Calhoun met Sebastian’s gaze and nodded.
* * *
“The papers will be told LaRivière died of an apoplexy,” said Jarvis later that evening, his face dark with anger as he stood in the center of Sebastian’s library.
“Not footpads this time?” Sebastian poured himself a brandy, then raised the carafe toward his father-in-law. “Are you certain you won’t have a drink?”
“No, thank you,” said Jarvis. “Fortunately, the French have agreed to keep the truth quiet.”
“The truth? Do they know the truth?”
“As much as was considered necessary.”
“Oh? For their sake, or yours?”
Jarvis’s jaw tightened. “A French count, a British earl, a Director of the East India Company, and the man expected to become the next Lord Mayor of London are all dead because of you, and you consider this a time for levity?”
“Ah, yes, if only I had minded my own business and allowed four powerful, loathsome, murderous men to continue to walk unmolested amongst us, we would be so much better off.”
Jarvis’s eyes were now two narrow slits. “You find it amusing that you’ve just killed a close friend of the newly restored King of France?”
Sebastian took a sip of his brandy and shook his head. “Louis never liked him. He was only close to Louis’s brother Charles, and you know it.”
“Charles will be king soon enough.”
“Undoubtedly. But he won’t rest easy on the Bourbons’ newly recovered throne. I wouldn’t be surprised if the French have another revolution in ten or fifteen years.”
“You’re mad.”
“You think so? Ideas can be repressed for a time, but they can’t be buried forever.”
“By which I take it you mean this ridiculous notion of democracy?” Jarvis sneered the word. “If we lose the legitimate rulers given us by God, we’ll simply have more tyrants like Napoléon thrown up by the mob—except they’ll be worse.”
“Worse than the crowned tyrants? It’s possible, I suppose. But what the people raise up, they can also pull down.”
“Is that the kind of world you want to live in?”
“I’m not convinced we’re going to have a choice.”
“Of course we have a choice. But you just imperiled it.”
Sebastian laughed out loud, then drank long and deep. “I think you give me too much credit.”
* * *
Monday, 20 June
Kate Forbes sat on a gilded, satin-covered chair in the midst of her spacious, beautifully appointed drawing room. She wore the deep mourning that society expected of a woman who’d just lost both husband and father, but Hero thought her attitude was more that of someone who’d just been set free.
“I’m glad they’re dead,” she told Hero, her face set hard. “Does that sound horrible? The only reason I agreed to marry Forbes was because my father told me he’d take away my baby if I didn’t. Forbes promised that if the child was a girl, he’d raise her as his own.” She paused to draw a shaky breath. “You know the survival rates for infants left to the parish or given to foster mothers; they almost all die. I realized there was no way I could save a son. But if by marrying Forbes I could save a daughter, I decided it was worth it.” She twisted her hands together, her head bowed. “Of course, it was all a lie.”
“I’m sorry,” said Hero, her heart breaking for the desperate young girl this elegant woman had once been.
Kate’s head came up, her eyes fierce. “I’ve hated Forbes for eighteen years. Hated them both. I feel like a hypocrite, wearing black for them.” Pushing up, she went to stand at the window. Outside, the day was sunny and warm, with just the hint of a breeze. From the distance came the laughter and shouts of children playing around the square’s water basin. “No one’s found any trace of Nicholas’s child?”
“I caught a glimpse of her this past week, when I was interviewing a blind musician in Clerkenwell Green. And in thinking it over, I’ve realized I may know how to find her.”
Tuesdays for Leicester Square, Alice had said. Wednesdays for Clerkenwell. It could simply have been a coincidence that Ji had reportedly been seen in Leicester Square on the same day Alice always played there. But the more Hero thought about that morning on the green, the more she’d become convinced that Alice had been lying, that the blind woman and Ji had been there together. So far Calhoun’s attempts to track down the hurdy-gurdy player had been unsuccessful. But tomorrow was Tuesday. . . .
Kate turned, and Hero saw the leap of hope in her eyes. “You