C Harris - Where Shadows Dance

Hero would need to find a companion for her mother, someone capable of both overseeing the household and sheltering her ladyship from the worst of her husband’s venom. Jarvis did not suffer fools lightly, and Lady Jarvis’s mental stability was always at best precarious. Hero was running a list of possible candidates through her head when the butler appeared bearing a sealed missive on a silver tray.

“A message from Lord Devlin, Miss Jarvis,” he said with a bow, his face impassive.

“Thank you, Grisham.” She set aside her pen but waited until the butler had withdrawn before breaking the seal and spreading open the single, folded sheet. The message was brief and to the point.

Brook Street, 24 July

I have made arrangements with Canterbury for the ceremony to be held at eleven o’clock Thursday morning, in the Lambeth Palace chapel. Pls advise if this is convenient.

The signature was a simple, scrawled Devlin .

She sat for a time, conscious of an uncharacteristic disquiet yawning deep within her. It was one thing, she’d discovered, to analyze the various unpleasant options available to one and choose what appeared to be the most reasonable course of action. But it was something else entirely to find oneself actually catapulting toward that fate.

Especially when that fate was marriage to a man like Devlin.

Resolutely refusing to allow herself to dwell on all such a marriage would involve, she dipped her pen in the ink and scrawled a simple, three-word answer.

It is convenient.

She sealed the note and entrusted its delivery to one of the footmen. Then she went in search of her mother.

The ancient, well-worn paving of Westminster Hall bustled with self-important clusters of barristers and judges in wigs and gowns, who pushed their way through the motley crowds gathered around the stalls of the sempstresses and milliners, law stationers and old booksellers, who lined the entrance of the vast, soaring hall.

A few discreet questions brought Sebastian to a stall halfway down the eastern row, where a thin, middle-aged man dressed in gently worn buckskin breeches, a ruffled shirt, and an old-fashioned green velvet coat stared with thoughtful concentration at a slim volume bound in battered brown leather and marbled paper. He had a sallow complexion and wispy, strawcolored hair he wore cropped short, which had the unfortunate effect of accentuating his unnaturally long neck and small head.

“Monsieur de La Rocque?” asked Sebastian, walking up to him.

The Frenchman turned to give Sebastian an intense, unexpectedly hostile look. He had pale blue eyes and a narrow face, his nose high arched and long. “That’s right,” he said. “And you are ... Devlin, no?”

“I am.”

De La Rocque held up the volume and said in French, “An early copy of Newton’s Method of Fluxions , from the library collected at the Château de Cirey by Voltaire and his mistress, the Marquise du Châtelet. Here it sits, at the stall of some ignorant secondhand book dealer on the banks of the Thames. Bizarre, no?”

“Will you buy it?” asked Sebastian, answering in the same language.

De La Rocque tucked the book back into its row of tattered old volumes and switched to English. “If it is still here tomorrow, perhaps.”

They turned to walk together beneath the soaring medieval windows. Sebastian said, “I understand you trained as a priest.”

De La Rocque gave a faint, polite smile. “Under the ancien régime there were but two careers open to a nobleman’s son: the sword and the church. My three older brothers chose the Army. I was the bookish one, which meant I was consigned to the Jesuits at the tender age of seven. If things had worked out differently, I would have been a bishop by the age of thirty. Now—” He spread his arms wide, taking in the stalls displaying ribbons and gloves, the maids buying white scarves, the law students with their pale complexions and shiny coats, then dropped his hands back to his sides. “Behold my noble see.”

“And would you have enjoyed being a bishop?”

Rather than answering, he simply smiled and let his gaze drift away. “As flattering as your visit is, Monsieur le Vicomte, I’m afraid I can’t help but wonder why you have sought me out.”

“I’m told you were acquainted with Alexander Ross.”

“I was. But I fail to see—” The man’s eyes suddenly widened, his lips puckering as he chewed distractedly at the inside of his cheek. “Mon Dieu. Ross was murdered? Is that it?”

“You obviously find the possibility somewhat disturbing,” said Sebastian. “Why?”

“It is a natural reaction, is it not? To be troubled when one learns of the murder of a friend.”

“Was Alexander Ross a friend?”

“Of a sort.”

“And what sort was that?”

“Ross had a burgeoning interest in rare and old books.”

Sebastian studied the other man’s small, narrow face. There’d been a few books on Ross’s shelves, but none of them had struck Sebastian as particularly old or rare. “He did?”

“Mmm. From time to time I came into possession of a choice volume that interested him.”

“Any kind of books in particular?”

“Many of my books come out of France. With the dissolution of the monasteries there, countless volumes of astonishing antiquity have been thrown on the market.”

“In France.”

De La Rocque laughed. “Yes, well ... there are ways, you know.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

De La Rocque shrugged. “Last week sometime, I suppose. Wednesday or Thursday, perhaps?”

“Not Saturday night?”

De La Rocque frowned as if with thought, then shook his head. “No. It was earlier. Wednesday. Yes, definitely Wednesday.”

“Interesting. You see, I spoke to someone who rather thought they saw you leaving Ross’s rooms last Saturday night.”

It was a lie, of course. But it was curious to watch the Frenchman’s reaction. Rather than appearing alarmed or angered at the possibility he might have been observed, he merely shrugged and said, “Saturday? No. Whoever told you that was mistaken.”

“But you did sometimes visit Ross at his rooms?”

“From time to time.”

“Any idea who some of his other sources of old books might have been?”

The Frenchman shook his head. “Sorry. No.”

“How familiar were you with some of Ross’s other activities?”

The Frenchman looked confused. “Other activities?”

“I think you know what I’m talking about.”

De La Rocque paused at the top of the steps, his gaze on the crowded, noisy square below. “There is a diplomatic revolution under way in Europe at the moment,” he said slowly. “The man who is your friend this morning may be your enemy this evening, and vice versa. That was Alexander Ross’s world. If I were you, Monsieur le Vicomte, I would tread carefully. Very carefully, indeed. You are wading into treacherous waters.”

“Is that a threat?”

“A threat?” The Frenchman twisted to face him, the light from the hot summer sun falling across his features. “Mais non . Consider it merely a friendly warning.” He nodded across the square, to where the walls of the Houses of Parliament rose, tall and soot stained. “More than mere lives are at stake here. The fates of kingdoms hang in the balance. Russia. Sweden. Austria. Prussia ... Believe me, nothing is as it seems.”

It all sounded rather grandiose and flamboyant—like de La Rocque himself. Sebastian said, “Who would benefit from the death of Alexander Ross?”

“I suppose that would depend on what Ross knew.”

“About what?”

De La Rocque’s eyes narrowed with his smile. “Ah. But if I knew that, then I too would be at risk. And believe me, Monsieur le Viscomte, I am a man who believes in minimizing risks.”