Why Mermaids Sing

Chapter 38

“Take extra-special care of them,” Sebastian said when he turned the tired chestnuts over to Tom several hours later. “The lad at the livery stable down in Avery was a ham-fisted idiot. Don’t let me go near that place without you again.”

Tom grinned and took the reins. “I’ll baby ’em, fer sure.”

“Any luck with Parker?”

“Aye. ’Is name’s Matt. Matt Parker. ’E works at the East India Company docks. Spends ’is evenings at a local called the ’Are and ’Ound, on the Ratcliffe Highway.”

Sebastian regarded his tiger with awe. “How ever did you find that out?”

Tom’s grin widened. “You don’t want to know.”

“Perhaps you’re right.” Sebastian turned toward the garden gate, but paused to say, “Now, if you could just find me a valet…”

Tom laughed. “I’m workin’ on it, gov’nor. I’m workin’ on it.”

The Hare and Hound was a nondescript, ramshackle pub reached through a narrow passage between an apothecary and a chandler’s.

Sebastian pushed his way through a noisy crowd to the bar. He’d taken care to dress for the occasion in a shabby-genteel coat, hat, and breeches that formed part of his collection from Rosemary Lane. And still he was conscious of curious, vaguely hostile eyes upon him as he ordered a pint. Strangers were never welcome in such establishments.

Sipping his ale in thoughtful silence, Sebastian let his gaze drift around the dim room. The Hare and Hound appeared popular with men from the docks: sailors in blue flannel shirts and dockers in rough smocks. Sebastian was starting on his second tankard of ale when a group of dockers came in, big men with broad shoulders and beefy arms. Sebastian listened to their good-natured banter and soon picked out a sandy-haired giant with a badly scarred cheek the other men addressed as “Parker.”

Sebastian returned his attention to his ale. The dockers played a game of darts, which Parker won. Sebastian ordered another pint, then looked around to find Matt Parker beside him.

“You watchin’ me fer some reason?” Parker demanded, his light brown eyes narrowed with hostility.

“Actually, yes.” Sebastian signaled for another pint. “I’d like to talk to you about your brother.”

“Jack?” Parker’s eyebrows drew together in a suspicious frown.

“Yes.”

“And who the devil might you be?”

“My name is Devlin,” said Sebastian, making no attempt to disguise the crisp, upper-crust tones of his speech.

Parker made a rude noise. “You sound like a bloody nob. What would a nob want with the likes of gallows bait like Jack?”

Sebastian considered offering the man money, then decided against it. There was a proud edge to the docker’s bearing that told Sebastian the gesture would not be well received. “I understand your brother went to his death insisting the men who testified at his trial lied,” said Sebastian.

“So? That was over four years ago now. No one ever paid it no heed before.”

The bar maid plunked a frothing tankard of ale on the planks beside them. Sebastian pushed the tankard toward Parker. “That was before.”

The docker left the ale untouched. “It’s because of these murders, ain’t it? First Carmichael, then Stanton. Now Bellamy.”

“You’re forgetting Nicholas Thornton.”

“Thornton?” A flicker of confusion showed in the other man’s eyes.

“Last Easter, down in Kent.”

“I didn’t hear about him. Don’t remember no Thornton at the trial, either.” Parker’s tongue flicked out to moisten his lips. Absently reaching for the tankard, he brought the ale to his mouth and drank deeply.

“You’re Bow Street, ain’t you?” he said, setting the tankard down with a snap. There was dawning comprehension and fear in his eyes now—the fear of a man whose words have come back to haunt him. “You’re here because o’ them things I said at the hanging—about revenge and all. It was just talk. You hear? Wild talk. Jack was my little brother. He didn’t do nothin’ wrong. The mutiny weren’t his idea. He didn’t even take part in it. The other sailors, they give him a choice—come with them, or stay and die. Who wouldn’t go? Is that any reason to hang a man?” Parker paused, his face slack with grief. “He was just seventeen years old, you know. Seventeen.”

“No. I didn’t know.” Sebastian leaned forward. “Your brother maintained until the end that the men who testified at the trial lied. What about?”

Matt Parker drained his tankard, but shook his head when Sebastian moved to order another. “That David Jarvis—him whose father is cousin to the King. They said the lad was hurt in the mutiny. Said one of the crew members stabbed him in the side with a cutlass.” Parker shook his head. “It weren’t so. That young nob was just fine when the crew left the ship.”

Parker dropped his voice and leaned in close. “Something happened on that ship when they was adrift. You think on what’s been done to these murdered young gentlemen’s bodies, and you’ll know what I’m talkin’ about.”

Straightening, he was silent for a moment, his head turned as if he stared at something in the distance. Then his jaw hardened and he brought his gaze back to Sebastian’s face. “You’re right about one thing: I did swear to see all them titled buggers pay for what they done to Jack. But I’m a God-fearing man, and somehow I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I figure the good Lord’ll take care of them in His own way.” A quiver of distaste passed over the docker’s scarred features. “Whoever’s doing this—whoever is butchering those men’s children—I’d say he’s got a father’s anger in him and a father’s hurt.”

Parker put his wrists together and held them out like a man surrendering to the law. “You can arrest me right now and take me in, but the killin’ won’t stop. Whoever’s doin’ this, he’s damned himself to hell, and he knows it. He won’t stop until he’s killed them all.”

“How many others were there?”

“I don’t know,” said Parker, his face unexpectedly pale. “Only Stanton, Carmichael, and Bellamy testified at the trial. But there were others, passengers and officers both. And God help their children.”

“So now you know,” said Kat softly, as they lay talking in each other’s arms later that night. “You wondered what kind of secret could be so terrible that men would willingly put their own children at risk rather than reveal it. If what Matt Parker says is true, the survivors of the Harmony didn’t just commit cannibalism. They also caused the death of Jarvis’s only son.”

Sebastian entwined his hand with hers and brought it to his lips. They’d made love slowly and sweetly, and still the feeling he’d had for days persisted—that gnawing certainty that something was terribly wrong. He just didn’t know what. And he knew the fear of all lovers that he could lose her. Again.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, and it took him a moment to realize she was talking about the investigation.

He shifted his weight. “I think I’m going to pay another call on Captain Edward Bellamy.”

“Do you honestly think he’ll tell you what happened?”

“No. But he sure as hell can’t have forgotten the name of his own cabin boy—if what Yates told you is right.”

“You think the killer is the boy’s father?”

Sebastian ran a hand down her naked side in a gentle caress. “Either him or Jarvis.”

Kat was silent for a moment. Then she said in an odd, tight voice, “I can imagine Jarvis ordering those young men killed and mutilated.”

Sebastian lifted his head to look at her. Even in the soft light of the flickering candles, she seemed pale and drawn. Yet he could find nothing to say or do to successfully encourage her to confide in him. “Yes. Except it doesn’t fit somehow. How could Jarvis have found out what happened on that ship? And why not move against the men directly? God knows he’s powerful enough.”

“Jarvis has spies all over the country,” Kat countered, sitting up. “How could the simple father of some dead cabin boy have found out what happened on that ship?”

Sebastian sighed and drew her back down to him. “I don’t know. Perhaps when we find out who he was, we’ll have the answer.”