Perceval gave a sharp bark of laughter. “What are you suggesting? That Napoleon wants to see me dead? What would he think to gain by such an action? If the Whigs were to come to power, they might seek to end this war. But the Whigs will never come to power. Not with Prinny as Regent.”
“I don’t claim to understand the motivation at work here. But two of the three women hired that night are dead, along with an uncomfortable number of the people they’ve come into contact with since. The one woman who survives says they were overheard discussing plans to murder someone named Perceval. Now I could be mistaken. They could be planning to kill someone else entirely. But the lengths to which they’ve been willing to go to silence everyone who has any knowledge of their plot suggests that something more serious is afoot here.”
Perceval was quiet a moment, his gaze like Sebastian’s following the troop of men as they wheeled to their right. “A man in my position makes enemies,” he said at last. “It’s inevitable. You saw that poor old sod Bellingham.”
“Bellingham is an annoying gnat compared to these men. They’re ruthless and brutal.”
Perceval scrubbed one hand across the lower part of his face. “If they killed those eight women—”
“And that was only the beginning.”
The Prime Minister turned to face him. “What would you have me do? Cower in Downing Street in fear? I can’t do that and still properly run this country.”
Sebastian felt the cold wind buffet his face, bringing him the smell of dust and damp grass. “I don’t know what I’m suggesting you do. Only—be aware that someone wants you dead, and take whatever precautions you can.”
The bells of the abbey began to strike the hour. “I must go,” said Perceval, turning toward Carlton House. “I’m to meet with the Prince Regent at half past.” He gripped Sebastian’s shoulder for a moment, then let him go. “Thank you for the warning.”
Sebastian stood for a moment, watching the slim, middle-aged man hurry away. Then he turned toward his own waiting curricle. And it occurred to him as he crossed Whitehall that in the past hour he’d said essentially the same thing to three very different people—Hannah Green, Miss Jarvis, and Spencer Perceval. He had the disquieting feeling that time was running out for all three.
“I can take her to my mum, no worries,” said Calhoun, when Sebastian returned to Brook Street for a quick consultation with his valet.
“To the Blue Anchor?”
Calhoun shook his head. “Grace spends most of her time these days at the Red Lion.”
“Good Lord,” said Sebastian. If anything, the Red Lion had an even more shocking reputation than the Blue Anchor, but he couldn’t see how he had any choice. “I’ll order the town carriage for you.”
Hannah Green caught her breath in shivering delight when she saw the carriage pull up before the door. “Gor,” she whispered. “It’s like somethin’ out of a fairy tale, it is.”
“As good as a ride in the curricle?” Sebastian asked, giving her a hand up the steps.
“Better!”
He cast a glance at Jules Calhoun. “Think your mother can handle her?”
The valet laughed and hopped up behind her. “My mum? Are you serious?”
“You ain’t comin’ with us?” said Hannah.
Sebastian shook his head and took a step back. He’d realized it was past time he paid another visit to the Orchard Street Academy.
Chapter 50
Leaving Tom and the curricle at Portman Square, Sebastian walked the length of Orchard Street, the weight of a double-barreled pistol heavy against his side. It was early yet, the footpath crowded with last-minute shoppers. As he approached the once grand old house, he pulled his hat low over his eyes and turned up the collar of his driving coat.
If anyone could identify the men who’d hired Rose, Hessy, and Hannah off the floor last Tuesday and returned the next night to kill them, it was the abbess of the Orchard Street Academy, Miss Lil. The problem was going to be getting past the broken-nosed pugilist who guarded the brothel’s door to talk to her.
The oil lamp mounted high on the Academy’s front had already been lit against the gathering gloom, the flame flickering in the evening breeze to throw patterns of light and shadow across the house’s stone facade. Sebastian mounted the shallow brown steps, his hand on the flintlock in his pocket as he prepared to either bluff or bully his way inside. But at the top of the steps, he hesitated. The door stood unlatched and slightly ajar.
His hand tightening around the handle of the pistol, Sebastian drew it from his pocket, every sense coming to tingling alertness. Drawing back the flintlock’s first hammer, he used his shoulder to nudge the door open wider.
The familiar tang of freshly spilled blood hit him first, overlaying the scents of candle wax and dry rot and decadence. The hall looked much as he remembered it, the once grand carpet and soaring plasterwork illuminated by bronze sconces with mottled mirrors. The dim golden light showed him the door-man, Thackery, half sitting, half lying in a huddled heap against the wall just inside the entrance.
Stepping cautiously into the hall, Sebastian gave the man a nudge with the toe of one boot, which sent the pugilist flopping sideways in a heavy, slow-motion roll. His eyes were closed, his plump cheeks as soft and flushed as a sleeping babe’s. His pistol held at the alert, Sebastian reached down with his left hand and felt the man’s still-warm neck for a pulse. Then his gaze fell to the dark stain of blood visible beneath the edge of the man’s coat. Flipping back the brown corduroy, Sebastian studied the neatly sliced waistcoat. It was the kind of cut left by a dagger aimed well and deep.
He straightened, aware of the unnatural quiet of the house around him. He threw a quick glance into the small room to his right but found it, mercifully, empty. He moved on, his heart pounding in his chest. How many women would a house like this one employ? he wondered. Two dozen? More? Add to that their customers . . .
He paused at the heavy velvet curtain of the arch, the polished grip of the pistol slick with sweat in his hand. At his feet lay a stout man of perhaps fifty with heavy jowls and graying dark hair. A customer, by the looks of him, at the wrong place at the wrong time. He sprawled on his back, his arms flung wide like a crucifixion victim.
Moving cautiously, Sebastian stepped past him, into the parlor with its fading emerald hangings, the tawdry splendor of moldering mirrors grand enough to have graced the halls of Versailles in an earlier, less decadent life. The light from the branches of candles on the chipped marble mantelpiece flared up warm and golden, showing him two more dead women.
The Cyprian lying near the settee was unknown to him. Turning her over, he found himself staring into wide, vacant blue eyes. Her hair was the color of cornsilk, her teeth as small and white as a child’s. A spill of blood trickled from the corner of her open mouth to pool on the carpet like a misshapen black rose. Beyond her, near the base of the staircase, he found Miss Lil.
Sebastian crouched down beside the Academy’s abbess. She lay curled on one side, her hands thrust out as if she’d sought to fend off her assailant. He touched her cheek and watched her head loll unnaturally against her shoulder. He didn’t need Paul Gibson to diagnose the cause of death.