The Birth of Blue Satan (10 page)

“Oh, he is taken very low, I’m afraid. This wound to his shoulder, don’t you know. I had my own physician, Mead, pay a visit to him. But poor ol’ Gid. It’s Mead’s opinion that things could go either way. He did have some mighty nice things to say about St. Mars’s valet—says the fellow’s better at tending wounds than half the doctors he knows. I must say, I have envied him that Philippe of his. What a fellow wouldn’t pay to have a valet like that!”

Hester ignored the last part of this speech. The first had made her chest contract as if a corset had been laced around her heart.

“So my Lord St. Mars may not recover?” Mrs. Mayfield seemed to greet the news with eagerness.

“Wish I could say.” To his credit, Sir Harrowby seemed truly to wish for his recovery. “Sick as a calf from all I’ve heard. Got the whole household working on plasters for his feet and drinks to relieve his fever. The whole place reeks of cinnamon and nutmeg—not that they are so intolerable, mind. That valet of his, Philippe, is a marvel with his potions and his linens and whatnot. Splendid servant! I just wonder if all his thingumabobs will work. They say that Gideon hasn’t come ‘round once since he collapsed on the steps of Hawkhurst House. If it were me, I’d have popped off in a sennight, but he’s always been a robust sort of fellow, you know.

“Can’t help wondering, though, why he would be such a dunderhead as to attend a ball with a cut like that on his arm. If it were me, I should have taken to my bed.”

“Why,
indeed?”
Mrs. Mayfield remarked, with just the proper inflection to make Sir Harrowby give a start, his expression still dim.

“Perhaps Lord St. Mars—” Hester began— “Lord Hawkhurst, I should call him—had a particular reason for not wishing to miss the ball.” Hester directed a pointed look at her cousin.

Mrs. Mayfield issued a pleased, tinkling laugh. “For shame, Hester! You will turn my poor Isabella’s head!”

After a moment of studious thought, Sir Harrowby’s face lit up. “Why, by Jove, madam, I do believe Miss Kean could be right! How could anyone stay abed when Mrs. Isabella had promised him a dance?”

Isabella spread her fan and covered her uneven teeth as if to hide a blush. “Sir Harrowby, you do me too great an honour, sir.”

Though practiced, her reply had been delivered with a charming air, enhanced by the fact that Isabella had inadvertently caused the tassel of her fan to sway between her breasts.

Attracted by its motion, Sir Harrowby’s gaze came to rest on her bosom and he choked out, “Too much were impossible, Mrs. Isabella.”

Seated as he was, he managed to make a credible bow. Hester had no doubt that if Isabella and he had been alone, he would have pressed her hand with a gallant kiss.

Mrs. Mayfield broke in, “I have always said that no one can make as pretty a speech as you, Sir Harrowby, not even Mr. Letchworth for all of his scribblings. The ladies always count you amongst their favourites, sir.”

Astonished by this praise from a quarter in which he had always received otherwise, Sir Harrowby blushed more convincingly than Isabella ever had. Before he could respond, Mrs. Mayfield went on, “I daresay St. Mars did come to see my daughter, but she has other suitors besides him. And it would surprise me if they did not all try to steal a march on his lordship while he is down.”

“If he truly wants my Isabella,” she added sternly, “he had better heal quickly, or she will be spoken for.”

This speech had the wished-for effect of planting an idea in Sir Harrowby’s infertile brain. He glanced from Mrs. Mayfield to Isabella and his eyes grew round. “Steal a march, you say? Zounds, ma’am! Poor ol’ Gid!”

“Poor, indeed,” Hester murmured to herself. Only Mrs. Mayfield gave a sign of noticing her remark, but her aunt’s hearing was notoriously acute.

She glared spitefully at Hester, and her next words held a hardness no one could miss. “It seems that my Lord St. Mars may not recover in any event and, if that turns out to be the case, then you would be the new Lord Hawkhurst, Sir Harrowby.”

Her target paled. His voice shook, whether from a secret wish or fearful dismay, Hester could not tell. “I had not thought of that, Mrs. Mayfield.”

“Lud, Sir Harrowby!” With one of her swift reverses, Mrs. Mayfield gave a playful wave. “You will have me thinking you a slow-top, sir! Your modesty does you credit, but surely you must know that if his lordship was to die or
if
, for whatever reason, he was not to ascend to his father’s honours, then you would be the next in line.”

He laughed nervously, it seemed, although his flush had blossomed in colour as if fed by an inner burst of exhilaration. “Naturally one knows, but one does not—that is, I have always felt—so far from it—the succession I mean. St. Mars being so robust and all.”

“Robust is as robust does.” For all her absurdity, Mrs. Mayfield made a point. “I have always said to my Isabella that it is your hot-blooded young gentlemen who get themselves in some trouble or other. Whether it be a wound, like St. Mars’s, or something more serious—who’s to tell?—they are not always there to be relied upon, are they? While more elegant gentlemen like you and his Grace of Bournemouth are just the sort that a girl like my Isabella should settle down with. Not that I can promise anything, mind. I would never try to tell my Isabella where to bestow her heart. But she’s a good girl, and she does what her mama says.”

Hester could not believe that the simplest of fools would fail to see through these ill-bred remarks, but Sir Harrowby appeared not to mind. If he failed to follow her aunt’s twisted logic, it nevertheless seemed to increase his sense of pride to be placed on a level with the Duke. He beamed, and his brightening smile could only now be attributed to hope.

Throughout this interchange Isabella had done her part by looking modest and lovely. Mrs. Mayfield had placed her directly across from their guest so he could feast his eyes upon her dashing toilette. Although his gaze had none of the depths of passion Hester had witnessed in Lord St. Mars’s, it did show a connoisseur’s gleam of approval as it dwelt on Isabella’s dress.

For her own part, Hester would have preferred to see a bit more affection on a prospective lover’s face, but she was beginning to think that she and Isabella would never think alike. In light of the more serious matter of St. Mars’s recovery, she hurriedly dismissed this unworthy thought.

It was plain to see that Mrs. Mayfield had written St. Mars off entirely. She even wished for his death—a possibility that could only make Hester shudder. For a shining gentleman like St. Mars to be so easily dismissed was the greatest incomprehensibility of all. She despised her aunt more now than ever before.

Hester was burning with questions concerning the mystery of Lord Hawkhurst’s death, but she could not very well ask them. Even if Sir Harrowby knew the answers, which he most likely did not, Mrs. Mayfield would quickly put a stop to any query she made. Her aunt had no interest in the truth. She regarded the death of Lord Hawkhurst, and St. Mars’s life, only with respect to how they affected Isabella’s prospects.

But Hester could not master her need to know. She was too recently acquainted with St. Mars to know anything of his father. If St. Mars had not killed him—and she was certain he had not—then who would have wished to do his lordship in? Why would any person take another one’s life?

Murder was a stranger to Hester. Her only frame of reference to help her understand it was Scripture. And the Bible was usually more eloquent on the matter of punishment than motive.

Why had Cain killed Abel? From jealousy, because Abel had found more favour in the eyes of the Lord?

But jealousy of a father? Envy, perhaps, because Lord Hawkhurst possessed an earldom. Would anyone kill for envy alone?

A man might kill if he stood to gain from the death of another. Her aunt had suggested as much. Mrs. Mayfield was prepared to believe that Lord St. Mars had killed his father in order to inherit his place, because as an earl, he would find more favour in Isabella’s eyes.

The thought made Hester shiver, even as she refused to accept it. Surely there would be others who would suspect St. Mars of such a vile motive. But Hester could not believe that the prospect of a title he was sure to inherit would tempt a good man like St. Mars to murder.

Who else would stand to gain from Lord Hawkhurst’s death?

A laugh from Sir Harrowby over one of Mrs. Mayfield’s sallies brought Hester’s gaze to his face, and a stunning realization took her breath away.

She had always thought Sir Harrowby Fitzsimmons a rather harmless gentleman—neither bright enough nor purposeful enough to be cruel.

But was he? Beneath that inoffensive exterior could lurk the heart of an envious man. So envious of his uncle’s riches, and his cousin’s handsome looks, that resentment had spread its ugly tentacles. Hester remembered her aunt’s taunts on the night of the ball. Had she not on several occasions made her position clear? Surely before that night she had let it be known that Sir Harrowby could never win her daughter’s hand as long as two men of superior rank were in the running.

How much did Harrowby want Isabella and the title of Hawkhurst? Enough to kill his uncle and cast the blame on his cousin? Hester stared at his ingenuous face. Could anyone truly be as fatuous as he appeared?

Gideon awoke from a fog, to the odor of plaster and spice. For a long time, it seemed, his dreams had been filled with the stuff of nightmares. His tongue was swollen and his throat felt raw. He tried to speak many times before any sound emerged.

Instantly, Philippe seemed to appear from nowhere. “
Monsieur le comte!
Dieu merci!
You are better, yes?”

Gideon weighed this strange form of address until he recalled.
Monsieur le comte
.
Yes.
A wave of dizziness threatened to render him sick. He was the earl now. His father was dead.

“I must be getting better,” he said, through a rush of bleakness. He wished he had never emerged from his oblivion. “How long have I been in this state?”

“Close to a fortnight,
monsieur
. You have been very ill.”

“And my father?”

“My regrets,
Monseigneur
.
”
An unaccustomed kindness softened Philippe’s voice. “
Monsieur votre père
is to be buried in three days. I asked the messenger why they do not wait for the son of
monsieur le comte
to recover before he is interred, but this messenger he did not know.”

Gideon felt stunned. “Who gave the order to have my father buried so quickly? Do you know?”

Philippe did not. But only one person would have had that authority—Lord Hawkhurst’s executor, whoever that was. Gideon could not imagine why the funeral had not been postponed until he could attend. His father’s body would have been embalmed to allow it to lie in state for as long as desired. Gideon did not know if he was well enough to endure the journey, but he must go home as quickly as possible. He must have a glimpse of his father before he was entombed forever. To have him die so suddenly—then to feel as if all trace of him had vanished—  It would be intolerable.

Feeling weaker than a fop’s limp wrist, he struggled to sit. “Please help me to rise,” he said. “I must get to the Abbey.”

“
Mais non, non, non!”

At Gideon’s look of shock, Philippe apologetically fell to one knee, his eyes respectfully lowered. “I am sorry,
Monseigneur
.
”
Tears of frustration filled his voice. “But you have been very ill, and I cannot bear it if
monsieur
were to go out of his head again. It would be
insupportable
.
”

“Sorry to inconvenience you,” Gideon’s voice croaked out his irony. “I was under the impression that your wages had been set sufficiently to cover even this eventuality.”

“
Monsieur
, Philippe does not speak of wages. He speaks of a much greater importance. It is only due to Philippe that
monsieur
is still alive. These men below the stairs—they are all
imbéciles!
They would insist that
monsieur
have speech when
monsieur
did not have the head to speak his own name.”

“What men?” Exhausted, Gideon fell back against the pillows. “No, don’t answer yet. Bring me some water first.”

“
Oui, monsieur
.
” Leaping to his feet, Philippe disappeared no more than a second before he returned with a goblet of spiced water. As he helped Gideon raise his head and held the vessel to his lips, he whispered, “Sir Joshua’s men have been waiting below since the night
monsieur le comte
was killed.”

“To see me? Have they caught the villain who murdered my father?”

To Gideon’s immense confusion, Philippe assumed a guarded look. “Not yet,
monsieur
, and
moi
, I must ask myself if these English are not all fools.”

Gideon was much too tired, and too full of grief, to attend to this speech. And he had to get up. He had to go to his father’s funeral. Then he would find his father’s murderer and make him pay.