“No. Do you?”
The little magistrate shook his head. “Any idea why he was following you?”
“I was hoping you might be able to help me discover that.”
Lovejoy threw him a pained look and stood up. “Have you seen this morning’s papers?”
“No. Why?”
Even though he had not touched the body, the little magistrate drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his hands. “A park woman found a body in St. James’s Park. Just before dawn.”
A wind had kicked up and set a series of small waves to lapping against the rocks at their feet. The air was thick with the smell of the river and mud and ever-pervasive stench of sewage. Sebastian stared out at the dark hull of a wherry cutting through the dark water. In a city crowded with courtesans and prostitutes, the park women were the lowest of the low, pitiful creatures so disfigured by disease that they could only ply their trade in the dark, usually in one of the city’s parks.
“Is that so unusual?” said Sebastian.
“It is when the body in question has been butchered.” Lovejoy stuffed his handkerchief back in his pocket. In the pale moonlight, his face looked nearly as pallid as the corpse at their feet. “I mean that literally. Carved up like a side of beef.”
“Who was he? Do you know?”
Lovejoy nodded for the constables to remove the body and turned away. “That’s one of the more troublesome aspects. He was Sir Humphrey Carmichael’s eldest son. A young man of but twenty-five.”
Sir Humphrey Carmichael was one of the wealthiest men in the city. Born the son of a weaver, he now had a hand in everything from manufacturing and banking to mining and shipping. Until his son’s murderer was caught, the city’s constables and magistrates would be expected to concentrate on nothing else.
“Incidentally, one of the Bow Street men is talking about laying charges,” Lovejoy said, climbing the steps. “You broke his nose.”
“He ripped my coat.”
Lovejoy turned to run an eye over Sebastian’s exquisitely tailored coat of Bath superfine, now muddied and scuffed beyond repair. A faint smile played about one corner of the magistrate’s normally tense mouth. “I’ll tell him that.”
“What happened to you this time?” asked Kat, her gaze meeting Sebastian’s in her dressing room mirror. The curtain had only just come down on the final act; around them, the theater rang with shouts and laughter and the tramp of feet hurrying up and down the passage.
Sebastian dropped the paper-wrapped parcel containing the green satin gown on her couch and dabbed the back of his hand at the blood trickling down his cheek from a graze. “I was coming to see what you could tell me about this evening gown when I decided to stop and have a little wresting match in the mud.”
She gave him a look that spoke of concern and exasperation and amusement, all carefully held in check. Removing Cleopatra’s gilded diadem from her forehead, she pushed back her chair and went to unwrap the gown. In the golden lamplight, the satin shimmered.
“It’s exquisite,” she said, turning to hold the gown up to the lamplight. “Dashing, but not outrageously so. It looks like something that would be made for a young nobleman’s wife. A lady several years past her first season, perhaps, but still young.”
She glanced over at him. “Surely the woman who delivered the note for the Prince couldn’t have been wearing an identical gown?”
Sebastian stripped off his muddy coat. Not even a valet of Sedlow’s genius would be able to repair these ravages. “I doubt it. Probably a gown of a similar cut and hue. A female might have noticed the difference, but not most men.” Sebastian surveyed the damage done to his waistcoat. It was as ruined as his coat. “Whoever she was, she obviously had a hand in the Marchioness’s death.”
“Not necessarily. I know dozens of actresses more than capable of giving a very credible performance as a lady. The killer could simply have hired someone.”
“Perhaps. But it seems a risky thing to have done.”
Kat turned the gown inside out to inspect the seams. “Look at these tiny stitches. There aren’t many mantua makers in Town capable of producing work of this quality.”
He came up beside her. “Do you think if we found the maker, she could tell us who ordered it?”
“Certainly she
Sebastian hooked an elbow behind her neck, drawing her close. “Are you suggesting my approach might be clumsy?”
Kat rubbed her open lips against his. “I’m suggesting she might find the question slightly more appropriate coming from a female.”
Grinning, he laced his fingers through her hair and rubbed the pads of his thumbs back and forth across her cheeks. “Then maybe—” He broke off as a knock sounded at her door.
“Flowers fer Miss Boleyn,” called a young voice.
“Oh, Lord. Not again,” said Kat.
Sebastian let his gaze drift around the buckets of roses and lilies and orchids that covered every conceivable surface of the dressing room, including the floor. “You appear to have a new admirer,” he said, as she went to jerk
