Why Kill the Innocent (Sebastian St. Cyr #13)(14)

“That’s quite all right,” said Hero, smiling. “As it happens, I was actually looking for you. Shall we go inside for a moment? I’d like to ask you some questions.”

Van der Pals hesitated the briefest instant. But one did not rebuff the daughter of the most powerful man in the Kingdom. He bowed again. “Of course.”

Nodding to the liveried footman at the door, he ushered her into a small overheated withdrawing room just off the grand entrance hall. “Please, my lady, do take a seat. Shall I ring for tea?” His recitation of the requisite polite formalities was everything it should have been—except that the courtier made no attempt to remove his greatcoat and simply stood inside the door, his hat in his hands in a none-too-subtle message.

“Neither will be necessary. Thank you.” Hero eased open the throat latch of her fur-trimmed pelisse as the heat of the room enveloped her. “I assume you know why I’m here.”

The courtier gave a startled laugh. “Actually, no. I fear you find me quite at a loss. Should I?”

“When a man threatens a woman who later turns up dead, he must surely expect to be the object of scrutiny.”

Van der Pals shook his head in a credible show of confusion that Hero might have assumed was real if she hadn’t known his type as well as she did. “I don’t understand,” he said. “What dead woman?”

“Jane Ambrose.”

“Ah.” He raised one hand to pinch the bridge of his nose as if overcome by distress. “But Mrs. Ambrose’s death was caused by a fall. It was in the papers this morning. The streets have become beyond treacherous with all this snow and ice.”

“They have indeed. Yet Jane Ambrose did not slip on the ice and hit her head. It appears that she was in all likelihood murdered. Quite viciously.”

“Murdered?” His expression of shock was everything it should have been—and potentially every bit as false as his earlier show of confusion. “How perfectly ghastly. But I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with me.”

The heat from the room’s fireplace was becoming overwhelming; Hero quietly tugged off her fur-lined mittens. “Perhaps I should explain that we know you tried to charm Jane Ambrose into spying on Princess Charlotte for the House of Orange. When charm failed, you attempted bribery. And when that, too, was unsuccessful, you warned her that if she told anyone of your overtures you would make certain that she— How did you put it? Ah, yes, you said she’d ‘be sorry.’”

“Who told you this?” he hissed. He was no longer smiling.

“You don’t seriously expect me to answer that, do you?”

“Yet you expect me to respond to these absurd accusations?”

Hero raised one eyebrow. “You deny the encounter took place?”

“Of course I deny it!”

“So you’re suggesting—what? That Jane Ambrose made up the entire tale out of whole cloth?”

“Either Mrs. Ambrose or whoever regaled you with this nonsense, yes.”

“And precisely what would be the purpose of such a deception?”

“Presumably to discredit me—and, by extension, the House of Orange.”

“Oh? And why would Jane Ambrose wish to discredit you or your prince?”

The Dutchman’s eyes narrowed. “Forgive me, my lady, but why are you here asking these questions? As Lord Jarvis’s envoy? Or for some other reason?”

It was an astute question and one that forced Hero to be more honest than she would have liked. “I am here because Jane Ambrose’s association with Princess Charlotte precludes a more formal investigation of her murder.” She gave him an icy stare. “Is there a reason you’re avoiding answering my questions?”

Van der Pals went to stand facing the room’s fireplace, one fist resting on the mantel, his gaze on the blaze on the hearth. After a moment, he said, “This is a trifle delicate, but the truth is that Mrs. Ambrose and I enjoyed a light flirtation. Nothing serious, you understand. But I fear she must have read more into my gallantry than was intended, for when she chanced one day to see me laughing—quite innocently, I assure you!—with Lady Arabella, she flew into a frightful rage. It was really quite shocking.”

He glanced up at Hero in a way that caused a boyish shock of hair to fall over his forehead. He was an extraordinarily attractive young man, and he not only knew it, but was accustomed to using his looks to disarm and cajole.

Hero was not easily disarmed. “Who is Lady Arabella?”

“Lady Arabella Osborne, daughter of the Princess’s governess, the Duchess of Leeds. The Duchess recently introduced her to Warwick House in the hopes of providing the Princess with a friend close to her own age. But the girl is still quite young and rather unsure of herself, so I sought to try to put her at ease. I never imagined Jane would react so . . . violently.”

His use of the dead woman’s given name was both suggestive and, Hero suspected, deliberate. She said, “You would have me think that you and Jane Ambrose were lovers?”

His wonderful white teeth flashed as he gave an embarrassed laugh. “Good heavens, no. Ours was a flirtation only, as I said—although Jane obviously thought things more serious than I had intended.” He tipped his head to one side as if struck by a sudden thought. “Have you considered that she might have been killed as the result of a lovers’ quarrel?”