Hero pushed to her feet. “What do you mean? What’s happening?”
She could hear the voices of more men now, the crash of overturned furniture, the smashing of crockery. Women shrieked. Someone pleaded, tearful, her voice trailing off into a whimper that ended abruptly.
“They’re here to kill me.” Rose whirled around, her gaze sweeping the room to fix on an old walnut cupboard, which took up most of the near wall. “We must hide.”
From below came the sound of running feet and a woman’s scream transformed, hideously, into a throaty gurgle. Rose yanked open the cupboard door. Hero reached out a hand, stopping her. “No. That’s the first place they’ll search.”
Crossing the room, Hero threw wide the casement window that overlooked the mist-swirled alley below. The window opened onto the sloping roof of what was probably the kitchen or a washroom. “This way,” said Hero. She sucked in a quick breath, the damp, coal smoke-tinged air biting her lungs as she threw one leg over the low sill and ducked her head through the frame.
Covered with moss and condensation and soot, the slate roofing tiles felt treacherously slippery beneath the smooth leather soles of Hero’s kid half boots. She moved cautiously, one hand braced against the rough brick of the house wall as she turned to help Rose through the narrow opening.
As she eased the window closed behind them, Hero heard a man shout from inside the house, “She’s not here.”
Another man answered, his voice lower pitched, his footsteps already heavy on the staircase. “She’s here. She must be upstairs.”
“They’re coming,” Hero whispered, and felt Rose’s hand tighten around her upper arm in warning.
Following the direction of the girl’s shaky, pointing finger, Hero discerned the figure of a man looming out of the fog below. A guard, stationed at the back door to make certain none of the women in the house escaped to the alley.
Hunkering low, Hero crab walked down the slippery slope of the roof to its edge. She watched the man below pace back and forth, his hat pulled over his eyes, his shoulders hunched against the dampness.
Moving as silently as she could, Hero swung her feet over the edge, her stocking-clad legs showing creamy white against the white of the mist as the hem of her fine blue alpaca carriage dress caught on the edge of the tiles and hiked up. She waited until the guard paused just below her. Then she pushed off from the eaves to drop straight down on him.
The force of the impact knocked him to his knees with a grunt and threw Hero to one side. She landed on her hip in the mud, hard enough to bring a small cry to her lips, but she scrambled quickly to her feet. The man was still on his hands and knees when Hero’s heel caught him hard on the side of his head and sent him staggering back against the house wall to land in a slumped heap. He lay still.
Rose slid over the edge of the roof to come down in a rush of tearing petticoats and scraped skin. “Good heavens. Where did you learn to do that?”
“I used to play with my brother.”
The sound of the upstairs window being thrown open brought both their heads up. A man’s voice cut through the fog. “Drummond? You there?”
Rose grabbed Hero’s hand and they ran.
They raced up an alleyway of mud and ancient half-buried cobbles hemmed in by soaring walls of soot- blackened brick. Breathing hard, her fingers gripping the other woman’s hand tightly, Hero sprinted toward the square patch of white at the alley’s mouth, where the silhouette of a carriage appeared out of the mist. They had almost reached the footpath when Hero heard the boom of a gun behind them. Beside her, Rose faltered.
Turning, Hero caught the girl as she began to crumple. The bullet had torn a gaping, oozing hole through her chest.
“Oh, no. No,” Hero whispered.
Rose’s lips parted, spilling dark red blood down her chin. Hero could feel the girl’s blood running warm and wet over her hands, see the light in Rose’s eyes ebb, dim.
“No!”
The boom of a second shot echoed up the alleyway. Hero imagined she could feel its passing like the whisper of a ghost beside her cheek.
“I’m sorry,” she said, sobbing slightly as she eased Rose down into the mud and ran on.
Chapter 2
TUESDAY, 5 MAY 1812
The morning dawned overcast and unseasonably cool, the air heavy with the scent of coal smoke and the last lingering wisps of the fog. Winding westward toward the City, a lady’s yellow-bodied carriage persistently shadowed a gentleman’s curricle as he wove around tumbledown hackneys and towering drays driven by men in smocks and leather aprons. When they reached the Strand, the curricle’s driver reined in before the last in a row of small, bow- fronted shops, his pair of blood chestnuts snorting and throwing their heads, restless. Leaning forward, the lady signaled her own coachman to draw up.
“They were ’opin’ fer a good run,” said the gentleman’s tiger from his perch at the curricle’s rear, the sharp Cockney tones of his voice carrying clearly in the damp air.
“They’ll get it soon enough,” said the gentleman, handing the reins to the young groom.
The gentleman’s name was Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin. The fourth child and youngest of three sons
