Hannah shook her head, her eyes wide. “He’s the one went with Hessy.”
“What did he look like?”
“I told you, he was a gentleman! Now can I have that drink?”
Sebastian poured her a brandy and held it out. “Dark hair, or light?”
She took the brandy in both hands and gulped it. “Dark. I think. At least, pretty dark.”
Paul Gibson made an incoherent sound, while Sebastian asked, “Tall or short?”
Hannah’s eyes narrowed. “Neither.”
“You don’t remember anything about him at all, do you?”
“ ’Course I do. What I’m sayin’ is, he were an ordinary-lookin’ cove. I’d recognize ’im in a minute if’n I was to see ’im again. I recognized ’im when I seen ’im in the Haymarket, didn’t I?”
“What about the gentleman you were with that Wednesday night. What did he look like?”
“He were the same. Just an ordinary-lookin’ gentleman.” She twisted her mouth sideways in a thoughtful frown. “Though I think maybe he weren’t as dark. He was the birthday cove.”
Sebastian moved to refill her glass. “Do you remember any of their names?”
“I don’t pay no attention to names. In my experience, most men just make up the names they give me anyway.”
“Yet that night of the birthday party, surely the men called one another by name?”
She frowned. “Maybe. I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t pay no attention to names.”
“Was one of them named Max?”
She nibbled on a fingernail. “Coulda been. I can’t say fer sure, though.”
He was aware of Miss Jarvis’s gaze upon him. He knew she was bursting to ask, And who is Max?
“Do you have any idea at all,” Sebastian said to Hannah Green, “why those men came back to the Academy to kill you?”
Hannah downed her second brandy in a long pull. “Rose said it was because she knew they was plannin’ to murder someone.”
Sebastian was aware of Paul Gibson’s arrested expression, of Miss Jarvis sitting forward. This was evidently one part of her tale Hannah Green had not yet told. Sebastian said, “She knew but you didn’t? Why?”
Hannah gave a ringing laugh. “Go on wit’ you. I don’t speak French!”
Sebastian’s gaze met Miss Jarvis’s. “They were speaking French?”
“Amongst themselves, yeah,” said Hannah. “At first. Till the other cove come.”
Sebastian frowned. “The other cove? There were four men?”
“No. Just the three. The birthday cove come later.”
“Did Rose tell you exactly who they were planning to kill?”
“Sure. But it didn’t mean nothing to me. Some guy named Perceval, or something like that.”
Miss Jarvis’s eyes widened. “Spencer Perceval?”
Hannah swung her head to look at Lord Jarvis’s daughter and say, “Who’s he?”
Chapter 48
Miss Jarvis pushed up from her chair. “If I might have a word with you, Lord Devlin?”
“Of course, Miss Jarvis,” he said, following her down the hall to Gibson’s dining room.
She stalked to the far side of the table before swinging to face him. “You know something you haven’t told me. What is it?”
“Believe me, Miss Jarvis, this is the first I’ve heard of any link to the Prime Minister—if there is indeed any such link.”
“So who is Max?”
“Max Ludlow. He’s a hussar captain. Or he was. He’s been missing since last Wednesday. Until recently, I thought it an interesting coincidence that he disappeared the same night as Rachel Fairchild fled Orchard Street. It may still be nothing more than a coincidence. On the other hand, he might well be the man she killed.”
Miss Jarvis brought one hand to her forehead. “My God. What is this? Some French plot to assassinate the Prime Minister?”
“Hannah Green said the three men who hired them were gentlemen. She didn’t say anything about them being French.” Most men of their class could converse in French with ease, even after twenty years of war. But as the daughter of a French émigré, Rachel would have been fluent. “And we don’t know they were talking about Spencer Perceval, after all. Perceval is a given name as well as a family name.”
“Then why did they come back to kill those women? And why are they trying to kill us?”
“That I do not know, Miss Jarvis.” He searched her face, noting the subtle signs of strain, the brittle way she held herself. He said, “Miss Jarvis, there are things we must discuss.”
“I see no need to discuss anything,” she said, gripping the back of the chair before her. “What passed between us was a bizarre aberration born of an unfortunate set of circumstances and best forgotten.”
Only Hero Jarvis, he thought, could describe the loss of her virginity as a bizarre aberration. He said, “Nevertheless, I am honor bound to offer you my hand in—”
“Thank you, my lord, but that will not be necessary.” Her cheeks darkened with what he first took for embarrassment, then realized was rage. “I have no intention of allowing a moment’s weakness to lead to a lifetime of regret.”
Sebastian could think of nothing more horrifying than finding himself united in unholy matrimony with the daughter of Lord Jarvis. But the code of honor he lived by was rigid in such matters. He said, “If we had died on cue as expected, it would have been unnecessary. Since, however, we did not die, it is now—”
“Lord Devlin. I told you before that I have no intention of ever marrying. What happened yesterday has not altered that.”
She stared at him with her frank, faintly contemptuous gray eyes, and he found it virtually impossible to reconcile this icy, self-possessed gentlewoman with the frightened and very real woman he’d held in his arms less than twenty-four hours ago. He said, “There could be consequences.”
Her head jerked up. “There is no reason anyone need ever know. My identity was never revealed to our rescuers. I was able to reenter my home without attracting undue attention. And I trust I may have full confidence in your honor as a gentleman that you will never speak of it to anyone.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Her eyes widened in a way that told him this aspect of yesterday’s interlude had yet to occur to her. She said, “Fate would not be so perverse.”
“Nevertheless, you will tell me?”
She brushed past him, headed for the door. He reached out and snagged her arm, pulling her back around. “Miss Jarvis, I must insist.”
Fury and scorn blazed in her eyes. She dropped her gaze to his hand on her arm. He let her go.
She said, “I have no desire to speak of this again. I trust that you, as a gentleman, will respect that wish.” She turned once more toward the door.
“Nevertheless, you will tell me. If there are consequences.”