Sebastian shook his head, for there was no answer to give. “Why didn’t you admit you were in love with her—and she with you?”
Maxwell squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t know. I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea about her—about the kind of woman she was.”
It was possible, Sebastian thought. But he could also think of another explanation that was considerably more damning. “Were you lovers?”
Maxwell swiped his sleeve across his wet eyes. “No. I swear to God, no.”
“Yet you asked her to leave her husband?”
“Who told you that?”
“Is it true?”
The journalist hesitated, then nodded. “She wouldn’t do it, though—for all he made her as miserable as a woman can be.”
“How long? How long have you been in love with her?”
A ghost of a smile touched his features. “Since the September I was fifteen. I went with Christian to watch a regatta on the Thames, and she was there. I remember she was wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and a white muslin dress with little puff sleeves and a blue sash, and I fell hopelessly, irretrievably in love with her—even though she was twenty years old and married and she treated me like her little brother’s awkward school friend. Which is precisely what I was.”
“When did that change?”
“I don’t know. It happened slowly, over time. I think if I hadn’t been so much younger than she, and her brother’s friend, it never would have come to be. As it was, it simply . . . crept up on her unawares. When Christian and I were in prison, she used to come see us, and we would talk for hours.” He drew a deep, shuddering breath. “That’s when I first realized Ambrose hit her. One time she came, she had a black eye. She refused to admit he’d done it, but Jane never was very good at lying. He was furious with her for visiting her brother in prison.” Maxwell huffed a sound that was not a laugh. “What a bloody bastard.”
“Did you know he’s had an opera dancer in keeping for the past three years?”
Maxwell entwined his fingers together and tapped his joined hands against his mouth. “I suspected it.”
“Did you tell Jane?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I didn’t know for certain. And because even if it were true, I knew she still wouldn’t leave him. It would only have hurt her, to realize that the man she’d given up everything for couldn’t even be faithful to her.”
“Could she have found out?”
“No.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes. She never would have kept it from me, had she known.”
“Yet she didn’t tell you about either Rothschild’s gold shipments or his threats, did she?”
Maxwell held himself very still. “No. No, she didn’t.”
“You said you last saw her the afternoon before she died; was that true?”
Maxwell nodded.
“What exactly did she say to you?”
He scrubbed his hands down over his face. “I told you: She talked about Princess Charlotte’s betrothal—about what a mistake it would be for Charlotte to go through with the marriage. She said the girl didn’t realize how much she would be giving up. And then she said . . . she said our society asks women to give up too much, but nothing’s going to change as long as women keep meekly doing what is expected of them.”
“That doesn’t sound like what I’ve come to know about Jane.”
“No, not at all. I asked her what she meant by it, but she only gave me a strange smile, kissed my cheek, and said, ‘You’ll see.’”
“‘You’ll see’? You’ll see—what?”
“I don’t know.”
Sebastian kept his gaze on the younger man’s face. “The postmortem showed Jane had been raped a day or two before she was killed.”
“What?” Maxwell pushed to his feet, his hands curling into fists at his sides.
“She didn’t say anything to you about it?”
“No!” He flung away, only to draw up short and whirl to face Sebastian again. “Who? Who did it?”
“We don’t know.”
“Was it Ambrose?” Maxwell’s nostrils flared. “Did he force himself on her? Hurt her? Because if it was Ambrose, I swear to God I’ll—”
“Don’t,” suggested Sebastian quietly.
The journalist thrust a shaky hand through his disheveled hair and swallowed hard.
Sebastian said, “Is there anyone to whom Jane might have confided something of that nature?”
Maxwell thought about it a moment, then shook his head. “I can’t think of anyone. She was fairly close to Miss Jones, but I doubt she would have revealed something like that to her. Women don’t usually talk about such things, do they? Not if they can hide it.”
“Who is Miss Jones?”
“Lottie Jones. She’s the Princess’s official miniature portrait painter. Jane’s known—knew—her for years. She painted the miniatures of Jane’s children in her locket.”
“Where would I find her?”
“She has a studio in Lower Grosvenor Street.” Maxwell slumped back against one of the side aisle’s columns, his head falling back as he stared up at the old church’s arched ceiling. “I can’t believe she kept so much from me—first Rothschild, then this. Why? Why would she do that?”
“What would you have done if she had told you someone had forced himself upon her?”
Maxwell’s jaw clenched. “Killed the bastard.”
Sebastian nodded. “Then that’s why she didn’t tell you.”
An early dusk was falling over the city by the time Sebastian turned down Brook Street. He could hear Hero playing the pianoforte, a haunting melody that carried clearly in the cold air as he nodded to the lamplighter and his boy working to kindle the flame of the oil lamp near the corner.
Hero had always been a technically proficient pianist. But there was a quality to her playing on this frigid February evening that he’d never heard before. And as he handed his hat, gloves, greatcoat, and walking stick to Morey and turned to climb the stairs, he finally realized what it was: emotion. Hero typically approached her playing as a skill, a task, something she mastered and yet from which she held herself aloof. But not tonight.
