back to work.”
Tom let out his breath in a rush. “Ye mean it?”
Sebastian saw the shadows that still clouded the boy’s eyes. He knew it would take time for Tom to work through the ramifications of what had been done to him, and more time still to overcome the feelings of terror and helplessness it had provoked. But Gibson was right; Tom was plucky.
Sebastian rested his hand briefly on the boy’s tousled head. “I’ll be both proud and honored to have you working at my side again.”
• • •
Later that night, Hero lay in Devlin’s arms, her head resting in the warm, comforting crook of his shoulder as she watched the fire’s glow flicker over the darkened bedroom. She felt hollowed out and shattered by the day’s events. Her thoughts kept flitting painfully from the loss of her mother to the terror of how close she had come to losing Devlin to the horror of Stephanie’s looming wedding to an unimaginably cruel killer.
“It’s obvious Rowe could not have kidnapped and killed those children alone,” she said suddenly. “There must be some way to prove Ashworth’s involvement in all this.”
Devlin ran his hand up and down her arm. “If there is, I haven’t found it.”
She could feel the tension that thrummed within him; Rowe might be dead, but for Devlin this wasn’t over. She said, “I can’t bear the thought of Stephanie wed to such a man. And yet it’s happening.”
“I’m not giving up. I will get him. Eventually.”
She was quiet for a time, her thoughts returning inevitably to her crushing grief for her mother. After a moment she said quietly, “I thought she was getting better.”
He brushed the hair back from her face. “So what happened?”
“Dr. Blackburn says he thinks her heart stopped. But the truth is he doesn’t know.” She drew in a ragged breath. “I’ve always considered myself a level-headed, realistic person. And yet somehow a part of me can’t quite believe she’s gone. I think about going through the days of my life without her—without hearing her laugh or seeing her smile, without having her there to talk to, to be with—and it hurts so badly I wonder how I’ll bear missing her like this forever.” Her voice cracked, and she had to pause for a moment. “I keep thinking about all Simon’s growing-up years she’s going to miss and all the joy she’d have taken in him. She’ll never have the chance to see the man he will become, just as he’ll never know the incredible woman his grandmother was. And that grieves me more than anything I’ve ever known.”
She felt his hand shift to wipe the tears that coursed silently down her cheeks. “Simon will know her,” said Devlin. “Because he’ll know you.”
• • •
Wednesday, 22 September
They buried Toby Dancing early that morning, along with the bones of Mick Swallow and the unknown children they’d recovered from the grounds of the shot factory and the house in Bethnal Green. The day was cold and damp, with a thick cloud cover that hovered low over those who’d gathered to pay their respects: Sebastian, Constable Gowan, Paul Gibson, Sir Henry Lovejoy, Jem Jones, and Icarus Cantrell. Sebastian watched the Reverend Filby blink back tears as he poured a handful of dirt into the yawning graves, and he knew a measure of quiet guilt for having once suspected this gentle, caring man of murder.
Afterward Sebastian sat with the Professor at his kitchen table as they drank warm cider from heavy pewter tankards that had probably been filched from some local tavern. “I’ve been thinking about Benji Thatcher’s little sister,” said Sebastian, his voice casual, his gaze hard on the other man’s face.
Icarus Cantrell kept his expression neutral. “Oh?”
“It occurs to me that if Sybil thought she was in danger, she might have come to you. The way Hamish did.”
Icarus Cantrell rested his cider on the worn boards between them and sat for a time, regarding it thoughtfully and kneading the muscles at the back of his neck with one hand. Then, seeming to come to some sort of decision, he pressed both palms flat on the table and pushed to his feet.
“Come,” he said. “There’s something you might be interested to see.”
Chapter 57
Icarus Cantrell led Sebastian up a steep staircase to the upper floor of the old medieval house, where a ragged little girl of seven or eight hunkered down on her heels at play with pieces of brickbat she’d lined up like soldiers in formation. She was humming softly to herself, and so involved was she with her game that it was a moment before she looked up, her pale blond hair falling away from a sharp little face. Her resemblance to Benji was unmistakable, her soft blue eyes flaring in alarm as she looked from Cantrell to Sebastian and back again.
“Don’t worry; everything’s all right,” said the Professor. “The gentleman here just wanted to know that you’re safe.”
She stared at them a moment, puzzled, then went back to her game.
Sebastian waited until they were downstairs again before saying, “Why tell me about her now and not before?”
“Because I realized it would grieve you, continuing to think she’s dead.”
“It’s been grieving me for the past ten days now.”
“Yes. But I didn’t know that for certain, did I? You are married to Jarvis’s daughter.”
“What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?”
; “I think you know.”
Sebastian swallowed another angry retort. “So what changed your mind?”
“You killed Sir Francis.”
It had been given out that the King’s cousin had died in a tragic fall while inspecting the abandoned shot factory. Why he would choose to do so at night in the midst of a foul storm had never been adequately explained. “How the blazes did you know that?”
The Professor simply smiled and took a deep swallow of his cider.
Sebastian went to stand beside the old leaded casement window that overlooked the rain-soaked yard. “I take it Sybil saw her brother pulled into the carriage that night?”
“She did, yes.”
“Could she identify him? The man in the carriage, I mean?”
Cantrell shook his head. “She saw a gentleman’s grand clothes and his half-obscured profile, but nothing more.”
“The man she saw in that carriage was in all probability Lord Ashworth. Yet you sent me after Sir Francis Rowe. You suspected him from the very beginning—and it wasn’t simply because of the theft of his snuffbox, was it?”
Cantrell drained his ale and went to throw more coal on the fire. “Believe me, I didn’t know anything for certain. But I knew children had been regularly disappearing from around here. I knew what had happened to Hamish, and I knew the boy’s suspicions about the part his missing friend had played in his abduction. So when I chanced to see the Dancer talking to Sir Francis Rowe a few weeks ago, it struck me as . . . odd. Odd enough that I didn’t forget it.”
“But not so odd that you felt moved to tell me precisely what you suspected—or why.”
The old man crouched before the fire and reached for his poker. “I didn’t tell you my suspicions about Toby for the same reason I hid Sybil: Sir Francis Rowe is—was—related to the King, and you are Jarvis’s son-in-law. I had to be careful of both what I told you and how I told you.”
Sebastian pushed away from the window. “If you were a younger man, I swear I’d plant you a facer for that.”
The Professor kept his attention on the fire. “You fault me for being careful? With Sybil’s life in my hands?”
Sebastian shook his head. “And Ashworth? You knew he was working with Rowe?”
“No. I’d no idea there were two of them. But I knew what had happened to Anne Leary’s daughter, Bridget, so I thought I’d pass that along as well. Believe me, I wish I had either known for certain or had the courage to act on my suspicions. If I had, Toby Dancing would still be alive today.”
“What will become of the girl now?”
“Sybil? I’ll keep her here with me. Without Benji she’d never survive on the streets alone. She’s too young. Too . . . vulnerable.”
“Please tell me you don’t intend to raise her as a thief.”
Cantrell set aside his poker with a clatter. “You think she’d be better off as a whore, do you?”
“She wouldn’t hang for being a whore.”
“True. She’d simply die of the pox—if she weren’t murdered first by one of her uglier customers.”
“Why should you care?”
“Why?” Cantrell pushed awkwardly to his feet, an old man whose life—and the choices he’d made—had led him to a very different place from where he’d begun. “I’ve never been a religious man. But when I worked in the sugarcane fields of Georgia there was an old Irish priest who used to talk to me a lot about sin and atonement.”
“I’d have thought seven years under the lash in the Colonies would be more than enough atonement for anything a man had done.”
“You think so, my lord? I’d have said we’re alike, you and I, in this respect if in few others.”
The two men’s gazes met and held. And the silence filled with the distant patter of rain and the whispers of old, insistent memories that would never be laid to rest.
• • •
Later that evening Sebastian sat beside the library fire in Hendon House in Grosvenor Square, a glass of brandy at his elbow, his left arm in a sling.
“How’s your latest wound?” asked Hendon, filling his pipe’s bowl with tobacco.
“Better,” said Sebastian, when the truth was it throbbed like the devil.
Hendon grunted. “You could have been killed. You need to be more careful.”
“Don’t start.”
“You’ve a wife and child to worry about these days.”
Sebastian reached for his brandy and tried to swallow his irritation along with a good, long drink. “At least you now have the heir you’ve always wanted—just in case.”
The two men’s gazes met. Hendon’s broad chest lifted with the intensity of his breathing, and he surprised Sebastian by saying quietly, “You are my last surviving son.” His hand came up when Sebastian started to speak. “No; let me finish. When you were born, I thought I’d hate you. You were a living, breathing, squalling testament to your mother’s infidelity and to my own failings as a husband. I wanted to hate you, but . . .” He shook his head. “I couldn’t. You were such a delight. So bright and quick, so full of joyous curiosity about everything around you; you were a wonder to me. As you grew I found I could forget for long stretches of time that you weren’t actually my son. I took a father’s pride in the child you became—in your incredible marksmanship, in your horsemanship and your quick mind and your fierce, determined sense of right and wrong. But then I’d remember you weren’t mine, and it would cut at something deep inside me.”
He paused to draw a shaky breath, his aged features pinched with pain. “For thirty years, Sebastian, you have baffled me and enraged me and filled me with great pride. But I stopped thinking of you as anything other than my son long ago. Because in every way but one, you are.”
For a long moment, Sebastian said nothing because his throat was so closed up he could not speak. He wanted to say, You never told me. Except he suspected that at several points in the pain-filled months since he’d learned the truth, Hendon had said at least some of these things, although not all.
He let his gaze rove over the Earl’s familiar face, with its blobby nose and wide forehead and the incredibly blue eyes that were so tellingly different from Sebastian’s own yellow ones. And he felt a welling of emotion that he didn’t want but that was no less real for being unsought.
Hendon said, “It is my hope that someday you will find a way to forgive me for the things I felt I had to do. But I won’t apologize for allowing you and Kat to continue to think yourselves brother and sister. Such a marriage would have ruined you—ruined you both. I fought your entire life to keep you from knowing the truth. Why would I then betray myself simply so you could do something I believed a mistake?”
“Why?” Sebastian somehow managed to say. “Why didn’t you want me to know the truth?”
A faint line of color appeared to ride high on the Earl’s cheeks. “I suppose because I always wished you really were my son. I was so proud of you . . . I wanted you to think I was your father. I wanted you to love me as a father, because I love you as my son.”
“I—” Sebastian began. But his voice threatened to crack and he had to start over, his gaze fixed firmly on the fire on the hearth before them. “Lately I’ve found myself looking at Simon and thinking, How would I feel, were I to discover he is not my son? And I’ve realized . . . it wouldn’t make any difference. Oh, I’d be shaken and hurt and angry. But my love for the boy would remain unchanged.” Sebastian paused, and the silence filled with the crackle of the fire and the tick of the clock on the mantel. “I still think of you as my father. I’ve spent the past fourteen months reminding myself that you’re not, but . . .” He glanced up to find Hendon watching him intently. “Maybe it’s time I stopped trying.”
He saw the leap of hope in the old man’s blue St. Cyr eyes before Hendon blinked rapidly and turned away to fiddle with his pipe. “How about a game of ches
s?” said the Earl gruffly. “It’s been a long time since I suffered my usual humiliation at your hands.”
“Too long,” said Sebastian with a low, shaky laugh, and went to help him set up the board.
• • •
Thursday, 23 September
The wedding of Anthony Ledger, son and heir of the Marquis of Lindley, to Miss Stephanie Wilcox, daughter of the late Lord Wilcox, was held at St. George’s, Hanover Square. A startling number of those members of the Upper Crust then in London managed to roll out of bed for the occasion—quite a feat, given Society’s habits and the fact that, unless under special license, weddings were required by law to be held before noon.
If Amanda had been content with a small family wedding, Hero would have been able to attend. But a woman in deep mourning for the recent death of her mother could not appear at so public a celebration. And so Sebastian stood alone beside the Earl of Hendon, a black riband tied about his arm. The bride’s mother, the Dowager Lady Wilcox, stood triumphant at the Earl’s other side. Sister and brother did not converse.
The Marquis of Lindley himself was in attendance, a rail-thin, frail, elderly man with a pleasant, gentle smile and sad eyes. Sebastian found himself looking at the old man and thinking, Do you know? Do you know what a monster your son is? And then he remembered what Hendon had suggested, that the Marquis was the driving force behind his son’s marriage. And he decided Lindley probably knew a great deal about his son—although surely not all.
The bride’s father being deceased, Miss Wilcox was given away by her brother, Bayard, Lord Wilcox, now returned from his sojourn in Scotland. There were no bridal attendants, and the recent tragic death of the groom’s dear friend Sir Francis Rowe meant that Ashworth stood alone at the altar.
For one telling moment Ashworth’s gaze met Sebastian’s, and the groom’s eyes narrowed with what looked like amusement. Sebastian felt his hands curl into fists at his sides and he forced himself to open and close them several times.
The bride was undeniably lovely in an elegant gown of white gauze over a silk slip of the palest pink embroidered at the hem with a garland of ivy and snowdrops. A wreath of white and pink flowers crowned her glorious golden hair. But her cheeks were pale, her lips pressed into a determined line. Those who noticed doubtless attributed it to maidenly modesty.
