Who Speaks for the Damned (Sebastian St. Cyr #15) - C. S. Harris Page 0,70
hopped up and was gathering his reins when her ladyship’s front door flew open and a liveried footman came pelting down the steps.
“Lord Devlin! Lord Devlin, please do wait.” The young footman skidded to a halt beside the curricle. “Her ladyship has reconsidered your request and decided that it will be convenient to see you now.”
* * *
She received him in an elegant drawing room hung with pearl-colored silk delicately painted with a Chinese pastoral scene. A life-sized, full-length portrait of her ladyship, painted à la Diana by Lawrence when she was perhaps ten years younger, dominated a room finely furnished with more satinwood pieces than it could comfortably hold.
Like her brother, Lady Anne was of above-average height with dark hair threaded with gray. She also had her brother’s long nose and fierce straight brows, although the effect was not as attractive on her. Sebastian wondered if that was owing to a difference in proportions or if the problem was simply that over the years Lady Anne’s personality had stamped itself on her face. When he was a child, Sebastian’s mother used to laughingly tell him whenever he pulled a face that his features would freeze that way. And while he knew she said it to tease him, he’d also come to realize there was an element of truth to that age-old warning. It didn’t happen instantly, of course, the way children thought. But there was no doubt that over time most people’s personalities showed on their faces for all to see. And Lady Anne’s face told anyone who cared to look that she was a haughty, selfish, self-absorbed, and petty woman.
She stood beside the room’s empty hearth, one hand resting on the expensive white marble mantel, her head tilted back at a belligerent angle and her face pink with indignation. But she refused to acknowledge that he had successfully maneuvered her into agreeing to see him. Instead, she bowed her head in a condescending way and said, “I’m told you have some questions you wish to ask.”
She did not invite him to sit.
“Thank you for agreeing to see me,” said Sebastian, wandering the room in a way she obviously did not like but was unable to stop since she refused to invite him to sit. “I’m wondering, did you know your brother Nicholas had returned to England?”
“Of course not.”
Her haughty disdain reminded Sebastian of Sir Lindsey Forbes’s response to the same question. Both tone and words were identical. He said, “Do you have any idea why he came back?”
“I do not. My brother and I were never close, and I have spent the last twenty years trying to forget he ever existed.”
“Then I suppose you don’t have any idea who might have killed him either?”
“Seriously, Lord Devlin? What difference does it make who killed him? The man was an escaped convict, long thought dead. The world is better off without him.”
Sebastian searched this cold, smug woman’s face, trying to understand how two siblings could come from the same set of parents and yet be so different. “What about the current Lord Seaforth? Is your cousin, Ethan, capable of such a thing, do you think?”
Her long nose quivered. “Good heavens, no. This is beyond outrageous.” Reaching out, she gave the bellpull a sharp tug. “I must ask you to leave now.”
“Can you think of anyone Nicholas might have contacted since returning to London?”
“I told you,” she said icily, “my brother and I were never close.” She glanced over at the young footman who had appeared at the entrance to the drawing room. “Lord Devlin is leaving.” To Sebastian, she added, “And if you come back, I will not be at home.”
He inclined his head in the polite bow that civility required and yet still managed to make her stiffen. “I think you’ve told me everything I need to know.”
Chapter 42
T hey buried Nicholas Hayes that evening in a quiet corner of St. Pancras’s churchyard. Shortly before dusk, the sky took on a peculiar color, like a washed-out cloth tinged with hints of old brass, and a hot wind gusted up that felt gritty and dirty against their faces yet carried no hint of coming rain.
It wasn’t the “done thing” for ladies to attend funerals, but Hero was there, as were Jules Calhoun, Mahmoud Abbasi and his young son, Hamish McHenry—looking half-drunk and half-sick—and Mott Tintwhistle. Sebastian was wondering how the old cracksman-turned–dolly-shop owner had known. Then Grace Calhoun arrived, dressed in unexpectedly severe black and accompanied by her beefy barman.