C Harris - When maidens mourn

Sebastian said, `Perhaps she came up to look around by herself.'

Lovejoy frowned. `Yes, I suppose that's possible. She may well have surprised some trespasser, and in a panic, he killed her.'

`And then stole her carriage and kidnapped her coachman?'

Lovejoy pulled a face. `There is that.'

Sebastian adjusted the tilt of his beaver hat. `Her brother is still out of town?'

Lovejoy nodded. `We've sent word to his estate, but I doubt he'll make it back to London before nightfall at the earliest.'

`Then I think I'll start with Sir Stanley Winthrop,' said Sebastian, and turned back toward his curricle.

Lovejoy fell into step beside him. `Does this mean you're willing to assist Bow Street with the case?'

`Did you honestly think I would not?'

Sir Henry gave one of his rare half smiles, tucked his chin against his chest, and shook his head.

`There you are, Jarvis,' exclaimed the Prince Regent, his face flushed, his voice rising in a petulant whine as he clenched a sheet of cheap, ink-smeared paper in his fist. `Look at this!' He thumped the offending broadsheet with one plump, beringed hand. 'Just look at it.'

His Royal Highness George, Prince Regent of Great Britain and Ireland, lay beside the fireplace in his dressing room, his heavy legs draped off the edge of a gilt fainting couch contrived in the shape of a crocodile upholstered in scarlet velvet. Despite the heat of the day, a fire burned brightly on the hearth, for the Prince had a morbid fear of taking chill.

Having been stricken while still in the midst of his toilet, he wore only a pair of exquisitely fitted yellow unmentionables and a shirt ruffled with an extravagant cascade of lace. It was a style of linen that belonged more to the previous century, but the Prince still occasionally indulged his taste for it, perhaps because it reminded him of the golden years of his youth, when he'd been handsome and carefree and beloved by his people. These days, he needed a corset to contain his ever-increasing girth, the people who'd once cheered him now booed him openly in the streets, and shadowy radicals published seditious broadsheets bemoaning the lost days of Camelot and calling for King Arthur to return from the mists of Avalon and save Britain from the benighted rule of the House of Hanover.

So great had been the Prince's distress at the reading of this particular broadsheet that his valet had sent for the Prince's doctor. The doctor, in turn, took one look at the offending verbiage and requested the attendance of the Prince's powerful and infinitely wise cousin, Charles, Lord Jarvis.

`Calm yourself, Your Highness,' said Jarvis, catching the eye of the Prince's doctor, who stood nearby. The doctor nodded discreetly and turned away.

`But have you seen this?' wailed the Prince.

`They want Arthur to come back and get rid of me!'

Jarvis carefully loosed the broadsheet from the Regent's clutches. `I have seen it, Your Highness.' Personally, Jarvis suspected the caricature accompanying the tract which portrayed George as a grossly fat, drunken, overdressed buffoon with the ears of an ass offended the Prince more than anything. But it was the implications of the appeal for Arthur's messianic return that concerned Jarvis. Whoever is responsible for this will be dealt with.

The Prince's valet and doctor exchanged quick, furtive glances, then looked away. There was a reason Jarvis was feared from one end of the Kingdom to the other. His network of spies and informants gave him an eerie omnipotence, while those he dealt with were seldom seen again.

The doctor stepped forward with a glass of cloudy liquid on a silver tray. `Here, Your Highness; drink this. You'll feel much better.'

`Who gave this broadsheet to the Prince?' Jarvis demanded in a harsh whisper to the Prince's valet as His Highness obediently gulped the doctor's brew.

The valet's plump, sweat-sheened face went pasty white.

`I've no notion, my lord. In truth, I do not know!'

Frowning, Jarvis tucked the seditious literature into his coat and bowed himself out of the royal presence.

He was crossing the anteroom of the Prince's chambers when a pimply, half-grown page sidled up to him and bowed low, his mouth opening and closing as he struggled to speak. But all he succeeded in doing was pushing out a series of incoherent squeaks.

`For God s sake, boy, out with it,' snapped Jarvis. `As it happens I've already eaten, so you needn't fear I'll have you for breakfast.'

The boy's eyes bulged.

Jarvis suppressed a sigh. `Your message; say it.'

The boy swallowed and tried again, the words tumbling out in a rush. `It's your daughter, my lord. Miss J... I mean, Lady Devlin. She desired me to tell you that she wishes to speak with you, my lord. She awaits you in your chambers.'

No man in England was more powerful than Jarvis. His kinship with the King might be distant, but without Jarvis's ruthless brilliance and steady wisdom, the House of Hanover would have fallen long ago and the Hanovers knew it. Jarvis had dedicated his life to the preservation of the monarchy and the global extension of the might of England. Another man might have insisted on being named prime minister in return for his services. But Jarvis preferred to exercise his power from the shadows, unconstrained by either tradition or law. Prime ministers came and went.

Jarvis remained.

He found his daughter standing at the long window of the chambers reserved for his exclusive use overlooking Pall Mall. Once, Jarvis had possessed a son, an idealistic dreamer named David. But David had been lost years before to a watery grave. Now there was only Hero: brilliant, strong willed, and nearly as ruthless and enigmatic as Jarvis himself.

She wore a walking dress of dusky blue trimmed with moss green piping, and a jaunty hat with a broad brim turned up on one side and held in place with a silk posy. The sunlight streaming through the paned glass bathed her in a warm golden glow and touched her cheeks with color.

`You're looking good,' he said, closing the door behind him. `Marriage seems to agree with you.'

She turned to face him. `You're surprised?'

Rather than answer, he crossed the room to where a candlestick stood on a table beside a wing-back chair. The relationship between father and daughter had always been complicated. They were much alike, which meant she understood him as few others did. But that was not to say that she knew everything there was to know about him.

`What brings you here?' he asked, his attention seemingly all for the task of lighting the candle. He was aware of an air of constraint between them, for her recent marriage to Devlin had introduced a new element and subtly shifted the dynamic in a way neither had yet to confront or reveal.

`What makes you think I came for a purpose other than to see you?'

`Because if this were a gesture of familial affection, you wouldn't be at Carlton House. You would have come to Berkeley Square. Your mother is well, by the way, or perhaps I should say she is as well as she ever is. She's quite taken with the new companion you found for her.'

Refusing to be distracted, Hero said, `Gabrielle Tennyson was discovered murdered this morning, at Camlet Moat.' When he kept silent, she said, `You knew?'

He watched the wick of the candle catch, flare up bright. `There is little that happens in this Kingdom that I do not know about.'

`There is also little that happens in this Kingdom that you don't control.'

He glanced over at her. She stood with her back to the window, her hands curled so that her palms rested on the sill. Through the glass behind her he could see a heavy traffic of carriages, carts, and horses streaming up and down the Mall. He said, `Are you asking if I had her killed?'