by the tens of thousands have been thrown off the land their families worked for generations, while women who once made a decent living are now reduced to selling themselves in alleyways and under bridges. The price of a pound of bread has doubled in the last twenty years, while a typical working man’s wages have fallen to almost half what they once were. And for what? So that a handful of industrialists and merchants can grow rich by lending their money to the government and equipping the armies that will be used to put the old crowned tyrants of Europe back on their thrones?”
It could have been an act, a performance intended to deceive, but Sebastian didn’t think so. The man’s entire being was practically throbbing with indignation and the fierce determination of the hopeless idealist. “Are you telling me Rachel York never asked you to pass her sensitive information?”
Fairchild stared back at him, eyes widening with a horrified kind of revelation. “Good God. What is it you think? That I killed her? That she was threatening to blackmail me, so I shut her up?”
“I might,” said Sebastian, still playing with the sword, “except for one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Whoever killed her, raped her.”
“Heavens.” Fairchild clasped his hands together between his knees, and stared down at them for a moment. “I didn’t know. Poor Rachel.”
He said it as if she had been his friend. And it came to Sebastian that, in some strange way, they probably were friends, this gentle, troubled nobleman and the woman who had gone every Monday afternoon to sing to the babies in St. Jude’s Foundling Home.
After a moment, Fairchild looked up and said, “Are you quite certain she was working for the French?”
“No. But everything I’ve found seems to point in that direction.”
Fairchild pursed his lips and pushed out a long, troubled breath. “A few weeks ago, Wesley’s rooms were broken into. He had these letters I’d written him—probably something like half a dozen of them. ” A faint hint of color tinged his cheeks. “It was a foolish thing to have done, I know that now.”
“The letters were taken?” said Sebastian, wondering if this Wesley Davis had also played a part in setting up Lord Frederick for blackmail.
Fairchild nodded. “I was sick with worry. Rachel and I talked about it. She promised she’d deny everything if someone tried to use the letters against me, although we both knew it would do precious little good if it did come to that. Then last Friday, she came to me. She said she’d discovered who had the letters and she knew someone who could get them back for me. Steal them, actually.”
“For how much?”
“Three thousand pounds.”
It was less than what she’d demanded from Hendon. And it came to Sebastian that there might very well have been others she’d approached; other rich, powerful men, one of whom might have decided to kill rather than pay for the secrets she had to offer.
He studied the man who sat slumped on the bench, lost in his own thoughts. “Do you think she’s the one who took the letters from Davis’s rooms in the first place?”
“Rachel?” Lord Frederick considered this a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t think so. Although the last few weeks, she seemed afraid of something. I don’t know what. She talked about going away, starting over someplace else.”
It fit with what the others had told him, Hugh Gordon and the Reverend Finley at St. Jude’s. “When were you supposed to meet her? Tuesday?”
Fairchild’s chest lifted with a weighty sigh. “I only wish I had. It’s what she wanted, but it wasn’t easy for me to raise that kind of money. I asked her to give me until Wednesday.” He scrubbed one hand across his face, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “I was still getting the money together when I heard she’d been killed.”
“So who has the letters now?”
His hand fell back to his side. He looked haggard. Frightened. “I wish I knew. As soon as I heard what had happened to Rachel, I went past the lodging house where she kept her rooms. I had some notion of going up and looking for them, but the constables were there. I didn’t dare stop.”
Sebastian nodded. So Fairchild had gone to Dorset Court that day. But if he hadn’t gone up to search Rachel’s rooms, then who had?
Fairchild jerked up from the bench and took an agitated step away before whirling back around. “If those letters are made public, I’ll be ruined. Absolutely ruined.”
Sebastian studied him dispassionately. “Did Rachel tell you who had the letters?”
A faint flush touched the man’s high, aristocratic cheekbones. “Yes. Leo Pierrepont.”
“Of course,” said Sebastian. “I should have known.”
At the far end of the Row, a young blade on a showy, white-marked chestnut sent his mount cavorting. Sebastian lifted his head and watched the chestnut’s four white stockings flash in the thin winter sunlight. And he knew it again, that tantalizing sensation of a thought hovering somewhere on the edges of consciousness, just beyond his grasp.
“Exactly who had she found to steal the letters from Pierrepont? Did she say?”
The other man shook his head. “All I knew was that it had to be done while Pierrepont was out of town for the week, at Lord Edgeworth’s country house down in Hampshire. She was hoping to be gone by Thursday, before Pierrepont had a chance to come back and find the letters missing. I could be wrong, but had the impression . . .”
“Yes?”
“He’s the one she was afraid of. The one she was running away from.”
Sebastian glanced down at the gleaming blade in his hands. The sword stick was a common enough weapon amongst London’s noblemen. Sebastian’s own father carried one, while Leo Pierrepont was known to have an extensive collection.
Sebastian slid the blade back into its sheath with a quiet hiss. Lord Edgeworth had hosted a party at his Hampshire estate the week before, Sebastian knew; as a part of that set, Pierrepont had undoubtedly been invited. But if he’d been planning to spend the week, something must have changed his mind, for he’d come back in time to host a dinner party on Tuesday night.
The night Rachel York was killed.
Chapter 43
The discovery of Mary Grant’s ravaged body should have removed whatever lingering doubts the magistrate might have had about Lord Devlin’s guilt. Lovejoy himself had interviewed their witness, Mrs. Charles Lavery, and he’d found her a solid, no-nonsense woman. If Mrs. Lavery said she’d seen Lord Devlin leaving the lodging house, then Lovejoy was inclined to believe the man had been there. And yet. . .
And yet, the doctor who examined Mary Grant’s body had given it as his opinion that she’d been killed earlier in the day, perhaps before noon. And while most people didn’t put much stock in such things, Lovejoy had too much respect for the scientific method to ignore the doctor’s report. Except that if Devlin hadn’t killed Mary Grant, then what was he doing there at her rooms? Why was he still in London at all?
Lovejoy shifted uncomfortably in his seat, remembering his interview with Charles, Lord Jarvis. If Henry’s wife, Julia, were still alive, she’d tell him he was being a stubborn fool, trying to understand Sebastian St. Cyr rather than simply concentrating on capturing him. And Henry, he’d tell her that he was doing everything in his power to bring the Viscount in. He just needed to tie up one or two loose ends, for his own satisfaction.
And then Lovejoy realized what he was doing, and heaved a soft sigh. His Julia had been gone from him for almost ten years now, but he still had these little conversations with her, imagining what she would say, what he would say in response.
