The woman was as thin as a fence board, with limp fair hair and a face swollen and blotched with tears. She was probably no more than thirty, although she looked fifty or more. Her newborn babe lay beside her, and Hero didn’t need more than a swift glance to tell her the child was dead.
“When?” Hero asked.
The woman dragged in a ragged breath that shuddered her thin chest. “Last night.”
Hero rose slowly to her feet, her throat so tight she couldn’t seem to force out any words.
“Is all that food for us?” asked the little girl, her eyes round.
“Sarah—,” began her mother.
“It is, yes,” said Hero, summoning up a smile that trembled a bit around the edges as she handed the basket to the girl. “And my coachman’s got a bag of coal for you, as well.”
“Gor,” breathed one of the girl’s brothers, coming to stand beside her.
“I don’t rightly know how to thank you,” said Jenny Sanborn, pushing herself up with difficulty. “Your ladyship has already done so much for us. We’d never have made it through this dreadful cold spell without you.”
Hero wanted to say, Please don’t thank me. For a sack of coal and a simple basket of food I will never even miss? Do you have any idea how guilty I feel, knowing that women like me will never be in danger of seeing our husbands snatched off the streets and forced to serve in a war that means nothing to them? Knowing I’ll never need to worry about my son growing up to someday suffer the same fate? I should be here begging your forgiveness—we all should, although no one ever will.
Except of course she could say none of those things. So she said instead, “This freeze can’t last much longer.” And it sounded so weak even to her own ears that she wished she’d said nothing at all.
“You did what you could,” Alexi said later that afternoon as she and Hero walked beside the frozen moat of the Tower of London.
Hero shook her head, her exhalation billowing around her in the cold air. “It wasn’t enough.”
“No. But we can only try. One woman, one child at a time.”
Hero turned to stare out over the masts of the ships frozen fast in the river below London Bridge. “This blasted war. Sometimes I think it will never end. For how many years can the nations of Europe continue fighting each other? Some of the men dying today must be the grandsons of those who fell two decades ago.”
“What a horrid thought.”
“It is, isn’t it?”
They walked on in silence, each lost in her own thoughts, the air heavy with the smell of woodsmoke from the fires lit in an attempt to keep the Tower’s lions and other exotic animals alive. The surrounding streets were nearly deserted, the battlements of the castle walls stark and empty against the heavy white sky. But Hero was becoming increasingly aware of a creeping feeling of unease that she finally realized came from a sense of being stared at—although when she looked around she could see no one.
“What is it?” Alexi asked when Hero looked behind her for the third or fourth time.
“I don’t know. I have the oddest sensation—as if someone were watching me.”
Alexi let her gaze drift over the rows of ancient houses pressing in on the castle. “I don’t see anyone.”
“Nor do I. I’m probably being fanciful.”
“You? That I find impossible to believe.”
Hero smiled.
“How is your article coming?” asked Alexi.
“Honestly, I’ve barely given it a thought.”
Alexi squinted up at the heavy clouds pressing down on the city. “Are you still interested in interviewing the wives of men who’ve been impressed?”
Hero glanced over at her. “I am, yes. You know of another woman?”
The Frenchwoman nodded. “A young girl named Amy Hatcher. She’s originally from Devon, but after her baby was born she came up to London, hoping to trace her husband. If you want to talk to her, we’ll need to hurry.”
“Why? Is she ill?”
Alexi’s lips flattened into a hard line. “She’s in Newgate. She was arrested before Christmas trying to steal a ham and is scheduled to hang on Tuesday.”
Sebastian arrived back at Brook Street to find Hero seated at his desk and calmly cleaning the brass-mounted flintlock pistol given to her years before by her father. It was a small weapon of a type known as a “muff gun,” designed to be carried concealed in a woman’s fur muff.
“Is this routine maintenance?” he asked, watching her. “Or did you shoot someone?”
Hero carefully replaced the barrel and locked it in place. “I think someone might be following me. I don’t know for certain because I didn’t see them. But under the circumstances I thought it best not to take any chances.”
Sebastian tried to keep any sign of the raw panic he felt flare within him from showing on his face. “I’ll assign two of the footmen to—”
“No,” she said, setting the pistol aside and wiping her hands.
“But—”
She gave him a long, steady look. “Someone tried to kill you earlier today. Do you intend to take two footmen with you wherever you go from now on?”
He found himself smiling. “Point taken. But you will be careful?”
“I suspect I’ll be far more cautious than you,” she said, returning his smile.
And he realized that was another point he couldn’t argue.
That night, unable to sleep, Hero stood at her bedroom window as a fresh fall of snow hurtled down from out of a heavy white sky. She thought it must be near dawn, although it had been hours since she’d heard the watch’s cry. She hoped the old man had retreated to his box for warmth. Either that, or he’d frozen to death.
She clutched her cashmere wrap tighter against the cold radiating off the frosted glass. Frustration and
