C Harris - When maidens mourn

`Something that's done and more undone,' he quoted softly. `Are only the dead so bold?'

Hero shook her head, not understanding. `What?'

`It's from a poem George Tennyson wrote. He showed it to her. Does it mean anything to you?'

She read through the short stanza. `No. But George was always writing disjointed scraps of poetry like that. I doubt it means anything.'

`I'm told the boy's father has been ill for a long time. Do you have any idea with what?'

`No. But then, I don't know that much about Miss Tennyson's family. Her parents died before I knew her. Her brother is a pleasant enough chap, although rather typically preoccupied with his legal practice. He has a small estate down in Kent, which is where he is now. It has always been my understanding that he and Gabrielle were comfortably situated, although no more than that. Yet I believe there may be substantial wealth elsewhere in the family. Recent wealth.'

`Good God,' said Sebastian. `Was Miss Tennyson in some way related to Charles Tennyson d'Eyncourt?'

`I believe they are first cousins. You know him?'

`He was several years behind me at Eton.'

His tone betrayed more than he'd intended it to. She smiled. `And you consider him a pretentious, toadying a...' She broke off to cast a rueful glance at the wooden faces of the waiting servants.

`Bore?' he suggested helpfully.

`That too.'

For one unexpectedly intimate moment, their gazes met and they shared a private smile. Then Sebastian felt his smile begin to fade.

For the past fifteen months, d'Eyncourt had served as a member of Parliament from Lincolnshire. A fiercely reactionary Tory, he had quickly managed to ingratiate himself with the block of parliamentarians controlled by Hero's own father, Lord Jarvis.

Sebastian said, `Why do I keep getting the distinct impression there's something you're not telling me?'

She took his offered hand and climbed the step into the waiting carriage. `Would I do that?' she asked.

`Yes.'

She gave a throaty chuckle and gracefully disposed the skirts of her dusky blue walking dress around her on the seat. `Will you tell the coachman to take me home, please?'

`Are you going home?'

`Are you?'

Smiling softly, he closed the door and nodded to the driver. He stood for a moment and watched as her carriage rounded the corner onto Tottenham Court. Then he went in search of the pretentious toadying bore who called himself Tennyson d'Eyncourt.

Charles Tennyson d'Eyncourt was lounging comfortably in one of the leather tub chairs in the reading room of White's when Sebastian walked up to him.

The MP was considerably fairer than his cousin Gabrielle, slim and gracefully formed, with delicate features and high cheekbones and lips so thin as to appear nearly nonexistent. He had a glass of brandy on the table at his elbow and the latest copy of the conservative journal The Courier spread open before him. He glanced up, briefly, when Sebastian settled in the seat opposite him, then pointedly returned his attention to his reading.

`My condolences on the death of your cousin, Miss Gabrielle Tennyson,' said Sebastian.

`I take it Bow Street has involved you in the investigation of this unfortunate incident, have they?' asked d'Eyncourt without looking up again.

`If by unfortunate incident you mean the murder of Miss Tennyson and the disappearance of the young children in her care, then the answer is yes.'

D'Eyncourt reached, deliberately, for his brandy, took a sip, and returned to his journal.

`I'm curious,' said Sebastian, signaling a passing waiter for a drink. `How close is the relationship between you and Miss Tennyson?'

`We are or I suppose I should say were first cousins.'

`So the two missing boys are?'

`My nephews.'

`Your brother's sons?'

`That is correct.'

`I must confess that, under the circumstances, I am rather surprised to find you lounging in your club calmly reading a journal.'

D'Eyncourt looked up at that, his thin nose quivering.

`Indeed? And what would you have me do instead, I wonder? Go charging into the countryside to thrash the underbrush of Enfield Chase like a beater hoping to flush game?'

`You think that's where the children are liable to be found? At Camlet Moat?'

`How the devil would I know?' snapped d'Eyncourt and returned once more to his reading.

Sebastian studied the other man's pinched profile. He couldn't recall many of the younger boys at Eton, but Sebastian remembered d'Eyncourt. As a lad, d'Eyncourt had been one of those ostentatiously earnest scholars who combined shameless toadying with nauseating displays of false enthusiasm to curry favor with the dons. But to his fellow students he was ruthless and vindictive, and quickly acquired a well-deserved reputation as someone who would do anything and say anything to get what he wanted.

In those days he'd simply been called Tennyson, the same as his cousin and missing nephews. But several years ago he had successfully petitioned the Home Secretary to have his name changed to the more aristocratic d'Eyncourt, the extinct patronym of one of his mother's ancestors, to which his claims were, to say the least, dubious. It was well-known that his ambition was to be made Lord d'Eyncourt before he was forty.

`You seem oddly unconcerned about their fates,' said Sebastian.

`It is the stuff of tragedy, to be sure. However, none of it alters the fact that my brother and I have never been close. His life is narrowly focused on his benefices in Somersby, whereas I live most of the year in London, where I take my duties at Parliament very seriously indeed. I doubt I would recognize his children if I passed them in the street.'

`Is that why they've been staying with Miss Tennyson, their cousin, rather than with you, their uncle?'

D'Eyncourt sniffed. `My wife is not fond of London and chooses to remain in Lincolnshire. I do currently have my sister Mary with me, but I could hardly ask her to undertake the management of two wild, poorly brought-up boys, now, could I?'

`Are they wild and poorly bought up?'

`They could hardly be otherwise, given their parentage.'

`Really?' Sebastian settled more comfortably in his seat. `Tell me about the boys father, your brother. I hear he's not well. Nothing serious, I hope?'

A curious hint of color touched the other man's high cheekbones. `I fear my brother's health has never been particularly robust.'

`Can you think of anyone who might benefit from the death or disappearance of his sons?'

`Good heavens; what a ridiculous notion! I told you: My brother is a rector. He holds two livings, which together provide him with a respectable income. But he has always been a hopeless spendthrift, and the foolish woman he married is even worse, with the result that my father is forever being forced to tow them out of the river tick.'

D'Eyncourt's father was a notorious figure known irreverently as the Old Man of the Wolds, thanks to his extensive landholdings in the Wolds, an area of hills and wide-open valleys in the northeast of England. His fortune, while of recent origins, was reportedly huge, deriving largely from a series of astute land purchases and the old man's ruthless manipulation of anyone unfortunate enough to drift into his orbit.

Sebastian said, `You are your father's sole heir?'

D'Eyncourt's thin nostrils flared with indignation. `I am. And may I take leave to tell you that I resent the inference inherent in that question? I resent it very much.'

`Oh, you have my leave to tell me anything you wish,' said Sebastian, stretching to his feet. `Just one more question: Can you think of anyone who might have wished Miss Tennyson harm?'

D'Eyncourt opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it and shook his head.