What Darkness Brings (3 page)

Chapter
4

R
ussell Yates was one of those rare men who defied both the expectations and the conventions of his world and yet somehow still managed to prosper.

He had been born to a life of ease and luxury, the son of an East Anglian nobleman. But one frosted, wretched night in the winter of his fourteenth year, Yates stole from his father’s high-walled, sprawling home and ran away to sea. When asked the reason for such a bold but undeniably rash impulse, Yates typically laughed and cautioned his listeners against the dangers of allowing impressionable young lads to read too many stirring tales of high adventure. But Sebastian had long suspected that the true reasons were much darker and could at times be glimpsed lurking behind the laughter in the man’s mocking hazel eyes, like the shadowy ghosts of childhood’s worst nightmares.

No one knew all that had occurred during the man’s years at sea. There were whispered tales of shipwrecks and pirates and daggers stained with the blood of both innocent and evil men. All that could be said with certainty was that Yates had risen from his precarious beginnings as a cabin boy to become captain of a privateer that terrorized the shipping of England’s enemies from the Spanish Main to the East Indies. By the time he returned to take his place in London society, he was a wealthy man.

He bought a grand house in Mayfair and quickly set about scandalizing the more sanctimonious members of the ton. Broad shouldered and sun bronzed, his dark hair worn too long and with the wink of pirate’s gold in his left ear, Yates moved through London society like a sleek tiger on the prowl at a garden party. His well-muscled body kept toned and hard by regular workouts at Jackson’s Boxing Salon and Angelo’s fencing parlor, Yates exuded unabashed virility and an aggressive masculinity in a way that was rare amongst the sophisticated, mannered men of the ton. The high sticklers would always look askance at him, but London’s most popular hostesses loved him. He was wellborn but deliciously unique, endlessly amusing—and very, very rich.

Yet Sebastian sometimes found himself wondering what had brought Yates back to London after so many years. There was a coiled restlessness about the man, a recklessness born of a mingling of boredom and despair that Sebastian both recognized and understood. Was it boredom or an urge to self-destruction that drove Yates to risk everything for the transient, meaningless thrill of running rum and the odd French agent beneath the noses of His Majesty’s Navy? Sebastian could never decide. But whatever Yates’s reasons for dabbling in smuggling and espionage, his most dangerous activities were actually those of the boudoir. For the truth was that London’s most virile, most ostentatious Corinthian preferred the sexual pleasures to be found with those of his own gender.

It was an inclination more dangerous than smuggling, viewed by society and the law as a crime on par with treason. For in an age given over to vice and excess, love of one’s own kind remained the ultimate unforgivable sin, punishable by a hideous death.

It was his fear of that death—a fear increased by the enmity of the King’s powerful cousin, Lord Jarvis—that had driven Yates into a marriage of convenience with the most beautiful, the most desirable, the most sought-after actress of the London stage: Kat Boleyn, the woman Sebastian had loved, and lost.

Yates’s prison cell was small and stone-cold, the air thick with the pervasive stench of effluvia and rot. A tumult of raucous voices and laughter rose from the crowded yard below the room’s small barred window, but Yates himself sat silently on the edge of his narrow cot, elbows propped on splayed knees, bowed head clutched in his hands. He didn’t look up when, keys rattling, the turnkey pushed open the thick door.

“Jist bang on the door when ye need me, yer lordship,” said the turnkey with a sniff.

Sebastian slipped the man a coin. “Thank you.”

Yates lifted his head, his fingers raking through his long dark hair to link behind his neck. A day’s growth of beard shadowed the man’s dark, handsome face; his coat was torn, his cravat gone, his breeches and shirt smeared with blood and dirt. Yates obviously hadn’t come here without a struggle.

“So have you come to gloat too?” he said, his voice rough.

“Actually, I’m here to help.”

An indecipherable expression flitted across the man’s face before being carefully hidden away. “Did Kat ask you—”

Sebastian shook his head. “I haven’t seen her yet.” He pulled forward the room’s sole chair, a straight-backed spindly thing that swayed ominously when it took his weight. “Tell me what happened.”

Yates gave a bitter laugh. “You’re married to the daughter of my worst enemy. Give me one good reason why I should trust you.”

Sebastian shrugged and pushed to his feet. “Suit yourself. Although I will point out that Jarvis happens to be my worst enemy too. And from what I’m hearing, the way things stand now, I’m the only chance you have.”

For a long moment, Yates held his gaze. Then he blew out a painful breath and brought up a hand to shade his eyes. “Sit down. Please.”

Sebastian sat. “They tell me you were found bending over Eisler’s body. Is that true?”

“It is. But I swear to God, he was dead when I found him.” He scrubbed his hands down over his face. “How much do you know about Daniel Eisler?”

“Not a bloody thing.”

“He is—or I suppose I should say, he was one of the biggest diamond merchants in London. Prinny did business with him, as did most of the royal dukes. I’ve heard it said he even sold Napoléon the diamond necklace he presented to the Empress Marie Louise as a wedding present.”

“So he still traded with the French?”

“Of course he did. They all do, you know. The Continental System and the Orders in Council are inconveniences, but nothing more.” Yates summoned up a ghost of a smile. “That’s why God invented smugglers.”

“Which is where you come in, I presume?”

Yates nodded. “Most of Eisler’s diamonds came from Brazil, through a special arrangement he had with the Portuguese. But he also had agents buying up gems across Europe. A lot of once-wealthy people there are facing ruin, which means they’re looking to raise money any way they can.”

“Selling the family jewels being one of those ways?”

“Yes.”

Sebastian studied the other man’s tired, strained face. “So what happened last night?”

“I went to Eisler’s house to finalize the details of an upcoming transaction. I’d just knocked on the door when I heard the sound of a pistol shot from inside the house. The door was off the latch, so I pushed it open and like a bloody fool went rushing in.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean,
why
?”

“Why put yourself at risk of being shot too?”

Yates stared back at him, his eyes narrowed, the muscles along his jaw working. “If you were standing on the steps of a business acquaintance’s house and heard the sound of a shot from inside, would you run away?”

Sebastian smiled. “No.”

“Exactly.”

“Where were Eisler’s servants while all this was going on?”

“The man was a bloody miser. He lived in a decrepit old Tudor house that was falling down around his ears and retained only an ancient couple who tottered off to bed every night after dinner. Campbell, I think their name is. As far as I know, they slept through the whole thing. I sure as hell never saw them.”

“What time did this happen?”

“About half past eight.”

“So it was dark?”

“It was, yes. He’d left one measly candlestick burning on a table in the entry, but I could see more light coming from the parlor just to the right of the stairs. That’s where I found him, sprawled some eight or ten feet inside the room. His chest was a bloody mess, but I went to see if by some chance he still lived. I was just leaning over him when a man came barreling in behind me and started screeching, ‘What have you done? Good God, you’ve killed him!’ I said, ‘What the devil are you talking about? I found him like this.’ But the bloody idiot was already rushing off yelling ‘murder’ and calling loudly for the watch. So then I did the second stupid thing of the evening: Rather than stick around to explain myself to the constables, I ran. I didn’t realize the bastard knew who I was.”

“And who was he?”

“Turns out he’s Eisler’s nephew—a man by the name of Samuel Perlman.”

Sebastian went to stare thoughtfully out the small, high window.

After a moment, Yates said, “It doesn’t look good, does it?”

Sebastian glanced back at him. “To be frank? No, it doesn’t. Can you think of anyone who might have had reason to kill Eisler?”

Yates laughed. “Are you serious? You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who ever did business with Eisler and
didn’t
want to kill the bastard. He was a mean, nasty son of a bitch who enjoyed taking advantage of other people’s misfortune. Frankly, it’s amazing the man managed to live as long as he did—and I suspect that was only because people were afraid of him.”

“Afraid of him? Why?”

Yates twitched one shoulder in a shrug and glanced away. “He had a bad reputation for being vindictive. I told you: He was an ugly bastard.”

“And did you have a reason to want to kill him?”

Yates was silent a moment, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. Then he turned his head to look straight at Sebastian. And Sebastian knew even before the man opened his mouth that he was lying. “No. No, I didn’t.”

Chapter 5

S
ebastian studied Yates’s strained, beard-shadowed face. “You know, unless you’ve a hankering to dance the hempen measure to the toll of St. Sepulchre’s bell, you’re going to need to be honest with me.”

Yates’s jaw hardened. “I told you: I’d no reason to kill the bastard. I didn’t like him, but if we all took to killing people we don’t particularly fancy, London would soon be mighty thin of company.”

Sebastian pushed away from the window and went to signal the turnkey. “If you think of anything useful, let me know.”

Yates stopped him by saying, “Why are you doing this?”

Sebastian paused to look back at him. “You know why.”

The two men’s gazes met and held. Then Yates looked away, and Sebastian knew a moment of deep disquiet.

Sebastian said, “Any chance Jarvis could be behind this?”

Sebastian might not know the cause of the animosity between the two men, but he knew it ran deep and deadly. Thus far, Yates had managed to survive the enmity of the King’s powerful cousin only because he had in his possession evidence that would destroy Jarvis if it ever came to light. What that evidence was, Sebastian had never discovered. But because of it, the two men lived in an uneasy state of check, neither able to make a move to destroy the other without destroying himself.

It was a situation that Sebastian suspected could not persist indefinitely. And although it troubled him to admit it, if Sebastian were a betting man, he would put his money on Jarvis.

Yates said, “The last thing Jarvis wants is to see me hanged. He knows the consequences.”

“So I would have thought. In which case the question then becomes, why isn’t he doing something to prevent it?” If anyone had the power to see the charges against Yates dropped, it was the King’s Machiavellian cousin.

But Yates only shook his head and shrugged, as if the answer escaped him.

Pushing his way back through the prison’s crowded Press Yard and labyrinth of corridors, Sebastian found he had to close his mind to the sea of pale, desperate faces, to the endless, plaintive chorus of, “Have pity on poor little Jack!” and “Gov’nor, can ye spare a farthing? Only a farthing!”

Once, just twenty months before, he had found himself in much the same desperate position as Russell Yates. Accused of murder, he’d chosen the life of a fugitive in a desperate attempt to catch a twisted killer and clear his own name. Sebastian knew only too well how British “justice” worked.

Yates’s chances of being declared innocent were slim.

The heavy, ironbound main door of the prison slammed shut behind him, and Sebastian paused on the pavement outside to suck a breath of clean air deep into his lungs. All the turmoil of the street known as the Old Bailey swirled around him: Axles creaked as wagon drivers cursed and whipped their teams; a pie man shouted,
“Fresh and hot. Hot! Hot!”
The scent of ale wafted from a nearby tavern. And still the smell of the prison seemed to cling to him, a foul, oily stench of decay, hopelessness, and looming death.

The relentless pounding of hammers drew his attention to the spot outside the Debtors’ Door where a crew of workmen were knocking together the scaffold and viewing platform that would be used for the execution of two highwaymen scheduled for tomorrow morning. Until recently, London had hung her condemned prisoners at Tyburn, to the west of the city, with the doomed men, women, and children drawn through the streets in open carts surrounded by a raucous, drunken mob. But as the fields around Hyde Park filled with the elegant homes of the wealthy, Mayfair’s aristocratic inhabitants took exception to that endless, malodorous parade. And so the exhibition was shifted here, to the street outside Newgate Prison. Sebastian had heard that when a notorious murderer—or a woman—was hanged, choice viewing spots at the windows of the surrounding buildings could rent for as much as two or three guineas.

Someone with Russell Yates’s colorful background could easily attract a crowd of twenty thousand or more.

Sebastian became aware of Tom sitting motionless on the curricle’s high seat, his solemn gaze on a workman who was climbing up on the platform to lever into place a stout beam studded with massive iron hooks. Tom’s own brother had been hanged here for theft at the age of just thirteen.

It had been Sebastian’s intention to drive to St. Botolph-Aldgate and take a look at the scene of Mr. Daniel Eisler’s murder. But he was suddenly aware of a profound exhaustion he saw mirrored in his tiger’s face, of his rumpled clothing and day’s growth of beard, and of the need to offer his condolences to the grieving widow of an old friend.

He ran a hand down the nearest chestnut’s sweat-darkened neck and told Tom, “Go home, see the chestnuts put up, and then take the day off to rest.”

Tom’s face fell. “Ne’er tell me ye’ll be takin’ a
hackney
?” That peerless arbiter of taste and deportment, Beau Brummell himself, had decreed that no gentleman should ever be seen riding in a hackney carriage, and Tom had taken the Beau’s strictures to heart.

“I am indeed. To drive this pair back out to Kensington again, after all they’ve been through, would be beyond cruel.”

“Aye, but . . .
gov’nor
. A hackney?”

Sebastian laughed and turned away.

Sebastian had known Annie Wilkinson for as long as he’d known Rhys—except that when he’d first met her, she’d been Annie Beaumont, the plucky, freckle-nosed, seventeen-year-old wife of a dashing cavalry captain named Jake Beaumont. Few officers’ wives chose to “follow the drum” with their husbands, for the life could be both brutal and deadly. But Annie, the daughter of a colonel, had grown up in army camps from India to Canada. She took the hardships and dangers of a campaign in stride, without ever losing her ready laugh or cheerful disposition. He remembered once, in Italy, when a brigand caught her in the hills outside of camp and she coolly shot her would-be assailant in the face. When her first husband died from a saber wound complicated by sepsis, she married again, to a big, rawboned Scotsman who succumbed to yellow fever in the West Indies just months after their wedding.

Rhys Wilkinson might have been Annie’s third husband, but Sebastian had never doubted the strength of her love for the easygoing Welshman. And of her three husbands, only Wilkinson had succeeded in giving Annie a child. Now, as Sebastian mounted the steps to the couple’s cramped lodgings in a narrow street called Yeoman’s Row, just off Kensington Square, he found himself wondering if that made this husband’s death easier or harder for Annie to bear.

He had intended only to send up his card along with a note of condolence. But he was met at the door by a breathless, half-grown housemaid who dropped a quick curtsy and said, “Lord Devlin? Mrs. Wilkinson says to tell you she’d be most pleased to see you, if’n you was wantin’ to step upstairs?”

And so he found himself following the housemaid up the bare, narrow set of stairs that led to the shabby apartment to which Rhys Wilkinson’s continued illness had reduced his young family.

“Devlin,” said Annie Wilkinson, both hands extended as she came forward to greet him. “I was hoping you’d come. I wanted to thank you again for trying to—for looking—” Her voice cracked.

“Annie. I’m so sorry.” He took her hands in his, his gaze hard on her face. The freckles were still there, although faded to a sprinkling of cinnamon dust across the pale flesh of her high cheekbones and the thin arch of her nose. As a girl, she’d been awkward and almost funny-looking, all skinny arms and legs and a wide, toothy grin. But she’d grown into a delicate beauty, her form tall and willowy, her features unusual but exquisite, her hair a rich strawberry blond. “Tell me what you need me to do,” he said, “and I’ll do it.”

He felt her hands tremble in his. “Sit and just talk to me, will you? Most of my acquaintances seem to assume that I’ve either dosed myself senseless with laudanum, or that since this is my third experience with widowhood then I must be taking it comfortably in stride. I can’t decide which is most insulting.”

She led him to a sagging, aged sofa near where a curly-headed little girl was playing with a scattering of toy horses. “Come and make your curtsy to his lordship, Emma,” she told the child.

Pushing to her feet, the little girl carefully positioned one foot behind the other and bobbed up and down with a mischievous giggle. She was tall for her age, and skinny like her mother, with her father’s dark hair and gray eyes, and a roguish dimple that was all her own.

“Hello there,” said Sebastian, hunkering down beside her. “Remember me?”

Emma nodded her head vigorously. “You gave me my
Aes-hop’s Fables
,” she said, stumbling over the pronunciation of the name. “Daddy tells me a story every night.” A faint frown tugged at her gently arched eyebrows. “Only, he didn’t come home in time last night.”

Sebastian glanced up at Annie’s stricken face. He had brought the child the book some months before, when Rhys invited him to dinner one evening. “I could read you a story now,” he said, “if you’d like.”

“That’s all right,” said Emma with a wide smile that was more like Annie’s than that of her dead father. “But thank you.” She dropped another curtsy and went back to her horses.

Sebastian rose slowly.

Annie said, “I told her, but I don’t think she really grasps what has happened. How much of death do we understand at the age of four?” Her voice quavered again, and Sebastian reached out to recapture one of her hands.

They sat for a time in silence, their gazes on the child, who was now whispering, “Clippity-cloppity, clippity-cloppity,” as she pushed a small bronze toy horse mounted on wheels along the pattern of the threadbare carpet. Then Annie said, her voice low, “Did he kill himself, Devlin? Tell me honestly. I wouldn’t blame him if he did—he’s been so dreadfully unwell. I don’t know how he stood it so long.”

Sebastian knew a moment of deep disquiet. It was one thing to harbor such suspicions himself, and something else again to hear them voiced by Wilkinson’s own wife. “I didn’t see anything to suggest it, but it’s impossible at this stage to tell.”

Her freckles stood out, stark, against the pallor of her face. “There’ll be a postmortem?”

“Gibson is doing it. I can stop by his surgery and let you know what he’s found, if you like.”

Nodding, she swallowed hard before answering. “Yes. Please. I’d like to hear it from you . . . if it’s true.”

“Annie . . .” He hesitated a moment, then pressed on. “I know things have been hard for you, since Wilkinson was invalided out. I wish you’d let me—”

“No,” she said forcefully, cutting him off. “Thank you, but no. I’ve a grandmother in Norfolk who offered years ago to take me in, should I ever find myself homeless. When this is all over, Emma and I will go to her.”

He studied her tightly held face. “All right. But promise me that should you ever find yourself in need, you’ll let me know.”

“I’ll be fine, Devlin; don’t worry.”

He stayed talking to her for some time, of happier days with the regiment in Italy and the Peninsula. But when he was leaving, he touched his fingertips gently to her cheek and said, “You didn’t promise me, Annie.”

She crinkled her nose in a way that reminded him of the near child she’d been when they first met. “I’ll be fine, Devlin. Truly. “

He forbore to press her further. Yet as he hailed a hackney and headed toward home, he could not shake the conviction that he was somehow failing both her and his dead friend.