Why Kill the Innocent (Sebastian St. Cyr #13)(47)
“Did Jane know?”
“I assume she did. How could she not? But she never said anything to me about it, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Was she faithful to him?”
Sheridan gave a derisive grunt. “You think she’d tell me? Her aged, decrepit uncle?”
“What do you know about Liam Maxwell?”
“Maxwell? He’s a firebrand.” A slow smile spread across the man’s unshaven face. “I might have alarmed the palace in my day with my support of Catholic emancipation and Irish independence, but Maxwell! Even after two years in Newgate, he’s still about as radical as they come—unlike poor Christian. Prison broke him, I’m afraid. Now he publishes rubbishy romances about vampires and dark, mysterious counts.” He gave a derisive snort. “Can you imagine? He actually brought me one a couple of weeks or so ago. Me! Fortunately, the bailiffs took it.”
Sebastian found himself smiling. “Jane went out to Connaught House last week to see the Princess of Wales. You wouldn’t happen to know why, would you?”
The old man looked visibly, genuinely startled. “She went to see Caroline?”
“Yes. That surprises you. Why?”
“I suppose it shouldn’t, but . . .” He hesitated, his jaw hardening. “Have you spoken to Jarvis about this?”
“As it happens, yes, I have. You’re something like the third person to ask me that.”
Sheridan cocked one eyebrow. “Suggestive, wouldn’t you say?”
Sebastian studied the clever elderly playwright’s wily, unreadable face. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“Me?” Sheridan laughed out loud. “What could I possibly have to hide?”
“A great deal, I suspect.”
But Sheridan only laughed again and refused to be drawn further.
Chapter 28
It was shortly after her return from Newgate, while Hero was changing clothes and scrubbing the prison stink from her skin, that she received a message from Miss Ella Kinsworth, alerting her to the Princess’s plans to venture down to the Thames that afternoon to observe the strange spectacle of Londoners walking on their river.
“You weren’t entirely honest with me,” Hero said to Miss Ella Kinsworth as they strolled along the terrace of Somerset House overlooking the frozen river. Her Royal Highness Princess Charlotte of Wales, clad in white fur trimmed with red ribbons, raced ahead with her dog, an elegant white Italian greyhound.
“I told you what I felt I could,” said Miss Kinsworth, her gaze on the laughing girl and joyously barking dog. “It wouldn’t have been right to repeat the Dutch courtier’s words about Valentino Vescovi. I mean, what if the accusations weren’t true? I would simply be helping to spread false rumors about an innocent man.”
“I’m not sure anyone could describe Valentino Vescovi as an innocent man.”
The older woman’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “Probably not.”
Hero watched Charlotte chase after her dog, then whirl laughing as the greyhound cavorted around her. The girl might have only just turned eighteen, but she looked more like twenty-five, with a well-developed figure and mature features. In many ways she resembled both her mother and her father, with the typical big-boned Hanoverian build and long nose, although she managed to be considerably more attractive than either parent. Her lips were beautifully molded, and she had an open, honest expression that was gentle without being insipid.
Yet Hero had to admit that the Duchess of Leeds was right in one sense: There was nothing either elegant or princess-like about Charlotte’s ways. She was boisterous and loud and overflowing with boundless energy and good cheer. And while she carried herself with that innate self-confidence unique to those who are born and bred royal, as far as Hero could see, she was utterly lacking in conceit or condescension or an overweening sense of haughty self-importance. Lady Leeds might condemn that tendency, but Hero found it both admirable and refreshing.
“So why did the Princess lock Lady Arabella in the water closet last week?” Hero asked her friend.
Miss Kinsworth pressed the fingers of one hand to her lips to hide a smile. “It’s wrong of me to laugh because it was a shocking thing to do, but I can’t help it. It was such a well-deserved retribution. Lady Leeds tells everyone that she introduced her daughter into the household as a favor to Charlotte, to provide her with a companion closer to her age. But Charlotte despises the girl. She’s always finding the little sneak in her bedchamber with no good excuse for being there, or listening at keyholes and creeping about where she has no business to be. That’s why Charlotte and I began speaking to each other in German—although that didn’t work for long.” The older woman shook her head. “There’s no denying Lady Arabella is clever; she learned German with enviable facility. So we switched to Italian, and now she’s learning that. I fear I’m running out of languages—and unlike Her Grace’s daughter, I do not acquire new ones easily.”
“Latin?” suggested Hero with a laugh.
“I suspect her little ladyship’s Latin is already better than mine.” Miss Kinsworth’s smile slipped. “It didn’t occur to me she might be eavesdropping on my conversations with Jane Ambrose, too. How can someone so young be so conniving?”