Chapter 7
Rothschild.
Sebastian found himself turning the financier’s name over and over in his head as he slipped and slid his way across the freezing, paralyzed, miserable city toward the financial district in the east.
The son of a minor Frankfurt coin dealer turned banker, Nathan Rothschild had appeared in England just fifteen years before. At first he’d focused on skimming money off the Manchester cotton industry before transferring his unsavory but undeniably brilliant talents to the London Exchange. In just a few short years, he’d managed to become one of the richest men in the Kingdom.
But Rothschild was more than a financier. Like many of his peers, he was also heavily involved in smuggling, and at that level smuggling was a deadly serious, highly lucrative, and dangerous business. If, in the process of teaching Anna Rothschild, Jane Ambrose had accidently overheard or stumbled upon something she wasn’t supposed to know, Sebastian could see Nathan Rothschild or his associates ordering her killed.
Quietly and efficiently.
At this time of day, Nathan Rothschild could typically be found at his station in the Royal Exchange, a massive arcaded baroque building that stretched between Cornhill and Threadneedle Streets and that was the center for buying and selling and all kinds of deal making. Given the weather, Sebastian wouldn’t have been surprised to discover Rothschild’s position deserted. But the financier was there, leaning against his customary pillar on the eastern edge of the Exchange’s vast open quadrangle.
A short, stout figure in a threadbare greatcoat and a misshapen top hat he wore pulled low over his eyes, he looked more like a tradesman or shopkeeper down on his luck than the kind of man who lent money to kings and emperors. He stood with his hands in his pockets, his expression, as always, utterly unreadable. When Sebastian paused before him, Rothschild simply blinked and turned his head to stare at the arched arcade on the far side of the snow-choked courtyard.
“Go avay. You’re bad for business.”
Sebastian cast a significant glance around the largely deserted quadrangle. “The Exchange isn’t exactly booming at the moment.”
“All the more reason for you to go avay.”
Sebastian tipped his head to one side. “Now, why wouldn’t you want to talk to me? I wonder.”
Rothschild fixed Sebastian with a deadened glare. An extraordinarily ugly man with a big round head, protruding cleft chin, and large pouty lips, he looked to be somewhere in his late forties or fifties, his red hair already fading to gray. But he was actually still in his thirties, just five years older than Sebastian himself. “You think I don’t know vhy you’re here?”
“Actually, I assumed you did.” The Rothschild family—which included four other brothers strategically placed in Paris, Vienna, Frankfurt, and Naples—was said to maintain a magnificent network of spies, informants, and courtiers that rivaled or perhaps even exceeded those of powerful statesmen such as Jarvis and Metternich.
The financier’s eyes narrowed with what looked like a cross between annoyance and animosity. “Jane Ambrose ceased to function as my daughter’s piano instructor veeks ago.”
“So I’d heard. Why? I wonder.”
“Do you, indeed? And yet I fail to see vhy I should answer any of your decidedly impertinent questions.”
Sebastian let his lips pull back into a smile. “I suppose the answer to that depends on how much you have to hide.”
A sound that might have been a laugh shook the other man’s fleshy frame. “Are you threatening me? Seriously? Me?”
“You find that statement threatening?”
“Have you by chance spoken vith your father-in-law?”
“No. Should I have? I’d no notion Jarvis was involved in the selection and dismissal of your children’s music instructors.”
Rothschild shrugged. “Jane Ambrose vas no doubt an excellent pianist. Unfortunately, my daughter Anna has exhibited little interest in music and even less talent. Hence the decision to terminate our arrangement.”
“Really? That’s odd.”
“Odd? Vhat? Vhy?”
“Because I’m told Jane Ambrose considered your daughter an unusually promising student.”
“I can only assume that if Mrs. Ambrose did indeed say such a thing, then she vas simply being kind. Despite a father’s inevitable prejudices, even I must admit that my little Anna vas a vaste of Mrs. Ambrose’s time.”
“And your money.”
“Obviously.”
“What I find particularly curious is that Jane Ambrose wasn’t simply upset by her dismissal. She was frightened.”
Rothschild pursed his full lips. “She told someone that? Who?”
“Not in so many words. I gather it was more along the lines of an observation.”
“Mmm. Curious. I know of no reason vhy the woman should have been frightened. But I assure you, it had nothing to do vith me.”
“When was her last lesson with your daughter?”
Rothschild shrugged. “Surely you don’t expect me to recall precisely? It was near the end of the Great Fog. The lessons were always on a Tuesday.”
“And when did you terminate your arrangement with her?”
“That afternoon.”
“You spoke to Jane Ambrose yourself?”
“As it happens, I did, yes.”
“And she didn’t seem upset at the time?”
“She expressed disappointment. But she acknowledged that given Anna’s lack of talent, there vas little sense in continuing.”
“I see. And your daughter is how old?”
Rothschild hesitated a moment, as if the response required some calculation. “Ten.”
“Would you mind if I spoke to her?”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible. The poor child is naturally grieved by the death of someone she both knew and respected. I vouldn’t vant to do anything that might upset her further.”
“Of course,” said Sebastian, settling his top hat lower on his forehead. “Thank you for your assistance.”
Rothschild simply inclined his head and dug his hands deeper into his pockets.
Sebastian started to turn away, then paused to glance back and say, “You wouldn’t by chance know what might have taken Jane Ambrose to Clerkenwell yesterday, would you?”
“Hardly. I vas scarcely acquainted vith the woman.”
“Yes. So you said.”
Sebastian was aware of the rich man’s gaze following him as he crossed the quadrangle toward the main entrance with its ornate looming clock tower. And it came to him as he pushed his way through the small knot of shivering Barbadian, Jamaican, and Spanish traders congregated around a brazier there that for someone who claimed he had no explicable reason to be interested in Jane Ambrose, Nathan Rothschild was nevertheless curiously well informed about the true nature of her death. Because Sebastian would never have been here asking questions if Jane hadn’t been murdered—and Rothschild obviously not only understood that, but he hadn’t been surprised by it.
Not only that, but for reasons Sebastian couldn’t explain but certainly intended to discover, Rothschild had likewise taken it for granted that her death involved the Regent’s powerful cousin and Sebastian’s own father-in-law, Charles, Lord Jarvis.