“George,” snapped the woman’s voice, recalling the first footman. “Come take the man’s shoulders while Richard takes his feet. Careful. He’s bleeding quite dreadfully.”
“Bleeding?” Gibson limped toward the unconscious man the two footmen were easing through the carriage door. “No, don’t lay him down in the street! Take him straight into the surgery. This way,” said Gibson, hurrying before them.
“Who is he?” asked Sebastian.
“A would-be assassin,” said Miss Hero Jarvis, appearing in the open carriage door. A picture in a demure cream silk confection with a high waist and a skirt sodden dark with blood, she held a beaded reticule in one hand and what looked like a carriage pistol in the other. “We left one dead on the road from Richmond, but this one’s still living. I’m hoping he’ll survive long enough to tell us who hired him.”
Sebastian stepped forward to offer her his hand down. “Who shot him?”
She handed him the carriage pistol as if somewhat surprised to find she was still clutching it. It was a double-barreled French flintlock, and he saw that both barrels had been fired.
“I did.”
Chapter 27
Stripped to the waist, his face ashen in the flickering candlelight, the man lay on a table in the front room of Paul Gibson’s surgery. The room was silent except for a trickle of water as Gibson squeezed out a sponge in a pan of bloody water, the tin ringing as he knocked its edge.
“Will he live?” asked Miss Jarvis from where she stood in the doorway.
“I don’t know,” said Gibson, not looking up. “The bullet shattered the right shoulder blade and nicked a major artery. He’s lost a lot of blood.”
“I tried to keep pressure on the wound.”
Gibson nodded. “It’s probably the only reason he’s alive as it is.”
Sebastian reached for the wounded man’s torn and bloody cloak lying amid his hastily discarded shirt, waistcoat, and coat. “Exceptionally fine tailoring for a highwayman.”
“He’s not a highwaymen,” said Miss Jarvis, watching him. “He called the man we left dead on the road Drummond. I remember hearing that name the night the Magdalene House was attacked.”
Without commenting, Sebastian began going through the injured man’s pockets.
“There’s a purse with forty guineas, but no identification,” said Miss Jarvis. “I already checked.”
Sebastian glanced over at her. “Did you check the man you left on the road?”
“No. My mother was hysterical. I took her home even before coming here. I’m afraid her nerves were quite overset by the incident.”
Sebastian finished going through the man’s pockets. She was right; there was nothing to tell them who he was.
“This one,” she said, nodding to the silent man on the table, “was in charge. He spoke well, like a gentleman.”
Gibson made a pad of bandages to apply to the man’s chest. “He’s certainly groomed like a gentleman. Cleanly shaven, hair neatly trimmed, fingernails manicured. Although from the looks of him, I’d say he’s spent a fair amount of time in the sun.”
Miss Jarvis watched with interest as the surgeon went about his task. “The other man was a rougher sort. He may be a hireling.”
“With orders to kill you?”
“That’s right.” When he kept silent, a faint touch of color darkened her cheekbones. She said crisply, “You don’t need to tell me I brought this on myself.”
Sebastian tossed aside the assassin’s garments and walked up to her. She stood tall and elegant and perfectly composed, despite her blood-drenched gown and the fact that she’d just fought off two assassins and killed a man. She was an incredible woman. He said, “The men who attacked the Magdalene House last Monday killed seven innocent women to get to one because they intended to leave no witnesses. Now they obviously know who you are.”
“But I don’t know who they are,” she said, and for the first time he caught an echo of fear in her voice.
“Whoever they are,” said Gibson, tying off his bandages, “they’re either incredibly courageous or incredibly foolhardy, to go after the daughter of Lord Jarvis.”
Sebastian shook his head. “At this point, I suspect they realize they’ve no choice.”
He watched her glance out the darkened window to where her carriage and footmen awaited. She said, “I must get back to my mother. If he regains consciousness—if he says anything—”
“We’ll let you know.”
She brought her gaze back to Sebastian’s face. “Have you discovered anything yet?”
“Only that you were right. The woman you met at the Magdalene House was in all likelihood Rachel Fairchild.”
She nodded. He was only confirming what she’d already suspected. He noticed the way exhaustion had sharpened her features, making her eyes huge in a pale face.
He said, “It’s what you wanted to know, isn’t it? Who she was. Now you know. You can go back to writing petitions to Parliament, or however you spend your time. Let your father deal with these people. God knows he’s capable.”
“Have you discovered how Rachel Fairchild came to be there, in Covent Garden?”
“No.”
“Then I can’t stop.” She looked beyond him to Gibson. “You will send the bill for the man’s care to me.”
“As you wish,” said Gibson.
She nodded again, and left.
Gibson stared after her. They could hear the jingle of harness, the clatter of hooves on cobbles as the carriage moved off. “Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and all the saints,” he said softly, then went back to work on the mangled man before him.
THURSDAY, 7 MAY 1812
The next morning, Sebastian received some interesting intelligence from Jules Calhoun.
“I’ve learned a wee bit more about your Mr. O’Brian,” said Calhoun, putting away Sebastian’s razor.
Sebastian finished buttoning his shirt and glanced around. “Oh?”
“Not only is he held in the utmost esteem by the city’s tradesmen, but he’s trusted implicitly by his clients,” said the valet, holding out a crisply laundered cravat. “His commissions are reasonable, he never demands compensation from merchants, and he’s a regular contributor to the Orphans’ Fund.”
Sebastian carefully wound the cravat’s folds around his neck. “So how does he afford all the expensive pleasures of life?”
“It’s quite simple, actually. He’s one of the biggest thieves working the Thames.”
Sebastian looked around. “Now that is interesting.”
“It’s a very clever arrangement, when you think about it,” said the valet. “His activities as a procurement agent mean he’s constantly down on the docks dealing with shipments and going in and out of warehouses. From what I understand, the man’s meticulous—plans his operations to the most exacting detail, then executes them flawlessly. He’s really quite brilliant. They say he’s been behind every big job on the river in the past five years. His last enterprise cleaned out an entire warehouse full of Russian sables from just off the Ratcliff highway.”