He came to stand behind her, his hands resting on her shoulders, and she felt the faint quiver that passed through him as he said, “I know.”
She let her head fall back so she could look up at him. “Discover anything?”
“Very little. Gibson was off tending some boatmen who’d been pulled from the river, so Alexi Sauvage began the autopsy herself. Which was fortunate, because she hadn’t progressed very far when the Regent’s men arrived to claim the body.”
“Good heavens. How did the palace hear of Jane’s death so quickly?”
“One of the parish officials sent them word. Madame Sauvage wasn’t able to determine whether Jane Ambrose’s death was manslaughter or murder. But if it was manslaughter, someone was obviously worried enough about the consequences of her death to move the body and attempt to make it look like a simple accident. She didn’t arrive in the middle of Shepherds’ Lane by herself. Not with that wound.”
“No one in the area saw anything?”
“Nothing they’re willing to admit. I suspect we’ll be reading in all the morning papers about how she slipped in the snow and tragically died after hitting her head. The palace is not going to want it known that someone close to Princess Charlotte has been murdered.” Of course, by “the palace” Sebastian meant Hero’s own father, Charles, Lord Jarvis, the powerful Machiavellian figure behind the Crown Prince’s weak regency. But there was no need for him to spell it out; Hero knew her father better than anyone.
She said, “I was never close to Jane, but I admired her greatly and would like to have known her better. She was so bright, so incredibly talented, so . . . full of life.”
“Did you ever see her perform?”
“Only privately. She gave up performing in public when she was seventeen.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Fifteen, maybe sixteen years ago. I’ve heard many considered her a finer pianist than even her brother, and he was beyond brilliant.” The career of Jane’s twin, James Somerset, had ended all too soon when he died of consumption at the age of twenty-three.
“Do you ever think,” said Devlin quietly, “of how many great artists, musicians, scholars, and inventors have been lost to our world on down through the ages, simply because they were born female?”
She looked up to meet his gaze again and smiled. “Frequently.”
He drew a gold locket from his pocket and flipped it open. “She was wearing this. Do you know if she had children?”
“I believe she did, yes.” Reaching cautiously so as not to disturb the sleeping babe, Hero cradled the locket in her palm. “How terribly tragic this all is.” She gazed at the miniatures of the two round-cheeked, fair-haired children in silence for a moment. “Has her husband been told?”
“Lovejoy was doing it.”
She looked up at him, and something in his voice provoked her to say, “Surely you don’t think Edward Ambrose himself could have killed her?”
Devlin went to where a carafe of brandy stood warming on a table near the fire. “Husbands do have a nasty habit of murdering their wives. According to Alexi, someone forced himself on Jane just a day or two ago, and I’d lay even money that was her husband.” He poured a measure of brandy into a glass, then glanced over at her. “How close are you to Princess Charlotte?”
Still carefully cradling the child in her arms, Hero eased to her feet and went to ring the bell for Simon’s nurse. “No one is close to Princess Charlotte. The Regent keeps that poor child shut up in Warwick House like Rapunzel in her tower.”
“Except that she’s not a child anymore, is she?”
“No, she’s not. She turned eighteen at the beginning of the month—although most people don’t realize it because her ever-loving father refused to have the occasion marked in any way.”
“Charming.”
“I suspect it’s because every time she appears in the streets, the people cheer her as loudly as they boo the Regent. So he does his best to keep her out of sight.”
Devlin came to stand with her before the fire, his glass cradled in one hand. “And then he wonders why the people hate him.”
Simon’s nurse, Claire, appeared then to carry the sleeping babe off to bed. Hero waited until the Frenchwoman had gone before saying, “I am acquainted with one of Princess Charlotte’s ladies—Miss Ella Kinsworth. I could visit her in the morning. See what she can tell me about Jane.”
Devlin took a long, slow swallow of his brandy. “That would be helpful.”
Hero eased the glass from his fingers, took a sip, and handed it back. “You think the Princess is somehow involved in Jane Ambrose’s death?”
“Charlotte herself, no. But something in Jane’s life led to her being found in the middle of Shepherds’ Lane with her head bashed in. And there’s no denying that a royal court can be a deadly place.”
Chapter 4
Paul Gibson sat on the edge of his bed, his head bowed as he rubbed an arnica-enriched ointment into the inflamed stump of his left leg. A single candle flame lit the small chamber with a faint, flickering glow. He could hear a distant watchman crying, “One o’clock on a snowy night and all is well!” But the only other sound came from the snow falling in a rush outside.
The surgeon was a slim, wiry man, thinner than he should be, thanks to an opium addiction he knew was going to kill him if he didn’t master it soon. Once, his hair had been dark. Now it was increasingly threaded with silver, although he was only in his thirties. He’d just spent hours fighting for the lives of two half-drowned, broken men, and yet one of them had died anyway. He was feeling tired and old and useless.
A soft feminine hand touched the small of his back, and despite the glumness of his mood, he found himself smiling.
“You saved one,” said Alexi, who frequently seemed to know what he
