Anthony Marcus Ledger, Viscount Ashworth, only son and heir of the Marquis of Lindley, lay sprawled naked on his back in the rumpled depths of his vast silk-hung bedstead. His eyes were open but sunken flat, his handsome young face ashen, his lips oddly purple in contrast. One did not need to look at the raw, hacked mess that had once been his chest to know he was dead.
“Ghastly sight,” said Sir Henry Lovejoy, one of three stipendiary magistrates attached to Bow Street’s famous Public Office. A small balding man with the appearance of a respectable merchant and the demeanor of a stern cleric, he was careful to stand well back from the gore-splattered bed. There’d once been a time when Lovejoy was indeed a merchant, and a moderately successful one at that. But the death of his beloved wife and daughter some thirteen years before had caused him to reevaluate everything from his religious beliefs to his purpose in life and devote his remaining days to public service.
Now pressing a clean white handkerchief to his lips, he let his horrified gaze drift from the blood-soaked fine linen sheets beneath his lordship’s mutilated body to the sprayed arcs of blood that showed quite clearly against the champagne-colored silk of the bed’s hangings. Silken red cords tied the dead man’s widespread hands and feet to the bedstead’s stout wooden posts. “I believe we can safely surmise that his lordship was killed here,” said Lovejoy.
Beside him, a young constable with thin shoulders and a pockmarked face swallowed hard. “That’s an awful lot o’ blood, sir.”
“It is, indeed.”
The heavy curtains at the windows overlooking the street had been hastily yanked open, flooding the elegant bedchamber with the dazzling light of a fine spring morning. Tucking away his handkerchief, Lovejoy turned in a slow circle, taking in the new Aubusson carpet, the gleaming rosewood chests, the gilt-framed paintings of highbred hunters and racing hounds. To all appearances, Ashworth’s life had been one of rare privilege and refinement. And while Lovejoy knew only too well that in this instance appearances were in some ways deceptive, the fact remained that the violent murder of the handsome young son of one of the wealthiest noblemen in the kingdom would both shock and terrify the rarefied world of the haut ton—and seriously rattle the palace.
Troubled by the thought, Lovejoy went to stand at the window. Curzon Street lay in that part of London known as Mayfair, home to the fashionable, the titled, the wealthy, and the powerful. There’d been no official announcement yet of his lordship’s death, but word of ghastly murders always managed to spread quickly. A dozen or more murmuring gawkers had already gathered in the normally quiet street. Soon there would be more. Many more.
“No answer yet from Brook Street?” said Lovejoy, his gaze on the growing crowd below.
“Not yet, sir.”
Lovejoy had already set half a dozen of his constables to searching the house and interviewing the dead man’s servants. But he was waiting for someone else, someone to whom he had sent word as soon as news of Ashworth’s death reached Bow Street: Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, only surviving son and heir of the Earl of Hendon. There’d been a time not so long ago when Devlin had been on the run for a murder he didn’t commit, with Lovejoy determined to bring him in. But in the years since then, an unusual friendship had developed between the two men, an affinity based on profound mutual respect and a shared determination to see murderers brought to justice.
Yet that was not Lovejoy’s sole reason for involving Devlin. For just seven months ago, the dissolute, dangerous man now lying dead in that blood-soaked bed had married Lord Devlin’s beautiful young niece, Stephanie.