Who Speaks for the Damned (Sebastian St. Cyr #15) - C. S. Harris Page 0,68
had been wellborn, handsome, refined—everything a brilliant, beautiful, but lowborn and uneducated woman raised in the hardscrabble back alleys of London had never dreamt could be hers. But for a time they had come together, and in her mature, understanding arms, he had found a measure of solace and a temporary respite from the soul-crushing pain into which his once-privileged life had descended. Then came a brother’s suicide and a young countess’s death, and the young man’s life turned into a living hell.
Sebastian said, “How did he learn of the death of the child?”
She glanced up at a couple of house martins darting around the eaves of the inn, then fixed her gaze on Sebastian. “There was this East India Company man—I can’t remember his name.”
“Forbes?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Forbes. He taunted Nicholas with it.”
Sebastian sucked in a breath that hissed between his teeth. “With the child’s death?”
She nodded. “He went to see Nicholas in Newgate not long before he was due to be loaded on the transport ship. That man, he hated Nick real bad. Seems he’d offered for that rich man’s daughter once, and the rich man, he was more’n happy to bless the marriage. Only because of Nick, she’d refused him the first time.”
“And then turned around and married him?”
“Does that surprise you? Her a gentlewoman with a babe on the way?” Grace Calhoun gave Sebastian a look redolent with all of a woman’s contempt for male ignorance. “That East India Company man, he told Nicholas the rich man’s daughter was his now and the baby was dead. And then he laughed.”
Sebastian found that his hands had curled into fists, and he had to force himself to open and press them flat on his thighs. He said, “Did you know Nicholas was dying of consumption?”
She was silent for a moment, her face pinched. “Not for sure. But he was coughing something fierce, and I know the signs. I asked about it, and he said he reckoned he wasn’t gonna make old bones.”
“You haven’t seen the boy Ji since Nicholas was murdered?”
“No. Reckon something musta spooked the lad, made him think he ain’t safe here.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Meybe he seen somebody hanging around he didn’t trust.”
“If he were spooked, where would he go, do you think?”
“How would I know?”
Sebastian suspected she knew a great deal that she still wasn’t telling him, but all he said was “Do you think it’s possible Ji could be Nicholas’s son?”
“I never figured him for anything else.”
“But Nicholas never said anything?”
“No.”
He watched her head jerk toward a distant thump somewhere in the depths of the inn, and he found himself wondering not for the first time about the life’s journey that had brought her to the position she occupied in London’s dangerous underworld. He said, “Do you have any idea what Nicholas did during the weeks he was in London? Where he went? With whom he met?”
“No. There was one time—a few days before he was killed—when I could tell he was upset about somethin’ that’d happened. But he didn’t want to talk about it. I think maybe he might’ve gone to see his sister, but I couldn’t swear to it.”
Sebastian stared at her. “Nicholas Hayes has a sister?” Bloody hell, he thought; no one had mentioned the existence of a sister.
She gave an incredulous laugh. “You didn’t know? Anne is her name—Lady Anne.”
“Were they close?”
“No. Nicholas said she took after his da too much for them to ever get along. But she’s all he had left, so I reckon he could’ve seen his way to maybe contacting her.”
“Would she betray him, do you think?”
Grace pushed to her feet, her attention all for shaking out and brushing off the skirt of her gown. “To Bow Street, you mean?”
“Or to his enemies.” Like maybe her cousin, Ethan.
She looked over at him. “You think the likes of me knows anything about the likes of some earl’s daughter? Why don’t you ask her? She’s Lady Bradbury now.” Her gaze flicked away from him to a cat stalking a mouse in the shadows beyond the stable door, then came back. “So she ain’t gonna be buryin’ him?”
“No. I am. This evening, at St. Pancras. If you know where Ji is, you might let him know.”
She shook her head. “I keep tellin’ you, I don’t know where the boy is.” And such was the flare of worry and sorrow he glimpsed in her eyes that, for the first time, he found himself believing her.