Where Shadows Dance

Office, the Horse Guards, the Admiralty, Parliament, and Carlton House. Sebastian pushed his way through the crowded labyrinth of corridors to the chambers of the Undersecretary.

“Sir!” yelped a tall, emaciated clerk as Sebastian strode through the antechamber toward Sir Hyde’s office. Sebastian kept going.

Trembling, the man thrust up from his seat and scrambled out from behind his desk. “You can’t go in there! Sir Hyde is composing an important briefing and he’s been most insistent that he not be disturbed. Most insistent.”

“I’ll tell him I held a gun to your head,” said Sebastian, and threw open the door.

Sir Hyde paused in the act of reaching his pen toward the nearby inkwell and looked up. “What the devil?”

Sebastian closed the door in the face of the still-pleading clerk. “We need to talk. Now.”

Sir Hyde slammed down his quill. “Are you mad? I’ve no time for this! Have you not heard what has happened?”

“I have,” said Sebastian, tossing hat, gloves, and walking stick onto the littered surface of the desk. “I’ve also just learned that Alexander Ross discovered nearly two weeks ago that the Americans had declared war. But then, you knew that, didn’t you?”

“Ross what? But ... how is that possible?”

For a moment, the look of utter astonishment and incredulity on the Undersecretary’s face gave Sebastian pause. “He had it from an American ship called the Baltimore Mary that docked in Rotherhithe the day he died. As soon as he heard, he went straight to your house, to tell you. And that’s why you killed him—him and the American who brought the news.”

“But ... that’s absurd! What possible reason could I have to do such a thing?”

“Because war with America means the end of any chance of sending British troops to Russia—something you have been working very hard to achieve. In fact, you’ve virtually staked your career on it.” Sebastian watched the Undersecretary’s jaw tighten, and knew he’d touched a raw nerve. “What exactly did you think? That you were close enough to achieving your aim that you could force through a commitment before official news of the American war declaration reached London?”

“We were close. So bloody close. If it hadn’t been for Hendon, the alliance would have been signed weeks ago.” Foley pushed up from his desk and went to stand at the window overlooking the courtyard below. He was silent for a moment, his lips pursed as if in thought. Then he said, “Ross did come to my house that Saturday evening—I’ll not deny it. But I wasn’t home. He left a note claiming he had something urgent to tell me. Only, when I went round to his lodgings some hours later, he wasn’t there—or at least, he didn’t answer the door. If he had early warning of the declaration of war, this is the first I’ve heard of it.”

Sebastian frowned. “What time was this?”

“That I went round to his rooms? I don’t know. Midnight, perhaps?”

Sebastian drew in a deep breath as a new possibility occurred to him.

Foley said, “You do realize how preposterous your suggestion is, don’t you? You obviously forget that Ross worked under me. Had I wished him to keep his knowledge of the war silent for a time, all I’d have needed to do would be to give him an order. No need for murder.”

“According to everything I’ve learned, Alexander Ross was a passionately honorable man. I’m not convinced you could have prevailed upon him to keep quiet.”

“It’s all in the way you phrase things. Good of the realm and all that rot.” Foley smiled. “It’s the earnest, honorable ones who are the easiest to manipulate.”

Sebastian was aware of his hands curling into fists at his sides; he forced them to relax. “I’m curious about one thing: If you didn’t kill Ross, why not tell me about the message he’d left at your house that night? Or your visit to his rooms at—what time did you say? Eight?”

“Midnight.” Again, that tight little smile. “Do you take me for a fool? I’m perfectly aware of how it would have looked.”

Sebastian studied the other man’s thin, sharp-featured face. “Are you saying that when Ross’s valet called you to his master’s bedside that next morning, you knew he’d been murdered?”

“I didn’t know it, no. But I had my suspicions, yes.”

“When you searched his rooms, did you find the copy of the French briefing that Ross was to deliver to Chernishav the previous night?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“You don’t find that curious?”

“Of course I find it curious. Obviously, whoever murdered Ross took the briefing too.”

“Perhaps,” said Sebastian. “What about the intruder who died breaking into Ross’s rooms the night of Sir Gareth Ross’s return to Oxfordshire? Was he one of your men?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Foley cast a quick glance at the elaborately carved wooden clock hanging on the far wall and turned to gather his papers. “Now, my lord, you’ll have to excuse me. Castlereagh has been closeted with Liverpool in his offices since news of this latest crisis arrived, and I’m scheduled to meet with them again at three.”

According to Miss Jarvis, Castlereagh and Liverpool had been in seclusion with the Prince at Carlton House since early morning. But all Sebastian said was, “You actually had two reasons to kill Ross.”

Foley laughed. “Another reason? You can’t be serious.”

“Mmm. Something that had nothing to do with those pesky upstart former colonials. Ross knew about your indiscretions with Yasmina Ramadani.”

Foley paused in the act of shoving his papers into a case. Then he very deliberately fastened the buckles and lifted the case off his desk. “Again, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He turned toward the door. “Perhaps we could continue this conversation at another time?”

Sebastian stood in the shadowy doorway of the Cat and Bagpipe, his gaze on the bustling, crowded flagway across the street. Tom held the chestnuts nearby.

They had not long to wait. A moment later, Sir Hyde Foley exited the Foreign Office and turned toward Whitehall. At the top of the street he paused for a moment to take a nervous look around. Then he turned right, walking quickly toward the hackney stand on Parliament Street.

Chapter 49

Driving his curricle, Sebastian trailed the Undersecretary’s hackney through a snarled throng of wagons, carriages, and carts. Drivers shouted; horses snorted and sidled restlessly; dogs barked. He was careful to keep well back from his quarry, lest Foley chance to glance around and see him. As a result, he nearly lost him first on the Haymarket, then again on Piccadilly.

“Where is he going?” muttered Tom from his perch at the rear of the curricle as they followed Foley onto Park Lane.

“Wherever it is,” said Sebastian, “I doubt we’re going to find either Castlereagh or Liverpool awaiting him.”

They were just swinging onto Oxford Street, headed toward the Tyburn Turnpike, when Sebastian reined in hard. A milling herd of sheep filled the rutted roadway, the angry voices of their drover and the gatekeeper drifting over the plaintive chorus of baas and bleats.

“Four pence? Four pence, you say? Can’t you count? There’s thirty sheep ’ere, not forty!”

“You’re the one who can’t count! It’s four pence, I say.”

“Bloody hell,” swore Sebastian as he watched Foley’s hackney bowl away up Uxbridge Road. He handed the reins to Tom, along with ten pence for the toll. “Here. Follow as soon as you can.”

“Aye, gov’nor!”

Slipping past the toll gate on foot, Sebastian pushed his way through the last of the bleating, crowding sheep. Then he began to run, his Hessians kicking up little eddies of dust in the unpaved road.

From here, the vast acres of Hyde Park and Kensington stretched away to the south; to the north, facing the parklands across Uxbridge Road, rose the new blocks of St. George’s Row. But beyond that lay only the burial