When Maidens Mourn (14 page)

Smiling benignly, Hero sipped her tea and encouraged her hostess to prattle on. Mary Bourne bragged (in the most humble way possible, of course) about the morning and evening prayers that all servants in her own household at Dalby near Somersby were required to attend daily. She hinted (broadly) that she was the pseudonymous author of a popular denunciation of the modern interest in Druidism, and from there allowed herself to be led ever so subtly, ever so unsuspectingly, to the subject Hero had come to learn more about: the precise nature of the relationship between Charles d’Eyncourt and his brother, George Tennyson, the father of the two missing little boys.

Charles, Lord Jarvis lounged at his ease in a comfortable chair beside the empty hearth in his chambers in Carlton House. Moving deliberately, he withdrew an enameled gold snuffbox from his pocket and flicked it open with practiced grace. He lifted a delicate pinch between one thumb and forefinger and inhaled, his hard gaze never leaving the sweating pink and white face of the stout man who stood opposite him. “Well?” demanded Jarvis.

“This c-complicates things,” stammered Bevin Childe. “You must see that. It’s not going to be easy to—”

“How you accomplish your task is not my problem. You already know the consequences if you fail.”

The antiquary’s soft mouth sagged open, his eyes widening. Then he swallowed hard and gave a jerky, panicky bow. “Yes, my lord,” he said, and then jumped when Jarvis’s clerk tapped discreetly on the door behind him.

“What is it?” demanded Jarvis.

“Colonel Urquhart to see you, my lord.”

“Show him in,” said Jarvis. He closed his snuffbox with a snap, his gaze returning to the now-pale antiquary. “Why are you still here? Get out of my sight.”

Hat in hand, the antiquary backed out of the room as if exiting from a royal presence. He was still backing when Colonel Jasper Urquhart swept through the door and sketched an elegant bow.

“You wished to see me, my lord?”

The Colonel was a tall man, as were all the former military men in Jarvis’s employ, tall and broad-shouldered, with fair hair and pale gray eyes and a ruddy complexion. A former rifleman, he had served Jarvis for two years now. Until today, he hadn’t disappointed.

“Yesterday,” said Jarvis, pushing to his feet, “I asked you to assign one of your best men to a certain task.”

“Yes, my lord. I can explain.”

Jarvis sniffed and tucked his snuffbox back into his pocket. “Please don’t. I trust the individual in question is no longer in my employ?”

“Correct, my lord.”

“You relieve me. See that his replacement does not similarly disappoint.”

The Colonel’s thin nostrils quivered. “Yes, my lord.”

“Good. That will be all.”

Sebastian spent three frustrating hours prowling the rooming houses, taverns, and coffeehouses known to be frequented by officers on their parole. But the questions he asked were of necessity vague and the answers he received less than helpful. Without knowing the French lieutenant’s name, how the devil was he to find one paroled French officer amongst so many?

He was standing beside the Serpentine and watching a drilling of the troops from the Hyde Park barracks when he noticed a young, painfully thin man limping toward him. A scruffy brown and black mutt with a white nose and chest padded contentedly at his heels, one ear up, the other folded half over as if in a state of perpetual astonishment. The man’s coat was threadbare and his breeches mended, but his linen was white and clean, his worn-out boots polished to a careful luster, the set of his shoulders and upright carriage marking him unmistakably as a military man. His pallid complexion contrasted starkly with his brown hair and spoke of months of illness and convalescence.

He paused uncertainly some feet away, the dog drawing up beside him, pink tongue hanging out as it panted happily. “
Monsieur le vicomte?”
he asked.

“Yes.” Sebastian turned slowly to face him. “And you, I take it, must be Miss Tennyson’s mysterious unnamed French lieutenant?”

The man brought his heels together and swept an elegant bow. This particular French officer was, obviously, not one of those who had been raised through the ranks from the gutters of Paris. “I have a name,” he said in very good English. “Lieutenant Philippe Arceneaux, of the Twenty-second Chasseurs à Cheval.”

“W
e met last May in the Reading Room of the British Museum,” said Arceneaux as he and Sebastian walked along the placid waters of the Serpentine. The dog frisked happily ahead, nose to the ground, tail wagging. “She was having difficulty with the archaic Italian of a novella she was attempting to translate, and I offered to help.”

“So you’re a scholar.”

“I was trained to be, yes. But France has little use for scholars these days. Only soldiers.” He gazed out across the park’s open fields, to where His Majesty’s finest were drilling in the fierce sunshine. “One of the consolations of being a prisoner of war has been the opportunity to continue my studies.”

“This novella you mentioned; what was it?”

“A now obscure elaboration of a part of the Arthurian legend called
La donna di Scalotta
.”

“
The Lady of Shalott
,” said Sebastian thoughtfully.

The Frenchman brought his gaze back to Sebastian’s face. “You know it?” he said in surprise.

“I have heard of it, but that’s about it.”

“It’s a tragic tale, of a beautiful maiden who dies for the love of a handsome knight.”

“Sir Lancelot?”

“Yes.”

“Convenient, isn’t it, the way Camelot, Lancelot, and Shalott all happen to rhyme?”

Arceneaux laughed out loud. “Very convenient.”

Sebastian said, “Were you in love with her?”

The laughter died on the Frenchman’s lips as he lifted his shoulders in a shrug that could have meant anything, and looked away. It occurred to Sebastian, watching him, that the Lieutenant appeared young because he was—probably no more than twenty-four or -five, which would make him several years younger than Gabrielle.

“Well? Were you?”

They walked along in silence, the sun warm on their backs, the golden light of the afternoon drenching the green of the grass and trees around them. Just when Sebastian had decided the Frenchman wasn’t going to answer, he said softly, “Of course I was. At least a little. Who wouldn’t be? She was a very beautiful woman, brilliant and courageous and overflowing with a zest for life. While I—” His voice broke and he had to swallow hard before he could continue. “I have been very lonely, here in England.”

“Was she in love with you?”

“Oh, no. There was nothing like that between us. We were friends—fellow scholars. Nothing more.”

Sebastian studied the Frenchman’s lean profile. He had softly curling brown hair and a sprinkling of cinnamon-colored freckles high across his cheeks that gave him something of the look of a schoolboy. At the moment, the freckles were underlaid by a faint, betraying flush.

“When did you last see her?” Sebastian asked.

“Wednesday evening, I believe it was. She used to bring her young cousins here, to the park, to sail their boats on the Serpentine. I would meet them sometimes. The boys liked to play with Chien.”

Sebastian glanced over at the brown and black mongrel, now loping methodically from tree to tree in a good-natured effort to mark all of Hyde Park as his own personal territory. “Chien? That’s his name?” “
Chien
”
was simply the French word for “dog.”

“I thought if I gave him a name, I might become too attached to him.”

The dog came bounding back to the young lieutenant, tail wagging, brown eyes luminous with adoration, and the Lieutenant hunkered down to ruffle the fur around his neck. The dog licked his wrist and then trotted off again happily.

“Looks as if that’s working out well,” observed Sebastian.

Arceneaux laughed again and pushed to his feet. “He used to live in the wasteland near that new bridge they’re building. I go there sometimes to sit at the end overlooking the river and watch the tide roll in and out. He would come sit beside me. And then one day just before curfew, when I got up to leave, he came too. Unfortunately, he has a sad taste for the low life—particularly Gypsies. And a shocking tendency to steal hams. George used to say I should have called him ‘Rom,’ because he is a Gypsy at heart.”

The Lieutenant watched the dog roll in the grass near the water’s edge and his features hardened into grim lines. After a moment, he said, “Do you think George and Alfred are dead too?”

“They may be. Or they could simply have been frightened by what happened to their cousin and run away to hide.”

“But the authorities are looking for them, yes? And Gabrielle’s brother has offered a reward. If that were true, why have they not been found?”

Sebastian could think of several explanations that made perfect
sense, although he wasn’t inclined to voice them. Small boys were a valuable commodity in England, frequently sold as climbing boys by the parish workhouses or even by their own impoverished parents. The chimney sweeps were in constant need of new boys, for the work was brutal and dangerous. Even boys who survived eventually outgrew the task. It wasn’t unknown for small children to be snatched from their front gardens and sold to sweeps. Very few of those children ever made it home again.

But the chimney sweeps weren’t the only ones who preyed on young children; girls and boys both were exploited for sexual purposes the very thought of which made Sebastian’s stomach clench. He suspected the trade in children was a contributing factor to Tennyson’s decision to ignore the concerns of the magistrates and post a reward for the boys’ return. Then he noticed the way the Lieutenant’s jaw had tightened, and he knew the Frenchman’s thoughts were probably running in the same direction.

Sebastian breathed in the warm, stagnant aroma of the canal, the sunbaked earth, the sweet scent of the lilies blooming near the shadows of the trees. He said, “Did Miss Tennyson seem troubled in any way the last time you saw her?”

“Troubled? No.”

“Would you by any chance know how she planned to spend this past Sunday afternoon?”

“Sorry, no.”

Sebastian glanced over at him. “She didn’t speak of it?”

“Not that I recall, no.”

“Yet you did sometimes see her on Sundays, did you not?”

Arceneaux was silent for a moment, obviously considering his answer with care. He decided to go with honesty. “Sometimes, yes.”

“Where would you go?”

A muscle worked along the Frenchman’s jaw as he stared out over the undulating parkland and shrugged. “Here and there.”

“You went up to Camlet Moat a week ago last Sunday, didn’t you?”

Arceneaux kept his face half averted, but Sebastian saw his throat work as he swallowed.

One of the conditions of a prisoner’s parole was the requirement that he not withdraw beyond certain narrowly prescribed boundaries. By traveling up to Camlet Moat, the Frenchman had violated his parole. Sebastian wondered why he had taken such a risk. But he also understood how frustration could sometimes lead a man to do foolish things.

“I have no intention of reporting you to the Admiralty, if that’s what you’re worried about,” said Sebastian.

“I didn’t kill her,” said Arceneaux suddenly, his voice rough with emotion. “You must believe me. I had no reason to kill any of them.”

Some might consider unrequited love a very common motive for murder. But Sebastian kept that observation to himself. “Who do you think would have a reason to kill them?”

Arceneaux hesitated, the wind ruffling the soft brown curls around his face. He said, “How much do you know about Camlet Moat?”

“I know that Miss Tennyson believed it the lost location of Arthur’s Camelot. Do you?”

“I will admit that when I first heard the suggestion, it seemed laughable. But in the end I found her arguments profoundly compelling. The thing is, you see, our image of Camelot has been molded by the writings of the troubadours. We picture it as a fairy-tale place—a grand medieval castle and great city of grace and beauty. But the real Camelot—if it existed at all—would have been far less grand and magnificent. There is no denying that Camlet Moat’s name is indeed a recent corruption of Camelot. And it is an ancient site with royal connections that remained important down through the ages.”