I told him I’d loved him with every breath I’ve taken for more than nineteen years.” She looked suddenly fierce, a challenge in her eyes when she glanced up as if daring Hero to judge her.
When Hero remained silent, Kate said, “I told him it was madness for us to be talking like that where anyone might see us. And then I suggested we meet at the tea gardens, because no one fashionable goes there anymore. I remembered there used to be a small clearing in the shrubbery, with a bench, near the access gate in the western wall. . . .”
Her voice trailed away, and in the silent, wounded depths of her gentle blue eyes, Hero could see hints of a pain and a heartache that would never go away.
Hero said, “Was anyone close enough that they might have heard you?”
Kate looked at her blankly. “I don’t believe so, but . . . Dear heaven, do you think it’s possible?”
“Perhaps,” said Hero as gently as she could. But there was no way to soften this woman’s realization that their planned meeting might somehow have inadvertently contributed to the death of the man she’d loved for so long. “Did he say anything else? Anything at all?”
Kate gazed out the open windows. The flat morning light was soaking the upper stories of the row of houses across the street and turning the small visible slice of sky an almost brilliant white. Then suddenly everything darkened, as if a heavier cloud had passed over the sun. “I don’t think so. Except . . .”
“Yes?”
She frowned with the effort of memory. “I don’t recall his exact words, but he said there was something he wanted to ask me. I said, ‘Ask. Ask me anything,’ and he smiled in a way that made him look so much like the boy he once was that it . . . it hurt. He said, ‘You don’t even know what it is yet,’ and I told him I didn’t care. Then the smile went out of his eyes and he said, ‘I thought I could count on Anne, but she let me down.’”
Hero sat forward. “Anne? Do you think he meant his sister, Lady Bradbury?”
“I assumed so. Why do you say it like that?”
“Because Lady Bradbury told Devlin she had no idea her brother was in England. She said she hadn’t seen him since their father banished him nineteen years ago.”
Chapter 51
T hursday’s schedule of events for the entertainment of the visiting Allied Sovereigns included a dinner to be hosted by Lord Castlereagh, a visit to Drury Lane Theatre, and a ball at the home of the Marchioness of Hertford. But for those dignitaries unfazed by their recent lightning trip to Oxford and looking for a diversion earlier in the day, the palace had arranged for them to view the annual charity children’s procession and service at St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Sebastian arrived at St. Paul’s to find the sky above white with thin, high clouds and the air warm and humid. Somewhere a band was playing, although the musicians struggled to compete with the wind’s noisy snapping of the banners carried by each of the various charitable institutions.
Lady Bradbury was standing near the cathedral steps in a section reserved for people of quality. She wore a green sarcenet walking dress with bunches of yellow ribbons on the tucked sleeves and an enormously wide-brimmed bonnet of the type popularized by the Tsar’s sister the Duchess of Oldenburg. When Sebastian walked up to her, she was clapping politely, a vaguely bored smile plastered on her face as she watched the endless parade of carefully scrubbed and neatened-up pauper children.
She cast him a quick glance, then said in a smug, self-congratulatory tone, “It’s an uplifting sight, is it not? A grand tradition that honors our rich heritage of British benevolence.”
“That’s one way to look at it.”
She gave a polite titter. “Is there any other?”
Rather than answer, he said, “I know about your meeting with Nicholas.”
Her hands froze midclap, her eyeballs swiveling sideways. She recovered almost immediately, that fixed air of amused condescension never slipping. “I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do.”
A pretty child in a sashed dress stepped forward to recite a short, breathy speech no one could hear before presenting three posies to the Lord Mayor, the Tsar of Russia, and the Prussian King.
Lady Anne clapped again. “This is hardly the place for such a discussion.”
“Then walk apart with me. I doubt anyone will either