Why Kill the Innocent

by C. S. Harris

  Giving up, he stood for a moment and watched Lovejoy’s constables, their lanterns shuttered against the driving snow as they continued to flounder about in the deep drifts looking for Jane Ambrose’s missing hat and gloves or anything else that might help explain what had happened to her. The snow muffled their movements the same way it silenced the usual racket of the vast, freezing city around them. And it struck Sebastian that, so intense was the unnatural hush, they might have been in a snowy forest glen surrounded only by the unseen creatures of the night.

  Readjusting his hat against the snow, he shook off the peculiar thought and turned his steps toward the Tower Hill surgery of a certain one-legged, opium-eating Irishman.

  * * *

  Sebastian’s friendship with the Irish surgeon Paul Gibson stretched back nearly ten years, to a time when both men wore the King’s colors and fought the King’s wars from Italy and the West Indies to the mountains of Portugal. Then a French cannonball shattered Gibson’s lower left leg, leaving him racked with phantom pains and struggling with a dangerous opium addiction. That was when he had come here, to London, to teach anatomy at hospitals such as St. Thomas’s and St. Bartholomew’s and to open a small surgery in the shadow of the Tower.

  But when Sebastian arrived at the lantern-lit stone outbuilding used by Gibson for both official autopsies and surreptitious, illegal dissections, it was to find only the Frenchwoman Alexi Sauvage with a stained apron pinned over her gown and a bloody scalpel in one hand.

  A fine-boned woman in her thirties with pale skin, brown eyes, and hair the color of autumn leaves, she looked up from the naked body that lay on the stone slab in the center of the room and said, “Ah, it’s you,” before going back to work on what was left of Jane Ambrose.

  Pausing in the doorway, Sebastian cast one quick glance at what she was doing and turned to stare across the undulating snow-filled yard toward the ancient stone house Paul Gibson used as his surgery. Alexi Sauvage had lived with the Irishman for a year now, although she steadfastly refused to marry him. “Where’s Gibson?”

  This time she did not look up. “A wherry overturned trying to shoot the bridge. Some timber yard workers managed to rescue two of the three men aboard, but they were half-dead by the time they were pulled from the river, and Paul has gone to see what he can do for them.” She hesitated, then added, “Given Jane Ambrose’s connections to the palace, I thought it best not to wait until he returned to start the postmortem.”

  “That was wise. Thank you,” said Sebastian, although it didn’t ease his discomfort. It wasn’t that he doubted either her knowledge or ability, for Gibson had assured him both were considerable. But once, four years before, in the mountains of Portugal, Sebastian had killed her lover, and Alexi Sauvage had vowed to kill him in revenge. Hero had managed to move beyond that and form a friendship with the Frenchwoman. But Sebastian still couldn’t be easy around her, and he knew the feeling was mutual.

  He cleared his throat. “Have you learned anything yet?”

  She brushed a stray lock of fiery hair out of her eyes with the back of one crooked wrist. “I can tell you that if she was hit with something, it wasn’t an iron bar or a wooden club, but something larger and more irregular in shape.”

  “‘If’?”

  “It’s also possible she fell and struck her head on something. Given the location of the wound, it’s virtually impossible to tell which.”

  “You’re saying she might have died accidently?”

  “I’m saying it’s possible. Although it’s more likely someone hit her and knocked her down. There’s a bruise just below her left eye.”

  Sebastian brought his gaze back to the dead woman’s face. He could see the faint discoloration high on her left cheekbone, the size and shape of the type of mark typically left by a man’s fist. “That’s recent?”

  “Yes. Probably within minutes of her death.”

  “So it could be manslaughter. Someone struck her, she fell and hit her head, and died.”

  “Perhaps. Although it’s possible someone struck her in the face, knocked her down, and then deliberately bashed in her skull. She also has some quite new burns on the fingers of her right hand. Not bad, but there.”

  “Burns?” Sebastian came closer to hunker down and study her hand. The pads of her thumb and first three fingers were all faintly blistered. “From what?”

  “No way to tell.”

  He rose slowly. “How long do you think she’s been dead?”

  “It could be anywhere from four to ten hours. Given the cold, it’s difficult to say with any certainty since it would depend on if she were outside in the snow all that time or kept someplace warm until shortly before we found her.”

  Sebastian shifted his gaze to the pulverized side of Jane Ambrose’s head. “Would she have died instantly?”

  “Almost, yes. She didn’t run down Shepherds’ Lane and then collapse, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Alexi nodded to a nearby shelf where a small earthenware bowl held a plain gold ring and the locket Sebastian had noticed earlier around the dead woman’s neck. “Are those her children?”

  Conscious of a hollow sense of sadness, he went to pick up the locket. It opened to reveal miniatures of two smiling little boys aged perhaps two and five. “I don’t know,” he said after a moment, his voice tight. He glanced at the clothes neatly folded on the shelf nearby. Jane Ambrose’s gown, like her blood-soaked pelisse, was black. She’d obviously been in mourning for someone. But when he touched the shoulder of her gown, he found it dry and unstained by traces of blood.

  “I think she was wearing the pelisse when she was killed,” said Alexi Sauvage, watching him. “There was no blood on anything else.”

  He closed the locket with a soft click. “As soon as the palace learns she’s dead and has been brought here for a postmortem, they’ll probably send someone to seize the body. They can’t afford to allow even a hint of scandal to touch Princess Charlotte, which means they’ll also pressure you to give them the results they want and keep quiet about anything you might have seen. You need to be prepared for that.”

  She gave him a strange, tight smile. “I’m just a simple midwife who is very good at pretending to be stupid when I must.”

  Sebastian nodded and started to turn away. She stopped him by saying, “There is one other thing that may or may not be relevant: I think she was raped. Not today, but recently. Perhaps yesterday or the day before.”

  Sebastian turned to look at her in surprise. “You’re certain it was rape? I mean, sometimes—” He broke off, annoyed with himself for feeling embarrassed and wishing like hell Gibson were there.

  The narrowing of her eyes told him she both recognized and understood the cause of his discomfiture. “It isn’t simply the abrasions that suggest it. There are bruises on her wrists and thighs, as if someone held her and forced her. Bruises older than the one on her face. I’d say—”

  She broke off as the gusting wind brought them the sound of a heavy fist pounding on the door of Gibson’s surgery and a man’s imperious voice demanding, “Open up in the King’s name.”

  * * *

  Hero sat curled up in one of the high-backed upholstered chairs beside the drawing room fire, her gaze on the little boy asleep in her arms. His name was Simon, and he was just days away from his first birthday. She watched the firelight play over his innocent, relaxed features, watched his little mouth pucker in a faint sucking motion as he dreamed, and she smiled. It was past time to carry him up the stairs to his nursemaid and bed. And yet she lingered.

  She was still holding the child when Devlin came in a few minutes later, bringing with him the scent of frigid night air and coal smoke. “I hope you’ve dined,” he said, going to stand with his cold-reddened hands held out to the fire.

  “Long ago. Cook saved yours, if you’re interested.”

  “Not really.” He turned, his fe
atures solemn as he searched her face. What he saw there must have concerned him, because he said, “Are you certain you’re all right?”

  She smoothed the drooling bib beneath their sleeping son’s chin. “Yes, although I fear you’ve caught me being rather self-indulgent. I suppose there’s nothing quite like the sight of sudden death to make us want to hug those we love close.”

  He came to stand behind her, his hands resting on her shoulders, and she felt the faint quiver that passed through him as he said, “I know.”

  She let her head fall back so she could look up at him. “Discover anything?”

  “Very little. Gibson was off tending some boatmen who’d been pulled from the river, so Alexi Sauvage began the autopsy herself. Which was fortunate, because she hadn’t progressed very far when the Regent’s men arrived to claim the body.”

  “Good heavens. How did the palace hear of Jane’s death so quickly?”

  “One of the parish officials sent them word. Madame Sauvage wasn’t able to determine whether Jane Ambrose’s death was manslaughter or murder. But if it was manslaughter, someone was obviously worried enough about the consequences of her death to move the body and attempt to make it look like a simple accident. She didn’t arrive in the middle of Shepherds’ Lane by herself. Not with that wound.”

  “No one in the area saw anything?”

  “Nothing they’re willing to admit. I suspect we’ll be reading in all the morning papers about how she slipped in the snow and tragically died after hitting her head. The palace is not going to want it known that someone close to Princess Charlotte has been murdered.” Of course, by “the palace” Sebastian meant Hero’s own father, Charles, Lord Jarvis, the powerful Machiavellian figure behind the Crown Prince’s weak regency. But there was no need for him to spell it out; Hero knew her father better than anyone.

  She said, “I was never close to Jane, but I admired her greatly and would like to have known her better. She was so bright, so incredibly talented, so . . . full of life.”

  “Did you ever see her perform?”

  “Only privately. She gave up performing in public when she was seventeen.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Fifteen, maybe sixteen years ago. I’ve heard many considered her a finer pianist than even her brother, and he was beyond brilliant.” The career of Jane’s twin, James Somerset, had ended all too soon when he died of consumption at the age of twenty-three.

  “Do you ever think,” said Devlin quietly, “of how many great artists, musicians, scholars, and inventors have been lost to our world on down through the ages, simply because they were born female?”

  She looked up to meet his gaze again and smiled. “Frequently.”

  He drew a gold locket from his pocket and flipped it open. “She was wearing this. Do you know if she had children?”

  “I believe she did, yes.” Reaching cautiously so as not to disturb the sleeping babe, Hero cradled the locket in her palm. “How terribly tragic this all is.” She gazed at the miniatures of the two round-cheeked, fair-haired children in silence for a moment. “Has her husband been told?”

  “Lovejoy was doing it.”

  She looked up at him, and something in his voice provoked her to say, “Surely you don’t think Edward Ambrose himself could have killed her?”

  Devlin went to where a carafe of brandy stood warming on a table near the fire. “Husbands do have a nasty habit of murdering their wives. According to Alexi, someone forced himself on Jane just a day or two ago, and I’d lay even money that was her husband.” He poured a measure of brandy into a glass, then glanced over at her. “How close are you to Princess Charlotte?”

  Still carefully cradling the child in her arms, Hero eased to her feet and went to ring the bell for Simon’s nurse. “No one is close to Princess Charlotte. The Regent keeps that poor child shut up in Warwick House like Rapunzel in her tower.”

  “Except that she’s not a child anymore, is she?”

  “No, she’s not. She turned eighteen at the beginning of the month—although most people don’t realize it because her ever-loving father refused to have the occasion marked in any way.”

  “Charming.”

  “I suspect it’s because every time she appears in the streets, the people cheer her as loudly as they boo the Regent. So he does his best to keep her out of sight.”

  Devlin came to stand with her before the fire, his glass cradled in one hand. “And then he wonders why the people hate him.”

  Simon’s nurse, Claire, appeared then to carry the sleeping babe off to bed. Hero waited until the Frenchwoman had gone before saying, “I am acquainted with one of Princess Charlotte’s ladies—Miss Ella Kinsworth. I could visit her in the morning. See what she can tell me about Jane.”

  Devlin took a long, slow swallow of his brandy. “That would be helpful.”

  Hero eased the glass from his fingers, took a sip, and handed it back. “You think the Princess is somehow involved in Jane Ambrose’s death?”

  “Charlotte herself, no. But something in Jane’s life led to her being found in the middle of Shepherds’ Lane with her head bashed in. And there’s no denying that a royal court can be a deadly place.”

  Chapter 4

  Paul Gibson sat on the edge of his bed, his head bowed as he rubbed an arnica-enriched ointment into the inflamed stump of his left leg. A single candle flame lit the small chamber with a faint, flickering glow. He could hear a distant watchman crying, “One o’clock on a snowy night and all is well!” But the only other sound came from the snow falling in a rush outside.

  The surgeon was a slim, wiry man, thinner than he should be, thanks to an opium addiction he knew was going to kill him if he didn’t master it soon. Once, his hair had been dark. Now it was increasingly threaded with silver, although he was only in his thirties. He’d just spent hours fighting for the lives of two half-drowned, broken men, and yet one of them had died anyway. He was feeling tired and old and useless.

  A soft feminine hand touched the small of his back, and despite the glumness of his mood, he found himself smiling.

  “You saved one,” said Alexi, who frequently seemed to know what he was thinking better than he knew himself.

  “And lost the other.”

  “It happens.”

  “It shouldn’t.”

  She shifted on the bed, rising onto her knees to slip her arms around him and hold him close. He could feel the weight of her breasts through the thin cloth of her night rail, pressing against his back. “The babe I delivered today will not survive forty-eight hours.”

  He tipped back his head to rest it against hers. “And that doesn’t bother you?” he asked, somewhat in awe. There was a side to Alexi that mystified him—a hard side that could frighten him even as it attracted him.

  “On one level, yes. But the babe’s mother already has three children she can’t feed, and she’s so starved herself that her milk will never come in. Lady Devlin left the woman money, but it won’t last. Perhaps it’s better that the infant die now, quickly, rather than linger to die slowly.” Alexi made an angry noise deep in her throat as passion roughened her voice and accentuated her native French accent. “And then there’s our charming Prince Regent, who has no problem at all finding the funds to drape his mistresses in jewels or rebuild his various palaces year after year.”

  Gibson knew a faint blooming of disquiet. She didn’t often discuss such things. But after a year of sharing this woman’s bed and going through the pattern of his days with her, he’d come to realize that she despised the British monarchy nearly as much as she hated Napoléon and his empire—and for the same reason: because at heart she was very much a fervent republican.

  And then, because she always seemed to know what he was thinking, she tipped her head to nuzzle his neck. “Don’t worry. I was most demure and respectful when the Prince’s men c
ame to carry away Jane Ambrose’s body.”

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”

  “It’s just as well you weren’t. You like to think you’re always so prudent and wise. But the truth is, you’ve a stubborn streak yourself.”

  Grunting, he set aside the ointment and lurched up to hop over to the basin and wash his hands.

  She watched him, her eyes narrowing. And although he was nowhere near as prescient as she, he knew what she was going to say. “Your leg is hurting.”

  “The stump? Aye.” He laid on his Irish burr thick and heavy. “Although not nearrrly as much as the foot that ’tisn’t therrre.”

  “I could do something about that,” she said.

  He gave her a lopsided smile. “With your smoke and mirrors?”

  “No smoke. Just mirrors.” When he kept silent, she said, “Why not try it? If it doesn’t work, then you can say, ‘It didn’t work.’ But it might.”

  He didn’t answer because they’d been over it all before, and in truth he was as terrified the idea might work as he was afraid it wouldn’t.

  Smiling faintly in a way that told him she knew his reasons only too well, she grasped handfuls of her night rail and drew it off over her head.

  “You’ll get cold,” he said even as the heat of want surged within him.

  She shook back her fiery hair, her neck arching seductively. “Then come keep me warm.”

  Chapter 5

  Friday, 28 January

  The snow eased up shortly before dawn. Then a howling wind swept in from the north, and the temperatures plunged even lower.

  London awoke to a paralyzed white world. Shopkeepers and servants were out early shoveling the snow from the pavement in front of their establishments, but the streets remained hopelessly blocked. Sebastian took one look at the drifts clogging Brook Street and decided to walk to Bow Street.