only a suspicion that lingers over them.”
“Usually they eat the bodies of their companions who are the first to die—is that not true?”
“Usually. But lacking that option, lots can be drawn and the loser sacrificed for the good of his companions. Only somehow I can’t see Sir Humphrey Carmichael or Lord Stanton putting their names in a hat for the chance to become their companions’ dinner.”
“No,” agreed Henry.
“Which leads to the suspicion that the victim, if there was one, was selected more arbitrarily. We need to know the names of any other passengers aboard the
“The records of the inquiry should be on file at the Board of Trade,” said Henry.
Devlin set aside his cup and rose to his feet. “Good. Let me know what you discover.”
“You forget, my lord. Bow Street has taken over the case.”
Devlin smiled and turned toward the door, then hesitated. “One more thing. There’s a captain in the Horse Guards named Peter Quail. When he was with my regiment on the Continent, he took a fiendish delight in torturing and mutilating prisoners. I know of no link between him and the
Henry thought about that morning’s terse conversation with the magistrates of Bow Street and sighed.
Later that night, Kat sat before the mirror in her dressing room at the theater. In the flickering candlelight, her reflection looked pale, strained. The scent of oranges, greasepaint, and ale still hung heavy in the air, but the theater stretched out quiet around her. The farce had long since ended.
Aiden O’Connell had not come.
With a hand that was not quite steady, she locked away the rest of her costume and stood. Two more days. She had two more days, and she was, if anything, farther from finding a way out of her dilemma than she had been before.
That night, Sebastian dreamed of broken bodies and torn flesh, recent images of young men with butchered limbs blending with older memories of endless bloody carnage on the killing fields of Europe. Waking, he reached for Kat, not remembering until his hand slid across the cool empty sheet beside him that he slept in his own bed, alone.
He sat up, his heart pounding uncomfortably, the need to hold her in his arms strong. Slipping from his bed, he went to jerk open the drapes.
The waning moon cast grotesque patterns of light and shadow across the street below. It had been his intention to meet Kat at the theater after her performance, but she’d told him no, she wasn’t feeling well. She certainly didn’t look well, her cheeks pale, her eyes heavy lidded. But he knew from the way she failed to meet his searching gaze that she was lying. Another man might have been suspicious, jealous. Sebastian knew only a deep and powerful sense that something was terribly wrong.
He was failing her; he knew that. She was in trouble, and for some reason he couldn’t understand she felt unable to confide in him. Or had she tried to turn to him for help, he wondered, only to find him so preoccupied with stopping this killer that she came away thinking he had no time for her? He realized he couldn’t even be sure.
Which was, he supposed, a damning conclusion.
THURSDAY, 19 SEPTEMBER 1811
Sebastian hesitated in the cool morning shadows of the ancient arcade, his gaze on the gentlewoman ladling porridge at a table set at the far end of the courtyard.
The poor and hungry of the city pressed past him, their gaunt frames clad in filthy rags, their faces drawn and desperate. The smell of unwashed bodies, disease, and coming death mingled with the dank earthy scent of the old stones around them. Once, before Henry VIII cast his covetous eyes upon the wealth of the church, this had been the cloisters of a grand convent. Now it was a half ruin that served as an open-air relief center, part of a vast yet woefully inadequate network of private charities that struggled to alleviate the worst of the sufferings of London’s burgeoning population of poor.
A young girl clutching a wailing baby cast Sebastian a curious look, but he kept his attention fixed on the gentlewoman quietly dispensing porridge: Lady Carmichael. A tall, starkly thin woman in her late forties, she wore a plain black apron tied over a fine walking dress also of unrelieved black, for she was in deepest mourning. Beneath a simple black hat covering dark hair heavily laced with gray, her face looked nearly as gaunt and drawn as those of the men and women who crowded around her, cracked and chipped bowls clutched eagerly in desperate hands.
Sebastian had known other women dedicated to good works. Most were nauseatingly condescending and self-righteously conscious of their ostentatious benevolence. Not Lady Carmichael. She worked with a quiet selflessness that reminded Sebastian of the nuns he’d encountered on the Iberian Peninsula and in Italy. She was as generous with her smiling words of encouragement as with her porridge. Yet she did not strike Sebastian as either gentle or soft. There was a firmness there, along with a calm self-possession that marked her as a strong, formidable woman.
Sebastian continued to hang back, watching her, until the last of the porridge was distributed and the throng began to thin. Only then did he step forward.
“Lady Carmichael?”
She turned at his words, her gaze assessing him. He had the impression she’d been aware of him, watching her from the shadows. “Yes?”
Sebastian touched his fingers to the brim of his hat. “I’m Lord Devlin. I’d like a word with you, if I may?”
Considering the way Sir Humphrey Carmichael had reacted, Sebastian knew he was taking a chance, identifying himself to her. She continued looking at him steadily for a moment, then said, “You wish to talk to me about my son.” It was not a question.
“Yes.”
She drew a deep breath that flared her nostrils, then nodded crisply. “Very well.”
She motioned to her servant to continue packing up the supplies, then turned to walk with Sebastian beneath the ancient arcade.
“Why have you involved yourself in this, my lord? What prompts a wealthy young nobleman to participate in a murder investigation? Hmm? Morbid curiosity? Arrogance? Or is it simple boredom?”
“Actually, it was at the request of a friend.”
She glanced sideways at him, one eyebrow raised in inquiry.
“Sir Henry Lovejoy,” he said.
“Ah. I see. Yet it’s my understanding Bow Street has taken over the investigation. And still you persist. Is that not arrogance?”
Sebastian found himself faintly smiling. “I suppose in a sense it is. But that’s only part of it.”
“And what’s the other part? Don’t tell me it’s a desire to see justice done. There is very little justice in this world, and you know it.”
“Perhaps. But I can’t allow something like this to continue, if I can stop it.”
Again that arch of the eyebrow. “You think you can stop it?”
“I can try.”
A brief flicker of what might have been amusement softened the grim line of her lips, then faded. “And have you discovered anything, my lord?”
“I think so, yes.” Sebastian studied the gentlewoman’s delicately boned profile. “Did you by any chance accompany Sir Humphrey on his trip to India five years ago?”
“India?” She swung to face him, the dark skirts of her mourning gown swirling softly around her. “Whatever
