something
Jarvis clenched his jaw so hard, the muscles along his cheek line bulged.
Sebastian took a step toward him, then forced himself to draw up short. “
Jarvis’s nostrils flared on a deep, angry breath. “The first and fifteenth of every month, the French Minister of War provides Napoleon with what is called the Survey of the Situation of the French Army.”
“Which contains what?” snapped Sebastian.
“Numerical changes in the French divisions. Billeting changes. A list of appointments to command posts. That sort of thing.”
“And?”
“For some time now, a certain individual serving on the General Staff has been making copies of these briefings, which he passes to a Parisian bookseller with a stall near the Pont Neuf. From there they progress to the coast, where smugglers carry them across the channel. Until yesterday, they then passed into the hands of a defrocked emigre priest.”
“Antoine de La Rocque.”
“Yes.”
Sebastian studied the big man’s closed, angry face. “That’s why de La Rocque visited Ross the Wednesday before he died? He was delivering the latest dispatch?”
“Yes.”
“And then what? What typically happened to the briefings after that?”
“Generally, such documents are turned over to a dedicated section of the Foreign Office, where they are copied and studied. It’s a two- or three-day process. After that, copies are distributed to the representatives of a few select allies ... and certain friendly governments.”
It was all, finally, beginning to make sense. Sebastian said, “You mean, friendly governments such as that of the Czar.”
“Amongst others, yes.”
“Let me guess,” said Sebastian. “The Russian who typically collected the copies of the dispatches from Ross was Colonel Dimitri Chernishav.”
Jarvis gave a brief, curt nod. “Their meetings excited little attention, given the long-standing friendship between them. Chernishav was scheduled to receive the dispatches Saturday night. But the transfer was never made.”
“So what happened to the copies of the briefing Ross had in his possession when he died?”
“They disappeared.”
Sebastian went to stare out the window overlooking the garden, one hand resting on the long library table. He was aware of a white-hot rage coursing through him, stoked by fear and guilt and a confused tumult of emotions he had no time now to analyze. “What have you discovered about the men who took her?”
“Precious little. That fool girl, Sabrina, was hysterical by the time she reached the house. A nursemaid tending some children nearby saw the entire thing but wasn’t much better. All we have at the moment is a hazy description of an antiquated carriage pulled by a pair of showy dapple grays and driven by an aged, liveried coachman. That, and contradictory descriptions of two men who were not gentlemen but were dressed as if they were.”
Sebastian swung to face him. “If there’s anything you’re not telling me—
“Don’t be a fool,” snapped Jarvis. “No one is more aware than I of the gravity of the situation. I have put every available man on this, and so far they have turned up nothing. Nothing.” He held Sebastian’s gaze in a long, steady stare. “I can’t begin to understand precisely what has developed between you and my daughter these past two months. But right now, that doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except Hero. You fancy yourself adept at solving mysteries? Then solve this one. Find her.
“Before it’s too late.”
It didn’t take Hero long to discern that the taller of the two men who’d grabbed her was the leader.
He sat beside her on the forward-facing seat, his body swaying easily with the lurching movement of the antiquated carriage, his head tipped back against the worn velvet swabs, his watchful gaze never straying far from her face. He kept his finger curled around the trigger of the pistol held resting in an easy but purposeful grip on his thigh.
He was a well-made man, handsome even, with dark curling hair and a strongly boned face. But the slant of his full lips struck her as cruel, his pale gray eyes cold and hard as he nodded toward the sobbing abigail who sat bolt upright beside his confederate on the rear-facing seat. “Make her shut up.”
Hero leaned forward cautiously, one hand reaching out to touch the abigail’s knee. “Marie, hush. You must hush.”
The abigail stared at her with wild, unseeing eyes and wailed louder.
“That did a lot o’ good,” observed the buff-coated tough slouched in the corner beside the maid.
“I don’t know why you brought her,” said Hero.
“Don’t ye?” said the dark-haired man. Sullivan, she’d heard his companion call him. “She’s our insurance. Ye do what you’re told, she lives, and ye live. Ye don’t...”He shrugged. “She dies. First. Unpleasantly. It’s that simple.”
Fortunately, Marie was wailing so loud that the sense of most of that speech was lost on her.
Deliberately, Hero turned her head to stare out the window at the passing rows of unfamiliar shops and tradesmen’s ateliers. She felt the sting of threatening tears and blinked them away angrily.
She had no idea where they were taking her, or why. She knew only that the man beside her had lied. Neither she nor Marie would be allowed to live. Otherwise, he never would have let them see his face.
Yet barring any unexpected discoveries or a demand from the kidnappers, it seemed to Sebastian that his only hope of ever seeing Hero alive again lay in finding Alexander Ross’s murderer. Quickly.
And so he went in search of the Russian, Dimitri Chernishav.
The Colonel was coming out of his lodgings in Westminster’s Adington Buildings when Sebastian caught him by one arm and the back of his coat to spin him around and slam his face against a nearby brick wall.
“What the devil?” growled the Russian, heaving against Sebastian’s hold. But Sebastian had the man’s arm held in an iron grip and bent behind his back at a painful angle.
“Miss Jarvis,” said Sebastian quietly, bringing his lips close to the other man’s ear as he increased the leverage on his arm. “Where is she?”
“You are making a mistake,” said Chernishav, panting.
“Diplomatically, or tactically?”
“Both. I heard Lord Jarvis’s daughter has been taken. But I am not responsible. Why would I do such a thing?”
“As a distraction, perhaps?”
“From what?”
“My attempts to discover the truth about what happened a week ago last Saturday.”
The Russian was silent a moment. Then he said, “I did not kill Alexander. Why would I?”
