C Harris: Where Shadows Dance

A small, slim man with even features, Calhoun was a genius of a valet, uncomplainingly cheerful and skilled in all manner of refined arts. And since he had begun life in one of London’s most notorious flash houses, some of his more unusual talents were of considerable use to a gentleman who had made solving murders his life’s passion.

Calhoun picked up Sebastian’s discarded coat and sniffed. The faint but unmistakable odor of decay lingered. “I take it Mr. Ross has been murdered?”

“By a stiletto thrust to the base of his skull.”

“Unusual,” said Calhoun.

“Very. Unfortunately, the world believes he died peacefully in his sleep, so this one’s going to be rather delicate.”

Calhoun handed Sebastian a fresh cravat and bowed. “I shall be the model of discretion.”

Lifting his chin, Sebastian looped the cravat around his neck and grunted.

Calhoun cleared his throat. “About the other matter you asked me to look into ...”

Sebastian felt an unpleasant sensation pull across his chest. He ignored it. “Yes?”

“I have it on excellent authority that Miss Hero Jarvis will be patronizing the opening of the New Steam Circus north of Bloomsbury this morning.”

“The what?”

“The New Steam Circus, my lord. It’s an exhibition of Mr. Trevithick’s latest steam locomotive. I believe the gate opens at eleven o’clock.”

“I should be back before then. Have Tom bring my curricle around at a quarter till.” Sebastian adjusted his cuffs. “Tell, me: How, precisely, did you discover this?”

“Miss Jarvis’s maid, my lord,” said Calhoun, holding up a fresh coat of navy Bath cloth.

Sebastian eased the coat up over his shoulders. “Did you woo her, or bribe her?”

“Pure filthy lucre, my lord.”

Sebastian frowned. “That’s not good.”

“I thought the same, my lord. I mean, there’s not many who’ve my way with the ladies, if I do say so myself. But that woman’ll talk to anyone who’s willing to pay her price.”

Charles, Lord Jarvis, stood beside the window of the chambers set aside for his exclusive use in Carlton House, his gaze on the palace forecourt below.

Since old King George had slipped irrevocably into madness some eighteen months before, the center of authority in London had shifted away from the ancient brick courtyards of St. James’s Palace to this, the extravagantly refurbished London residence of the Prince of Wales. And Jarvis—cousin to the King, brilliant, ruthless, and utterly dedicated to the preservation of the House of Hanover—had emerged even more prominently as the acknowledged power behind Prinny’s weak Regency.

In his late fifties now, Jarvis was a big man, both tall and fleshy. Despite his heavy jowls and aquiline nose, he was still handsome, with a wide mouth that could smile in unexpected brilliance. It was a gift he used often, both to cajole and to deceive.

“I tell you, it’s madness,” grumbled the Earl of Hendon, one of two men who had come here, to Jarvis’s chambers, to discuss the current state of affairs on the Continent.

Jarvis glanced over at Hendon but kept his own counsel. He’d long ago learned the power that comes from listening while other men talk.

“It’s far from madness,” said the second gentleman, Sir Hyde Foley, Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs. “Our troops under Wellington are making rapid progress in Spain. At the rate they’re going, we could be in Madrid by the middle of next month. And do you know why? Because Napoléon in his arrogance has now attacked Russia and is, as we speak, advancing on Moscow. How is it madness to send British troops to aid the Czar’s defenses?”

“It’s madness for the same reason that Napoléon’s invasion of Russia is madness,” said Hendon, his face dark with emotion. Chancellor of the Exchequer under two different prime ministers, he was a sturdily built, barrel-chested man in his late sixties, with a shock of white hair and the brilliant blue eyes that were the hallmark of his family, the St. Cyrs. “We simply don’t have the manpower to fight the French in Spain and in Russia, defend India, and still protect Canada should the Americans decide to attack us there.”

Foley made a deprecating sound. A wiry man in his midthirties, with dark hair and a narrow, sharp-boned face, the Undersecretary was proving to be a capable—and formidable—force in the Foreign Office. “The Americans have been threatening to attack us anytime these last four years. It hasn’t happened. Why should it happen now, when we’ve revoked the Orders in Council they found so odious?”

“Because the bloody upstarts want Canada, that’s why! They have some crazy idea that God has given them the right to expand across the whole of the Continent, from the North Pole to the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.”

Foley threw back his head and laughed. “Those rustics?”

Hendon’s cheeks grew darker still. “Mark my words if they don’t do it—or try to.”

“Gentlemen,” said Jarvis softly. “These arguments are premature. Discussions with the Czar’s representatives are still at the preliminary stage.”

It was a lie, of course. The negotiations with the Russians had been nearly complete for more than a week. Only Hendon’s continuous, vociferous objections had prevented their finalization.

“Just so,” said Hendon. He glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantel. “Now you must excuse me. I have a meeting with Liverpool in a quarter of an hour.”

“Of course,” said Jarvis, at his most gracious. He paused, then added with feigned concern, “I was grieved to hear that an unfortunate estrangement appears to have arisen between you and your son, Viscount Devlin.”

Hendon’s jaw hardened. “No.”

“Indeed?” Jarvis reached for his snuffbox. “Then I must have been misinformed. You relieve me, my lord.”

Hendon bowed politely to first Jarvis, then Foley. “Good day, gentlemen.”

After Hendon had gone, Foley came to stand beside Jarvis, his gaze, like Jarvis’s, on the scene below. As they watched, the Earl of Hendon emerged from the palace and walked rapidly across the paved forecourt.

“He doesn’t know?” said Foley.

“He suspects.”

“You think he may be a problem?”

“He may.” Jarvis raised a delicate pinch of snuff to his nostril and sniffed. “But don’t worry. I can deal with him.”

The coffeehouse known as Je Reviens occupied the ground floor of a gracefully proportioned sandstone-faced building of four stories on the western side of St. James’s Street. Through the coffeehouse’s elegant oriel window, Sebastian could see a paneled room crowded with cloth-covered tables and chairs filled even at this early hour with men drinking coffee or chocolate. It was an animated scene, the muted roar of the men’s voices and laughter spilling into the street as they passionately discussed everything from the latest horse race to Napoléon’s invasion of Russia and the new threats of war from the United States.

He stood for a time on the footpath, breathing in the scent of freshly roasted coffee and watching quietly. Beside the door to the coffeehouse stood a second door. Pushing it open, he found himself in a well-scrubbed hall containing a steep, straight staircase that swept up to the rooms above. The stairs were of marble, uncarpeted. As Sebastian climbed to the first floor, his footsteps echoed hollowly.

Since he had no knowledge of which rooms had once belonged to Alexander Ross, he knocked at both doors on the first floor. From behind the panels to his right came a surly male voice slurred with sleep. “ Go away. You’ll get your money next week, I said!”

The second door was opened by a middle-aged housemaid with an enormous bosom and a crown of curly, fiery red hair inadequately restrained by a freshly starched mobcap. “Mr. Ross?” she said in a rasping Scottish brogue, in answer to Sebastian’s question. “Ach, no; it’s old Mrs. Blume what lives here, sir. Ye’ll be wanting the forward rooms upstairs.” She jerked her head toward the staircase and leaned closer to add, “Only, ye won’t find him at home, I’m afraid. Died in his sleep just last Saturday, he did.”