Why Mermaids Sing (7 page)

C
harles, Lord Jarvis lifted a pinch of snuff to his nostrils and sniffed. He was a big man, tall and fleshy, with large appetites and a power unmatched by any in England.

Although he could claim a distant kinship to the King, Jarvis owed his position of power not so much to his birth as to the nearly incomparable brilliance of his intellect, his shrewd ability to manipulate men, and a fierce dedication to King and country that no one could question. If it weren’t for Jarvis, the Hanovers would have lost their fragile hold on the throne of England long ago, and both the Regent and the old King knew it. Or at least, the King knew it when he was in his right mind, which was seldom these days.

Jarvis kept offices in both St. James’s Palace and Carlton House, although it was at Carlton House that he spent most of his time since the proclamation of the Regency some seven months before. His own house, in Berkeley Square, he visited as seldom as possible. The place was overrun with females, a species for which Jarvis had little patience and even less tenderness. His mother was a foul-tempered, grasping harpy, his wife an idiot, while his daughter, Hero…Jarvis felt his chest burn and rose to pour himself a brandy. At the age of twenty-five, Hero was headstrong and stubborn, forever engaged in a nauseating string of good works and unlikely ever to wed.

Once Jarvis had had a son, a weak-willed namby-pamby named David. But David was dead, which left only Hero. If she’d been born a son, Jarvis would have been fiercely proud of her—except for those radical notions of hers, of course. As it was, she was a sore trial to him.

He took a sip of his brandy. The woman he’d ordered brought to him today was of a sort he understood well. A whore, she used her beauty and the ecstasy to be found between her legs to entice and ensnare men. It mattered not whether she served the French out of conviction or for greed. She would tell Jarvis what he wanted to know and allow herself to be used, or he would crush her. Her and Devlin both, if need be.

The discreet knock at his door brought his head around. He watched Kat Boleyn sweep into his chamber with a regal bearing that Princess Caroline and her horsey daughter, Charlotte, would do well to emulate. She held her head high and was pretending not to be afraid, although he knew she was. Only a fool wouldn’t be afraid, and this little actress was no fool.

She was a beautiful woman, even if she wasn’t his type. Jarvis’s taste ran to delicate, flaxen-haired women, while Kat Boleyn was dark and tall. She fixed him with a fierce blue stare and said, “I understand you wanted to see me.”

“Admirable,” he said, and saw her eyebrows rise in inquiry and surprise. “But unnecessary. We both know why you’re here. I trust you won’t waste either my time or yours with protestations of innocence.”

“It’s difficult to protest my innocence when I don’t know what I’m being accused of.” She had her voice flawlessly under control.

Jarvis took another sip of his brandy. He did not offer her wine; nor did he invite her to sit. “Your association with the French is known. Has been known, actually, for quite some time now.”

“Really? If this is a fishing expedition, I’m not biting.” She turned toward the door. “May I go now?”

He went to lounge in a chair beside the empty hearth, his legs crossed in front of him. “No.”

She hesitated, then swung slowly to face him again.

“We have a report, compiled by two of our agents last winter. A copy of it is there on the table.” He nodded to the black notebook that lay on a nearby ebony side table. “Do take a look at it. I’m convinced you’ll find it fascinating reading.”

She picked up the book with a hand that did not tremble and flipped through the pages. Once or twice she paused, her lips parting on a quickly indrawn breath. When she finished, she set the book aside and looked up at him, her famous blue eyes huge in a pale face.

“I deny it all.”

“It doesn’t matter. I didn’t bring you here to discuss the contents of that most interesting little book.”

“Then why am I here?”

Jarvis folded his hands together and rested them on his broad chest. “As you are no doubt aware, Monsieur Pierrepont’s activities on behalf of Paris were known to us. We left him alone because it suited our purposes. But his hasty departure last February has disrupted what was a nice, tidy situation. Our agents tell us Napoleon has a new spymaster in London. We want his name. You’re going to give it to us.”

She started to say something, but he held up his hand, stopping her. “It’s immaterial if you know his name now or not. But if you do not know it, I suggest you learn it. Quickly. You have until Friday.”

She stared back at him, her head held high, her posture defiant. He knew what she was thinking. He smiled.

“You’re thinking I’ve given you something of a reprieve. That left to your own devices until Friday, you will simply flee the country for France. That would not be wise. You are being watched. If you make any attempt to flee—or to warn the gentleman whose name I seek—you will be seized.” He pushed up from the chair and walked toward her. “I have men in my employ who enjoy hurting people, and they are very good at what they do. It wouldn’t take them long to extract whatever information you might possess. Only, I’m afraid they wouldn’t stop there. Before they finished with you, you would no longer be pretty. Or whole. You would be begging them to kill you, and they would. Eventually.”

Reaching out, he touched her cheek. Before she could stop herself, she flinched.

“And if that still is not enough to convince you of the wisdom of cooperating, then I suggest you give some thought to the consequences for Viscount Devlin, should it become known that his mistress is a French spy. You think you wouldn’t implicate him, but believe me, by the time my men were through with you, you would.”

She stared at him with a cold, murderous fury that almost gave him pause. He dropped his hand from her cheek, but he was careful not to turn his back on her. “You have until Friday.”

S
ebastian was in his dressing room, shrugging into a black evening coat with the clumsy help of his footman Andrew when Tom came to deliver his report.

“Discover anything of interest?” Sebastian asked, nodding the footman’s dismissal.

“Quail spent most o’ the afternoon in St. James’s, in ’is club. Then he went ’ome.”

“To his wife? That’s unusual. Do you think he knew you were following him?”

“I don’t think so, no. Want I should trail ’im again tomorrow?”

Sebastian smoothed his lapels. “Yes. I won’t need you in the morning. I’m interviewing some gentlemen’s gentlemen who look promising.”

Tom dug the toe of his shoe into the carpet and tried to look innocent.

Smiling to himself, Sebastian reached for a small flintlock and slipped it into his pocket. Pistols weren’t exactly standard evening wear, but the low-heeled pumps that were de rigueur for balls meant he couldn’t carry a knife in his boot.

Tom’s eyes widened. “Expectin’ trouble?”

“When it comes to murder, I always expect trouble.”

Henrietta, Dowager Duchess of Claiborne, stood at the top of the imposing stairs of her Park Street town house, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. She had been receiving her guests, but the arrivals had long since begun to thin, and Henrietta was forced to admit that her handsome if wayward young nephew, Viscount Devlin, was not coming. Turning away, she blew out a harsh, ungenteel breath of disgust.

Beside her, her son, the present Duke of Claiborne, leaned toward her to say, “You didn’t really expect him to show, now, did you?”

“Of course not. But I’m still annoyed with him.”

At the age of seventy, the former Lady Henrietta St. Cyr was one of the grand dames of society. She had never been beautiful, but she had always been fashionable. And very, very astute.

She had erred, she knew, in presenting both Bisley’s daughter and the Fenton girl to Devlin; the one was too frivolous, the other too severe. But she had high hopes for this newest possibility, the Dillingham girl. Lady Julia was breathtakingly lovely and satisfyingly intelligent without being a dead bore. As Devlin would discover if he’d simply condescend to meet the poor girl.

Abandoning her post at the top of the stairs, Henrietta moved through her guests with the practiced ease of an accomplished hostess. She was steering a wayward buck toward a shy young girl in ivory figured silk when she became aware of a stir around her, like the fluttering of hens when a wolf threatens the chicken house.

Turning, she saw a solitary figure climbing the marble steps. Devlin.

He wore the standard male evening attire of black silk knee breeches, black dress coat, and black silk waistcoat with a graceful ease that somehow managed to be both negligent and exquisite at the same time. Reaching the top of the steps, he paused, his gaze scanning the crowded rooms. He had his mother’s tall, fine-boned good looks, with dark hair and the strangest pair of yellow eyes Henrietta had ever seen. Eyes that lit up with a smile as he came toward her.

“Aunt,” he said, bowing low over her hand.

She rapped his knuckles with her fan, hard. “Don’t think to turn me up sweet. I’m surprised you bothered to show up at all, as late as it is.”

Devlin grinned. “I hadn’t intended to, but I had some questions I wanted to ask you.”

Far from being annoyed, Henrietta knew a quickening of curiosity. “Questions? About what?”

Taking her arm, he steered her toward a small withdrawing room. “Not here.”

“I have guests,” she protested.

His smile widened into something devilish. “I can come back tomorrow morning. Early.”

Henrietta sighed. It was well known that she never left her room before one o’clock. “You unnatural young man. I don’t know what sordid mess you’ve involved yourself in this time, but I refuse to tell you anything until you promise to at least dance the quadrille with Lady Julia.”

“Who?”

“Lady Julia Dillingham.”

She thought he might balk, but he only laughed and said, “A fair-enough exchange. The quadrille it is. Now tell me what you know about the Stantons and the Carmichaels.”

Henrietta felt her smile slide off her face. “What have you to do with that ghastly business?”

“A friend has asked for my help.” He closed the door behind him and leaned back against it. “I understand Sir Humphrey Carmichael married the daughter of the Marquis of Lethaby. Is Lethaby in any way related to the Stantons?”

“Only very distantly.” She went to lower herself into a curving chair of puce velvet, and sighed. “He was such a charming young man, Barclay Carmichael. He had every girl of marriageable age in London on the scramble for him. What a pity.”

“Do you know of any connection between Stanton and Carmichael?”

“The fathers or the sons?”

“Either one.”

Henrietta tapped one finger thoughtfully against her lips. “I do seem to recall they were both involved in something a few years back, but I couldn’t say now exactly what it was.”

“A scandal?”

“No. I don’t believe so. If I remember correctly, Russell Yates was also involved in some way.”

Devlin raised one eyebrow. “Russell Yates? Now that’s interesting.”

Russell Yates was one of society’s more colorful characters, a born gentleman who’d made his fortune as a privateer. There had always been whispers about Yates, about his murderous past and the connections he still maintained with smugglers and free traders. But lately there had been other rumors, dark hints about certain activities that seemed to belie his virile image and that weren’t discussed in mixed company. It was all said in whispers, of course, for in an age in which vice and sin were commonplace, there still remained this one taboo, this one prohibition, the violation of which could lead not to mere ostracism, but a sentence of death.

Henrietta studied her nephew’s face, but he was giving nothing away. “Have you heard the rumors about him?”

“I’ve heard them.”

“Do you believe there’s anything to them?”

“I don’t know. But it does suggest a new angle of inquiry.”

“You can’t be serious. I don’t know about young Stanton, but no one ever questioned Barclay Carmichael’s interest in the ladies.”

Devlin shrugged.

Henrietta pressed her lips together and made an exasperated sound deep in her throat. “Hendon told me you’d involved yourself in these latest murders. Don’t you think it’s a bit, well,
common
, Devlin?”

His brows twitched together into a frown that was there, then gone. “Common? Dreadfully so. In fact, if you had the least regard for the reputation of this Lady Julia, you would most definitely advise her not to dance the quadrille with me.”

Henrietta pushed to her feet with a grunt. “I fear it would take far more than an unnatural interest in murder to render you anything other than an enviable catch, my dear.” She looped her arm through his. “Now take me back to my ball, you troublesome child. I believe the quadrille is next.”

K
at stood beside the heavily draped windows of her bedroom, her arms wrapped across her chest. The room behind her was dark. The night watchman had long since called out,
Two o’clock on a fine night and all is well
, but she still wore the
robe en caleçon
of blue satin piped in white that she’d worn home from the evening’s performance. She had not been to bed.

She didn’t want to look, but she had to. Touching the edge of the curtain, she shifted it so that she could peer down on the street below. The night was unusually bright, the moonlight mingling with the light from the streetlamps to bathe the pavement in a soft glow. She searched the shadows, looking for a shape that shouldn’t be there, a hint of movement on a still night.

Sebastian would have seen the figure in an instant; it took Kat several minutes. She had almost given up looking when he raised his hand to his mouth, like a man stifling a yawn.

She let the curtain fall back into place, then simply stood there, her breath coming hard and fast. She had no illusions about the situation she was in. Jarvis was not a man given to idle threats; he had meant everything he said. She had until Friday.

She’d found it curious, at first, that he’d given her several days to deliver up to him the spymaster’s name. Then she’d realized he must have had agents watching her for months, ever since Pierrepont’s flight last February. It must have been when Jarvis grew frustrated by his inability to ascertain the spymaster’s identity by stealth that he had decided to approach Kat directly. Convinced that she did not, indeed, know the new spymaster’s name, he had decided it necessary to allot her that brief span of time in which to discover it.

Pressing the fingertips of one hand against her lips, Kat swung away from the window. She had no need to discover the name of Napoleon’s new spymaster in London, for she knew it. Aiden O’Connell was an Irishman who cooperated with the French for the same reason Kat once had: for Ireland. He had approached her last summer hoping to reestablish the connection she had once enjoyed with his predecessor, Leo Pierrepont. She had told him at the time she wanted out of the game, but that wouldn’t save her now from Jarvis.

Her options were limited and she knew it. She could attempt to escape, but Jarvis was notorious for his network of spies, and her stomach roiled at the thought of the things his henchmen would do to her if they caught her. She could wait until Friday and nobly refuse to give up O’Connell’s name, but Jarvis would then simply wrench the information from her by torture. She knew she would tell them anything they wanted to hear—anything, even as she knew it wouldn’t be enough to save her. Or…

Or she could betray O’Connell freely, and hope it would be enough.

With a groan, Kat sank to the floor, her arms drawing her bent knees against her chest. Jarvis had left her no real choice, and he knew it. On Friday, she would tell him Aiden O’Connell’s name. The trick would be to find a way to do it on her own terms. Because she harbored no illusions. Now that Jarvis had his hooks in her, she would never be free, never be safe.

And neither would Devlin.

Leaving his aunt Henrietta’s ball, Sebastian descended the torchlit steps to discover a man in a rough greatcoat and slouch hat lounging against the wall near Sebastian’s carriage, his hands in his pockets. As Sebastian approached, the man pushed himself upright and took a step forward.

Sebastian’s footmen made to stop him, but Sebastian waved them back.

“Nice evening,” said the man, the skin beside his eyes crinkling in a smile. He looked to be about thirty years of age, with broad shoulders and a kind of coiled restlessness that reminded Sebastian of men he’d known in the army, in the secret service.

Sebastian casually slipped one hand into his own pocket and felt the smooth, well-crafted wooden stock of his pistol. “Then why the coat?”

This time the man’s smile showed his teeth. “You know why.” His speech was not that of a gentleman, yet not of the streets, either.

Moving deliberately, Sebastian brought the small flintlock from his pocket to hold it loosely at his side. He was careful to keep a calculated distance between them. “What do you want?”

For an instant, the man’s eyes left Sebastian’s face, his gaze flicking to the flintlock at Sebastian’s side. The man’s expression never altered. “I’ve come to offer you some friendly advice.”

“Advice?”

“Advice. I was hired to give you a warning. You know the kind. A dead cat on your doorstep. A brick through your window in the middle of the night. But then I thought, Why play games? There’s something the gentleman needs to understand, so why not simply explain it to him?”

“Hence the advice.”

“That’s right.” The man in the slouch hat brought up his left hand to scratch the side of his nose. “The thing is, you see, you’ve been asking too many questions. The gentleman who hired me wants you to stop.”

“You mean, asking questions about Barclay Carmichael and Dominic Stanton.”

The man smiled again. “That’s right. See? I knew you’d understand.”

“Who hired you? Lord Stanton or Sir Humphrey Carmichael?”

The man’s smile slid away. “Now there you go, asking questions. Not a good idea, remember?”

The man was starting to annoy Sebastian. “Just who are you, anyway?”

“My name isn’t important. I’m just the messenger.”

“And the adviser.”

“So to speak.”

“And if I fail to heed your advice?”

The man’s smile was completely gone now. “That would be unwise.”

Sebastian signaled his footman, who leapt forward to let down the carriage steps. “Give your employer some advice from me, why don’t you?” Sebastian said.

The man pivoted to keep his face toward Sebastian as Sebastian moved past him to the carriage. The man’s right hand never left his pocket. Sebastian never raised the pistol from his side. “Tell your employer I don’t like people who kill cats. I have a real objection to heavy rocks being thrown through my windows. And if he sends anyone after me again, I’ll kill him.”

Something glittered in the other man’s eyes, something that was both a warning and a promise. “Till we meet again, then,” he said, and faded into the night.

Sebastian settled into the corner of his carriage, the flintlock resting against his knee. He could hear the distant strains of music from his aunt’s ballroom and, from nearer at hand, a woman’s laughter.

His questions were obviously making someone uncomfortable. The threat against him had been serious, the man who delivered it a professional. Leaning forward, Sebastian signaled his coachman to drive on. He had no intention of heeding the man’s warning, of course. Which meant that he’d be meeting the gentleman in the slouch hat again.

Only next time, Sebastian knew, he wouldn’t see the man coming.