When maidens mourn ssm-7 Read online

  When maidens mourn

  ( Sebastian St.Cyr mystery - 7 )

  C S Harris

  C. S. Harris

  When maidens mourn

  Out flew the web and floated wide;

  The mirror crack d from side to side;

  The curse is come upon me, cried

  The Lady of Shalott.

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809 1892),

  Chapter 1

  Camlet Moat, Trent Place, England

  Sunday, 2 August 1812

  Tessa Sawyer hummed a nervous tune beneath her breath as she pushed through the tangled brush and bracken edging the black waters of the ancient moat. She was very young, just sixteen at her next birthday. And though she tried to tell herself she was brave, she knew she wasn't. She could feel her heart pounding in her narrow chest, and her hands tingled as if she'd been sitting on them. When she'd left the village, the night sky above had been clear and bright with stars. But here, deep in the wood, all was darkness and shadow. From the murky, stagnant water beside her rose an eerie mist, thick and clammy.

  It should have wafted cool against her cheek. Instead, she felt as if the heavy dampness were stealing her breath, suffocating her with an unnatural heat and a sick dread of the forbidden. She paused to swipe a shaky hand across her sweaty face and heard a rustling in the distance, the soft plop of something hitting the water.

  Choking back a whimper, she spun about, ready to run. But this was Lammas, a time sacred to the ancient goddess. They said that at midnight on this night, if a maiden dipped a cloth into the holy well that lay on the northern edge of the isle of Camlet Moat and then tied her offering to a branch of the rag tree that overhung the well, her prayer would be answered. Not only that, but maybe, just maybe, the White Lady herself would appear, to bless the maid and offer her the wisdom and guidance that a motherless girl such as Tessa yearned for with all her being.

  No one knew exactly who the White Lady was. Father Clark insisted that if the lady existed at all which he doubted she could only be the Virgin Mary. But local legend said the White Lady was one of the grail maidens of old, a chaste virgin who'd guarded the sacred well since before the time of Arthur and Guinevere and the Knights of the Round Table. And then there were those who whispered that the lady was actually Guinevere, ever young, ever beautiful, ever glorious.

  Forcing herself to go on, Tessa clenched her fist around the strip of white cloth she was bringing as an offering. She could see the prow of the small dinghy kept at the moat by Sir Stanley Winthrop, on whose land she trespassed. Its timbers old and cracked, its aged paint worn and faded, it rocked lightly at the water's edge as if touched by an unseen current.

  It was not empty.

  Tessa drew up short. A lady lay crumpled against the stern, her hair a dark cascade of curls around a pale, motionless face. She was young yet and slim, her gown an elegant flowing confection of gossamer muslin sashed with peach satin. She had her head tipped back, her neck arched; her eyes were open but sightless, her skin waxen.

  And from a jagged rent high across her pale breast showed a dried rivulet of darkness where her life's blood had long since drained away.

  Chapter 2

  London

  Monday, 3 August

  Driven from his sleep by troublesome dreams, Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, leaned into his outstretched arms, fingers curling around the sill of his wife's open bedroom window. He'd learned long before of the dangers that lurk in those quicksilver moments that come between darkness and the dawn. When the world hovers between night and day, a man could get lost in his own tortured memories of the past if he wasn't careful.

  He drew a deep, shuddering breath into his lungs. But the dawn was unusually warm, the air too parched and dusty to bring any real relief. He was aware of a sheen of sweat coating his naked skin; a humming like bees working a hive droned behind his temples. The urge to wrap his hand around a cool glass of brandy was strong.

  He resisted it.

  Behind him, the woman who just four days before had become his Viscountess stirred in her bed. Their marriage was so recent and the reasons behind it so complicated that he sometimes found himself still thinking of her not as Hero Devlin but as Miss Jarvis, formidable daughter of Charles, Lord Jarvis, the brilliant but ruthless cousin of the King who served as the acknowledged power behind the fragile regency of the Prince of Wales. Once, Jarvis had sworn to destroy Sebastian, however long it might take. Sebastian knew that his marriage to Jarvis's daughter had not changed that.

  Looking over his shoulder, he watched now as Hero came slowly awake. She lay motionless for a moment. Then her eyelids fluttered open and she shifted her head against the pillow to stare at him from across a darkened room hung with blue silk and gilded mirrors and scented with lavender.

  `Did I wake you?' he asked. `I am sorry.'

  `Don't be ridiculous.'

  Sebastian huffed a soft laugh. There was nothing either indulgent or coquettish about Hero.

  She slipped from the bed, bringing with her the fine linen sheet to wrap around her nakedness as she crossed to him. In the darkness of the night, she could come to him without inhibition, a willing and passionate lover. But during the day...

  During the day they remained in many ways essentially strangers to each other, two people who inhabited the same house yet were self-conscious and awkward when they chanced upon each other in the hall or met over breakfast. Only at night could they seem to put aside the wary distrust that had characterized their relationship from the beginning. Only in darkness could they forget the deep, dangerous antagonism that lay between his house and hers and come together as man and woman.

  He was aware of the gray light of dawn stealing into the room. She hugged the sheet tighter around her.

  `You never sleep,' she said.

  `I do. Sometimes.'

  She tipped her head to one side, her normally tidy brown hair tangled by last night's lovemaking. `Have you always had such troublesome dreams, or only since marrying the daughter of your worst enemy?'

  Smiling faintly, he reached out to draw her to him.

  She came stiffly, her forearms resting on his naked chest, creating some distance between them. She was a tall woman, nearly as tall as Sebastian himself, with her powerful father's aquiline countenance and Lord Jarvis's famous, disconcerting intelligence.

  He said, `I m told it's not uncommon for men to dream of war after they've returned home.'

  Her shrewd gray eyes narrowed with thoughts he could only guess at. `That's what you dream of? The war?'

  He hesitated. `Mainly.'

  That night, he had indeed been driven from his bed by the echoing whomph of cannonballs, by the squeals of injured horses and the despairing groans of dying men. Yet there were times when his dreams were troubled not by the haunting things he'd seen or the even more haunting things he'd done, but by a certain blue-eyed, dusky-haired actress named Kat Boleyn. It was an unintentional but nonetheless real betrayal of the woman he had taken to wife, and it troubled him. Yet the only certain way for a man to control his dreams was to avoid sleep.

  The daylight in the room strengthened.

  Hero said, `It's difficult for anyone to sleep in this heat'.

  He reached up to smooth the tangled hair away from her damp forehead. `Why not come with me to Hampshire? It would do us both good to get away from the noise and dirt of London for a few weeks.' He'd been intending to pay a visit to his estate all summer, but the events of the past few months had made leaving London impossible. Now it was a responsibility that could be delayed no longer.

  He watched her hesitate and knew exactly what she was thinking: that alone together in the country they would be thrown constantly into each oth
er's company. It was, after all, the reason newlywed couples traditionally went away on a honeymoon so that they might get to know each other better. But there was little that could be termed traditional about their days-old marriage.

  He expected her to say no. Then an odd, crooked smile touched her lips and she surprised him by saying, `Why not?'

  He let his gaze rove over the smooth planes of her cheeks, the strong line of her jaw, the downward sweep of lashes that now hid her eyes from his sight. She was a mystery to him in so many ways. He knew the formidable strength of her intellect, the power of her sense of justice, the unexpected passion his touch could ignite within her. But he knew little of the life she had lived before their worlds became intertwined, of the girl she had once been or the forces and events that had fashioned her into the kind of woman who could without hesitation or compunction shoot a highwayman in the face.

  He said, `We can leave for Hampshire today.'

  She shook her head. `I'm to meet Gabrielle Tennyson up at Trent Place this morning. She's been consulting with Sir Stanley on the excavations of a site on his property called Camlet Moat, and she's promised to show me what they've discovered.'

  Sebastian found himself smiling. Hero's driving passion would always be her clearheaded, logical commitment to reforming the numerous unjust and cruel laws that both handicapped and tarnished their society. But lately she'd also developed a keen interest in the need to preserve the rapidly vanishing legacies of England s past.

  He said, `They've discovered something of interest?'

  `When you consider that Camlet is a recent corruption of Camelot, anything they find is intriguing.'

  He ran the backs of his fingers along her jawline and smiled when he saw her shiver in the heat. `If I remember my Morte d'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory identified Camelot with what is now Winchester.'

  She wrapped her hand around his wrist, effectively ending the caress. `Gabrielle thinks Malory was wrong.'

  From the street below came the scent of fresh bread and the tinkling bell of the baker's boy crying, `Hot buns.'

  Sebastian said, `Tomorrow, then?'

  By now, the golden light of morning flooded the room. Hero took a step back out of the circle of Sebastian's arms to hug the sheet tighter around her, as if already regretting her commitment.

  `All right. Tomorrow.'

  But it was barely an hour later when a constable from Bow Street arrived at the house on Brook Street with the information that Miss Gabrielle Tennyson had been found dead.

  Murdered, at Camlet Moat.

  Chapter 3

  A small, middle-aged man with a balding pate and a serious demeanor stood at the base of the ancient earthen embankment. He had his hands clasped behind his back, his chin sunk into the folds of his modestly tied cravat. A weathered dinghy lay beside him where it had been hauled up onto the moat's bank. It was empty now, but a smear of blood still showed clearly along the edge of the gunwale.

  Sir Henry Lovejoy, the newest of Bow Street's three stipendiary magistrates, found himself staring at that telltale streak of blood. He had been called to this murder scene some ten miles north of London by the local magistrate, who was only too eager to hand over his investigation to the Bow Street public office.

  Lovejoy blew out a long, troubled sigh. On the streets of London, most murders were straightforward affairs: a drunken navvy choked the life out of his hapless wife; two mates fell out over a dice game or the sale of a horse; a footpad jumped some unwary passerby from the mouth of a fetid alley. But there was nothing ordinary about a murdered young gentlewoman found floating on an abandoned moat in the middle of nowhere.

  Miss Gabrielle Tennyson had been just twenty-eight years old. The daughter of a famous scholar, she'd been well on her way to earning a reputation as an antiquary in her own right, a decidedly unusual accomplishment for one of her sex. She lived with her brother, himself a well-known and respected barrister, in a fine house in the Adelphi Buildings overlooking the Thames. Her murder would send an unprecedented ripple of fear through the city, with ladies terrified to leave their homes and angry husbands and fathers demanding that Bow Street do something.

  The problem was, Lovejoy had absolutely nothing to go on. Nothing at all.

  He raised his gaze to where a line of constables moved along the moat's edge, their big boots churning through the murky water with muddy, sucking plops that seemed to echo in the unnatural stillness. He had never considered himself a fanciful man, far from it, in fact. Yet there was no denying that something about this place raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Perhaps it was the eerie way the light filtered down through the leaves of the thick stands of beech and hornbeam trees to bathe the scene in an unnatural green glow. Or perhaps it was a father's inevitable reaction to the sight of a beautiful, dead young woman, a sight that brought back a time of nearly unbearable heartbreak in Lovejoy's own life.

  But he closed his mind to that.

  He'd heard of this place, Camlet Moat. They said that once it had been the site of a medieval castle whose origins stretched back to the days of the Romans and beyond. But whatever fortified structures once stood here had long since been dismantled, their stones and mighty timbers carted away. All that remained was a deserted, overgrown square isle a few hundred feet across and the stagnant moat that had once protected it.

  Now, as Lovejoy watched, one of the constables broke away from the others to come sloshing up to him.

  `We've covered the entire bank, sir,' said the man. `All the way around.'

  `And?' asked Lovejoy.

  `We've found nothing, sir.'

  Lovejoy exhaled a long breath. `Then start on the island itself.'

  `Yes, sir.'

  A thunder of horses' hooves and the rattle of harness drew their attention to the narrow track that curled through the wood to the moat. A curricle and pair driven by an aristocratic young gentleman in a beaver hat and a caped driving coat drew up at the top of the embankment. The half-grown, scrappy-looking young groom in a striped waistcoat who clung to the rear perch immediately hopped down to race to the chestnuts' heads.

  `It's Lord Devlin, sir,' said the constable, staring slack-jawed as the Earl of Hendon's notorious son paused to confer with his tiger, then dropped lightly to the ground.

  Lovejoy said, `That will be all, Constable.'

  The constable cast a last, curious glance toward the top of the slope, then ducked his head. 'Yes, sir.'

  Lovejoy waited while the Viscount tossed his driving coat onto the curricle's high seat, then slid down the ancient embankment, the heels of his gleaming Hessian boots digging furrows in the soft leaf litter.

  `Sir Henry,' said the Viscount. `Good morning.'

  Lean and dark-haired, he was tall enough to tower over Lovejoy. But it was the man's eyes that tended to draw and hold a stranger's attention. Shading from amber to a feral yellow, they possessed an animal-like ability to see great distances and in the dark. His hearing was exceptionally acute too, which could be disconcerting, even to those who knew him well.

  The unusual friendship between the two men dated back some eighteen months, to a time when Devlin had been accused of murder and Lovejoy had been determined to bring him in. From those unlikely beginnings had grown respect as well as friendship. In Devlin, Lovejoy had found an ally with a rare passion for justice and a true genius for solving murders. But more important, Devlin also possessed something no Bow Street magistrate would ever have: an easy entrée at the highest levels of society and an innate understanding of the wealthy and well-born who inevitably came under suspicion in a murder of this nature.

  `My lord,' said Lovejoy, giving a small, jerky bow.

  `I must apologize for intruding upon what should be for you and your new wife a time of joy and solitude. But when I learned of the victim's connection to Lady Devlin, I thought you would wish to know.'

  `You did the right thing,' said Devlin. He let his gaze drift around the site, taking in the tangled growth of beech and
oak, the green-scummed waters of the abandoned moat. `Where is she?'

  Lovejoy cleared his throat uncomfortably. `We sent the remains to London an hour or so ago.' Bodies did not keep well in the heat of August.

  `To Gibson?'

  `Yes, my lord.' No one understood human anatomy or could read the secrets a body might have to reveal about its murderer better than Paul Gibson. Lovejoy nodded to the small boat beside them.

  `She was found in the dinghy floating just at the edge of the moat here.'

  `You think this is where she was killed?' asked Devlin, hunkering down to study the blood-smeared gunwale.

  `I think it probable she was stabbed in the dinghy, yes. But there were no footprints in the damp earth along this stretch of the bank, which leads me to suspect the boat simply drifted here from elsewhere, perhaps from the land bridge that crosses the moat on the eastern side of the island. We understand that's where it's normally kept moored. Unfortunately, there are so many footprints in that area that it's impossible to identify with any certainty those that might belong to the killer.'

  Devlin was silent for a moment, his forehead furrowed by a thoughtful frown as he continued to stare at that ugly streak of blood. The Viscount could sometimes be hesitant to commit to an investigation of murder. It was a reluctance Lovejoy understood only too well. More and more, it seemed to him that each death he dealt with, each torn, shattered life with which he came into contact, stole a piece of his own humanity and bled away an irretrievable part of his joy in life.

  But surely, Lovejoy reasoned, the connection between this victim and his lordship's own wife would make it impossible for the Viscount to refuse.

  Lovejoy said, `A murder such as this, a young woman brutally stabbed in a wood just north of London, will inevitably cause a panic in the city. And unfortunately, the impulse in these situations is all too often to calm public outrage by identifying a culprit quickly at the cost of true justice.'