“That’s not what we’re here for,” snapped the caped man, shifting his stance so he could cover both the footmen and Coachman John. “Just make it quick before someone comes along. And make bloody sure you shoot the right woman.”
The younger man laughed. “I can tell a young’un from an old’un,” he said, jerking open the carriage door.
Hero squeezed the first trigger and discharged the pistol straight in his face.
The man’s face dissolved in a bloody red shattering of skin and bone. The percussion was deafening, the carriage filling with a blue flash of flame and smoke and the acrid smell of burned powder. Lady Jarvis screamed and kept screaming as the impact of the shot blew the man out of the carriage and flopped him back into the dirt of the road.
“Drummond!” The gentleman in the cape whirled, the barrel of his gun leveling on the carriage door. Half falling to her knees on the carriage floor, Hero leaned out the carriage door and squeezed the second trigger.
She shot higher than she’d meant to, and wilder, so that instead of hitting the man square in the chest her bullet smashed into his right shoulder, spinning him around and sending his pistol flying out of his hand.
“Quick,” Hero shouted to the servants. “Get his pistol.” She shoved up, only to sag slightly against the side of the open door. Now that it was over, her knees were shaking so badly she could hardly stand. “Is he dead?”
“Naw,” said Coachman John, turning the caped gentleman over. “But he’s bleedin’ pretty bad, and he ’pears to have gone off in a swoon.”
“This one’s done for,” said one of the footmen, Richard, bending over the first man she’d shot. “My Gawd, look at that. He don’t have a face no more.”
“Get that gig out of the middle of the road so we can drive on,” said Hero, turning back to deal with her now hysterical mother. “Lady Jarvis has sustained a terrible fright.”
“It would appear,” said Paul Gibson, studying the chessboard before him, “that Sir William has his own reasons for discouraging any investigation of the Magdalene House fire.”
Sebastian and the Irishman sat beside the empty hearth in the surgeon’s parlor, the chessboard, a bottle of good French brandy, and two glasses on the table between them. The neighborhood had long since settled into quiet, and only an occasional footfall could be heard passing in the street outside. From the distance came the cry of a night watchman making his rounds. “One o’clock on a fine night and all is well.”
Sebastian said, “Just because he knew Rachel when she called herself Rose and entertained gentlemen in Orchard Street doesn’t mean he knew she’d taken refuge at the Magdalene House.” He watched his friend move his rook to b3.
“Check,” said Gibson, sitting back in his seat and reaching for the brandy bottle. “But it is highly suggestive.”
Sebastian crossed his arms at his chest and studied the board before him. “In the Levant, if a young woman disgraces her family by loose, immoral conduct, the only way the family can regain their honor is to kill her. Some people think it’s a Muslim custom, but it’s not. All the religions of the area do it—Christians, Jews, Muslims, Druze. It’s not religious. It’s tribal, and it goes back to prebiblical days when the Jews were just another Semitic tribe wandering the deserts of the Arabian peninsula.”
Gibson refilled their glasses and set the brandy bottle aside with a light thump. “This isn’t the Levant.”
“No,” said Sebastian, moving his queen to e7. “But Englishmen have also been known to kill unfaithful wives and wayward daughters.”
Gibson frowned down at the board. “You think that’s why Rachel fled Orchard Street and took refuge at the Magdalene House? Because her father discovered where she was?”
“Her father or her brother. I’d say Cedric Fairchild knew his sister was in Covent Garden.”
“But why? That’s what doesn’t make sense about any of this. How did she end up there in the first place? A lord’s daughter?”
“That I haven’t figured out yet.”
Gibson leaned forward suddenly, his two hands coming up together. “She could have had a secret lover. Someone her father considered unsuitable. Rather than marry Ramsey, she fled to her lover, who then abandoned her and left her on the streets. Too ashamed to go home, she was forced into prostitution to survive.”
Sebastian sat back in his chair and laughed. “If you ever decide to give up medicine, you could make a fortune writing lurid romances.”
“It’s possible,” insisted Gibson.
“I suppose it is.” Sebastian watched his friend move his queen to d5. “The fact remains that however she came to be in Covent Garden, all three men have a motive for killing her. Both Lord Fairchild and Cedric Fairchild might well have wanted her dead for disgracing the family name, while Tristan Ramsey would hardly be the first man to kill a woman who rejected him.”
Gibson reached for his brandy glass. “What about the other man you were telling me about? This purchasing agent.”
“Luke O’Brian? His motive is roughly the same as Ramsey’s. He wanted her enough to try to buy her out of the Academy. According to Kane, she rejected him.”
“So he flew into a rage and threatened to kill her? That sounds logical. She fled Orchard Street to get away from him.”
“There’s just one little detail that doesn’t fit with any of these scenarios.”
Gibson frowned. “What’s that?”
“According to both Joshua Walden and Tasmin Poole, two women fled the Orchard Street Academy last Wednesday night—Rachel, and another Cyprian named Hannah Green.” Sebastian made his final move, and smiled. “Checkmate.”
Gibson stared at the board. “Bloody hell. Why didn’t I see that coming?”
Sebastian raised his head, his attention caught by the sound of a team driven at a fast clip up the street. There was a jingle of harness and the clatter of wheels over uneven cobbles as the carriage was reined in hard before the surgery. An instant later, a fist beat a lively tattoo on the street door.
“What the devil?” Gibson lurched awkwardly upright.
“I’ll get it,” said Sebastian, grabbing a brace of candles as he headed up the narrow hall.
The pounding came again, accompanied by a man’s shouted “Halloooo.”
Sebastian jerked back the bolt and yanked open the door. A liveried footman, his tricorner hat askew on his powdered hair, one fist raised to knock again, was caught off balance and practically fell into the hall. Sebastian gazed beyond him to the team of blood bays sidling nervously in the street, their plumed heads shaking. His eyes narrowing, Sebastian was studying the crest emblazoned on the carriage panel when the door was thrust open and an imperious female voice said, “Don’t just stand there. Help me.”
It took Sebastian a moment to realize she spoke not to him but to a second footman, who now scrambled to let down the carriage steps.