Who Speaks for the Damned (Sebastian St. Cyr #15) - C. S. Harris Page 0,51
so now it’s only Alessandro and me.”
The old man had at least heard of China, but he hadn’t seen any “Chinamen” since he’d been down near Portsmouth a decade or two ago when an East India Company ship wrecked along the coast. “Musta been a dozen or more of ’em washed ashore,” he said. “But they was all dead.”
Hero thanked him and started to hand the man his shillings for the interview, but he said, “No, give it to Alessandro.” So she held the money out to the monkey, who screeched, then whipped off his hat and bowed.
It was when she was laughing at his response that Hero felt it—the powerful and unmistakable sense of being watched. She glanced quickly around, her breath catching, her gaze raking first the flagway’s steady stream of passing tradesmen, apprentices, and shoppers, then the wagons, carriages, costermongers, and carts clogging the street. She couldn’t see anyone who appeared to be paying her any heed. But as she continued up the street, talking first to a conjurer, then to a clown, the feeling of being stared at persisted.
Someone was watching her. And their interest in her was not friendly.
Chapter 31
T he Dowager Duchess of Claiborne was standing beside the counter of a fashionable Bond Street milliner when Sebastian pushed open the shop door with a jangle of bells.
Grandly dressed in an elegant gown of hyacinth-spotted silk with an intricately worked flounce, the Duchess had her eyes narrowed as she tried to decide between the rival merits of two caps: one with a fetching azure blue ribbon, the other ornamented with tasteful little tucks. At the sight of Sebastian, she drew her chin back against her chest and scowled. “Devlin. Good heavens. Whatever it is you want to know, I can’t talk to you about it here.”
He gave a soft laugh. “Am I so transparent?”
“In a word? Yes. Now, go away.”
He leaned one hip against a nearby display cabinet and crossed his arms. “I can wait until you’re finished.”
“I can’t decide which of these caps I want with you standing there.”
“So buy them both. They’re both lovely.”
“They are, aren’t they?” she agreed. She set them down and said to the clerk, “Both it is.”
Leaving her abigail to supervise the wrapping of her purchases, Aunt Henrietta tucked her hand through the crook of Sebastian’s arm as they left the shop and headed up Bond Street. “Right, then, what is it now?”
“I need you to tell me everything you know about Chantal de LaRivière.”
The Dowager gave him a speculative sideways glance. “What about her?”
“All I know is that she was young and beautiful, and she died. What was her background? Do you have any idea?”
“I believe she came from the lesser nobility or perhaps even the bourgeoisie. Her marriage to the Count de Compans was considered something of a coup. But then, she was very beautiful.”
“That’s all anyone ever says about her. ‘She was beautiful.’”
“Well, she was. Enchantingly so.”
“There must have been more to her than her looks.”
Aunt Henrietta was silent for a moment, her eyes focused on something in the distance in a way that made him wonder what she was thinking. “Our society doesn’t simply reward beauty in women,” she said after a moment. “People act as if a woman’s beauty is an outward manifestation of her inner goodness. As a result, there’s a tendency to credit a beautiful woman with any number of positive characteristics that she may not, in fact, actually possess. Have you noticed? A beautiful woman—particularly if she’s fair-haired—is automatically assumed to be sweet and gentle, loving and giving, innocent and good. At the same time, people tend to discount both her intelligence and her strength.” Henrietta paused, then added, “And her potential for cunning.”
“Somehow, I doubt you fall into the trap of that kind of thinking.”
“Not often, perhaps. But I suspect I do sometimes. It’s human nature, isn’t it?”
“I suppose it is.” He watched a pigeon flutter down to peck at some crumbs on the pavement. “So, what was Chantal like—really like—beneath her famous beauty?”
“It’s difficult to say. She cultivated an aura of helplessness mixed with good-natured sweetness and one of those breathy little-girl voices that somehow make a woman seem simultaneously childlike and yet highly attractive to men in that way Claiborne is shocked to hear his mother talk about.”
“But?” prompted Sebastian when she hesitated.
“I could be wrong, but I always suspected that beneath all the filmy white muslin and the wide, perfect smiles, she was shrewd, hard as granite,