Who Slays the Wicked

by C. S. Harris

  But there existed another breed of killer, and those were the ones Sebastian believed belonged in a category all their own: the men and women who killed for pleasure. Ashworth had been that kind, feeding off the helplessness and fear of his victims. And Sebastian couldn’t shake the growing suspicion that he might be dealing with such a monster again.

  The killer’s primary victim had been Ashworth, which meant that the way the Viscount died must be telling. The other victims—Edward Digby and Sissy Jordan, and perhaps Ben King and Jenny Crutcher—all felt incidental, a matter of cleaning up loose ends and eliminating anyone who might threaten exposure. Their deaths told Sebastian much about the ruthlessness of the killer he sought. But it was that first murder—the bloody, savage hacking of Viscount Ashworth’s naked, spread-eagled body—that surely defined this murderer in a way the others did not.

  So, it wasn’t simply a matter of asking, Why kill Ashworth? The question was also, Why kill Ashworth in that particular way?

  Why not a quick, silent dagger thrust to the back? Sebastian could see Sid Cotton killing in that way, or even the furniture seller Lawrence McCay. But why would either man bother to tie his victim naked to his bed or—if they simply chanced to find him that way—utterly drench it with his blood? Sid Cotton might do such a thing out of pure meanness or spite, but surely not if it put his own life at risk—which sneaking into Ashworth’s house undoubtedly would have done.

  McCay was different. Sebastian would say the shopkeeper lacked a motive for that kind of flourish if it weren’t for McCay’s pretty young daughter. Had Ashworth abused Julie McCay the same way he had used Giselle Blanchette and so many others? It was possible. Would that drive her father to seek such a hideous revenge?

  Perhaps.

  What about the young Welsh architect, Russell Firth? Depending upon what Ashworth had done to Stephanie in the past and how much Firth knew about it, such a murder might make sense—again, as a twisted act of revenge.

  And Marie-Claire Blanchette?

  Sebastian considered the French cartomancer and decided the answer was, again, Perhaps. There was something almost ritualistic about the manner of Ashworth’s death, something that suggested both a familiarity with Ashworth’s erotic tastes and a desire for some reason to symbolically replicate or at least echo his past activities. And that was without taking into account the strange death of the Bond Street jeweler, Vincent.

  The problem was, if McCay, Firth, or Blanchette was Ashworth’s killer, then how to explain the blood-soaked gown and cloak plucked by chance from the Thames? Yes, the gown might have nothing at all to do with Ashworth’s murder. And yet Sebastian found himself unable to discount it. Of those he already suspected, the gown pointed to two. One was Stephanie, the other Ivanna Gagarin.

  While it pained Sebastian to admit it, he could see Stephanie driven to kill by fear and humiliation. And if she hated Ashworth enough, Sebastian could even imagine her thrusting a butcher knife again and again into her husband’s chest while his blood sprayed in gruesome arcs around her. What he couldn’t see was her then setting about methodically eliminating anyone who might possibly expose her, from Ashworth’s venal valet to a frightened Haymarket girl and an impoverished young crossing sweep. If it weren’t for Firth, he’d have crossed her off his list of suspects long ago. But because of Firth, he couldn’t.

  He knew his list of suspects could easily be incomplete, that the person or persons Sissy Jordan heard come to Curzon Street that fateful night might be utterly unknown to him. Yet he still found his thoughts circling back to Princess Ivanna Gagarin. The tall, slender Russian noblewoman’s gowns had surely all come from Continental modistas safe from Bow Street’s questioning. Her knowledge of sedating drugs and poisons was extensive enough to have led to whispers about her own husband’s sudden death. She’d freely admitted she enjoyed the kind of games Ashworth played. She’d even laughed with casual indifference when Sebastian suggested Ashworth had diverted himself by killing street children. Such a woman might not need a motive to kill.

  No reason beyond a desire for pleasure and a taste for watching others die.

  * * *

  By the time Sebastian reached the Pulteney Hotel, the wind had blown away most of the clouds, leaving the sky scoured clean of all but some high white streaks. A few careful questions directed at the staff led him to a harried chambermaid who was not at all fond of either the Tsar’s histrionic sister or the thirty-seven servants and demanding members of the Russian and Oldenburg courts traveling with her.

  What she had to tell him was damning.

  Afterward, he paused on the hotel’s front steps and stared across Piccadilly at Green Park. The plane trees were lifting with the strength of the gusts, for the day was still blustery. Despite the wind, two women stood beside the elongated oval reservoir that ran parallel to the street. One was a tall, slender gentlewoman wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and a fine muslin walking gown trimmed with turquoise ribbons; the other the hatchet-faced middle-aged companion he remembered from before. Some ten or twenty feet behind them stood two men in the uniform of the Imperial Guard, their arms crossed, their glorious mustaches carefully waxed and curled.

  As Sebastian watched, the middle-aged companion said something to her mistress, and Princess Ivanna turned to stare across the street toward the hotel. She went suddenly still, one hand coming up to catch the brim of her hat as the wind caught it. She stayed motionless, watching Sebastian as he walked down the steps and across the street toward her.

  “Windy day for a stroll in the park,” he said, coming up to her.

  She glanced at the blue sky, the sun falling full on her face and her lips curling into a charming smile that made her look guileless and carefree and everything he knew she was not. “True. But it is a glorious spring day, yes?”

  “It is, indeed.”

  They turned to walk together along the side of the reservoir, her companion and the two men following at a distance, the gravel path crunching beneath their feet. “And would you have me believe you are here by chance, my lord?”

  “No.”

  “Ah. At least you are honest. It’s about Lord Ashworth again, I take it?”

  “You told me Ashworth came to see you the afternoon of his death.”

  “He did, yes. Why?”

  “I’m wondering why you quarreled.”

  She gave a startled laugh. “What a curious notion. Whatever would we have quarreled about?”

  “I don’t know. That’s my question.”

  Her smile never faltered. “There was no quarrel.”

  “He didn’t grab your arm?”

  Her brow wrinkled in a pretty little frown, then cleared. “Ah, now I know to what you refer. We encountered each other on the stairs and stopped to talk. But my heel caught on the flounce of my dress, and I would have tumbled headfirst down the steps had he not put out a hand to steady me.”

  “There were no harsh words?”

  “But no. As I said, over what would we have quarreled?”

  He might have believed her if all he had to go on was the tale told by the talkative Lady Townsend from Amanda’s evening party. But the encounter had also been observed by the Pulteney’s chambermaid. And while the maid couldn’t understand the quiet, harsh French they’d spoken, she had no doubt about either the anger in which the words were said or the fact that the Russian noblewoman had jerked her arm from the Viscount’s grasp.

  “Actually, I can think of several possible reasons,” he said.

  Her eyes crinkled with her smile. “I fear you have a more active imagination than I.” She turned her head, her gaze fixing on the vast Palladian-style house that stood on the far side of Piccadilly, set back behind massive iron gates and surrounded by acres of gardens. “Whose palace is that?”

  Sebastian followed her gaze “It’s not a palace. That’s Devonshire House, the London residence
of the Dukes of Devonshire.”

  “If it is the home of a duke, why is it not considered a palace?”

  “I don’t know why. We simply don’t call them that here.”

  She gave a faint sniff. “The architecture is rather severe.”

  “The facade, yes. But the interior is as Baroque as anyone might wish.”

  “How very . . . English.” She brought her gaze back to him, the sunlight shimmering on the wind-ruffled water beside them to reflect on her face, her eyes speculative in a way he could not follow. She said, “You’ve heard that the allied armies have entered Paris?”

  “I hadn’t heard, no.” He felt oddly light-headed at the news, almost numb, as a surge of hope and elation warred with a wary incredulity. After so many years of war, it was difficult to believe peace could actually be close at hand. “Are you quite certain?”

  “Oh, yes. Word reached Her Imperial Highness from her brother not long ago. No doubt the Regent has heard by now as well. A public announcement should be made soon.” The wind gusted up, bringing them the smell of fresh grass and wet humus and a hint of sweetness from the French honeysuckle tumbling over the high garden walls of Devonshire House. She said, “Life marches on, and the world changes. What once seemed impossible is suddenly our new reality. We must strive always to adapt, yes? Or we die.”

  “Some die without being given the chance to adapt.”

  Her face lifted to his, her strange wintry eyes carefully emptied of anything he might have read there even as her lips formed a moue of sorrow. “The death of Lord Ashworth genuinely does grieve me. I know you don’t believe me, but it is true.”

  “Someone is spreading nasty rumors about his widow. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  “I have heard the whispers. It is inevitable, is it not?”

  “Is it?”

  “They say she was seen recently in Howard and Mercer’s. I hope she does not fear that her own life is in danger.”

  Sebastian studied the Russian noblewoman’s smooth, beautiful face. Howard and Mercer’s was an exclusive gun dealer on the Strand popular with members of the Upper Ten Thousand. He didn’t want to believe what she was saying, except that he suspected she was far too clever to simply make up such a tale. Not to him.

  He kept his voice calm. “Where did you hear that?”

  Her brows drew together into a parody of a thoughtful frown. “That I cannot recall. But now that I think upon it, she is said to have bought the gun early last week. So it must not have anything to do with Ashworth’s murder after all, hmm?” She turned her face into the wind, letting a gust catch her heavy fall of dark hair and blow it away from her face. “I met your Princess Charlotte at the Regent’s Carlton House banquet. She is an extraordinarily beautiful young woman, but very sad, yes?”

  “Her life has not been easy,” said Sebastian, choosing his words carefully.

  “And her mother, the Princess of Wales, was not invited. She is no longer welcome in society?”

  “The Regent and his wife are estranged.”

  “So I am told.” A gust caught the brim of her straw hat again, dancing a hatched pattern of light and shade across her face, and she laughed and put up a hand to catch it. “The wind is fierce enough that I believe it has defeated me. But I enjoyed our walk, my lord. Good luck with your investigation.” Then she turned and strolled away from him, the sun bathing her back in a warm light, the turquoise ribbons of her hat fluttering behind her.

  * * *

  Plump and rosy-cheeked, the twins slept side by side in baskets lined with lace-trimmed muslin and set up on stands on Lindley House’s stone-flagged rear terrace where the massive looming bulk of the house sheltered them from the wind. Their mother sat beside them, watching them. The peace and joy in Stephanie’s face as she gazed down at her tiny sons caught at Sebastian’s heart, and he was reluctant to break the moment. Then she looked up and saw him, and the smile faded away to something bleak and fearful.

  “Uncle,” she said warily.

  He let his gaze drift over his sleeping nephews. Their hair was fair, their innocence as yet untouched, their little mouths making contented sucking movements in their sleep. “They’re beautiful, Stephanie. I mean that.”

  A smile flashed across her face and then was gone. “Why are you here?”

  He pulled out one of the chairs and sat beside her. “Last Tuesday morning, you purchased a French muff pistol with mother-of-pearl grips from Howard and Mercer’s.” He knew this because he had stopped in the Strand before driving to Park Lane. He searched her familiar, beloved face. “Why, Steph?”

  “How did you find out?”

  “Someone told me. Someone I’m afraid does not wish you well.”

  She pushed up and went to stand at the edge of the terrace overlooking the garden. The wind fluttered the blossoms of the neat eighteenth-century-style parterres of closely planted daffodils and tulips into waves of dancing color. She brought up a trembling hand to touch her forehead in a gesture he suspected she didn’t even realize she was making. “But . . . how could they know? I wore a veil and left my carriage a block away.”

  “Your carriage might have been a block away, but the crest on the panel was plainly visible. You should have taken a hackney, Steph.”

  She made a ragged sound that might have been meant as a laugh but wasn’t. “Now I know. I’ll do better next time.”

  “Why did you buy a pistol, Stephanie? Steph? Talk to me.”

  She swung to face him, her eyes wide and glazed with a hopeless terror that reminded him of a trapped animal. “Why do people typically buy guns?”

  “Generally, because they want to kill someone, or because they’re afraid someone is going to try to kill them. Which was it, Steph?”

  She pressed both hands flat against the midriff of her morning gown, accentuating the soft bump left from the recent births. “It was because of Ashworth. I was afraid he was going to kill me.”

  “Did he threaten you?”

  She nodded. But her eyes slid away from Sebastian’s face.

  “Why now? Something must have happened.”

  “I always knew there was more to him than what he cared to show the world—that beneath that handsome, charming facade lurked something else, something dark and dangerous. But I never realized just how dangerous he was.”

  I tried to tell you, Sebastian thought. But then he knew only too well that the most brutal truths can only be learned the hard way, firsthand. “Did he find out about Firth, Steph? Is that what happened?”

  “You asked me that before, and I told you no.”

  “And I don’t believe you any more now than I did then.”

  “Believe this, Uncle: Anthony didn’t need a reason to kill. He liked it.”

  Her words so echoed his own recent thoughts that his stomach wrenched. He said, “I’d like to talk to your abigail, Steph, if I may?”

  She stared at him in silence for so long that he thought she might not answer him. Then she said, “Why?”

  “It’s important.”

  “I’m sorry, but no. She was so frightened by Bow Street’s visit yesterday that she’s still useless. I don’t want her upset again.”

  He searched her beautiful, lying face. “You’re hiding something, Stephanie.”

  She met his gaze and held it. “I’m not hiding anything.” Yet even as she said it, the color drained from her face, leaving her cheeks pale and her lips looking bruised.

  Chapter 32

  Sebastian was crossing Lindley House’s vast entrance hall, preparing to leave, when the Marquis himself came in wearing a heavy greatcoat and bringing with him all the scents of a windy spring day.

  “Ah, I thought I recognized your chestnuts and curricle out front,” said the old man, handing his hat to a manservant. “But I didn’t see your young tiger.”

>   “He’s running some errands for me today,” said Sebastian.

  “You were leaving? Won’t you step into the library for a moment, first?”

  “Of course.”

  “I take it you’ve been visiting with Stephanie? Tell me honestly,” said the Marquis, his voice tense with concern as they reached the library. “How do you find her?”

  “Let’s just say I’m glad she has the twins to focus on.”

  “Ah, yes.” The old man sighed. “I’ve tried to get her to come with me on my constitutionals around the park, but she won’t do it. I go out twice a day, you know. Don’t want to turn into a doddering old man who can’t walk across the room without getting winded.”

  The Marquis’s cheeks were flushed from the exercise and fresh air, his eyes sparkling with pleasure. But as Sebastian watched, the light went out of his eyes, and Sebastian knew the old man’s thoughts had returned, inevitably, to the brutal murder of his son. “Are you here to tell us you’ve discovered something about Anthony’s death?”

  “Not really. I’m sorry.”

  Lindley nodded, his hands shaky as he set to work removing his gloves. “I spoke to that Bow Street magistrate yesterday. He said the same thing. It’s . . . it’s very hard to accept.”

  When Sebastian remained silent, Lindley looked up, his eyes narrowing as if with speculation. “I’ve been thinking about what you asked me at the inquest—if I knew of anyone Anthony might have angered or frightened lately.”

  “And?”

  “It might be nothing, but . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “A few days before Anthony died—I believe it was that Monday—I chanced to meet him on Bond Street. He turned and walked with me a ways, and I noticed a rather scruffy fellow who looked as if he might be following us. When I pointed the man out to Anthony, he laughed and tried to say it was nothing. But I know my son—know him well enough to suspect that he wasn’t being honest with me.”