Chapter 49
I t was only a few hours till dawn by the time Sebastian’s hackney drew up before the modest Bloomsbury home of Sir Henry Lovejoy.
The night was clear and cold, with a scattering of lingering stars that glittered out of the darkness like fractured ice.
For one stolen moment, Sebastian leaned his head back against the hired carriage’s worn squabs and closed his eyes.
He was bone-tired, but the sense of urgency that had driven him now for over fourteen hours still thrummed through him.
Fleet Street was already calling yesterday’s mass meeting in the open fields above Clerkenwell the “Spa Fields Riots.” Tens of thousands of hardworking people had turned out to join together, wave banners, listen to inspiring speakers, and call on their government to do something about the widespread distress.
But a few hundred hotheads led by a paid government agent provocateur had gone on a rampage, looting a gun shop and stealing food from a scattering of grocers and eating houses before turning up before the ramparts of the Tower of London.
When they tried to persuade the Tower’s guards to join them, the men on the ramparts laughed at them.
By nightfall—which came before four o’clock these days—order had already been restored.
The entire episode had lasted no more than three or four hours and caused little real damage.
But the peaceful assembly on Spa Fields was already being forgotten as the havoc wrought by the rioters was exaggerated and embellished.
The repercussions, Sebastian suspected, would be swift and brutal.
At least one of the meeting’s organizers—the father of the young apothecary on the wagon—had already been arrested, and Bow Street had patrols out looking for the rest. Sebastian knew this because he had seen them on his way back to London from Gravesend.
Drawing a deep breath, he leaned forward to thrust open the carriage door. “Wait here,” he told the jarvey, the ancient hackney swaying as Sebastian hopped down to run up the house’s short flight of front steps and bang the door’s knocker. Hard.
He was banging for the third time when the sash of an upper-story window flew up and a man’s head peered out, his nightcap sliding sideways on his bald pate.
“Have you no sense of—” The magistrate began, then broke off, his eyes widening as he leaned out farther.
“Good heavens. Is that you, my lord? Whatever has happened?”
Tilting back his head to look up, Sebastian swiped a hand down over his beard-stubbled face and blew out a long, tired breath. “I’ll explain in the hackney.”
On the way to Swine Court, Sebastian gave Lovejoy a terse but largely complete explanation of what he knew, including the part played in yesterday’s events by Sasha Stone and the deadly secret of her relationship to Bridgewood.
He omitted only a few important details, mainly the actual timing of the shooting; what Alexi had told him about Rosamund Price; the fact that Sasha had joined Kate Price and Alison Cross in killing Keebles and Toole; and that Sebastian had just spent the better part of the night driving an admitted murderer and her brother to a French ship waiting at anchor off Gravesend, twenty-eight miles to the east of London.
They arrived in Clerkenwell to find the wretched, refuse-strewn court still deserted. For Lovejoy’s sake, Sebastian had brought a lantern, and he paused outside the cottage to light the wick with a flint before pushing open the battered old door with a shriek of its rusty hinges.
“Merciful heavens,” whispered Lovejoy, one hand cupped over his mouth and nose as a macabre interplay of wavering shadows and golden lantern light danced over the three bloody, hideously sprawled bodies within.
Now cold and stiffening, their mouths agape, their widely staring eyes flat and dry, the three men lay exactly as Sebastian and Sasha had left them the afternoon before.
The stench of their drying blood and relaxed bowels hung heavily in the air, overlying the smells of dust and old mouse droppings and the lingering hint of burnt gunpowder.
His features strained, his lips set in a tight, determined line, the magistrate walked solemnly from one man to the next. Beside each one, he paused, his head bowed, his shoulders hunched, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his greatcoat. It was a long time before he spoke.
“Frightening, isn’t it,” he said, his head still bowed, “what men will do when they consider themselves above the law?”
“Yes.”
He looked over at Sebastian, his voice strained with the effort of containing a tide of emotions he would never allow himself to reveal.
“What I don’t understand is, if Gilbert Keebles and Marcus Toole were killed by Alison Cross and Kate Price, and Lord Bridgewood and Sir Samuel then murdered the women and Phineas Upcott, who killed Emmanuel Royston-Jones? ”
“You don’t think it’s possible he’s still alive?” said Sebastian.
Lovejoy frowned as he considered this possibility. “But in hiding, you mean? Yes, I can see that.” He paused, then said, “And Lord Wilcox?”
That question had been bothering Sebastian all night, and he didn’t like the explanation he kept circling back to. But all he said was, “Footpads, perhaps?”
“I suppose footpads are, on occasion, truly responsible for the unexplained deaths we blame on them,” said Lovejoy, although he didn’t sound convinced that it was true in this case.
Still looking thoughtful, he walked back to crouch beside Lord Bridgewood.
“His lordship’s use of a forger may help explain something that happened yesterday,” he said, tilting his head first one way, then the other as he studied the ugly gaping wound to the side of Bridgewood’s head.
“The body of a well-known forger named Robin Easton was found garroted in a mean lodging house in Grub Street.” Lovejoy looked up.
“It seems reasonable to suspect he’s the man Bridgewood employed. ”
“And then killed? It does sound likely. I can’t see Bridgewood allowing the man to live, knowing what he did.”
“No,” agreed Lovejoy, stifling a grunt as he pushed to his feet.
The two men fell silent again, each lost in his own thoughts. Then Lovejoy said, “The Palace will never allow any of this to come out. It would be beyond explosive at the best of times, but now, after the events of yesterday…” His voice trailed off.
Sebastian said, “I won’t watch an innocent man hang for this.”
Lovejoy cleared his throat. “No, of course not. But it’s going to be…delicate. Sir Nathaniel Conant will doubtless wish to speak to you at some point today, and I assume he’ll have this opera dancer brought in right away for questioning. Stone, did you say her name is?”
“Yes,” said Sebastian, somehow resisting the urge to look at his watch. The Argonaute wasn’t set to weigh anchor until tomorrow morning, sailing with the tide at a quarter past four.
It was going to be a long twenty-four hours.
Shortly after seven o’clock that morning, Sebastian stood at one of the windows of his library, his outstretched hands braced against the sill, his gaze on a milkmaid struggling up the street, her body bent beneath the weight of the two heavy pails that dangled from the yoke she carried across her shoulders.
He was acutely aware of the steady ticktock of the clock on the nearby mantel, slowly counting out the passing minutes.
“You need to eat something,” said Hero, coming to slip her arms around his waist.
He turned to take her in his arms and hold her close. “I don’t think I could,” he said, glancing at the clock again before he could stop himself.
“Twenty-one more hours,” she said, following his gaze.
He nodded. “A lot can happen in twenty-one hours.”
“Have you seen the morning papers?”
“Not yet. Why?”
“Adam York is listed as one of men who’ve been arrested. They say he’s to be arraigned for treason and committed to the Tower.”
“The Tower? God save us.” He rested his forehead against hers.
“So the Home Office hires a bigamous brothel keeper and forger to foment a sham uprising and lure a few gullible idiots into joining him. Then Sidmouth and Liverpool throw up their hands in horror, act like they had nothing to do with any of it, pass all kinds of repressive laws, and start lopping off heads. Clever.”
“It works.”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “It works.”
She glanced again at the clock. “What do you think Bow Street will do when they realize Sasha and Pitcairn have both disappeared? Surely they won’t think to start searching the ports right away?”
“They might. I wish that damned ship could have sailed this morning.”
Her brows drew together in a frown as she searched his face, and he wondered what she saw there. “If you can’t eat, you might try sleeping. There’s absolutely nothing more you can do at this point, and you’ve barely slept in over a week.”
He huffed a soft laugh. “You think I can sleep?”
“You could try.”
He started to argue, then kissed her nose and said, “I’ll try.”
He didn’t expect to sleep. But the past ten days had taken a brutal toll on him. He’d have sworn he’d barely stretched out on the daybed in his dressing room when he became aware of a voice calling him from far, far away. “Lord Devlin? I say, Lord Devlin.”
Sebastian opened one eye, saw the cheerful face of his valet leaning over him, and squeezed both eyes closed again. “What time is it?”
“Just past nine, my lord.”
“Morning or evening?”
“Still morning, my lord.”
“Unless someone is dead or the house is on fire, I don’t want to know about it.”
“It’s Sir Henry Lovejoy, my lord,” said Calhoun. “With Sir Nathaniel Conant and Lord Sidmouth. Morey has put them in the drawing room.”
“Tell them to go away.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Oh, hell.” Sebastian groaned and sat up. “Tell them I’ll come. But bring me some hot water first. They can bloody well wait while I shave.”