Carmichael, or perhaps someone else who doesn’t like the questions I’ve been asking. But not Jarvis.”
“How many were there?”
“Two. The other one got away.” He turned to head upstairs. “I need to get some clothes on. The watch should be here soon to deal with this fellow.”
She followed him, carefully lifting the hem of her dressing gown as she stepped over the bloody corpse on her stairs. “You’re certain it’s the same man you saw before?”
“Yes.” He pulled his shirt over his head and reached for his breeches. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Where are you going?”
“To have a little talk with Lord Stanton.”
The sun was still a mere promise on the horizon when Sebastian popped the lock on the library window of Lord Stanton’s Park Street town house and dropped inside.
He moved easily through the darkened house, hugging the wall on his way up the stairs to keep the steps from creaking. Lady Stanton had been advised by her doctors to retire to the country in an attempt to ease her prostration of grief. Only one of the bedrooms on the second floor—an opulent chamber overlooking the rear garden—was occupied.
Lord Stanton slept on his back in a gilded tester bed with red velvet hangings. Beneath the figured red coverlet, his heavy chest rose and fell rhythmically, his lips parting with each exhalation. Snagging a lyre-backed chair, Sebastian brought it, reversed, close to the bed’s edge and straddled the seat. He pressed the muzzle of his small flintlock pistol into the hollow beneath the man’s jawbone and waited.
The rhythmic breathing stopped on a strangled gasp. Stanton’s eyes flew open, then fixed, wide, on the pistol.
Sebastian showed his teeth in a smile. “I trust you can see well enough to know what this is?”
Stanton nodded, his tongue flicking out to moisten his lips.
“Someone tried to kill me tonight. Not just me, but my future wife, as well. That was a serious error.”
Stanton’s voice was admirably strong and controlled. “If they told you I hired them, they lied.”
Sebastian frowned. “Odd. I don’t recall mentioning that there was more than one of them. But as it happens, there were two. One is now a bloody mess on Miss Boleyn’s staircase. The other, regrettably, escaped.”
Something flashed in the Baron’s eyes, then was gone.
“This is the second time in the past few days that someone has tried to kill me. I must say, it’s getting rather fatiguing.”
“You’re obviously making yourself unpopular.”
“So it would seem. I keep thinking about our encounter in Whitehall the other day. You struck me at the time as a man with a secret, a terrible secret he was willing to do almost anything to keep from becoming known.”
Stanton stared back at him, his lips pressed tight, his narrowed eyes radiating hatred and contained fury.
Sebastian leaned forward and dropped his voice to a whisper. “I don’t know it all yet, but I’m getting close. At this point, I’m thinking it doesn’t matter whether it was you or Sir Humphrey Carmichael or someone I haven’t even met yet who sent those men into Miss Boleyn’s house. But if any of you threatens her again in any way, you’re dead. It’s as simple as that.”
“You’re mad.”
“I doubt you’re the first to think so.” Sebastian withdrew the gun and stood.
“I could call the watch on you,” said Stanton, his fists tightening on the covers at his chest.
Sebastian smiled and backed toward the door. “You could. But that would direct attention precisely where you don’t want it, now, wouldn’t it?”
SATURDAY, 21 SEPTEMBER 1811
Sebastian’s sister lived in an elegant town house on St. James’s Square. The house technically belonged to her son, the young Lord Wilcox, for Amanda was recently widowed. But Lady Wilcox ruled both her son, Bayard, and her seventeen-year-old daughter, Stephanie, with brutal purpose and an iron will.
Sebastian found her in the morning room arranging white and yellow lilies in a large vase. She was a tall woman, and thin, with their mother’s pale blond hair still only barely touched by gray although she was twelve years Sebastian’s senior. She looked up without smiling at his entrance.
“I trust you are here to tell me the notice in this morning’s papers was an error.”
“You saw it, did you?”
She set down the last lily with enough force that the rings on her hand clattered against the marble tabletop. “Dear God. It’s true.”
“Yes.”
Her jaw hardened with cold fury. “You do realize that Stephanie’s come out is less than six months away?”
Sebastian controlled the impulse to laugh. “Console yourself with the thought that most of the talk will have died down by then.”
She studied him with one brow thoughtfully arched. “How did Hendon take it?”
“Predictably. He has promised never to darken my doorway again. I presume you intend to do the same?”
“As long as
Sebastian nodded. “I’ll bid you good day, then.” And he walked out of her house and out of her life.
Sir Henry Lovejoy was at his desk, glancing over the coming day’s schedule, when Viscount Devlin arrived at his office.
Henry sat back. “Good morning, my lord. And congratulations.” He permitted himself a small smile. “I saw the announcement of your upcoming nuptials in the paper this morning.”
The young Viscount was looking oddly strained, but Lovejoy supposed that was to be expected in one about to embark upon such a life-altering event.
“Some men broke into Miss Boleyn’s house last night and tried to kill us.”
“Merciful heavens. Do you know who they were?”
Devlin shook his head. “Hirelings. You received the list of passengers and ship’s officers I sent yesterday?”
“Yes, yes.” Henry opened a drawer and pulled out a report. “Please, my lord, take a seat. I have my constable’s notes right here. Of the ship’s officers, the second mate”—Henry consulted his constable’s notes—“Mr. Fairfax, died four years ago from a fall.”
“A fall?”
“Yes. From a third-floor window in Naples. There was some speculation Mr. Fairfax may have deliberately thrown himself from the window, but as the gentleman was in his cups at the time, it was impossible to say.”
Henry consulted the notes again. “The third mate, a Mr. Francis Hillard, was lost overboard while at sea off the Canary Islands two years ago, while the first mate—Mr. Canning—drank himself to death six months ago. A most unlucky lot, from the sounds of things.”
Devlin grunted. “And the passengers?”
“The spinster, Miss Elizabeth Ware, died two years ago of hysteria.”
“Hysteria?”
Henry nodded. “The constable spoke to her sister. Seems the poor woman went mad not long after her return to London. Stark, raving mad. As for Mr. and Mrs. Dunlop, they were living in Golden Square up until several weeks ago, but they appear to have packed and fled the city somewhat precipitously. That leaves only Mr. Felix Atkinson of the East India Company. He lives with his wife and two children in a house in Portland Place.”
“Have you spoken to him?”
