Why Mermaids Sing sscm-3 Read online

  Yet Kat knew well that her activities in the past had left her vulnerable. She was vulnerable both to those to whom she had once provided information, and to their enemies—her enemies, the English.

  The man who now slept beside her knew nothing of the deeds she had committed in the past. He himself had spent years in the Army, fighting the very country she’d sought to aid. There had been times this past week when she’d been tempted to tell him of the man who watched her from the shadows. But she understood the concept of unforeseen consequences, and she feared Devlin learning the truth about her past even more than she feared the shadowy man who followed her.

  She realized that at some point Sebastian had awakened. He lay watching her, his eyes gleaming faintly in the growing light. He had the strangest eyes, the amber color of a wolf’s eyes, with a wolf’s ability to see in the dark. His other senses were acute, as well—so acute that he sometimes disconcerted her.

  “Did I wake you?” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  A smile quirked up one corner of his mouth. “I’m not.”

  He reached for her, his fingers tangling in the heavy fall of hair at the nape of her neck as he drew her to him. She brushed her lips against his, felt his hands drift down her bare back. There was peace in his touch, joy in his kiss. She gave herself to him, and let the peace and the joy of his love wash over her and through her.

  But the fear remained, a cold and heavy presence like the man who watched unseen in the night.

  Chapter 12

  At just past seven o’clock that morning, Sebastian turned his black Arab mare through the gate into Hyde Park. The morning was clear and cool, the park largely deserted at this hour except for a single rider hacking his gray up and down the Row.

  It was the Earl of Hendon’s habit each morning he was in London to begin the day with a ride in Hyde Park. As Sebastian watched, the gelding missed its stride, and a gentle breeze brought him the sound of his father’s words of admonishment mingling with the familiar drumming of hoofbeats.

  It had been Hendon himself who taught Sebastian and his brothers to ride. Even in those days, Hendon was always busy with affairs of state. But the task of teaching his sons to ride was one he would delegate to no mere groom. The Earl had been a relentless taskmaster, his expectations high, his comments at times brutal. But his pride in his sons’ accomplishments had been there, too, in the gleam of satisfaction in his eyes, in the rare words of praise for a movement well executed.

  Remembering those days now with a smile, Sebastian brought the Arab in beside his father’s gray. They posted side by side for a moment in silence. Then the Earl threw Sebastian a quick glance from beneath lowered brows. “You’re obviously here for a reason, and it must be damnably important to drag you out of bed at this hour. What is it? Lost your aunt’s fortune on the ’Change, have you?”

  Sebastian laughed. It was a never-ending source of chagrin to Hendon that his son and heir had inherited a small country estate and comfortable independence from a great-aunt. An heir with an independent income was difficult to control, and control was important to the Earl of Hendon. “Actually, I wanted to ask your opinion of Sir Humphrey Carmichael.”

  “Carmichael?” Hendon let his breath out between his teeth in a sound of disgust. “Damned upstart. His father was a weaver. Did you know that? A bloody weaver.”

  “So I’d heard. Owns a number of mills someplace up north, does he not?”

  “Yorkshire. That’s where he got his start. Now the man has interests in everything from coal mines to shipping and banking.”

  Sebastian studied his father’s dark face. Hendon possessed all the arrogance and prejudices of his class, but his harshest condemnations were saved for those in political opposition to the ruling Tories. Sebastian smiled. “Carmichael’s a Whig, is he?”

  “Ostensibly, no. He claims to support the Tories. But in practice the man is a bloody radical. He builds houses for his workers. Imagine that! Hires surgeons to tend their ills. Even feeds them a midday meal. And he won’t let a child under twelve work more than ten hours a day in his mills or his mines.”

  “What is the nation coming to?” Hendon cast him a dark look, but Sebastian kept his gaze fixed ahead. “Does Carmichael have any association with Alfred, Lord Stanton?”

  “Stanton’s a banker. He has associations with every man of wealth or standing in the City.” There was a pause; then Hendon said, “It’s because of what they’re saying happened to Stanton’s son, isn’t it? That’s why you’re asking. Because Barclay Carmichael died the same way.”

  “Yes.”

  Hendon frowned, but said nothing.

  “What of Stanton’s politics?” Sebastian asked. “Is he a Tory?”

  “Good God. Of course. The Stantons go back to the Conqueror.”

  Sebastian laughed. “The implication being, I suppose, that such a proud lineage naturally confers upon its descendants protection against all radical philosophies?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Again they rode in silence, Hendon working his jaw back and forth in that way he had when he was annoyed or thoughtful. After a time, he said, “It’s a ghastly thing, what was done to those two young men. What sort of vile beast would perpetrate such a barbarity upon men of wealth and breeding?”

  Sebastian stared off across the park to where the calm waters of the Serpentine reflected the clearing blue sky. Their wealth was the most obvious link between the two murdered men, a link that suggested their killer might harbor a vicious resentment of men of wealth and privilege. Except that Sebastian wasn’t so sure it was that simple. Barclay Carmichael had been wealthy, but his family’s origins were humble. “What do you know of Carmichael’s son, Barclay?”

  Hendon shrugged. “I’ve encountered him in the clubs. He seems to have been well regarded.”

  “Despite the lingering odor of the shop?”

  “Sir Humphrey Carmichael married the Marquis of Lethaby’s daughter, Caroline.”

  “Ah. And paid handsomely for her, I’ve no doubt.”

  Hendon grunted. “Pulled Lethaby out of the River Tick.”

  It was an old story: once proud noble families brought to the edge of ruin by bad luck, dissipation, or bad management, forced to marry off their daughters to rich cits in order to maintain their precarious hold on respectability. Mere wealth could never buy its possessor true acceptance into the innermost circles of Society. But it could buy a lord’s daughter and, through her, social acceptance for one’s sons.

  A sudden thought occurred to Sebastian. “Is there a connection between the Stantons and the Marquis of Lethaby?”

  “You’d need to ask your aunt Henrietta about that. The woman’s a walking Burke’s Peerage. You could ask her about it tonight—if you went to her ball.”

  Sebastian laughed out loud and turned his horse’s head to leave.

  “Sebastian—”

  Sebastian hesitated, the black Arab tossing her head.

  Hendon worked his jaw furiously back and forth. “This killer…Whoever he is, the man is dangerous. Dangerous and disturbed. You will take care.” It was an order, not a request.

  Sebastian let his gaze drift over the blunt-featured, white-haired man astride the big gray and felt the annoyance raised by his father’s earlier remarks begin to drain out of him. In Sebastian’s memories, his father was a commanding, intimidating figure, his vivid blue eyes flashing, his body large and hale. Once Hendon had been unforgiving, merciless, and fearless. He was still unforgiving and merciless, but when had he begun to grow old? Sebastian wondered. Old and afraid.

  “I’ll be careful.”

  Chapter 13

  At twenty-seven, Barclay Carmichael had been just a year younger than Sebastian, a slimly built man with light brown hair and pleasant, even features. Sebastian had known him only slightly, for while Sebastian had been sent to Eton and Oxford, Carmichael had been educated at Harrow and Cambridge. Yet he’d been a familiar face in the clubs of St. James’s, a
t Ascot and Menton’s, Crib’s Parlor and Angelo’s. Sebastian knew nothing to the man’s discredit, and a morning’s discreet inquiries produced nothing to disrupt that image.

  The picture that emerged was of an easygoing, affable man known for both his prowess on the hunting field and his willingness to help a friend. The worst anyone said of him was that he always paid his tailors’ bills on time.

  Increasingly puzzled, Sebastian turned his steps toward the imposing stone bulk of the Bank of England.

  The Bank was a private institution controlled by some of the wealthiest men in England. Their relationship with the government was both sympathetic and self-serving, and Sebastian doubted there was a man among the Bank’s twenty-four directors who was not a staunch Tory. The never-ending war with France had been very good for business—or at least, good for these men’s business. Sebastian had heard it said that in 1790 the Bank had employed only two hundred clerks; they now numbered over eleven hundred.

  He found Sir Humphrey Carmichael walking briskly across the rotunda toward one of the funds’ offices. “Sir Humphrey,” called Sebastian. “If I might have a word with you?”

  Sir Humphrey turned, an expression of annoyance shadowed by something else crossing his face. He looked to be in his late fifties or early sixties, a jowly man with pale, hooded eyes and an unusually long upper lip. He sucked on his lip for a moment, those secretive lids lowered as if to hide his thoughts. Then he tightened his jaw, said curtly, “For a moment,” and led the way to an office of rich green velvet and polished mahogany that overlooked Threadneedle Street.

  “I understand you’re the man to see if one is interested in making investments,” said Sebastian, declining the banker’s offer of a seat.

  “Yes. But I don’t think you’re here to discuss investments, are you, my lord?”

  Sebastian met the older man’s hard stare. His eyes were light gray and utterly inscrutable. Here was a man to be reckoned with, thought Sebastian. In the space of something like thirty years, Carmichael had risen from being a weaver’s son to become one of the wealthiest men in London, with a marquis’s daughter as his wife. It was a journey no one made without being brilliant and cunning and utterly ruthless. Hendon’s talk of factory housing and noonday meals had sketched a portrait of a philanthropist, but that portrait seemed difficult to reconcile with the man now before Sebastian.

  Sebastian smiled. “Very well. Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? Sir Henry Lovejoy has asked for my help in discovering what happened to Dominic Stanton, and I was wondering if you knew of any possible connection between young Mr. Stanton and your son, Barclay.”

  Sir Humphrey Carmichael went to stand on the far side of his broad, gleaming desk, his hands clasped behind his back, the features of his face utterly composed. They might have been discussing the price of cotton or the latest American challenge to Britain’s naval supremacy, rather than the brutal murder and mutilation of his firstborn son just three months before. Only the gleam of pain in the banker’s eyes, quickly hidden by those heavy lids, betrayed the raw agony of a father’s loss.

  “Apart from the manner of their deaths,” said Carmichael slowly, “no. I know of no connection between them.”

  Sebastian let his gaze wander the office. It was an elegant chamber, the walls hung with dark oils depicting sleek horses and racing hounds, the paintings sandwiched between massive bookcases crammed with books and curious objets d’art that could come only from a lifetime of travel. “Is there a connection between you and Lord Stanton?”

  “I have dealings with most of the wealthy and influential men in this city, Lord Stanton being no exception.”

  Which didn’t exactly answer the question, Sebastian noticed.

  “I understand you’re a follower of Robert Owen and the reformers.”

  Carmichael grunted. “Not me. My wife.”

  Sebastian knew a flicker of surprise. So it was the marquis’s daughter rather than the weaver’s son who had interested herself in the needs of the working poor, who had built houses and hired surgeons and served soup. It said something unexpected about the relationship between the banker and his lady wife, that he had allowed her to indulge her concern for his workers even if he didn’t share it.

  “Yet you encourage her,” said Sebastian.

  “Her projects have proved to be surprisingly good for business. I encourage anything that’s good for business.”

  “And Barclay? Did he interest himself in his mother’s projects?”

  “At twenty-seven? Hardly.”

  Sebastian’s gaze fell on a dark wooden statue prominently displayed on a table near the window. Some fourteen inches high, it depicted what he thought might be a woman, although the figure was wrapped in an Eastern cloak, making it difficult to be certain. Seated on a lion, she waved something like eight or ten arms in the air. “An interesting piece,” said Sebastian, moving to examine it more closely.

  “It’s from Ceylon.” Carmichael’s tongue flicked out to moisten his lips in a quick gesture. And Sebastian thought, He’s nervous. Why is he nervous?

  “I have interests in a firm that imports tea,” Carmichael was saying. He moved to take the statue into his large hands. The hands were scrubbed so clean they were pink, the nails carefully manicured. But these were no gentleman’s hands; the fingers and palms still bore the calluses left by the labors of his youth. “It’s a statue of the Hindu goddess Shakti.”

  “Have you been to India?”

  “Several times.”

  Sebastian thought about the page from a ship’s log shoved in Barclay Carmichael’s mouth by his killer. “What about your son? Did he ever travel with you?”

  “I travel on business. My son was a gentleman,” snapped Carmichael. It was, after all, the reason Sir Humphrey Carmichael had paid through the nose for the privilege of marrying the daughter of a marquis, so that his son might call himself a gentleman. A gentleman’s wealth came from land, or investments, or inheritance; he never actually took a direct hand in the vulgar business of earning money.

  “Your son was a remarkably well-liked man,” said Sebastian. “Do you know of anyone who might have wished him harm?”

  “No.” Carmichael’s eyes narrowed. “But if I did, do you really think I would tell you?” It was said without any apparent heat, only a glimmer of something that was visible for an instant in those hooded eyes, then gone.

  Sebastian stared at the man’s sad, fleshy face. “It might help to make sense out of what is happening in this city.”

  “And what concern might that be of mine at this point?”

  “To ensure that such a thing doesn’t happen again?” Sebastian suggested.

  “My son is dead. You think I care if it happens to some other man’s son?” He swiped one large, work-worn hand through the air in a quick, dismissive gesture. “Well, I don’t.”

  Sebastian’s fingers twitched on the brim of his hat. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me. Good day, sir,” he said, and strode from the room.

  Behind him, Sir Humphrey Carmichael’s hand tightened around the head of the Shakti. With a sudden oath, he whirled, his arm jerking to send the statue hurtling across the room.

  Chapter 14

  “A curious conversation,” said Paul Gibson, when Sebastian met with the surgeon later that day.

  They were drinking ale and dining on a joint of cold ham at a battered old table overlooking the surgery’s neglected back garden. “It reminded me of my meeting with Lord Stanton yesterday morning,” said Sebastian. “There’s more than arrogance going on here, more than suspicion or resentment of my involvement. Their reaction is simply not…natural.”

  “Grief can drive men in strange ways.”

  Sebastian swallowed the last of his ale and set aside his tankard. “Perhaps.”

  Gibson pushed awkwardly to his feet. “Come see what I’ve found…although I’m afraid it’s not much.”

  Sebastian followed the surgeon through the weed-grown garden
to the small stone building behind the surgery. The scent of blood and decaying flesh hit them halfway across the yard. Sebastian breathed through his mouth.

  What was left of Dominic Stanton lay on the room’s altar-like table, covered with a sheet. Sebastian stared at that long, silent form and said, “I suppose in all honesty it’s impossible for anyone to truly grasp what it would be like, knowing this had been done to his son.”

  “Probably.” Gibson flipped back the sheet. “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you much more about his death. I still believe it’s the wound across his throat that killed him…which I suppose would be a relatively merciful way to die, considering the horrors of what came after.”

  “It’s the way you’d slaughter a lamb,” said Sebastian, his gaze on the boy’s face. Dominic Stanton’s features were relaxed in death; he might have been sleeping.

  “Except this was no lamb but a big, hale young man. I would think it must have taken more than one assailant to subdue him.” Gibson rolled up the sheet and shoved it aside in a rough gesture. “Although it’s difficult enough to imagine one man committing such an act of barbarity, let alone two.”

  Slipping a hand into his pocket, Sebastian drew forth the small blue-and-white Chinese vial he’d picked up from the grassy verge on the road to Merton Abbey. “I found this where I think the boy was set upon.”

  Taking the vial, Gibson raised it to his nostrils and sniffed. He looked up, one eyebrow raised. “Opium?”

  Sebastian watched Gibson’s hand clench around the vial, then relax. Gibson’s own dark love affair with opium dated back three years or more, to the blood-soaked surgeon’s tent in Portugal where he’d lost the mangled remnant of a leg left him by a French cannonball.

  “Is there any way to tell if Stanton ingested the drug before he died?” Sebastian asked.

  Gibson sighed and held the vial out to him. “Unfortunately, no. You think Stanton was a habitual user?”