acquaintances, then left again. He was looking for Tristan Ramsey, the man who was to have wed Rachel Fairchild before she disappeared forever into the suppurating world of the city’s streets. Sebastian had no doubt that Lord Fairchild would deny his daughter’s disappearance to the grave. Her betrothed might be more forthcoming.
Tristan Ramsey proved elusive. But in the Blue Room of the Cocoa-Tree Club, Sebastian ran across Rachel’s brother. A sporting young buck in doeskin breeches and topboots, Cedric Fairchild sat sprawled beside another man in one of the bell chairs clustered around the room’s empty hearth, one leg thrown carelessly over the chair’s arm, a glass of brandy cradled in his right hand. The man beside him was unfamiliar, although he wore the yellow-frogged blue tunic of a captain in the 20th Hussars.
Sebastian’s acquaintance with the younger Fairchild was slight. They’d served together, briefly, in Lisbon. But Sebastian had been a captain at the time while Cedric had been a cornet some four or five years his junior. Sebastian remembered him as a likable young officer, open-faced and guileless and quick to laugh.
“Devlin,” said the younger man, his leg sliding off the chair’s arm when Sebastian walked up to him. “Good God, I haven’t seen you in an age.”
“When did you sell out?” asked Sebastian.
Cedric Fairchild had his father’s almost black hair, with his sister’s fair skin and green eyes. “Just after Albuera.” He motioned to the hussar captain at his side. “You know Patrick Somerville?”
“No,” said Sebastian, shaking the man’s hand. “But I’ve heard of you. You’re General Somerville’s son, aren’t you?”
“That’s right,” said the captain. He was tall and gaunt, with swooping blond sidewhiskers and the shiny pale skin suggestive of both malaria and a too-frequent recourse to the relief to be found in quinine and arsenic. “You know m’father?”
“I served with him as a young lieutenant.” Sebastian settled into a nearby chair. “I hear he’s retired now.”
“Nominally.” A smile crinkled the skin beside the hussar’s pale blue eyes. “He spends his days preparing for a possible French invasion by marching every able-bodied cottager of Northamptonshire back and forth with pitchforks and shovels.”
“Only the able-bodied ones?”
Somerville laughed. “Well, the ones with two legs at any rate.”
Cedric leaned forward. “I say, Devlin, did you ever serve with Max Ludlow?”
“I don’t believe so. Why?”
“Somerville here has just been telling me he’s gone missing.”
Sebastian turned toward the captain. “Since when?”
“Last Wednesday night,” said Somerville, draining his porter.
“We thought at first he must be with some wench. But six days and six nights?” Somerville shook his head. “Ludlow doesn’t have that kind of stamina—or interest, for that matter.”
Sebastian studied the hussar’s troubled, sweat-sheened face. “Is Ludlow from Northamptonshire, as well?”
“Ludlow? No, Devonshire. We sent word to his brother’s country seat, but they haven’t seen him in months.” Somerville lifted his empty glass and stretched to his feet. “I need a refill.” Nodding to Sebastian, he told Cedric, “Let me know if you hear anything.”
Sebastian waited until the sandy-haired captain was out of earshot, then said bluntly, “I just had a conversation with your father. About your sister Rachel.”
Cedric Fairchild stiffened, his pleasant smile fading away. “What about my sister?”
“Two nights ago a woman answering your sister’s description was murdered in Covent Garden. I’m told this bracelet was hers.” Sebastian drew the silver bracelet from his inner pocket and held it out in his palm.
Cedric made no move to touch it. “Oh, God,” he whispered, his face going slack.
“Your father insists she’s in Northamptonshire. But it’s not true, is it?”
Sebastian expected the man to deny it. Cedric sat for a moment, his gaze fixed on the crested medallion. Then he covered his face with his hands and drew a ragged breath.
“When did she run away?” Sebastian asked.
Cedric drew in another deep breath. “Last summer,” he said, his voice muffled.
“She never went to Northamptonshire?”
“No—I don’t know. She was already gone by the time I got back from Spain.”
“Do you know why she left?”
Cedric shook his head, his splayed fingertips digging into his forehead. “Father said she quarreled with Ramsey.”
“Her betrothed?”
Cedric scrubbed his hands down his face, drawing them together before his mouth. “That’s right.”
“But you don’t think so?”
“I don’t know.” He looked up, a desperate hope kindling his features. “Are you quite certain this dead woman—I mean, it might not be Rachel. Someone could have stolen her bracelet, right?”
