The earthy odor of aged Cheddars and fresh farmers’ cheeses rose up to scent the air around them. Sebastian found himself wondering what kind of trouble the cheesemonger and his family had already encountered. But all he said was, “What did you see?”
She threw a quick glance at the curtained alcove behind her, as if to make certain her da wasn’t lurking there. “Men. Gentlemen. They was hanging around here for hours—wanderin’ up and down the street, goin’ in and outta shops but not buyin’ nothin’.”
“How many men?”
“I dunno exactly. Three. Maybe four. A couple of ’em come in here. They pretended like they was looking around, but mainly they was just keeping an eye on the house across the street.”
“Were they dark haired? Or fair?”
She thought about it for a moment. “The two that come in here was dark. They was maybe a bit older than you, but not by much.”
“Do you remember anything else about them?”
“We-ell . . .” She dragged out the syllable, screwing up her face with the effort of recollection. “They reminded me a bit of Mr. Nash.”
“Mr. Nash?”
“The Nabob what used to buy all his cheese from me da. He died last year.”
“In what way did the gentlemen remind you of Mr. Nash?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. They just did.”
Sebastian stared out the wavy-paned glass at what had been the Magdalene House’s entrance. “Did you see those men go in the house?”
She shook her head. “It got so foggy I couldn’t have seen the King himself if’n he’d been driving down the middle of the street.”
“What about after the fire started? Did you see the men then, in the crowd?”
Again, she shook her head. Dropping her voice even lower, she said, “But I did hear gunshots. Two of them. Right before the fire started.”
So many people in the area had denied hearing any shots that Sebastian would have begun to doubt Miss Jarvis’s tale if it hadn’t been backed up by Gibson’s medical observations. He said, “No one else will admit to having heard a thing. Why would that be?”
Again, that quick look over the shoulder. “Nobody liked havin’ that house here,” she whispered. “They wanted it gone.”
Sebastian studied the gentle lines of her young face, the baby-fine light brown hair that fell in artless disarray from beneath her mobcap. “So you’re saying—what?”
She drew in a quick gasp, her eyes widening as she realized how he might have interpreted what she’d just said. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not sayin’ I think anyone around here had anything to do with what happened. I’m just sayin’ people complained about the house so much, maybe they’re afraid somebody might blame them if the constables start lookin’ into how that fire come about.”
Sebastian reached for his wrapped cheese and laid a generous payment on the counter. “Then why did you tell me?”
“Pippa?” A querulous voice came from the back of the shop. “You still servin’ that customer?”
Pippa began to back away.
“Why?” said Sebastian again. But the girl simply wheeled and disappeared through the curtained alcove.
He stepped out of the cheesemonger’s into a street filled with lengthening shadows and buffeted by a cold wind. As he turned toward his carriage, the familiar figure of a man separated itself from the gloom cast by a nearby coal wagon and moved to block Sebastian’s path.
“I’m surprised to see you here, Devlin,” said Colonel Bryce Epson-Smith. “I was under the impression you’d given up this rather curious hobby of yours in favor of drinking yourself to death.”
With deliberate slowness, Sebastian let his gaze travel over the former cavalry officer’s tall, elegant person, from the smartly curled brim of his beaver hat to his shiny black Hessians. When Jarvis had threatened Kat Boleyn with a traitor’s death, Epson-Smith had been his instrument. The man was smart, vicious, and lethal. “Which curious hobby were you referring to?”
“Your self-appointed role as avenger of fair maidens brought too early to the grave.” Epson-Smith nodded toward the blackened walls of the burned-out house across the street. “Only, these weren’t exactly maidens, now were they?”
“I take it you’re here on Lord Jarvis’s business.”
Epson-Smith hooked a thumb casually in the pocket of his silk waistcoat. “I’d have said that in this instance, at least, we’re about the same business.”
“Are we? I’m interested in seeing justice done. Your involvement suggests Lord Jarvis is intent on something else entirely.”
“Justice? For a half dozen worthless whores? What are they to you?”
“Eight,” corrected Sebastian. “There are eight women dead. And if they’re so worthless, why are you here?”
If the Colonel knew the real source of Jarvis’s interest, he was too adroit to betray it. All he said was, “We could cooperate, you know.”
“I don’t think so.”
His smile never slipping, Epson-Smith turned away. But he paused long enough to look back and say, “If you should change your mind, you know where to find me.”
Chapter 11
The night fell unseasonably cold but clear, with a brisk wind off the distant North Sea that blew away the last of the lingering clouds and the coal smoke that could sometimes smother the city at this time of year.
Leaving his town carriage at the corner of Portman Square, Sebastian walked the short distance up Orchard Street, his footsteps echoing on the stone cobbles. This was a mixed section of the city, close to the fine mansions of Mayfair but with scattered older streets slowly fading with the passage of time. Laughter blending with snatches of a melody drifted from a nearby music hall, while the pungent aromas of freshly ground beans and Blue Ruin wafted from the coffeehouse and gin shop across the street. As he passed a doorway, a woman stirred from the shadows, a nearby oil lamp throwing wavering golden light across her bare blond hair and thin face.
“Looking for company?” she asked, her smile trembling. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen, her eyes huge in a pale face. Sebastian shook his head and walked on.
The Orchard Street Academy was an ancient mansion set slightly back from the street. Flickering lamplight showed him a freshly blackened door and curtains drawn tightly at all the windows. But one of the gutters hung rotten and broken, and a musty smell of decay filled the air. He rapped sharply on the door, then stood, silent, while an unseen eye assessed his appearance. The guardians of such establishments were more skilled than any Bond Street beau at calculating in a glance the cost of a man’s cape, buckskin breeches, and top boots.
He was expecting to be admitted by some aging heavyweight from the Fancy. Instead, the door was opened by a thin middle-aged woman with a high-necked puce silk dress, brightly rouged cheeks, and dyed eyelashes. “Good evening, kind sir,” she said in the stentorian tones of a woman who is always onstage. “Do come in.”
From a secluded alcove came the sound of a harp gently plucked by skilled fingers. He stepped into a parlor with fading green silk curtains and striped settees that might have graced the drawing room of a countess down on her luck. Mildew bloomed in the once fine gilded mirror hanging over an empty hearth. The air smelled of wax candles and fine brandy only faintly underlain by the musky tang of sex and rising damp.
While most prostitutes in London picked up their men off the streets or from such traditional stomping grounds as the theater and Vauxhall, before taking them back to rooms, the residential brothels still had their place. They appealed to women who shied away from the rough and dangerous competition on the streets, and they appealed to men leery of venturing into back alleys or up the darkened stairs of an unknown house.
From the smoke-hazed room to Sebastian’s right came the gentle murmur of voices and the whirl of cards. Glancing through the arched doorway, Sebastian recognized Sir Adam Broussard and Giles Axelrod among the half dozen or so gentlemen seated around a baize-covered table. Yet the flash cove disappearing up the far stairs with a bottle of wine and a buxom, golden-haired girl was obviously no gentleman. Despite its emphasis on pseudogentility, the Orchard Street Academy was not class conscious when it came to its customers. Its only criterion was the ability to pay, and to pay well.
“You’ve not visited us before, have you?” said Miss Lil, her blue eyes assessing the gold fob on his watch chain, the silver head of his walking stick.
Sebastian shook his head with a smile. “No. Your establishment was recommended to me by a friend.”
Miss Lil spread her hand in an expansive gesture that took in the three Birds of Paradise who had appeared to lounge casually around the parlor. They were dressed in gowns of jewel-toned silks with plunging necklines from which spilled ripe breasts. The silk hugged every curve, leaving little to the imagination, while neat ankles peeked from beneath too-short hems. It had been eight months since Sebastian had known a woman’s touch—years since he’d thought of having any woman except for Kat. He wasn’t thinking of it now.
Something of his lack of interest must have shown on his face, because Miss Lil said, “Perhaps you would like to order a bottle of wine to share with the ladies. Get to know them some before making your selection?”
The three Cyprians stared back at him with the bold assessment of women for whom a man is just another customer, a mark. One, a tall, ebony-skinned woman with a regal neck, smiled at him and said in Jamaican-accented English, “I’m Tasmin.” Beside her, a plump, heavily rouged Impure with the jet-black hair and pale skin of Ireland pursed her lips and blew him a kiss. The third, a dainty gamin with a riot of short flaxen curls, wrinkled her childlike nose and laughed merrily. The impression was one of youthful innocence. But looking into her rainwater gray eyes, Sebastian suspected she was considerably closer to twenty-five than to fifteen.
“A burgundy would be nice,” said Sebastian.
Miss Lil nodded to the flaxen-headed Cyprian. “Becky will fetch it.”
“I’m interested in a woman my friend was telling me about,” said Sebastian, going to settle on one of the striped silk cushions. “A tall, thin woman with light brown hair and green eyes.”
Becky, who had reappeared bearing a bottle of wine and glasses on a tarnished tray, faltered for one telling instant, her gaze flying to meet the Jamaican’s startled stare.
“Oh?” said Miss Lil, calmly pouring the wine.
“I think he said her name was Rose,” Sebastian continued, “although I could have that wrong.” It had occurred to him that the woman might easily have made up a new name to give the Quakers at the Magdalene House. “My friend claims she is charming, with the manners and accent of a duchess.”
From upstairs came a thump and a woman’s startled scream, quickly cut off. None of the women in the room even turned her head.
“Your friend must have made the acquaintance of Rose Fletcher,” said the abbess, handing him a glass of wine. Her fingers when they brushed his hand were unnaturally cold, as if the woman never saw the sun. “Unfortunately, Rose is not here this evening. But I think you’ll find Becky an entertaining substitute.”
Sebastian took a slow sip of the wine. It was surprisingly good. “If I come back tomorrow will Rose be here?”
Sebastian was aware of the dark-skinned woman, Tasmin, studying him with a fixed expression. But not a breath of emotion showed on the abbess’s carefully made-up face. She stretched her lips into a smile. “I’m afraid Rose has left us. You know how restless some girls are: never content to stay in one place. If Becky doesn’t capture your fancy, then I’m sure you’ll enjoy Tasmin.”