“Reckon ’e’s really dead?” asked the boy in a tight voice as Sebastian guided his curricle and pair through the crowd gathered in front of Lord Ashworth’s Curzon Street house. “I mean, really, really dead?”
Sebastian glanced back at the sharp-featured young groom, or tiger, who clung to the perch at the rear of the curricle. “There doesn’t seem to be any doubt.”
Tom nodded, his eyes haunted by a dark, painful memory. “I hope so.”
Sebastian drew in close to the kerb. But for a moment he paused, his gaze on the boy’s tense, troubled face. Ashworth hadn’t been directly involved in the hours-long nightmare the boy had endured last September, but the nobleman’s complicity was as significant as it was impossible to prove. “Are you all right, lad?”
“Aye.”
Sebastian nodded, taking the boy at his word. “Walk them if I’m too long.”
Tom scrambled forward to take the reins. “Aye, gov’nor.”
Dropping to the pavement, Sebastian let his gaze drift over the town house’s classical facade. The last time he’d been here, seven months before, there’d been subtle signs of neglect—the area steps unswept, the paint on the entrance door dull and peeling. Now, as one of the constables stationed to keep back the crowd leapt to open the door for him, Sebastian noted the gleaming fresh black paint, the newly repaired iron railing. Lord Ashworth’s financial situation had obviously improved considerably since his marriage. But then, thought Sebastian as he followed a second constable up the town house’s elegant staircase, that was precisely why Ashworth had finally agreed to wed and beget an heir—because his father, the Marquis of Lindley, had cut off his son’s generous allowance and refused to reinstate it until he did.
Sir Henry Lovejoy was waiting for Sebastian at the top of the stairs, his habitually grave face even more somber than usual. “My apologies for sending such news with one of the lads rather than coming myself,” he said with a bow.
“Understandable,” said Sebastian as the two men turned toward the large chamber at the front of the house. From somewhere in the distance came the wail of a woman crying hysterically. “There’s no doubt it’s murder?”
“None at all, I’m afraid.” Lovejoy stood back to allow him to enter the room first. “Look.”
“Good God.” Sebastian’s step faltered on the threshold as he took in the gore-splattered bed and the naked, spread-eagled man who lay within it. The cloying smell of blood and death hung heavy in the air. “Who found him?”
“Two housemaids, shortly after ten this morning. The younger of the two—Alice, I believe is her name—has been weeping uncontrollably ever since.”
“I’m surprised they’re not both in hysterics after seeing this.” Going to stand beside the bed, Sebastian let his gaze travel over the pallid, blood-streaked corpse of his niece’s debauched husband. He’d been a good-looking man, Anthony Ledger, with even, sensuous features enhanced rather than marred by a thin scar high on one cheek. His eyes were a light gray, his honey-colored hair artfully disheveled. Like Sebastian, he’d been in his early thirties. A dedicated sportsman, he was tall and well toned, his shoulders broad, his abdomen hard.
His chest was a pulpy, ravaged horror.
As a cavalry officer for six long years, Sebastian had seen more men die—most of them horribly—than he could remember. Yet it didn’t seem to make any difference; he typically still found the sight of sudden, violent death profoundly disturbing. Any man’s death diminishes me, John Donne had written, because I am involved in mankind. But as he stared down at what was left of Anthony Ledger, Sebastian felt only relief.
Relief, and a vague, niggling fear he hoped desperately was misplaced.
“Lovely,” said Sebastian, his eyes narrowing as he studied the multiple gaping wounds. Whoever killed Ashworth had struck him in the chest with a sharp blade over and over again, so many times that it was nearly impossible to distinguish one blow from the next. “What did the killer use? An ax?”
“It looks that way, doesn’t it? We haven’t found anything that might be the murder weapon yet, although my men are still searching the house. Perhaps an autopsy will give us a better idea of what we’re looking for. I’ve sent for a shell to have the body transported to Paul Gibson.”
“Good,” said Sebastian. No one could read the secrets a murder victim had to tell better than the former army surgeon.
Lovejoy cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I am informed by his lordship’s staff that your niece, Lady Ashworth, does not reside here.”
“No, she doesn’t,” said Sebastian, his gaze drifting to where the dead man’s boots, finely tailored coat, cravat, shirt, doeskin breeches, and small clothes lay strewn from the door to the bed as if they’d been stripped off in the frenzied heat of passion. “The house was in such a state of disrepair at the time of their marriage that Ashworth suggested she stay with his father and maiden aunt at Lindley House in Park Lane while the place was being refurbished.”
Lovejoy cleared his throat again. “She’s with child, yes?”
“She was. She was safely delivered of twin boys early last month.”
“Ah,” said Lovejoy, who could do sums as well as the next man. “It’s certainly understandable that she should be reluctant to relocate at such a time.”
Sebastian suspected that wasn’t her only reason, but all he said was “What have you learned from Ashcroft’s servants?”
“Not as much as we’d hoped, I’m afraid. It seems it was not unusual for his lordship to, er, entertain females in the evening. On such occasions, the servants would retire early, with only his lordship’s valet—a gentleman’s gentleman by the name of Edward Digby—waiting up to see to his needs.”
“And what does Digby have to say about last night?”
“Unfortunately, we’ve been unable to locate the man.”
Sebastian had crouched down to study the splotches of blood on the carpet beside the bed, but at that he looked up. “Perhaps he’s our killer. What do you know of him?”
“I gather he’s not precisely well liked by the other members of the staff. But no one seems to believe him capable of”—Lovejoy paused as if searching for the right word—“this.”
“People can reach a breaking point and snap,” said Sebastian. “Particularly when they work for a man as vicious as Ashworth.”
“True.”
Pushing to his feet, Sebastian squinted up at the blood-splattered silk-lined tester that arched over the bed. “Jesus,” he said softly. “Whoever did this must have been covered in blood.”
Lovejoy nodded. “There’s blood on the inside handle of the bedroom door and another streak smeared along its frame. I’m told there was also blood downstairs on the door to the street, but one of the housemaids unfortunately washed it off before the body was discovered.”
Sebastian nodded toward the pale-figured carpet. “Interesting there are no bloody footprints leading back to the door. How the devil do you hack a man to death and keep from tracking his blood all over the place?”
A gleam of white peeking out from beneath the bed caught his eye, and he reached to pick up what turned out to be a woman’s white silk stocking, gossamer fine and quite new. He held it up to the morning light streaming in the window. “Any idea as to the identity of the woman Ashworth was entertaining last night?”
“We’re told the valet, Digby, might know.”
“And he’s making himself scarce.” Sebastian found himself staring at a black leather whip that lay half-tangled in the blood-drenched bedding and felt his throat tighten. Ashworth had a well-known taste for sexual games—vicious games of pain and humiliation that sometimes turned deadly. “If ever a man deserved to die like this, it’s him.”
Lovejoy gazed woodenly at a far wall. “You still believe he was a part of what we discovered last year out at Clerkenwell and Bethnal Green?”
“Yes.” Seven months before, Ashworth had been implicated in a string of brutal murders targeting vulnerable, homeless youths snatched off the poorest streets of London. Sebastian had killed one of the men responsible. But he hadn’t been able to prove Ashworth’s involvement even though he’d kept working on it ever since, searching for evidence he might have missed and keeping a watchful eye on the nasty son of a bitch.
Keeping an eye on Stephanie.
Something about Lovejoy’s silence told Sebastian he understood only too well the drift of Sebastian’s thoughts. “Do you know of anyone who might have wanted him dead?” asked the magistrate quietly.
Besides me? thought Sebastian. After all, the thin scar on Ashworth’s cheek had been left by the tip of Sebastian’s own swordstick. Aloud, he said, “No one I can name offhand. But men like Ashworth do tend to accumulate enemies. And they—” He broke off, leaning forward to study the knot in the twisted silk cord that held Ashworth’s nearest wrist lashed to the bedpost. “That’s odd,” he said, circling the bed to study each cord in turn.
“My lord?”
“These knots aren’t as tight as you’d expect. Even if the cords weren’t tied tightly to begin with, surely they would have been pulled tight when Ashworth struggled against them as he was being killed.”
“You think he was tied up after he was murdered?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
A shout echoed up from the entry hall below, followed by an aged, imperious voice demanding, “Let me pass this instant! How dare you? That is my son lying up there dead, you fools.”
“Oh, dear,” said Lovejoy. “My colleague Sir John volunteered to go to Lindley House and personally inform the Marquis of his son’s death. But surely he must have advised his lordship not to come here?”
“I doubt the Marquis would listen.”
Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Then Alexander Adrian Ledger, the Third Marquis of Lindley, appeared in the doorway shadowed by a harassed-looking constable who threw Lovejoy an apologetic look.
In many ways, the Marquis was an older, thinner version of his son: white-haired but still tall, square jawed, and handsome despite his eighty-plus years. Yet there was a distinctly kinder, gentler cast to the elderly man’s expression that his son had lacked. Now deep lines of shock and grief etched his face.
“My lord,” said Sebastian, stepping forward to block the old man’s view of the bed. “You don’t want to see this.”
The Marquis met Sebastian’s gaze, his light gray eyes blazingly fierce and drowning in a father’s pain. “Let me pass.”
Sebastian hesitated, then nodded and stood aside.
At the sight of Ashworth’s savaged, bloody corpse, the old man checked for an instant, his nostrils flaring. Then, swallowing hard, he tightened his face as if guarding against any betraying signs of emotion and forced himself to approach his dead son. The effort required for him to put one foot in front of the other was painful to watch.
“Dear God,” he whispered, one hand reaching out to grasp the nearest bedpost as his knees half buckled. “Anthony.” He stared down at the dead man, his face a frozen mask of horrified disbelief. Then he swung toward them, his voice gruff, almost accusatory. “Who did this? Have you no idea?”
“Not yet, my lord,” said Lovejoy with a deep bow.
Lindley turned back to the bed, a spasm of revulsion quivering over his aged features as he stared at the silken cords wrapped around his son’s wrists and ankles. “A woman, obviously. Surely the servants must know who she is?”
“We are still conducting interviews, my lord.”
He dragged a shaky hand down over his face. “Yes. Of course. I beg your pardon.”
“When was the last time you saw your son, my lord?” asked Sebastian.
The question seemed to confuse the old man. “I don’t know. . . . It’s been several days. Why?”
“Did he mention anyone with whom he’d quarreled recently?”
“Not that I recall, no.” He sucked in a deep, ragged breath and gave a faint shake of his head. “Poor Stephanie. She’s visiting her mother this morning, so she wasn’t at home when the magistrate came to tell us what had happened. I’ve sent a message to Lady Wilcox—it seemed best that she be the one to break the news to her daughter, but . . . This will be so very hard on her.”
“Yes, undoubtedly,” murmured Lovejoy.
Sebastian himself remained silent. He wasn’t certain how much Stephanie had known about Ashworth’s unorthodox sexual interests when she married him. But her continued residence in her father-in-law’s Park Lane mansion suggested she’d learned enough by now to stay far away from her new husband.
It was a thought that should have reassured Sebastian. Yet, for some reason he couldn’t quite name, it did not.