the debilitating restrictions put on Catholics.”
“Yet the people still wouldn’t accept him. And if they wouldn’t accept James the Second a hundred and twenty years ago, what makes you think they’ll accept someone like him now?”
“Because the House of Hanover is tainted by madness and everyone knows it. Because men are out of work by the thousands, and women and children are starving in the streets. Because we’ve been at war for so long it’s all most people can remember. If a new King promised to bring peace and an end to high taxes and the press gangs, I think a lot of people would welcome him.”
Kat’s eyes narrowed. “Who is pushing this?”
He was regarding her with a studied expression that made her realize she’d said too much, shown too much interest. “That’s the funny thing about conspiracies,” he said with a smile. “Different men can be attracted to the same conspiracy for altogether different reasons. Reasons that sometimes aren’t even compatible. Why does it matter so much who’s behind it, as long as it’s good for Ireland?”
“You suggest a restoration of the Stuarts might lead to peace with France,” she said. The sun slipped out from behind the chestnut trees on the far side of the pond, striking her in the eyes. She tilted her parasol until it once again shaded her face. “But I thought England at war with France was good for Ireland. You said that’s what we need, to weaken the English. That it’s the only way the Irish will ever win their freedom.”
He laughed. “You are quick, aren’t you?” He leaned toward her, suddenly more serious than she’d seen him. “But if the English at war with France is good for Ireland, then how much better do you think a new English civil war would be?”
She searched his face, but he was as good at hiding what he really thought as she. “Is that what these people want? Civil war?”
“Hardly. But I suspect it’s what they’re going to get.”
BY MIDMORNING, Tom was so hungry his head was spinning. He’d known hunger in the past, in the dark days before fate brought Viscount Devlin into his world. But these last few months he’d grown accustomed to a full belly and a warm bed. He’d even begun to feel safe again, the way he’d felt in the golden, half-forgotten years before his da took sick and his mother—
But Tom slammed his mind shut on that thought before tears and the clawing blackness of terror could take him again.
He was sitting against the back wall, his forehead resting on his drawn-up knees, when he heard a commotion in the yard, men banging tin cups against iron bars and laughing women calling out soft, obscene suggestions.
The men and boys in his cell crowded up to the bars. Tom pushed to his feet and wiggled his way forward to take a look. “What is it?” he asked.
“Some magistrate,” said one of the other boys, a big, half-grown lad from Cheapside who’d been caught pinching pewter tankards from a public house and would probably hang for it. “They say ’e’s here on account of the nob’s son what got hisself butchered in St. James’s Park t’other night.”
Tom could see him now, a funny little man with bowed legs and wire-framed glasses he wore pushed down to the tip of his nose. Despite the heat of the day he wore a thick greatcoat, and held a pomander to his nose.
Tom surged forward.
A rough hand thumped Tom in the shoulder, giving him a shove that sent him sprawling back into the filthy straw. “You there,” spat the gaoler. “You dirty little filcher, you shut yer mouth. You ’ear?”
Tom scrambled to his feet and threw himself forward again, but by then it was too late. The yard was empty and the little magistrate had gone.
Sebastian spent the morning in Smithfield, looking for Tom.
He made no attempt to disguise who he was. He even brought along a couple of strapping footmen to preclude any possibility of a repeat of what had happened on his last visit to the area. But Tom had obviously followed instructions and taken care to blend into his surroundings. Sebastian found an old woman selling buttons who said she’d seen a boy about his age running through the streets just before sunset, running like the hounds of hell were after him. But she didn’t know what had happened to the lad, or even who’d been chasing him.
Sebastian looked for the maimed Scottish soldier who’d been reduced to begging outside the Norfolk Arms, but no one could remember having seen the man for days. Standing in the shade cast by a ribbon shop’s awning, Sebastian studied the inn’s ancient brick facade, and knew a deep and powerful disquiet.
He’d come back at dusk, Sebastian decided, when the creatures of the night were aprowl. “Andrew, James,” he said curtly. The two footmen snapped to attention as he pushed away from the building. “I want you to check every watchhouse in the area, every watchman, every beadle. Do you understand? Someone must have seen him.”
“Aye, my lord.”
Leaping up into the carriage, Sebastian slammed his own door and sent the coachman flying to Queen Square, only to learn there that Sir Henry Lovejoy was out pursuing leads on his gruesome park murder. Increasingly frustrated, his temper fraying, Sebastian thought about Tess Bishop’s early morning visit and knew how he would spend the remaining hours until dusk.
HE TRACKED THE CHEVALIER DE VARDEN to Angelo’s Fencing Academy in Bond Street, where Varden was fencing with the master himself. Sebastian stood for a time, watching them. The Chevalier was a good swordsman, with a keen eye and flexible wrists and a quick, light step. Barefoot, stripped down to his shirtsleeves and buckskin breeches, he moved effortlessly across the hardwood floor, foil flashing, his light brown hair tumbling in his eyes.
Sebastian had never heard anything to the man’s discredit. The ladies liked him for his charming manner and graceful step on the dance floor, while the men liked him for his ready laugh and easy generosity and courage on the hunting field. True, the Chevalier was known to have a quick temper. But there was nothing to suggest he was the kind of man who could subject the woman he loved to a slow and painful death by poison.
As Sebastian watched, the Chevalier feigned to the left, then slipped past the master’s guard to land a hit to his shoulder. The master laughed and the match ended. They stood talking a few moments with the easy camaraderie of two men in love with the same sport. Then Varden headed for the changing room.
