Chapter 33
For reasons he couldn’t have entirely explained, Sebastian found himself sitting in the nave of St. Anne’s, Soho, an uninspired redbrick basilica-style church dating back to the late seventeenth century.
The church was deserted, the chill, incense-scented atmosphere of the wide, barrel-vaulted nave hushed, the turmoil and noise of the surrounding city muted by thick walls. Sebastian might have lost his religious beliefs long ago on the bloody, corpse-strewn battlefields of Europe, but he could still at times find a measure of peace and perspective in the quiet, shadowy interior of a church. And at the moment he was sorely in need of peace.
He was aware of an endless wave of fury thrumming through him, fury so intense that he was close to shaking with it. Any untimely death was a tragedy. But these deaths—these deaths were deliberate, and that made them more than tragic. It made them an outrage.
Until now he had been so focused on Laura McInnis and what in the turmoil of her life could possibly have led to her death that he had been largely content to see her daughter as the simple, uncomplicated schoolgirl that had been described to him. But he knew now she was so much more than that; she was a vital, vibrant young woman on the cusp of maturity. A young woman courageously independent in her thinking, passionate in her beliefs and ideas, and determined not to resign herself to the kind of unhappy, violent marriage that had trapped her mother and made her life hell.
It seemed inevitable that she should have found herself powerfully attracted to a man like Damion Pitcairn—brilliant, handsome, virile, full of iconoclastic ideas and fiery dreams and ambitions of his own. A man who admired her for everything her father despised.
A man forbidden her by every dictate of their society.
Was that why her life had ended so soon, when it had barely begun? Why someone had so selfishly taken away all that potential, robbing Emma of the life she was meant to live? Depriving the world of everything she’d had to give?
Who had done it? Her own father? A macabre farmer’s wife who’d already quietly extinguished so many lives? The spoiled, selfish natural son of a prince? Who?
Who?
Later that afternoon, Sebastian joined the Earl in the library of Hendon House in Grosvenor Square for a game of chess. Like their early-morning rides in Hyde Park, this was a tradition they’d once enjoyed regularly but had allowed to lapse in the months following the devastating series of revelations that had kept them estranged for so long.
They sat at an inlaid game table drawn up beside an open window overlooking the house’s rear terrace and gardens. The afternoon was warm, the breeze lifting off the formal plantings sweet and fresh, the brandy in the glasses at their elbows French. For a time they spoke of current events—of the hordes of sightseers rushing down to Plymouth Harbor to hire boats and row out to crowd around the HMS Bellerophon in the hopes of catching a glimpse of Napoléon Bonaparte; of Hendon’s hopes that saner heads would eventually prevail upon the Regent to agree to send the deposed Emperor into exile rather than turn him over to the Bourbons to be made a martyr. But in the end, the conversation inevitably circled around to what was, for the Earl, an endless source of frustration.
“I gather from the mess someone’s made of the side of your face that you’re still doing it, are you?” said Hendon as Sebastian studied his next move. “Looking into the murders out in Richmond Park, I mean.”
Sebastian kept his gaze on the pieces. “I am.”
Hendon grunted. “And you’ve found nothing to explain what happened?”
“Not really.” Sebastian moved his rook. “You knew Sir Ivo’s father, didn’t you?”
Hendon frowned down at the realigned pieces. “Sir Winston? I did, yes. He was a good man—of far different character than his son. Why do you ask?”
“Did you ever hear talk about Ivo killing someone in a duel when he was up at Cambridge?”
Hendon looked up, his lips pressing into a thin, hard line. “I’m surprised you know about that. Sir Winston worked damn hard to keep it all quiet.”
“So it did happen?”
“Oh, yes, it happened. And the circumstances were frankly disgraceful. The man Ivo killed was drunk. Ivo knew it and yet he still agreed to fight him then and there anyway. Frankly, he should by rights have been charged with murder.”
“So why wasn’t he?”
“Because it was late 1782, and Sir Winston was one of the King’s closest companions—in fact, Ivo is George III’s godson. We were in the midst of negotiating both the Peace of Paris to end the American War and the treaties at Versailles that would settle our conflicts with France and Spain. The last thing anyone wanted was to see the King’s own godson taken up on murder charges. So Sir Winston paid off the dead man’s father, and it was all hushed up.” Hendon moved his queen to take one of Sebastian’s pawns. “Don’t tell me you’re thinking Ivo is responsible for what happened to his wife and daughter.”
“You find that hard to believe?”
Sebastian expected the Earl to dismiss the suggestion out of hand. Instead he paused for a moment, then said, “If Lady McInnis were the only one dead, then I’d probably say no, it’s not outside the realm of possibility. But I can’t see a man killing his own sixteen-year-old daughter—unless it was an accident, of course. And from what I’m hearing that doesn’t fit.”
Sebastian kept his thoughts on that aspect of the murders to himself. But as he studied Hendon’s grim features, he said, “There’s something else involved here that I don’t know about, isn’t there?”
Leaning back in his chair, Hendon reached for his pipe and tobacco pouch. “Are you aware of a wealthy and extraordinarily attractive young widow named Mrs. Olivia Edmondson?”
“Vaguely. Why? Are you suggesting Sir Ivo is interested in her?”
“More than interested. Word has it she’s been his mistress for months. I’ve heard it said he’d marry her if he were free. And now he is, isn’t he?”
“Huh. I wonder why Aunt Henrietta didn’t mention her.”
“Henrietta might know every hint of scandal that’s been whispered about in the drawing rooms and ballrooms of Mayfair for the last fifty-five years, but there are some things—although not many, I’ll admit—that don’t make it beyond the gentlemen’s clubs.”
Sebastian watched Hendon load his pipe, tamp down the tobacco, and reach for a tinderbox. “So is Sir Ivo in need of a rich widow?”
“Not to my knowledge. But then, one can never be entirely certain.” Hendon drew hard on his pipe. “If his daughter hadn’t also been killed, then I’d say Ivo could quite reasonably come under suspicion. But the girl was killed.” He nodded to the chessboard, the smoke curling out of the corners of his lips. “Your move. Let’s see you get out of that one.”
Sebastian shifted his knight. “Checkmate.”
Leaving the Earl’s house some time later, Sebastian paused on the front steps, his gaze on the broad, parklike private gardens of the square that stretched out before him. Grosvenor Square was one of the largest of London’s squares, its central expanse of lawn, shrubbery, and leafy trees sprawling over more than five acres. Unlike in most of London’s squares, the residences here had for the most part been individually constructed and thus were not uniform in either appearance or size.
Lying on the far side of the square, Sir Ivo’s town house was one of the area’s larger establishments, five bays wide, with four main stories in addition to its basement and attics. Its stone-faced classical facade was well tended, the front door freshly painted black, the brass knocker, doorknob, and oil lamps polished to a high sheen. If its owner was in the kind of financial difficulties that might inspire an unscrupulous man to kill his own wife in order to marry a rich widow, it wasn’t readily apparent.
Still thoughtful, Sebastian descended the steps and walked toward McInnis House, skirting the square. He could hear the voices of children playing in an open grassy area of the square beyond a nearby stand of plane trees, and for one unguarded moment the sound of their laughter sent him hurtling back in time to his own youth, when he, too, had played here as a child. And it occurred to Sebastian that eighteen or nineteen years ago, when Laura first came to her husband’s town house on the square as a young bride, Sebastian himself would still have been at Eton. But if he had ever seen her here at that time, he couldn’t recall it. She would have been just one of the many young mothers he would sometimes glimpse on a sunny afternoon, walking or playing here with her children.
Had she ever been happy in her marriage? he wondered. Even in those first years? Or had she realized all too soon the magnitude of the mistake she had made when, thinking her first love dead, she married her brother’s best friend?
Pausing across the street from McInnis House, Sebastian let his gaze drift over the silent, black crepe–draped facade before him. Three children had been born to that ill-fated marriage: Malcolm, at eighteen the eldest and Ivo’s heir; Emma, sixteen; and Thisbe, twelve. Even if Malcolm hadn’t been off on a fishing trip to Scotland with his cousin, he would no doubt have scorned participating in such a tame family outing to Richmond Park. But Thisbe was only a year younger than her cousin Percy, and it bothered Sebastian that no one had ever explained why she wasn’t included in Sunday’s doomed expedition.
He was about to turn away, toward Brook Street, when he became aware of Sir Ivo, dressed in buckskin breeches and glossy top boots, approaching on foot from Bond Street. At the sight of Sebastian, the Baronet paused, then shifted direction slightly to cross the street and come right up to him.
“Were you looking for me?” demanded Sir Ivo, his eyes narrowed and hard.
“Not exactly, but I’m glad you caught me. I was wondering if you’d discovered why your daughter Thisbe didn’t take part in the expedition to Richmond Park. Was she ill?”
“I told you, I have no idea. I can only be thankful that she wasn’t there.”
“I would still be interested in speaking to her.”
“And I’ve already explained why that’s impossible,” snapped McInnis, starting to turn away.
Sebastian raised his voice. “I understand you’re quite friendly with a widow named Olivia Edmondson. An attractive, wealthy young widow.”
Sir Ivo drew up and pivoted to face him again. “What the devil is that supposed to mean?”
“I assume you don’t need me to repeat the rumors.”
Sir Ivo stalked back to him, not stopping until he was less than two feet away. “You bloody son of a bitch,” he hissed, pitching his voice low. “You leave Olivia out of this, you hear me? She has nothing to do with what happened, just as Laura and Emma’s deaths have nothing to do with you. Nothing. I swear to God, if you don’t quit poking into my life, I’ll—” He broke off, his jaw tightening.
“You’ll . . . what?” prompted Sebastian, his gaze on the older man’s dark, angry face. “Hire a couple of thugs to jump me? As it happens, someone already tried that. Last night.”
“Then it’s a bloody shame they failed,” snarled Sir Ivo, and swung abruptly away.