Why Kill the Innocent (Sebastian St. Cyr #13)(21)

“But you have some suspicions?” said Sebastian.

“To be frank, I thought you might suspect me.”

“Oh? Should I?”

A muscle jumped along the man’s clenched jaw. “Jane and I were very close.”

“Were you lovers?”

The abrupt frankness of the question seemed to take Maxwell by surprise. Rather than answer, he cast another glance at Hero, only this one was more embarrassed than hostile.

The meaning of that look was not lost on her. Stooping to swing Simon up onto her hip, she said, “If you’ll excuse us, Mr. Maxwell, young Simon here and I will say good night.”

He gave a curt bow. “Of course, my lady.”

The boy began to fuss in protest as they moved toward the stairs, and Sebastian could hear her saying softly, “Let’s count the steps, shall we? One, two, three . . .”

“So, were you lovers?” Sebastian asked again.

Maxwell went to stand before the hearth. “No; we were not. But I can understand how someone might think we were. Jane was . . . very dear to me.”

“Was the feeling reciprocated?”

Maxwell turned his gaze to the flames. “We were old friends. Nothing more. Nothing.”

Sebastian studied the man’s half-averted face. In the distance he could hear the low murmur of Hero speaking to Simon’s nurse, Claire, followed by the whisper of her footsteps coming back down the stairs and slipping into the adjoining morning room. “Do you think Edward Ambrose suspected that his wife was being unfaithful to him?”

Maxwell’s head came up, his nostrils flaring. “But she wasn’t!”

“Yet he could have suspected it, couldn’t he? If, as you say, you were close enough that some might think it.”

Maxwell hesitated a moment, then nodded.

“Which means he had a reason to kill her.”

“Ambrose didn’t need me as an excuse to kill Jane. Their marriage had long ago turned into something more closely resembling an armed truce than a marriage. The deaths last year of Benjamin and Lawrence—Jane’s two children—ended what little good was left between them.”

“Did Ambrose ever hit her?”

Maxwell nodded again, his nostrils pinched. “He gave her a black eye at least once that I know of. And several times he left a mark on her face, just here—” He touched his fingertips to his left cheekbone at exactly the same place where someone had struck Jane moments before she died.

“She told you he hit her?”

“No. She always came up with some tale to explain the marks—she’d even laugh at herself for being so clumsy. But she wasn’t clumsy. She wasn’t clumsy at all. I could never understand why she protected him the way she did.”

“Perhaps she was ashamed.”

Maxwell turned abruptly to face him, his hand tightening around his glass. “Why the devil should she have been ashamed? He’s the one who hit her!”

“Some women are ashamed when their husbands or lovers beat them. I’m not saying I think they should be, because they shouldn’t at all. But that doesn’t alter the fact that it’s a common response.” Sebastian took another slow sip of his brandy. “When was the last time you saw her?”

Maxwell dragged a hand down over his haggard face. “The day before yesterday. I have a printing shop off Fleet Street and she . . . came in.”

“Why?”

“No particular reason. She was in the area and stopped by to see me.”

It was a simple offhand statement that told Sebastian a great deal about just how close Maxwell’s relationship with his old friend’s sister had been. “Did she ever mention Anna Rothschild to you?”

“I know she was upset when she recently lost her as a student. Why?”

“Do you know of any reason why her last encounter with Nathan Rothschild might have frightened her?”

“Frightened her? No. Why? What are you suggesting?”

“Nothing, at this point. Any idea what she was doing in Clerkenwell yesterday?”

“No. I can’t imagine.”

“She didn’t say how she planned to spend yesterday afternoon?”

Maxwell shook his head. “I don’t believe she had any lessons on Thursday afternoons—although she’d recently been to see Lord Wallace, so she may have scheduled something.”

“Phineas Wallace?” said Sebastian, sharper than he’d intended. Phineas Wallace, the second Baron Wallace, was a prominent Whig politician and one of the Princess of Wales’s closest advisers.

“Yes. Why?”

“Just wondering. When you saw Jane on Wednesday, how did she seem?”

The younger man looked as if the question confused him. “What do you mean?”

“Was she happy? Nervous? Afraid?”

He thought about it a moment. “Well, she was worried about the Princess. But then she’s been upset for weeks now on account of this bloody betrothal the Regent forced on Charlotte. The poor girl is in a panic, and Jane has been beside herself because of it.”

“What betrothal?” Sebastian said.

Maxwell’s eyebrows pinched together in a vaguely puzzled frown. “Don’t you know? To William, the Hereditary Prince of Orange. They’re keeping it quiet because Orange wants to make certain his position in the Netherlands is secure before the betrothal becomes known. But it’s all been arranged since before Christmas. As soon as he’s confident they have control of the situation there, it will be made public.”