Page 6 of Who Will Remember (Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery #20)

H ow do you accuse a friend of murder?

The question ate at Sebastian as he ordered his curricle brought round. Driving out of London, toward Chelsea, he found his thoughts drifting again to the past, to that long, brutal British retreat across northern Spain in the winter of 1808–9. At that point, Wellesley—not yet the feted Duke of Wellington—had been recalled to London over the scandal surrounding the Convention of Sintra, and the ambitious British assault on the Peninsula handed over to Sir John Moore. Then Napoléon decided to personally take command of the French forces in Spain, and what began as a confident expedition turned first into a prudent withdrawal, then into a desperate race for the coast and the transport ships thought to be awaiting them at Corunna. As the British troops slogged through freezing rain and snowy mountain passes, thousands of men were lost to the relentlessly pursuing French; discipline collapsed, Spanish villages were plundered, and drunken or wounded troops were simply abandoned to their fates.

With the cavalry assigned to cover the Army’s retreat, Sebastian was out one miserably cold December day riding reconnaissance through the mountains when he came upon Hugh and a small band of men who had been caught by a detachment of French dragoons on the wrong side of a defile crossed by a single narrow stone bridge. Sebastian checked for only an instant to evaluate the situation, then rode straight into the fray with enough noise and élan to convince the French that he was at the vanguard of a rescue party.

The French drew off, giving Hugh’s men time to collect their wounded and beat a hasty retreat across the bridge. Sebastian was guarding their rear when a well-placed musket ball crumpled his horse beneath him. The horse fell with a groan, trapping Sebastian’s leg beneath it and smashing his head against the bridge’s stone abutment.

By that time, the French had caught on to Sebastian’s ruse. A dozen howling, jeering dragoons turned back to descend on him, the weak winter sun dancing on their bronze helmets, their neo-Greek manes and red plumes billowing in the wind. Unable to free his leg, Sebastian yanked his pistol from its holder, determined to stop as many of them as he could before they killed him. Then he saw Hugh rein in, his mouth opening in a roar, his angry shout lost in the thunder of hooves as he wheeled his mare and charged back.

“No!” shouted Sebastian. Then one of the French dragoons loomed over him, his straight saber raised to strike. Sebastian shot him point-blank in the chest.

A second green-coated soldier took the first dragoon’s place, but Hugh rode the man down, his blade slashing through the air. Then, kicking his feet from the stirrups, Hugh landed in a crouch and came up with his saber still in his hand to ram the point through the chest of a third man and turn to smash a fourth in the face with the hilt of his saber.

“Leave me!” shouted Sebastian. “Get your men out of here!”

Hugh snarled and sent his sword whistling through the air to practically decapitate another dragoon. “Like hell I will!”

Crouching down, he helped Sebastian drag himself out from under his dead horse and stagger to his feet. Half-senseless, Sebastian could only hang on to the coping stones of the bridge, gasping, while Hugh lunged to snag the reins of a wild-eyed, riderless mare trotting by. Somehow, Hugh got him up in the saddle and jammed the reins into his hands. By then Hugh’s own men had rallied and were riding down on them with a roar.

The remaining French dragoons regrouped, then galloped away.

“You should have left me,” panted Sebastian, so weak and dizzy he had to grasp handfuls of the mare’s mane to keep from sliding out of the saddle.

“Nah. You still owe me a beer, remember?” said Hugh, and then laughed.

It had been just two years later that Hugh was badly wounded in a skirmish and sent home to England to recuperate. He was nursed back to health by his sister Anne and her dear friend, Lady Theresa—Tess to her friends. The only daughter of James Haywood, the Third Earl of Whitcombe, Tess had been married to Lord Preston Farnsworth at that point for seven years. The marriage was generally thought to be happy, although childless. And yet one night, when Hugh’s arm was still in a sling, Tess fled her husband’s comfortable London home for her soldier-lover’s embrace.

And she never went back.

Most men who found themselves in Lord Preston’s position were too mortified to publicly brand themselves cuckolds and drag their affairs through the mud by suing their wives’ lovers for criminal conversation—or crim. con., as it was popularly known. But the normally congenial Farnsworth’s rage was matched only by his desire for revenge. He sought and obtained an ecclesiastical separation from his wife but refused to divorce her. And then he sued Hugh for twenty thousand pounds.

And won.

? How do you accuse a friend of murder? A friend who once saved your life?

Sebastian found himself still unsettled by the question as he neared the gates of the small, isolated manor on the outskirts of Chelsea that had once belonged to Lady Tess’s great-aunt and now provided the disgraced couple with something of a refuge.

Hugh’s family might be ancient, but it had never been particularly wealthy, and the small estate he’d inherited from his grandfather—a general famous for his exploits in the Seven Years’ War—had been sold to pay Farnsworth’s judgment. In addition to virtually bankrupting Hugh, that long-ago elopement—and the scandal it provoked—had also wreaked havoc on his military career. It was only after several frustrating years of being sidelined to the Horse Guards that he was finally called back to active duty to help Wellington push the French over the Pyrenees. His brilliant performance at Waterloo had even made him something of a hero.

Given an old, respectable family name, a decent interval of time, and success on the battlefield, a man could eventually weather such a storm. On his return from Belgium, Hugh found himself once again invited to the dinner parties, balls, and routs held by all except the ton’s highest sticklers—but only if he left his disgraced lover at home. For Lady Tess, there would be no forgiveness, no welcoming back to Society. Ever. The one time she dared appear at the theater, she had been loudly hissed.

She never went again.

“Reckon ye ought t’ know that I heard some o’ Sir ’Enry’s constables talkin’ while we was in Swallow Street,” said Tom as Sebastian turned in through the simple gates.

Sebastian glanced back at his small, sharp-faced tiger. The boy had been with him for over five years now, ever since those desperate days when Sebastian had been on the run for murder. “What were they saying?”

“They think it’s obvious Lord Preston’s wife musta been the one done fer ’im—well, her and the major, workin’ together. Every last one of ’em said the same thing.”

“That’s not good,” said Sebastian.

“No. I didn’t think so, neither.”

?Sebastian was reining in on the gravel court before the small redbrick house when he heard his name called and turned to see Lady Tess crossing the wind-tossed gardens toward him. Now in her early thirties, she was built small and slender, with fair hair, dark eyes, and a chin too determinedly square for Society to have ever christened her a true Beauty. She wore a plain broad-brimmed straw hat and had an apron pinned to her simple muslin gown, and carried a basket in which a pair of secateurs rested atop a bed of rose clippings.

“Devlin,” she said again as she drew nearer. She was paler than normal, he noticed, and her smile of welcome had a bit of a tremble about the edges. “How are you? Hugh has gone off to the stables to see to one of the carriage horses, but he should be back directly.” She paused for a moment, then drew a deep breath and said, “I can guess why you’re here.”

“You know about Lord Preston?”

She nodded. “One of our neighbors heard the news and came to tell us. We’ve been expecting a visit from Bow Street. Please tell me you’re not here as their representative.”

“No; I’m here as a friend,” said Sebastian, the gravel crunching beneath his bootheels as he hopped down from the curricle’s high seat.

“Thank heavens.” She handed her basket to a maidservant who hurried out to take it, then waited until the woman was out of earshot before saying, “Is it true what we’re hearing? That whoever killed Preston hanged him upside down?”

“Yes,” said Sebastian, watching her face as they turned to walk together along a path that wound through untidy, wet gardens. She had lived with Farnsworth as his wife for over seven years—was still married to him in the eyes of the law. So what did she feel, Sebastian found himself wondering, on hearing of his brutal murder? Shock? Sorrow? Worry?

Vindictive delight?

He supposed it all depended on the part she—and Hugh—had played in the events of last Saturday night.

“We didn’t kill him, you know,” she said bluntly, as if following the train of his thoughts.

“Do you have any idea who did?”

She was silent for a moment, obviously choosing her words carefully. “Preston Farnsworth was known to the world as a good-natured, deeply religious, witty man who selflessly devoted himself to noble causes. It was an image he deliberately cultivated, and he did it very well. But that’s all it was: an image.” She glanced over at him. “I suppose you don’t believe me.”

“No, I believe you.” To a certain extent, thought Sebastian. “A genuinely good-natured, unselfish man doesn’t sue his wife’s lover for twenty thousand pounds and then refuse to divorce her, so that she can never remarry.”

She drew up and swung to face him. “And yet you are here.”

Just because I don’t believe Lord Preston was as much of a saint as he chose to appear doesn’t mean I think Hugh couldn’t have killed him, thought Sebastian. But all he said was, “Believe me when I say that if Hugh is innocent, I will—”

“?‘If’?” She brought up a hand to her forehead as she turned half away from him. “I can’t believe— Even you think—” She broke off and swallowed hard. “I beg your pardon,” she somehow managed to choke out. “But you must excuse me.” And with that she fisted her hands in the skirt of her gown and fled back toward the house.

She met Hugh halfway across the lawn, coming toward them. Hugh was in his late thirties now, of average height and build, with brown hair and light brown eyes and strong, rugged features, and he reached out to snag her arm as she passed him. She said something to him under her breath that Sebastian couldn’t quite catch, then jerked her arm away and ran on.

Hugh hesitated a moment, looking after her, then continued on toward Sebastian. “Devlin,” he said, his features set in troubled lines as he drew closer. “I was going to say it’s good to see you. Except Tess tells me you think I killed that damned husband of hers.”

“Not exactly,” said Sebastian as his friend paused before him. “But you must admit I’d need to be a fool not to admit it as a possibility.”

“ God damn it. I didn’t kill Farnsworth!”

Sebastian studied his friend’s tense, angry face. “Then I hope to God you have a damned good alibi for Saturday night.”

Most officers learned quickly to keep their features schooled in a stoic mask, lest their own fears and worries panic those under their command. Hugh was no exception. But Sebastian saw his friend’s eyes narrow, saw his chest jerk on a quickly indrawn breath. “Is that when Farnsworth was killed? Saturday night?”

“It seems likely.”

Hugh sucked in another breath, his throat working as he swallowed. “Well, hell.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

They turned to walk together toward a white-fenced paddock that lay beyond the garden’s low hedge. After a moment, Hugh said, “Tess and I had a spat that night over—well, it doesn’t matter over what, does it? The thing is, I felt the need to be alone, so I went for a ride.” He paused. “A very long ride. I was gone for hours.”

“Can anyone verify where you went?”

“No. Like I said, I wanted to be alone.” A gleam of wry amusement showed in his eyes, then was gone. “Lousy timing, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

They paused beside the paddock’s fence, Hugh resting his elbows on the top rail, his gaze following a bay mare and her black foal as they cantered around the enclosure. After a moment he said, “I had no reason to kill the bastard. Not now.”

“Most people would consider having been forced to virtually bankrupt yourself in order to cough up twenty thousand pounds a fairly powerful motive for murder.”

“Maybe—if I’d killed him six years ago. But why wait until now?”

“Sometimes resentment…festers.”

Hugh made a huffing sound deep in his throat. “Well, I won’t deny that.”

The two men stood side by side watching the mare nuzzle her colt. Then Sebastian said, “You do realize you could also be accused of having a second motive.”

Hugh looked over at him. “What?”

“Farnsworth’s death makes Tess a widow. She’s now free to marry you.”

Hugh was silent for a moment. “I realize it’s probably an odd thing to say, but after all these years it feels almost…irrelevant. There was a time I was desperate to be able to marry Tess, to give her the protection of my name and ‘make an honest woman of her’ in the eyes of the world, as they say. But now…” He shrugged. “At this point we’ve been ‘living in sin’ for six years. I suppose if we’d had children it might be different, but that hasn’t happened. And after a while you begin to realize what’s important—that the real strength of your relationship comes from what’s inside you and from the promises you make to each other. Not from whatever laws God or your society have decided to impose on you.” He glanced over at Sebastian. “Do you consider that blasphemy?”

“No.”

Hugh smiled, then looked away again. “The sad truth is, we could be married tomorrow by the Archbishop of Canterbury himself and the ton would still never accept Tess. You know why? Because she dared to do what so many of the grand lords and ladies of our world will never have the courage to do: She turned her back on the dictates of ‘propriety’ and walked—no, ran —away from a miserable marriage. She dared to grasp at happiness, basically telling them all to go to hell in the process. And that’s why they will never, ever forgive her. If she’d stayed with Farnsworth, she might have taken a dozen lovers and still been received everywhere—as long as she was relatively discreet, of course. As long as she stayed in her loveless marriage and lived the same lie so many of them are living. I’ve seen noblewomen pass Tess on Bond Street and actually lift their skirts away from her as if she were somehow contaminated. I’m talking about women everyone knows have been endlessly unfaithful to their own husbands. But that doesn’t stop them from feigning moral indignation and outrage over what Tess did. They’ve made her the scapegoat for all their own sins, and it’s a role they will never, ever allow her to stop playing.”

Sebastian felt a weight of sadness pressing in on him—sadness and something else he suspected was alarm. “You do realize that’s why you’re in danger, don’t you? You and Tess both. Society has already made her their scapegoat, and if they can hang her for this, they will. Hell, if they could burn her at the stake, they’d do it.” There was a time not so long ago when the penalty in England for a woman killing her husband was to be burned alive. “And if they can’t hang her, I suspect they’ll be more than willing to make do with you.”

Hugh nodded, his lips pressed into a hard, tight line, his gaze still on the mare and her colt.

“Where was Lady Tess that night?” said Sebastian. “Here?”

“Yes.”

“You’re quite certain?”

Hugh opened his mouth as if to say, Of course I’m certain, then closed it. Because if he hadn’t been home that night himself, then he could not, in truth, claim to know for certain.

Sebastian said, “Bow Street is going to ask, you know.”

“I know. Bloody hell, ” whispered Hugh, bringing both hands up together to scrub them down over his eyes and nose. “I’ve faced death more times than I can count—we both have. But I don’t think I’ve ever been this afraid. Not like this.”

Sebastian said, “Who do you think killed Farnsworth? Do you have any idea at all?”

Hugh shook his head. “He was a strange, complicated man. I never understood him and I don’t think Tess did, either—at least, not entirely. People always say their marriage was happy until she met me, but it’s not true. She was miserable. He made her miserable—in a thousand different, subtle ways.”

“Did he keep a mistress?”

“Not that she was aware.”

“Do you know if he had any enemies?” Besides you, thought Sebastian.

“He must have, surely. But I couldn’t name them, and I can’t tell you who would be able to.”

“If you think of anything—anything at all—that might help make sense of this, you’ll tell me?”

“Yes, of course.”

But Sebastian saw the hesitation in his eyes and knew his friend did not entirely trust him.