Why Mermaids Sing sscm-3 Page 17

Kat twirled her parasol. “Jarvis gave me a choice: your identity or my life.”

  “And so you betrayed me.”

  “As it happens, no. Lord Jarvis’s threat to me became known, and it was suggested his own health might suffer as a consequence.”

  “Ah. I think I understand. I saw the notice of your approaching nuptials in this morning’s paper. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you. But your congratulations are premature.” She swung to face him. “I want your help leaving the country.”

  He opened his eyes wide. “Really? And your marriage to Lord Devlin?”

  “Would ruin him.”

  The Irishman was silent for a moment. Then he said, “You love him that much? That you would go away to save him from himself?”

  “Yes.” Turning, she continued up the street. “It’s to your advantage to help me leave. You know that. Without Devlin’s protection I would remain vulnerable to Jarvis.”

  “Why do you need my help? Ships leave England from any number of ports every day.”

  “Because Jarvis’s men may still be watching the ports. I can’t take that chance—and neither can you. I don’t have much time,” she added impatiently when he said nothing. “The wedding is scheduled for Monday night.”

  O’Connell continued studying her in silence for a moment, then let out his breath in a strange sound that could have meant anything. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Chapter 47

  The children were playing in the square across from the house. The boy looked about twelve, towheaded, with ruddy cheeks, and limbs just beginning to lengthen beyond boyhood. The girl was some four or five years younger and still very much a child, with a ragged, beloved doll she kept tucked under one arm as she ran, laughing, after her brother.

  Sebastian stood and watched them for a time, then turned to mount the steps to Felix Atkinson’s house in Portland Place.

  He found Atkinson still at home and finishing his coffee in the morning room. He looked surprised and vaguely annoyed to have Sebastian’s card brought up to him.

  “Please have a seat, Lord Devlin,” he said curtly. “Although I must warn you, I haven’t much time. What may I do for you?”

  Sebastian took one of the chairs near the cold hearth and said in a pleasant voice, “I understand you were a passenger on the Harmony’s return voyage from India some five years ago.”

  Atkinson set aside his cup with a shaky hand. “Yes, that’s right.” He was a prim-looking man of medium height and build, in his late thirties now, perhaps a little older. He wore his light brown hair oiled and swept to one side in a futile attempt to disguise a receding hairline, and he had a habit of putting up one hand to touch it, as if to reassure himself it was still in place.

  “You’ve noticed, I assume,” said Sebastian, “that someone seems to be killing the sons of your fellow passengers?”

  Atkinson’s hand crept up to touch his hair, then slipped away. “Well. You don’t mince words, do you, my lord? To answer your question: Yes, I have noticed. Perhaps you noticed on your way into the house that I have at least two Bow Street Runners watching my children at all times.” He pushed to his feet. “I appreciate your concern for my family’s welfare even if I fail to understand what affair any of this might be of yours. However, I am a busy man, Lord Devlin, so I really must ask you to excuse—”

  “Sit down,” said Sebastian, his voice no longer pleasant.

  Atkinson sank back to the edge of his chair.

  “It must have been a living hell on that ship after the crew left, taking with them most of the food and water.” Sebastian leaned forward. “I imagine you thought you’d never see your family again.”

  Atkinson cleared his throat and looked away. “It was difficult, yes. But we were all Englishmen and women, thank God.”

  “I would have expected the water to run out before the food.”

  “So we feared. The crew left us but one barrel of water, you know. But one of the gentlemen aboard—Sir Humphrey, to be precise—rigged up a kind of distillery using a teakettle and a gun barrel. It didn’t produce much, but it was enough to keep us alive. That was when the lack of food became the major issue. Most of the ship’s stores had been lost in the storm, and the crew took what was left.”

  “Tell me about the cabin boy,” said Sebastian, his gaze on the other man’s face.

  A tick began to pull at the edge of Atkinson’s mouth. “The cabin boy?”

  “What was his name again? Gideon?”

  “I think so. Yes.”

  “Do you by any chance remember his family name?”

  The twitch became more rapid, distorting the lower part of the man’s face. “I don’t know that I ever heard it. Why?”

  “He was injured, was he not? In the storm.”

  “Yes.”

  Sebastian leaned forward. “I wonder, how long after the crew left did he die?”

  Atkinson leapt from his seat and began to pace the room. “I don’t know. I can’t recall. It was a very difficult time.”

  Sebastian watched the man striding back and forth. “I suppose you’ve heard the rumors?”

  Atkinson stood very still, his entire face now twitching with distress. “Rumors? What rumors?”

  “It was inevitable, I suppose, given the way the bodies of the victims have been butchered. I mean, a shipload of starving passengers and a dying boy…” Sebastian shrugged. “You can imagine the conclusions people are drawing.”

  “They’re lies.” Atkinson’s voice rose to a shrill pitch. “All lies. It never happened.” He brought up a handkerchief to press against his lips. “Do you hear me? It never happened.”

  Sebastian stretched to his feet. “Unfortunately, someone out there obviously believes it did happen. And unless you help us catch him, that boy of yours playing in the square will continue to be at risk.”

  “How can I help you catch this killer when I don’t know who he is? You think if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you?”

  Sebastian let his gaze drift toward the window overlooking the square. In the sudden silence, the laughter of the children came to them, light and sweet. “If there’s one thing the last few days have taught me,” said Sebastian, “it’s that some men will do anything, sacrifice anything and anyone, to save their own lives.”

  He turned toward the door. “Good day, Mr. Atkinson. Do give my best to your family.”

  Chapter 48

  Aiden O’Connell trolled the pleasure haunts of the haut monde, looking for a tall man with long black hair and the wink of pirate’s gold in one ear.

  He found Russell Yates at Gentleman Jackson’s in Bond Street. For a moment, Aiden simply stood on the sidelines, watching the ex-privateer spar with the Champion himself.

  Yates was an enigma, a born gentleman with a comfortable fortune who amused himself by running rum and the odd French agent beneath the noses of His Majesty’s Navy. Some did it for money, and some did it out of a fierce conviction; Yates did it for fun.

  Aiden waited to approach him until the other man had left the ring, a towel draped around his neck. “I need to talk to you,” said Aiden quietly.

  Yates scrubbed the towel across his sweaty face, his eyes alert and gleaming with interest. “What is it?”

  Aiden leaned in close to drop his voice. “A mutual acquaintance of ours needs to go away.”

  Kat was organizing papers at her desk when Russell Yates sent up his card. For the sake of Sebastian’s investigation, she checked her first impulse, which was to have the shipowner told she was not at home.

  “This is unexpected, Mr. Yates,” she said, rising to greet him when Elspeth showed him up. “Please, have a seat. Have you recalled something of relevance concerning the Harmony?”

  Yates stretched out in one of the chairs beside the fireplace, a large, powerfully built man who exuded virility and a rakish air of danger. “Actually, I’m here because of an interesting conversation I had with Aiden O’Connell this morning. He tells me you’ve decided to t
ravel abroad. Permanently.”

  Kat raised one eyebrow. “Now why would he tell you a thing like that?”

  “Mr. O’Connell and I have made these sorts of arrangements before.”

  “I see.” Kat came to sink into the chair opposite him. “And can you arrange it? Before tomorrow night?”

  “I assume you wish to go to France rather than to the Americas? The Americas are so dreadfully, well, colonial. Still. Something about the mind-set, I suppose.”

  “France would be fine,” Kat said in a tight voice. She knew it should matter to her, where she went, but somehow it did not. She found the thought of life without Devlin—anywhere—too unbearable to contemplate for long enough to come up with a coherent plan beyond removing herself from the temptation of saying yes to everything he was urging.

  “I have a sloop leaving Dover with tomorrow’s tide. It can have you in Calais in four hours.”

  Kat felt an ache pull across her chest. It was one thing to reach the decision to leave, but something else entirely to actually make the arrangements. “Good,” she said briskly, pushing up from the chair and reaching for the bell to summon Elspeth. “Now you’ll have to excuse me. I have much to prepare—”

  “O’Connell also told me something of why you’re leaving,” said Yates.

  She swung slowly to face him again.

  “I saw Lord Devlin’s announcement in this morning’s Post. There aren’t many actresses who would abandon everything they know—home, career, friends—to save the man they love from ruining himself. You’re a remarkable woman.”

  “I wouldn’t say so.”

  “No. I don’t suppose you would.” He rested his elbows on the delicate arms of the chair, his fingers templed before him. “Right now, you believe you have only three alternatives. You can take your chances with Lord Jarvis—never a good idea. You can ruin Viscount Devlin by marrying him. Or you can flee the country. But there is a fourth option.”

  She gave a short, humorless laugh. “There is?”

  “We could help each other.”

  She cocked her head. “How could I help you?”

  “You’ve heard the whispers about me, no doubt?” He smiled when she hesitated. “Don’t be shy. The rumors have been circulating for years. The tales of my exploits on the briny seas diminished them for a time, but only for a time. Lately the gossip has become both more vicious and more troublesome. People are watching me. I fear the moral climate of our age is becoming more oppressive. Have you noticed?”

  “The inclination of which you speak has never been condoned. Not in our culture.”

  “How true. One can gamble away a fortune, drink oneself to death, openly set up half a dozen mistresses, or regularly debauch young virgins fresh from the countryside, and no one in Society will give it a second thought. But direct your love toward a member of the wrong sex, and the punishment is not mere social ostracism, but death. A death as ugly and unpleasant as that which Jarvis promises you.”

  Kat studied the man’s dark, square-jawed face. “You have enemies who would wish to see you destroyed?”

  “One. One very powerful enemy. He dares not move against me directly, but it is not so difficult to manipulate rumor and public opinion.”

  Kat came to sink back into the chair opposite him. “It’s Jarvis, isn’t it?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would Jarvis dare not move against you directly?”

  “Because it just so happens that Lord Jarvis is hiding a dangerous secret. A secret that, if it were to become known, would destroy his influence at the palace and very likely lead to his own death.”

  “You have proof of this?”

  “If I did not, I would be dead. Jarvis knows my death will lead to the publication of what he most desires be kept undisclosed. Hence his caution.”

  “I would think such a threat from you would be sufficient to motivate his lordship to suppress any rumors about you, not foment them.”

  “You might think so. But there’s a flaw in that logic. If I were to move to bring down Lord Jarvis, he would retaliate by having me killed. We would effectively destroy each other.”

  “So what does any of this have to do with me?”

  “It occurs to me that the easiest and quickest way to lay the rumors to rest would be for me to take a wife. A famous wife known for her beauty, sensuality, and charisma.”

  Kat laughed. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am utterly serious. It would be a mutually beneficial arrangement: I would protect you from Jarvis, while you would provide me with what I suppose one could call a disguise. With Kat Boleyn as my wife, anyone questioning my virility or sexuality would be laughed out of the room.”

  “Why me? Why not choose a bride from the selection available at Almack’s?”

  He smiled. “This isn’t the kind of arrangement I’d care to explain to some innocent debutante just out of the schoolroom. You need have no worry I would press to consummate the marriage. I offer you companionship and witty conversation at the supper table, but our amorous adventures, obviously, would be directed elsewhere. All I ask is that you pursue them with discretion—as shall I.”

  Kat pushed up from her chair to pace the room. She should have dismissed the suggestion out of hand. Instead, she found herself saying, “Devlin would never forgive me were I to embark on such a marriage.”

  “You think he would forgive you for running away to France?”

  When Kat said nothing, he added, “I can have a marriage contract drawn up preserving your control over whatever wealth you bring to the marriage as well as your subsequent earnings.”

  “No. This is impossible.”

  “Don’t dismiss the idea too hastily. Give it some thought.”

  She brought up one hand to rub absently at her temples. “This proof you claim to possess against Jarvis. How do I know it exists?”

  He smiled. “I expected you to be suspicious.” Slipping his hand into his coat, he drew forth a case of soft brown leather tied with a thong. “So I brought it.”

  The documents in the case were thorough, damning, and irrefutably authentic. “Good God,” whispered Kat when she had finished reading through them.

  “Exactly.” Yates tucked the documents away and rose to his feet to cast a significant glance around the elegantly proportioned room with its peach silk hangings and theatrical memorabilia. “You don’t need to give all this up.”

  “What you’re suggesting is outrageous.”

  He shrugged. “Think about it.”

  Kat stayed where she was, her hands gripped tightly together in front of her.

  At the door he paused to look back, his pirate’s earring winking in the sunlight streaming in through the front windows. “Oh. I almost forgot. The name of the Harmony’s cabin boy you were asking about? It was Forbes. Gideon Forbes.”

  After Yates left, Kat paid a boy a shilling to carry a brief note to Brook Street, giving Sebastian the dead cabin boy’s name. Then she thought about sending Elspeth up to the attic to pull down her trunks.

  Instead she stood at the front window, looking out at Harwich Street and the familiar crowded rooftops, chimneys, and soot-stained spires of the city she had called home for more than ten years.

  Chapter 49

  Later that afternoon, Sebastian drew up the curricle on the gravel sweep before a small Elizabethan sandstone manor. Lying to the north of London, near St. Albans, the childhood home of Gideon Forbes proved to be a pleasant, well-kept estate with fat-bellied cows and well-tended fields. As he swung down from the curricle, Sebastian could hear the sound of children’s laughter mingling with the barking of a dog in the distance.

  “It’s funny,” said Tom, squinting up at the manor’s forest of chimneys. “But when you think about what musta happened to that lad, somehow you don’t expect ’im to ’ave grown up someplace that looks so ordinary.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Sebastian. Acting on Kat’s m
essage, he had found it easy enough to trace Gideon Forbes here, to this idyllic corner of the Hertfordshire countryside. Gideon’s father was a country squire named Brandon Forbes; the boy’s mother was some four years dead. But whatever Sebastian had been anticipating, it wasn’t this, this utterly English landscape of unpretentious gentility and bucolic peace.

  A shout brought Sebastian’s head around. A sturdily built man in serviceable buckskin breeches was walking toward the house from across a park of oak trees and sun-spangled grass that waved gently in the breeze. He looked to be in his midforties, his dark hair newly touched by gray, the lines on his long face just beginning to settle and deepen with age. A liver-colored hound loped at his heels. “May I help you?” he called.

  Sebastian went to meet him. “Mr. Forbes? I’m Viscount Devlin. I’d like to talk to you about your son Gideon.”

  The man blinked several times, his eyes narrow and a bit wary. “All right,” he said at last. “Come walk with me.”

  They followed a footpath that curled away toward a distant string of cottages, the hound racing ahead of them. “It’s because of these terrible murders, isn’t it?” he said after a moment. “That’s why you’re here. You think there’s some connection to the wreck of the Harmony.”

  Sebastian studied the man’s sun-darkened face. “Did you attend the trial of the mutineers?”

  “No.” Forbes stared off across the fields, to where two little girls played with a much younger boy still in leading strings. “I’m afraid Gideon’s mother was sickening by then. She’d never been well after the birth of our last daughter, you see, and I didn’t want to leave her. But I followed it in the papers.”

  “Did you go to the hangings?”

  Forbes shook his head, his lips twisting in a grimace. “Nah. What would be the point?”

  “Revenge, perhaps?”

  “It wouldn’t bring the boy back, now, would it?”

  Sebastian nodded toward the laughing children in the distance. “Are they yours?”

  Forbes’s features lightened into a proud smile. “That’s right. Catherine there is eleven; Jane is seven, while Michael has just turned two. And I’ve two older boys by my first wife: Roland, who helps me here at the manor, and his younger brother, Daniel. Daniel’s up at Cambridge.”