Chapter 52
Just because a solution seems to fit doesn’t mean it’s right.
Sebastian kept telling himself that as he walked the raucous, crowded streets of London, past Red Lion Square and Lincoln’s Inn Fields, heading vaguely toward the river. Never had he been more desperate to be wrong about something. He kept running through his list of suspects, trying to find another explanation—any other explanation—that fit everything he knew.
He couldn’t.
In the end he retreated to an ancient, low-ceilinged tavern on the Strand. He was nursing a pint of ale at an old, worn table in a dark corner, lost in thought, when someone said, “I’m told you’ve been looking for me.”
Sebastian glanced up to find Zacchary Finch watching him. The Major had two foaming tankards in his hands and a quizzical expression on his face. “Here,” said Finch, shoving one of the tankards across the scarred tabletop toward him. “I thought you looked like you could use a refresh.”
“Thank you,” said Sebastian, leaning back. “Have a seat.”
Finch settled on the opposite bench. “So why were you looking for me?”
Sebastian took a slow sip of the ale, choosing his words carefully. “I wanted to ask if Laura McInnis had ever spoken to you about her younger nephew or his sister.”
Finch’s eyes widened. Whatever he’d been expecting, it obviously wasn’t that. “Percy and Arabella? What about them?”
“I’m told she was worried about them. Was she?” When Finch stared down at his ale as if not quite certain how to answer, Sebastian said quietly, “I know the truth about Lady Salinger, if that helps.”
“Ah.” Finch looked up to meet his gaze. “It’s a tragic story, isn’t it? A woman so young, so gifted with what most would consider all the blessings of life—beauty, fortune, a title, a lovely home, children. And yet she was still hopelessly . . .” He paused as if searching for the right word, then finally settled on “disturbed.” He wrapped both hands around his tankard. “Laura’s own mother died when she was in leading strings, so she understood only too well what it’s like to grow up surrounded by servants but without a mother’s love. So when Salinger had to have his wife committed, Laura promised she’d do everything she could to help with the children, and she did. But lately—even as early as last spring, when I was in London before Boney busted loose and I left to rejoin my regiment—she’d been becoming increasingly worried about the two younger children. Particularly Percy.”
“Why?”
Finch propped his elbows on the table and leaned forward, dropping his voice. “You’ve met the lad?”
“I have. He’s quite captivating.”
“He can be, yes. He’s so bright, so full of enthusiasm for anything that catches his interest that he comes across as both charming and endearing. But . . .”
“But?” prompted Sebastian when the other man hesitated.
“After you’ve been around him awhile, you begin to notice that . . . well, something’s a bit off about him. It isn’t only the endless, casual lies that can take your breath away, it’s . . .” Finch paused again, once more groping carefully to find the right words. “So often, his reactions to things aren’t quite what they should be. He’ll laugh at something that’s really not funny—like a housemaid falling down the stairs, or a wherry full of passengers capsizing on the Thames when the water’s so cold the chances of anyone being rescued alive are nonexistent. And while I know that can sometimes be a natural, spontaneous human reaction to shock that we’ve all experienced and then felt wretched about, that’s not the case with Percy. He’ll keep laughing. Laura told me once that she sometimes wondered if Percy had ever experienced any true compassion or fellow feeling for anyone—not a poor old blind man reduced to begging in the streets, or a skinny stray dog desperately searching for food, or even his own father when Salinger was forced to shoot his favorite hunter after it broke its leg. Salinger was devastated, and yet it was obvious that Percy didn’t even care.”
Sebastian took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He’d known men like that in the Army; too many. They were the ones who raped pregnant women and slit open their bellies; who collected the ears and other body parts of those they killed as souvenirs. He’d learned not to turn his back on those kinds of men. “And Arabella?” he said, his voice rough. “You say Laura was worried about her, too?”
“Not as much. Well, at least not until recently. But then Arabella flew into a rage at Emma and would have seriously hurt her if Malcolm hadn’t been there to intervene, and that’s when Laura decided she had to say something to Salinger.”
“She told you about that? Her talk with Salinger, I mean.”
“She did, yes. It was right after I came back from Belgium. I thought it was a mistake, frankly—her telling him there was something wrong with the children, I mean. But she said she’d felt she had to do it, that perhaps something could be done to help the children before it was too late.”
“ ‘Too late’ meaning . . . what?”
“Before they did something unforgivable, I suppose.”
Sebastian studied the other man’s drawn features. “This discussion she had with Salinger—do you know where it took place?”
“I think it was at his house in Down Street. Why?”
“So the children could have overhead it.”
“I suppose so,” said Finch, looking puzzled. “But what difference would that make?”
“None of that proves anything,” Hero said later that night as she lay in Sebastian’s arms. A storm was blowing in from the northeast, and they could see the flashes of lightning reflected on the room’s walls, hear the long, low rumble of distant thunder.
“No,” agreed Sebastian.
She shifted so that she could look at him, her face solemn. “Could Salinger be the killer?”
Sebastian ran his fingers through the dark tumble of her hair, drawing it back behind her head. “Theoretically, I suppose it is possible. He could have killed his sister in a deliberate, cold rage to keep her from saying such things about his children to anyone else, and Emma because—hell, I don’t know. In some sort of sick revenge because of what her mother had said? Because she was prettier than his own daughter—and sane? I suppose either one is theoretically possible. But why would he then turn around and try to kill his own children by attacking them in Hyde Park? Because he was afraid they were mad, after all, so he decided to kill them, too? Even if that weren’t an unbelievably convoluted explanation, surely Arabella and Percy would have recognized their own father—apart from which, Salinger is neither young nor particularly slim. And if he were willing to personally murder his own sister and niece, I can’t see him then hiring someone else to eliminate his children.”
“So perhaps the children were attacked by someone else for some other reason entirely that we don’t know about.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know. But it is possible.”
“Yes.”
“There must be some other explanation. There must be. Hiram Dobbs . . . the Blackadders . . . Rhodes . . . McInnis . . . Any one of them could have done it.”
“Possibly.”
She studied his face, her eyes dark and luminous in the night. “But you don’t think so, do you?”
He met her gaze. “I’d like to, but . . . no. No, I don’t.”