Page 3 of Who Cries for the Lost

Sebastian shook his head. “We’ve already declared war, so Napoléon knows exactly what’s coming. I can’t see him waiting around for the Seventh Alliance to gather all of its armies and attack him at a time and place of their choosing. If he can’t have peace, then he’s going to need to strike quickly and decisively, and he knows it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s preparing to leave Paris for the frontier as we speak.”

“Good God. You think he’ll march against Wellington in Belgium?”

“Why wouldn’t he? And if Wellington were smart, he’d spend less time in Brussels attending balls and picnics and seducing his officers’ wives and daughters, and pay more attention to getting his troops in order.”

“Then for God’s sake, Devlin, why not give up this brutal regimen you’ve set yourself? If you’re right, you’ll never be fit in time to join the fight.”

Sebastian clenched his jaw and stared off across the misty park to where a small dark-haired figure wearing a tiger’s striped waistcoat and mounted on a familiar gray hack was galloping headlong toward them, heedless of the angry shouts that followed him. It was not the “done thing,” galloping in Hyde Park.

Hendon’s eyes narrowed as he followed Sebastian’s gaze. “Isn’t that the scruffy little pickpocket you insist on employing as your groom?”

“I’ll admit he’s still a bit scruffy and small, but Tom hasn’t been a pickpocket for years,” said Sebastian, and heard Hendon grunt as the boy reined in beside them.

“A message from Paul Gibson,” said Tom, his breath coming hard and fast as he held out a grubby, slightly crumpled sealed missive. “The lad what brought it said it was important, so I figured ye’d want to see it right away.”

“Gibson?” said Hendon, the displeasure in his voice unmistakable as Sebastian broke the seal. “You mean that Tower Hill surgeon?” Sebastian’s involvement in murder investigations had never sat well with the Earl.

“Yes.” Sebastian skimmed through his friend’s message. But it was so cryptically worded and hastily scrawled that he could make out little beyond the words “mutilated corpse” and “Alexi.”

“Something’s come up.” He tucked the note in his pocket and said to Tom, “Go back to Brook Street and get my curricle ready. I’ll be right there.”

Hendon swore softly under his breath as Tom galloped away. “You’re doing it again, aren’t you?”

“In all likelihood,” said Sebastian, gathering his reins. “One might expect you to be pleased.”

Hendon stared at him. “Pleased? Me? Because you’re off to hunt down another murderer, like some common Bow Street Runner? Why in heaven’s name would I be pleased?”

“Well, I suspect it will keep me out of the saddle so much.”

“What I’d like to see is you resting beside your fire with your wife!”

“If I’m not mistaken, Hero was planning to spend the morning interviewing some wherryman for her new article. Or was it a dung boy?”

“Lord preserve us,” muttered Hendon.

But Sebastian only smiled.

Chapter 3

By the time Sebastian reached Tower Hill, the strengthening sun was already chasing away the morning chill as the heavy cloud cover overhead shifted and began to break up. Reining in his pair of matched chestnuts at the doorstep of the ancient, low-slung stone building that housed Gibson’s surgery, he took a deep breath and caught the unmistakable odor of rotten fish wafting on the breeze.

“ ’Oly ’ell,” said Tom, scrambling up to the curricle’s high seat to take the chestnuts’ reins. “Stinks as bad as Billingsgate, it does.”

Sebastian hopped down to the narrow cobbled lane. “Very nearly. Walk them, why don’t you? I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

“Aye, gov’nor.”

Rather than knock at the front door, Sebastian cut through the narrow passage that ran along the side of the old stone house to a rickety wooden gate that led directly to the high-walled enclosure at the rear.

Once the house’s ancient yard had been a neglected, weed-choked wasteland where Gibson quietly buried the remains of the cadavers he dissected by night in the same room he used by day to perform his official postmortems. By British law, only the bodies of executed criminals could be dissected, and there were never anywhere near enough of those to go around. And so any surgeon or student wishing to expand his understanding of human anatomy or practice a new surgical technique was forced to turn to the Resurrection Men or Sack ’Em Up Boys, as they were sometimes called: ruthless, unsavory gangs who stole newly buried bodies from the city’s churchyards and sold them for a hefty price. Gibson was one of their best customers.

But over the last two years, the enigmatic Frenchwoman who now shared Gibson’s house and bed had been slowly transforming the space into a restful garden. Any bones she came upon were collected and then deposited in a grotto-like ossuary she’d built against one wall. Sebastian had never asked Gibson what he did now with the remains of the bodies he dissected. But as Sebastian followed the winding path that led to the outbuilding at the base of the yard, he noticed that Alexi Sauvage had added a wooden cross above the entrance to the grotto and was burning a small candle there. He’d never thought of her as a practicing Catholic, but he realized now that she must be—at least in some sense.

As he neared the foul-smelling outbuilding’s open door, he yanked his handkerchief from his pocket and held it pressed against his nose.

“Bit ripe, isn’t it?” said Gibson, looking up from where he stood doing something Sebastian didn’t want to think about to the body that lay on the granite slab before him.

“It’s bloody stomach churning. I don’t know how you stand it.”

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