Sir William raised his tankard to his lips and drank deeply. “Now why the bloody hell would I be interested in that?” he said, drawing the back of one meaty hand across his wet mouth.
“Because it’s someone you know. Rose Fletcher, from the Orchard Street Academy.”
Sir William went suddenly still. “What the bloody hell makes you think I knew her?”
Sebastian gave the man a slow, mean smile. “Your frequent visits to the Academy are hardly a secret. She was a favorite of yours, was she not?”
Sir William bowed his head over his plate and gave his attention to his beef, shoving a large forkful into his mouth.
“There are those,” said Sebastian, “who think you might be the reason Rose fled Orchard Street. You’ve a nasty reputation for roughing up women, Sir William.”
The magistrate’s head came up as he swallowed slowly. Eyes narrowing dangerously, he raised one thick finger to point at Sebastian. “I told you to keep out of this, Devlin. I meant it.”
“Under the circumstances, I’m not surprised my interest has made you a trifle—shall we say, nervous?” Sebastian leaned his back against the panel behind him and crossed his arms at his chest. “In fact, I find myself wondering where you were on Monday night.”
The magistrate’s knife clattered against the thick edge of his white ironware plate. “Not that it’s any of your bloody business, but as it happens I was with the Prime Minister. Next I know you’ll be accusing Perceval himself.”
Sebastian studied the magistrate’s fleshy red face. “Since you obviously knew the young lady, perhaps you can tell me more about her.”
Sir William’s lip curled. “Young lady?” He pushed his plate away and stood up. “She was a whore, just like all the others, for all her airs and graces. You think I’ve nothing better to do than waste the afternoon nattering on about some worthless trollop? I’ve merchants breathing fire because someone’s cleaned out a warehouse of prime Russian sables, and a loyal officer of His Majesty’s Army who seems to have vanished into thin air, and a Member of Parliament assaulted in broad daylight on the Strand. Believe me, any one of those incidents is more important than a thousand dead strumpets.”
Sebastian pushed to his feet. “Not to me.”
Sir William tore away the napkin he’d tucked into his shirt-front and slammed it on the table beside his half-eaten meal. “I warned you to cease this interference in Bow Street’s affairs, and I meant it. You might be thick with Sir Henry Lovejoy, but this is Bow Street, not Queen Square. Good day, my lord.”
Sebastian watched the portly magistrate push his way toward the tavern’s door just as Bow’s bell chimed once, then again. It was two o’clock.
Kensington Gardens lay to the west of Hyde Park in an area of town unfashionable enough to ensure that no one of any consequence would be likely to observe the encounter between Miss Jarvis and Viscount Devlin.
Leaving Tom walking the chestnuts up and down the lane, Sebastian nodded to the attendant at the gate and continued on foot to where the redbrick and glass walls of the Orangery rose at the end of an avenue lined with high yew hedges. He found Miss Jarvis smartly dressed in a navy blue walking dress topped by a dashing hat with not one but two ostrich plumes. She stood as if enraptured by the study of an ornamental planting of lilies, but Sebastian was not deceived. A tall, thin maid, her face tight with discomfort, hovered nearby.
“You’re late,” said Miss Jarvis, twirling her parasol with impatience as he walked up to her.
Sebastian opened his eyes wide in mock dismay. “I am?”
To his surprise, a hint of a smile touched her lips. She swung her head away to stare out over a nearby open lawn interspersed with groves of shady trees. “Point taken,” she said, and turned to walk along the broad avenue.
Sebastian fell into step beside her, the tight-faced maid trailing at a respectful distance. “So tell me, Miss Jarvis, what have you discovered that is of such vital importance that you felt compelled to arrange this assignation?”
She held her head high, her features remarkably composed. “This is not an assignation, my lord. This is an exchange of information. I have discovered that the woman who gave her name at the Magdalene House as Rose Jones was previously known as Rose Fletcher. She fled a house on Orchard Street.”
“The Orchard Street Academy,” said Sebastian.
Miss Jarvis swung to look directly at him. “How did you know that?”
“I went there.”
She turned her head as if to study a green damselfly hovering about a nearby wisteria, but not before he saw the shadow of annoyance that flitted across her features. “Oh. And did you discover anything else of significance?”
He wasn’t about to regale her with the sordid details of his encounters with either Ian Kane or Luke O’Brian. “It opened up one or two avenues of inquiry. But nothing of any significance yet.” He turned their steps toward the east, where the Long Water shimmered blue and sun-dazzled in the distance. “How precisely did you come to know about the Orchard Street Academy?”
“I spoke to a woman named Tasmin Poole.”
Sebastian drew up abruptly. “You what?” He remembered the tall, long-necked Jamaican he’d encountered in the Academy’s tawdry parlor. “How in the name of all that’s holy did you meet her?”
Miss Jarvis continued walking. “I put out word that I was willing to pay for information that would lead me to the woman who originally took refuge at the Magdalene House with Rose. According to Tasmin Poole, Rose fled the Orchard Street Academy with a woman named Hannah Green. Unfortunately, Tasmin is unaware of the woman’s current whereabouts.”
Sebastian stayed where he was. “Hang on. Exactly how did you put out word?”
She turned to face him, impatient and impervious. “I spoke to some women at a lodging house in Covent Garden. I’d met with them before in the course of my research.”
Sebastian watched as the cold breeze plucked a strand of Miss Jarvis’s rigidly controlled brown hair and blew it across her cheek. He said, “You don’t even realize what you’ve done, do you?”
“What I’ve done? I’ve discovered the identity of the woman—”
“Yes. But at what cost? The men who killed those women at the Magdalene House saw two people running away. They shot one in the alley, but they knew one escaped. If they were watching your rendezvous with Tasmin Poole this morning, they now have a good idea who that second woman was. Not only that, but they know you’re pursuing an inquiry into what happened and they’re going to think Rose Jones, or Rose Fletcher, or whoever she was, told you something.”
A slow heat moved up into her cheeks, but otherwise she remained perfectly composed. “I am well protected.”
“I hope so. Because the type of people we’re dealing with won’t take kindly to too close a scrutiny. They’ve already killed eight women and burned a house to the ground. You think they won’t hesitate to kill you?”