by C. S. Harris
“Oddly enough, yes,” said Hero, who paid her servants handsomely—for both philosophical and practical reasons.
The abigail’s lip curled with scorn. “You’re a fool.”
“Obviously.” Hero was tempted to add, But then, under the circumstances, I would venture to suggest that the appellation applies to you, as well. But she kept the observation to herself.
The abigail had already begun to weep again. And though Hero knew that her tears were driven as much by hatred of Hero as by fear and self-pity, Hero continued to hold the girl and do what she could to comfort her.
As the hours dragged on and the shadows in the yard lengthened, Hero found herself wondering, if Marie asked for her forgiveness, would she have the magnanimity to give it?
But the abigail never did.
They killed Marie just as dusk was beginning to send long shadows across the yard.
Nothing Hero could do would silence the woman’s incessant weeping. In the end, Sullivan simply drew an ugly, curved blade from his boot and walked over to grasp Marie by the hair. Hero saw him yank the woman’s head back and she looked quickly away. But she heard the maid’s rasping gurgle and the soft thump of her body sinking lifeless to the flagstones.
“I take it you don’t feel the need for insurance anymore?” said Hero, forcing herself to meet the tall man’s gaze.
Sullivan wiped his blade on the dead maid’s dress and slid the knife back into its sheath.
Chapter 44
Sebastian was in no mood for subtleties.
The muzzle of his pistol pressed to the temple of one of Todd Sullivan’s cronies at the Castle Tavern solicited the information that Sullivan frequently made use of a ramshackle cottage on the outskirts of Barham Wood, near Elstree.
In the grip of a cold, driven purposefulness, Sebastian borrowed a bay hack from the nearby livery and entrusted Tom with a message for Bow Street.
“Why can’t I come with you?” asked Tom, his head ducked, his voice strained as he tightened the saddle’s cinch. “It’s because o’ the things I said about Miss Jarvis before, ain’t it? It’s because you don’t trust me no more.”
Painfully conscious of the daylight slipping from the sky, Sebastian paused to rest a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I trust you with my life, and you know it.” He swung into the saddle. “But I could be riding into a trap. I need someone I trust to deliver this message. Now go,” he said, and spurred the bay out the livery door.
For Hero, the darkness came all too quickly.
Only a single tallow candle set at one end of the table’s rough boards lit the inside of the cottage. That, and the soft glow from the fire kindled on the hearth by the coachman.
The coachman had long since subsided into a drunken stupor in the fireplace’s inglenook. But the other two men continued to drink steadily. They sprawled now beside the crude table, the remnants of their dinner—more bread and sausage—scattered across the scarred surface. They talked in desultory tones about horses and cockfights and some colleague named Jed who had recently “made a good end” on the hangman’s noose. But all the while, Hero was aware of Sullivan’s dark gaze following her in a way she did not like as she restlessly paced the confines of the cottage.
At one point she heard the buff-coated man lean in close to his friend to whisper, “Need to keep yer breeches’ flap buttoned fer a while yet, lad. Least till we hear they won’t be needin’ her fer some reason.” Both men laughed, and Hero felt a new rush of cold fear wash over her, followed by a hot fury that left a steady resolve in its wake.
“Hey,” Sullivan called to her, raising his voice. “How about ye quit wearin’ out the floor and make yerself useful by fixin’ some more tea?”
Wordlessly, she prepared the cracked, brown earthenware teapot and set in on the boards between the two men. The butcher knife they’d used to slice their bread and salami still lay nearby; she’d noticed the handle of Sullivan’s pistol peeking from the pocket of the coat he’d hung on a peg near the door. She was careful not to glance toward it when she went to tend the water she’d set to heat in a blackened saucepan over the fire.
She was aware of the old coachman snoring softly beside her as she waited for the water to come to a good roiling boil. Then, grasping the handle of the pot with a rag, she carried the heavy pan to the table.
“Who’d have thought,” said Sullivan, smiling up at her, “that a fine lord’s daughter like ye would even know how to boil water?”
“Who’d have thought?” agreed Hero, and dumped the scalding water into his lap.
She was only dimly aware of the hot water splashing up to burn her own flesh through the cloth of her walking dress. Sullivan came roaring up off his chair, both hands clasped to his wet, burning crotch, his face snarled with pain and fury. She could hear the buff-coated man stumbling to his feet behind her. But she was already spinning toward him, the saucepan still gripped in a tight hold. Throwing all her weight behind it, she slammed the hot base of the pot into the side of the second man’s head with a sickening, searing thud. He went down.
“Ye bloody bitch,” growled Sullivan, lunging for her. She threw the pot at him and snatched the butcher knife off the table. Clenching it in a two-handed grip, she slashed the blade like a sword across his throat.
Hot, bright red blood spurted everywhere. Streams of it. For one awful moment, she could only stand, the knife still clenched in one fist, and stare at him as his step faltered and his eyes rolled back in his head.
“Wot the ’ell?”
Looking up, she saw the coachman stumble to his feet near the hearth. Their gazes met across the room, his jaw slack with horror.
Then they both scrambled for the pistol hanging near the door.
He was closer than she, and he reached Sullivan’s coat first, for she tripped over Sullivan’s body on the way. But the coachman was more than half drunk and he was still trying to pull back the hammer when she buried the butcher knife in his back.
He howled and stumbled sideways, but he didn’t go down. She tried to pull the knife out so that she could stab him again, only she couldn’t seem to yank it free. She heard a scuffle of footsteps behind her and looked around to see the buff-coated man staggering to his feet, the side of his face burnt and blackened from where she’d hit him with the pot.
“I’m gonna make ye wish ye’d never been born,” he spat, charging her.
Giving the old coachman a shove out of the way, she snatched the pistol from his loosening grip, pulled back the hammer, and fired.
Sebastian was galloping down the overgrown lane when he heard the booming report of a pistol. He checked for a moment, a sick fear seizing his gut. Yanking out his own pistol, he spurred the bay forward again.
He clattered into the yard of a tumbledown cottage softly lit by moonlight. The door stood ajar. The familiar, tall figure of a woman leaned against the outer wall of the cottage. She had her head tipped back, her eyes open wide; in one hand, she held a pistol, the barrel pressed against the blood-soaked skirts of her once elegant walking dress. “Hero,” he said, sliding off his horse beside her. He realized he was trembling. “My God. Where are you hurt?”
“I’m not,” she said, her voice unbelievably calm and steady. She nodded toward the inside of the cottage. “They’re in there.”
His own pistol held in a tight grip, Sebastian pushed the door open wide.
A gray-haired, liveried coachman lay facedown just to the left of the door, a butcher knife sticking out of his back. Another man, younger, wearing a buff-colored coat, was sprawled on his back halfway between the door and a crude table, a bloody hole blasted in his chest. He was alive, but barely. He breathed his last as Sebastian bent over him. A third man—taller, darker; Sullivan, Sebastian suspected—lay near the table. Someone had slashed his throat so viciously, they’d half cut off his head.
Sebastian put his gun away and walked back outside.
She was still leaning against the rough wall of the cottage. Just
standing there, her chest rising and falling with her quiet but rapid breaths, her gaze on nothing in particular. At his approach, she turned her head, her eyes huge in the moonlight.
She said, “Are they dead?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He nodded toward the blood-splattered interior of the cottage. “You did that?”
She glanced down at the pistol, then up at him again. “They killed Marie.”
Reaching out, he drew her into his arms.
She came stiffly, holding back. “I’m all right,” she said, her voice muffled against his neck. But he could feel the faint tremors rippling through her.
He brought his hand up, hesitated, then began to stroke her hair. “I know.”
“I’m all right,” she said again, trying to pull away, as if ashamed of even that momentary betrayal of fear and weakness.
But he held her close, his lips pressed to her hair, his eyes squeezed shut. “Shhh,” he whispered. “It’s over.”
Chapter 45
Sebastian closed the door to the old-fashioned coach and paused for a moment with one hand on the latch. The coach still stood where the kidnappers had left it, beside the lean-to of the ramshackle cottage; the body of the abigail, Marie, lay where it had been thrown by her killers, on the straw-strewn carriage floor. His fists tightening around the hack’s reins, he turned to walk back to where Miss Hero Jarvis watched him from the center of the yard.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She nodded and glanced away, her lips held in a thin, tight line, her throat working as she swallowed. He had the feeling she was holding herself together with a gritty combination of pride and determination.
He said, “I can still put the horse to. You could ride on the box with me if you don’t want to be inside with ... her.”
“No. Let’s just . . . go.”
He swung into the saddle, then slipped his foot from the stirrup and leaned down for her. She put her hand in his, and he gripped her forearm and hauled her up in a scrambling rush of ripping muslin skirts and rucked-up petticoats.
She settled easily behind him, but he was aware of her gaze drifting back to the carriage.
He said, “It’s not your fault.”
“No. But perhaps if I had been kinder to her ...”
Gathering the reins, he turned the horse’s head toward the lane. “I find it difficult to believe you were ever unkind to her.”
“Perhaps not unkind, exactly. But if I’d been less impatient, more understanding, then perhaps she wouldn’t have ...”
He said again, “It’s not your fault.”
They rode through shadowy woods and empty, moon-silvered fields, the steady plodding of the horse’s hooves the only sound in the stillness of the grass-scented night.
He was aware of her holding herself stiffly behind him, her hands barely touching his waist. And he found himself wishing she would simply relax and lean into him, take some measure of comfort from his warmth and his nearness. He could only guess at the horror of all that she had been through in the last twelve hours or the extent to which she was still struggling to come to terms with her own capacity for violence and the need to make that knowledge a part of her understanding of herself.
She said, “I keep thinking I should feel some measure of remorse or at least regret over the deaths of those men. But I don’t. I’m glad I killed them.”
“Personally, I find that perfectly understandable. I see no reason for you to feel remorse. But then, my own propensity for violence is considered by some to be excessive.”
She surprised him with a soft, ragged chuckle. “And you are a man. Our society expects women to be gentle and forgiving. Not ruthless and . . . lethal.”
“Gentleness and forgiveness have their place. This was not one of them.”
Her hands shifted subtly at his sides. She said, “I’d like to think I killed them because of what they did to Marie. But that’s not true. I killed them because they made me afraid. I don’t think I’ve ever been that afraid.”
Her admission both touched him and surprised him. He said, “I was afraid too.”
There was an awkward pause. Then she said stiffly, “Under the circumstances, I will understand if you wish to withdraw your offer of marriage.”
It took him a moment to grasp what “circumstances” she was referring to. “That’s very kind of you,” he said, keeping his voice light with effort. “But I have no intention of allowing you to cry off at this late date.”
“I am not attempting to cry off,” she said with some heat. “But you must realize that what happened today will inevitably become known.”
“Your kidnapping is known already.”
“So.”
“So?”
“You know what people are like—what is no doubt being whispered at this very moment in nearly every drawing room and club in London. People will say you married soiled goods. And in time there will be sly suggestions that this child is not yours.”
He drew up and swung to face her. “Do you seriously believe I would refuse to marry you because of today?”
“People will say—”
“Not if they value their lives.”
“What are you suggesting? That you challenge half of London to a duel?”
“Somehow I doubt it will come to that.” He moved the bay forward again.
She said, “I would like to make it quite clear that those men did not ... I mean, that nothing of that nature occurred ...”
“Miss Jarvis, believe me when I say that even if it had—”
“It did not!”
“Even if it had, it would in no way influence my determination to make you my wife.”
Silence fell between them again. This time, he was the one to break it. “Did you hear nothing that might indicate who hired those men?”
“No.”
“Your father sees the dark hand of Napoléon’s agents.”
“Napoléon?”
“It does make sense.”
“The idea being that some French agent is the killer, and if you were busy looking for me then you wouldn’t have time to pursue him?” She paused as if considering this. “It’s possible, I suppose, if the intent were to buy time for the murderer to flee the country. Otherwise, what would be the point? De La Rocque and Ross are already dead.”
Once again, he drew up to look at her over his shoulder. “You knew de La Rocque was passing the French War Ministry’s briefings to Alexander Ross?”
“I did.”
“And you didn’t tell me—why, precisely?”
“I am not in the habit of betraying confidences.”
He made a noncommittal sound and urged the horse forward again.
She said, “I hardly see how you can complain, since it’s exactly the same reason you refused to tell me how you knew Ross died from a stiletto thrust to the back of his neck.” When he remained silent, she added, “I’ve figured it out, you know.”
“You have?”
“Mmm. It wasn’t difficult, given the condition of the body when it was exhumed.”
“You heard about that?”
“All of London has heard about it.” The church spire of the village of Elstree appeared above the treetops before them. She said, “You also didn’t tell me about Ezekiel Kincaid.”
“I didn’t?”
“You didn’t.”
“That, I can assure you, was mere oversight.”
“So tell me.”
“Very well.”
She listened to him in silence, then said, “Even if the French did kill Ross and de La Rocque—and Lindquist—I see no reason for them to kill either Kincaid or Yasmina Ramadani.”
“Not unless we’re missing something,” he agreed. The horse shied at a pig scuttling across the road before them, and he steadied it with a murmured word. “I’m beginning to think that while the most recent murders are in some way related to Ross’s death, they may actually have been committed by a di
fferent person.”
“What are you suggesting? That we’re dealing with four different killers?”
“Not four, no. But there could be two.”
The cottages of the village were closing in around them. She said, “One, the mystery man with the stiletto who killed Ross and Kincaid for some reason we don’t yet know—”
“Something we don’t know? Or something I don’t know?”
“And someone else,” she continued, ignoring the jibe, “who coincidentally killed de La Rocque, Lindquist, and Yasmina? I thought you didn’t believe in coincidences.”
“Not coincidentally.” He turned into the yard of a rambling, half-timbered inn at the top of the village’s high street. “Tangentially.”
She stared up at the inn’s surrounding galleries. “Why are we stopping here?”
“To inform the local magistrate that he has several bodies out at Barham Wood to deal with.” He reined in beside the worn old mounting block in the corner of the yard. “And because Miss Hero Jarvis cannot ride into London on the back of a mudsplattered, hired hack.”
She slid off the bay’s back onto the high, flat stone. “I suppose we should also send word to Bow Street.”
“I already did.”
She looked up from straightening her skirts. “You did? When?”
“When I discovered where you were being held. I thought I might need help.” He met her frank gray eyes and found himself smiling. “I didn’t expect you to rescue yourself.”
“Feeling better?”
Hero smiled at her father. “Yes, thank you.”
She sat curled up beside a roaring fire in the library; Jarvis occupied the chair opposite, his gaze on her face. Around them, the house was quiet, the servants long since retired to bed. Since her return from Elstree, she had bathed and eaten a hearty meal, and spent considerable time consoling her hysterical, prostrate mother. Now she was quietly sipping a cup of tea liberally laced with brandy.
Devlin had insisted on remaining in Elstree to deal with the authorities, while sending her back to London in a hired coach. She’d argued, of course, but in the end she’d allowed herself to be persuaded. She was bone weary and emotionally drained, and beyond caring that he knew it.
