Why Kill the Innocent (Sebastian St. Cyr #13)(27)

“I’m simply trying to understand Jane better. Did you happen to speak with her last week when she was here for your daughter’s lesson?”

Godwin shook his head. “She didn’t come. She sent a message saying she wouldn’t be able to make it.”

“Did she do that often?”

“No. Truth is, I can’t remember her having done it before. Ever.”





Chapter 15

Jarvis was at breakfast in Berkeley Square when his daughter, Hero, walked into the room and closed the door behind her.

“Did you kill Jane Ambrose?” she asked without preamble, jerking at the ribbons of her black velvet hat.

Jarvis cut a piece of ham. “I did not.”

“Obviously I don’t mean personally.”

Jarvis calmly chewed and swallowed. “The answer is still the same.”

“Do you know who did?”

“I do not. And unless her death should somehow threaten affairs of state, nor do I care.” He reached for the stout ale that always accompanied his breakfast. “Would you like a plate?”

She shook her head. “I’ve already breakfasted. Thank you.” But she did push away from the door and come to sit at the table.

She was Jarvis’s only surviving child. Once he’d had a son, a sickly, peculiar lad named David who’d died and been buried at sea years ago. All the other infants his late, tiresome wife, Annabelle, had managed to carry to term had either been born dead or died soon after. Annabelle herself had been dead four months now, and Jarvis had already dispensed with his black sleeve riband.

Hero still wore full mourning.

He had never thought his daughter a particularly attractive woman. She was too tall, her features too masculine, her gaze too direct and unabashedly intelligent. But she did look good in black, and he had to admit that marriage and motherhood had improved her. “How is my grandson?” he asked.

“Endlessly curious and fiercely determined.”

“Good.”

She placed her hands flat on the table and leaned into them.

“Is it true that Prinny has forced Charlotte to agree to marry William of Orange?”

“No one ‘forced’ her. The Princess made the decision of her own free will.”

“When given a choice between marrying Orange and being immured with a bunch of foul-tempered old women until she dies, you mean.”

“Well, at least until the Prince of Wales dies. At that point—assuming her poor old mad grandfather is also dead—she will be Queen and thus free to do as she pleases.”

“Both of Prinny’s parents are still alive. He could live another thirty or forty years.”

“He could.”

She fixed him with a fierce gaze. “Orange can’t be a proper husband to her and you know it. Such a marriage would make her life wretched.”

“This isn’t about Charlotte’s happiness. It’s about what’s good for the Kingdom—not to mention the future of all of Europe.”

“And you think a miserable union between our future queen and a man known to prefer handsome courtiers will be good for England? Did the disastrous marriage of Prinny and his poor wife teach us nothing?”

“Charlotte may be stubborn, but like her father, she understands her duty and will do it.”

“Prinny only agreed to ‘do his duty’ and marry Caroline because he was drowning in debt and he thought it would convince Parliament to grant him a higher allowance. And when he realized that wasn’t the case, he pitched a fit and refused to go near her again.”

“Yes. Well, fortunately Charlotte has been raised to be considerably less devoted to her own self-interest. She quite clearly understands that not only will a United Netherlands serve as a useful check against the French and form an important bridge between Hanover and England, but it will also separate France from an increasingly strong Prussia. With the Dutch Fleet jointed to the Royal Navy, our domination of the seas will be unchallengeable. Holland will be far more stable once it is turned into a monarchy—”

“Ah, yes: because the fates of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette certainly illustrated for all just how stable a monarchy can be,” said Hero dryly.

“—and nothing will keep this new, more powerful Dutch kingdom tied to Britain better than a marriage alliance,” he finished with a repressive frown.

Hero had never been the least troubled by his disapproval. “And if the Dutch people object to having their two-hundred-year-old republic replaced by a monarchy?”

Jarvis shrugged. “A few judicious whiffs of grapeshot will quiet any objections.”

Hero regarded him with a thoughtful expression that told him just how well she knew him. After a moment, she said, “There’s more to this than what you’re telling me.”

He laughed out loud and reached for his ale without answering her.

The opening of the dining room door brought Hero’s head around, her features carefully wiped of all emotion when she saw the dainty woman who paused there with one hand on the knob. “Cousin Victoria,” said Hero, rising to her feet.

“Hero!” Mrs. Victoria Hart-Davis came forward with a warm smile to take Hero in an affectionate embrace. A stunningly beautiful widow in her late twenties, she was a distant cousin of Hero’s dead mother and had been visiting at the time of Annabelle’s death. Because Jarvis’s own mother, the Dowager Lady Jarvis, was too old and arthritic to leave her rooms much these days, Cousin Victoria had kindly offered to stay and help run the household until someone suitable could be found.