Where Serpents Sleep

Garden. I’d met with them before in the course of my research.”

Sebastian watched as the cold breeze plucked a strand of Miss Jarvis’s rigidly controlled brown hair and blew it across her cheek. He said, “You don’t even realize what you’ve done, do you?”

“What I’ve done? I’ve discovered the identity of the woman—”

“Yes. But at what cost? The men who killed those women at the Magdalene House saw two people running away. They shot one in the alley, but they knew one escaped. If they were watching your rendezvous with Tasmin Poole this morning, they now have a good idea who that second woman was. Not only that, but they know you’re pursuing an inquiry into what happened and they’re going to think Rose Jones, or Rose Fletcher, or whoever she was, told you something.”

A slow heat moved up into her cheeks, but otherwise she remained perfectly composed. “I am well protected.”

“I hope so. Because the type of people we’re dealing with won’t take kindly to too close a scrutiny. They’ve already killed eight women and burned a house to the ground. You think they won’t hesitate to kill you?”

He continued up the path toward the Long Water, and after a moment, she fell in beside him again. She said, “Had you discovered the name of the woman who fled with Rose?”

“No,” he admitted, glancing sideways at her. “Did Tasmin Poole tell you why the two women ran away from Orchard Street?”

“She said she didn’t know. But she had this—” Reaching into her reticule, Miss Jarvis held up a short length of silver chain. “She said Rose gave it to her as payment for something.”

Sebastian reached out to take the chain and cradle it in his gloved palm. It was a bracelet, small and delicate, with a single round medallion. He remembered his sister, Amanda, having something similar as a child. “It’s a child’s bracelet,” he said, glancing up at the woman beside him. “How do you know this really belonged to Rose Fletcher?”

“I recognized the coat of arms on the medallion.”

He flipped over the small medallion to study the helm with three eagles’ heads. “The Fairchilds,” he said. He looked up to find her watching him. “You do realize that either Tasmin Poole or Rose Fletcher could have acquired this bracelet in any one of a hundred different ways?”

“Of course I realize that,” she said with ill-disguised indignation. “But the coincidences are more than intriguing.”

“Coincidences?”

“Lord Fairchild has a daughter named Rachel, who made her Come Out just last Season. Her betrothal was announced in May, not long before she supposedly retired to the family estates in Northamptonshire for health reasons. But there are rumors that Miss Fairchild is not in Northamptonshire. There are rumors that she ran away.”

Sebastian rubbed the pad of his thumb over the bracelet’s delicate silver links. According to Luke O’Brian, Rose’s family was from Northamptonshire. He said, “Why would she take this with her, of all things? It can’t be worth much.”

“Perhaps it was given to her by someone she loved. I don’t know. But Tasmin told me something else significant. She said Rose—or Rachel, or whatever her name is—was terrified someone would find her. Tasmin thought it might have been her family, but she wasn’t certain.”

Sebastian said, “If Rose was Rachel Fairchild and she came out last Season, then why didn’t you recognize her when you met her at the Magdalene House?”

Miss Jarvis shrugged. “I may have seen her at a ball, but if so I don’t recall it. She wasn’t the type of young woman one would notice in a crush, and I seldom attend Almack’s Assemblies these days.” At twenty-five, Miss Jarvis was virtually an ape leader.

He held up the bracelet. “You bought this?”

“Yes. With the promise of twenty pounds if Tasmin Poole should discover the current whereabouts of Hannah Green.” When he remained silent, she said with some impatience, “At least we’ve a new avenue of inquiry to pursue.”

Sebastian raised one eyebrow. “We, Miss Jarvis?”

She stared back at him. “That’s right.”

“What precisely do you intend to do? Go to Almack’s and offer twenty pounds to anyone who can furnish you with the whereabouts of Miss Rachel Fairchild?”

The color was back in her cheeks, only this time he suspected it was a flush of annoyance. Miss Jarvis wasn’t yet as good at controlling her emotions as her father. “No,” she said evenly. “But I can make a call upon Lady Sewell.”

“Who?”

“Georgina, Lady Sewell. Before her marriage she was Miss Fairchild—Rachel Fairchild’s elder sister. I can’t help but wonder if Rachel ran away from the Fairchilds’ house on Curzon Street, why didn’t she seek refuge with her sister?”

“Rather than in a brothel? It is an interesting question.” Sebastian frowned, remembering what Luke O’Brian had told him about “Rose’s” family. I think she might have had two sisters, and a brother in the Army. . . . Sebastian knew that Lord Fairchild had at least one son, Cedric; he’d served with Sebastian in the Peninsula. “Is there a younger sister, as well?” he asked aloud.

“I don’t know,” said Miss Jarvis, shifting her parasol to keep the faint sun off her face.

Sebastian stared off across the sparkling surface of the Long Water toward Hyde Park. What he needed, he realized, was someone intimately familiar with every hint of gossip and scandal attached to the Fairchilds in the last fifty years. Someone like his aunt—

“I think the information we’ve gained was worth whatever minimal risk I might have incurred,” said Miss