Where Serpents Sleep

“What about Rose Fletcher?”

“Rose, too, had simply vanished.”

“Leaving a dead customer in her bed?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” Kane leaned back in his chair. “I’m sure you understand my position. Dead bodies are not good for business. They attract all sorts of unwelcome attention from the local constabulary and scare away customers.”

“So you—what? Dumped the bodies in the river? Buried them in Bethnal Green?”

Kane gave a slow smile. “Something like that.”

“It’s an interesting story. There’s just one small problem.”

“What’s that?”

“It doesn’t make any sense.”

Kane pressed his splayed hands to his chest in mock astonishment. “Stories need to make sense?” His hands fell. “I’ll be frank with you, my lord. I don’t understand what happened that night. All I know is that a few more nights like that and the Academy will be out of business.”

“Had you ever seen any of the three men before?”

Kane’s lips curved up into a slow smile. “You forget, my lord, I wasn’t there.”

“The dead man, then. You saw him. Did you recognize him?”

“Believe me, Lord Devlin, I don’t have the slightest idea who he was.”

“Believe you, Mr. Kane? Now why should I believe you?”

Ian Kane was no longer smiling. “I could have let Thackery and Johnson kill you in the alley.”

Sebastian set aside his ale untouched. If the confrontation hadn’t occurred in uncomfortable proximity to the Black Dragon, Sebastian doubted the brothel owner would have felt compelled to interfere. As the man said, dead bodies weren’t good for business. “That wasn’t a matter of altruism. That was just . . . geography.”

Kane stayed where he was, his head falling back as he watched Sebastian turn toward the door. “Then I suggest that in the future you choose your locales wisely.”

Chapter 45

Sebastian sat on the scorched, crumbling remnant of a wall and breathed in the pungent smell of wet burned wood and old ash. He’d come here to what was left of the Magdalene House after leaving the Black Dragon in St. Giles. A journeyman glazier passing in the street threw him a sharp look, but kept walking. Sebastian stared out over the charred jumble of debris and wondered why he hadn’t seen it before.

What manner of men would kill seven unknown women just to get at one? The answer was only too obvious. Men who were accustomed to killing. And no one was more accustomed to killing than military men.

He thought about the girl from the cheesemonger’s shop, Pippa. She’d given him a clue that first day, when she’d told him the gentlemen she’d seen watching the Magdalene House had reminded her of some old Nabob. One could always tell a Nabob by his sun-darkened skin, just as one could tell the military men who had spent years under the fierce suns of India and the Sudan, Egypt and the West Indies.

The sound of boot leather scraping over fallen timbers brought Sebastian’s head around. “What are you doing here?” asked Cedric Fairchild, picking his way toward him.

“Trying to make sense of all this.” He studied the younger man’s haggard face. “What brings you here?”

“I don’t know.” Cedric stood with his hands thrust into the pockets of his coat, his shoulders hunched against the dampness as he stared out over the house’s shattered walls and twisted, burned contents. “I can’t believe she died here. I keep thinking that if I’d only managed to talk her into leaving—”

“Don’t,” said Sebastian. “It’s not your fault.”

Cedric swung his head to look at him. “Yes, it is.” He sucked in a breath that seemed to shudder his entire frame. “I was talking to Georgina—Lady Sewell. My sister. She’d heard about Rachel’s death and came to see me. She told me something I didn’t know. It seems that last summer—before I came home—Rachel did quarrel with Ramsey. So maybe my father was right. That is why she ran away.”

Sebastian’s brows drew together. “Would Lord Fairchild have forced her to marry Ramsey even if she had changed her mind?”

“I don’t know. I never thought about it. I suppose he might. He’s a stickler for the proprieties, you know. And if she’d broken off her betrothal, there would doubtless have been a scandal.”

Sebastian watched as Pippa from the cheesemonger’s across the street came and stood in her shop’s doorway, a frown on her face as she narrowed her eyes, watching them.

Cedric said, “I don’t understand why you’re poking into the past, asking these questions about Rachel. About my family. What’s any of it got to do with this?” He swept his arm in a wide arc that took in the fallen, blackened beams, the crumbling chimney of what was once a fireplace.

“I’m not certain it has anything to do with it,” Sebastian admitted.

Cedric’s arm dropped to his side. “My father’s not well, you know. The news about Rachel hit him hard.”

“You told him it was true?”

“My sister told him.”