“One would think so. But I understand most are convinced the rest of the ice is still sound.”
“It won’t be for long.”
“No, it won’t be,” said Lovejoy, turning away. “But I suspect it’ll take someone getting killed before they’re willing to admit it.”
Later that night, Sebastian lay awake in bed and held his wife as she slept. She felt warm and vitally alive in his arms, her breath easing quietly in and out, her hair silky soft against his bare shoulder. And yet he had come so close to losing her—would have lost her if not for her foresight and quick thinking and unflinching courage.
Death could come so quickly and unexpectedly. It was a knowledge that filled him with both terror and fury. Some of that fury was directed outward, toward Nathan Rothschild and Jarvis and the bloody royal houses of Hanover and Orange. But he was also angry with himself for his failure to unravel the dangerous, deadly tangle into which Hero had inadvertently stumbled that snowy night in Shepherds’ Lane. He wished he could believe the easy explanation, that Peter van der Pals had killed all three victims. But the niggling doubts remained.
A subtle shift in Hero’s breathing told him she was no longer asleep. Glancing down, he saw her eyes wide and luminous in the night.
She said, “You might be able to figure it all out better if you got some sleep.”
He tightened his arm around her, hugging her closer. “Possibly.”
“Why are you so convinced Peter van der Pals wasn’t Jane’s killer?”
Sebastian ran his hand up and down her arm. “Part of it is because Vescovi’s murder looks like the work of a man who has killed before and knew precisely what he was doing—which is why I think the courtier was responsible. But Jane’s and Edward Ambrose’s deaths were”—he paused, searching for the right word, and finally settled on—“messy. And van der Pals was so bloody arrogant, so cocksure of the mantle of his Prince’s protection, that I find it difficult to believe he ever considered himself in serious danger of being charged with Jane’s murder. Which means he would have had no reason to kill Edward Ambrose in an effort to divert suspicion away from himself.”
“So Ambrose killed his wife, the way you originally thought. And then Maxwell killed him in revenge.”
“Perhaps.”
“But you don’t think so?”
“Consider this: We suspected Maxwell was in love with Jane, but the only reason we know for certain it’s true is because her brother told me. Why would he do that? What kind of man deliberately casts suspicion on his best friend?”
“Perhaps he didn’t realize what he was doing.”
“Oh, he knew. We’re talking about someone who uses words for a living.”
“So perhaps he suspects Maxwell himself, but felt it was inappropriate to say so.”
“Now, that’s possible.”
“But?” said Hero, watching him.
“This afternoon when I spoke to Lord Wallace at Brooks’s, he mentioned Somerset’s name as someone who would publish the Princess’s letters to Hesse if he had them.”
“Except Christian Somerset no longer has a newspaper,” said Hero.
“No. But he does write for various journals. And I find it interesting that out of the hundreds of journalists and politicians in this city, Wallace named only two: Somerset and Brougham. He even said he and Somerset had discussed various ways of scuttling the Orange alliance.”
“So maybe Wallace was trying to cast suspicion onto Somerset and away from himself.”
“Maybe,” Sebastian acknowledged. “It’s also possible that I’m simply chasing after unnecessary tangents. It’s even conceivable that Maxwell accidently killed Jane in a lover’s quarrel and then murdered Ambrose when the man accused him of it.”
She pushed herself up on her elbow so she could see his face better. “But you don’t think so?”
He thrust the fingers of one hand through the heavy fall of her dark hair, drawing it back from her face. “Jane went to see her brother ten days before she died, on a Monday. He says she was there to bring him some ballads for a collection he’s publishing.”
“Ten days?” She gave a faint smile. “Where is your calendar when we need it?”
“I stared at it enough to know exactly which Monday that was—it’s the same day Princess Charlotte told Jane that the Hesse letters had been stolen from Portsmouth. The next day, Tuesday, Jane went out to ask the Princess of Wales about the letters. And the day after that, Wednesday, she paid a visit to Lord Wallace.”
“You think the real reason she went to see her brother that Monday was to ask if he had the letters?”
“The timing is suggestive, isn’t it? According to Liam Maxwell, Jane was worried that her brother had once overheard her talking about the Hesse letters. Somerset claimed he hadn’t. But she must have had a reason to suspect him, if she went to see him that day.”
“The timing could be a coincidence.”
“It could be,” he agreed.
“It also wouldn’t explain why Christian Somerset would kill her. His own sister? Over a packet of letters?”
“Maybe it wasn’t murder. Maybe it was simply manslaughter. An accident.”
“But why would she suddenly decide on that particular Thursday to walk across London—in a snowstorm—and visit her brother again?”
“That I don’t have an answer to at all.”
Hero said, “I suppose something could have happened as Jane was leaving Warwick House that we don’t know about—either then or shortly afterward.”
It occurred to Sebastian there was another possibility: that Jane Ambrose had never actually left Warwick House alive that day. That after Miss Kinsworth saw her crossing the courtyard, Jane could have turned around and gone back into the house for some unknown reason. But he wasn’t quite ready to voice that suspicion aloud.
Hero folded her arms on his chest and smiled down at him. “You know, sleep might help.”
He hauled her up so that her slim, naked body lay long against his and took her mouth with a whispered “I have a better idea.”
Chapter 50
Saturday, 5 February
The next morning Sebastian went
