C Harris - Where Shadows Dance

Sebastian smiled. “Of course.”

Jarvis lifted a delicate pinch of snuff to one nostril and inhaled. “You haven’t asked if I killed Alexander Ross.”

Sebastian met the older man’s hard gray gaze. “Would you tell me if you had?”

Jarvis closed his snuffbox with a snap. “I suppose that would depend on why I had him killed.”

Lost in thought, Sebastian was walking up St. James’s Street when one of Kat Boleyn’s young pages found him.

Breaking the seal of her note, Sebastian read through the brief missive. Then he turned his steps toward Covent Garden.

He found Kat waiting for him at the stage door.

She wore a crimson velvet cloak with the hood pulled up over her auburn-shot dark hair. He walked toward her, his footsteps echoing in the stillness, his gaze drinking in the sight of her.

She held out her hand to him. “I didn’t think you were coming.”

He took her hand in his, held it a moment too long, then released it. “Your page had a difficult time finding me.” He searched her beautiful, beloved face. “What is it?”

“You’ve heard of the death of the woman known as Yasmina Ramadani?”

“Yes. Why?”

They turned to walk up the narrow lane. She said, “The friendship between France and the Sublime Porte goes back hundreds of years.”

“Thanks largely to their mutual dislike of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the grand tradition of ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend. ’”

“Something like that.”

Sebastian glanced sideways at her. “Are you telling me that the information Yasmina collected was being shared with the French?”

“Yes.”

“Via whom?”

She smiled and shook her head. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

He nodded. “Can you tell me who Yasmina targeted at the Foreign Office? Was it Alexander Ross? Or someone else?”

“I’m not certain, although it’s possible she may have had more than one lover.” Kat hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “It has occurred to you, I suppose, that it is in France’s best interest to prevent an alliance between Britain and Sweden?”

“Are you saying the French acted on the information Yasmina gleaned from Ross—or someone else—and killed Lindquist in an attempt to disrupt any alliance between Britain and Sweden?”

“I’m saying it’s a possibility. But do I know for certain? No.”

“And Ross? Why was he killed?”

“I haven’t been able to learn anything about Alexander Ross.”

Sebastian blew out a long, frustrated breath. “I suppose it’s possible his death isn’t related to any of this at all.”

“It’s related,” she said. “The manner of his death tells us that.”

They walked along in silence for a moment, their footsteps echoing hollowly in the narrow, empty street. Then she said, “Have you considered Jarvis?”

“When one is dealing with what looks like the work of a professional assassin, the possibility of Jarvis’s involvement does tend to suggest itself, yes. Although if Jarvis had Ross killed to prevent him from spilling state secrets to a Turkish spy, I don’t see why he wouldn’t simply admit it.”

“You asked Jarvis if he killed Ross?”

“Yes.”

She let out a peal of laughter, soft and melodic and so belovedly familiar it brought an ache to his chest. “Oh, Sebastian,” she said, “your future family gatherings ought to prove beyond interesting, to say the least.”

Then she must have read something he didn’t want her to see in his eyes, for her smile faded and she reached out to touch her fingertips, ever so briefly, to his arm. “I know why you’re doing this, Sebastian.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “How can you?”

“The British government isn’t the only one who pays servants to spy on their masters. Get your bride a new abigail.”

That night, Hero received an urgent note from her cousin Sabrina.

I need to talk to you, the girl had written, her penmanship wobbly, agitated. Could we meet for a walk in the park tomorrow?

Intrigued, Hero wrote back, Of course. I’ll see you at ten.

Then she sat for a time, her cousin’s note in her hand, her mind busy with a series of conjectures that in the end seemed to go nowhere.

Tuesday, 28 July

The morning dawned cool and overcast, with a soft white mist that swirled through the trees in the park.

Hero found Sabrina looking pale and heartbreakingly lovely in a walking dress of the deepest mourning topped by a black spencer. At first, Hero was content to simply allow the conversation to ramble as they walked. Her abigail, Marie, followed languidly behind—thankful, Hero suspected, for the moderating effect Sabrina’s presence had on Hero’s normally brisk pace.

They spoke for a time of Alexander Ross, and Sabrina’s grief, and her inability to respond with enthusiasm to Jasper Cox’s plans to remove to the seaside for a few weeks.

Hero said, “I suppose you must find some comfort in your music.”

Sabrina choked back a sob. “I haven’t been able to play since I heard ... since I knew . . .” Her voice trailed away.

Hero reached out to touch her cousin’s shoulder in an awkward but sincere gesture of comfort. “It will come back, eventually. I know it will.” Then, feeling profoundly dishonest, even contemptibly sly, she added, “You play the harp, don’t you?”

Sabrina shook her head. “Pianoforte.”

“Of course. How could I have forgotten?”

Hero stared off across the park, to where the waters of the Serpentine glinted in the distance. She had never actually believed sweet, dainty Sabrina capable of wrapping a harp wire around a man’s neck and twisting it until his face turned purple and the veins in his eyeballs burst.

Hero wasn’t so sure about Jasper.

Hero said, “Were you by chance acquainted with a French émigré named Antoine de La Rocque?”

“De La Rocque? I don’t believe so. Why? Who is he?”

“He was a collector of old and rare books.”

Sabrina frowned. “A rather peculiar-looking man with a long neck and a small head?”

Hero glanced at her in surprise. “Yes, that’s he. So you did know him?”

“I met him once, when I was with Alexander.” She sucked in a quick breath, her eyes widening with sudden comprehension. “You said he ‘was’ a collector of old books. Why? What has happened to him?”

“He was killed yesterday.”

Sabrina shuddered and turned so alarmingly pale that for a moment Hero worried she might faint. “You mean, murdered?”

Hero eyed her warily. “Yes. I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to distress you. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

Sabrina swallowed hard and shook her head. “No. You were right to tell me.” She walked on in silence for a moment, her gaze on an old-fashioned closed carriage pulled by a pair of showy dapple grays that was drawing abreast of them at a sedate pace. The park was largely deserted at this hour; they could see only some children laughingly playing chase under the watchful gaze of a nursemaid, and a tall, broad-shouldered gentleman in fashionable trousers and a black coat walking briskly toward them.

“Hero,” said Sabrina, as if suddenly coming to a decision, “there’s something I need to tell you—”

She broke off with a frightened gasp as the tall gentleman reached out to seize her arm, spin her around, and slam her back against his chest. In his left hand he held a pistol, its muzzle pressed against Sabrina’s temple.

“Do anything stupid,” he said to Hero, his rough accent at decided variance with his natty clothes, “and yer cousin here gets popped. Understand?”

Hero held herself perfectly still, although she could feel her heart pounding wildly in her chest. “I understand.”