“Ladies,” said Peter van der Pals, touching his tall beaver hat in a casual salute. “This is unexpected.”
“Mr. van der Pals,” said Hero, inclining her head. “I didn’t know you lived in Berkeley Square.”
He shifted his grip on the silver-headed walking stick he carried, bringing it up in a way that caught her attention. “I don’t.”
“Ah. Unfortunately, this is a private garden.”
He gave a slow, lazy smile that brought dimples to his cheeks and showed his even white teeth. “I know. And at this time of day all the neighborhood nursemaids have obligingly shooed their little charges home for tea, leaving it quite conveniently deserted.” With a flick of the wrist, he released his walking stick’s hidden stiletto and drew away the sheath. He was no longer smiling.
“Mon Dieu,” whispered Alexi, taking a step back.
The Dutch courtier kept his gaze on Hero. “I’m told his lordship is inordinately fond of his ridiculously tall bluestocking wife.”
“So this is—what?” said Hero. “Revenge for some insult or imagined slight? Or merely a taunt?” She could hear the ragged sound of her own breathing as she let her left hand fall from her elegant fur muff and shifted its angle. She spoke loudly, hoping the combination of her voice and the hand warmer’s thick fur would deaden the telltale click as she carefully eased back the hammer of the small muff pistol she held hidden within it. “You have two intended victims but only one knife.”
Van der Pals gave a ringing laugh that sounded genuinely amused. “Do you seriously think two women are capable of fighting off a man my s—”
Hero squeezed the trigger.
The loud report of the pistol shot echoed around the square, sending up a flurry of frightened pigeons that took flight against the darkening sky. A crimson stain bloomed around the neat hole in the chest of the courtier’s exquisitely tailored greatcoat. Hero saw his eyes widen, saw the features of his face go slack. For a moment he swayed, his hand clenching around the handle of his dagger. Then he pitched forward to land facedown in the snow, his arms flung out above his head, the knife falling beside him.
Hero leapt to kick it beyond his grasp. “Is he dead?”
Alexi knelt in the snow beside the still body. “Not yet. But he will be soon.”
Hero sucked in a deep breath tainted with the stench of fresh blood and burning fur. “Good.”
Alexi looked up at her. “Your muff is on fire.”
“Drat,” said Hero, dropping the flaming fur into the melting snow. “I just purchased it.”
Sebastian arrived back at Brook Street to find Hero seated at his desk, once again cleaning her small muff gun.
“I’ve shot Peter van der Pals,” she said calmly.
“Dead?”
She looked up, her eyes cold and hard, her hands admirably steady at their task. “Quite.”
Rather than contact the local public office, Hero had gone straight to her father, which was undoubtedly the wisest choice under the circumstances. By the time Sebastian arrived at Berkeley Square, night had long since fallen and Sir Henry Lovejoy was in attendance. But there were no constables, no staff from the nearest deadhouse. Sebastian recognized the men gathered around the courtier’s body as belonging to that shadowy network loyal to Jarvis and Jarvis alone.
“His lordship has informed us there will be no inquest,” said Sir Henry Lovejoy, his voice pitched low as Jarvis’s men lifted the dead body onto the shell they would use to carry the courtier to the Dutch ambassador’s residence.
“Precisely how does his lordship plan to explain the Dutchman’s rather inconvenient death?”
“He doesn’t intend to even try. It will be given out that van der Pals has been called home, and no one will know he left London in a box rather than by post chaise. The Dutch are most anxious to hush this up.”
“I should think so,” said Sebastian. “Bit awkward, having your Prince’s boon companion try to kill a distant cousin of your betrothed.”
“Thank heavens her ladyship had a pistol,” said Lovejoy, although there was something about the way he said it that made Sebastian suspect he found the idea of a viscountess carrying a muff gun and using it to shoot an assailant highly disturbing—even if it was fortuitous.
Sebastian said, “She began carrying it several days ago, when she thought someone was following her.”
“You think that was van der Pals?”
“It must have been, surely?”
Lovejoy’s eyes narrowed as one of Jarvis’s men kicked at the bloodstained snow, obscuring it. Soon there would be no trace of what had occurred here. “So van der Pals killed them all? First Jane Ambrose, then the Italian harpist, and finally Edward Ambrose? The man must have been mad.”
“He was obviously a killer,” Sebastian said slowly. “But I’m not convinced he was responsible for all three deaths.”
Lovejoy turned to look at him in surprise. “No? Why not?”
It was a question Sebastian had been asking himself. By attacking Hero, Peter van der Pals had shown himself to be capable of plotting to coldly and deliberately take another person’s life. And he had a motive to kill each of the three victims: Jane because of her refusal to keep quiet about the rape; Valentino Vescovi for betraying Orange’s sexual tastes; and Edward Ambrose as an attempt to shift suspicion toward Liam Maxwell.
And yet, somehow, it didn’t feel right.
“I suspect van der Pals did kill Vescovi,” said Sebastian, choosing his words carefully. “But I’m not convinced he’s behind the deaths of either Jane Ambrose or her husband.”
“No?” The magistrate was silent for a moment, his gaze on the mist drifting across the nearest streetlamp. Sebastian knew Lovejoy’s continuing but unavoidable ignorance of the palace intrigues swirling around Jane Ambrose’s death frustrated him. But when he spoke, all he said was “Did you hear that a section of the ice has given way on the Thames? Down near London Bridge. The three men who were on it when it broke free had to be rescued with some difficulty.”
“That should be the end of the Frost
