“Bah.” Robert waved his hand at her. “You are astonishingly green at times. Duffers say that sort of thing in that district all the time, Izzie. Cheats, who sell Spitalfields goods at double their worth, pretending the wares are smuggled. Never say you fell for it?”
She glared at her arrogant brother. “I am not an idiot, Robert! This wasn’t some hawker standing on a corner. And these were, most assuredly, not common silks. Quite the contrary—I have rarely seen goods of such superb quality.”
She motioned to Lord St. Evert for confirmation. “You saw the fabric. Tell him.”
“I didn’t have time to examine them.” He seemed a million miles away, absently rubbing the stubble on his cheek.
“Then you will both have to take my word on the matter.”
St. Evert dropped the point entirely. “The murderer, Lady Elizabeth, what do you remember about him? I only saw the back of his head. He turned toward the window, so I was forced to step away.”
“Aha! So you were spying on me?”
St. Evert waved away her accusation. “I followed you. Merely a matter of concern for your safety. A young woman, unaccompanied, leaving the house so early in the morning—”
“You followed me.”
He frowned at her diversion. “The murderer, Lady Elizabeth. What do you remember?”
Too Much. Far too much. The elegant taper of his fingers as he held the cloth to her throat. Every nuance of his voice, each minute inflection of his accent as he told her she would die. The hateful glimmer in his brown eyes as he choked her. She gently touched the tender bruise at her neck. How would she ever forget? “He was French,” she mumbled.
Robert smacked the bed covers and snorted at her impatiently. “Well, naturally, he would be, wouldn’t he? What else.”
She turned to Lord St. Evert. “He thought he knew you. Which was rubbish, of course. I tried to tell him. When he saw your reflection in the mirror, it completely unhinged him.” Elizabeth hesitated. “He was a madman, I suppose. He called you by an odd name.” She tilted her head, noticing how very alert St. Evert’s eyes were and the sharp line of his nose. “He called you The Red Hawk.”
Valen and Robert turned to one another, their expressions laden with alarm.
“What?” she demanded. They would not have secrets from her. “What is it?”
Valen said nothing, but glanced away, pretending to study the gray clouds outside the window.
Robert traced a design on the bedcovers with his finger.
“Did this man give you his name?” Valen’s tone was stern, commanding.
“I asked it. He avoided telling me, saying he was merely a simple merchant. I didn’t believe him. His manners were too refined, his speech too elegant. Later, when Mr. Smythe begged him for his life, Mr. Smythe called the man Merót.”
Robert clutched the bedcovers in his fist. Valen turned and stared at her, his jaw flexing so hard she could see the muscles tighten from where she lay.
“What is it? Tell me. You must!” She sat up. “When he was choking me, he called me a spy. Absurd, isn’t it? Me?” She laughed, nervous, wishing they would laugh too and tell her it was all a mad joke. “He said you should have warned me about what he does to spies. For pity’s sake, tell me what it means.”
Valen stood up, towered over her, his face hard, unyielding. How in heaven’s name had she ever mistaken him for a fop?
“There’s no time. It’s vital that I deliver your report to Whitehall.”
“Whitehall? But, I thought the magistrate—”
“Robert, stay with your sister. Do not leave her side.”
Her brother nodded gravely as Valen strode toward the door.
Elizabeth leaned over and tugged on her brother’s arm. “You must explain. You must. I feel as if my whole world is turning topsy-turvy.”
St. Evert paused at the door, his back to them. “Robert, I trust you will remember your oath. For her sake, as well as for others.”
Robert sighed heavily. “It pains me that you should doubt it.”
St. Evert left without another word, and Elizabeth knew no matter how much she cajoled him, her brother would remain mum on the matter. “Since you’re not going to explain to me why I nearly had the life squeezed out of me today, I believe I will have some of that laudanum, thank you.”
He chucked her chin and got up from the bed. “None was offered.”
“Humph.” She threw the pillow at him.
13
Making a Silk Officer Out of A Fop’s Purse
Valen strode hurriedly to his rooms, rang for Biggs, and sat down in a chair in front of the mirror. Biggs ran up the stairs, bounded through the door, huffing and puffing. “The servants are humming like bees. What happened? I knew I should’ve come wi’ you.”
Valen handed his sergeant a pair of scissors. “Cut off my hair.”
Biggs took the shears and stared at Valen as if he couldn’t entirely comprehend the order.
“Cut my hair.” Valen reached back and pulled loose the leather thong that had been tying back his unruly mop.
“Aye, I heard you. But Captain, folding clothes and laundering is one thing. Cutting hair, that’s something else altogether.”
“Good grief, man. It isn’t as if I’m asking you to carve a statue of Nelson, just cut it short and trim the ends. And after you do, pull out the good clothes. No more of this fribble business.”
“It’s that glad I am to hear it, my lord. High time you showed these folks what’s what. But I expect you’ll be wanting someone else to chop that hair down for you. Unless, of course, you don’t mind it looking somewhat like this.” He yanked off his wig.
Valen frowned at the scraggly clumps of hair hanging around the edges of Biggs’s balding pate. He stood up and retied his hair into the leather thong. “Yes, well, I believe we will forego the haircut for the moment. However, as soon as possible both of us will make a trip to the barber. For
