Feeling suddenly gloomy again, Lenoir twisted in his seat to look out the window. There was little activity in the street; it must be getting late. As he turned back, his gaze drifted over the angled window to his right and a reflection flashed in the glass: a pale face with fierce green eyes.
Lenoir’s heart seized, and he gripped the arms of his chair in momentary terror. But the image vanished as suddenly as it had come, and he saw that it was only the reflection of two small glasses of absinthe. He turned to find Zera holding the liquor out to him, a knowing smile on her lips.
“You have dark thoughts this evening, Inspector.” She handed him a glass.
Lenoir did not hesitate: he tossed the absinthe into the back of his throat, its fiery bite bringing tears to his eyes.
“One is generally meant to sip absinthe,” Zera observed dryly.
“Is that so? Bring me another and I will be sure to do it properly.”
Still smiling, the hostess waved to one of her servants and another glass was brought. Zera sat on the window seat, nestling herself between Lenoir and the wall. She looked at him through golden eyes, her face angled playfully to his. “Always looking at the dark side of things, Nicolas,” she purred, swirling her own absinthe in its tiny crystal glass. She had added sugar and water to hers, giving it a cloudy appearance. Such was the fashion, but Lenoir preferred his straight. He did not want to dilute the color. Swallowing its blazing green felt like confronting a fear.
“Jolen’s ideas are all the rage, you know,” Zera said. “Many young scholars think as he does.”
Lenoir snorted. “Of course his ideas are popular. They offer the perfect excuse for indulgent behavior, and that is the order of the day, is it not?” He gestured meaningfully with his glass, then took a sip, savoring the taste: sweet, licorice, scorching.
“You are in a contrary mood, Nicolas. Have you had a difficult day?” Without waiting for an answer, she slipped her arm under his. “Tell me about it.”
“Not much to tell. A boy’s body was exhumed illegally in the Brackensvale Cemetery. No one knows where the body was taken or why.”
Zera shivered. “Horrible!” she whispered, her fine eyebrows coming together. “Whoever heard of such a thing?”
“I have, actually,” said a voice. Lenoir and Zera turned to its source, a tall, angular gentleman sitting nearby. He had a severe face and a sour expression, which Lenoir recognized as his habitual aspect. “My apologies for eavesdropping, Lady Zera,” the gentleman said, turning a pipe over in his hands. “It was quite inadvertent.”
“Not at all, Lord Feine,” said Zera graciously.
Feine removed a small leather pouch from his pocket and set about filling the pipe with tobacco. He had an unhurried air, as though he savored the curiosity his words had aroused. Lenoir watched detachedly as he fiddled with the pipe. It was an ostentatious thing, with a family crest etched into the bowl.
“There was a similar incident a few weeks ago,” Feine said at length. “I am rather surprised you hadn’t heard, Inspector.”
Lenoir shrugged. “Probably no one told the police. Many crimes go unreported.”
Feine grunted, still absorbed in preparing his pipe. “In any case, a boy’s body was stolen from North Haven. No one has the faintest idea why. My valet is from there, and he says the whole village is in shock.”
“I do not doubt it,” Zera said. “What a monstrous thing to do! Some people are simply mad.”
“Indeed,” said Lenoir. As they spoke, other guests were congregating around them, taking seats near the bay window. Zera was seldom without her admiring retinue for long.
“Speaking of mad”—Zera raised her voice for the benefit of the others—“Mrs. Hynd here has heard a delicious rumor about our dear Duke of Warrick. Won’t you tell us, Mrs. Hynd?”
Lenoir was impressed by how seamlessly Zera changed the subject. Understandably, she was not keen on regaling the other guests with gruesome tales of children’s corpses.
A plump woman with improbably perfect curls burst into giggles. “Well,” she began breathlessly, “apparently, the duke is in search of a new wife! I’m told he has his people making a list of all the unmarried women in the Five Villages!” She dissolved into giggles again, covering her lips with her fingers as though trying to contain them.
There was much appreciative laughter at this. Zera, for her part, was shaking her head incredulously. “Can you imagine his looking beyond Kennian,” she asked the room in general, “as though he’ll find a proper wife among the milkmaids?”
“I can well imagine it, Lady Zera,” said a nobleman whose name Lenoir had forgotten. “He may be the most powerful man in the Five Villages, but even so, what sane, respectable woman could possibly want him for a husband? I suspect he will be obliged to find someone who is neither!”
More laughter. Lenoir supposed His Lordship (what was his name? Lenoir could not think through the growing haze of liquor) had a point. Only the greediest, most foolish sort of woman would rush to take the place of the duke’s last wife, whose death, along with her son’s, had been brutal and suspicious.
“Well, I for one hope he manages it,” said one woman. “He needs to start a family again. It’s just awful how he pines after his dead loved ones, so many years later.”
“Probably shouldn’t have murdered them, then,” someone retorted, provoking scandalized laughter and cries of “Shocking, shocking!”
With the salon’s guests chatting so briskly now, Zera could relax again. She leaned conspiratorially toward Lenoir. “The power of rumor,” she murmured. “Is it not the axle grease of society?”
“It is, though I suspect the objects of rumor do not always think that a good thing. But perhaps you can speak to that yourself—there have certainly been enough rumors about you lately.”
A shadow of anger flickered across Zera’s lovely features, but it was gone almost immediately. “So it would seem,” she said coolly. “Apparently, I am running a brothel and an opium den full of revolutionaries and freaks.”
Lenoir gave her a wry smile. “The price of success, my dear. Consider it a compliment to be worthy of such notoriety.”
“Compliment or no, I would be grateful indeed to know who is behind it. Can you find out?” Lenoir laughed quietly, but Zera would not be deterred. “I am serious, Nicolas. I have worked too hard and sacrificed too much to allow my place in society to be compromised by vicious lies. I am . . . vulnerable.”
“Zera, no one thinks of you as Adali anymore.”
She tossed her head proudly. “For the moment, perhaps, but that can change. People are fickle, as you well know. These rumors have only to take root, and I will be Adali once more, a savage putting on airs in the big city, little better than a trained monkey. I cannot let my guard down, not even for a moment. I must put a stop to these rumors.” She paused. “What about that boy you are always telling me about—the one who is so good at picking up stray bits of information? Could he find out who is spreading this poison?”
“Possibly. I will ask him.”
“Good,” Zera said silkily, rising. “Now if you will forgive me, I am neglecting my guests.” She disappeared into the crowd.
Shaking his head, Lenoir took another long pull of liquor. His vision was already growing blurred, but it would be many hours before he stopped. Only when the absinthe in his glass seemed to take the shape of a pair of cold green eyes did he finally rise, weave his way unsteadily home, and give himself over to sleep.
CHAPTER 4
“I still don’t understand why they wouldn’t have reported it to the constable,” said Kody, his gaze drifting over the gallery of skeletal white poplars flanking the road to North Haven. The trees offered little protection from the cold gusts blowing down from the hills; icy blades of wind sliced through the ribs of the forest, whistling eerily. The horses bowed their heads against the chill, their progress watched hungrily by a murder of crows that sheltered in the branches above, flapping and cackling. Must be carrion nearby, Kody thought.