Who Speaks for the Damned (Sebastian St. Cyr #15) - C. S. Harris Page 0,56
tonight on top of everything else.”
“Yet they are. And I suspect both LaRivière and Forbes will be there.”
* * *
That evening’s event in honor of the visiting Allied Sovereigns was being hosted by the Earl of Cholmondeley. After sailing to Deptford and back that day, the visiting dignitaries had attended a formal dinner given by the Marquis of Stafford.
They were scheduled to leave for Oxford at six the next morning.
“Who do you think will collapse first?” asked Hero as they worked their way around the outer edges of Cholmondeley’s hopelessly overstuffed ballroom. The Allied Sovereigns had been guests of honor at a week’s worth of levees, dinners, balls, drawing rooms, banquets, and more, and yet fashionable London was still as anxious as ever for glimpses of the celebrated war heroes and assorted monarchs. “Prinny? King William? Or old Blücher?”
“Definitely not Blücher,” said Sebastian as they watched the bewhiskered septuagenarian field marshal stomp down the line of a country dance with a pretty girl on his arm. “He’s an old warhorse.”
“I suspect you’re right.” She watched Blücher laugh and give his young partner’s hand a squeeze. “Why on earth are they going to Oxford?”
“Honorary degrees.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.” He let his gaze drift over the perspiring, bejeweled crowd. “I don’t see Forbes.”
“There,” said Hero, deliberately looking away. “By the orchestra, in conversation with Lady Jersey.” She paused. “Do you even know him?”
“Vaguely.”
“How precisely does one go about accosting a man in the middle of a ball in order to discuss the murder of someone who once ran off with his wife?”
“I don’t know,” said Sebastian. “But I’ll think of something.”
* * *
Sir Lindsey Forbes was turning away from Lady Jersey when Sebastian walked up to him and said cheerfully, “Ah, there you are.”
Forbes stared at him. “Are you addressing me?”
“I am.” Sebastian squinted up at the vast chandelier hanging over their heads. “Between the hundreds of hot candles and at least an equal number of hot guests, it’s rather close in here, wouldn’t you say? Shall we continue this conversation outside?”
“We’re not having a conversation,” said Forbes, and kept walking.
“Or,” said Sebastian, raising his voice ever so slightly, “if you prefer, I could follow you across the ballroom, shouting my questions as we go. No doubt the Earl’s guests would enjoy some of the revelations that might entail.”
Forbes pivoted slowly to face him. The light from the endless blazing candles lent a soft shimmer to his carefully combed silver hair and surprisingly smooth, unlined face. But his eyes were narrowed and hard, his tight lips curled into something that was not a smile. “You bastard.”
“The choice is yours.”
Without another word, Forbes strode to the row of French doors overlooking the terraced gardens and thrust one open. Sebastian followed.
The night was hot and sultry, but after the stifling ballroom, the fresh air felt like a blessed relief. The wind that had come up that afternoon was even stronger now, thrashing the branches of the elms in the Earl of Cholmondeley’s gardens and banging a loose tile somewhere in the distance. His lordship had decked his garden with colorful little Chinese lanterns, but at least half of them had been blown out, while those that remained lit were dancing about chaotically, their feeble light seeming to accentuate rather than alleviate the dark, unwelcoming shadows of the wind-tossed trees.
“What the devil is this about?” demanded Forbes, walking to the end of the deserted terrace before turning to face him.
Sebastian went to stand some feet away from him, his gaze on the lanterns dancing in the wind. “Did you know Nicholas Hayes had returned to England? Before he was found dead, I mean.”
“Of course not.” It was said with just the exact touch of scorn and righteous indignation.
“You’re certain?”
“Of course I’m certain. I’ll have you know I’m a religious man, and I take our Lord’s injunctions on honesty very seriously. Very seriously indeed.”
“Oh? So what does your Lord say about carelessly starving to death a million or so wretchedly poor Indian peasants? Or can those injunctions be safely ignored?”
Forbes’s nostrils flared. “I don’t have to stay for this.”
He started to turn toward the ballroom doors, but Sebastian stopped him by saying, “Just a few more questions.”
Forbes swung about. “What?”
The air between them was palpably vibrating with the dangerous undercurrents of everything left unsaid—about Nicholas Hayes’s elopement with the woman who was now Forbes’s wife; about the hasty marriage that had surely been forced on young Kate Brownbeck by her father. But even Sebastian found himself shying away from