Who Speaks for the Damned (Sebastian St. Cyr #15) - C. S. Harris Page 0,46

they loved but killed. Sometimes men act in anger, with little thought or conscious intent, and then regret it.”

“No. I was with Nicholas when he heard about his brother’s death. He wasn’t simply grieved. He was shocked and horrified. He couldn’t understand why his brother would kill himself.”

“What did Nicholas do?”

Calhoun dug his palms into his eyes, rubbing back and forth. “He went off somewhere—I don’t know where. When he came back to the Red Lion, he was in a tearing mood. I’d never seen him like that before.”

“In what sense?”

“He was drinking heavily, but with a dark purposefulness rather than his usual reckless good cheer.”

“How close was this to when Chantal de LaRivière died?”

“She died that night. Nicholas spent the better part of the day drinking, then went over there.”

“To Dover Street, you mean? This was the same day his brother died?”

Calhoun shook his head. “No. He didn’t hear about his brother until a good twelve hours after the body was found. So it was the next night.”

“There was no suggestion of foul play in the brother’s death?”

Calhoun looked at him blankly. “Not that I ever heard about.”

“What do you know about a man named Mott Tintwhistle?”

A faint gleam of amusement lightened the valet’s tense features. “The old cracksman? What about him?”

“Did you know he helped Nicholas break into his father’s house?”

“I remember hearing about it. Why?”

“Do you know what they were after?”

Calhoun was thoughtful for a moment. “I did know, once. But I don’t remember now. It was something Nicholas wanted—something he said was rightfully his.”

“His grandfather’s watch?”

“That was it. I remember thinking it was daft—breaking into the old Earl’s house for something like that. Although to be honest, I suspect the watch was only part of it. I think he did it mainly to get back at the old man—show him he could.”

“Did they also take some banknotes?”

“No. That was just a tale the old Earl spread around to make people see him as the victim of a ‘bad son.’ What kind of a father does that?”

“A horrible one.”

Calhoun was silent for a moment. “It’s funny, because I remember Nicholas as mature, sophisticated, and cultured—everything I wasn’t but knew as soon as I met him that I wanted to be. I think of him as older and more mature than me because he was then. But looking back on it now, I realize he’d only just come down from Oxford. He was still a young man—very young. And he made a young man’s mistakes.”

“You don’t have any idea where he went after he found out about his brother’s death and before he started drinking?”

“No. He never said. When he came back, he just called for a bottle of brandy and started working his way through it. My mother tried to talk to him, but he asked her politely to leave him alone, so she did. And then he left for Dover Street.”

“He said he was going to see the Countess?”

“No. The Count.”

“Did he say what he was planning to do?”

“He said somebody had to stop those bastards, and it might as well be him.”

“Those bastards? Not that bastard?”

“That’s the way I remember it. But I could be wrong. It was so many years ago.”

“How long was he gone?”

“A couple of hours. He came back covered in blood, but he wasn’t hurt. He never tried to hide what had happened. Told my mother he and the Count had struggled over the gun and it went off, grazing LaRivière’s forehead but killing his wife.”

“Whose gun was it?”

“He said it was the Frenchman’s.”

“Hayes didn’t take a pistol with him?”

“I honestly don’t know.” Calhoun thrust up abruptly and went to stand at the open window, his gaze on the darkening street now thick with the carriages of Mayfair’s wealthy residents on their way to their evening’s entertainments.

“If Hayes was drunk,” said Sebastian, watching him, “he might not have remembered exactly what happened.”

“He wasn’t that drunk. He could hold his liquor like nobody I’d ever seen—until I met you.”

Sebastian studied the taut, tired profile of the man at the window. “Did you know Hayes was dying of consumption when he came back to England?”

Calhoun swung to face him. “No. You’re certain?”

Sebastian nodded. “He didn’t give any indication?”

“No. I mean, I remember him coughing badly, but he said it was nothing. I asked why the hell he’d come back, and all he’d say was that there was something he needed to do. I told him he was daft, that nothing was worth dying