Chapter 17
By the time Sebastian left Somerset’s workshop, dark, ominous clouds were once again pressing down on the city. He turned his steps west, toward the theater district of Covent Garden, intending to make some inquiries there about Edward Ambrose. But as he left Ave Maria Lane for Ludgate Street, he began to suspect he was being followed.
The cold had driven enough people off the streets to make the man behind him particularly noticeable. Short and stocky, with sandy hair and a slouch hat pulled low over his eyes, he looked much like a respectable tradesman. He stayed perhaps twenty feet behind Sebastian—close enough to keep him in sight without being too obvious. But when Sebastian quickened his step, the man walked faster; when Sebastian allowed his pace to slacken, the man likewise slowed.
The slouch-hatted shadow followed Sebastian up Ludgate to Fleet Street. After another two blocks, Sebastian swung about to stride rapidly back the way he had come.
Slouch Hat paused and turned as if in rapt admiration of the parasols displayed in the bow window of the shop beside him.
Sebastian walked right up to him. “So who the hell are you and why are you following me?”
The man gave an exaggerated start of surprise. “Yer honor?”
“You heard me. Who are you working for?”
“I wasn’t fol—”
Sebastian grabbed the man’s shoulder and swung him around to slam his back against the soot-stained brick wall beside them. “I suggest you don’t try my patience,” he said, enunciating each word carefully. “A brilliant young woman is dead, and I am in no mood to play games. Who set you to following me?”
“I don’t know what yer talkin’ about.”
The man tried to pull away, but Sebastian hauled him back and wedged a forearm up beneath the man’s chin. “Not so fast.”
The man squirmed in his grasp. “Oye! Let me go!”
“When you tell me who—”
Sebastian broke off as he caught the crunch of snow-muffled footsteps coming up behind him, fast. The man’s gaze shifted for one telltale instant to something over Sebastian’s shoulder just as Sebastian heard the unmistakable snick of a blade being drawn from its leather sheath.
“Bloody hell,” swore Sebastian. Grabbing Slouch Hat by his coat, he pulled the man away from the wall and swung around just as a tall, lanky man with a scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face lunged at Sebastian with a dagger.
Such was the speed and force of the attack that the assassin was unable to break away. Sebastian felt the man in the slouch hat shudder under the impact of the blade. Blood poured from the man’s mouth as he pitched forward to knock Sebastian off his feet and land on top of him.
“Jack!” shouted the lanky man, trying to yank the dagger from his friend’s back as Sebastian fought to shove the stricken man away. Over the folds of his woolen scarf, the assassin’s gaze met Sebastian’s. Filled with murderous rage, the man’s eyes were oddly mismatched, one noticeably larger than the other and not quite on the same plane. Then the killer abandoned his knife and ran.
Sebastian scrambled out from under the dying man.
“Who sent you?” said Sebastian, raising the man’s head so that he wouldn’t choke on his own blood. “Who sent you, damn it!”
The man’s mouth worked. Sebastian bent over him, only to jerk back his head as the man tried to spit in his face. Then the light of rage and hatred faded from the man’s eyes, leaving nothing but the cold, vacant stare of death.
“So who is he?” asked Sir Henry Lovejoy sometime later as the two men stood side by side, staring down at the dead man at their feet. The snow fell around them in a sibilant rush.
“‘Jack,’ according to the man who accidently killed him,” said Sebastian. “But beyond that, I’ve no idea. I’ve never seen him before, and he’s not carrying any identification.”
“And his companion?”
“Was likewise unknown to me—as far as I could tell. He had a scarf covering most of his face, but his eyes were definitely memorable.”
Lovejoy frowned at the spreading pool of crimson snow around the dead man. “You’ll need to testify at the inquest, of course.”
“Yes.”
“Any idea who might want to have you killed?”
“None.”
Lovejoy pursed his lips. “Well, at least Bow Street can get involved in this death. I don’t see why the palace should object.”
“Unless of course the palace sent him,” said Sebastian.
The two men’s gazes met. But rather than say anything, Lovejoy simply burrowed his fists deeper into his pockets and blew out a harsh breath that rose in a white cloud to freeze on his eyelashes.
Hero was buttoning the tucked bodice of a fine black wool carriage gown when Sebastian came to stand in her dressing room’s doorway. She glanced over at him, then went back to her buttons. “So is that your blood all over you, or someone else’s?”
He walked over to inspect his face in the mirror above the washstand. “Someone else’s.” He reached for the pitcher and poured water into the bowl. “Two men just tried to kill me in Fleet Street. One of them got away. The other didn’t.”
“He’s dead?”
“He is. Unfortunately, he died without revealing whom he was working for.”
She watched him dab at the streak of blood on his cheek with a wet cloth. “Any idea who that might be?”
“Not really. At the moment the most likely suspect in Jane’s death is probably her own husband, Edward Ambrose. But he doesn’t know that I suspect him, so why would he try to kill me?” He glanced over at her. “Where are you off to?”
“Clerkenwell. Coachman John thinks he can get me there in the sleigh, so I’ve had Cook pack a basket of food.”
“For the cooper’s wife who gave birth on Thursday?”
“Yes.” She reached for her hat and pivoted back to her dressing table to position it just so. “I’m also taking a sack of coal. I don’t know how the poor of the city are surviving with everything either impossible to find or dreadfully dear.” She turned to face him again, her gray eyes troubled.
“What?” he asked, watching her.
“It’s just that I have the most lowering reflection that I’m doing this simply as a pitiful sop to my own conscience. In the grand scheme of things, what does it matter if I help one desperate mother and her children when thousands more are starving and freezing to death?”
“It’s a beginning.” He went to take her face in his hands and gently kiss her mouth. “Be careful, will you?” he said, his gaze locking with hers.
“I’m not the one somebody just tried to kill. You be careful.”