by L. C. Sharp
Also available from L.C. Sharp
and Carina Press
Ash & Juliana
The Wedding Night Affair
The Sign of the Raven
The Sign of the Raven
L.C. Sharp
To all the staff at Carina who worked so hard on this book
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Author Note
Acknowledgments
Author Bio
Excerpt from The Wedding Night Affair by L.C. Sharp
Chapter One
April 1749
The dead man lay on his front, irregular light from the last of the fireworks flickering over him. The bloody, black-rimmed hole in his back told its own story. Before the bullet had spoiled it, the coat had been a fine one in red figured velvet. The color helped to disguise the blood, which was still seeping out, turning the grass a deeper shade. The heavy shadows, here beneath the makeshift stands erected for the show, cast the scene into morbid gloom.
“Oh my God!”
Whoever said that had brought light, one of the torches set in holders around the arena. The hot glare seared over the scene, bringing it into bright reality.
More blood pooled around the victim. His hands were sprawled out either side of him. His bald head gleamed in the light of the torches, his wig and hat lying a foot away.
“Is he dead?” someone said, his voice hushed. If Juliana hadn’t been standing so close to her footman, she wouldn’t have heard him. The noise outside almost drowned the sound here, creating an island of horror.
“Stay there. Make sure nobody else comes in.” Her husband, having finished his orders to the hastily gathered officials, came across the damp grass to join her.
A relieved member of Vauxhall Gardens’ staff had rushed up to them five minutes before. “Sir Edmund! There’s been an incident. Please come to see.”
At Ash’s raised brow, the man added, “I saw you at Bow Street last year. And you, ma’am.” Such was fame, although of the notorious kind. “Please help us now. We don’t know what to do.”
Fighting against the crowd, Ash and Juliana, followed by Ash’s sister Amelia and brother Gregory, followed the man back to the stands, erected for the spectators of the firework display. The show done, people surged to the exit, all trying to get to the ferrymen first. The occasional shout of “God save the king!” reminded everyone that while King George had not fought every battle personally, he’d been instrumental in making the peace that this display was to celebrate. This was only the rehearsal for the main celebration, but it had been spectacular. And hugely successful. Everything had worked, the music played on cue, the fireworks creating a wonderland of sparkling sensation.
Not here, in this shadowed, small space.
Outside this space, barely private enough for a quick discussion, people milled around, shouting, laughing. Inside, nobody laughed. They stood in a space made by angling two blocks of seats, a secret place. But at least two people had known of it.
This man hadn’t killed himself. The tang of freshly spilled blood mixed with the stink of burned powder, tainting the air, and making her nostrils itch. She’d smelled the burning all evening, but the blood was a new addition. Not a good one.
Ash bent and touched his fingers to the man’s wrist, then his neck. He straightened, his face devoid of expression. “He’s dead.”
Obviously, but he had to confirm it.
He exchanged a glance with her and the tiny muscles at the corners of his mouth tightened. Not a smile, but a wry acknowledgment. Anyone shot in the back behind the heart had no chance of surviving. Ash studied her briefly, and she nodded, a silent assurance that she was fine. Then he walked past to take control of the situation. Somebody had to.
From her position at the small gap between the stands, her sister-in-law Amelia gasped and pulled her young brother back by his collar when he would have rushed inside. “Come, Gregory. We’re only in the way here. Juliana, will you come with us?”
“I’ll stay,” Juliana said.
Amelia was doing her best to block her younger brother’s view. “Such a tragic ending to the evening!” She glanced at the man, then away, shuddering. “Did you know him? He looks richly dressed enough for the people you used to mix with.”
Gregory dodged, trying to get around them to see. Amelia took his shoulders firmly and forcibly turned him away. She wouldn’t be able to do that much longer. At twelve, Gregory was already shooting up like a beanstalk.
“I have no idea,” Juliana said. “I don’t know every richly dressed man in London, especially when he’s lying on his face.” Until recently, Juliana had moved in the highest circles. Even so, the aristocracy did not have the monopoly on expensive fashion. This man could be from anywhere.
She heard Ash giving orders for them to bring light and create a barrier so spectators would not see the man. For some, it would make the perfect, scandalous end to a good evening’s entertainment.
“Freeman is here,” Amelia said. “He will take us to the ferry.”
Juliana glanced at Ash and grimaced at her sister-in-law. “Considering the two-hour wait we had to get here, we will doubtless catch up with you before you get your ferry.”
They had arrived at Vauxhall Gardens by water, but the jam of ferries and other boats had rivalled the carriages, packed end to end. All London had wanted to come tonight to view the fireworks, a rehearsal for the celebration set to take place in Green Park shortly. That one would attract even more traffic. Workmen were building the pavilion, a monstrous palace in timber, as the backdrop to the celebrations. One dead man wouldn’t stop that.
The dead man’s bald head gleamed in the flickering light from the torches, his fine wig and gold-braided cocked hat beside it. He’d fallen with force, like a tree cut down in the forest. A sudden attack? Perhaps a cutpurse panicking at being caught. But cutpurses didn’t carry firearms. Pistols were expensive and heavy. Cumbersome for the nimbleness cutpurses needed.
Ash returned, came to Juliana’s side. “You’ll stay, then?”
She was flattered that he asked. Nobody had concerned themselves with her before she’d met him. While she couldn’t call that day fortunate, something good had come of it. “Yes.” And she was flattered that he wanted her to stay. “Freeman will take Amelia and Gregory to the ferry.”
“You’ll have a long wait,” Ash said. “With London Bridge closed, they can’t use their carriages unless they go all the way up to Putney Bridge. Next year or the year after, we’ll have Westminster Bridge.”
“That would have been useful.” The site of the new bridge was close by, but the never-ending building seemed to go on forever. “I’ll believe it’s open when I see it,” she said.
He humphed. A laugh wouldn’t have been appropriate. He spoke to Amelia. “Be safe.” He nodded to Freeman. The footman had given them signal service last year, when she’d nearly—she turne
d her mind away from past ugliness to concentrate on the current example.
Amelia worked her way back, and joined their footman, who led her and Gregory away. Gregory looked back. Ash’s younger brother showed signs of the keen intelligence that marked the family. Not least the man standing by her side. Unlike the unfortunate man on the floor, Ash was dressed modestly, but pin neat, his wig precisely set on his head, the hat at the perfect angle. Few people would give him a second glance in a crowd. That was one of his gifts. “Come,” he said, but he didn’t touch her, only led the way to the body on the grass. “Careful of the blood.”
Juliana lifted her skirts, but she was wearing a practical ankle-length gown with small hoops, easier to control in this crowd. The nobility had arrived in their private boats and carriages, the women with skirts so wide they could barely sidle into their seats, the men’s coats stiffened so they could have stood up on their own. White faces, enlivened by the occasional patch or circle of red, in the artificial style currently high fashion, made anonymous by the heavy paint that eventually ruined their skin. Until last year, Juliana would have belonged there, but now she did not. Would never belong in that way again.
She walked carefully around the corpse. The cramped space meant she had to bend her neck to avoid banging her head on the wooden benches set above. She bent, putting her revulsion away to deal with another time. She examined him closely without touching him. “I see no signs of struggle. He’s a strong man, large hands, but his nails are carefully manicured. He hasn’t broken any, and I don’t see any marks, either.”
Ash made a hmm of acceptance. Pulling off his coat, he set it on a ledge made of the back ends of two rows of seats. Then he crouched, sat on his heels. “Nothing else? No weapon?”
She shook her head. “No sword.” Only the nobility were supposed to wear swords in the city, but plenty of people disobeyed that bylaw.
Ash bent forward and examined the man’s head without touching it. “No injury there, either.” He stood, and brushed off his knees, although they had not touched the grass. They’d had no rain for a while, so the ground was dusty. Better than mud, she supposed. Or blood. She rose too, without taking his outstretched hand.
The happy chatter of gossiping people leaving the gardens rose all around them, but this enclave was almost empty in comparison.
“Let’s turn him.” Ash signaled to the attendants standing by. They rolled the dead man to his back.
Together, Ash and Juliana studied the square face, slight jowls softening the lower jaw. “Alive and standing, he’d be tall,” she said. “And broad.” But not with fat, or not much of it. “He’s strong. He’d have fought off an attacker.” He looked familiar.
Her first husband had been such a man. Large, shorter than this one, and quick with his fists, as he’d proved on their wedding night. The memory remained with her, but every day its power declined. Except for the dreams she couldn’t control.
“Which indicates he was taken by surprise,” her husband added. He touched his jaw, smoothed his fingers along the sharp chin, his habit when thinking.
The dead man left a dark, irregular shadow where the blood had seeped into the ground. The skirts of his green coat flared around him, the ivory silk lining bright against the darker turf.
The bullet had left his body at approximately the corresponding point to the entry point; it hadn’t gone up or down.
“The killer pressed the pistol into his back and pulled the trigger,” she murmured.
“His back tells the same story, with the blackening of the wound and the neat entrance point.”
The waistcoat had been a fine one. Above and below the wound, traces of heavy embroidery remained. The buttons glittered with chips of diamonds or paste. His heavy green broadcloth coat had gold embroidery on the cuffs and down the front.
She might know him.
Reluctantly, she raised her gaze to the dead man’s face.
“Juliana?”
She didn’t need to know the rest of Ash’s question. “I’ve seen him; I’m sure of it, but in some ballroom somewhere, or at the theatre. He’s not an intimate, not a friend or a fellow houseguest. I’ll have his name in a minute.”
“So, he’s wealthy, probably aristocratic. We shouldn’t have difficulty identifying him. Don’t worry about it now.”
* * *
She loved to watch him work, listen to him reasoning his way through an event.
He folded his arms, touched his chin with his finger and frowned. “On an occasion like this, the explosions would have hidden any gun retort, if timed right. It could be a simple robbery gone wrong. His clothes are fine, so he obviously had a fat purse somewhere. Let’s see, shall we?”
He bent, one knee on the ground, and thrust his hand into one of the large pockets on the outside of the coat. He searched the man’s pockets, pulling out what he found and making a small pile on the skirt of the coat nearest to him.
A two and sixpenny ticket to the rehearsal of the fireworks for the celebration of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. She couldn’t read the small print, but she recognized it as the twin of one in her pocket. A few loose guineas, but no purse.
Ash passed the handkerchief to her, and she looked at the blue letters embroidered on one corner. The florid initials JC and their style meant nothing to her. She held it while she watched her husband pull more items out of the man’s pockets. No door key, which would mean he had servants to let him in. What gentleman bothered with a door key? Three square tokens of dull silvery metal, with something stamped on the surface. At least there were three, but when Ash dropped them on the pile of belongings, there were only two. He’d kept one back.
And that was all. Gold or pinchbeck buckles at his knees and fastening his shoes, fine buttons on his coat and waistcoat. All eminently sellable, and all left behind.
“I can think of a few possibilities,” she said when he straightened and came back to her side.
“Go on.”
“The robber was interrupted or startled, and the gun went off. Could the weapon have been too finely tuned?” Some pistols were set to go off the minute a person touched the trigger. Not popular, because of the inherent dangers of such a weapon, but they existed.
“Possibly. But if you knew your pistol had that problem, would you really push it against someone’s back?”
“And what about the fireworks?”
“Ah. Yes. They would muffle the sound.”
“Is this it, sir?”
A man held out a wicked but beautiful weapon. Ash took it. The hammer was deep in the pan, which had been blackened by the recent explosion that had forced a bullet into the man on the ground. It was chased, engraved, the workmanship beautiful. “A gentleman’s weapon,” Ash remarked.
“Yes.” She took it from him, hefted it. Touched the place the murderer must have done, but she had no visions, merely her acute sense of observation. “A dueling pistol,” she remarked. Gentlemen collected them, showed them off to people.
She flicked a glance at the spatter of blood, bone and gore that had punched over the space when the gun had gone off and a sudden wave of nausea took her by surprise. She forced it down. If she were going to vomit, she would do it somewhere else. No, she would not be sick. She pulled her shawl more securely around her. The evening was fine, but the chill of spring still hung in the air. And now the chill came from witnessing this scene of death.
In the months since her marriage, she had seen a few gory scenes. When she demanded that her husband involve her in his work, he’d taken her to the messiest scenes. He either wanted to test her tolerance, or to see if he could rely on her not to become missish. She had coped, although it had not always been easy. Ash often helped Bow Street magistrates with their more interesting cases, as he put it, or took private commissions.
But she had not let him down. The first two times, she did vomit, but not wh
ere it affected the scene of the crime. Sometimes the stink and degradation of the place forced that out of her, rather than the crime itself. Sometimes she wanted to weep, like the time when a husband had beaten his wife to death. So she took to carrying more than one handkerchief with her.
The work, the stubborn crimes that multiplied in a city as large as London, fascinated her. If she had to learn to bear the sight of death, then she would. She was useful, performing a service that benefitted people, rather than becoming a decorative ornament.
After all, the first time she’d met Ash was the morning she woke up next to the body of her dead husband.
Was this man somebody’s husband? Would his death cause mourning and sorrow? Or had the person who killed him wanted him dead? Juliana had wanted her first husband dead, but she had not killed him. She’d have been stupid to do so, as she’d have become the prime suspect. Which she had. Only Ash had cared, only he had sorted through the evidence until he got to the truth. And for that, she would be forever grateful, even though he didn’t want her gratitude.
“Could he have known his killer?”
Ash hummed in agreement. “I am thinking about that possibility. After all, what was he doing here, in this space? He could have arranged to meet someone, or someone forced him here at gunpoint. Or both. I need to know who he is, who he came with, if anyone, where he was sitting for the performance. There are two things absent from his pockets that I’d expect to find there.”
She got his meaning. “His card case and his purse.”
“Precisely.”
An attendant approached them. “Could this be it, sir?”
He held out an elaborately chased case with that same monogram on the lid. The victim had a positive fever for his initials.
“Where did you find it?” Ash asked.
The man pointed to a corner of the area, toward the back. “Just there, sir. Didn’t see it until we brought more torches in.”
“Thank you.” Ash took the case from him. “Perhaps he’d already got it out, ready to present his card to the person he met.”
