Who Speaks for the Damned (Sebastian St. Cyr #15) - C. S. Harris Page 0,6

end.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said with a bow to the Prince.

The crowd parted before him easily, for Jarvis was a large man as well as being so powerful—well over six feet tall and fleshy, with a penetrating gray stare and a well-earned reputation for being utterly ruthless. “I don’t see that scapegrace husband of yours,” he said, coming up to his daughter. “Is it too much to hope you’ve finally decided to dispense with him?”

The gray eyes she had inherited from him lit up with amusement. “Good evening, Papa. As it happens, something came up. He hopes to be able to join me here later.”

Jarvis frowned. “It’s never a good sign when you use that airy tone.”

She laughed out loud, but he noticed her attention had strayed to the small cluster of people around Gilbert-Christophe de LaRivière, the Count de Compans. A close confidant of both the newly restored French King Louis XVIII and his brother Charles, the Count was acting as a kind of surrogate for the absent Bourbons, who had already returned to Paris to claim their throne.

“It was LaRivière’s wife that Nicholas Hayes was convicted of killing all those years ago, was it not?” said Hero.

“It was. Her name was Chantal, and she’s been dead for over eighteen years now. Why the sudden interest?”

“A man believed to be Nicholas Hayes has just been found murdered up in Somer’s Town.”

“Impossible,” said Jarvis, his gaze going to where Ethan Hayes, the Third Earl of Seaforth, was deep in conversation with a man who had his back to them. “Nicholas Hayes died a convict in New South Wales in 1799.”

“Evidently not.”

As Jarvis watched, a familiar lean, dark-haired man in his early thirties walked up to Seaforth and said something in the Earl’s ear.

Jarvis said, “I take it Devlin has involved himself in this murder. In Somer’s Town, did you say? What a dreadfully plebeian locale.”

The Earl of Seaforth hesitated a moment, then turned to walk away with Devlin.

Hero said, “It does look as if the dead man really is Nicholas Hayes, doesn’t it?”

Jarvis shifted his gaze to where the Prince Regent now stood in conversation with the Count de Compans. Without even looking at Hero again, he said, “Excuse me,” and walked away.

Chapter 6

S ebastian had arrived at Carlton House to find the Prince Regent’s Pall Mall palace stuffed to overflowing with the most select members of the Upper Ten Thousand, all flushed and sweating from the heat but eager for a close-up look at the Allied Sovereigns.

Working his way with difficulty through the crowd packing the Regent’s gilded, silk-hung reception rooms, he finally came upon Ethan Hayes, the current Earl of Seaforth, deep in quiet conversation with a middle-aged man Sebastian vaguely recognized as one of the Directors of the East India Company.

Slightly built, rusty-haired, and of medium height, the current Earl of Seaforth was perhaps a year or two younger than his ill-fated cousin. His gray eyes were small and closely set, his freckled cheeks ruddy, his jaw line decidedly on the weak side. His estates were in Ireland, but he visited them seldom, preferring to spend most of his time in the North Audley Street town house he inherited from his uncle, the Second Earl. He had a vague tendency toward dandyism, but otherwise was considered solidly respectable, carefully avoiding the popular pitfalls of gambling and highfliers that were bankrupting so many of his peers. Married for ten years, he was said to be exceptionally devoted to his plump, rather plain wife and growing brood of children.

“Good evening, my lord,” said Sebastian, walking up to him just as Seaforth’s companion was turning away. “I wonder if I might have a word with you in private. It’s rather important.”

Seaforth opened his eyes wide, for Sebastian barely knew the man. “I suppose,” said the Earl.

He followed Sebastian to a small withdrawing room hung with figured red silk and stuffed with black lacquered Chinese furniture and a few dozen pieces of the Regent’s vast collection of Ming dynasty porcelains. “Bit irregular, this,” said the Earl, drawing up just inside the door.

“I have some disturbing news, I’m afraid. Your cousin Nicholas Hayes has just been found dead at Pennington’s Tea Gardens up in Somer’s Town. He’s been murdered.”

Seaforth stared at him for a moment, his nostrils flaring on a quickly indrawn breath, his features slack and expressionless. Then his face hardened. “Is this some sort of jest? If so, I take leave to tell you it’s damnably rude. Nicholas died fifteen