C Harris - When maidens mourn

`I do, yes. Why?'

`Something's been bothering me.'

Sebastian found Hero sipping a hot cup of tea in the drawing room. She wore a sarcenet walking dress and her hair was damp, as if she had just come in out of the rain. He set a brown paper wrapped bundle on the table beside her and said, `I'm beginning to think it's more and more likely that Gabrielle Tennyson was actually murdered in London and then taken up to Camlet Moat.'

Hero looked at him over the rim of her cup. `I thought Gibson said there was no evidence that she'd been moved after death.'

`He did. But just because he found no evidence of it doesn't mean it didn't happen.' He untied the string holding the bundle together. `This is what Gabrielle was wearing when she was killed. Is it the sort of thing she would be likely to put on to go up to Enfield?'

She reached out to touch one of the gown's short puffed sleeves, a quiver passing over her features as she studied the bloodstained tear in the bodice. `The material is delicate, but it is a walking dress, just the sort of thing a woman might wear for a stroll in the country, yes.' She turned over the froth of petticoats to look at the peach half boots. Then she frowned.

`What is it?' asked Sebastian, watching her.

`Is this everything?'

`Yes. Why?'

`She had a pretty peach spencer with ruched facings and a stand-up collar I would have expected her to be wearing with this. Only, it isn't here.'

`Sunday was quite hot. She might have left the spencer in the carriage. The shade in the wood is certainly dense enough that she wouldn't have needed to worry about protecting her arms from the sun.'

`True. But I wouldn't have expected her to take off her bonnet, as well. She had a lovely peach silk and velvet bonnet she would have worn to pick up the color of the sash and these half boots. And it's not here, either.'

`Would you recognize the spencer and bonnet if you found them in her dressing chamber?'

Hero met his gaze. Then she set aside her tea and rose to her feet. `I'll get my cloak.'

`Hildeyard could have already directed Gabrielle's abigail to dispose of her clothes,' said Hero as they drove through the rain, toward the river.

`I doubt it. His energy has been focused on the search for the missing children. And even if he did, the woman will surely remember what was there.'

Hero was silent for a moment, her gaze on the wet streets.

`If you're right, and Gabrielle was killed here in London, then what do you think happened to the children?'

`I'd like to think they're in the city someplace, hiding - that they ran away in fear after witnessing the murder. But if that were true, I think they'd have been found by now.'

She turned to look at him. `You think it's d'Eyncourt, don't you? You think he killed George and Alfred over the inheritance and hid their bodies someplace they'll never be found. And then he drove Gabrielle up to Camlet Moat to make it look as if her death were somehow connected to the excavations or her work on the Arthurian legends.'

Sebastian nodded. `I keep going back to the way he was just sitting there, calmly reading The Courier in White's. What kind of man wouldn't be out doing everything he could to search for his own brother's children? He's either more despicable than I thought, or...'

`Or he knew they were already dead,' said Hero, finishing the thought for him.

They arrived at the Adelphi to find Hildeyard Tennyson still up at Enfield.

Rather than attempt to explain their mission to the servants, Hero claimed to have forgotten something during her previous visit and ran up the stairs to Gabrielle's room, while Sebastian asked to see the housekeeper and returned George Tennyson's poem to her.

`Oh, your lordship, I'm ever so grateful for this,' said Mrs. O'Donnell, tearfully clasping the paper to her ample bosom. `I thought sure you must've forgotten it, but I didn't feel right asking you for it.'

`My apologies for keeping it so long,' said Sebastian with a bow.

Looking up, he saw Hero descending the stairs. Their gazes met. He bowed to Mrs. O'Donnell again and said, `Ma'am.'

He waited until he and Hero were back out on the pavement before saying, `Well?'

Hero was looking oddly flushed. `All her things are still there; Hildeyard obviously hasn't had the will to touch any of it yet. I found the spencer and bonnet immediately. In fact, it looked as if Gabrielle had worn them to church that morning and hadn't put them away properly because she was planning to wear them again.'

The mist swirled around them, thickening so fast he could barely see the purple skirt and yellow kerchief of the old Gypsy fortune-teller at the end of the terrace. Sebastian said, `Well, we can eliminate Sir Stanley from the list of suspects; he would never have taken Gabrielle's body to the one place certain to cast suspicion on him. And while I wouldn't put it beyond Lady Winthrop to cheerfully watch her husband hang for a murder she herself committed, the logistics...' He broke off.

`What?' asked Hero, her gaze following his.

Today the Gypsy had a couple of ragged, barefoot children playing around her skirts: a girl of perhaps five and a boy a few years older.

`That Gypsy woman. I noticed her here on Monday. If she was here last Sunday as well, she might have seen something.'

`The constables questioned everyone on the street,' said Hero as Sebastian turned their steps toward the Gypsies. `Surely they would have spoken to her already.'

`I've no doubt they did. But you can ask a Rom the same question ten times and get ten different answers.'

The Gypsy children came running up to them, bare feet pattering on the wet pavement, hands outstretched, eyes wide and pleading. `Please, sir, lady; can you spare a sixpence? Only a sixpence! Please, please.'

`Go away,' said Hero.

The boy fixed Hero with a fierce scowl as his wheedling turned belligerent and demanding. `You must give us a sixpence. Give us a sixpence or I will put a curse on you.'

`Don't give it to them,' said Sebastian. `They'll despise you for it.'

`I have no intention of giving them anything.' Hero tightened her grip on her reticule. `Nor do I see why we are bothering with this Gypsy woman. If she lied to the constables, what makes you think she will tell you the truth?'

`The Rom have a saying: Tshatshimo Romano.'

Hero threw him a puzzled look. `What does that mean?'

`It means, The truth is expressed in Romany.'

`Sarishan ryor,' Sebastian said, walking up to the fortune-teller.

The Gypsy leaned against the terrace's iron railing, her purple skirt and loose blouse ragged and tattered, her erect carriage belied by the dark, weathered skin of a face etched deep with lines. Her lips pursed, her eyes narrowing as her gaze traveled over him, silent and assessing.

`O boro duvel atch pa leste,' he said, trying again.

She snorted and responded to him in the same tongue. `Where did you learn your Romany?'

`Iberia.'

`I should have known.' She turned her head and spat. `The Gitanos. They have forgotten the true language of the ancients.' She eyed him thoughtfully, noting his dark hair.

`You could be Rom. You have something of the look about you. Except for the eyes. You have the eyes of a wolf. Or a jettatore.' She touched the blue and white charm tied around her neck by a leather strap. It was a nazar, a talisman worn to ward off the evil eye.

Sebastian was aware of Hero watching them, her face carefully wiped free of all expression. The entire conversation was taking place in Romany.

He said to the Gypsy, `I want to ask you about the lady who used to live in the second house from the corner. A tall young woman, with hair the color of chestnuts.'

`You mean the one who is no more.'