the tale of the abduction?”
“That was Brownbeck. He thought it would reflect better on his daughter when the rumors leaked out. But word of the elopement never really got around. It was the ‘abduction’ story that people talked about, and it discredited Nicholas Hayes in a way he didn’t deserve.”
“That’s when Seaforth disowned him?”
Aunt Henrietta nodded. “Cut him off without a farthing.”
Sebastian came to sit again, the teacup in his hands. “What happened to the girl—Kate Brownbeck?”
“Her father married her off to Sir Lindsey Forbes.”
“Of the East India Company?”
“The same. Nasty man, but rich enough—there’s no doubt about that. And of course he’s even richer now, thanks to his marriage and subsequent years in India.”
Sebastian took a slow sip of his tea. “How do you know all this?”
“I knew the girl’s mother. She was an Osborne—much better born than Brownbeck, obviously. I understand he paid through the nose for the privilege of aligning himself with the family. She died about a year after her daughter married. Brownbeck is a pompous, self-righteous bore, but Kate was fortunate enough to take after her mother. I remember her as a lovely young woman, full of spirit and laughter. Quite charming.”
“She’s dead now?”
“Kate? Oh, no. She’s just not like that anymore. It’s as if marriage to Forbes sucked all the life and joy out of her. It’s quite sad.” Henrietta sighed. “I suspect Hero knows her; she’s part of the Annabelle Hershey set these days.”
Sebastian was familiar with Annabelle Hershey, thanks to Hero. A general’s daughter, Miss Hershey kept a salon for those with keen wits and sharp intellects and interests in everything from philosophy and literature to science and technology.
He took another sip of tea. “Do you think Nicholas Hayes did it? Killed the Countess de Compans, I mean.”
He expected his aunt to say, Of course he did. Instead she was silent for a moment, her lips pressing into a frown. “I honestly don’t know. The entire affair never rang true to me.”
“Why not?”
“Partially because he was so desperately in love with Kate just a few months before. But mainly because I remember Chantal de LaRivière.”
“I understand she was very beautiful.”
“She was indeed—utterly exquisite. But I always suspected she was a bit of a coquette.”
“Oh? And what do you think of Gilbert-Christophe de LaRivière?”
“I know everyone keeps referring to him as a close confidant of both the French King and his brother. But the truth is he’s far closer to the Count d’Artois than to Louis—which tells you all you need to know about him.”
“It does, indeed,” said Sebastian. Charles, the Count d’Artois, was the saturnine younger brother of the newly restored French King Louis XVIII and a man known as an ultraroyalist, ultrareligious reactionary. “So what do you think happened to Chantal de LaRivière?”
“I never could figure it out.” She was silent for a moment, her fingers reducing her toast to crumbs. Then she said, “What a tragedy Nicholas’s life was. An unnecessary tragedy. How differently it all would have turned out if the young couple had simply waited. In another few years, Kate would have been twenty-one, and Nicholas would have been his father’s heir.”
“But they couldn’t know that.”
“No.”
“How soon after the elopement did she marry Forbes?”
“Three weeks, I believe.”
“Hasty.”
“It was, yes. But it wasn’t because she was with child, if that’s what you’re thinking. She never had children.”
It was what he’d been thinking, of course. Sebastian took a sip of his tea, found it had gone cold, and set it aside. “If she wasn’t with child, then the pressure Brownbeck put on her to bend to his wishes like that must have been brutal.”
“I suspect it was. She was never the same afterward. And then she and Forbes went off to India.”
“Where her husband helped starve to death something like a million people,” said Sebastian. “I should think that would change almost anyone.”
“Not Forbes. He’s still every bit as arrogant, smug, self-righteous, and insufferable as he’s always been.”
“But rich.” Sebastian pushed to his feet. “Very, very rich.”
Aunt Henrietta eyed him thoughtfully “You will remember you promised to treat what I’ve told you with the utmost discretion?”
“I’ll remember.”
He bent to kiss her cheek and was surprised when she put her hand on his arm and said, “And you will be careful, Sebastian? There’s something particularly ghastly about anyone who could sink a sickle into another man’s back.”
“I’m always careful.”
She lowered her eyebrows and pursed her lips. “No, you’re not.”
But at that, he only laughed.
* * *
Sebastian was walking up the front