Who Speaks for the Damned (Sebastian St. Cyr #15) - C. S. Harris Page 0,89
notice or complain.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“If you are counting on me to either be quiet or go away, I fear you are doomed to disappointment.”
She hesitated, her lips flattening into a thin, unattractive line. Then she turned and stalked off toward Ludgate Street, her head held high.
Sebastian fell into step beside her. He thought she might continue to deny having seen her brother, but she obviously thought he knew more about the meeting than he did. She said, “Do I take it you think I should have informed the authorities?”
“Not at all. Although I must admit I’m surprised you didn’t.”
She looked beyond him, her attention seemingly all for the next troop of charity children filling the narrow street, banner waving. “And deliberately provoke the kind of wretched scandal I’ve been forced to endure for the past week? Why would I?”
“Ah. So that’s why,” said Sebastian in a way that caused her ladyship’s eyebrows first to lift, then to draw together in a frown. “Is that the same reason you refused to honor your brother’s request?”
She huffed a scornful sound that was not a laugh. “As if I would take his grubby little foreign-born by-blow into my home.”
Sebastian stared at her, at the tilt of her chin and the still faintly curling line of her lips. “Nicholas asked you to take care of his child?”
“Yes. Can you believe it?”
“So the child is illegitimate? Are you certain?”
“I assumed it must be, although I don’t believe he actually said. He wanted to introduce me to her, but naturally I refused.”
“Her?” For a moment, it was as if the off-tune band, the jostling children, the cheering crowd all faded into a haze. “Are you telling me the child is a girl?”
“That’s what he said. Obviously I don’t know for certain, but why would he lie? Di is her name, or Gi, or some such outlandish thing. I believe he said she was twelve, but needless to say I wasn’t paying a great deal of attention.”
“Twelve?” Sebastian found everything he thought he’d known about the missing child spin around and realign itself to create a different picture. He thought about the child he’d glimpsed so briefly standing beside that lamppost in Brook Street, and realized that instead of a nine- or ten-year-old boy, he’d actually been looking at a small, fine-boned twelve-year-old girl with cropped hair. “What else did he say about her?”
Lady Bradbury gave a high, ringing laugh. “He was at pains to impress upon me that she’s intelligent, well educated, and well mannered, and that her English is perfect. As if that would make any difference.”
Sebastian looked at this woman’s hot, flushed face and saw the petty, all-consuming nature of her self-regard, the self-absorption that defined everything and everyone by its impact on her. He said, “Did Nicholas tell you he was dying of consumption?”
“He did, yes. He said that was why he’d come back to England, because he was dying and he was hoping I would agree to take care of the girl after he was gone. Can you believe it?”
Sebastian found he had to look away from her, to the street filled with endless thousands of orphaned pauper children. “What do you find so unbelievable? That he would risk giving up the few remaining months of his life to try to provide for his child? Or that he had such misplaced faith in his only sister’s goodness?”
Two splotches of color appeared high on her ladyship’s cheeks. “Nicholas forfeited any claims he might have had on his family nineteen years ago.”
“And what about his child? What about your niece’s claims?”
Lady Anne gazed at him with righteous, scandalized horror. “She’s Chinese.”
“And therefore means nothing to you?”
Her ladyship drew up abruptly and turned to stare back at the Cathedral. “This is a preposterous conversation.”
“One more thing: Did Nicholas say anything else—anything at all—that might shed some light on his murder?”
“I don’t think so. I was frankly appalled to see him and stunned by his request. I cut off our interview as quickly as possible and left.”
“Where did you see him?”
“He accosted me last Sunday as I was leaving church, of all places. I was beyond mortified. What if someone had seen us talking and recognized him?”
“Perish the thought. Did anyone see him?”
“No, thankfully.”
“You’re certain?”
“Reasonably so, yes. Obviously, I was concerned.”
“Did you tell anyone you’d seen him?”
“Seriously? As if I would.”
“No, of course not.” Sebastian touched his hand to his hat with only the vaguest of polite bows. “Thank you for your time, Lady Bradbury.”