Page 41 of Who Cries for the Lost

“Neither would I,” Sebastian admitted. “Although if that were true, I wouldn’t have expected him to admit so freely that he didn’t trust Sedgewick’s discretion.”

“There is that,” she said with a wry smile. “In which case, if this isn’t simply the work of either a cuckolded husband or a madman, that leaves our dear allies the Bourbons.”

“Or their enemy, Napoléon,” he reminded her.

Or someone with a reason to worry about the names on that list. Someone like Kat Boleyn or Hendon. Neither of them said it, but the reality of it hovered in the air between them.

He said, “I think I need to have another conversation with the Weird Sisters.”

“Oh, Lord. In the daylight this time, please?”

He laughed softly and kissed her warm, soft mouth. “If you think it will help.”

Chapter 24

Friday, 16 June

Paul Gibson stood in the midst of Alexi’s garden, his arms spread wide at his sides. It was the hour just before dawn, the vast city around him still quiet with sleep, the air cool against his hot face.

He smiled, feeling the warmth and relaxation spreading slowly through his body. It was like a balmy breeze on a sunny day or the rush of euphoric peace that comes in the moments after a man has pleasured a woman. It was heaven on earth.

He tipped back his head, eyes blinking at the universe of stars that whirled hazily above as he let himself sink deeper and deeper into that peaceful, pain-free place that beckoned like a calm refuge. He heard a door open behind him, but it only registered on the periphery of his consciousness, so that Alexi’s voice came to him as if from out of a dream.

“You never finished the last autopsy, did you?”

He turned toward her, moving slowly, as if he were under warm water. “I can do it today.”

“That’s what you said yesterday.”

He licked his dry lips and gave a faint shake of his head. A part of him knew he should worry. Worry about the work that lay unfinished, worry about Alexi leaving him, worry about the looming menace of the investigation into Sedgewick’s death that threatened them both. But why worry? Everything was going to be all right.

For a moment he was aware of a distant, roaring fear that it wasn’t going to be all right, that he and Alexi were both in grave danger. But then the fear receded beneath another wave of warmth and the stars above disappeared from sight.

The sun rose on a cloudy day, with a fetid, oppressive atmosphere that seemed to press down on the rain-soaked city, the air heavy with the fecund odors of damp coal smoke, manure, and old, dank stone.

In the early-morning light, the narrow, wretched streets of St. Giles were populated mainly by ragged costermongers and an assortment of scavengers picking through the refuse left from the previous night. Pushing open the door to the Weird Sisters’ shop in Seven Dials, Sebastian found an unknown woman behind the counter, her head bowed as she read the newspaper she had spread open there. She was younger than the woman he’d seen here before, tall and slender, with rich tawny skin, an elegant long neck, and a thick mass of tight dark curls that cascaded around her shoulders.

“You must be Rowena,” he said, closing the warped door behind him.

She straightened slowly, her face unreadable. “Ah, it’s his lordship, back again. Sibil told us about you.”

“She did? What did she tell you?”

“I told them you’re trouble,” said Sibil Wilde, coming through the low doorway at the back of the room. Today she wore a Tudor-style gown of a rich green silk, with fitted sleeves and a kirtle bodice with a square neckline edged in petite white lace.

His gaze met hers. “Am I? Why?”

“You know why.”

He gave a faint shake of his head. “I saw you at Drury Lane once; you were playing Ophelia. It was an amazing performance. I’ve never forgotten it.”

She frowned. “How old were you?”

“Twenty-one.”

“Huh. That was a long time ago.” She glanced tellingly at Rowena, then said to him, “Follow me.”

She led him to the same small, opulently furnished room he’d seen before, although this time the cloth on the round table was gold and a deck of cards already rested before the tall chair facing the door.

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