Page 66 of Who Cries for the Lost

Chapter 38

Sebastian drove next to Berkeley Square, meaning to confront Jarvis about what the powerful man really knew about Miles Sedgewick’s death. But when he rounded the corner of the square, it was to find the cobbles spread with straw to deaden the clatter of hooves and the rattle of ironclad wheels over stone.

“What’s this fer, then?” said Tom as Sebastian pulled in at the kerb. “ ’As somebody died?”

Sebastian handed the boy the reins. “Hopefully not. I suspect Lady Jarvis has been confined.”

Hopping down, he took the front steps two at a time and was about to ring the bell when the door was opened by Jarvis’s normally staid and censorious butler, Grisham. His hair was vaguely disarrayed, and a smile kept tugging at his lips. “My lord,” he said, unbending more than Sebastian would have thought possible. “You’ve come to see the new babe, have you?”

“It’s here, is it?”

“It is, indeed. And it’s a boy!”

A soft step on the landing above drew his attention to where Hero had just appeared, a lavishly wrapped bundle cradled in her arms. “I saw you drive up,” she said, coming down the stairs toward him. “Meet my little brother: Master Maximilian Charles David Jarvis.” She held the babe up so he could see. “Isn’t he beautiful?”

Sebastian gazed down at the red, scrunch-faced, sleeping infant and smiled. “He is, yes. And how is Cousin Victoria?”

“She’s doing well. It was an amazingly easy delivery—especially for a first birth.”

“Thank God for that.”

“It’s always magical, isn’t it?” she said, looking over at him with a soft, joyous smile. And he felt his heart swell with so much love that it hurt.

“Always,” he whispered, his gaze locking with hers.

A heavy tread on the stairs drew their attention to where Jarvis himself was coming down toward them. “Congratulations, my lord,” said Sebastian, turning. “You have a fine new son.”

“Thank you,” said the big man. He paused beside Hero, his gaze on the child in her arms, his face so gentle, so filled with wonder and quiet joy, that Sebastian caught a glimpse that he’d rarely seen of a private side to this powerful, formidable man. Then Jarvis looked up, a speculative gleam banishing that brief moment of tenderness and vulnerability as his gaze settled on his son-in-law. “Did you wish to see me about something?”

Sebastian shook his head. “Nothing that can’t wait.”

It was some time later, when Sebastian and Hero were seated on the sunny terrace overlooking their rear garden while the two boys played with their big black cat, that Sebastian said to Hero, “How would you like to go to a ball tonight?”

She laughed and shifted the slant of her parasol so that she could look over at him. Then she said, “Oh, heavens, you’re serious. Which ball?”

“The one being given by the French Ambassador.”

“That’s tonight? With everything that’s going on, I’d totally forgotten it.”

“Do you feel up to it?”

“Yes, of course. But why?”

“Because the Ambassador from Spain is bound to be there, and it’s probably the easiest way to find out more about this diplomat who was involved in the negotiations that ended with the French prisoners being sent to Cabrera.”

“What do you think he can tell you?”

“I don’t know. But it seems a bit of a coincidence, don’t you think? Such a man being posted to London now?”

“Coincidences do happen.”

“They do,” said Sebastian, watching Simon trail a length of string down a flagstone path for the cat to chase. “And sometimes their consequences can be deadly.”

The French Ambassador to the Court of St. James was a blue-blooded aristocrat named Claude-Louis-Raoul de La Châtre. His father, the previous Marquis de La Châtre, had been guillotined by the revolutionaries in 1793, while Claude-Louis fled France to organize a regiment of émigrés loyal to the deposed Bourbons. He was in his late sixties now, with a long nose, a prominent, full lower lip, and fiercely dark eyebrows that contrasted strikingly with the thin white hair he wore hanging long to his shoulders. Sebastian had never met the man, but he was the representative of the newly restored—although now once again deposed—Bourbons, and the Bourbons were not fond of Sebastian.

“Ah, monsieur le vicomte,” he said when Sebastian and Hero were presented to him. “And Lady Devlin. I have heard Marie-Thérèse speak of you both.” He paused, his heavy dark brows drawing together in a frown. “Often.”

“Oh, dear,” said Hero in a low voice after they’d turned away. “I get the impression the Daughter of France has not had nice things to say about us.”

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