Then Comes Murder

Rumor Has It (part two)

London never truly changed. Jacob William Thornton-Spencer preferred it that way: there was comfort in constancy. Certainly it was filthy and dark and decidedly wicked, at least in the streets he preferred, but the cheap gin and promise of debauchery were familiar, easy things.

Jacob frowned and leaned his head against the carriage wall. He could feel the promise of a headache burning behind his eyes. It was to be expected, what with his teeth meeting in grim effort to keep him from yelling at the hired driver to turn around and spirit him back to the harbor.

As each street grew tidier, each passing parasol sprouted more frills, Jacob's teeth threatened to fracture with that determination. Returning to the city soured his thoughts, tightened his chest, and left a bitter taste settling against his tongue.

It wasn't London that fouled his mood.

The letter in his pocket threatened to burn a hole straight through the wool of his coat. Ever since he'd opened it, read it, and shoved its crumpled pages out of sight, it had smoldered uncomfortably.

I think my heart has broken, his younger brother, Charles, had written. Since last mid-winter, Jacob had received handfuls of letters from his brother regarding the incomparable Miss Howard. Her laughter. Her wit. Her grace.

Like Icarus, I've flown too close to the sun, and now watery despair awaits me.

Trust Charlie to capture the melodrama of a moment with an appropriately academic allusion. Not that Jacob would try to argue against his Cambridge education, but Caroline Howard was hardly the sun. They'd all half-grown up together, hadn't they? Their families had been allies for centuries, and would be for centuries onward, if their fathers had anything to say about it.

Yes, he knew the girl, and, yes, she was lovely. Golden and fair, and if rumors were to be believed, with a golden dowery to match. But she was hardly the sun. If Jacob had been at Leverett Hall, he'd have cured his brother's woes with enough fortified wine and flirtatious women to erase those memories of the very pretty Caroline Howard.

I loved her with all that I am, and I was most certain my affections were returned.

It would be like Caroline, Jacob decided, to play with a younger son's feelings. Admittedly, it been over ten years since he'd seen her. But even barely out of her leading strings, she'd been a perfectly inappropriate nuisance. Charlie, trapped in the nursery, had missed her childish years of missing teeth and crooked braids. When she had finally grown up and tried her hand at flirting on the season's social stage, Jacob had brushed off the efforts for what they were: a novice's attempt to gain an foothold to his blonder, wealthier, and more titled brother. George, seven years older, hadn't noticed her existence beyond those bonds of forced familial affection.

Thinking on George, Jacob had been surprised that he hadn't already drowned their youngest brother's grief in wine and whores. It was their eldest brother, after all, who had offered to teach them everything they needed to know about drinking, gambling, hunting, and women. If anyone knew how to avoid the pangs of love, it was George Simon Thornton-Spencer.

I proposed, but it seems all that I am is not enough for a woman seeking a title.

Despite the promise of the duchy hanging over his head, that veritable noose, George had never shied away from good fun. His letters contained no sentiment or poetry; they were tidings of parties and sport. It was unlike him to not console Charlie with a bit of wickedness. Surely that would fix—

She marries our brother at this Season's end.

Jacob had laughed in dark surprise. A very pretty, but apparently very fickle, Caroline Howard. In a twisted way, he respected the game she played. The game all the high-born women of England played mid-winter to June: catching the biggest, wealthiest, most royal fish in their net. And, if the burning whispers of London gossip were any judge, the determined Caroline had caught herself the biggest.