“He did.”
“Dio mio,” he whispered. “You think that’s why she was killed? Because someone was afraid she might pass on what she’d learned to Charlotte?”
“I think it’s a distinct possibility.”
“Dio mio,” he said again.
Sebastian studied the musician’s haggard, troubled face. “The Orange alliance is important to a number of powerful people, none of whom are the sort to take kindly to having their ambitions thwarted.”
Vescovi brought up a shaky hand to cup his mouth.
“What?” asked Sebastian, watching him.
The musician cast a quick look around, then leaned forward and dropped his hand. “Those pushing for the Orange alliance are extraordinarily ruthless and powerful. But some of those working to prevent the marriage—while less powerful—can also be dangerous.”
Sebastian frowned. “But Jane was against the marriage herself. Why would they be a threat to her?”
“You must understand that those working against the alliance do not all share the same motivations, nor do they all have the Little Princess’s best interests at heart. Some wish simply to protect Charlotte from a miserable future and are opposed to the marriage for that reason, while others would like to prevent the Dutch entanglement but not at the cost of harming the Princess. Yet there are those who will do anything to prevent the alliance and they don’t care if Princess Charlotte is hurt in the process.”
“That doesn’t make sense. How might she get hurt? If anything, it’s in her best interests if the marriage is called off.”
“That depends on why it’s called off, does it not?”
“Meaning—what?”
“Please.” Vescovi’s voice turned into an agonized whisper. “Don’t ask me. I cannot tell you.”
Sebastian studied the other man’s drawn, frightened face. “You might be safer if you did.”
“I cannot.”
And with that, the Italian pushed up from his chair and walked quickly away, his head bowed and the fingers of one hand sliding nervously up and down his watch chain.
Chapter 36
Sebastian stood beside the stone balustrade of Blackfriars Bridge and stared out over the uneven frozen plain that had once been the River Thames. Two straggly parallel lines of gaily painted booths and tents were beginning to form, with roving vendors selling everything from gingerbread and tea to gloves and hairbrushes. Troops of jugglers, acrobats, and tumblers performed for the growing crowd, while close to one of the arches of the bridge someone was roasting a sheep over a large iron pan full of coals and charging sixpence to watch or a shilling for a slice of mutton. The air was heavy with the scent of roasting meat, hot chestnuts, and ale.
There hadn’t been a Frost Fair on the Thames since Sebastian was a boy. In his memories it loomed as a magical thing, a marvel of music and laughter and fanciful sights that seemed far more exciting than those of more humdrum fairs such as Bartholomew’s or Southwark’s. He supposed the wonder had something to do with a Frost Fair’s ephemeral, spontaneous nature, as well as the inevitable spice of danger that came from knowing the ice could at any moment crack and give way, plunging everyone into the frigid waters below.
There were tents for drinking, eating, and dancing; toy stalls and skittles alleys; even a Punch and Judy show. And near the roasting sheep, a couple of apprentices were helping their master set up a printing press in a booth decorated with gaily colored streamers. The apprentices were unknown to Sebastian, but he recognized the printer. It was Liam Maxwell.
A young mother and two small children, all wrapped up warmly against the cold, were picking their way across the ice toward Maxwell’s booth. For a moment the younger boy paused to gaze in wide-eyed wonder at a juggler tossing flaming torches high into the air, and Sebastian found his thoughts spinning away, inevitably, to Jane Ambrose’s last days.
He suspected that, near the end, she must have felt something like a juggler herself, desperately trying to control the dangerous men who threatened her world. One of them had eventually killed her. If Sebastian could figure out how and where, it might tell him which one. But at the moment his thoughts were all up in the air, going round and round in an endless, useless whirl.
He was still staring thoughtfully out over the growing fair when a slim, elegantly dressed courtier came to stand beside him, the breeze rising off the ice to ruffle the artful curls that framed his handsome face.
“A curious level of excitement, this,” said Peter van der Pals, his gaze on the bustle below. “One would think they’d never seen a Frost Fair before.”
“They don’t happen here often.”
Van der Pals shifted his posture to lean one hip against the snow-covered battlement and face Sebastian. “I’m told you’ve been making inquiries about me.”
“I have. I don’t appreciate it when people lie to my wife.”
The Dutch courtier stiffened. It was considered a grave insult, calling a gentleman a liar. “I beg your pardon?”
Sebastian kept his voice even and pleasant, his gaze on two men setting up a swing below. “When you claimed Jane Ambrose was jealous of your attentions to Lady Arabella, that was a lie. Her anger was actually provoked by your attempts to convince her to spy on Princess Charlotte. When she refused, you threatened to make her ‘sorry’ if she told anyone. But she did tell someone, and now she’s dead. All of which makes you a prime suspect in her murder.”
A weak sun peeked out through a break in the clouds, and van der Pals’s eyes narrowed against the glare off the ice. “No one murdered Jane Ambrose. She slipped and fell.”
“Someone certainly made a rather clumsy attempt to give that impression.”
“So you’re suggesting—what? That I killed her out of spite? For daring to tell some dried-up old spinster on me?” The Dutchman gave a ringing laugh. “Surely you know that everyone around Charlotte spies for someone?”
“Perhaps. Except that as a result of your rather crude overtures, Jane Ambrose learned a certain troublesome secret
