that night. You could easily have killed Gabrielle and her young cousins while traveling between the two.'
`I wouldn't do that! I would never do that!'
`And why, precisely, should I believe you?'
Childe swallowed.
Hero rose, the gun still in her hand. `Stand up, turn around, and put your hands on the boxes in front of you.'
`What are you going to do?' he asked, throwing a quick glance at her over his shoulder as he moved to comply.
`Keep your eyes on the wall.'
`But what are you going to do?'
Hero opened the door behind her. `That depends largely on you, does it not?'
`What does that mean?'
She heard him repeat the question again when she was halfway down the hall.
`What are you going to do?'
By the time Sebastian made it back to London, the setting sun was casting long shadows through the streets.
He found Hero seated at the bench before her dressing table. She wore an elegant, high-waisted evening gown of ivory silk with tiny slashed puff sleeves and an inset of rose silk laced with a crisscross of ivory down the front, and she had her head bowed as she threaded a slender ribbon of dusty rose through her crimped hair. He leaned against the doorframe of her dressing chamber and watched as the flickering candlelight played over her bare shoulders and the exposed nape of her neck. And he knew it again, that baffling swirl of admiration and desire combined with a troubling sense that he was losing something he'd never really had. Something that was more than passion and far, far different from obligation or honor or duty.
She finished fastening the ribbon in place and looked up, her gaze meeting his in the mirror. Whatever she saw there caused her to nod to the young abigail waiting to assist her. `That will be all, Jane; thank you.'
`Yes, miss,' said the woman, dropping a curtsy.
Sebastian waited until Jane left; then he came into the room and closed the door. `Rory Forster is dead. I found him floating in Camlet Moat.'
`Good heavens.' Hero swung around to stare at him.
`What happened to him?'
`He was shot point-blank in the chest. Sometime this morning, I'd say. Gibson should have the body by now, although I'd be surprised if he's able to tell us much more.'
`But why was he killed?'
`I had an interesting conversation with Rory's widow, who owns a prosperous farm to the east of the old chase. She married the man just last year, and if you ask me, she was well on her way to regretting the bargain. Forster might have been a handsome devil, but he seems to have been far more interested in searching for buried treasure than in taking care of things around the farm. I suspect he also wasn't above using his fists on his wife when she angered him and his kind anger easily and often.'
`Maybe she's the one who shot him.'
Sebastian huffed a surprised laugh. `I confess that thought hadn't occurred to me. But I think it more likely Rory was trying to blackmail someone and ended up getting his payment in the form of a bullet.'
`You think he knew who killed Gabrielle? But how?'
`According to the Widow Forster, Rory took his shovel out to Camlet Moat at sunset on Sunday and came back later that night soaking wet and full of big talk about buying her silks and satins and a carriage to rival the Squire's lady. At the time she seems to have thought he must have found some of the island's famous treasure.'
`When in fact he'd witnessed the brutal murder of a woman and two children?'
`I suspect so. The first time I spoke to him, he laughed at the men out looking for the Tennyson boys. He said no one was going to find them nippers.'
`Because he knew they were already dead,' said Hero softly. `Dear God.'
`His wife says he made a trip into London yesterday, which may have been when he confronted the killer and offered his silence in exchange for gold.'
`With the payment to be made this morning at Camlet Moat.' Hero pushed up from her dressing table. `Interesting choice of locales and telling, perhaps?'
`It might be more telling if it weren't for the fact that Sir Stanley and his wife both happen to be in London at the moment.'
`I know.' She went to select a pair of long ivory gloves from her glove box. `My father has invited them to a dinner party tonight at Berkeley Square.'
`Ah. So that's where you're going.'
She looked over at him. `You are invited as well, if you'd like.'
He let his gaze rove over her face. She looked as calm and self-possessed as ever. Yet he was coming to know her better, and he was uncomfortably conscious of a sense of artifice, of concealment about her. And it occurred to him that in her own way she was as gifted an actress as Kat Boleyn.
As if aware of the intensity of his scrutiny, she gave a sudden laugh and said, `What? Why are you looking at me like that?'
`There's something you re not telling me.'
She tipped her head to one side, a strange smile lighting her eyes. `And would you have me believe that you have been entirely open with me?'
He started to tell her that he had. Then he remembered the folded paper that lay in his pocket, a note he had received just moments earlier that read, I have some information you might find interesting. Come to the theater before tonight's rehearsal. K.
The words of assurance died on his lips.
He watched her eyes narrow. She had her father's eyes: a pale silvery gray at the outer rim with a starlike burst of sooty charcoal around the pupil and a gleam of intelligence almost frightening in its intensity. She said, `I don't imagine there are many couples who find themselves thrown into a murder investigation within days of their marriage.'
`No. Although I suppose it's appropriate, given how we met.'
She turned away. `Am I to take it that you're declining my father's dinner invitation?'
`I have an appointment with someone who may be able to provide me with information about Jamie Knox.'
She waited for him to tell her more, and when he didn't, he saw the flare of some emotion in her eyes, although whether it was hurt or suspicion or a gleam of malicious satisfaction, he couldn't have said.
Chapter 36
War was very much the topic of conversation that evening in the reception rooms of Lord Jarvis's Berkeley Square residence. War in Europe, war on the high seas, war in America.
Hero discussed Wellington's successes in Spain with Castlereagh, the depredations of those damnable upstart Americans on British shipping with Bathurst, and Napoléon's newest rampage against Russia with Liverpool. Most of the members of Liverpool's government were in attendance, along with the city's premier bankers, for war was very much a financial enterprise.
She found the night almost unbearably hot and close, the air in the crowded rooms unusually stifling. The hundreds of candles burning in the chandeliers overhead only added to the heat, and she could feel her cheeks start to burn. Ignoring the discomfort, she was working her way through her father's guests to where she could see Sir Stanley Winthrop in conversation with her mother, Lady Jarvis, when the Earl of Hendon stopped her.
`I'd hoped I might find my son here with you tonight,' said Devlin's father, his intensely blue St. Cyr eyes narrowed with a combination of anxiety and hurt. She did not understand the obvious estrangement that had grown
