Page 41 of Who Will Remember (Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery #20)
T hat night, Sebastian prowled the exclusive gentlemen’s clubs of St. James’s Street, looking for Archibald Farnsworth, the current Duke of Eversfield.
The evening was cool and misty, the damp air heavy with the scents of roasting meat, spilled ale, and the hot oil from the dim, sputtering streetlamps above. Normally at this time of year, the city’s wealthy and titled retreated to their summer estates. But the wretched weather had driven many members of the Upper Ten Thousand back to Town in search of amusement, and the street was crowded with clusters of well-dressed young men laughing and singing and ogling the perfumed, high-priced barques of frailty who eyed them speculatively. When he drew a blank at White’s, Brooks’s, and two other discreet establishments, Sebastian continued up to Piccadilly, where he found Lord Preston’s congenial older brother playing macao in the cardroom of Watier’s.
The opulently furnished room was thick with tobacco smoke and crowded with hushed onlookers, for the play at Watier’s was notoriously deep, and it had been only a few months since a disastrous run of bad luck at macao had forced the great Beau Brummell himself to flee England to escape his creditors. Propping his shoulders against a nearby wall, Sebastian crossed his arms at his chest and settled in to watch. The Duke was in a rollicking mood, laughingly self-deprecatingly and readily attributing his consistently enormous wins to Lady Luck. But it didn’t take Sebastian long to realize that the Duke was a shrewd, formidable player who was neither as blithe nor as drunk as he chose to appear.
When the Duke drew a natural 9—which meant he received triple the amount of his bet—the other punters groaned, while Eversfield threw up his hands. “What can I say? I keep doing my damnedest to lose, but the cards won’t let me.” He leaned back in his chair with an exaggerated grimace. “And my back keeps reminding me I’m no longer as young as I used to be. If you gentlemen will excuse me?”
He collected his winnings, then walked up to Sebastian and said, “I take it you wanted to see me?”
“Is there someplace we could talk?”
The Duke nodded. “A walk might help clear my head.”
The two men collected their greatcoats, then walked down the club’s short flight of front steps into the wet, coal smoke–scented night. As they turned toward the park, Eversfield said, “Sir Nathaniel Conant tells me they’re about to arrest the man who killed my brother.”
“So I’ve heard,” said Sebastian.
Something in his voice brought the Duke’s eyebrows together in a frown. “I take it you don’t agree with Bow Street’s conclusions?”
“I don’t, actually.”
The Duke nodded. “To be honest, I have my own reservations. I’ve known Hugh Chandler since he was a young lad—his grandfather’s estate touched ours at one point, you know. And while there’s no doubt war can change a man, there are surely limits. I mean, I could see Hugh calling Preston out and blowing a hole through his head. But bashing in his skull with a club and hanging him upside down like a side of beef? Nah. I don’t buy it.”
“I’m told your brother was thinking about getting married again. Do you know anything about that?”
The Duke coughed in embarrassment and looked away. “Well, yes—although I only learned of it because I happened to see Preston one day when he’d just found out how much it would cost to shepherd a bill of divorce through Parliament. Shockingly expensive, you know, and Preston always did sail too close to the wind. Threw him into a rage.”
“When was this?”
“That he was ranting on about it? Some weeks ago now. Don’t recall exactly.”
“Do you know whom he was planning to marry?”
The Duke’s eyes bulged. “Well, er, um, as to that, I’m sure I couldn’t say.”
“By which I gather we’re talking about Lady Amanda Wilcox?”
“Well, as it happens, er, yes.” The Duke gave an awkward laugh. “I was a bit reluctant to mention it, her being your sister and all.” He threw Sebastian a quick, searching look. “Surely you’re not thinking that might have something to do with what happened to Preston, are you?”
“Just trying to clarify a few things. Do you know if your brother kept rooms someplace in London?”
“You mean someplace he could take women without Hester being around? I wouldn’t be surprised, but I can’t tell you where. His valet might know.”
“If he does, he’s keeping your brother’s secret.”
Eversfield was silent for a moment, his jaw going slack as they paused to watch a swirling white mist rise from the dark waters of the long reservoir in Green Park. “We buried him today, you know—well, at least for now. Eventually, I’d like to take him up to settle him permanently in the crypt of our old parish church, where the Farnsworths have been laid to rest these last four hundred years or more. It’s so odd…He’s buried, and yet somehow I still can’t believe this has happened—can’t understand why it happened.” He glanced over at Sebastian. “I loved my brother. I even admired some of the work he was doing, although I’ll admit I found all that nonsense with the Society for the Suppression of Vice downright asinine. But I don’t think I realized how much I didn’t know him until now that he’s dead.”
That’s probably a good thing, Sebastian thought. Aloud, he said, “Did Lord Preston talk to you much about his work with the Society?”
“Nah. He knew my opinions on the subject. I’ll never understand why a certain sort feel the need to be so damned busy about other people’s business. What makes them think they have a right to go around interfering in how other people choose to live their lives—telling complete strangers what they can and can’t do when it doesn’t have a bloody thing to do with them? I mean, don’t they have anything better to do?”
“Evidently nothing that appeals to them as much,” said Sebastian. “Have you been able to think of anything—anything at all—that might explain what happened to your brother?”
“No. I’ve tried and tried, but I can’t come up with anything. Not a blessed thing.”
The man’s voice cracked when he said it, and so bleak was his expression that Sebastian didn’t have the heart to question him further. Shifting the conversation to the ever-fruitful topic of the summer’s strange weather, Sebastian turned their steps back toward the club and kept up a flow of small talk until he parted with the Duke in front of Watier’s.
Sunday, 25 August
Early the next morning, Lady Amanda Wilcox was standing in the entry hall of her house in St. James’s Square, easing on a pair of fine black kid gloves, when her butler opened the front door to Sebastian. She wore a long-sleeved gown of silver Merino crepe trimmed around the hem and up the front with a cable of black silk crepe; a silk-trimmed black cloak lay over the chair beside her.
“Whatever it is,” she said, barely glancing over at her brother, “I don’t have time to discuss it with you at the moment.” Turning to the mirror over the hall table, she thoughtfully studied her reflection before adjusting the tilt of her high-crowned hat. “I’m on my way to St. George’s, and I have no intention of being so rude as to arrive late for Mr. Carmichael’s sermon.”
“We can have this conversation here in the hall, before your servants, if you wish. But I suspect you’d prefer to hear what I have to say in private.”
Amanda froze with one hand still on the brim of her hat, for she knew him well enough to know that he would not hesitate to say something outrageous in front of her butler. Her nostrils quivering with indignation, she stalked over to the library door, threw it open, and waited for him to enter. Then she followed him into the chilly, disused room and slammed the door behind them.
“Say what you’ve come to say and then get out.”
He turned to face her. “You didn’t tell me Lord Preston had asked you to marry him.”
She raised her chin. “Why should I? It’s none of your affair.”
“It didn’t occur to you that it might have something to do with his death?”
“And what precisely do you mean to imply by that question?”
“I’m not implying anything. But since you were obviously closer to the man than I’d realized, I thought you might have some insights that could help explain what happened to him.”
“You are the only person in all of London who insists on continuing to believe that the identity of Preston’s killer is some strange, impenetrable unknown. There is no mystery, no need for all this puzzlement and earnest search for answers that will never be found because they don’t exist. Major Hugh Chandler murdered his lover’s husband, and if you weren’t so willfully blinded by your friendship with the man, you would realize it.”
Sebastian kept his gaze on Amanda’s face. “I’m told Lord Preston balked at the cost of getting a bill of divorce through Parliament.”
“And what precisely are you implying?”
“Someone tried to have Lady Tess killed, and I think it more than likely that person was Lord Preston. Murder is considerably cheaper than divorce.”
He watched something flare behind Amanda’s vivid blue eyes, something that was neither disbelief nor hurt. Something it took him a moment to identify for what it was: anger, mixed with a hint of consternation.
“My God,” he whispered, his breath backing up painfully in his chest as he stared at this tall, icy woman who was his sister. “You knew. You knew he had decided to have her killed.”
Amanda stared back at him. “I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”
He found himself wondering, oddly, why this revelation surprised him. Hadn’t there been a time not so long ago when Amanda looked forward to watching him hang for a crime she knew he hadn’t committed?
And then he wondered whose idea the scheme had been: Preston’s, or hers?
He said, “I wonder if you realize how lucky you are. Men who murder one wife frequently go on to murder another. And Lord Preston had expensive habits; he’d have run through your money very quickly.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Preston was Eversfield’s heir.”
“Well, there is that. I suppose a man who’s willing to kill his wife could also decide to remove his elder brother and hasten the inheritance. Fancied yourself as a duchess, did you?”
She glanced pointedly at the ornate clock on the mantelpiece, angry color riding high on her cheeks. “It’s past time for this ridiculous conversation to end. My carriage is waiting.”
“In a moment. Lord Preston Farnsworth maintained a set of rooms someplace in London. Do you know where they are?”
He could tell by the quick parting of her lips that this, at least, was news to her. “Rooms? What are you talking about? Why would Preston keep rooms when he had a lovely house right here on the square?”
“Because he liked to pick up whores, and he could hardly take them back to a house he shared with his sister.”
He’d made the phraseology deliberately crude to shock her into honesty, and it had its intended effect. For a long moment she glared at him, too outraged to speak. Then she said, “You are beyond despicable. You’re making that up simply to hurt me. My God, I can’t believe even you would stoop so low.”
“Are you saying you actually didn’t know he kept rooms?”
She walked over to jerk open the library door. “We’re finished here. I can’t think what Jensen was about, opening the door to you like that. Rest assured that if you come again, you will be denied entry.”
“I think I’ve learned enough,” he said, nodding to Jensen as the butler hastened to open the front door. “Do give my best to Bayard. I haven’t seen him around lately. In the country on a repairing lease, is he?”
Amanda tightened her jaw and said nothing. Her only surviving son, Bayard, had inherited the barony upon the death of his father, the previous Lord Wilcox, five years before. Still only in his twenties and worryingly unstable and erratic in his behavior, Bayard had thus far been more than happy to have his mother continue managing the London house, his estates, and even his finances. But Sebastian had sometimes found himself wondering how much longer Bayard would be content to allow that state of affairs to continue, and what Amanda would do if he decided to bring it to an end.
Now he knew.
Sebastian was walking back toward his carriage, his thoughts in an unpleasant place, when he became aware of one of Lovejoy’s constables hurrying toward him.
“Lord Devlin! I say, Lord Devlin,” called the man.
Sebastian paused and turned toward him.
“I’m glad I caught you,” said the constable, breathing hard as he drew up. “I’ve a message from Sir Henry.”
“What is it?”
“They’ve found Lord Preston’s rooms, sir. In Saville Street. And just wait till you see them!”