Where Serpents Sleep sscm-4 Page 10

  This storeroom was dark, without the string of lanterns that had turned the wine warehouse into a long cavern of dancing shadows. Sebastian entered cautiously, giving his eyes time to adjust. With each step, his feet stuck to the floor as if it were newly tarred. It took him a moment to realize what it was: years and years of sugar that had leaked through casks to cover the floor, then half melted in the damp air. From up ahead came that same furtive sucking sound. Then it stopped.

  Away from the open doorway, the darkness of the warehouse was nearly complete. But Sebastian’s senses of sight and sound had always been acute. Wolflike, Kat used to say. Trying to still his own breathing, he listened, his gaze raking the towering rows of casks.

  It was the barest hint of sound—cloth brushing against wood. Sebastian whirled just as Dark Coat leapt toward him from atop the nearest stack of kegs.

  The sudden movement dislodged the casks, toppling them in an avalanche of crushed staves and cascading sugar that swept Sebastian off his feet. He went down hard, his hand scooping up a fistful of sugar he threw in Dark Coat’s face as the man lunged toward him, knife in hand. The man swore and staggered back, buying Sebastian enough time to roll to one side and come up onto his knees, a broken stave clutched in both hands.

  “Ye son of a bitch,” swore the man, charging again.

  Swinging the stave like a curving club, Sebastian slammed the jagged edge into the man’s wrist, sending the knife skittering away into the darkness. “Who hired you?” shouted Sebastian.

  Whirling, the man took off toward the distant rectangle of light, his boots sliding and sucking in the sugar.

  Shoving to his feet, Sebastian tore after him. They erupted into the sunlight covered in a fine dusting of sparkling white crystals.

  “Englishes,” said one of the German sailors, laughing as Sebastian ran past.

  He could hear the bleating of a goat from a ship out on the river, the raucous cries of the seagulls circling over the docks. Heads turned as, one after the other, the sugar-encrusted men raced up the hill and into the lane. Dark Coat had a good hundred-foot lead, and Sebastian couldn’t close it.

  Snatching up his gray’s reins on the fly, Dark Coat threw himself into the saddle, the horse shying violently as the man’s weight came down hard, and he set his spurs into the animal’s sides.

  “Son of a bitch,” said Sebastian. Breathing hard, he leaned forward, his hands on his sugar-dusted knees as he watched the gray’s tail disappear with a shivering swish up the lane.

  Sebastian was in his dressing room brushing the sugar out of his hair when Jules Calhoun came in. “A bath is on the way, my lord.” He held out a sealed missive on a silver tray. “This arrived while you were out. Delivered by a liveried footman.”

  Sebastian reached for the letter and studied the masculine-looking handwriting of the address. He flipped it over, frowning at the sight of the familiar coat of arms on the seal. The handwriting might be masculine, but it obviously belonged to Miss Hero Jarvis. He broke the seal and unfolded the heavy white page.

  My lord,

  I have new information concerning Rose’s identity. I will be visiting the Orangery in Kensington Gardens at two o’clock this afternoon. Please be prompt.

  Miss Jarvis

  “Please be prompt,” repeated Sebastian, dropping the missive back on the silver tray. Bloody hell, he thought. That acorn didn’t fall far from its tree.

  Calhoun moved about the room gathering up the Viscount’s sugar-dusted disguise. “You think the man who followed you was working for Ian Kane?”

  “It’s possible. Kane is the one who sent me after O’Brian in the first place.” Sebastian glanced over at his valet. “But there may well be more to Mr. O’Brian than meets the eye.”

  “Would you like me to look into the gentleman, my lord?”

  “It might prove interesting.”

  Calhoun bowed and turned toward the door.

  “Oh, and, Calhoun—tell Tom to bring my curricle around in half an hour. I think it’s time I paid a little visit to Bow Street.”

  Chapter 20

  Dressed once more in his own exquisitely tailored dark blue coat and buckskin breeches, Sebastian drove his curricle to the Brown Bear, the aging inn in Bow Street that was essentially treated as an extension of the Bow Street magistrate’s office.

  “Walk ’em,” he told Tom, handing the boy the reins. “We’ll be leaving for Kensington as soon as I’m finished here.”

  Pushing through the inn’s smoky public room, Sebastian found Sir William Hadley seated at a booth near the rear, a plate of cold roast beef and a tankard of ale on the worn, stained boards before him. “You might be interested to know I’ve discovered the identity of one of the women who was killed Monday night at the Magdalene House,” said Sebastian, sliding into the bench opposite the Bow Street magistrate.

  Sir William raised his tankard to his lips and drank deeply. “Now why the bloody hell would I be interested in that?” he said, drawing the back of one meaty hand across his wet mouth.

  “Because it’s someone you know. Rose Fletcher, from the Orchard Street Academy.”

  Sir William went suddenly still. “What the bloody hell makes you think I knew her?”

  Sebastian gave the man a slow, mean smile. “Your frequent visits to the Academy are hardly a secret. She was a favorite of yours, was she not?”

  Sir William bowed his head over his plate and gave his attention to his beef, shoving a large forkful into his mouth.

  “There are those,” said Sebastian, “who think you might be the reason Rose fled Orchard Street. You’ve a nasty reputation for roughing up women, Sir William.”

  The magistrate’s head came up as he swallowed slowly. Eyes narrowing dangerously, he raised one thick finger to point at Sebastian. “I told you to keep out of this, Devlin. I meant it.”

  “Under the circumstances, I’m not surprised my interest has made you a trifle—shall we say, nervous?” Sebastian leaned his back against the panel behind him and crossed his arms at his chest. “In fact, I find myself wondering where you were on Monday night.”

  The magistrate’s knife clattered against the thick edge of his white ironware plate. “Not that it’s any of your bloody business, but as it happens I was with the Prime Minister. Next I know you’ll be accusing Perceval himself.”

  Sebastian studied the magistrate’s fleshy red face. “Since you obviously knew the young lady, perhaps you can tell me more about her.”

  Sir William’s lip curled. “Young lady?” He pushed his plate away and stood up. “She was a whore, just like all the others, for all her airs and graces. You think I’ve nothing better to do than waste the afternoon nattering on about some worthless trollop? I’ve merchants breathing fire because someone’s cleaned out a warehouse of prime Russian sables, and a loyal officer of His Majesty’s Army who seems to have vanished into thin air, and a Member of Parliament assaulted in broad daylight on the Strand. Believe me, any one of those incidents is more important than a thousand dead strumpets.”

  Sebastian pushed to his feet. “Not to me.”

  Sir William tore away the napkin he’d tucked into his shirt-front and slammed it on the table beside his half-eaten meal. “I warned you to cease this interference in Bow Street’s affairs, and I meant it. You might be thick with Sir Henry Lovejoy, but this is Bow Street, not Queen Square. Good day, my lord.”

  Sebastian watched the portly magistrate push his way toward the tavern’s door just as Bow’s bell chimed once, then again. It was two o’clock.

  Kensington Gardens lay to the west of Hyde Park in an area of town unfashionable enough to ensure that no one of any consequence would be likely to observe the encounter between Miss Jarvis and Viscount Devlin.

  Leaving Tom walking the chestnuts up and down the lane, Sebastian nodded to the attendant at the gate and continued on foot to where the redbrick and glass walls of the Orangery rose at the end of an avenue lined with high yew hedges. He found Miss Jarvis smartl
y dressed in a navy blue walking dress topped by a dashing hat with not one but two ostrich plumes. She stood as if enraptured by the study of an ornamental planting of lilies, but Sebastian was not deceived. A tall, thin maid, her face tight with discomfort, hovered nearby.

  “You’re late,” said Miss Jarvis, twirling her parasol with impatience as he walked up to her.

  Sebastian opened his eyes wide in mock dismay. “I am?”

  To his surprise, a hint of a smile touched her lips. She swung her head away to stare out over a nearby open lawn interspersed with groves of shady trees. “Point taken,” she said, and turned to walk along the broad avenue.

  Sebastian fell into step beside her, the tight-faced maid trailing at a respectful distance. “So tell me, Miss Jarvis, what have you discovered that is of such vital importance that you felt compelled to arrange this assignation?”

  She held her head high, her features remarkably composed. “This is not an assignation, my lord. This is an exchange of information. I have discovered that the woman who gave her name at the Magdalene House as Rose Jones was previously known as Rose Fletcher. She fled a house on Orchard Street.”

  “The Orchard Street Academy,” said Sebastian.

  Miss Jarvis swung to look directly at him. “How did you know that?”

  “I went there.”

  She turned her head as if to study a green damselfly hovering about a nearby wisteria, but not before he saw the shadow of annoyance that flitted across her features. “Oh. And did you discover anything else of significance?”

  He wasn’t about to regale her with the sordid details of his encounters with either Ian Kane or Luke O’Brian. “It opened up one or two avenues of inquiry. But nothing of any significance yet.” He turned their steps toward the east, where the Long Water shimmered blue and sun-dazzled in the distance. “How precisely did you come to know about the Orchard Street Academy?”

  “I spoke to a woman named Tasmin Poole.”

  Sebastian drew up abruptly. “You what?” He remembered the tall, long-necked Jamaican he’d encountered in the Academy’s tawdry parlor. “How in the name of all that’s holy did you meet her?”

  Miss Jarvis continued walking. “I put out word that I was willing to pay for information that would lead me to the woman who originally took refuge at the Magdalene House with Rose. According to Tasmin Poole, Rose fled the Orchard Street Academy with a woman named Hannah Green. Unfortunately, Tasmin is unaware of the woman’s current whereabouts.”

  Sebastian stayed where he was. “Hang on. Exactly how did you put out word?”

  She turned to face him, impatient and impervious. “I spoke to some women at a lodging house in Covent Garden. I’d met with them before in the course of my research.”

  Sebastian watched as the cold breeze plucked a strand of Miss Jarvis’s rigidly controlled brown hair and blew it across her cheek. He said, “You don’t even realize what you’ve done, do you?”

  “What I’ve done? I’ve discovered the identity of the woman—”

  “Yes. But at what cost? The men who killed those women at the Magdalene House saw two people running away. They shot one in the alley, but they knew one escaped. If they were watching your rendezvous with Tasmin Poole this morning, they now have a good idea who that second woman was. Not only that, but they know you’re pursuing an inquiry into what happened and they’re going to think Rose Jones, or Rose Fletcher, or whoever she was, told you something.”

  A slow heat moved up into her cheeks, but otherwise she remained perfectly composed. “I am well protected.”

  “I hope so. Because the type of people we’re dealing with won’t take kindly to too close a scrutiny. They’ve already killed eight women and burned a house to the ground. You think they won’t hesitate to kill you?”

  He continued up the path toward the Long Water, and after a moment, she fell in beside him again. She said, “Had you discovered the name of the woman who fled with Rose?”

  “No,” he admitted, glancing sideways at her. “Did Tasmin Poole tell you why the two women ran away from Orchard Street?”

  “She said she didn’t know. But she had this—” Reaching into her reticule, Miss Jarvis held up a short length of silver chain. “She said Rose gave it to her as payment for something.”

  Sebastian reached out to take the chain and cradle it in his gloved palm. It was a bracelet, small and delicate, with a single round medallion. He remembered his sister, Amanda, having something similar as a child. “It’s a child’s bracelet,” he said, glancing up at the woman beside him. “How do you know this really belonged to Rose Fletcher?”

  “I recognized the coat of arms on the medallion.”

  He flipped over the small medallion to study the helm with three eagles’ heads. “The Fairchilds,” he said. He looked up to find her watching him. “You do realize that either Tasmin Poole or Rose Fletcher could have acquired this bracelet in any one of a hundred different ways?”

  “Of course I realize that,” she said with ill-disguised indignation. “But the coincidences are more than intriguing.”

  “Coincidences?”

  “Lord Fairchild has a daughter named Rachel, who made her Come Out just last Season. Her betrothal was announced in May, not long before she supposedly retired to the family estates in Northamptonshire for health reasons. But there are rumors that Miss Fairchild is not in Northamptonshire. There are rumors that she ran away.”

  Sebastian rubbed the pad of his thumb over the bracelet’s delicate silver links. According to Luke O’Brian, Rose’s family was from Northamptonshire. He said, “Why would she take this with her, of all things? It can’t be worth much.”

  “Perhaps it was given to her by someone she loved. I don’t know. But Tasmin told me something else significant. She said Rose—or Rachel, or whatever her name is—was terrified someone would find her. Tasmin thought it might have been her family, but she wasn’t certain.”

  Sebastian said, “If Rose was Rachel Fairchild and she came out last Season, then why didn’t you recognize her when you met her at the Magdalene House?”

  Miss Jarvis shrugged. “I may have seen her at a ball, but if so I don’t recall it. She wasn’t the type of young woman one would notice in a crush, and I seldom attend Almack’s Assemblies these days.” At twenty-five, Miss Jarvis was virtually an ape leader.

  He held up the bracelet. “You bought this?”

  “Yes. With the promise of twenty pounds if Tasmin Poole should discover the current whereabouts of Hannah Green.” When he remained silent, she said with some impatience, “At least we’ve a new avenue of inquiry to pursue.”

  Sebastian raised one eyebrow. “We, Miss Jarvis?”

  She stared back at him. “That’s right.”

  “What precisely do you intend to do? Go to Almack’s and offer twenty pounds to anyone who can furnish you with the whereabouts of Miss Rachel Fairchild?”

  The color was back in her cheeks, only this time he suspected it was a flush of annoyance. Miss Jarvis wasn’t yet as good at controlling her emotions as her father. “No,” she said evenly. “But I can make a call upon Lady Sewell.”

  “Who?”

  “Georgina, Lady Sewell. Before her marriage she was Miss Fairchild—Rachel Fairchild’s elder sister. I can’t help but wonder if Rachel ran away from the Fairchilds’ house on Curzon Street, why didn’t she seek refuge with her sister?”

  “Rather than in a brothel? It is an interesting question.” Sebastian frowned, remembering what Luke O’Brian had told him about “Rose’s” family. I think she might have had two sisters, and a brother in the Army. . . . Sebastian knew that Lord Fairchild had at least one son, Cedric; he’d served with Sebastian in the Peninsula. “Is there a younger sister, as well?” he asked aloud.

  “I don’t know,” said Miss Jarvis, shifting her parasol to keep the faint sun off her face.

  Sebastian stared off across the sparkling surface of the Long Water toward Hyde Park. What he needed, he realized, was
someone intimately familiar with every hint of gossip and scandal attached to the Fairchilds in the last fifty years. Someone like his aunt—

  “I think the information we’ve gained was worth whatever minimal risk I might have incurred,” said Miss Jarvis, reaching to take the bracelet from his hand.

  Sebastian closed his fist around the chain. “I might be able to use this,” he said. “Leave it with me.”

  He expected her to argue with him, but she did not. Looking into her frank, intelligent gray eyes, he had the disconcerting realization that she didn’t argue because she knew precisely what he planned. She knew that as soon as he’d visited his gossipy aunt Henrietta, he meant to confront Lord Fairchild himself.