Her smile faded. “Thank you, but I came by hackney, and I intend to return by hackney.”
“I’m not sure that would be wise.”
“Are you concerned about my safety, or my reputation?”
“Both. You don’t even have your maid with you.”
Miss Jarvis looked down her aquiline nose at him. “As for my reputation, I seriously doubt it would be enhanced by my driving through the streets of the City in your curricle—”
“You’ve done it before.”
“While as for my safety—” She nodded down the street toward a loitering brown-coated man, who quickly glanced away when her gaze turned toward him. “I have my father’s watchdog to protect me.”
Sebastian studied the smooth line of her cheek, the proud angle of her head. “Nevertheless, you will take care.”
Her hand tightened around the handle of her parasol. “Lord Devlin. There is no need for you to concern yourself over my safety. I have always considered myself an eminently practical and capable person.”
“You’ve never before been involved in murder.”
“Yet, in the past week, I have survived three separate attempts on my life.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s what worries me.”
Chapter 49
He found Spencer Perceval at the Admiralty, walking rapidly toward Whitehall. “Lord Devlin,” said the Prime Minister when he spotted Sebastian, “have you reconsidered your decision against taking up a position in the Commons?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Sebastian, glancing at the huddle of clerks who’d followed the Prime Minister down the stairs. “Walk with me a ways. There’s something we must discuss.”
Perceval’s smile faded. “If it’s this business about that poor unfortunate Bellingham—”
“Bellingham?” With difficulty, Sebastian resurrected the memory of the half-mad merchant who had accosted Perceval on the footpath outside Almack’s. “No. But there is something I believe you must be made aware of.” The two men turned their steps toward the Parade. “Last Monday, someone attacked the Friends’ Magdalene House in Covent Garden and killed all the women there.”
Perceval nodded. “I’d heard you’d involved yourself in their deaths.”
Sebastian studied the Prime Minister’s open, congenial face. “Where did you hear that?”
“From your father.”
“My father? What does he know of it?”
“He does concern himself with your welfare, you know. Your association with these types of affairs worries him.”
“Because he considers my involvement in murder investigations beneath my station?”
“Because he fears for your safety.”
Sebastian stared out over the company of infantrymen drilling before them, their backs rigid, their feet rising and falling in unison. “I spent six years in the Army. He didn’t fear for my safety then.”
“Only every minute of every day.”
Sebastian looked at the man beside him. “I am sorry if my involvement in these matters causes Hendon distress. But this is something I must do.”
“Because you enjoy it?”
“Enjoy it? I suppose I do enjoy the mental challenge of solving a puzzle,” he admitted, considering. “But the swirl of emotions that inevitably surround a violent death? The hatred and envy, the grief and despair? No one could enjoy that.”
Perceval’s eyes narrowed into a frown. “You’re certain the women in the Magdalene House were murdered?”
“Yes. But I’m afraid there’s far more involved than that. The evidence suggests their deaths may be linked to a scheme to assassinate you.”
“Me?”
“Last week, a party of gentlemen hired three young prostitutes to entertain them for the night. During the course of the evening’s revelries, the men became incautious enough to discuss their plans in French. I suppose they thought it unlikely that any of the women could understand their conversation. But one did.”
Perceval gave a sharp bark of laughter. “What are you suggesting? That Napoleon wants to see me dead? What would he think to gain by such an action? If the Whigs were to come to power, they might seek to end this war. But the Whigs will never come to power. Not with Prinny as Regent.”
“I don’t claim to understand the motivation at work here. But two of the three women hired that night are dead, along with an uncomfortable number of the people they’ve come into contact with since. The one woman who survives says they were overheard discussing plans to murder someone named Perceval. Now I could be mistaken. They could be planning to kill someone else entirely. But the lengths to which they’ve been willing to go to silence everyone who has any knowledge of their plot suggests that something more serious is afoot here.”
