Why Kill the Innocent (Sebastian St. Cyr #13)(74)
“If you know so much about it, then why bother asking me?”
“Don’t,” said Hero, her voice low and lethal. “Don’t even think about trying my patience any further.”
The girl’s pointed little chin jerked up higher. “Very well. She came because—or so she claimed—the Dutch courtier Peter van der Pals had forced himself upon her, and she had the ridiculous notion in her head that I was responsible.” The girl gave another tinkling little laugh that made Hero long to slap her beautiful, spoiled face. “As if I could somehow be held to blame for her folly.”
“You don’t think you were?”
“Hardly.”
“Van der Pals threatened to make her sorry if she told anyone he’d tried to get her to spy for him. I know you overheard her warning Ella Kinsworth about what he’d done because you later repeated the conversation to Valentino Vescovi. Did you also tattle to van der Pals himself?”
“And if I did?”
“He raped her because of you.”
“So she claimed.”
“Oh, it happened.”
The girl simply stared back at Hero, jaw set hard.
Hero said, “Where did the rape take place?”
“I’ve no idea. Do you seriously think I inquired into the sordid details?”
Hero searched the young girl’s lovely, cold face. “Two people are dead, in all likelihood because of you. Don’t you even care?”
“I am no more responsible for their deaths than you are.”
Hero shook her head. But all she could find to say was “May God have mercy on your soul.”
She was turning away when Lady Arabella said, “Mrs. Ambrose actually thanked me, you know.”
Hero paused. “For what?”
“She said I’d helped her see something she should have realized long ago.”
“And what was that?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. I didn’t ask her to particularize.”
Hero said, “If you know anything else—anything at all—about what happened to Jane Ambrose or Valentino Vescovi—”
“I’ve told you all I know.” Lady Arabella shook back her dark, beautiful hair. “Now, you must excuse me, Lady Devlin; I see my mother the Duchess looking for me.”
And with that the girl slipped away, her head held high and a faint smile curling her lovely lips, secure in the knowledge that her wealth, birth, and beauty would insulate her from the myriad ugly fates that could befall the world’s less exalted mortals.
Chapter 42
Peter van der Pals was looking over a tray of snuffboxes in an exclusive little shop on Bond Street when Sebastian came to rest one forearm on the counter beside him.
“Leave us,” Sebastian told the slight, fastidious shopkeeper hovering nearby.
The shopkeeper took his tray of snuffboxes and scuttled to the back of the shop.
Van der Pals turned with deliberate indolence to face Sebastian. “I presume you are here as a result of Lady Devlin’s conversation with the Duchess of Leeds’s daughter?”
“Lady Arabella managed to get word to you about that already, did she? And are you planning to deny what you did to Jane Ambrose?”
The Dutchman gave a low, incredulous laugh. “Hardly. Why should I? I warned her to keep her mouth shut, and she did not.”
“You think that justifies what you did to her?”
The courtier shrugged and started to turn away. “I taught the bitch a lesson. She had it coming.”
Sebastian caught van der Pals by the shoulder and spun him around to shove him back against the nearest wall hard enough to rattle the contents of the display cases.
“Gentlemen,” bleated the shopkeeper, clutching his tray of snuffboxes against his chest. “Gentlemen, please.”
Van der Pals held himself very still. “You are physically assaulting the particular friend of the man who will someday be the prince consort of your Queen, if not king in his own name.”
“I’ll worry about the consequences when that day comes.”
The courtier raised one supercilious eyebrow. “What precisely is it you want from me?”
“Answers. First of all, where did this happen?”
“Savile Row. I believe she was coming back from a visit to her dear uncle Sheridan, but I could have that wrong.”
“So you—what? Dragged her into a convenient alley and took her there up against a wall?”
“Something like that. It was, after all, an act of punishment, not pleasure.”
Sebastian resisted the urge to slam the man against the wall again. “And then two days later you killed her.”
“Hardly. I’d already made my point. Why would I then kill her?”
“For refusing to keep quiet about the rape.”
“In my experience, women never talk about such incidents. They understand that for others to know what’s been done to them is far more damaging than the initial violation and therefore keep silent for their own good.”
“Except that Jane Ambrose wasn’t keeping silent. And given your friendship with young Lady Arabella, I have no doubt you know that.”
The courtier gave a dismissive shrug. “So she told one sixteen-year-old girl. She wouldn’t have told anyone else.”