When Maidens Mourn (26 page)

“Poor girl,” said Gibson with a sigh. “Poor, poor girl.”

The setting sun was painting purple and orange streaks low on the western horizon by the time Sebastian reached the Adelphi Buildings overlooking the Thames. He was mounting the steps to the Tennyson town house when he heard his name called.

“Lord Devlin.”

Turning, he saw Gabrielle’s brother striding across the street toward him. “Have you some news?” asked Hildeyard Tennyson, his strained features suffused with an agonized hope.

“I’m sorry; no.”

Tennyson’s lips parted with the pain of disappointment. He’d obviously been out again looking for the children; dust layered his coat and top boots, and his face was slick with sweat and tinged red by too many hours spent beneath a hot sun.

“You’re still searching the chase?” asked Sebastian as they turned to walk along the terrace overlooking the Thames.

“The woodland and the surrounding farms and fields, yes. But so far, we’ve found nothing. Not a trace. It’s as if the children vanished into the mist.” The barrister blew out a long, ragged breath. “Simply…vanished.”

Sebastian stared off over the river, where the sinking sun spilled a wash of gold across the water. Barges loaded with coal rode low and dark in the water; a wherryman rowing his fare across to Lambeth plied his oars. The splash of his wooden panels threw up arcs of droplets that glistened like diamonds in the dying light.

Tennyson followed Sebastian’s gaze, the circles beneath his eyes dark as he watched the wherryman’s progress across the river. “I know everyone, from the magistrates and constables to the farmers and workmen I’ve hired, thinks the boys must be dead. I hear them speaking amongst themselves. They all think they’re looking for a shallow grave. But they don’t let on to me.”

Sebastian kept his gaze on the water.

After a moment, Tennyson said, “My cousin—the boys’ father—is on his way down from Lincolnshire. He’s not well, you know. I just hope to God the journey doesn’t kill him.” He hesitated, then added, “Or the inevitable grief.”

Sebastian found it difficult to meet the other man’s strained, desperate eyes. “You told me the other day your sister had no interest in marriage.”

“She didn’t, no,” said the barrister slowly, obviously struggling to follow Sebastian’s train of thought. “She quite fixed her mind against it at an early age. Our father blamed her attitude on the influence of the likes of the Misses Berry and Catherine Talbot. But the truth is, Gabrielle was far more interested in Roman ruins and the inscriptions on medieval tombstones than in bride clothes or layettes.”

“Nevertheless, she must have attracted some suitors over the years.”

“Some, yes. But without encouragement, few stayed around for long.”

“Do you remember any who were more persistent than the others?”

Tennyson thought about it a moment. “Well, I suppose Childe
held out longer than most. But— Good God; no one could suspect him of such a deed.”

“Childe? You mean, Bevin Childe?”

“Yes. You know him? Frankly, I would have thought if anyone had a chance with Gabrielle, it would be Childe. I mean, the man has both a comfortable independence and a passion for antiquities that matched her own. She’d known him since she was still in the schoolroom—indeed, he claims he first fell in love with her when she was little more than a child in pigtails and a torn flounce. But she would have none of him.”

“How did he take her rejection of his suit?”

A touch of amusement lit up the barrister’s haggard features. “Frankly? With incredulity. No one could ever accuse Childe of having a low opinion of himself. At first he was convinced she was merely displaying what he called ‘a becoming degree of maidenly modesty.’ Then, when he was finally brought to understand that she was not so much shy as merely disinterested, he credited her lack of enthusiasm to an imperfect understanding of his worth. I’d never before realized what an insufferable bore the man could be. I’m afraid he made quite a cake of himself.”

“When did he finally get the hint?”

“That his suit was hopeless? I’m not certain he ever did. She was complaining about him shortly before I left for Kent.”

“Complaining about his disparagement of her theories about Camlet Moat, you mean?”

“No. About his continued refusal to accept her rejection of his suit as final.”

B
evin Childe was feeling his way down the unlit stairs from his rooms in St. James’s Street when Sebastian stepped out of the shadows of the landing to grab the scholar by the back of his coat with both fists and swing him around to slam him face-first against the wall.

“Merciful heavens,” bleated the antiquary as his protuberant belly
thwumped
into the paneling. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. My purse is in the inner pocket of my coat. You’re welcome to it, sir, although I must warn you that you will find there scant reward for this brutish act of violence upon my person.”

“I am not interested in your bloody purse,” growled Sebastian.

“Devlin?” The antiquary went limp with relief. “Is that you?” He attempted to twist around but found himself frustrated when Sebastian tightened his grip. “Good God; I imagined you a cutpurse.” He stiffened with gathering outrage. “What is the meaning of this?”

Sebastian kept his voice low and deadly calm. “I should perhaps have warned you that when it comes to murder, I am not a patient man. And you, Mr. Childe, are sorely trying my patience.”

“There are laws in this country, you know. You can’t simply go around accosting gentlemen in their lodgings. It’s not legal. It’s not right. It’s not—not the done thing!”

Sebastian resisted the urge to laugh out loud. Instead, he leaned into the antiquary until the man’s plump face was squished sideways against the elegantly paneled wainscoting. “You didn’t tell me you were a suitor for Miss Tennyson’s hand. A disgruntled and annoyingly persistent suitor.”

“Well, it’s not the sort of thing a gentleman does go around talking about, now, is it? I mean, a man has his pride, don’t you know?”

“So you’re saying your pride was offended by Miss Tennyson’s rejection of your suit?”

Childe quivered, as if suddenly becoming aware of the pit yawning at his feet. “I don’t know if I’d say that, exactly.”

“Then what would you say?
Exactly?
”

“Women such as Miss Tennyson must be delicately wooed. But I’m a persistent man. I’ve no doubt my suit would eventually have prospered.”

“You’ve no doubt.”

“None.” Childe’s voice had grown in confidence to the point of sounding smug.

“So you would have me believe you didn’t know she’d recently fallen in love with a dashing young cavalry officer she met at the British Museum?”

“What?” Childe tried again to twist around, but Sebastian held him fast. “I don’t believe it! Who? Who is this man? This is nonsense. You’re making that up. It’s impossible.”

“You’d better hope I don’t discover that you did know.”

Childe blanched. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” said Sebastian, shifting his grip, “that there is a certain kind of man who doesn’t take kindly to the realization that the woman he’s decided to honor by making her his wife has scorned his courtship not because she was shy and needed to be
‘delicately wooed,’ but because she quite frankly preferred another man to him. What does it take to drive a man like you to violence, Childe? Hmm? A threat to your scholarly reputation? Or an affront to your manhood? How would you react, I wonder, if the very same woman who’d humiliated you as a suitor then threatened to destroy your credibility as an antiquary? Would that be enough to compel you to murder?”

Perspiration glistened on the man’s forehead and clustered in droplets on the end of his nose. A foul odor of sweat and fear rose from his person, and his voice, when he spoke, was a high-pitched crack. “This is madness. Miss Tennyson and I disagreed about the authenticity of the cross in Gough’s collection; that is all. My credibility as an antiquary was never threatened in any way.”

“Then why—”

Sebastian broke off at the sound of the street door opening below. Men’s voices, slurred by drink, echoed up the stairwell. He loosed his hold on the antiquary and took a step back.

“I’m not through with you. When I find out more, I’ll be back. And if I discover you’ve been lying to me, I can guarantee you’re going to regret it.”

Sebastian returned to Brook Street to find Hero perusing an improving pamphlet written by one Ezekiel Smyth and entitled
Satan, Druidism, and the Path to Everlasting Damnation
.

“Good God,” he said. “What are you reading?”

She laughed and cast it aside. “Believe it or not, this piece of sanctimonious drivel was written by George and Alfred Tennyson’s aunt, Mary Bourne.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, but I am. She also attends a weekly Bible study class with one Reverend Samuel at the Savoy Chapel. Another member of the study group is none other than Lady Winthrop.”

He reached for the pamphlet and flipped through it. “Now, that’s interesting.”

“It is, isn’t it?” She looked over at him, her eyes narrowing. “You’ve split the shoulder seam of your coat; what have you been doing?”

He glanced down at his coat. “Ah. I hadn’t noticed. It could have been when Lieutenant Arceneaux tried to draw my cork for insulting the honor of the woman he loved—”

“How did you do that?”

“By asking if he lay with her. He says he did not, incidentally.”

“Do you believe him?”

“No. He did, however, provide me with one bit of information which proved to be valuable: It seems Mr. Bevin Childe was a suitor for Miss Tennyson’s hand—an annoying suitor who refused to take no for an answer. According to Hildeyard, the man has been in love with Gabrielle since she was a child.”

Hero stared at him. “Did you say, since she was a child?”

“Yes; why?”

But she simply shook her head and refused to be drawn any further.

Thursday, 6 August

By 9:50 the next morning, Hero was seated in her carriage outside the British Museum, a sketch pad open on her lap and her pencils sharpened and at the ready.

She had no illusions about her artistic abilities. She was able to draw a fairly credible, easily recognizable likeness of an individual. But her sketches were competent, nothing more. If she were a true artist, she could have sketched Bevin Childe from memory. As it was, that was beyond her.

And so she waited in the cool morning shade cast by the tall fronts of the town houses lining Great Russell Street. At exactly
9:58, a hackney pulled up outside the Pied Piper. His movements slow and ponderous in that stately way of his, Mr. Bevin Childe descended from the carriage, then stood on the flagway to pay his fare.

He cast one disinterested glance at the yellow-bodied carriage waiting near the museum, then strode across the street, his brass-handled walking stick tucked up under one arm.

Within the shadows of her carriage, Hero’s pencil scratched furiously, capturing in bold strokes the essence of his likeness.

As if somehow aware of her intense scrutiny, he paused for a moment outside the museum’s gatehouse, the high points of his shirt collar digging into his plump cheeks as he turned his head to glance around. Then he disappeared from her view.