Who Speaks for the Damned (Sebastian St. Cyr #15) - C. S. Harris Page 0,66
are based on careful reasoning and precise analysis. If you’re here simply to insult me, you can go away.”
Sebastian stopped before a strange, disturbing print of what looked like the Archangel Gabriel handing the world to a personification of Britannia. “Actually, I’m here about your granddaughter.”
Brownbeck’s eyes narrowed. “I have no grandchildren and you know it.”
“Not anymore. But you did have, once. A baby girl born to your daughter, Katherine, and Nicholas Hayes in the spring of 1796. What happened to her?”
Brownbeck rose to his feet, his face dark crimson, his plump hands pressing down flat on the surface before him. “Get out. Get out of my house this instant.”
Sebastian held the older man’s furious gaze. “I’ll go if you insist. But you have a choice: You can answer my questions here and now, or I can ask them elsewhere in a manner I can guarantee you’ll find highly embarrassing.”
Brownbeck swung away to where glasses and a carafe of brandy rested on a surprisingly plain tray. He poured himself a hefty measure without offering Sebastian any and threw down half of it before turning to say, “How did you know?”
“It doesn’t matter. The point is, Nicholas Hayes knew about the child. He knew about her birth, and he knew of her death, and he blamed you for it. You and Sir Lindsey Forbes.”
Brownbeck took another mouthful of brandy and rolled it on his tongue before swallowing. “The child died. Children die all the time without anyone being to blame.”
“Unless they hand the babe over to a drunken wet nurse.” When Brownbeck remained silent, his glare pugnacious and unapologetic, Sebastian said, “What did she do? Roll over on the child in a drunken stupor and accidently smother her?”
“I never asked for the particulars. And it wasn’t a wet nurse, by the way. It was a foster mother.”
“What was her name?”
“I don’t recall.”
“Of course not.”
Brownbeck took another drink. “This is all ancient history. What purpose can possibly be served by digging up the past?”
Sebastian studied the rich, self-satisfied old man’s broad, fleshy face, the coarse-grained skin and small, angry eyes. “Nicholas Hayes was dying of consumption and he knew it. That explains why he didn’t worry about being hanged if he came back to England—he probably figured he’d die before anyone could put a noose around his neck. But it doesn’t explain why he would want to return in the first place. I think he came here to revenge his baby’s death by killing either you or Forbes. Or both.”
A noticeable sheen of perspiration showed on the older man’s face. “You’re mad.”
“Am I? Why do you think he came back?”
“I neither know nor care!”
“You should. Because if Hayes came back to London to kill you, it means you had a very good reason to kill him.”
Brownbeck stared at him for a long moment, then raised his glass with a shaky hand and drained it in one long pull. “This is nonsense. I didn’t even know the rogue was in London. And you’re mistaken if you think he cared enough about that dead child that he’d risk the freedom of his last remaining days on earth to come back here and revenge its death.”
“Her death,” said Sebastian. “Not ‘it.’ Her.”
Brownbeck waved a dismissive hand through the air. “You think Hayes cared about my daughter? Well, let me tell you, he didn’t. All he cared about was getting his hands on her inheritance. And when that slipped through his grasping fingers and his father disowned him, he took up with some disreputable tavern wench.” His lips twisted in an ugly, suggestive sneer. “Maybe that’s why he came back to London—to see his lowborn paramour.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The woman who ran the flash house where Hayes took refuge. Within months of abducting my daughter, he was carrying on with her in the most disgusting way imaginable. I know—”
“Nicholas Hayes didn’t ‘abduct’ your daughter,” Sebastian said quietly.
Brownbeck tightened his jaw and rolled determinedly on. “I know because I was worried he might try something else, so I had my people watching him.”
A silence fell on the untidy library. It could have been a lie, of course. But it had a ring of the truth. Hadn’t Sebastian himself suspected something similar?
Aloud, he said, “A troubled man can take comfort in the arms of an understanding woman and still nourish an abiding hatred for those he holds responsible for the death of his child.”