Stanley at Camlet Moat.'
She turned to walk along the path, Sebastian beside her. `I told him he was going to need to give up that nonsense for the harvest. But...'
`He was reluctant to quit?'
`He said he could hire Jack Williams to take his place around here for half what he was making with Sir Stanley. But a farm needs more than hired men. It's one of the reasons I...' She broke off and bit her lip.
`It's one of the reasons I married him.' The unsaid words hung in the air.
Pausing beside a rose-covered arch, she let her gaze drift to the slowly sliding waters of the stream. She was obviously better bred than her husband, her farm prosperous. She would have been quite a catch for a blacksmith's younger son.
Sebastian drew up beside her. `Sir Stanley has given up the excavations and filled in the trenches, he said. So why would your husband go out to the moat this morning?'
She threw him a quick glance. Then her gaze skittered away, but not before he saw the leap of fear in her eyes.
`Did he go out to the moat last Sunday?' asked Sebastian.
`Rory? Oh, no. He was here with me, all night.'
`He told you to say that, didn't he?'
She shook her head, her face pinched.
`You can't do your husband any harm by admitting the truth now. He's dead. But the more we know, the better chance we'll have of finding who killed him.' Sebastian hesitated, then said again, `He went to the moat Sunday, didn't he?'
Her voice was a painful whisper. `He warned me not to tell anyone. Made me swear to keep his secret.'
And probably threatened to beat her if she let the truth slip, Sebastian thought. Aloud, he said, `What time did he leave the farm last Sunday?'
She pressed a tight fist against her lips. `Not long before sunset. Even though it was Sunday and there wasn't likely to be anyone about, he still thought it best to wait till late.'
`Do you know why he went?'
Her lip curled. `On account of the treasure, of course. He was mad for it. Much rather dig useless holes in the dirt out there than dig the new well we needed here.'
`What time did he come home?'
`About midnight, I suppose. All wet, he was. Said he'd lost his footing and slipped into the moat. I was that put out with him. But he told me to shut up. Said we were going to be rich - that I was going to have fine silks and satins, and my own carriage, just like Squire John's lady.'
`Do you think he actually found something?'
`If he did, he didn't come home with any of it; I can tell you that much.' A faint hint of color touched her cheeks. `I checked his pockets, you see, after he fell asleep. Of course, he could've hid it someplace again, before he came in.' She paused, then added, almost bitterly, `And now he's gone and got himself killed.'
`Had you noticed him behaving in any way out of the ordinary these last few days?'
She thought about it a moment, then shook her head. `Not unless you count going into London yesterday.'
`Did he often go to London?'
`Never knew him to do it before.'
A shout drew Sebastian's attention to the stream, where Chien could be seen advancing on the geese in a low crouch, his tail tucked between his legs, his eyes fixed and focused.
Sebastian said, `Did he tell you why he went?'
`No. Although he was in a rare good mood when he came home. I hadn't seem him in such high spirits since the days when he was courting me.' At the memory, a softness came over her features, then faded.
Arceneaux's voice drifted up from the banks of the stream.
`Chien.'
Sebastian asked quickly, `Is there anything else you can tell me that might help?'
She shook her head just as Arceneaux shouted, `Chien! Mon dieu. No!'
The message from Molly O'Keefe reached Hero late that afternoon.
She returned to Covent Garden just as the slanting, golden light of early evening was beginning to flood the mean, narrow streets. The residents of Molly's lodging house were already stirring.
`What have you found?' Hero asked Molly as a raucous trill of laughter floated from somewhere on the first floor above and two blowsy women pushed past them toward the lodging house door. The lodging house was not a brothel, although there was no denying that many of its occupants were Cyprians. But these women took their customers elsewhere, to establishments known as accommodation houses.
One of the Cyprians, a black-haired woman in feathers and a diaphanous silver-spangled gown, smacked her lips and cocked one hip provocatively at Hero. `Shopping for a bit o' muslin to raise yer old sod's flag, are ye, me lady? Bet I can do the trick. Do you like to watch?'
`Thank you, but no,' said Hero.
`Lizzy, ye foulmouthed trollop,' hissed Molly, flapping her apron at the woman. `Ye mind yer bloody manners and get out o' here.'
Lizzy laughed and disappeared into the night with a jaunty backward wave of one white hand.
`I've a girl by the name of Charlotte Roach waiting for ye in me sitting room,' said Molly, drawing Hero toward the rear of the house. `Although if truth be told, I'm not certain a gently bred lady such as yerself should be hearing wot she's got to say.'
`Nonsense,' said Hero. `You should know by now that I am not so easily shocked.'
Molly paused outside the closed door, her broad, homely face troubled. `Ye ain't heard wot she's got to say yet.'
Charlotte Roach couldn't have been more than fourteen or fifteen years old. She had a thin, sharp-boned face and straw-colored hair and pale, shrewd eyes rimmed by short, sparse blond lashes. Her tattered gown of pink and white striped satin had obviously been made for someone both older and larger, and then cut down, its neckline plunging to expose most of the girl's small, high breasts. She sat in an unladylike sprawl on a worn settee beside Molly's empty hearth, a glass of what looked like gin in one hand, her lips crimped into a tight, hard line that didn't soften when Hero walked into the room. She looked Hero up and down in frank appraisal, then glanced over at Molly. `This the gentry mort ye was tellin' me about?'
`I am,' said Hero.
Charlotte brought her gaze back to Hero's face, one grubby finger reaching out to tap the sketch of Childe lying on the settee beside her. `'E yer Jerry sneak?'
`If by that you mean to ask if the man in that sketch is my husband, then the answer is no.' With slow deliberation, Hero drew five guineas from her reticule and laid them in a row across the surface of the table before her. `This is for you if you tell me what I want to know. But don't even think of trying to sell me Grub Street news, for I'll know a lie if I hear it.'
A flash of amusement shone in the girl's pale, hard eyes.
`What ye want to know, then?'
`When was the last time you saw this gentleman?'
The girl took a long swallow of her gin. `That'd be goin' on two years ago, now. I ain't seen 'im since I was at the Lambs Pen, in Chalon Lane.'
Hero cast a quick glance at Molly. She had heard of the Lambs Pen, a discreet establishment near Portland Square that catered to men who liked their whores young - very young. Two years earlier, Charlotte Roach couldn't have been more than thirteen. Even though the girl was only confirming what Hero had already suspected, she felt her flesh crawl. With effort she said,
`Go on.'
`'E used t' come into the Lambs Pen the first Monday o' the month. Always the first Monday, and at nine o'clock exactly. Ye coulda set yer watch by 'im. A real rum duke, 'e was.' Charlotte sucked her lower lip between her teeth, her gaze drifting back to the shiny guineas laid in a row across the top of the table. `Anythin' else ye want t' 'ear?'
