“How kind of you to join us. I believe you’ve met Lord Devlin? Devlin, this is my wife.”
“Mrs. Hope.” Sebastian rose to his feet and sketched a bow.
La Belle et la Bête, society called them. Beauty and the Beast. It wasn’t hard to see why. Beauty extended her hand for Sebastian to kiss, her face glowing with the kind of smile that inspired poets and painters. “Lord Devlin. What a pleasant surprise.”
She wore a simple gown of white muslin caught up beneath her full breasts with a pink satin ribbon; a simple gold chain and locket encircled her neck. She was one of those women who had about her an air of gentle repose and serenity that made one think of Evensong and incense and sunlight streaming through stained-glass windows. But Sebastian knew the impression of gentle beatitude was deceptive. A professional killjoy in the mold of Hannah More and the Clapham Saints, she was an active member of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, a nasty organization dedicated to stamping out dancing, singing, card playing, and just about any other pleasure and amusement that might gladden the hearts and ease the sorrows of the city’s laboring poor.
She did not urge him to sit again, so that Sebastian found himself wondering with some amusement if she’d been lurking outside the drawing room door, ready to rush in and put an end to any conversation that threatened to stray into unwanted channels.
“You must come see us again, with Lady Devlin,” she said, her laced fingers coming up to rest charmingly against her chin, her gentle smile never slipping.
The thought of the two women together—Hero with her forthright, radical principles and Louisa Hope with her self-satisfied, sanctimonious moralizing—threatened to overset Sebastian’s gravity. He reached for his hat. “I will, yes. In the meantime, I won’t intrude on you any longer.” He bowed again. “Servant, Mrs. Hope. Don’t bother ringing; I can see myself out.”
“I’ll walk with you to the door,” said Hope, as if vaguely embarrassed by his wife’s maneuvers. “You really must come back with Lady Devlin and see the rest of the house. I’m doing each room in the style of a different country, one for each of the various places I’ve visited.”
They descended the grand wide staircase, their footsteps echoing as if in a vault. Sebastian said, “If Eisler were trying to sell a large blue diamond, where do you think it might have come from?”
Hope paused at the base of the stairs, his mouth puckering as if it were a necessary prelude to thought. “Hmm. Difficult to say, really. The provenance of so many of these large specimens is . . . well, shall we say shaky at best?”
“You’re not familiar with such a gem?”
“I am not, no. But then, as I said, my brother is the family’s amateur lapidary. He might have heard of such a piece. Unfortunately, he’s in the country at the moment.” Hope nodded to the butler, who moved to open the front door.
“When was the last time you saw Eisler?”
“Good heavens, I’m not certain I can answer that. It’s been some time, though; that I do know.”
“Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to kill him?”
Thomas Hope’s rubbery lips twisted. “Russell Yates, from what the papers tell us. Dreadfully bad ton, that man. I always thought he’d make a sorry end.”
The butler stood, wooden, beside the still open door. A wind had kicked up, sending a loose handbill down the street and carrying the sharp, biting promise of more rain.
“They haven’t hanged him yet,” said Sebastian.
“No, but they will soon enough.”
A man’s ringing laughter sounded on the footpath outside, his voice cultured but tinged with a vague Irish lilt as he said, “The devil fly away with you, Tyson! I tell you, the horse is sound—as sound as the Bank of England.”
Another man answered, his tones those of Hereford and Eton rather than Irish, and so familiar that Sebastian found himself stiffening.
“This is supposed to reassure me, is it?”
Sebastian could see him now. Tall and broad shouldered, the man filled the doorway. He was half-turned, still looking back at the unseen Irishman on the footpath below him. In his mid-twenties, he wore the typical rig of a town beau: dark blue, carefully tailored coat by Schultz, boots by Hobbs, hat by Lock. But his powerful build and military bearing told their own story. He turned, still smiling as he reached the top step. Then his gaze fell on Sebastian, and