C Harris - When maidens mourn

`If you were an injured dog,' he said to Tom, `where would you go?'

The tiger screwed up his face with the labor of thought, his gaze, like Sebastian's, studying the rain-drenched riverbank. After a moment, he said, `Ain't we just downriver from the Adelphi?'

`We are.'

`Well, if that Frenchy lieutenant used to 'ang around Miss Tennyson and them two boys, then I reckon maybe 'is little dog'd go there if 'e could make it that far. Plenty o' places to 'ide in them vaults under the terrace.'

Sebastian reached for the ham. `Tom, you are a genius.'

Ignoring the curious stares and ribald comments that followed him, Sebastian plunged deep into the dank, shadowy subterranean world of the Adelphi.

`Chien,' he called, unwrapping the ham. `À moi, Chien. Chien?'

He tromped through the warehouses of the wine merchants, their owners angry shouts and threats following him; he scrambled over dusty coal piles and penetrated deep into the dank recesses of the wharf's vast stables.

`Chien?'

He stood with one hand on his hip, watched the dust motes drift lazily in the gloom, breathed in the odor of manure and moldy hay.

`Chien!' he bellowed, his voice echoing through the cavernous, high-vaulted space.

Blowing out a long, frustrated breath, he turned to leave...

And heard a faint, plaintive whimper.

`Can you help him?' Sebastian asked.

Paul Gibson stared down at the dog that lay stretched out and panting on the table in the front room of his surgery. `Well, I don't suppose dogs are that much different from people, when it comes right down to it.' He probed the bloody wound in the dog's shoulder with gentle fingers and frowned. `Leave him with me. I'll see what I can do.'

`Thank you,' said Sebastian, turning toward the door.

`But if word of this ever reaches my esteemed colleagues at St. Thomas's,' Gibson called after him, `I'll never forgive you.'

The ancient, soot-stained church of St. Helen's Bishopsgate squatted like a ragged wet hen in the midst of its swollen graveyard.

Wearing a plain cloak with the hood drawn up against the drizzle, Hero wandered amongst the overgrown churchyard's gray, lichen-covered headstones and broken tombs, her gaze narrowing as she studied the yard of the gable-ended public house that backed onto the ancient priory grounds. The sky had taken on the color of old lead, the leafy boughs of the elms overhead hanging heavy with the weight of the day's rain. She could easily trace the line of the Roman wall that Gabrielle had once come here to examine; it ran from the rear of the churchyard along the inn's court to disappear between the Black Devil and the decrepit structure beside it.

So absorbed was she in her study of the ancient masonry that it was a moment before she became aware of a tall gentleman dressed all in black walking toward her. He wore black trousers tucked into high black boots, a black coat, and a black waistcoat. Only his shirt was white, the high points of his collar standing out stark against the darkness of his cravat. He had the lean, loose-limbed carriage of a soldier and the grace of a born athlete. His hair was dark, darker even than Devlin's, although he had Devlin's high cheekbones and fine facial structure. But it was his eyes that instantly drew and held her attention. And she knew then why Kat Boleyn had warned her away from this man, understood exactly what the actress had been trying to keep her from seeing and guessing.

`I know who you are,' he said, pausing some half a dozen feet before her.

`Then you have the advantage of me.'

He swept her a bow tinged with just a hint of mockery. `I beg your pardon. Please allow me to introduce myself. Mr. Jamie Knox, at your service.'

His accent was not that of a gentleman.

`Ah,' she said noncommittally.

He straightened, his gently molded mouth curving into a smile that did not touch those strange yellow eyes. `Why are you here?'

`What makes you assume I am here for any reason other than to study the architecture and monuments of St. Helen's? Did you know it was once the parish church of William Shakespeare?'

`No. But I don't think you're here because of some long-dead scribbler. Are you spying on us, then?'

`And if I were to do so, would I see anything interesting?'

His smile broadened unexpectedly, a genuine if somewhat sardonic smile, and for a moment he looked so much like Devlin that the resemblance nearly took her breath. He said, `I see you left your carriage up the lane. That was not wise.'

She raised one eyebrow in a deliberately haughty expression.

`Are you threatening me?'

He laughed. `Me? Ach, no. But the neighborhood's not the best. You never know what might happen to a young gentlewoman such as yourself, all alone on a wet, gloomy day such as this.'

She slipped her right hand into the reticule that hung heavily against her. `I am better able to defend myself than you may perhaps realize.'

A gust of wind swelled the canopy of the trees overhead, loosing a cascade of raindrops that pattered on the aged tombstones and rank grass around them.

`That's good to know,' he said, his gaze locked with hers. He took a step back and tipped his head. `Do tell your husband I said hello.'

And he walked away, leaving her staring after him and wondering how he had known who she was when she herself had never seen him before that day.

Sebastian was stripping off his bloody, coal-stained shirt in his dressing room when he heard the distant pounding of the front knocker. Reaching for the pitcher, he splashed hot water into the washbasin.

An angry shout drifted up from the entry hall below, followed by a scuffle and the thump of quick feet on the stairs.

`Sir!' came Morey's outraged cry. `If you will simply wait in the drawing room, I will ascertain if his lordship... Sir!'

Sebastian paused, his head turning just as Charles Tennyson d'Eyncourt, the honorable member from Lincolnshire, came barreling through the dressing room door.

`You bloody interfering bastard,' d'Eyncourt shouted, drawing up abruptly in the center of the room. His face was red from his run up the stairs, his hands curled into fists at his sides, his cravat askew. `This is all your fault. You've ruined me! Do you hear me? You have positively ruined my hopes of having any significant future in government.'

Sebastian nodded to the majordomo hovering in the open doorway.

`It s all right, Morey; I can handle this.'

The majordomo bowed and withdrew.

Sebastian reached for a towel. `Tell me how, precisely, am I supposed to have injured you?' he said to d'Eyncourt.

Gabrielle's cousin stared at him, his nostrils flaring, his chest lifting with his agitated breathing. `It's all over town!'

Sebastian dried his face and ran the towel down over his wet chest. `What is all over town?'

`About Gabrielle and her French lover. This is your fault - you and your damnable insistence on pushing your nose into other people's private affairs. I've been afraid this would come out.'

Sebastian paused for a moment, his head coming up. `You knew about Lieutenant Philippe Arceneaux?'

Suddenly tight-lipped and silent, d'Eyncourt stared back at him.

Sebastian tossed the towel aside. `How? How did you know?'

D'Eyncourt adjusted the set of his lapels. `I saw them together. Indeed, it was my intention to alert Hildeyard to what was happening as soon as he returned to town. Not that anyone ever had much success in curbing Gabrielle's wild starts, but still. What else was one to do?'

`When did you see them together? Where?'

`I fail to comprehend how this is any of your...'

Sebastian advanced on him, the pompous, arrogant, self-satisfied mushroom backing away until his shoulders and rump smacked against the cupboard behind him. `I'm going to ask you one last time: when and where?'