Page 19 of Who Cries for the Lost

“A what?”

“A witch’s ladder.” Eloisa wrinkled her nose. “It’s something used by witches to cast spells or some such thing. He said that while he was there, they were tearing down a house that used to belong to one of the old women burned as a witch, and the workmen found it in the attic.”

“May I see it?”

Eloisa’s eyes widened. “Are you serious? Do you truly wish to?”

“Yes. It sounds fascinating.”

She reluctantly set aside her tea. “Very well, although I warn you, it’s not much to look at.”

She led the way downstairs, to a rather untidy library that opened off the entrance hall. The air here still carried the faint, lingering scent of horses and leather, and Eloisa paused at the entrance, her chest jerking as she sucked in a deep breath.

The room was lined with dark shelves filled with old books and a motley collection of objects ranging from a dirt-encrusted Bronze Age dagger to a grinning human skull, its bones stained dark by the soil in which it must have once laid. Curled up at one end of a desk strewn with papers, open books, and a jumble of other objects lay a length of cord some three or four feet long, formed by what looked like brown string braided together with human hair and knotted every few inches with black feathers.

“That’s it,” said Eloisa, stopping just inside the doorway to point at it. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t touch it! Sordid, is it not?”

“How very curious,” said Hero, going to study it closer. “What did you say it was used for?”

“Miles said they were used for binding spells.”

“Any particular sort of spell?”

“I’ve no idea, but presumably something nasty. I must remember to ask one of the servants to burn the thing.”

“Oh, please don’t,” said Hero, turning toward her. “There are societies dedicated to the study of folklore; surely one of them would be delighted to receive it.”

Eloisa looked doubtful. “Do you think so? Miles did say there were several people he was interested in showing it to, but personally, I can’t imagine wanting something once used in a sordid attempt to commune with Satan.”

“No, of course not,” murmured Hero, letting her gaze drift around the cluttered room, with its eclectic collection of strange and wondrous objects. “When Sedgewick went out that evening—the day he was killed—do you know where he was going?”

“He never said, no. But given that he’d only just returned from Austria and Bavaria, I assumed it was probably something to do with that.”

“Austria?” said Hero, more sharply than she’d intended. The European powers had been meeting at the Congress of Vienna for nearly a year now. They’d been close to hammering out a final treaty when Napoléon’s triumphant return shifted their focus from the task of redrawing the map of Europe to once again joining together to defeat the emperor who threatened their status quo so dangerously.

Eloisa looked surprised by the intensity of Hero’s reaction. “Yes; didn’t I say? That’s mainly where he’d been: Salzburg and Vienna.”

Chapter 12

Charles, Lord Jarvis, stood at the drawing room window of his town house overlooking the leafy expanse of Berkeley Square. He was a large man, well over six feet tall and fleshy now in his early sixties, with piercing gray eyes and an aquiline nose he had bequeathed to his daughter, Hero.

Although generally acknowledged as the most powerful and feared man in all of Britain, he held no government portfolio and never would, for Jarvis knew only too well how fleeting such positions could be. He preferred to exercise his power quietly from the shadows and had acquired a reputation for omniscience, thanks to the extensive network of informants, spies, and assassins under his personal control. His kinship with the poor old mad King George III and the King’s self-indulgent, irresponsible son, the Prince Regent, was of course useful. But Jarvis’s true strength lay in the rare brilliance of his mind and the ruthless cunning with which he employed it.

Raising his wineglass to his lips, he took a slow sip of fine burgundy and watched as his daughter’s yellow-bodied carriage drew up before his house and Hero alighted. She was not, unfortunately, a pretty woman, although he would acknowledge that with her strong features and dark hair, one might call her handsome. Far too tall, of course, and far too outspoken and radical in her opinions. Her choice of husband was also a source of aggravation, although Jarvis had to admit that the marriage agreed with her. It had already produced a fine grandson, whom Jarvis most uncharacteristically but wholeheartedly adored, and soon there would be another.

She was Jarvis’s only surviving child. His first wife, Annabelle, had been a silly, useless creature who found it nearly impossible to carry a live child to term. Amidst a seemingly endless string of miscarriages and stillbirths, she’d managed to present him with only two living children: Hero, and a sickly, overly sensitive son named David. If the fates had willed it otherwise, Jarvis might in time have been able to make something of the boy, for in the end he’d proved to be surprisingly courageous and strong-willed. But David had gone to a watery grave years ago, while Annabelle had finally succumbed to one of the endless illnesses that always seemed to plague her. And so Jarvis had been left free to take a new wife—a wife who was not only young and beautiful but also brilliant and blessedly fertile. In a few days she would be brought to bed of their first child. And although Jarvis had never considered himself a superstitious man, he was nevertheless utterly convinced that she would present him with a worthy son and heir.

Now he listened to Hero’s cheerful conversation with Grisham, his butler, in the hall below and then turned from the window at the sound of her quick steps mounting the stairs.

“Good afternoon, Papa,” she said with a smile, crossing the room to kiss his cheek.

He caught her hand and held it for a moment, his gaze searching her face. “How are you? And how is my next grandson?”

Her other hand touched, briefly, the faint swelling of her belly, and she laughed. “I keep telling you, this one’s a girl.”

“So you do.” He turned away to refill his glass. “May I offer you some wine? Or would you prefer tea?”

“No, nothing; thank you.”

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