Why Mermaids Sing (19 page)

K
at was drinking tea on the terrace at the rear of her house, overlooking the tree-shaded garden, when her maid came hurrying across the pavement.

“I asked her to wait in the drawing room while I announced her,” said Elspeth, wringing her work-worn hands against her apron. “Truly I did, but she said—”

Kat cut her off. “Who, Elspeth?”

A woman’s voice reached her, low and stern. “Good morning, Niece.”

Kat stared across the sun-dappled terrace at the thin matron who stood in the open doorway. It had been more than ten years since Kat had stolen away from this woman’s home—a frightened, desperate child willing to face the uncertainties of life on the streets rather than continue to endure this woman’s grim whippings by day and the degrading violations that came in the terrifying darkness of the night.

Her name was Emma Stone, and she was a close associate of “Holy Hannah” More and William Wilberforce and the growing group of moral reformers known as the Evangelicals. Emma Stone had made the Evangelical’s Society for the Suppression of Vice and Immorality her own special project, perhaps as a public form of atonement for the shame of having a sister as scandalously immoral as Kat’s mother.

They had come to London together, Emma and Arabella Noland, two Irish sisters, pretty but poorly dowered. The elder, Emma, had married a barrister named Maurice Stone. Arabella, the younger and prettier, had chosen a different path, becoming the mistress of first one wealthy nobleman, then the next.

“You are not welcome in my house, Aunt,” said Kat, keeping her voice level with effort.

“Believe me, it is only my sense of duty to my dead mother and the laws of our dear Lord that have brought me here.”

Kat gave her aunt a cold, tight smile. “Your devotion to your Lord’s laws seems very selective.” She cast a deliberate eye over her aunt’s unrelieved mourning gown of black bombazine. “Is he dead then?”

“Mr. Stone has been gone from me these past three years.”

“And still you wear deep mourning for him? How”—Kat paused, searching for the right word—“hypocritical of you.”

Two bright spots of color appeared on the other woman’s cheeks. “I did not believe the lies you told ten years ago. I’m not about to believe them now.”

“No. Of course not.” Kat crossed her arms before her. “I assume you’re here for some reason. Please state what it is and go away.”

The color in Emma Stone’s cheeks deepened. “I should have expected such a reception. There aren’t many women in my position who would have taken you in when I did—the illegitimate offspring of a harlot and the man who had her in his keeping. And how did you repay me? By fleeing my protection without a word of warning or thanks.”

“I’m the oddest creature,” said Kat in a tight voice. “I decided if I was going to be forced to slake a man’s lust, then I might as well get paid for it.”

A tremble of raw fury shook Emma Stone’s thin frame. Kat expected her to launch into an impassioned defense of her dead husband, or simply go away. Instead, she clenched her jaw so tightly she was practically spitting out her words. “I am here because of the notice of your approaching nuptials in the
Morning Post
.”

“Really, Aunt? You shock me. I had no idea you interested yourself in the affairs of Society.”

“I do not. Which is why I remained unaware of your relationship with Lord Devlin until the betrothal was brought to my attention by my dear friend Mrs. Barnes. You recall Mrs. Barnes?”

Kat remained motionless. Eunice Barnes was both her aunt’s near neighbor and a fellow soldier in the Society for the Suppression of Vice.

“She is the only one of my acquaintances who realized that the brazen hussy calling herself Kat Boleyn and flaunting herself on the boards at Covent Garden was none other than the niece I had once sheltered.”

“And she kept such delicious gossip to herself? I am impressed.”

Mrs. Stone acknowledged the barb with a twitching of her upper lip. “Had I been aware of the nature of the relationship you had developed with Viscount Devlin, I would of course have overcome my repugnance and approached you sooner.”

“Your repugnance. Yes, I suppose it must be quite a soul-trying exercise for a saintly woman such as yourself to venture into this den of sin and debauchery. You’d best say what you came to say and run away quickly before you become contaminated.”

Mrs. Stone jerked open the strings of her reticule to draw forth two small miniatures painted on oval porcelain plaques and framed in gold filigree. “Your mother stayed with me for a short time before she fled London. Did you know?”

Kat kept her surprise to herself, although in truth she had not known. Had Emma Stone’s despicable husband made his vile advances on Kat’s mother, too? Kat wondered. Had he found a grown woman—even one heavy with child—better able to defend herself than a thirteen-year-old girl?

“The ungrateful wretch fled my house as you did, leaving only a curt note of thanks and these two miniatures, which she begged me to accept as payment.”

“And you didn’t sell them?” However much Emma Stone might prate on about the Kingdom of Heaven, Kat knew the woman still maintained a healthy interest in the material comforts of this world.

Mrs. Stone’s head reared back in exaggerated affront. “Do you think I would take payment for sheltering my own sister in her time of need? The Good Book says, ‘Jesus Our Lord hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity.’”

Kat kept her gaze on her aunt’s lined face. The passage of time had not been kind to Emma Stone, crimping the skin around her mouth and etching her habitually disapproving expression deep. “I assume there is a point to all this, Aunt?”

Emma Stone held out the first miniature. “This one is of your mother. I assume you recognize her?”

Kat cradled the porcelain oval in her hands, the painting so exquisitely rendered that it caught her breath. It was a face Kat hadn’t seen in more than ten years, the wide green eyes slanted up slightly at the ends like a cat’s, the cheekbones high and flaring, the nose almost childlike above full, sensuous lips. Kat could trace some of those features in her own face, mingling with traits she’d come to think of as purely her own, although she knew they must come from the unknown lord who’d been her father.

She skimmed her fingertips across the smooth surface, as if by touching the painted likeness she might somehow touch the laughing, breathing mother who’d once loved her. A welling of emotion closed her throat. It was a moment before she could look up and say, “And the other miniature?”

Emma Stone pressed her lips together in grim censure. “The other miniature is the reason I have come. It is of the last man who had my sister in his keeping. Your father.”

With a hand that was not quite steady, Kat reached to take the small painting held out to her. Somehow, even before her hand closed over the miniature, she knew what she would see.

He was younger, of course, at least twenty-four years younger. The deftly rendered hair was still dark, the features solid but still firm. She had his chin, Kat realized; she supposed it was understandable that she had never noticed it before. But she should have recognized the eyes, she thought. How could she never have realized that the vivid blue eyes that stared back at her from her own reflection were those of Alistair St. Cyr, the Earl of Hendon?

“O
nce I give this information to Bow Street,” said Sir Henry Lovejoy, “I have little doubt but what they’ll move to arrest Mr. Forbes.” Henry focused his gaze on Lord Devlin. “Do you think he’s guilty?”

They sat in the modest drawing room of Henry’s Russell Square house, the remnants of tea spread on the table before them. Shifting in his chair, the Viscount stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles. “Forbes seems the most likely suspect, obviously. But is he guilty? I honestly don’t think so. The pieces of the puzzle are all fitting neatly together, but the picture they make seems somehow off-kilter. I can’t explain why.”

“He’s the only man with a motive that I can see.”

“There’s no doubt it’s a powerful motive,” Devlin agreed, “knowing your son was killed and eaten by a shipload of starving men and women.”

“Did they kill the boy, do you think? He might simply have died. He was injured, after all. Without adequate food or water…”

“He could have died of his injuries. But there have been other instances in which starving Englishmen and women have been reduced to feeding upon their dead companions—or have drawn lots. The fact that this company kept quiet about what they did suggests the boy was simply killed out of hand.” He blew out a long breath. “I doubt we’ll ever know the truth.”

“No, you’re probably right.” Henry sighed. “I’ll take this information to Sir James at Bow Street tonight.”

Devlin fixed him with an uncomfortably fierce yellow stare. “I suppose you must, but—” He broke off.

Henry raised one eyebrow. “You think there’s something you’ve missed?”

“I don’t know. I wish I understood better the part Jarvis’s son played in all this.”

“There is no evidence that Matt Parker’s brother spoke the truth. Who would take the word of a hanged sailor against the testimony of the likes of Sir Humphrey Carmichael or Lord Stanton?”

The Viscount set his teacup aside and stood up. “In this instance? I would.”

Sebastian returned to his house on Brook Street to be intercepted in the hall by his majordomo.

“There is a woman here to see you, my lord. A
foreign
woman and a child. They insisted upon waiting, so I have put them in the drawing room.”

“A Mrs. Bellamy?” said Sebastian sharply.

“That is the name she gave. Yes, my lord.”

Sebastian turned toward the stairs. “Send up some tea and cakes, Morey, and tell them I won’t be but a moment.”

He found Mrs. Bellamy seated in one of the cane-backed chairs beside the front bow window. At the sight of him, her mouth parted in surprise and she dropped the black-edged handkerchief she had been clutching. The child, Francesca, perched on the edge of a sofa near the empty hearth, a scorched leather-bound volume clutched against her thin chest, her eyes huge in a wan, pale face.

“Mrs. Bellamy, Francesca. My apologies for keeping you waiting. You should not have troubled yourself to make the journey up to London to see me. I would have been more than happy to wait upon you in Greenwich, had you but sent word.”

The Captain’s widow cast her daughter a quick, enigmatic glance. “Oh, my lord! I did not wish to trouble you at all. I thought Mr. Taylor must have left your card with me by mistake, and I came only in the hopes you might be able to direct me to him. It was Francesca who insisted we stay.”

Sebastian went to pour the tea that stood, neglected, upon the table. “Please accept my apologies for the deception I practiced upon you in Greenwich. I feared if I approached Captain Bellamy under my own name, he might refuse to see me.”

Her brow wrinkled in confusion. “And why would that be, my lord?”

“I suspect the Captain was warned not to speak to me.” He held out a cup. “Please, have some tea.”

She took the cup automatically, but did not drink it.

He turned toward Francesca. “And you, Miss Bellamy? Would you care for some tea and cakes?”

“No, thank you,” she said with painful seriousness, and held out the leather-bound book. “We’ve brought you this.”

“What is it?” asked Sebastian, not moving to take it from her.

It was Mrs. Bellamy who answered. “The ship’s log. From the
Harmony
. The evening he—he fell in the river, Captain Bellamy spent hours sitting at the table after supper, reading the log and drinking rum. Before he went out, he threw it on the hearth and lit a fire. But the fire didn’t catch properly and Francesca pulled it out.”

Sebastian watched the child run one hand over the log’s charred binding. “Have you read it?” he asked, glancing at the widow.

She flushed and shook her head. Too late, Sebastian remembered what Tom had told him in Greenwich, that the Captain’s young Brazilian wife was illiterate. “No,” she said. “But Francesca has.”

Sebastian’s gaze met the child’s, and he saw there the horrified confirmation of everything he’d suspected and more. “You read what happened after the mutiny?” he asked softly.

“I read it all.”

Dear God,
thought Sebastian. Aloud, he said, “And still you brought it to me?”

She nodded, the muscles in her jaw held tight. “It’s why Adrian died, isn’t it? It’s why they all died. Because of what Papa and their parents did on that ship.”

Impossible to lie to the child. All he could say was, “I suspect so.”

“Do you know who is doing it?”

“Not yet.”

She laid the log on the tea table and pushed it toward him. “Perhaps this will help.”

H
endon spent most of Saturday afternoon at Carlton House, dealing with a fretful Prince. He was leaving the palace and heading up the Mall when Kat Boleyn drew up her phaeton and pair beside him with a neat flourish.

“I’d like a word with you, my lord,” she said. “Drive with me a ways?”

Hendon looked at the woman before him. She wore a hunter green driving gown embellished with brass epaulets and set off by a cocky green chip hat with a curling ostrich feather. Hendon didn’t hold with females driving phaetons. He dropped his gaze to the restive horseflesh between the traces and was tempted to plead some excuse. But the fact that she had deliberately sought him out raised a glimmer of hope in his breast. Perhaps he might find some way to scotch Devlin’s marriage scheme after all.

He stepped up to the curb and said quizzically, “You wish me to ride with you in that rig?”

She let out a peal of musical laughter. “I promise not to overturn you, my lord. George,” she said to the groom seated beside her, “wait for me here.”

“Yes, miss.”

Hendon climbed up to settle in the space vacated by the groom. She gathered her reins, but before she gave the horses the office to start, she handed Hendon a small painted porcelain oval—a miniature of a dark-haired woman with flashing green eyes and a smile that had once stolen Hendon’s heart.

“Do you recognize this?” Kat Boleyn asked.

Hendon’s fist closed around the filigree-framed porcelain so hard the metal bit into his flesh. “No.”

She cast him a swift glance. “You lie, my lord. The truth is writ plain on your face. Her name was Arabella Noland, and she was your mistress, was she not?”

“What if she was? You think that showing me her portrait now will somehow soften my attitude toward your plans to marry my son? Well, let me tell you something, girl: you’re fair and far out!”

She said nothing, her attention all for the task of guiding her horses through the heavy Saturday-afternoon traffic.

“Where did you get this?” he asked at last.

“It was given to me by Arabella’s sister, Emma Stone.”

“That hateful woman,” said Hendon. “Why should she do such a thing?”

“Mrs. Stone also gave me this portrait of you.” She held out another miniature, and after a moment, Hendon took it from her.

“They are a matched set. Did you give them to Arabella? I wonder. Were they part of your farewell gift to her when you discovered she was with child?”

“No,” he said gruffly, unable to grasp her point. “They were a birthday gift. Why?”

She cast him a look he couldn’t begin to comprehend. “But you knew she had a child by you.”

Hendon worked his jaw back and forth. He saw no point in denying it. “Have you told Devlin of this?”

“No.” She feathered the turning onto Whitehall. “
Did
you know of the child?

“I knew. It’s why she left me.”

“She left you?”

Hendon grunted. “I assumed you must know the whole story. It was my intention to take the child away after it was born. Give it to a good family, to be raised in the country.”

“You would have taken her child away?”

The edge in her voice caught him by surprise. He shrugged. “It’s the usual practice. Arabella was distraught at the suggestion, but I thought she’d come around. Instead, she left without even telling me she was going.”

Wordlessly, Kat Boleyn eased her pair around a brewer’s wagon obstructing the road. Hendon let his gaze rove over her high cheekbones, the impish line of her nose, the sensuous curve of her lips. He’d always thought she had something of the look of Arabella. And then, from somewhere unbidden came a powerful sense of disquiet.

“Why did Emma Stone give you these miniatures?” he asked again.

“Emma Stone is my aunt.”

Hendon opened his mouth to deny it, to deny everything she was suggesting. Then he shut it again. If any other young woman had come to him with such a claim, he would never have accepted her statements at face value. But this woman of all others had no reason to claim him as her father and every reason not to.

“My God,” he whispered. “I always thought you resembled her, but I never imagined…” His voice trailed off. He stared across the tops of the elms in the park, their leaves suddenly so brutally green against the blue of the sky that he had to blink several times.

“What are you going to do?” he asked at last.

“Tell Devlin. What else can I do?”

He studied the beautiful, hauntingly familiar face beside him. He had always thought of her as his adversary, the woman he had to fight to prevent her from ruining Devlin’s life. He found that he still thought of her that way. He had to think of her that way. He could allow himself nothing else. Not now. “You could simply go away,” he suggested.

“No,” she said fiercely. “I won’t hurt him like that again. Not a second time.”

“Then let me be the one to tell him.”

He thought at first she meant to refuse him. She drew in a quick breath, then another. And it was only then that he realized she was fighting back tears.

“Very well,” she said, drawing up before the palace. “But you had best tell him right away, because the next time I see him, I will tell him if you have not.”