Where Serpents Sleep sscm-4

by C. S. Harris

  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.”

  She checked for the briefest instant, but kept walking.

  As soon as they were all once again assembled in Gibson’s sitting room, Miss Jarvis said tartly, “Considering the fate of my wounded assailant, I don’t think Hannah should stay here.”

  “What ’appened to ’im?” asked the irrepressible Hannah.

  “Someone broke his neck.”

  Hannah’s hand crept up to gently cradle her throat. For a moment, the animation seemed to drain out of her, leaving her bleak and frightened.

  Sebastian said, “I can ask Jules Calhoun to take her to his mother. Calhoun is my valet,” he added by way of explanation when Miss Jarvis threw him a questioning glance.

  “You would send her to your valet’s mother?” said Miss Jarvis, while Hannah Green let out a wail.

  “I ain’t goin’ to nobody’s bleedin’ mother,” said Hannah. “She’ll make me feel like some bleedin’ cockroach or somethin’. It’ll be worse than the Quakers.”

  “You’d rather have your neck snapped?” said Sebastian.

  Hannah opened, then closed, her mouth.

  “Besides,” said Sebastian, “I think Grace Calhoun will surprise you.”

  This time, Hannah’s mouth fell open and stayed open. “Grace Calhoun? Your valet’s mother is Grace Calhoun?”

  “You know her?”

  “Get on wit’ you. Ev’rybody knows Grace Calhoun.”

  “Who is Grace Calhoun?” whispered Miss Jarvis to Paul Gibson.

  But Paul Gibson only said, “Not someone you want to know.”

  Nobly volunteering to escort Hannah Green to Brook Street, Paul Gibson went in search of a hackney.

  “Aw,” said Hannah Green, casting a long, wistful look at the curricle and pair of blood chestnuts waiting with Tom across the street. “I was ’opin’ maybe I’d get t’ride in yer curricle. I ain’t never ridden in a rig like that afore.”

  While Miss Jarvis turned a laugh into a cough, Sebastian said to his friend, “Tell Calhoun I should be there shortly. And don’t let her out of your sight until you turn her over to him.”

  “I ain’t gonna pike off,” said Hannah from the depths of the hackney, both hands once again wrapped around her throat.

  “Not if you want to live, you won’t,” said Sebastian, stepping back. Gibson scrambled in behind her and the hackney started with a jerk. “And I must say, I am surprised at you, Miss Jarvis,” he added, turning to her. “Laughing at the enthusiasms of those who are less fortunate than we.”

  “I wasn’t laughing at Hannah,” said Miss Jarvis, opening her parasol against the noonday sun. “I fear I was overcome by the mental image of you driving that
vision in pink-and-white stripes and burgundy plumes through the streets of London. It’s why you sent her with Gibson, isn’t it?”

  “I sent her with Gibson because it is my intention to seek out Spencer Perceval and warn him of a possible plot to assassinate him. Just as soon as I drive you home.”

  Her smile faded. “Thank you, but I came by hackney, and I intend to return by hackney.”

  “I’m not sure that would be wise.”

  “Are you concerned about my safety, or my reputation?”

  “Both. You don’t even have your maid with you.”

  Miss Jarvis looked down her aquiline nose at him. “As for my reputation, I seriously doubt it would be enhanced by my driving through the streets of the City in your curricle—”

  “You’ve done it before.”

  “While as for my safety—” She nodded down the street toward a loitering brown-coated man, who quickly glanced away when her gaze turned toward him. “I have my father’s watchdog to protect me.”

  Sebastian studied the smooth line of her cheek, the proud angle of her head. “Nevertheless, you will take care.”

  Her hand tightened around the handle of her parasol. “Lord Devlin. There is no need for you to concern yourself over my safety. I have always considered myself an eminently practical and capable person.”

  “You’ve never before been involved in murder.”

  “Yet, in the past week, I have survived three separate attempts on my life.”

  “I know,” he said. “That’s what worries me.”

  Chapter 49

  He found Spencer Perceval at the Admiralty, walking rapidly toward Whitehall. “Lord Devlin,” said the Prime Minister when he spotted Sebastian, “have you reconsidered your decision against taking up a position in the Commons?”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Sebastian, glancing at the huddle of clerks who’d followed the Prime Minister down the stairs. “Walk with me a ways. There’s something we must discuss.”

  Perceval’s smile faded. “If it’s this business about that poor unfortunate Bellingham—”

  “Bellingham?” With difficulty, Sebastian resurrected the memory of the half-mad merchant who had accosted Perceval on the footpath outside Almack’s. “No. But there is something I believe you must be made aware of.” The two men turned their steps toward the Parade. “Last Monday, someone attacked the Friends’ Magdalene House in Covent Garden and killed all the women there.”

  Perceval nodded. “I’d heard you’d involved yourself in their deaths.”

  Sebastian studied the Prime Minister’s open, congenial face. “Where did you hear that?”

  “From your father.”

  “My father? What does he know of it?”

  “He does concern himself with your welfare, you know. Your association with these types of affairs worries him.”

  “Because he considers my involvement in murder investigations beneath my station?”

  “Because he fears for your safety.”

  Sebastian stared out over the company of infantrymen drilling before them, their backs rigid, their feet rising and falling in unison. “I spent six years in the Army. He didn’t fear for my safety then.”

  “Only every minute of every day.”

  Sebastian looked at the man beside him. “I am sorry if my involvement in these matters causes Hendon distress. But this is something I must do.”

  “Because you enjoy it?”

  “Enjoy it? I suppose I do enjoy the mental challenge of solving a puzzle,” he admitted, considering. “But the swirl of emotions that inevitably surround a violent death? The hatred and envy, the grief and despair? No one could enjoy that.”

  Perceval’s eyes narrowed into a frown. “You’re certain the women in the Magdalene House were murdered?”

  “Yes. But I’m afraid there’s far more involved than that. The evidence suggests their deaths may be linked to a scheme to assassinate you.”

  “Me?”

  “Last week, a party of gentlemen hired three young prostitutes to entertain them for the night. During the course of the evening’s revelries, the men became incautious enough to discuss their plans in French. I suppose they thought it unlikely that any of the women could understand their conversation. But one did.”

  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.