waiting to be speared. Dim-witted as a fish, that was her.
“Half of me wants you to stay in my house,” he whispered. “Because I want those nights with you. If you don’t want that, too, then I suggest you get out of here. I can have you out of London in an hour, to Hampstead, and that old captain of mine. Will you go? Or will you stay here with me, knowing you’ll be in my bed in a day or two?”
“You’re trying to scare me off.”
“Clever Jess. That’s exactly what I’m doing.” There was a fraught little pause. He might have been a shark, deciding whether to circle in widdershins or t’other way round. “Be wise, sparrow. Run from me.”
She held perfectly still. Not because he had hold of her. Because she couldn’t have moved if her life depended on it. “No.”
“Wrong choice, Jess Whitby.” He let go of her. Took his hand away and let her free. “Wait a day or two before you come to me. Neither of us would enjoy bouncing on those bruises.”
“I liked you better when you were a ship’s captain named Sebastian.”
“I liked you better when you were a street whore.” He smiled, enigmatic as an oyster, if oysters smiled. “Stay then. Be polite to Claudia. And if you ever look at Quentin the way you’re looking at me now, I’ll make you regret you were ever whelped.”
Outrage chopped off any speech she had in her.
Kennett didn’t even stay to see the effect of that grenade. He lobbed another as he walked out the door. “You’ll want to send for some dresses. I can see all the way down your tits in that one.”
Nine
CINQ WORE BLACK—A BLACK GREATCOAT THAT fell to boot top and a black, low-crowned hat with a wide brim. A scarf of raw wool, colorless in the streak of light from the high, barred windows, covered nose to neck and hid what the gloom didn’t.
“Liam’s dying.” The Irishman sounded more annoyed than anything else.
“You’re a cold one.”
“I can be.” The voice was low and deliberately unmemorable. “Get me the girl.”
“Not so soon. It’s too dangerous altogether.”
“You will take her now, before they hustle her out of town. She’ll leave the house sooner or later to go to that warehouse in Garnet Street. I’ll send word. Grab her there.”
“And isn’t it brave you are, when it’s my neck.” The Irishman took a final look at the figure laid out on the pile of straw. Watched the labored breaths that kept the corpse an inch this side of death. “I need more money for this. Fifty pounds.”
“We keep to the agreement.”
“Sean and Fergus are dead in their blood. Cut down like dogs, God help them.”
“Then they’ve no need of money. Deliver the girl.”
“Ye said it’d be easy, damn yer eyes. There’s five men dead, and Liam’s on his last. Bastard Kennett’s after our necks. This ain’t the job we was hired for, not at all. Fifty pounds more.”
“Ten. For your losses.”
“Fifty, I say. Fifty now and the hundred when we bring the girl.”
“And I say you’re a bungler and a fool. I handed her to you on a silver platter. I told you where she’d be, and even then you lost her. There’s men upstairs who’d take this work and be glad of it.”
That was bluff. These Irish scum were the only men stupid enough to lay hands on Whitby’s only child. She was protected by Lazarus, too. And now Sebastian. It was simple suicide to touch her, and every thief and brawler in London knew it.
All the more reason to secure the girl before this fool found that out. “Follow her. Take her. And don’t hurt her again. Dog-meat’s no good to me.”
The man spat on the dirt floor. “She’ll be alive. The money better be waiting when we bring her to the boat.”
He wouldn’t live to enjoy it. Lazarus would see to that. Or Sebastian would. Really, it was laughably easy to eliminate witnesses.
“One more thing. Hire some harlot and get her into the house. There’s always a new slut cringing and whining at the door. They’ll take her in. She’ll tell you what the Whitby girl’s doing. Use her to bring the girl to you, if you can. This is five for the whore.” Cinq dealt pound notes onto the rough table. “It’s enough. Don’t tell the pimp, then, if he’s greedy.” More pound notes joined the ones on the table. “Five for you and the men. And five goes to . . .” a nod toward the dying man, “. . . his care. Or his family, if he dies.”
“I’ll see to it.” The Irishman scraped the money up. It was that easy to ensure death, muffled and swift, to the man in the pile of straw. To him and the crone crouching in the corner. Two more people who’d seen Cinq would be tidied away.
When the Revolution swept through London, this rabble would be washed away with the rest of the Old Order. Napoleon would find a use for them in the army of the Revolution.
Cinq pulled the scarf higher and climbed the steps out of the cellar, walked through the tavern, out to the wretched street, and stepped into the crowds of workmen, sluts, beggars, and thieves hurrying to work.
Ten
“HELP ME WITH THIS.” GRUNTING, SEBASTIAN lifted the corner of the bed. Adrian slipped an edge of carpet under it.
“Well, that was a waste of time.” Adrian straightened up, brushing his hands.
“We had to look. Let’s get the chairs back.”
He set a wide bergère chair in front of the windows in a patch of late afternoon sunlight. The other chair, a big, soft armchair, belonged by the hearth. The table went beside it. The lamp went on the table, then the bowl of roses. When they finished, it would be like nothing had been moved. They’d done this before, when they were gathering evidence in France.
The Whitbys lived in unobtrusive comfort in this hotel when they were in England. A suite of bright, high- ceilinged rooms overlooking Russell Square were kept for their exclusive use. Whitby owned the hotel.
If Jessamyn Whitby was part of her father’s treason, the proof might be here, in her bedroom, away from the prying eyes in the Whitby offices. He found himself hoping he wouldn’t uncover anything. What did it mean that he was already looking for ways to make her innocent?
“You’re not going to find stolen papers.” Adrian stood in the center of the Aubusson rug, turning slowly, considering possibilities. “If she’s keeping anything here—which I doubt—her hiding place will be obvious. Diabolically, cleverly, unfathomably obvious. Once I find it, I’ll kick myself.”
“You do that. I’ll start on the bookcase.” He pulled stacks of books from the top shelf and began going through them. Jess wasn’t keeping letters from the War Office on an open shelf in the corner of her bedroom between
He might not find stolen papers, but he was going to discover Jess. Parts of her were scattered here, everywhere, in the place she lived and the things she owned. This room was going to tell him who she was. “What does Doyle say about the Irishmen?”
