“I’m told she left with a man. Is that true?”
She stared at the rigid set of his shoulders. “Yes.”
He nodded. “As I recall, there were other men in her life. Had been for years. Why did she decide to leave with this one?”
“The others were distractions—or tools of revenge. I can only assume this one was different somehow.”
“Who was he?”
“I don’t recollect his name. He was a poet, I believe. A most romantic-looking young man.”
“A Venetian?”
“There was some Venetian connection. But the young man himself was French.”
“He was younger than she?”
“Yes.”
“You met him?”
Henrietta twitched at the high embroidered collar of her nightdress. “He was quite the darling of society that spring. Although, if I remember correctly, he left Town early.”
“Where did he go? Cornwall?”
“Evidently.”
Devlin brought up one hand to rub his eyes. Looking at him, Henrietta thought he looked older—and more exhausted—than she could remember having seen him. “Do you know where she is now?” he asked.
“Your mother? No. We were never close, and we certainly didn’t keep in contact after she left. I don’t believe even Hendon knows precisely where she went, although he sends money to her every year.”
“Why? He’s certainly not doing it out of the goodness of his heart. She obviously knows something. Something he’s willing to pay to keep quiet. What is it?”
The Duchess of Claiborne looked into her nephew’s troubled eyes, and for the first time that morning told him a blatant lie. “I honestly don’t know.”
SIR HENRY LOVEJOY WAS ANNOYED. He was making little headway in his attempt to capture the man the press had taken to calling the Butcher of St. James’s Park. He had the magistrates from Bow Street interfering in his investigation of the Carmichael murder. And now he was having to take time away from pursuing several promising leads to deal with an irate foreign embassy and a decidedly peeved Foreign Office.
Leaving Whitehall, Lovejoy hailed a hackney and went to see Viscount Devlin.
He found Devlin just preparing to mount his front steps. “I need to speak to you, my lord,” said Lovejoy, executing a small bow on the footpath.
The Viscount was looking unusually pale and distracted. He hesitated, then said crisply, “Of course,” and led the way into his library. “Please have a seat, Sir Henry. How may I help you?”
“I won’t detain you but a moment,” said Sir Henry, standing with his round hat held in both hands. “One of the wherrymen pulled a body from the Thames last night.”
The Viscount’s features sharpened with interest. “Anyone I know?”
“A foreigner,” said Lovejoy, watching the young man’s face. “From northern Italy.”
Devlin’s brows twitched together in a frown. “A thin man, with blond hair?”
“Ah. So you do know him.”
“He tried to kill me last night.”
“And so you killed him?”
“He fell into the Thames,” said the Viscount blandly. “What made you think to come to me?”
Lovejoy made a noncommittal sound far back in his throat. “He was a known associate of your previous victim. Charles Ahearn,” Sir Henry added, when Sebastian simply stared at him in puzzlement. “The gentleman you killed near Hungerford Market.”
“I didn’t kill Ahearn, remember? He fell, too,” said Devlin with a soft smile. The smile faded quickly. “You’re certain the blond man was Italian?”
“Quite.” Settling his hat back on his head, Lovejoy turned to take his leave. “He was a cousin of the King of Savoy.”
Chapter 55
After Lovejoy’s departure, Sebastian stood for some time with his gaze fixed on an ancient pair of crossed swords hanging on the library’s far wall. The link between the King of Savoy and the effete blond man who had chased Tom through the streets of Smithfield and tried to drown Sebastian in the Thames seemed inevitable; the connection between the conspiracy to depose the Hanovers, Lady Anglessey’s murder, and the ancient bluestone necklace that had once belonged to Sophie Hendon remained less clear. But it was a puzzle Sebastian knew he was never going to unravel as long as he allowed himself to dwell on the events of that distant summer and the lies it had spawned.
And so he forced himself to put away the rage and hurt and focus instead on what his new knowledge of his mother’s true fate added to his understanding of Guinevere Anglessey’s death. The tie between the Countess of Hendon and an unknown French poet with Venetian connections was troubling, although Sebastian was not yet convinced it was significant. Sifting through all that he had learned in the last few days, he decided it was past time he paid another call on the bereaved Marquis of Anglessey.
Reaching out, Sebastian gave the bell beside the mantel a quick tug. “Have Giles bring round my curricle,” he told Morey when the majordomo appeared.
Morey gave a stately bow. “Yes, my lord.”
But when Sebastian stepped out of the house some fifteen minutes later, it was to find his tiger, Tom, reining in the chestnuts at the base of the steps.
“What the devil are you doing here?” Sebastian demanded. “I told you to take a couple of days off and rest.”
“I don’t need no days off,” said the boy, his features pinched and set. “This is my job, and I’m doin’ it.”
Sebastian leapt into the curricle and took the reins. “Your job is to do what you’re told. Now get down.”
The boy gave a loud sniff and stared straight ahead. “It’s on account of I let you down, ain’t it? I flubbed it, and because o’ me, you almost ended up fish bait.”
“No, you didn’t let me down. I let you down by exposing you to unconscionable peril. These people are dangerous, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to be responsible for getting you killed. Now hop off.”
The tiger kept staring straight ahead, but Sebastian noticed he blinked several times, and the muscles of his throat worked hard as he swallowed. “There’s boys younger’n me servin’ as cabin boys in His Majesty’s Navy, and goin’ to war as drummer boys. I guess you reckon I couldn’t do those things, either.”
“Bloody hell,” said Sebastian, giving his horses the office to start. “Just don’t take any more unnecessary risks, you hear? And next time I tell you to do something and you don’t obey me, you’re fired. Understand that?”
Clapping one hand to his hat to hold it in place, Tom scrambled back to his perch and grinned. “Aye, gov’nor.”
THE MARQUIS OF ANGLESSEY MOVED ACROSS THE FLOOR of his conservatory with slow, painful steps. It seemed to Sebastian, watching him, that the man had aged visibly in the past week.
He looked around at the sound of Sebastian’s footfalls, one hand tightening on the edge of the shelf of orchids beside him as if for support. “What is it?”
Sebastian paused in the center of the room, the warm humidity of the place pressing in on him like a blanket, the smell of damp earth and lush foliage heavy in the air. “I want you to tell me how your first wife died.”
To his surprise, a wry smile lifted one corner of the old man’s lips. He turned away to begin carefully plucking yellowing leaves from a large China rose. “I take it you’ve heard the rumors about how I pushed her to her death.”
“Pushed her?”
Anglessey nodded. “She slipped on the stairs at Anglessey Hall. She was big with child, clumsy. She couldn’t catch herself.” His hands stilled at their task, his gaze becoming unfocused as he lifted his head to stare away as if into the past. “Perhaps she would have died in childbirth, anyway,” he added softly. “She wasn’t well those last few months. But there’s no way to know.”