his mortar and began to grind it with a pestle. “You’ve had two days. What have you learned?”
Epson-Smith stood in the center of the room, his legs braced wide, his hands clasped behind his back. “Indications so far are that we’re dealing with a simple tussle over merchandise. It’s not clear yet precisely who is involved, but we’re working on it.”
Jarvis grunted. “Work faster.” Reaching for a small vial, he added three drops to his mixture. “You’ve heard of last night’s incident?”
“Yes, my lord. I’m not convinced, however, that it’s related to Monday night’s—”
“It is. The surviving individual is at a surgery near Tower Hill. Use whatever means necessary, but make him talk.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Jarvis looked up from shaking his mixture out over the sheet of parchment that he’d spread across the room’s table. “I also want one of your men watching over Miss Jarvis from now on. Discreetly, of course.”
The Colonel kept his face perfectly composed. If he’d learned yet of Hero’s presence at the Magdalene House the night of the attack, he had more sense than to mention it. He bowed, said, “Yes, my lord,” and withdrew.
Chapter 33
Sebastian arrived at Paul Gibson’s surgery near the Tower to find Miss Jarvis’s town carriage drawn up in the street outside. The wind had turned cold, the team of matched off-white horses shifting restlessly in their traces, tails flicking away an endless buzz of flies.
Tom studied the elegant equipage through narrowed eyes. “That’s ’er, ain’t it? The gentry mort what fooled me into leavin’ the chestnuts.”
Sebastian handed him the reins. “I’d advise you to get over it, Tom. Miss Jarvis is like her father: brilliant and deadly. You don’t want to tangle with her.”
But Tom simply thrust out his lower lip in a mulish scowl and stared straight ahead.
Sebastian jumped down from the curricle and was halfway across the footpath when the door to the surgery was yanked open. “Oh. It’s you,” said Miss Jarvis, standing on the threshold, a formidable presence in a burgundy driving gown and matching velvet hat.
Sebastian paused in midstride. “Whom were you expecting?”
“The constables.” She stepped back to allow him to enter. “Dr. Gibson sent for them shortly before I arrived.”
“Is he all right?”
“No. He’s dead.”
Sebastian knew a curious sensation, as if the blood had suddenly drained away from his head. It was only the appearance of Paul Gibson himself at the entrance to his front room that brought the blood pounding back to Sebastian’s temples when he realized she had spoken not of his friend but of her assailant from the night before.
“I’m sorry,” said Gibson, drying his hands on a rough towel. “I was with him all night. I just stepped into the back to wash my face and grab something to eat. I couldn’t have been gone five minutes.”
“It’s not your fault,” said Sebastian, glancing at the silent, shrouded form on the bed. “He was gravely wounded.”
“True. But it wasn’t his wound that killed him.” Gibson went to flip back the sheet covering the dead man’s face and shoulders. “Someone came in here and broke his neck.”
Sebastian stared down at the dead man’s pale features. “Bloody hell. Did he ever say anything?”
“Nothing of any significance. He was delirious. In and out of consciousness. I couldn’t even get him to tell me his name.”
“Bloody hell,” said Sebastian again, only softly this time, for he’d remembered Miss Jarvis’s presence.
She said, “Your arrival here is fortuitous.”
He looked around to find her still standing in the narrow hallway. “How is that, Miss Jarvis?”
She retied the fluttering burgundy velvet ribbons of her hat with crisp, no-nonsense movements. The woman had been born without an ounce of coquetry or flirtation, Sebastian thought, just intellect and lethal purposefulness. She said, “I’ve arranged to meet the Cyprian from the Orchard Street Academy, Tasmin Poole, at Billingsgate this morning. It is my hope that she might have discovered something else of interest.”
“Billingsgate? Why Billingsgate?”
She raised one eyebrow in a gesture so reminiscent of Lord Jarvis himself that Sebastian felt a chill. “You think Berkeley Square would have been more appropriate?”
Paul Gibson made a strangling noise in his throat and turned away.
She looked Sebastian square in the eye and said, “It occurs to me that you may have questions you’d like to ask her yourself.”
Sebastian met Miss Jarvis’s frank gaze and saw there a faint hint of mockery lightly tinged with resentment. She obviously knew full well he was not telling her all the sordid details he was learning of Rachel Fairchild’s life, and so she’d decided to listen to the questions he asked Tasmin Poole and learn from them.
He smiled. “I have indeed, Miss Jarvis.”
“Good.” She turned toward the door. “We’ll take your curricle.” To her maid she said, “Jenna, you will await
