turning away when she reached out unexpectedly with one elegantly gloved hand to touch his arm. “You won’t—you won’t tell anyone I spoke to him, will you?”
He studied her thin, crimped mouth. “What worries you more? The possibility that someone might find you lacking in common decency and humanity? Or the fear that people might mistakenly believe you actually loved your own brother?”
“Don’t be a fool,” she said. Then she turned to walk back toward the Cathedral, the yellow silk ribbons on her pin-tucked sleeves fluttering in the wind.
* * *
“So that’s why Nicholas came back,” said Hero later that afternoon. They were seated on the terrace overlooking the house’s rear gardens with Simon and the big, arrogant black cat named Mr. Darcy at their feet. It was still hot, but the clouds overhead were becoming thicker and darker, the light more diffuse. “He didn’t come back to kill Seaforth or LaRivière or even Forbes, but because he was dying and he hoped his sister would agree to take care of his daughter after he was gone.”
Devlin stared out over the gardens, at the neatly edged parterres banked by more natural shrubbery bending now with the growing wind. They could hear a horse neighing in a nearby stable and a hawker out on the street shouting his wares. “Mahmoud Abbasi told me that Nicholas was no longer the hot-tempered man he’d been when young—that he’d studied the teachings of Buddhism and was one of the most calm and controlled men Abbasi had ever met. But I didn’t pay enough attention . . . or perhaps I didn’t believe it enough to think everything through the way I should have. A man like that wouldn’t dedicate the last remaining months of his life to exacting revenge on those who’d harmed him in the past. His thoughts would all be for his child. His daughter.” Abbasi had also told Sebastian about a girl child, he realized. A girl who would now be about twelve. But they’d both simply assumed the child must have died.
A lizard paused at the edge of the flagstone paving, head up and alert as it attracted the attention of both the cat and the baby. Hero said, “Why put Ji in breeches? Why cut her hair and make everyone think she’s a boy?”
“Presumably for her safety during all those endless months on the ship. That, and because Hayes was familiar with the rough area around the Red Lion where he hoped to be able to hide here in London. How ironic that by dressing her as a boy to keep her safe, he almost got her killed because Seaforth thought she might be the rightful heir to the earldom.”
Hero was silent for a moment. “I can’t believe Lady Bradbury turned her brother down. Because his child is half-Chinese? My God.”
“That, and a by-blow—or so her ladyship assumes.”
“What a despicable woman.”
They watched the cat start to stalk toward the lizard. But the lizard took fright and ran away, so Mr. Darcy sat down and began cleaning himself as if that had been his plan all along.
Devlin said, “One of my favorite parts of her tale is her indignation at the fact that Nicholas approached her as she was leaving Sunday services. He’s begging her to take care of his orphaned daughter—practically on the steps of her church—and all she can think about is that someone might see them.”
Hero tipped back her head, her gaze on the clouds above. The sky had taken on a darker color, and the trees were alive with a chorus of birds coming in to roost ahead of the approaching rain. “It’s why he decided to contact Calhoun, isn’t it? Because his sister had just turned him down and he was desperate to find someone who would be there for his little girl when he died.”
Devlin nodded. “I suspect it’s also why he approached Lady Forbes and arranged to meet her in Pennington’s Tea Gardens.”
Hero watched Simon push up from the flagstones and toddle over to place his hands on his father’s knees. She said, “I’d always assumed that if we found the person he’d gone to meet that night, we’d know who killed him. So I suppose the question now becomes, Who besides Lady Forbes knew he was going to be in the gardens? Sir Lindsey?”
Devlin reached to lift the little boy up onto his lap. He was silent for a moment, then said, “Given that Lady Forbes was at Hatchards with her abigail,