Authors: C.S. Harris
He found Hugh Gordon in a corner booth of the crumbling old redbrick pub known as The Green Man that had been popular with the theatrical crowd since the days when Elizabeth was queen.
The actor was alone; a tall, elegant man drinking a pint of ale and eating a simple plowman’s lunch. His entire posture spoke of self possession and arrogance and a pronounced desire to be left alone.
Shuffling up to the table, Sebastian pulled off his hat and held it, awkwardly, humbly even, before his breast. “Mr. Hugh Gordon?”
Gordon looked up, his dark brows drawing together into a frown. Even offstage, his manner was theatrical, his voice stentorian. “Yes?”
Sebastian tightened his hold on his hat brim. “Pardon me for being so bold as to introduce myself, but I am Taylor. Mr. Simon Taylor?” Sebastian brought the inflection of his voice up at the end, in the manner of one so unsure of himself that even simple sentences come out sounding like questions. “From Worcestershire? They said at the theater I might find you here.”
Reaching out, Gordon took a slow sip of his ale. “So?”
Sebastian swallowed, working his Adam’s apple visibly up and down. “I’m endeavoring to locate a young relative of my mother’s, a Miss Rachel York. I was hoping you might be able to provide me with her direction.”
“Do you mean to say you haven’t heard?” The timbre of his voice was deep and rich, the intonation flawless. If Gordon hadn’t been born a gentleman, he’d certainly done a good job of cultivating both the image and accent.
Sebastian looked confused. “I beg your pardon?”
“She’s dead.”
“Dead?” Sebastian staggered as if reeling beneath the shock, and sat down on the bench opposite the actor. “Good heavens. I had no idea. When did this happen?”
“They found her in an old church off Great Peter Street, near the Abbey. Yesterday morning. Someone’d slit her pretty little throat.”
There was no sorrow in the statement, only a faint lingering of animosity that Sebastian noted with interest, although he was careful to keep all trace of the observation off his face. “But this is dreadful. Any idea who did it?”
“Some nob.” Gordon stuffed a forkful of beef in his mouth, and spoke around it. “Or so they say.”
“I am so sorry. This must be very hard for you.”
Gordon paused with another forkful halfway to his face. “For me? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I was under the impression that you and Rachel were . . .” Sebastian cleared his throat. “Well, you know.”
Gordon grunted. “Your information is out of date, my friend. There’ve been any number of gentlemen who’ve visited her pleasure palace since me, I can tell you that.”
It was a crude and decidedly unloverlike expression. Sebastian drew a deep breath, his chest lifting in a soulful sigh. “My mother always feared the girl would end up as common Haymarket ware.”
Gordon snorted. “Nothing common about Rachel. Hell, a man would need to be a lord or a bloody nabob at least, to get past her ivory gates these days.”
And there, thought Sebastian, lay the source of at least some of this man’s resentment toward his former mistress. When she’d been young and just starting out in the theatrical world, Gordon’s status as one of the titans of the stage must have made him seem powerful, even godlike to her. But once Rachel had established a reputation of her own and attracted the attention of some of London’s wealthiest noblemen, she’d obviously decided she could do better than a common actor. Especially one with a tendency to use his fists on her.
Gordon took a long, deep drink from his tankard. “She used to talk about the day their noble heads would end up on pikes, and how London’s gutters were going to run with their precious blue blood.” He gave a low, mirthless laugh. “She changed her tune quick enough, didn’t she, when they started buying her silks and pearls?”
So Rachel York had sympathized with the aims of the French Revolution. Interesting, thought Sebastian. He shook his head soulfully. “And now one of these noblemen has murdered her?”
“So they say. Although if you ask me, the authorities ought to be taking a closer look at that bloody Frenchman.”
“She had a French lover?”
“Lover?” Gordon shoved the last of his bread in his mouth, chewed once or twice, and swallowed hard. “I don’t know if I’d call him that. Although the man was paying the rent on her rooms, all right.”
“What man is this?”
“One of those bloody émigrés. Claims to be the son of a count or some such nonsense.” The flawless accent slipped for a moment, allowing a hint of Geordie to peek through. Pushing away his plate, the actor leaned back and dusted the crumbs off his fingers. “Man by the name of Pierrepont. Leo Pierrepont.”
S
ir Henry Lovejoy had two passions left in his life. One was for justice and the law. The other was for science.
Whenever he could, he attended the public lectures given at the Royal Scientific Society; he read the
Scientific Quarterly
, and he tried very, very hard to apply the
scientific method
to his investigations and legal deliberations. But every once in a while, Lovejoy went with his instincts, and played a hunch.
It was his instincts that kept nagging at him over this latest killing, whispering to him that there had to be more to Rachel York’s murder in the Lady Chapel of St. Matthew of the Fields than Constable Edward Maitland had so far discovered. And so late that Thursday afternoon, Lovejoy sought out Viscount Devlin’s friend and erstwhile second, Sir Christopher Farrell, in Brooks’s Club on St. James’s and set about finding out more about the Earl of Hendon’s infamous, rakehell son, Sebastian.
“Tell me about yesterday morning’s duel between Lord Devlin and Captain John Talbot,” said Lovejoy when Sir Christopher joined him in the discreet little room tucked away at the top of the stairs that the club had provided for them.
He was an unexpectedly open-faced man, Sir Christopher, with clear gray eyes and an easy manner. Nothing at all like what Lovejoy would have expected in a friend of someone as dark and saturnine as Devlin. At Lovejoy’s question, he opened his eyes wide in a studied parody of innocence. “Duel? What duel?”
The room contained a large mahogany table surrounded by some half-dozen chairs upholstered in the same blue brocade as the walls. Lovejoy stood with the table between them, his gaze fixed on the other man’s face. “You do your friend no favor, Sir Christopher. I have little interest at the moment in enforcing the codes against dueling. But two days ago, a young woman named Rachel York was brutally assaulted and murdered, and certain evidence combined with accounts from a witness have implicated Lord Devlin. Therefore, the more we know about his lordship’s movements these last few days, the closer we will be to understanding the truth of this matter. If you have any information which is pertinent, it would behoove you to provide it. So I ask you again, who was the challenger? Lord Devlin?”
Sir Christopher hesitated a moment, then shook his head. “No. Talbot.”
“When and where precisely was this challenge issued?”
Farrell went to look out the window, his hands clasped behind his back. It was a moment before he answered, his words coming out jerkily, as if he begrudged the magistrate each and every one. “Tuesday afternoon. At White’s. Sebastian was standing near the entrance to the gaming room, holding a glass of wine. Talbot jostled him in such a way that wine from Sebastian’s glass splashed onto Talbot’s boots. He demanded satisfaction.”
Lovejoy nodded in understanding. “That was the public justification for the duel. Now tell me the real reason.”
Farrell swung around, one eyebrow arching in aristocratic affront. “I beg your pardon?”
Lovejoy returned only a tight, bland smile. “There are those who say Lord Devlin was having an affair with Captain Talbot’s wife.”
Sir Christopher met Lovejoy’s questioning gaze. And Lovejoy thought, the man must be hopeless at the gaming tables. Everything he considered, everything he felt, showed on his face. Lovejoy knew the precise moment when Farrell decided to let go of his resistance. Blowing out his breath in a long sigh, he came to sit in one of the chairs ringing the center table. “Talbot certainly thought so,” he said, propping his elbows on the table and sinking his chin into his hands. “But it wasn’t true. Devlin’s relationship with Melanie Talbot never went beyond friendship.”
“You believe that?
Sir Christopher nodded glumly. “Last spring, at a ball at Devonshire House, Sebastian heard someone crying in the garden. He’s got the damnest hearing a body could ever imagine, you know. Anyway, he went to investigate and found Talbot’s wife. The bastard had taken exception to the way she was looking at one of the violin players and worked her over pretty bad before storming off in a fit. Sebastian took her home.”
“But that wasn’t the end of it.”
Farrell dropped his hands into his lap and sat back. “No. She needed a friend, and Devlin became one. I always thought she was more than half in love with him, but Devlin’s not the kind of man to take advantage of another person’s vulnerability.”
Lovejoy eyed the other man consideringly. “How well do you know him?”
A slow, unexpectedly boyish smile spread across Sir Christopher’s face. “Better than I know either of my own two brothers. Sebastian and I were at Eton together. And Oxford after that.”
“But you didn’t join the army with him?”
Sir Christopher’s smile faded. “No. I didn’t even know what he’d done until the day before he was set to leave England.”
“A bit of a start, that. Was it not?”
Sir Christopher fell into a troubled silence, as if considering his next words. Then he said, “About a year after we came down from Oxford, Sebastian fell in love with a woman the Earl considered unsuitable. He threatened to cut Sebastian off without a penny, if he married the chit.”
“Lord Hendon objected to the lady’s birth?”
Farrell rubbed his nose. “She was a Cyprian.”
“Ah,” said Lovejoy. It was difficult to imagine the proud, arrogant young man he’d first met in the library at Brook Street doing anything so improper or foolish as to fall in love with an Incognita. But then, it must have all happened long ago. One wondered how much, if any, of that impetuous, romantic youth could still be found in the cool, hard man Lord Devlin was today.
“Sebastian swore he’d marry the girl anyway. Only, the lady in question had no interest in marrying a pauper. Once she realized Hendon meant what he’d said, she broke it off.”
“So Devlin went to war to get himself killed.”
“I’m not sure it was as dramatic as all that. Let’s just say he was anxious to get away from England for a spell.”
“Understandable,” said Lovejoy smoothly. “Yet I gather he volunteered for some rather dangerous assignments.”
“He was in intelligence, if that’s what you mean. He was good at it.”
Lovejoy made a noncommittal humming sound. “So I’ve heard. Yet I understand he left the service last year under something of a cloud. What was that about, I wonder?”
Sir Christopher returned Lovejoy’s questioning look with a mulish stare. “I don’t know anything about that,” he said, and on this, it seemed, Sir Christopher would not be drawn.
Lovejoy shifted his approach. “Did you see Lord Devlin this last Tuesday evening?”
“Of course.” Sir Christopher’s eyes remained narrowed. The man might be easygoing, Lovejoy thought, but he was no fool. He knew to what end Lovejoy was circling back around. “We were at Watier’s all night—until dawn the next morning, when we drove out to Chalk Heath.”
Lovejoy gave a tight smile. “Yes. But you see, it’s his lordship’s movements earlier in the evening we’re interested in. According to our information, Lord Devlin didn’t arrive at Watier’s until shortly after nine o’clock, although he left his house some four hours earlier, at approximately five. His lordship claims he spent the intervening four hours simply walking the streets of London. But unfortunately, he says he was alone.”
Sir Christopher set his jaw and glared back at Lovejoy. “If Devlin says he was out walking, then that’s where he was.”
The man had too open a face and too natural a disposition toward honesty, Lovejoy thought, to ever be anything other than a terrible liar. The magistrate spent the next ten minutes pressing Sir Christopher for the truth. But in the end, Lovejoy gave it up.
He’d have better luck, he decided, with the unhappily married Melanie Talbot.
R
achel York had kept rooms on the first floor of a neat little lodging house in Dorset Court, not far from Kat’s own townhouse. But it was midafternoon by the time Kat was able to get rid of Lord Stoneleigh and make her way there. Already, the light was fading from the day. As she climbed the long flight of stairs from the ground floor, a hard sleet began to fall, striking the window at the end of the wide hall like a flurry of small pebbles.
“You won’t find anyone there, I can tell you that,” said a querulous female voice floating down from the second floor just as Kat raised her hand to knock.
Crossing the hall, Kat stuck her head over the banister and looked up. “Excuse me?”
She found a small face, deeply wrinkled by time and surrounded by a halo of white hair, peering down at her from the gloom of the second floor. “She’s dead. Murdered in a church, God rest her soul.”
“Actually, it was her maid, Mary Grant, I was interested in seeing. I thought I might like to hire her, if she’s in need of a new position.”
“Huh. She’s long gone, that one. Cleaned the place out first thing this morning, she did.”
Kat was starting to get a crick in her neck. She shifted around to a more comfortable position. She could see the woman better now, so small she had to stand on tiptoe to rest her arms on the top of the upper banister. Her purple satin gown was of a style one might have seen in the previous century, although it looked new. Just like the ropes of pearls and emeralds and rubies draping her neck and thin wrists looked real—at least in this light, and from this angle. “Cleaned it out?”