Who Speaks for the Damned (Sebastian St. Cyr #15) - C. S. Harris Page 0,80
self-loathing that I didn’t know what was happening until it was too late. It was simply by chance that I saw them together in the park one day and realized what she must have been doing. I tried to warn Crispin, but of course he wouldn’t listen. He was hopelessly in love and utterly convinced Chantal was in love with him. Then I came along, trying to tell him she was a scheming little whore. He almost killed me for it.”
“You told him she was trying to get him to spy for France?”
Dark color stained the major’s cheeks and he shook his head. “Not exactly. I was too ashamed to be as explicit as I could have been. I only told him she was playing with him. Using him. Setting him up.”
“How long between when you told him and the night he killed himself?”
“Less than a week. I don’t know for certain exactly what happened, but I assume that somewhere in there Chantal and the Count sprang their trap and Crispin got caught. It’s the only thing that makes sense of what happened next, isn’t it? Crispin found out that he’d been fooled—that the woman he loved so desperately was using him. And then he either killed himself or he confronted LaRivière in a rage and LaRivière killed him.”
“Which do you think is the most likely?”
“Honestly? I don’t know.”
A half-grown pup bumped its head against Sebastian’s hand, and he reached down to pet it. “After Crispin was found dead, when Nicholas came to see you, did you tell him the truth? That LaRivière was using his wife to seduce young clerks in the Foreign Office, I mean.”
McHenry scraped his hands down over his face again and nodded. “I thought I was being noble—finally doing the right thing, coming clean, making amends for being a weak, sniveling coward. Except that all I ended up doing was ruining Nicholas’s life.”
“Why didn’t you come forward after he was arrested and tell the truth?”
McHenry let his hands fall. “You don’t want to know.”
Sebastian met his gaze. “Yes, I do.”
“I tried. I had a long, extraordinarily difficult talk with Grenville. Then I went back to my rooms, expecting to be arrested. Instead, I received a visit from . . . someone. Someone important. He told me that a Frenchman like LaRivière could be useful. That rather than be exposed and ruined or killed, LaRivière had agreed to act as a double agent, sending false information back to Paris. I was warned that if I said anything more, I would simply disappear. It was suggested that I leave the country and that I might find the army a good new career.”
“Why didn’t Nicholas say anything?”
The major lifted both shoulders in a helpless shrug. “Maybe he was willing to be a martyr for king and country. Maybe he did it to preserve his brother’s good name. Maybe he didn’t believe they were really going to find him guilty of murder and ship him off to Botany Bay. Or maybe my visitor threatened someone he loved. I don’t know.”
Sebastian drew a deep breath, his chest so tight it hurt. “It was Jarvis, wasn’t it? The man who came to see you and warned you to keep your mouth shut about LaRivière. It was Lord Jarvis.”
McHenry started to take another drink, then changed his mind and pushed the glass aside. His gaze met Sebastian’s, and after a moment he gave a slow, silent nod.
Chapter 47
C harles, Lord Jarvis, was tired. In the past three days he’d traveled to and from Woolwich, then up to Oxford and back to London again. He’d attended more dinners, banquets, balls, levees, and various other ceremonies than he could count. As he climbed the steps of his Berkeley Square town house, he was thinking about a drink, a bath, dinner, and his bed.
“Good evening, my lord,” said his butler, taking his hat and helping his lordship off with his dusting coat.
“It’s good to be home,” said Jarvis.
Grisham paused with Jarvis’s coat over one arm, his expression one of wary resignation.
“Well, what is it?” snapped Jarvis, watching him.
“Mrs. Hart-Davis is dining with friends this evening,” said the butler, referring to the cousin of Jarvis’s late wife. “But Lord Devlin is here to see you, my lord. In the drawing room, my lord.”
“What the devil?”
“He’s been here for some time, my lord. Quite insistent he was in waiting for your lordship.”
Jarvis was already heading for the stairs. “Oh, he was, was he?”