Where Shadows Dance

Chapter 46

His betrothed was, as always, exquisitely turned out in a walking dress of teal silk with medieval sleeves slashed with strips of yellow. She wore pale yellow kid half boots that laced up the back and coordinated nicely with her yellow kid gloves and a teal silk reticule embroidered with tiny primroses. To top it off, she wore a hat trimmed with three peacock feathers. There was nothing in either her appearance or her manner to suggest that she was suffering any ill effects from either yesterday’s kidnapping or its bloody ending. The Jarvis town carriage with its two footmen waited nearby; a very young, very frightened-looking housemaid hovered at her elbow.

“Ah, there you are, my lord,” Miss Jarvis said, brushing past him into the hall. “When I couldn’t find you at Brook Street, I spoke to Sir Henry. He suggested you might be here.”

“Miss Jarvis—”

She went to stand in the doorway to the parlor. Gibson was now snoring gustily. She turned to face Sebastian, her eyes narrowing as she surveyed him critically. “I take it you haven’t heard the news.”

He scrubbed one hand down over his face, painfully conscious of the rasp of his day’s growth of beard. “Good God. Not another murder?”

“What? Oh, no. Nothing like that. My father has been closeted with the Prince and his ministers at Carlton House since dawn. A ship docked this morning from Canada with news that the United States have attacked us. According to the captain, the Americans declared war six weeks ago, on June eighteenth.”

He stared at her, his sleep-fuddled brain slowly beginning to move.

She said, “You do see the implications, do you not? According to what I have been able to discover, the Baltimore Mary sailed from America on June fifth.”

“But that would have been before war was declared. And it’s no use saying they could have heard rumors of war before they sailed, because the rumors have been flying for months now.”

“Yes. But I’ve also discovered that the Baltimore Mary didn’t sail directly to London. It stopped in Bermuda. Now, think about this: Say I’m the captain of an American ship—let’s call it the mystery ship, shall we?—with a cargo bound for Bermuda. Just as I am ready to set sail, word reaches me that Congress has declared war on Britain. I know that if I land in Bermuda after news of the war has reached there, the British colonial officials will confiscate my ship. But I also know that my government is in no hurry to send notice of their war declaration to the British, because Washington is planning an attack on Canada and they want to take the forces there by surprise. So I decide to set sail immediately, hoping to make landfall in Bermuda, unload my cargo, and be gone again before word of the war reaches there.”

“Risky,” said Sebastian. “But tempting. Yes, I can see that. So you’re suggesting—what? That this mystery ship landed at Bermuda and found the Baltimore Mary still there?”

She nodded. “And if so, wouldn’t I—in my role as this unknown American sea captain—warn my fellow compatriots of the outbreak of war?”

He realized suddenly that he was still in his shirtsleeves and scrambled quickly into his coat. Gibson stirred, murmured something, then fell back to sleep.

Sebastian hunted around for his cravat. “It would certainly explain why the Baltimore Mary’s captain was in such an unnatural rush to unload his cargo and why he sailed again without reloading or even refitting. He wanted to get away before word of the declaration of war reached London.”

She nodded. “What I don’t understand is why knowledge of the declaration of war didn’t leak out. All it would take is one drunken sailor.”

“The ships’ officers wouldn’t have told their crews—not if they could help it. They had too much riding on maintaining the secret.” He went into the kitchen, poured himself an ale, and downed half of it in one long pull. “That’s the link. The link between Kincaid and Ross. As Cox’s agent, Ezekiel Kincaid would immediately have hurried off to the West End to warn his employer of the declaration of war.”

“Which he did.”

Sebastian stared out over Gibson’s unkempt garden with its secret, unmarked graves. “Which, thanks to the landlady of the Bow and Ox, we know he did.”

Miss Jarvis said, “So what happened after that? Obviously—somehow—Ross heard about the declaration of war. But then what?”

“I’m not entirely certain. But we now know that Jasper Cox had a damned good reason to kill both men: to keep them quiet.”