A tall gentlewoman in a smart pelisse had appeared in the open doorway, the ostrich plume in her hat waving in the cool breeze as she waited for the footman to let down the steps.
“That,” said Sebastian, “is Miss Hero Jarvis.”
“Lord Jarvis’s daughter? Why is she here?”
“She’s the woman who survived the fire.”
“
“Research,” said Sebastian, and went to hand the lady down from her carriage.
Chapter 6
“I expected I might find you here,” said Miss Jarvis. She accepted Sebastian’s assistance down, then released his hand immediately and took a step back. Within the shadowy interior of her carriage, he could see a maid waiting primly with hands clasped before her.
“That is Paul Gibson, is it not?” said Miss Jarvis, gazing beyond him to where Gibson stood beside the curricle talking to a glowering Tom. “The surgeon?”
“You know him?”
“I attended several of his lectures at St. Thomas’s—on the circulatory system, and on human musculature.”
It was the last thing Sebastian would have expected her to have done, but he kept the thought to himself.
“Frankly,” she said, “I’m surprised to see him here. I didn’t think Sir William planned to order autopsies.”
“He hasn’t. Gibson’s here because he’s a friend of mine.”
She glanced up at him. “And has he discovered anything?”
“He says the women were murdered. Most were stabbed, although he thinks at least one was shot.”
She opened her parasol and raised it against the feeble sun. “You doubted me, did you?”
“Yes.”
She nodded, as if she had expected as much. In the street before the house, Sir William was now busy supervising the loading of that sad row of charred bodies into the back of the dray. She watched him for a moment, then said, “Has Dr. Gibson’s opinion prompted Sir William to order the women autopsied?”
“No. I suspect we can thank your father for that.”
She shook her head. “I doubt it would have happened, even without my father’s interference. Sir William’s attitude toward prostitutes is well-known. Last month, a costermonger came before the magistrates for beating a woman to death in St. Paul’s Churchyard. Sir William let the man go with only a warning.”
Sebastian studied her clear-skinned face. “Why are you here, Miss Jarvis?”
The breeze fluttered her hair across her face, but she pushed it back without a hint of artifice. “I’ve been talking to the Society of Friends. It seems a gentleman by the name of Joshua Walden was at the Magdalene House the night Rose first sought refuge with them. He lives in Hans Town. I thought he might be able to tell us more about her.”
“ ‘Us’?” Sebastian crossed his arms at his chest and rocked back on his heels. “I was under the impression this was your investigation, Miss Jarvis. That my role was that of an adviser only and was rapidly coming to a conclusion.”
She tilted her head back, one hand coming up to hold her hat as she stared up at the crumbling, smoke- darkened walls of the Magdalene House. Something quivered across her face, a breath of painful emotion that was there and then gone. “That was mere subterfuge and you know it. I want to find out who killed these women, Lord Devlin, and why, and I am not too vain to acknowledge that you are far more experienced in such matters than I. I was hoping that if you looked into the incident, even briefly, it would catch your interest.”
When he made no response, she said, “Do you believe in justice?”
“As an abstract concept, yes. Although I fear there is little true justice in this world.”
She nodded toward the blackened ruins of the Magdalene House. “In life, our society failed Rose—failed all these women. I don’t want to fail them, in death.”
“You are not responsible for society.”
“Yes, I am. We all are, each in our own small way.” She turned to fix him with a direct gaze. “Will you come with me to Hans Town?”
He started to say no. But as he looked into her fierce gray eyes, he realized that a part of her actually wanted him to say no, because it would give her an excuse to walk away from all of this, away from the fear and the horror that was that night.
Turning, he watched the workmen swing the body of the young fair-headed girl into the back of the dray. And in that moment, he wasn’t thinking about Lord Jarvis, or Hero Jarvis. He was thinking about the life that child would never live, and the men who had taken it from her.
And so he surprised both himself and Hero Jarvis by saying, “Yes.”
Chapter 7
