Page 29 of Who Cries for the Lost

“I honestly don’t know. All anyone ever says of her is that she’s very beautiful.”

“Well, she is, isn’t she? Not terribly bright, I’m afraid, but exquisite to look at, and sweet enough, I suppose, in that rather insipid way. If she’s played Sir Montgomery false, then she’s been very discreet, for I’ve heard nothing about it.”

Sebastian nodded and pushed to his feet, being careful to take his weight on his good leg. “I promise if I hear anything more from the Continent, I’ll let you know.”

“Your wound is still bothering you, isn’t it?” she said, watching him.

“It’s healing.”

“Hendon is worried about you. He says you’re pushing yourself too hard.”

“I’ll be all right.”

She gave him a look he had no difficulty interpreting, then said, “Will it be bad, do you think? This coming battle, I mean.”

He wasn’t going to lie to her. “I suspect so, yes. Both sides know how much is riding on it, so neither is going to hold anything back.”

“When is it likely to begin?”

“By the end of this week, perhaps; the beginning of next week at the latest.”

The Dowager pressed her lips together and nodded. “It’s so dreadful to think about. All those handsome, gay young men with virtually their entire lives ahead of them. And yet in a week’s time, so many of them will be dead.”

“At least then it will be over, once and for all. If he’s defeated, Bonaparte will never be able to come back again.”

“And if he wins?”

“Then Europe will simply need to learn to live with him—in peace, for a change.”

“Is that even possible?”

He met her troubled gaze. “I don’t know. Hopefully we won’t have to worry about finding out.”

A gust of wind blew a chill rain in Sebastian’s face as he descended the steps of his aunt’s house. Walking up to Tom, he said, “It doesn’t look like this bloody rain is likely to stop anytime soon. I want you to take the curricle back to Brook Street, then spend the rest of the day looking for a governess who was dismissed by Miles and Eloisa Sedgewick last February or March.”

“Aye, gov’nor!” said Tom, his eyes shining with anticipation. “What’s ’er name?”

“I have no idea. Sorry.”

But Tom only laughed.

Chapter 17

You’ve heard Napoléon is marching toward the frontier?” said Lovejoy as he and Sebastian sat at one of the round front tables of a small coffeehouse tucked away beneath the colonnade of the Italianate-style piazza that housed Covent Garden Market. A fire burned cheerfully on the nearby hearth and the sconces placed at intervals along the shop’s mellow old wainscotted walls were lit, for the day had continued cold and wet. Outside in the square, the market’s normally raucous activity was muted, the crowds of stall keepers and shawl-covered housewives, porters and ragged little pickpockets, all thinned by the rain and the cold wind that rippled the puddles of water collecting in the dips of the worn, sunken flagstones.

“I heard,” said Sebastian, wrapping both hands around his hot coffee.

Lovejoy sighed. “I fear it’s only a matter of time until we receive news of a terrible battle.”

Sebastian nodded. “Napoléon isn’t going to wait to launch his attack. The combined British and Prussian armies already outnumber his; he can’t afford to give the Russians and Austrians time to get in place, too.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” Lovejoy stared out the paned front window at the gray, dismal scene, his expression that of a man who is forced by the realities of his age and circumstances to confront an unpleasant truth that fills him with regret. “It’s difficult to sit here, safe and comfortable, knowing what others are facing just across the Channel.”

“Yes,” said Sebastian, and left it at that.

Lovejoy cleared his throat, as if belatedly remembering his companion’s circumstances. “I fear that, so far, we haven’t had any luck locating Captain Sedgewick’s mistress.”

“I gather he let his latest one go before he left for the Continent and had probably been amusing himself with the wife of a friend.”

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